Scene 6

It appeared a clear night with the stars strewn overhead like the mirror reflection of a past when cities lighted the entire world in brash neon, or like the light dancing off the dew glistening on a spider's web. Lawman's gaze was caught by it as he sat huddled in the crow's nest, wrapped up in thick layers of Bighorn hides and blankets so that only his face peeked through the top, exposed to the bracing wind. It was his turn to keep watch out for ambushes or hazards up ahead and Lawman should have had his eyes focused solely on the river and the trees, only every time he looked down at the Mississippi he saw the stars and moon reflected in its shimmering surface and he found himself gazing back up at the sky and wondering about a time when the old world cities were alive and flashed like beacons back up at those stars. Mankind had created a second night sky once, as though it had bottled the stars in every city and strewn them across the Earth – such was the power of oil and uranium fever. Such was the power of old world technology.

There was just enough of that tech left, in the dying embers of the old world, for mankind to fight and wage war over. Where once light burned in those cities, now the dying embers of the old world burned only in the barrel of guns – like the ones that had shot down the brotherhood vertibirds and chewed their armour into ribbons. Lawman could still hear that audio cassette playing, could still hear the men's screams as they burned, and the song, the damned song. You'd better watch yourself alright, no finer words then them were ever spoken in these parts…

Lawman shifted slightly as he drew the hides and blanket closer around him, tucked up and warm against the chill air. God, he needed a drink, he thought as he moved under the sheets, just a small one, to warm his spirits and take his mind off the carnage. Lawman could feel the odds for their survival on this expedition drawing longer and longer, like a shadow at sundown. Whoever attacked the brotherhood had some serious firepower and Lawman had no idea what to make of that – the brotherhood were rivals after all, serious contenders and dangerous opponents seeking the same thing that they sought. Yet, the devil they all knew was shot down and massacred by a devil they didn't know, and that put everyone on edge. They all knew the brotherhood, what they wanted, what they were capable of, but the mysterious devil that brought them down? They knew nothing of who they were, what they were capable of or even what they wanted. Were they another rival group after the tech? Were they tribals? But then, Lawman never knew tribals to have that sort of firepower – where would locals of the area find that sort of armament? All these questions whirled in Lawman's mind like a roulette wheel, spinning round and round, red for trouble and black for death and all bets hitched on the little square of green that was double zero – that was the elusive tech file and whatever secrets of the old world it encapsulated.

Lawman turned to his trusty pip-boy and gazed at its dimly gleaming screen. He didn't have the cassette no more. He had thrown it away into the undergrowth, back when they'd travelled back to the ship. It felt wretched, cursed somehow, and Lawman didn't want to hang on to it. He could feel his skin crawl when he'd had a hold of it. However, Lawman had been scanning through the frequencies on the pip-boys in built radio. When they first started the journey he could still tune in to the radio station at the post, filled with dreary reports on Brahmin caravan routes, tribal movements and likely ambush spots. It was designed to help facilitate trade through the area, to help convoys evade hazards. Now though those reports had faded into a sea of static, slowly at first, then abruptly. One day the crackle of static engulfed the radio and nothing more was to be heard, and it felt at the time like they had all suddenly been cast out at sea, miles and miles from shore. It was strange but Lawman had clung to that radio broadcast like a last lifeline. He knew eventually that it would disappear the deeper south they went but that didn't stop him from being surprised when it finally did lapse into quiet.

Lawman scrolled through the frequencies, hearing the static jump and jive but not yielding to any broadcast. All was quiet down south. And that was strange. It appeared that their hidden foe had the technology to take down the Brotherhood but didn't make radio broadcasts to each other.

Lawman looked up for a second and then did a double take on the horizon ahead. There was something like a great white wall of white advancing along the river towards the prow of the ship. A great mist swirled from the skies and rolled in along the waves of the river, enveloping everything in a silvery shroud, as opaque as looking through a cracked sniper scope.

"Shit…" Lawman breathed as he threw off the blankets, bracing himself to the chilling wind, and clambered down from the crow's nest to the deck. He scarpered hurriedly to the bridge just as the mist rolled in, the first tendrils slinking along the waves and enveloping the Mayweather. Lawman's Geiger counter jittered as he swung the door of the bridge closed behind him and approached the surly back of Vance as he steered the Mayweather at its control panel, staring fixedly ahead through the dusty windows at the gloom advancing steadily upon them.

"Vance," Lawman huffed. Shit, one climb down from the crow's nest and a quick dart to the bridge had knocked the breath out of him? Lawman came painfully aware of just how unfit he was. Well hell, he was fifty odd after all.

He took his time to catch his breath but Vance already knew what he was going to say.

"Don't worry, Lawman. All prepared for," he spoke without even turning around.

"What do you mean?"

But before Lawman could get his answer, Vance had flicked a few switches and great beams of light flashed from the lights set upon the prow and sheared through the fog ahead. It was only enough to see maybe thirty or forty feet infront of them but it was enough. Vance turned down the ships engine to a soft hum as the paddle wheels slowed and the ship glided forth, smoother, slower and more cautiously than before.

"You didn't think I hadn't foreseen this fog did ya," Vance said. He slurred his words slightly as though he'd been drinking. Although with Vance you could never quite tell whether that was the case or whether it was just his natural surly drawl.

Lawman looked exasperated as he collapsed into a seat. "I didn't know what to think honestly."

"You knew this mist was going to happen, Lawman. You was told back at the inn remember."

"Ah shit. You know what, you're right. It completely slipped my mind. One minute I was distracted, then the next this great big mist was rollin' in. What was I supposed to do?"

"What you just did," Vance replied. He grasped under the control panel for a moment and retrieved a bottle of liquor without once taking his eyes from the river ahead. "Some liquid courage, Lawman?"

Ah, Lawman thought, So he had been drinking.

Lawman was never one to turn down a drink. "Sure, why not."

Vance passed the bottle to Lawman who took a quick swig. Then he took a longer one for good measure. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"Sure you should be drinking whilst steering this thing?"

"This thing has a name."

"Right. Sure you should be steering the Mayweather whilst drinking?"

"Never did me no harm before," Vance replied and then with a dark grin continued, "Heh. Where you're goin' you're gonna need some of the strong stuff."

"You mean where we're goin?"

"We? What 'we'? I ain't goin' where you're goin'. I'm goin' down the river that's all. Just a lovely river journey to the heart o' darkness. Made it many times before, but you lot? Going to that vault and then to god knows where. Heh, heh. Good luck is all I can say."

"What should we expect?"

"How should I know? The river always changes, always shifts and turns like a great python. I can tell you which currents to take and which to avoid, I can navigate our way so far downstream but stepping foot on land? I ain't never been so foolhardy to do that. If you ask me you lot are doomed," Vance wheezed into a spluttering series of coughs.

"We all need to survive if we're to get our share of the Tech file's worth, Vance."

"You think I care about money?"

"I think you care about fixin' your cancer, Vance."

Vance was quiet for a sobering moment.

"So it was you who took that letter," he said gravely. "I shoulda known it'd be the fucking scavver."

"Oswald has got his hooks in plenty of people on this voyage. You ain't alone. Trust me."

"Huh. You think Oswald has his hooks on old Vance do ya?"

"He's the one that owns the doctors clinic back at the post. I'm just putting two and two together here but I'm guessing he sold you this expedition as your only ticket to affording the treatment you need."

"So what if he did?"

"So I'm guessing you ain't too happy about that."

"What does it matter? This is the only hand I've been dealt. It's either this or drinking my guts out awaiting the inevitable." Vance took a swig of the hooch and although he swayed slightly, the steering wheel remained steady in his hand. "Besides," Vance consoled himself, "This is the only work I've ever done. The only thing I've ever been good at. I'm the best damn captain there is in these waters and Oswald knows that – Oswald appreciates that. If I had to die then it would be on this river."

"If I had to die it'd be in my bed, making love to an old world starlet, but I guess that's aiming a bit high, huh?"

Vance grunted a laugh. "Yeah, maybe that'd be fine too," he said. "Still things being what they are I know what my choice is."

"You don't expect to survive this expedition, do you?"

"No."

"Why not – you said yourself you think we're doomed if we set off on land, that implies you think staying on the ship will lengthen your odds of survival."

"It will lengthen my odds of not meeting with any nasties before I choke of natural causes. Trust me, you ain't seen nothin' o' what happens to people down here. I've seen bodies. Mutilations. And god only knows what caused them. What I've seen…

"…you ever seen a man's skin peeled straight off his body – as though it had been chewed off by something with mandibles? Well, I have. And it aint pretty. And you wan' a win an easy bet you bet that I ain't never setting foot on land."

Lawman couldn't help noticing, in the faint reflection of the bridge window, his skin had turned a pale white. A bead of cold sweat ran down his brow.

"But there are people who live in these parts. People who inhabit this hornets nest of a place."

"Aye. And they ain't nothin' you wanna run into neither. Nature like this," Vance waved his hand signalling the mists, the silhouettes of warped willows and the churning waves of the Mississippi, "turns men into beasts. Believe me. There's somethin' here that saps at a man's soul. Something that sucks the life out of your bones. I can sense it. Have always sensed it. It's grown stronger now, more than it had been before."

"We have the guide. She can, at least, show us how to survive." Lawman said those words, just catching himself as he felt a treacherous feeling of appreciation for Oswald bringing her along. She's been made into a slave, damn it! It's wrong, it's all wrong…

"That guide right there is your biggest liability," Vance slurred. "No one on this expedition wants us all dead as much as her, and we're setting foot into her territory. No matter how she's been fitted out with that bomb collar, she's the one you need to watch out for most. Not Carter or that Vyatch bastard – those assholes kill for pleasure. She'll kill you not because she wants to but because she needs to. There's wildness in her. Have you seen it? In her eyes…"

"Yeah, I've seen it. I told Kees we should free her."

"Free her? Hah. We should blow her head sky high now and be done with it."

Lawman shook his head. "She ain't done nothin' to us, Vance. We can't just kill someone because we think they're gonna hurt someone."

"Why not? You almost did yourself."

"What? You've got your marbles knocked off kilter there, Vance. I think the drink has gone and addled your brain."

"Back at the inn, way back at the post, you were gonna gun down Carter before he shot that man down."

"That was different."

"Different how? You saw he was gonna cause harm and you were about to put a stop to it."

"I was about to put the gun to his head and tell him to cool it."

"You think he woulda listened?"

Lawman just shrugged, but he knew the answer. It was the answer he didn't like.

"I'll tell you what I think, Lawman." Vance replied. "I think he would have turned on you and tried to gun you down before you could think to pull the trigger. He's faster than you. I've seen him work his guns. It's like watching lightning strike. Fast. Accurate. Deadly. You… Well, you've got a conscience that gets in the way."

"And hooch to clear it." Lawman took the bottle and pulled another swig.

"And you're older too."

Lawman just nodded his head at that glumly. "Yeah, maybe. But I got some fight in me yet." He looked out the window as he took another swig. "I got some fight in me yet…"

Suddenly, there was a deep thundersome grinding noise emanating from deep within the ship's hull. A shuddering almost knocked the bottle out of Lawman's hand.

"What was that?" Lawman called out.

"Shit!" Vance exclaimed as he spun the wheel and steered the ship to the side. "We're too close to shore . Brushed up against some rocks."

"We okay?"

"Sure we are. We're going too slowly to cause any real damage. This is where the journey gets real exciting."

Suddenly there was an almighty yelp. Feet clapped on the stairs down below as people stormed up on deck. Lawman looked out over the ensuing scene and felt his white fist clench.

"You bitch, you fuckin' bitch!" Carter raged as he dragged the wailing guide out of the hatch by her hair. "You're gonna fuckin' die!"