And Deep Red saw HER gambit unfold in a tumbledown little barhouse.
The Unloaded Arm was an ugly, squat establishment that saw plenty of business in the Tacoma Commune due to cheap food and relatively amicable conditions. Even at dawn, when the stars still glimmer and the sun is barely a bright sliver over a deep purple sky, the place is often crowded with farmhands and labourers, seeking a quick breakfast before work on the guarded farms, chopping lumber, taking the train to the smog-belching Junkyard, or in the countless ramshackle businesses, cottage industries and gigs across Tacoma. Today was no different.
The barhouse was dimly lit under the flickering lightbulbs and slivers of morning sun which inched through grimy window shutters onto contracted survivors and commune labourers, the only sounds being the relaxing soft white noise of murmured conversation over mugs of coffee and chipped plates of homemade fries, brown bread and fried eggs, and the clattering of dishes from the kitchen. The barhouse was a lifted building; one of many taken on trucks from the infested city of Manchester, but the post-apocalypse and regular business had worn it down. Grime permeated almost every surface, streaks of mud trailing across the floorboards from filthy labourer boots, the air hung with the smell of roasted coffee and hot, greasy food, but not booze; in the Center that was illegal to sell until after work hours. The radio on the shelf behind the counter, always playing cheesy pop music from Radio Romantico, was off today.
While the Tacoma Commune seemed to change every day, the Unloaded Arm was largely identical to the last time the Survivor visited, except the name and the M16 hanging in a frame on the wall was now missing its magazine. That was new.
Remembering his last visit all too well, patrons glared at the Survivor as he approached the counter. The bartender, cleaning a dirty mug with a rag, took his eyes off his work to watch him like a hawk. His gaze bore hostility; the people of Tacoma rarely forgive and never forget.
"She's waiting for you down the hall, in the farthest booth."
He sneered, tone flecked with disdain.
"Whatever you got going on, make it quick."
Behind his balaclava, the Survivor's expression was unreadable.
Outsiders, merchants, mercenaries, or those with business to discuss would typically adjourn to the private booths where the smell didn't reach and the noise didn't bother. Apprehension building in his chest with every step, the Survivor walked down the hallway until the floor wasn't grimy with mud, where there were only two occupied booths. Opening the door to the farthest, most private back-end booth, his former boss was sat in the partial darkness, and all his anxiety dissipated. Makayla Sanchez; arsonist, scavenger, business owner; lounged in her seat. Captured between her fingers, the ember of a hand-rolled cigarette lit her face up with soft yellow, reflected in cerulean eyes. She gave a glance, then motioned to the seat expectantly. The Survivor sat opposite with a straight back and a tense stare behind the balaclava. Only when up close did he notice that an old radio was on the battered table.
"I got a job for you, balaclava." Makayla drawled lowly. "First, just listen."
She reached forth to flick the radio on and the booth was filled with the soft humming of static.
"You gotta look around for this one." She idly said, cigarette in mouth, as she fiddled with the dial. Her searching paid off, a final twist of the dial and the static suddenly stopped. An eerie quiet descended over the meeting booth, followed by a single piercing beep.
"Here we go." Makayla grinned, folded her arms and lounged in her plush seat. The beep came to a stop and a tinny synthetic voice emerged and then came a slow recitation in the phonetic alphabet. Fower fower tree tree Fife two seven fife minus six niner tree wun. After that, a gentle looped audio snippet, so quiet that the Survivor leaned forward to listen intently. It was a gentle, deep voice of a woman. Come. And the radio screamed.
The voice was abruptly cut off by a horrendous screeching howl, agonised and going on for one, two, four, six, eight, seconds. The Survivor flinched. Suddenly, someone in the adjacent booth pounded harsh on the wall and shouted, "SHUT THAT FUCKING THING OFF!" Makayla, seeing the problem now illustrated, took mercy on his ears and flicked the radio back off. The pounding on the wall slowly stopped and for a few tense seconds, silence ruled once more.
"We found it last night." She said, the casual tone in her voice betraying an indifference to the abnormality. "All our trucks got hit bad during our latest scavenging trip to Manchester. The most banged-up truck, sheesh, suspension was wrecked, acid damage like nothing you've seen before, a door missing from when a Hulk ripped it off, really it was a miracle that one even made it back." She took a drag of her cigarette and blew swirling grey smoke into the darkness. "Me and the team had just began repairing it around midnight, we wanted to listen to music as we worked. It was supposed to be Radio Romantico, but we came across this instead. Scary, huh?" Makayla grinned, lopsided and sharp-toothed. The Survivor gently asked her why it mattered enough to bring him over first thing in the morning. Ghost signals weren't nothing new.
"Well, I asked the Ham about it and he told me something mighty interesting. Those numbers you heard that voice recite? They're co-ordinates."
Realisation began to dawn on the Survivor. Makayla leant forth, taking cursory glances side to side like she was about to divulge something confidential and wanted nobody else to hear. A purely habitual, subconscious little action, because they were alone in the booth.
"There's no name, no identifying signals, nothing, and here's where it gets weird: when charted out on a map, the coordinates lead deep in the middle of fuckin' nowhere. To me, this means a radio station. This means loot." As Makayla spoke, her eyes shone with greed." Someone's gonna check out this mysterious signal sooner or later. Whatever it is, the radio station must be tracked down, its equipment dismantled, and the salvage brought back home."
Makayla dug into a wide pocket of her thick turnout coat. She fished out a piece of paper, and pushed it across the table. It was a black-and-white topographic map of a section of New Hampshire. The paper was smooth and unwrinkled; this map was new.
"Okay, balaclava, follow closely." The scavenger leant forth, and placed a bandaged finger on one of many red circles on the map. "Here's us, and here's where the co-ordinates lead, seventy-two miles down the I-93. Feel free to take it until this breakoff point here. The Center protects this stretch for trade with the Hub and a bunch of fortified little towns. However beyond the stretch, no-one can guarantee you anything. I can offer you some advice. The I-93 goes by some small towns, some deserted and picked clean by scavengers, some burnt down - wonder who did that, huh?" Makayla gave a cheeky grin. "Plymouth is crawling with zombies, and as for Thornton," She dug into her pockets once again, got out a permanent marker and drew a big X on Thornton. "Don't go anywhere near Thornton, that place is a bandit campground. Going through Plymouth will save time, but in my opinion, going rural would carry the least risk. Take your path through these swamps and don't stop. Your destination is around... Here. "She pointed to the circle between Woodstock and Mount Osceola, a distance off from a wilderness trail.
"Keep in mind, you're going near White Mountain National Forest. That's triffid territory and they don't take kindly to trespassers. But you might encounter some Triffid scouts in the forests. Be civil, turn your car off, hide any electronics. They should leave you alone."
The survivor raised a very important question; why doesn't she and her crew do it.
"Our trucks are being repaired and my crew's burnt out, they need their RR. Yeah, I suppose I could get someone else, but I know you're reliable, quick, you'll get the job done in no time. You don't need to stay long, just dismantle any computers or radio equipment and load into your truck. This job would take probably a day and most of that is driving here and back. Oh, don't forget the pay, because only an idiot would pass up 200 merch."
And the survivor perked up, and from what little of his face could be seen, he was taken aback. Makayla grinned. "Yeah, now you're interested. You usually guard caravans where you get 10 merch an hour if you're lucky. 200 for one job?" She whistled at the number. "That's enough to cover the fuel costs and keep your shelves stocked for a week. And if I can recall correctly," Her eyes went up to the ceiling in mock thought, a little teasing hum escaping her lips. "There's an RPG for sale for 150 merch at the flea market."
The survivor wondered why checking out this radio signal warranted 200 Merch.
"Because radios sell good. Trust me, if you bring back the right components, I'm making a lot more than 200 merch." She popped the cigarette in her mouth and she extended a grimy hand stained with engine oil. "So what do you say, balaclava?"
And after a period of deep thought, the Survivor eventually reached forth. A gloved hand shook hers, and Makayla chuckled triumphantly.
With business finished, they promptly left through the backdoor of the Unloaded Arm, where a diesel generator softly rumbled, surrounded by a fence and trailing cables into an open window. On the ugly tarmac road, a 1991 Toyota Hilux was parked but with all the innumerable modifications, it had become unrecognisable. Covered in the wounds of its life after the apocalypse, scabbed over with welded steel plates. A brutal dent on the side door from a collision with a moose, peppered with little craters from bandit pot-shots. On the front armour was a mesh of iridescent scars; a little forget-me-not from a Mi-Go's organic gun. The survivor knelt down and was busy reinflating a tire. Nearby one of the heavy doors swung open, and Makayla lay across the front seats. The survivor looked up from his work, and he asked what she was doing to his dashboard.
"You're going far, balaclava, farther than our local WiFi or Bluetooth can reach, so I can't just use BlueChat to contact you. You're gonna be using one of my radios." The survivor finished up with reinflating the tire and just watched his former boss, bent over the front seat with the dashboard exposed, wiring a bulky radio into the car. He asked her why she won't just use a smaller radio.
"They don't have the range, and this one's inconvenient to power with batteries." Makayla said, focusing intently on the job at hand. "So your car will be the power source." Makayla finished her job. Carefully wrapping insulator tape around an exposed wire, she slotted the radio within the dashboard with the attention and steady hand of a professional electrician. She stood back up and dusted off her turnout pants, glancing over at him.
"I'll be wanting that back afterwards." She said matter-of-factly and stepped aside for him. The survivor climbed into his armoured car, strapping himself into the seat. He turned his key and the diesel engine rumbled like a dormant beast.
"Anyway, I'll be keeping contact from my office." She grinned through the open window before backing away. The Survivor gave a nod as he drove off and Makayla waved behind him.
Making a turn around the corner, he drove across the dirt road, with only the rumbling of wheels, the whistling of wind through the open window and the distant clamour of crowds. His armoured car passed through the streets of trailer parks, mobile homes, stands and prefabs. Watchtowers staffed by guards and occasionally robots loom over every neighbourhood, humming eyebots flitted over their heads every few minutes. Log cabins, wood shanties intermixed with buildings that had been lifted and taken from Manchester. The Tacoma Commune was both a giant favela and a labyrinthine place dredged from the fever dreams of architects and city planners. Apart from the lifted buildings, the only others that seemed to be constructed to a similar standard were the near omnipresent fortifications and emplacements around the main roads, which were already beginning to fill with people on foot. The survivor sometimes wondered about all the defences; everyone was armed here, but it wasn't like he minded them. There's no such thing as not enough guns, not enough walls, to put in-between you and the world. He initially wanted to travel quickly but the Toyota had slowed to a crawl as it travelled through a great mass of people on their way to work, who streamed around it like fishes would around a whale. Worse, he was in a traffic jam. The dirt road was clustered with cars of every type, all bearing outlandish modifications. In front of him was another four-wheeler truck, a kiln protruding crudely from its side and belching black smoke from its exhaust. The back of the abomination had the insignia of its maker; the Junkyard. Checking his rear mirrors, behind him was a little car with a sagging gas bag affixed to the roof. Biodiesel was mass produced in only a few places throughout New England, rationed in the Center and currently for guard vehicles only. The survivor rightfully considered himself lucky to have some in his tanks.
Common imaginings of the apocalypse was that innovation would come to a standstill, but in the new world, human ingenuity was limitless and in the Survivor's experience; vital. Nothing could be wasted, almost everything was recycled, things that were once common had become so precious. Ramshackle, bizarre machines had to be created from the ruins of what was. As FFVs, electric and diesel cars were hoarded by the myriad survivor groups, armored tribes, militia groups and armies across the former United States, gas-powered cars and kiln-fired trucks were just a few of the necessary innovations for the destitute.
If not for the mission, the Survivor did not mind the long wait. He did not take the safety of civilization for granted and savoured every moment he spent. He turned his head and observed one side of the street.; a great battered truck was unloading crates of fresh produce at a small grocery store, under the watch of dead-eyed guards with assault rifles and crowds of impatient, gaunt faces. The people watched him as they went by. Labourers here to work the farms, or in the machine shops, or in the factory, all here to escape what lay outside the community's protection. Dressed in layers and layers. Winter coats and patches, jackets and overalls and boots, the unfashionable but practical attire of workers, and they had impassive faces, blurred in the air like oil paintings. To keep his mind occupied, he listened to their gossip, fraternising and chatting amongst themselves through the open window. The survivor watched them, his expression unreadable under his balaclava. He drove past the flea market already bustling with peddlers and customers in the early morning, and the farms and ranches, where the farmhands laboured behind electric fences and verdant fields of supercrops waved high in the breeze, eyebots spraying pesticides and guard patrols doing sweeps for unwanted pests constantly. The Survivor found it ironic that it was the invention of a former XEDRA scientist that had saved the Center from famine. Not that it'd ever pay back for destroying the world.
As he drove along the dirt road, the crowds began to disseminate. He made a turn and the dirt road became tarmac and if his tires could speak, they'd be crying with joy. The crude, hackneyed contraptions he saw back in Tacoma were replaced by armoured vehicles, jeeps, filled to the brim with tense soldiers and contracted mercenaries alike. Occasionally, a heavy truck laden with supplies would pass by, with armed guards on motorcycles riding swiftly around it. At one point, he even saw a lumbering tank parked beside the road, the operators sat in its shadow and eating their breakfast. Eventually, he reached the border of Tacoma, and he found himself surrounded by armed guards, in the shadow of watchtowers and machine gun emplacements. But the checkpoint knew he was coming on the one two-way radio they had. The border guard holstered their rifles and just watched him pass.
It was the end of autumn. The grass was dark. The forests of bare trees lined the asphalt road like sticks in the mud, the grass covered in layers of orange leaves but even in the cold, fields of poppies grew in rivers of red on the fields. The car sped forth and the forests blurred around it. They receded, then he was alone. The Survivor checked his doors were locked. He rolled the window up, held the driving wheel with both hands. Now out of civilization, his eyes became darting and more attentive than before. Ideally, he'd ride part of the journey in a convoy, but there wasn't time. He made a turn towards the I-93, and the road awaited him. He pushed his foot to the pedal, then set into cruise control. A four hour drive awaited.
The drive itself was eerily silent and deserted, the highway ahead was empty tarmac that seemed to stretch, monotonous, under the dark skies. Sometimes he saw cars, trucks, caravans lumber across on the other side (Thankfully, they had mind to observe the rules of the road) but signs of life were sparse. Even four years after the apocalypse, travel remained sparse and was always done in guarded convoys. Not once did he lose focus, and it wasn't ten minutes into the drive that his caution was legitimized, because far ahead he saw a shape on the road. The headlights crawled across old tarmac and illuminated it; a creature like a dog. It had succumbed to the infection which was killing the World. Once a German shepherd, its hide of matted fur festered with rotting blood, scabs and lesions, mutation had prompted the growth of a fifth leg, but all the redundant flesh could do was twitch uselessly from the bloated stomach. It hobbled across the road, fifth leg dragging behind it. When the Survivor saw the creature, he turned off cruise control and pressed down on the pedal. The dog was on the road. It was in the way. The Survivor was not going to stop. The zombie dog could no longer turn it's head, but it could turn three bleeding eyes towards the headlights. Its throat throbbed like a grub and it roared with two bleeding mouths. The roar ended as the creature was smashed to the ground. The dog became a speed bump. The filthy tires became streaked with dark gore. The journey continued on.
It was an hour. He took a turn into Campton. Along the decaying road were picket fences with faded paint, enclosed around husks of burnt-out houses and ranches, picked clean by scavengers time and time over, so there wasn't anything here except heaps of rubble and burnt wood. Vibrant overgrowth claimed the ruins of the town. An awful, acrid stench hung in the air around here, so strong that he could taste it. The survivor shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and pressed down on the accelerator. He was out of Campton soon enough. Signs passed over his car. Thornton: Ten miles away. The Survivor referenced the map, made a turn off the I-93 onto a minor road, and drove towards the roiling hills and dense forests. The rest of this journey will be rural. Through the reinforced glass, the Survivor watched the wild forests as they passed by, blurred and imperceptible. The decaying tarmac road thinned to the point where leaves would smack against the car sides and he was forced to manoeuvre closer to the middle to avoid a direct collision. Potholes had become a fact of life, and he was glad for reinforcing his suspensions.
As he drove up a roiling hill, he took a short break to admire the view. The sky was the typical morning shade; the faint orange-blue pigment that spread like liquid over the sky, but from the furthest corners small streaks of deep blue could be seen and wedged between wisp-thin clouds the sun glared with dominating indifference. He could see so much up here. Beyond the mutant swamps and twisted forests occupied by Triffids was the abandoned urban sprawl of Boston, vast columns of thick black smoke rising on the tranquil horizon. From what he had heard, some mercenaries from the Hub Ancilla probed deep into the ruins of Boston, deeper than anyone else had. The rumour was that they came looking for something, found something, and in their fight against a vast horde they started the fire themselves. Now the inferno raged so far people could see it from the Center. The real mystery was how the mercenaries even got to Boston, because not only would they have to get through triffid territory, they'd have to get past the Mi-Gos. In a lifeless, barren stretch bordering Boston was the tower. Gauntly thin, emaciated. Tiny, indiscriminate swarms flittered around its base. Whatever the fuck the Mi-Go's had built, it had stopped survivors getting access to Boston for years, until the mercenaries had somehow gotten past it. Probably by air. The time flitted by and his break was over, he had to continue on. The car started up again.
The forests looked deceptively untouched, but investigation found something gravely wrong. Nature had given up in the fight against the blob. Now, it owned the forests. Mutation was rampant. For every tree, he noticed a plant that didn't belong. Worse, the strange shapes that don't belong. A lumbering freak would dart amongst the foliage with the rapid flitter of wings. Feral ape-like creatures swooped through the trees alongside him. Scourges of giant mosquitoes, sucking a creature dry, until their ends burst like red balloons. The vast footprints left behind by Elephant bears were clear in the dirt. The air squawked with unnatural creatures. When he saw something on the road, he ran it over. If he saw patches of fungus beside the road, then he'd get out the car and do his part for the world with some biodiesel and a lit match. The expansive forests receded and gave way to a marshland where the worst excesses of blob infection dwelled. He drove through a noxious swamp. Mosquitoes and dermatiks flew haphazardly, darting in-between thick clumps of gnarled, ugly trees. Cattails, long wiry grass, plants native to Earth and mutated beyond recognition grew as neighbours within the murky swamp ponds, bizarre foliage pushing up through wet mud and moist black soil. Then, as a hideous dog-sized mosquito droned past with an unbearable buzz, a huge tongue lashed out, wrapping around the creature and pulled it, thrashing insectoid legs wildly, into the waiting maw of a vast frog. Other creatures were beset on by hideous tadpoles, or torn apart by insects. Seas of tiny ants built huge rafts to cross the murky waters until sections of ponds were blanketed in teeming black mass. Life finds a way. The world had not ended for the wildlife, rather the rules had changed, and a chaotic new element was introduced. A wiry dermatik was on the road, prone atop the fresh corpse of some indeterminate creature. Before it could push itself inside the soft flesh, it heard the screeching of tires and stared at the approaching light with dark compound eyes, then as the car thundered closer it sprung up and flew out of the way.
In the new world, humanity was no longer top of the food chain, and like the primordial era the survivors generally avoided the wildlife. But this was not so much a concession of power but rather a focus of attention towards more pressing issues, such as the zombies, the Triffids, the mycus, or eachother. Now, all but the most hateful of survivors generally have a 'let-it-be' attitude towards wildlife remoulded by the Blob. That attitude did not extend to dermatiks.
The Survivor deliberately swerved the car with the screech of tires. The dermatik flitted frantically across the headlights, but it was too slow, and the giant bug was pulped against the heavy-duty frame. The dermatik became a speedbump.
Despite their vast ideological differences, most human factions in the former United States still agreed on a few unifying moral principles. The rapists were K.O.S.
The swamps gave way to a wide grassland, surrounded by overlooking hills and autumn trees on either side of the road. Suddenly, a deep rumbling came from ahead on the road, like the thumping feet of a great wild animal and the Survivor almost thought so until he heard the engines roar through the foliage. The roaring reached a crescendo and suddenly from around the U-Turn came a vast truck, or rather what used to be a truck. Now, the tractor unit was a smoke-belching monster; a bizarre contraption of welded armor and guns, armored rams and turret emplacements. In survivor lingo, it is known as a 'deathmobile'. The Survivor parked on the side of the road, which was promptly taken up by the immense vehicle. Then another truck behind it. And another. It was a procession of deadly cars, trucks, motorcycles flitting about like the swarm protecting a hive, all of which armed and armoured to the teeth. On the roof of the truck trailer, figures with assault rifles sat, and they all watched him behind painted ballistic masks.
Where there's one survivor in a truck, it's just another lunatic in a deathmobile. Where there's many survivors in a convoy of deathmobiles, it's an Armored Tribe.
The Armored Tribes were a new subculture of the post-apocalypse. Beginning as Survivors that turned scavenged cars into killing machines; they lived a nomadic existence of high-speed violence, but eventually grouped together for mutual protection. Because native reservations were a prime target for Mi-Go raids, many Tribes out west went nomadic, armored up, and the name simply stuck. With the passing of years all of them, tribal or not, are leaning into the aesthetic. With the amount of vehicles, the tribe was likely migrating. After a minute of waiting, the final truck drove by and the driver stared at him. Framed by long, loose black hair, her face was decorated with the war-paint of a Mescalero. She gave a nod; the Survivor returned it. And when the procession had passed and the road fell silent once more, he continued on.
It had been four hours of driving, in-between occasional radio updates from Makayla and regular map checks, and he was only a short distance away. His legs cramped, he had a constant scowl under his balaclava, and the only thing that improved his sour mood was that he was close to finishing up. The asphalt road became a dirt path and the morning skies were turning darker with an approaching thunderstorm. The survivor checked his map, then double checked, as he parked his car beneath the discreet shadow of a wide tree. With a death grip on his handgun, the survivor slowly moved among the trees, listening for even the smallest movement. His caution paid off. Between the trees, a building came into view. Within a clearing, protected by a tall fence of barbed wire, what awaited him was a boxy concrete structure, featureless and untouched. It looked like it could survive an Apocalypse and it evidently has. The survivor scouted the area around it out. It was a box the entire way around. What's more important, no-one there. Nothing there.
The survivor made his way back to his car. He drove it forth, as slow and as quietly as a Toyota can be. He got out for a brief second, and as fast as he could, he darted to the barbed wire gate and produced a pair of bolt cutters. He snapped the lock off and he opened the gate wide then ran back to the safety of the car. He drove into the clearing, and parked his car beside the entrance to the building. It was surrounded by trees and dense foliage. Thick steel doors, with a strange blinking device next to it on the wall. Wading through the thick grass, the survivor almost didn't notice the giant spider until he noticed it twitch. He almost stumbled backwards. The creature was perched on the branch of a drooping tree, a short distance away, hairy legs tense with thick muscles, but it just watched him with bulbous red eyes. There was something draped around it, an orange fabric, but that was all that could be told, before the great creature scuttled away into the trees. The survivor cursed. He should have shot it. Next time, he will not make the same mistake again.
Approaching the steel doors, he inspected the device by the front. A soft green light blinked back at him. It looked like a card reader, the steel plate emblazoned with an atom in a flask, the universal symbol of science. And underneath was a single, bizarre word. An initialism. His eyes widened.
The survivor returned to the safety of his car and flicked on the two-way radio. There was the crackling of static, and then a familiar voice surfaced. "This is Makayla Sanchez. Is that you, Balaclava? Over." The survivor informed her that he had arrived at the location, and that it wasn't a radio station. Makayla hummed in thought.
"Is there anything to identify it by?" The survivor described the concrete building, then looked over his car and examined the blinking light. He read the Initialism stencilled on the metal plate. XEDRA.
For a few moments there was silence on the other line. "Oh, my god." she whispered.
There was clattering in the distance. A voice in the background suddenly spoke, something incoherent and unclear. Makayla turned her attention to an outsider.
"What? It's a sealed concrete bunker with XEDRA written on the card reader, what else could it be? No, no! WHY WOULD I TELL SMOKES? Of all people why would I want him to-?! — Hell no, we're talking about ammonia production techniques, get away from my window — Balaclava, don't do anything, I'll be right back. Over." And the radio went silent. The survivor was left alone with his thoughts.
He had heard the stories. Recalling memories of a dingy bar in the Hub Ancilla, holding hushed conversations in the corner tables with a few augmented survivors. Bionic eyes gleaming, they told a tale about a few enterprising scavengers who secured places in the Walled-off cities with the boundless loot and the technological secrets, all of which sold to the Hub. Labs were nigh-mythical among scavengers, finding one was like finding the holy grail. If he could get in, that is if he even wanted to. Suddenly, the radio crackled with the sound of a shifting armchair, the rustling of papers and an excited giggle.
"Alright Balaclava! Your new assignment is to get in. Doesn't matter what you do. Get in." Makayla was speaking quickly, her breath bated. "Look around, be careful, and don't eat or drink anything you find down there. Bring your gun and sweep the first two floors for us, just the first two, then-"
No.
Makayla was taken aback.
"... 'Scuse me?"
The survivor repeated himself. No. For a while, the woman said nothing, and then she took a deep breath.
"Okay." She spoke slowly. "Why?"
The Survivor reminded Makayla of the dangers of exploring old world ruins, and the horror stories surrounding the nigh-mythical laboratories. The bizarre monsters that hid there. How the last time a Lab was found by some mercenaries from the Hub, the world almost ended a second time. Then, he repeated himself. No. He's not fucking going down there.
"One thing I don't get about you, Balaclava," She drawled. "Is how willing you are to flirt with danger, only to pull away at the final moment. "The Survivor said nothing. Makayla took that as invitation to continue.
"My little salvage company gets taxed a lot. You used to work for me, you've seen it first hand. After days of fighting hordes of zombies, burning shit down and hauling stuff back, some snot-nosed little punk walks around our truck with a clipboard and takes atleast ten percent of our stuff. The repair costs on the trucks were greater than the profit I made on the last scavenging run. Fact of the matter is, I'm almost bankrupt and I don't think you're doing so well either, and now we've got the opportunity of a lifetime. We have to take advantage of it as soon as possible, else other people are gonna find the Lab, hoard everything, trade it with the fucking Hub and then no-one ever sees it again." The Survivor reminded her about the nature of the radio signal that led them here and the possibility of it being a trap.
"You could be right." The enthusiasm in Makayla's voice ebbed away slightly. "We still don't know who sent it or why. Likely it came from the Lab, which is uh, likely to still be inhabited." She cringed at the last part. "But we take risks all the time, it probably ain't anymore dangerous than scavenging with me in Manchester. In your line of work, you put yourself in harms way, every day. You've survived worse. What makes this any different? Besides, balaclava. You need the money and so do I. Aren't you in debt?"
The Survivor said nothing.
"Well, now you've got first dibs on El Dorado and there's not a single scavenger in the former United States who wouldn't kill to be in your shoes. I haven't told the Center yet, only me and one of my colleagues know what you've just found, but it won't be like this for long. We don't have much time. I know for a fact that others are gonna follow the radio signal from last night and find the Lab, news will spread, and soon every scavenger in New England will be there like flies to a rotting corpse. Before that inevitably happens you gotta take as much as you can and load it into your Toyota. Imagine the sort of shit you could find down there. With just a truckload from down there, this lab could make you so rich you'll never have to work again. Imagine... You could even get into one of the walled cities with that."
By the lengthy silence, Makayla knew her words were getting to him. She pressed on.
"Just imagine for a moment. No more living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. You could buy your way into Concord, where there's actual houses, running water, working plumbing, good food, jobs that don't break your back or ask you to kill someone. What do they say 'bout the place again? In Concord, it's almost like nothing ever happened. Yeah, that sounds like paradise." Then she laughed.
"You could live the rest of your life there in safety and comfort. It's all there, and it all depends on this one question, Balaclava. What would you do for safety?" There wasn't anything for a while. Tentatively and in a voice so quiet, the survivor asked if she'd help him get a passport.
"Of course I will, buddy."
The benefits outweighed the dangers. It wasn't just access to the Lab. The promise of safety, a cosy house in Concord, was just too much to pass up. His instincts screamed at him not to. Every alarm bell rang in his head. Very reluctantly, he agreed. Very reluctantly.
"Atta boy." He could tell that Makayla was grinning.
"You know what to do. Get in, just sweep the first two floors. Once that's done, take what looks valuable, load it in your car. I'll be making our cover story and heading over soon. Over."
The radio crackled and fell silent. The survivor looked up at the concrete bunker, the word XEDRA burned into his head and anxiety bubbled in his gut. The door swung open and this time he took his electrohack from his glovebox. Slowly he approached the card reader, it's dirty steel surface emblazoned with the atom in a flask, the universal symbol of science. He stared into the green light blinking and slid the electrohack into the port beneath. The light continued to stare, then fizzled out with a hiss. He tried to insert it again, nothing happened; the card reader was unresponsive. The survivor just stared.
Behind the thick steel doors, alone in the hallway, a single turret was beeping softly. The machine gun head swivelling around and scanned the darkened hallway every second, like it had done since the start of the apocalypse, even after the end of the world, it did what it was made to do, and it's likely it would do so until the Labs internal power grid failed and power was cut off. But its end came in a more exciting way, when without warning, the thick steel doors were violently smashed inwards by the force of an armoured car ramming into it at over fifty miles per hour. The turrets singular lens widened with the momentary burst of sunlight, and the sudden appearance of a giant shape outlined in its targeting matrix, bit it didn't even have a chance to intone "Hostile Detected" before its entire frame was violently crushed beneath the three ton vehicle with the sparking of electricity and smashing of steel against concrete. A tense few seconds passed, the car shoved into the wide hallway of the laboratory, until slowly it reversed out, with the armoured ram dented inwards. Both headlights were smashed, trails of twisted metal dragged uselessly from the front. The car shuddered, then the spluttering engine came to a stop and a tense silence descended over the forests. Then, the heavy door swung open and the Survivor clambered out. He did not waste time. He reached into the back of the car, where in the trunk he procured his equipment. Food supplies, bottles of water, an assortment of flash drives, five magazines and an old M4 Carbine. Looted from the corpse of a zombie soldier years ago, customized and modified extensively to suit his needs. The Survivor had faced innumerable horrors, but not one of them was bulletproof. If he was careful, then this was going to be quick.
The Survivor balanced over the rubble and made his way inside the complex.
Ground Floor
The hallway was desolate. An ominous blinking light hung over, precariously held and swinging by twisting wires. He stepped over the brutalised ruins of the turret, destroyed in his attempt at entry. The hallway was scattered with jagged debris, torn from the doors and car alike. He looked around the darkness of the hallway, noticing the faint shape of an old monitor behind a desk buried in dust. He approached, wiping the dust off the screen, turning it on and the ugly glare of blue light forcing him to squint. A little sticky-note attached to the screen had the password, which he typed in. Accessing the computer, there was nothing but a basic GUI. Elevator controls. With just a few clicks, the Survivor brought the elevator up. The doors to the end of the corridor whined with movement, then they opened to reveal an expansive Elevator.
The Survivor was used to devastation and ruined buildings, but the Elevator was untouched by time. Harsh lighting, walls pristine white. He approached cautiously, poking his head in and looking around like a deer in headlights. He looked behind at the rubble-strewn hallway and saw the morning sunlight from outside. He'll make this as quick as possible, and he'll be set for life. Safety and peace of mind. He stepped inside the elevator. The floor was chilly and smooth. He checked his weaponry, then double checked them. He ran final diagnostics on all bionics. All systems nominal.
He pressed the button. The elevator doors shut and he sealed the fate of the world forever.
The scientist had lured the scavenger.
You're going to help me fix this mess.
SHE grinned with a mouth of butcher knives.