Living on Borrowed Time

Chapter Five: Situational Awareness

By PolarNegetiveZero

Central Town, to be honest, was kind of cool to explore. I mean, the place was a bit small, but they were well-organized, almost a full-blown Clan. Sadly (And thankfully, in my case as a Scavenger) it was not to be a real Clan, but the Town Guard seemed to act a lot like one. I'm saying this to myself as I've still got my optics off and I'm trying to go back to sleep. It isn't working, so I might as well get up and finish my can of gas.

After having opened up my optics, I swung my turret around and grabbed the can, lifting it over to the fuel tank on my sides and opening them up, "drinking" it down. The can eventually dripped slightly, but for the most part, was empty. It tossed it into the small canister that we use as a garbage can, and looked over at Si-

Okay, she's not here.

Not sure if I should be panicking or only slightly concerned.

Well, she's her own Tank; I'll trust her not to do anything stupid. And, being honest, I never really had either the time or the will to have any sort of stable relationship with another tank. I once had a Clan that consisted of thirty male tanks and FIVE females' tanks. Now, if you've ever seen what I've seen, you wouldn't really care. But this Clan helped make a certain part of my feelings go numb and die.

They had the females as sex slaves, and did whatever they wanted with them. It was fucking horrid and I swear to god, if I ever see that again, I will load HE and fire it into someone's ammo-rack, because that was wrong on so many levels. But I think, deep down, I'm angrier with my past self for having not stopped it. I knew that it was wrong, and did nothing about it.

I took the ramp down to the first floor of The Rusty Gun, and looked around. It was empty except for a lone Flat-Panzer with the same top gun you get on the StuG III G. I ignored him, and rolled out of the door, intent on finding Flench and getting a tour. I rolled over to the TRV station, and knocked with my gun. I heard some grumbling, and then the garage door swung backwards, opened.

The Berge Panzer looked like hell, heavily coated in dirt and gas. I stared for naught but a moment, and said "Excuse me, do you know where I can find Flench? I need to talk with him about a tour of this place." My radio crackled a bit, but the sentence came out okay. The TRV gave me a look that said "I'm tired as fuck, go away" and slammed the garage door shut. I was a bit off-put by the behavior, but I could understand.

I rolled over to one of the blockhouses, the same one that we'd come in yesterday, and knocked on the steel-reinforced door, reversing about ten feet backwards and waiting. It took less than a second before an emergency light went green and the door swung outwards. I looked at it, shrugged my gun, and rolled inside.

Ah, so here's where Sig had gone. She was looking at me from across a table from Flench, who was looking at me as well. Both were equally curious as to my reasons, but obviously didn't want to be the one to bring it up first. I, being a scavenger, had an appreciation for subtlety that many Clanners didn't understand. Of course, I was unschooled in subliminal hate, so I hadn't noticed at the time that Flench looked like he'd also wanted me to be gone so he could continue what he was doing.

"Hey, Sig. Thanks for waking me up this morning. Hey Flench, I'm here to take you up on that offer from last night." I said all of this in about the span of four seconds, and I rolled on over to the table, turning off my engine so they could hear me without me having to use my radio, using my normal voice instead. I sounded like a British officer from World War One, but I wasn't complaining. It, to me, sounded pretty goddamn cool.

"Yeah, I'll set you an alarm using your own snores to wake you up, Jay. I almost didn't sleep last night because of you." He shot back at me, making me turn a bit red from the comment because I suspected it was true. I shrugged, and smiled back at her. "Part of the charm, you should know that after travelling a whole HOUR with me." She smiled back at me, and Flench looked at me with that "Oh, you're mister steal-your-grill" look. I think, at the time, he was jealous of me. I, being King Oblivious, didn't know that at the time, but looking back on it, I was a pretty blunt person.

At the time, I was too busy trying to get down to business to care about relationships. "So, Flench, when's the tour going to be?" I asked with a slight quirk of my gun from over the table in his direction. "Oh, I uh, was, umm, going to, well-"whilst he was sputtering about his words, I looked around the room. It was pretty clean, and there was a bulletin board, a group of shells with several types of ammunition on it, a bulletin board with rules and a duty roster, a dinner schedule for the month, and a barrel full of… Something black-ish, with little gray sparkles scattered about it. To this day, I have no idea what it was.

"Well, we were discussing if you should become citizens of the town for a short while, and take up guard duties before you showed up." Flench finally managed to get out without tripping over his words. Sig glanced over at him with a questioning looked, and I followed it to Flench, who looked at her and shook his gun barrel a bit. Oh, please don't let this turn into a "love" triangle; I just wanted a friend, dude! "Well, if Sig's fine with it, then I'll hop aboard and help guard the place, but it seems pretty safe." The dude looked at me like I had grown a third turret and become a T-35 Russian invention. I looked right back at him, mocking him by mimicking his look.

He shook his head and said "Well, Ensighein, that answers your question. You two will be guarding on the floor with Scar in the tower above you on the west side tonight." I gave him a look that said 'Dude, little help here?' and he sighed, saying afterwards "On this side." I gave a shrug, and looked to Sig, who gave a nod, before Flench reversed from the table, and went up the ramp to the second floor of the tower-blockhouse-thingy.

"I don't get the feeling that everything is all fine and dandy here, Sig. I think these guys are in some hot shit that we don't know about. What do you think?"

She looked to me, and said with a steely look in her eye "If they're in need of help, then we'll help them. Okay?" She said, staring me in the optic. I didn't blink twice before I gave her a sort of lopsided grin and said "Oh, crazy lady, I like you!" She then realized her situation and blushed deeply. I gave a hearty laugh, and then hit the button by the door, hearing the low "BZZRT" of the alarm before the light went green and the door opened again. I rolled out, and then held it open for Sig while she rolled out. I then reversed and let it close with a loud CLANG! That echoed throughout the cavern.

Well, this'll be nice, wont it?

This took a while to get out due to my computer being dented and having my hard drive crack, but it'd here. My hard drive is currently still wired together, but the casing has cracked and it's been duct taped shut. (Red neck thinking: Does it move? Should it? Duct tape. Does it move? Should it? WD 40)

Anyways, sorry for the long wait (I talk like I've got people waiting on me, haha why tumblr why)

Have a good one!