The Courier eased himself out of the cot in the shipping container to see a man in baggy jeans, a red athletic jacket, and a red beret holding a container of paint thinner. A large table was placed against a wall, with several tubes, jars, cookware, and other assorted items occupying space. A strong smell of chemicals and urine permeated through the air, causing The Courier's nose to wrinkle in disgust. The other man in the room laughed and strode towards The Courier, brandishing a pistol in his hands. He placed it on the bed next to The Courier wordlessly and said: "You're lucky. You had a bad trip. I dragged your ass out of there before you shot someone."
"What? Bad trip?"
"You dropped acid, comrade," the man explained. He coughed into his arm and wiped his nose before gazing intently at The Courier, who was now struggling to stand. But The Courier's legs were shaky, and quickly gave way. Luckily, the man came over to help him back up.
"What the hell is acid?" The Courier asked bewilderedly. He had a throbbing headache and felt sore everywhere. He wanted to vomit.
"It's a drug. And believe me, comrade, I know my way around drugs." The man waved his hand over towards his table and drums of chemicals. "It's a very lucrative business."
"What? He drugged me?"
"I understand the confusion, comrade, but normally that kind of thing doesn't happen. I suspect you were unprepared for the... effects."
The Courier shrugged and replied: "I don't know."
"It's fine. You'll get it eventually. Now, say, I did not catch your name?"
"My name?" The Courier said as he scratched the back of his head. "The Courier."
"The Courier, eh? A man of his profession. My name is Tom Peterson. Captain, Tom Peterson."
The Courier raised his eyebrow. "Captain Peterson?" he asked.
"Yes, comrade."
"Heh. You're the guy I'm looking for."
"What a lucky coincidence," Captain Peterson replied with a similarly raised eyebrow.
"I'm looking for passage to Cleveland."
"That happens to be where I drive, comrade."
"So when does the ship leave?" The Courier asked as he started stretching his legs in front of Captain Peterson. Suddenly, some popping noises came from the table behind him and the captain excused himself to deal with it.
"Well, in about three hours. I'm almost done with the cook. I have a deal with the outpost in Cleveland."
"Three hours?" The Courier asked.
"Three hours."
"Alright. And where is your ship?"
"It's the Lenin, located at pier four."
"Okay."
"You can go down there. My first mate will check your baggage and get you a room. Just tell him Comrade Peterson sent you."
"Okay, got it."
"Alright?" Captain Peterson asked for confirmation as he poured a clear liquid into a glass vase.
"Alright. Thank you, captain."
The Courier waved his hand in a mock salute and started walking to the door. But Captain Peterson stopped him: "You forgot your gun."
"Oh, yes, thank you," The Courier said as he jogged back to the bed for his P226. He picked it up from the cot and carefully gave it an inspection for damage. There was none. The captain had gotten it back in quite a good condition. The Courier holstered it again and thanked the captain, who was monitoring a liquid column at his laboratory-like table.
"No problem, comrade. Now you can board my ship."
The Courier left shortly afterwards, and saw that he was on an elevated steel walkway. He was on a concrete pier with several shipping containers stacked like apartments, with two levels. He eyed a stairwell to his left, and immediately went down it to the ground. His next move was to find his Stryker, which was at Smokey's. He set out on his journey, and reached the familiar club thirty minutes later. The Courier got back into his vehicle with little difficulty, and activated the engine. He closed the hatches and gunned it down the alleyway, feeling a bump as he ran over some trash bags. The Courier nosed it out onto the street, and took the steps to find a path to pier four.
After another misadventure involving getting lost, he found the steamship. It was a large, metal-plated ship with several steam stacks jutting out from the side. The top deck had several distinct mounted guns, presumably to defend against hostiles coming from the shores of the narrow river running through Detroit and Sarnia. At the rear, a folding ramp was lowered onto the pier that led into a gigantic cargo bay filled with what appeared to be crates and munitions. A man in a reflective vest sat on a crate just off of the ramp, and he appeared to be startled by the beast of a vehicle appearing out of the buildings. The Courier chuckled as he drove the Stryker just up to the ramp, and then popped the top hatch to appear out of. "Good day, sir," The Courier introduced as the man scrambled backwards.
"Huh, what? Who? What the hell?" he stuttered.
"Are you this ship's first mate?"
"Y-yeah."
"Comrade Peterson sent me."
"Oh... Are you the man he took from the club?"
"Yeah."
"He told me about you... Are you looking for a boarding pass?"
"I need passage to Cleveland."
"Okay, okay. Are you bringing the vehicle?"
"Yes."
The man, obviously threatened, nodded. "Right this way," he said, gesturing towards the cargo bay.
The Courier waved thank you as he pulled into the cargo bay, upon which he parallel parked the Stryker between two large wooden crates marked: "Meth!"
He hopped out of the hatch and dropped to the metal-clad floor. The ship was built like an ironclad: sturdy and well-protected. It was obviously designed to withstand heavy attacks. The first mate had followed up the ramp and met with The Courier again. "Let me lead you to your room, where we shall discuss payment."
The Courier nodded, and followed the first mate towards the cabins near the bow of the boat. It took them a few minutes, but eventually The Courier was led to a dark, musty-smelling room with a single bed, desk, chair, and dresser. A window with an iron shutter was situated at the opposite wall, pulled down to shut out the daylight. The first mate walked towards the center and gestured to a lightbulb at the top. He pulled the cord, which then made the lightbulb shower flickering light over the room.
"Ship electricity?" The Courier inquired. The first mate nodded.
"We have a generator powered by steam like the engine. Captain Peterson worked hard to wire the ship. It can take a while to reach Cleveland, and he appreciates comfort for everyone."
"I see."
"Well, sir, now we must discuss payment."
"Payment for the passage? I believe I have an associate who's covered it for me."
The first mate raised an eyebrow. "Are you The Courier?"
"Yes."
"The, uh... Talent Agent sent me a letter and a package of ammunition as payment."
"I see."
"Well, I'm sorry to bother you, Courier. Everything is in order. I must return to my duties. Enjoy your stay."
And with that, the first mate left, leaving The Courier alone in his cabin. The shutter was still pulled down, and so The Courier turned the light off for total darkness. He was going to try and sleep off the headache.
The lakeside docks smelled of fish and smoke. Bernie had always found it an unpleasant place.The docks were lined with shanty taverns and whorehouses, each claiming to have beds. Sailors who dared to spend a night in one of these shacks often found themselves sleeping on straw beds in crowded back rooms. Most preferred to stay in the comfortable bowels of the ships they arrived on. Bernie didn't blame them. The smell of disease and stale alcohol wafted from the doorways as he went past, causing him to frown in disgust.
Bernie dodged the sailors and dockworkers as he made his way over to the ships. Men and women from other ends of the Lakes hocked a variety of wares straight out of the containers they had been shipped in. On any other day, Bernie would enjoy perusing the peculiar bobbles that the merchants brought. Wines from Mackinaw-Mackinak, Jewelry found by the explorers of Deep Harbor, and bright scarfs from Gaylord were gathered in a handful of small temporary stalls along the boardwalk. Even slavers moved their goods in the crowded seaside market. Though slavery was rare in Green Bay itself, slavers from the interior of the western coast brought captured men and women to be sold across the lake.
The ships were as various as the goods they carried. Smaller sailing ships were common, their masts rising like tall trees above the lakeside scenery. The smokey smell was attributed to the steam ships, which had grown increasingly popular over the last few decades. Their ability to move without relying on the fickle lake winds was worth the small cost of lumber fuel to manage them. Most of the steam ships still possessed sails, both as an insurance that they would not be stranded without fuel and as an option that gave captains better control of their vessels. Most of the ships were made from wood or light metals, with wood being the most popular of the two.
A ship painted in a thick layer of black alerted Bernie that he had found his destination. The slender steamship was marked with two great masts with their sails up. The front of the ship betrayed it's status as a fighting vessel. A long metal ram protruded from the bottom of the hull, the top of it slowly ascending toward the deck of the vessel and meeting with the bow spirit. The deck of the vessel was dotted with several smaller swivel cannons, allowing it to bombard other ships with relative ease. Bernie boarded the vessel.
The ship was empty save for one man. Bernie recognized the shadowy figure and greeted him politely.
"Captain Darcy. It looks as if you are getting ready to sail."
Darcy noticed his new employer and walked over to him. The Captain's black jacket and beanie contrasted with his pale skin, giving him a greyscale appearance. Despite his dreary color, Darcy bubbled as he reached out to shake the Despot's hand.
"Mr. Morgan" Darcy greeted enthusiastically. "I don't believe you have been on this beauty."
"I have been here once." Bernie replied, quickly pointing to one of the swivel cannons. "Those are new though."
"That's from your gold" Darcy grinned. "With that lot, this ship will be immortal."
"I think you told me that this ship was immortal the last time I was here." Bernie smiled.
"If there was any doubt, I think these guns will dispel it." Darcy retorted.
"That's good." Bernie nodded. "Remember, though. My money for your loyalty. Focus on Escanaba and her shipping lanes. I want to see their navy crippled before next spring."
"As long as I still get the loot, I am not going to argue." Darcy replied. "I'm your pirate"
The two men were interrupted by another familiar man wearing a long brimmed hat with a fluffy feather protruding from it's side. Bernie greeted him as they shook hands.
"Mr. Woolridge." Bernie spoke, "Where did you get the hat."
"My kind despot, this is a sailors cap." Woolridge responded, lighting adjusting the hat from it's brim. "This is what true sailors used to wear."
"I've met plenty of true sailors, but i've only seen hats like that when passing through Queer ports." Darcy chuckled.
"You must be popular in the Queer ports" Woolridge quipped. "I noticed the name of your ship. The Penetrator. Very colorful."
"I've got a name in those Queer ports." Darcy replied. "And the ship is popular there too. The name isn't a lie. This ram had opened more hulls then any other on the lake."
"I shudder to imagine." Woolridge chuckled.
"We were just talking about our investment." Bernie changed the subject, "Captain Darcy is getting ready to do our work on the lake."
"This is good." Woolridge nodded. "I like to see my investments pay off. If you capture any vessels, Mr. Darcy, I would be pleased to buy them from you."
The soft chirping of crickets in the soft cool August air was a soft calming relief from the sun of the day. Set on the old high-way glowed a soft orange light on the cracked asphalt. The pines that towered along the side of the road - their kin marching slowly to the road's edge as new saplings broke from the earth - gave a watchful vigil over the pair of men that sat camping in the road. Two solemn figures gathered around a small fire of sticks and leaves, a small make-shift soup pot hanging over the fire boiling.
Both stood in silent empty meditation staring into the hypnotizing dance of the flames. Their faces shrouded in thick black shadows and the soft illuminating warm orange. To studied men of the old world, the lighting and staunch faces, scarred by deep lines was like a baroque painting.
"How is id we can never get indo a bar." one of the two said in a depressingly empty, graveled voice, "Every dime we go do dine, or for you to sdare at your beer you ged angry."
"I don't like their songs." the other said, Charles DeSaille, "It summons a terribly memory of the south."
"How derrible could Detroid have been." said his partner cynically, "I'm seriously dhinking you only do dhis because you don'd like people!"
Charles was silent and drawn. A troubled guru who sat staring into the void emptiness in front of him. "You hear them yelling." he began, "It echoes in those towers. An inhuman war cry, you stand there with your brothers feverishly glancing up and down the street. Hoping, praying that their quarry was elsewhere. You're all hungry, you're all thirsty. You can't drink the native water. Or eat what grows there."
Charles paused, his glassy eyes flashing up to his partner, "You look into the overcast muddied sky. Inhuman in its color. Brown and black, tainted with sickly grays. Shrouding the sun it's blinded you from the heavens, and it glows dimly. There in the sickly scorched landscape you close your eyes and pray to Saint Remi that you are not to die.
"But the yelling and the screams do not stop. The ghouls draw closer at a feverish pace, and you can feel their voices peel at your skin. Already, you feel their teeth as you huddle together, crossbows drawn and blades at your hip as the sweat pools and wrecks you in a deep stench. Where ever you look the shadows grow thick and they close like knives."
Charles hesitated, licking his lips as he picked a large bowie knife from the ground next to him and poked the soup can. His follower leaned closer in curious. "Your heart turns to a frantic drum." he continued dispassionately, "Mouth turns clammy. As the war cries echoes. Peaking in rabid inhumane gnashing and shouts in strange tongues you realize the world has forsaken you. You're in Hell's corner alone.
"Then they come..."
"Who?" his follower asked.
"Detroiters." Charles said bluntly, "Scarred torn men with skin and flesh as black as the darkest night. Eyes a pale faded yellow as they charge you with a bloody cannibalistic furor. Snot and spit foaming from the mouth. It is no pretty sight seeing them charge, wearing unfortunate bones as armor and trailing skin flayed from their last bit of prey. Their bodies torn and scarred from the brutality of their life. Some come in bare-handed, with nails turned to claws from years of feral use. Some come with thick clubs tore from the old automobiles that choke their jungle. Many, if all nude as the day they crawled from Satan's womb trailing the viscera and blood of their birth.
"The singers in the bars, or the hunters they sit and gloat do not know nobility or terror. Their ignorance and arrogance tears at me. I've lost many friends, and nearly died myself scouting the area out. I've had burning bodies dropped on my canoes. Heads with every manner of sharp implement thrown at me. Great jagged swords torn from the bumpers of cars swung to my face.
"Their suffocating unearthly stench filling my nostrils as they tried to claw off my face, or the flesh from my very arm to feed their everlasting hunger.
"I fear for the life of every man who must sail between the Blue Water and Ambassador Bridges. I fear for the travelers who must walk through those terrible lands, or even around it. I fear for the communities that still eek out a living at the edge of oblivion and who sit awake at night preying those monsters do not scramble howling into their streets at night. And I hate those who, in their decadence and distance, do not know what it is like to even witness that Hell."
Owen gawked at the humble wooden cabins and windowless stone houses. The town looked alien to the young man. There was no asphalt. The dirt roads seemed almost quaint in comparison to the smooth blacktop that made up the streets of Green Bay. Owen had heard that the city of Heavenly Jerusalem had been built by the Witch Hunter and his followers from scratch, but he did not know what that would look like. Now he seen it, it seemed like a novelty from an ancient age.
Though it seemed odd, Owen liked the town. It bared no signs of decay. Own had spent his life living in the pealing ruins of buildings that had outlived their civilization. Every home in Heavenly Jerusalem seemed to make sense. There was no vestiges of a dead civilization. Everything had it's purpose.
The people were nearly as foreign. The women wore long dresses and covered their heads, whereas the men wore thick jackets and coats. Everyone carried themselves with a sense of humbleness. And everybody seemed to have a job. Every person that Owen passed was busy with one chore or another. Even the children could be seen drawing water from wells, or hunting the bushes for the eggs that the free roaming chickens left behind.
As they approached the center of town, Owen's attention was turned toward the church. The building was small, unlikely to fit many people. It consisted of a shed sized building that was twice as long as it was wide. The first half of the building was topped with a tall steeple. Rows of stone benches surrounded the entrance to the building. It was unlike any old church Owen had ever seen.
"You have your religion meetings outside?" Owen asked the Witch Hunter.
"The world is God's house." The Witch Hunter replied politely. "It seems fitting to worship him."
"Why build a church at all?" Owen persisted.
The Witch Hunter chuckled. "It is a sanctified building to keep the objects of God within. "We have candles and bibles inside. We also keep holy relics within. The bones of martyr's, a stone from heaven... we have several precious things inside of that building."
"There is also a ham that had the face of Christ emblazoned on it's face." Raphael added. "The Lord has shown himself to us in mysterious ways."
"Sounds like it" Owen replied, gawking at the building.
Passing the church, the made their way to the stables. An old man stood in front of the building holding the reigns to several horses. Seeing the Witch Hunter, the old man began to wave excitedly.
"Michael!" the old man bubbled, "I got you couple of dem nags. These'un's will suit your boys real fine. Real fine."
"You have done well." The Witch Hunter smiled, patting the man on the back. Turning to the horses, the Witch Hunter dug through the packs strapped to their backs.
"Looks like you got the supplies." He noted, turning around and smiling at the man.
"I did" the old man nodded fanatically. "Anything else you need?"
"No" The Witch Hunter shook his head. "I think we are fine.
"What now?" Owen inquired, looking into the sky. The sun had began to set.
"You can sleep in Raphael's cabin." The Witch Hunter noted. "Tomorrow, you will travel."
"And what's puzzling you, is just the, nature of my game!" he quietly sang in a sort of whisper-yell that you used when you want to be the only one who can clearly hear your own voice. And then suddenly he wasn't singing. He wasn't quite sure, but he had the same bizarre feeling that something was about to happen as he had had right before wotz-iz-face nearly blew his head off the previous day. Klaus glanced around nervously, and, spotting nothing, walked quickly to the edge of the trail. He quickly entered the treeline, and with some difficulty began climbing the steep hill that had suddenly appeared in front of him, his boots sinking into the leaves-on-loam muck that made up the ground. He habitually slung his rifle over his right shoulder, and carried it in front of him, quickly adjusting for the weight change.
Suddenly, Klaus broke free of the foliage and emerged into broad daylight, on top of a forested ridge overlooking a motorway some 100 metres away. If his slowly-failing depth perception was anything to go off of, the motorway was on a 'shelf' of sorts on a large hill, some 500 metres off the ground. The safety rails had long since either rotted or been stolen, but a few pockmarks in the ground at regular intervals and a section of rail laying nearby indicated that there had once been one. Beyond the shelf, he could vaguely make out a large settlement, most likely pre-End, some five-or-so kilometres from him. A convenient roadsign that was only green in a handful of places and heavily dented indicated that, 3km away, was a settlement called 'Gaylord'. Klaus smirked, but wasn't entirely sure why.
Movement drew his attention back to the motorway. Several vaguely-humanoid blobs, as well as one larger blob were slowly moving across his field of vision. He looked through the scope of his rifle to get a better look, and saw a scene that would perplex him for some time to come:
Four men, each invariably dressed in some bizarre array of pinks, purples, neon greens and blues, and many other minority colours were walking, armed, alongside a large metal contraption of some kind that was slowly rolling on six (he assumed, as only three were visible) deflated tyres, one of which was missing on the side he could see. He focused on the strange men's rifles for a moment, and saw that they were not the rifles that could hurt him at this range, but rather automatic pistols with rifle barrels, as evidenced by the lack of an obvious rifle clip.
Click. A hammer being drawn back. A cold, metallic, all-too-familiar something was pressing against the back of his head. Fear traveled faster than adrenalin, and his body slowly went numb from his head downwards.
"A bit lost, aren't you?" a voice asked. It was male, no mistaking it, but the inflections suggested that it was a woman saying it.
Gah, these people are weird. he thought, against all better judgement of what he should be thinking about.
"Just passing through, sir." he replied, trying to remain calm. He slowly, slowly pushed his rifle forwards, drawing the scope away from his eyes without moving his head, and lowered the barrel.
"Don't lie. You were about to kill them." the voice still had the odd, off-feminine inflections, further messing with his mind.
"From this range? Hardly. I was just seeing who it was." he replied, and silently prayed to whatever deity had abandoned Humanity before he was born that the man attacking him didn't know much about guns.
"Maybe, maybe. In that case, though, what are you doing here?" it was, quite honestly, beginning to drive him mad.
"Again, just passing through." he repeated. A bead of sweat, almost ice-cold, trickled down his forehead, and dropped from his brow and made a minute crater in the soil.
"Tell you what. You don't belong here," Klaus had to make a serious effort not to yell, you don't bloody say?! " so I'll be nice and give you thirty seconds to get out of here before I start shooting. Tick to-" Klaus was halfway down the hill by the time the man finished 'tick', and had turned right and started running parallel to the road, just barely hidden by the foliage alongside the road. He overtook the caravan at about the same time as he had to start breathing heavily to keep up his breakneck pace, and by the time he heard the strange man's alarm gunshots, he was out of breath and nearly 500 metres away (far out of range for any pistol). Truly, there was not better motivator than a pistol pressed against the back of your skull.
He stopped after another quarter-kilometre and bent over, gasping for breath. Under normal circumstances, 750m wouldn't be as difficult as it had just been, but laden down with three guns, ammo and supplies for a 30-day journey it had taken a lot out of him. Klaus stood up fully for a moment to get his bearings, and found that he was near another creekbed, the road left far behind. He made a quick judgement of his current safety, and promptly fell down on his back.
I think I'll stay here for a little while. he thought.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
We did not invent the Algorithm. The Algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The Algorithm killed Jeeves. The Algorithm is banned in China. The Algorithm is from Jersey. The Algorithm constantly finds Jesus. This is not the Algorithm. This is Close.
The soft thud of a full glass bottle coming down on the age worn wood of a desk echoed in the still listless office. A large bottle of wine had found itself onto the desk of Mark Krabarren. Sheparded by the hand of an aide to the adviser. Both he and the powerful Kabarren looked to be of the new breed of men born to the world. With suits trimmed and patched over in fur. The stray hairs shimmered in the late evening sun shining through the wide windows behind Krabarren.
Glancing behind him Krabarren wrung at his finger nervously. "Well," he began in a soft voice, "It's certainly late enough. But you're not woman." he added with a thin sarcastic grin.
"It's not why I'm here." the aid said in a cold serious voice, quite obviously not in a humorous mood, "We've received a multitude of reports and complaints from the wine barons discussing the prospects of a potential loss to be had in MMR provided wine at the face of a unknown competitor, or group of competitors."
Mark Krabarren cocked an interested brow. Sitting down in his seat he stirred his hand through the soupy, dusty air. "Continue." he said.
"Well," the aide began, reaching out and pushing the bottle of wine over, "This we feel is from the potential culprit."
Krabarren picked up the bottle of wine. It was in all nondescript and unassuming. A solid dark-green glass bottle. Inside sloshed a dark liquid that shimmered in the fiery orange light. Adhered to the side in a tacky amber sap was plastered a simple white label. "GranTra wine." he read aloud in a smooth unassuming voice.
"Do we know anything about GranTra?" he plied, looking up at the aide from the top of his eyes, slowly lowering the club-like bottle.
"No, not really." the other man said shrugging, "The merchant that I picked the bottle up from in my investigation said he got it while boating past Traverse. But as far as we know, it's been a dead region."
"Dead region!" Krabarren exclaimed in mockery, "Apparently not. So the barons say this could be a danger to our national market?"
The aid shrugged, "There's not much we can do with the soil around here. As we all know, it's not farmable, and what's planted is for family sustenance and rarely community sustenance. Grapes have been one of the things to actually fair well here, and the wineries have been a major, considerable income source alongside timber.
"I will have to agree with them, we may be out-competed when it comes to production if we ignore this."
A dark shadow wrapped itself around Krabarren's eyes as he turned his attention to the unassuming bottle at hand. "Strange though, prices have been going up."
"Apparently it grows by the year too." the aide said, "Merchants I've interviewed said they can get to buying more year after year. It's been ongoing for four years now."
Krabarren nodded, "Right." he sighed, "I'll speak with Nowalski tomorrow in the morning. This is something to consider then."
"So you're sure this neccesitates action, my boy?" said Nowalski rather shocked. His office was warm as the late-morning sun glided through the air. The windows facing out to the lake not far from the former hotel were thrown open, allowing a crisp summer's breeze to make its way through.
"Given the importance of the wineries in our economy," Krabrarren said, "I would say it indeed does. If we don't stomp out this competition with ever avaible means then we are looking at long-term collapse of a whole market. We will be able to cease to compete locally. Our trade influences over Escanaba and down the other way would be greatly threatened if the lake merchants discover a cheaper liqour to sell."
Nowalski was rather taken back, and perturbed. Leaning back in his chair he stroked at his chin and raped his fingers on the desk. "Is it neccesary to do it now?"
"Probably not," Krabrarren said, "we'd best to consolidate our resources for a good year before we need to make a move.
"I'm no general by any means, but I'm sure it would be best to investigate the situation."
Nowalski nodded, "It'd be sooner than I'd like to, good sir."
"T'would."
The republic's president turned in his chair and faced the window. A long thoughtful silence passed between the two men as the president considered the proposal. It was a considerably note-worthy event, and it weighed on him with a ton of bricks. He had entered office expecting that he could sail the Republic into far less conflict as to resolve the logistical pains caused by Darren's insistent campaigns.
"We may need to do it." he said suddenly, "I'm not going to be happy, but if we're to actually do something to atleast annex these territories and consolidate our monopoly in the region we will need action."
"Certainly." Krabrarren nodded, "And it need not approach the council just yet. They may not be fully aware of the situation. Our information gathering would be agreat service at least in convincing them to move."
"Indeed, my boy." Nowalski grumbled. Turning to the advisor he continued on: "I will trust you with a small purse, which I will hope you will use to find some private parties to head in our behalf. If we utilized any direct assets the council would be made aware eventually for sure and begin asking questions.
"I will speak to the generals too." he said with a sigh, "Speak with them on if they can make efforts to accumilate some form of leverage which to use.
"How long so expect this to go on for, sir?"
"I would imagine a year would be ample." Krabrarren said, "Study which wineries are open, who is working what, how strong they are, if there's weaknesses we can take advantage of. The normal stuff."
“Less get these ‘auled in, I still need ter check the casks.” A thick patch of bramble surrounded them, but they knew better. Hidden under the shrubs and weeds were a handful of grape vines, which they were harvesting. “If ye get started with the pressing, I’ll be along ter help after, a’ight?” There was a quick affirmative issued and the men picked up the bottom half of a barrel and started carrying it back through the thicket. The duo didn’t seem to know much about viticulture, so it wasn’t clear if they were trying to conceal their product in the brambles, or just didn’t know better than to clear it out.
Then, suddenly, they were gone. A gust of wind was all it took to knock away a stray maple leaf that had been resting on one of the bushes. Why was their existence tied to the position of a leaf? The answer was the small spot of light, a specific wavelength of infrared that had called the leaf home. It flickered and pulsed with such minuteness that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to notice if they could even see it, but that’s where a lovely piece of scavenged ingenuity entered the stage. An amplifier circuit, connected to a tiny little photodiode, pumped into a pair of heavily insulated earmuffs. The whole thing was strapped onto a pair of binoculars, wrapped up in gaffer’s tape, in the hands of a German expatriate, on a rock, some distance away. The sewing needle used as a target for aiming the laser really wasn’t too much of an obstruction to his vision to be unable to continue watching the men, but it wasn’t overly important.
“Chris, that’s enough. Let’s get something to eat and debrief.” The lightly bearded man yawned and rolled over to sit up. He unwrapped the wire from the prong on the battery running the contraption and dropped down into the cluster of rocks they’d called home for the past week. Every day pretty much played out like this one, Lars and Chris perched up on the rocks, one with a rifle; the other with binoculars; watching.
“They’re harvesting again.” Lars nodded. “They might be the worst farmers I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s a bit harsh, I don’t think we could raise a crop if it stood between us and starvation. Didn’t you see that stockpile they’ve got? That kind of hardware doesn’t find it’s way into the hands of people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“They coulda stole it.”
“Please? You saw them hunting. Maybe Jacob could kill a man. The rest of them couldn’t hit a caravan even if they wanted to pull the trigger; they’re farmers. Anyway, yeah, I noticed the harvest too. I wonder why they don’t clean up the fields, they might be able to see things were ripe easier.”
Waiting in the deepest recesses of the rocky formation here outside the largest settlement as far as they could see was a horrible thing to call a meal: some rabbit jerky and old biscuits. But it didn’t require a fire, and they couldn’t risk detection. Not yet.
“Mikhail, you’re on watch.” He was curled up with a pile of parts, trying to fashion some new gizmo. “Where’s the dynamo?” As he stood up to leave, he handed Lars a bit of metal and plastic stripped out of an emergency radio. It was the handcrank they used to recharge the handful of batteries they kept to run whatever needed running. Mostly their radios every now and then, and the optical mic when they were on surveillance. It worked well enough in a pinch while their jeep was out of commission, fuel-less, hidden in a thicket a few clicks away. Of course, the spark plugs were in Lars’ pocket, just in case anyone found it.
It had been a day since The Courier departed from Bay City, onboard the SS Lenin. The steamship chugged slowly through the calm waters, its hulking iron figure silhouetted against the sunset in the evening. Smoke bellowed out of its three smokestacks located to the port side of the aft, right next to the cargo bay. Those in turn powered a small paddle-like motor beneath the cargo ramp, which was largely hidden underwater. The inefficient placement combined with the small size of the motor drastically reduced its speed, but the Lenin still attained a modest twelve knots top speed. All in all, the ship wasn't exactly a speedy blockade runner like some of the other, more lithe craft. This was further evidenced by the large top deck, which contained several iron-plated panels with rifle slots in them. On this deck, various crewmen milled about; some standing guard along the rails with bolt-action rifles, while others carried crates around. There were about sixty sailors onboard, mostly young teenagers looking for food and lodging. They were necessary, seeing as it was a gigantic ship; easily one of the largest in the bay. It was also the most heavily armed and armored. But it was justified as something of a necessity, seeing as the ship was the only one that ran the infamous "Detroit Route."
The Detroit Route was the pathway from Bay City to the explorers and scavengers at Cleveland, who went through the wastelands to find anything of value. The SS Lenin was their main resupply vessel, and delivered food, water, and narcotics to the men there in exchange for old-world relics. The Detroit Route was so named because it ran through the St. Clair River, and by extension, Detroit. It was a ravaged city, wrecked both by old-world poverty and financial difficulties, and by post-war infighting and border skirmishes with displaced Canadians looking to escape the north-moving radiation clouds from the nuking of Ohio. A common joke around the area was that Detroit looked exactly the same as it did before the end, and from the stories circulated it seemed to be true. But while there was no civilization, there were still deranged murderers. Reapers prowled through the city and surrounding countryside, looking for victims to devour. They were the primary problem for the Detroit Route, and the ones that were the cause for the Lenin's heavy armament. The Reapers would climb up the angled sides of the ship, and leap onboard to wreak havoc on the hapless crewmen. Other difficulties included navigating the wrecks of refugee vessels on Lake St. Clair, which was a tricky job. Bandits also tried to pillage the Lenin, knowing its valuable cargo.
The Courier rested on a tarp-covered crate on the top deck as the sun went below the horizon, casting an orange light on the water. Winds gently blew about him, whipping his grey jacket around playfully. The Courier had his arms clasped behind his head as he stared up at some clouds, enjoying the smells of the sea and the coast. It was a much different place from inland. Part of him thought that he should have become a sailor. That certainly seemed like a much more exciting and much less dangerous career opportunity than being a simple mailman through hostile territory. He could travel without getting shot at, and that was a plus in The Courier's book. In fact, he enjoyed his time so much that he barely noticed Captain Peterson behind him, clutching a dull SVD rifle in his hands. "Having a nice time, comrade?" he asked. "Are you doing okay?"
"Me?" The Courier replied, moving his head backwards to look back at Captain Peterson. The image was upside-down, owing to his perspective.
"Yes, comrade. I trust you are feeling well?"
"Yeah, sure."
"The trip wore off?"
"I guess," The Courier answered. He shrugged.
"Eh. Good. I'm sorry your first experience with acid was that ty, comrade."
"Well, it certainly put me off it for a while," The Courier said with a grin.
"It's a wonderful drug if you do it right. I've had fantastic experiences."
"Hmm? Like what?" The Courier then moved to sit up on the edge of the crate, finding his current position uncomfortable. As he did this, Captain Peterson shifted the SVD's weight in his hands idly.
"I saw a monster in the lake," Captain Peterson recalled. "Right there."
His hand pointed vaguely towards the open sea in front of the bow.
"I wouldn't have if it weren't for the acid. It heightens your reflexes."
"Are you sure you weren't seeing things, captain... eh, err... 'comrade'? When I took it, I thought I was in some otherworldly place. Like the Hell those people at Green Bay preach about."
"No... It was real. I slew it."
"Slew a monster?" The Courier asked skeptically.
"With this very weapon, comrade." Captain Peterson gave the SVD a small shake.
The Courier made a face of disbelief, slightly rolling his eyes in the process. Luckily, Captain Peterson was still fixated on the horizon, staring off at the sea with a blank gaze.
"I see," The Courier replied. And then he tried to change the subject: "So what is this 'comrade' thing about?"
"Comradeship, comrade?"
"I guess," The Courier answered again, with yet another shrug.
"Well, we are all equals. All comrades in this world. Our lord, Marx, came to Earth many thousands of years ago to proclaim this."
"Who is Marx?" The Courier asked, his head cocked slightly to the side. Captain Peterson, hearing this question, turned his head to look The Courier in the eye.
"The liberator. The equalizer. He made all men comrades in this world, with his Communistic teachings. He told men to share, and to be equal. But of course the Bourgeoisie tried to silence him. They tortured him with the sickle, and nailed him to a cross with the hammer."
"A cross? Isn't that Jesus?"
"The Green Bay's prophet? No, they are mistaken, comrade. Their Jesus's story is actually Marx's. I think it is a simple misunderstanding."
"Right," The Courier said with a slow nod. "So this Marx..."
"Marx's spirit then left his body, and shattered into a billion pieces. One for every soul on the planet."
"A billion pieces? Were there really a billion people?"
"Oh, yes. At the very least."
The Courier was dumbstruck. "That's... a lot," he remarked.
"Yes. And Marx gave his soul to everyone. And so they set up nations following his example. The Soviet nation was one, but it was crushed under the boot-heel of the Bourgeoisie. So the ones strong with his Communistic philosophy scattered to start smaller, more easily hidden Communist nations. I myself am descended from preacher of Marx. That is why I set up my ship here. To give equality to as many men as I can without attracting the Bourgeoisie. It is a shame I can't give it to all my worldly comrades, but the Bourgeoisie will catch me. They are near omnipresent, but Marx's fragmented spirit tries his hardest to keep them distracted."
"I see," The Courier repeated. This was very strange indeed.
"I would die for any one of my comrades. Their life is worth as much as mine, and mine theirs."
The Courier nodded, as Captain Peterson went back to staring at the horizon.
"It will be curfew soon," he mentioned, jarringly changing the subject again. "I trust your accommodations are suitable, comrade?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Don't mention it, comrade. Tomorrow, we shall sail to the mouth of the St. Clair River. The day after that, we shall begin the most dangerous part of the journey. Be ready and be rested."
Globs of blackened smoke rose from the stacks of the black ship as it cut through the nervous waters of the great lake. It's captain stood proudly on the bow. The erratic winds violently whipped at his black coat. The overcast skies had moistened the air. Lake spray and mist only served to gladden the pale pirate. It was perfect weather for a raid. The mist allowed the ship to slip in and out of obscurity. An unready target yielded greater rewards. Darcy scanned the horizon intently, hoping to catch sight of a victim.
His crew scurried behind him as they attended to their duties. The gunners sat in the center of the deck and played checkers as seaman restfully mopped around them. Sailors attended to the great white sheets that hung from the masts, adjusting the lines as they needed to. The dull work inspired them to sing in order to pass the time. Every man bellowed in their deepest voice in order to add to the chorus. The lyrical sound only barely managed to overpower the loud crashes of the lake against the vessel's hull.
"There is a pearl in Traverse, That I want for me"
"All the sailors want her, but mine she will be"
"You can't take your Escanaba girls and put them in the bay"
"The shining pearl in Traverse will be mine some day"
A sharp whistle interrupted the carol. Captain Darcy turned his attention upward, where the sound had erupted. The look out was hanging by an arm and wagging a finger toward the horizon. "It's a ship! A ship, sir!"
Darcy quickly shipped around and pressed himself against the railing at the front of his ship. He took a pair of binoculars from his belt and focused them in the direction the lookout had claimed to see a vessel. Mist rapidly gathered on the lenses, obscuring his vision. He took a piece of cloth from his pocket and cleaned the glass.
It was a ship. The small wooden vessel bobbed alone in the water. It's flag was obscured by the distance. Darcy fidgeted with the binoculars, bringing the ship into focus. Squinting, he managed to make out the flag.
"Mr. Balecock" he shouted as he turned toward his crew. The plump, middle aged figure of his First Mate scurried toward him.
"Y-Y-Y... Y-Yes captain?" Balecock stuttered, spit flying from his lips with every letter.
"Get everyone on deck" Darcy roared. "And load the guns, we're have prey."
An approving cheer bellowed from the crowd of sailors, who quickly got to work preparing the vessel for battle. Balecock shouted angrily as he ran across the ship and quickly descended into the hatch. "Get on d-deck you lazy s-s-s-sons of h-h-h-huh-whores!" Men flooded out of the bowels of the vessel, scattering to their stations among the excitement.
Quickly, the slim black vessel cut through the water and came upon it's target. As they approached, the pirates unfurled their flag. The red-brown square of cloth began to thrash in the wet wind. With the flag up, Darcy gave the order to fire.
The swivel cannons on the deck of the ship opened fire, splintering their victim. Clouds of wood and sawdust burst from it's deck. Darcy pulled a grenade from his vest and lit it. He wasted no time in lobbing it toward the other ship.
The Escanabans responded. Bullets and arrows alike whizzed into the pirate ship and it's inhabitants. Darcy ducked as several grenades landed on the deck. The explosions sent splinters of wood shooting through the air at violent speeds, wounding several sailors.
The pirate's swivel guns replied, delivering concentrated fire and causing the enemy sailors to scatter. The two vessels were now divided by several feet. The pirates tossed planks of wood into place in order to bridge the two ships. As grenades and gunfire flew chaotically through the air, a wave of privateers began to cross to the other vessel. Captain Darcy was quick to join in the attack. Grinning manically, he fired wildly at the hapless sailors on the defending ship.
The two embattled boats fiercely jerked away from each other as a wave struck them. Several pirates fell from the wooden planks linking them. Their futile screams quickly disappeared below the waves, and the attack went on without them.
Landing on the enemy deck, Darcy and his men drew their motley weapons and began to dispatch the Escanabans. Knifes and swords met spears and harpoons. Balecock screamed manically as he burst through a man's head with a sledgehammer. Blood mixed with water and sloshed along the deck. A light rain had replaced the mist. Flashes of gunpowder reflected from the droplets, and the fog seemed to muffle their sound.
Darcy tossed a grenade down the hatch. The explosion was followed by the pain filled screams of the men who had been mutilated by the blast. The pirate captain smiled and moved on. The enemy sailors were growing scarce. Those who had surrendered were already being gathered on deck as the last of the fighting still roared. As the last corpse fell, a sudden silence came over the boat.
A line of prisoners was placed on deck. The pirates drove the last to surrender out of the bowels of the ship, shoving them as they emerged from the hatch. Darcy inspected the captives with his First Mate in tow. They were bloodied and dressed in rags. Only a young man at the end of the line wore nice clothes. Darcy stopped in front of him.
"You would be the captain of this vessel?" he inquired, looking down on the belittled man.
"Yes" the defeated captain admitted.
Darcy nodded. "What is the name of your ship and what is it's business?"
"This is The Spirit of Menominee" The other captain informed, "We were delivering goods we bought in Mackinaw"
"Mackinaw?" Darcy chuckled, "I might have to take a few crates of wine into my personal possession. Your men will help us load your stuff into our vessel."
The captive captain nodded submissively. As the smirking pirates led the Escanaban crewmen to began their work, the Escanaban captain began to stand up in order to help. Darcy quickly placed his hand on the Captain's shoulder and pressed him down. "You won't be goin with them. I'm takin' you into my personal possession." He winked. The enemy Captain fell numbly back onto his knees.
Quickly, the Escanabans rushed their boxes and barrels across the planks, delivering them to their captors. The two Captains watched the work unfold. As the last of the booty was loaded, Darcy led the captive back to the pirate's ship. The remainder of the Escanabans were ferried back on their ship. The two embattled vessels pulled away from each other. The captive captain watched as his boat and the remainder of his men slowly began to move away.
Once they were away from the defeated ship, several cackling pirates tossed jugs of Naptha at it. Fire burst on the deck of the Escanaban vessel and quickly began to consume it. The Escanaban captain watched in horror as his sailors and their boat were cooked.
Darcy grinned as he grabbed his horrified captive by the shoulders. "Come on." he intimidatingly whispered, "Let's get you below deck."
The Captain of the ranger expedition to find new cities to spread Freedom, love and happiness to is out of water. On the cracked highway, that's like a desert in the middle of a city the temperature's just getting worse. The boy scouts are also feeling the heat, as are the horses who are walking slower than ever. One of scouts, an indian seventeen year old, asks "If the horses knock out do we eat them?"
The captain looks back with a red face at the indian kid, and states "If we don't find anything in a couple days I will granted the right to eat your horse. You can't just eat the horse whenever you want, for all you know in just a few miles we might find a fast food restaurant with a few remaining cheeseburgers in it! Or at the very least some fries, or water or something. Let's just keep moving forward, and not look back."
"Got it, Sir!" The Indian juvenile gladly in his childish indian accent, despite the heat of the sun replies.
Looking forward through the mirage on the straight tract of high way through the place a large puddle of water is seen by the Captain, who's desperate for some liquids. The captain tells his scouts in a certain, commanding and texan tone, "Boys, straight ahead there's water! Giddy up, we're getting that water!"
The scout group holsters their horses, and makes them run even in their deteriorating condition. The group collective rushes to the water, but there was no water. It was just an illusion. One of the white scouts asks "What water?"
"I swear to god I saw a big puddle of water just a hundred feet ahead. Now it's gone!" The Captain laments in frustration, so he just reiterates to his group, "Well, let's just keep moving forward, there's no turning back now!"
Suddenly, a noise is heard. The quick moving of footsteps is heard, getting louder and louder. One of the scouts look back, and is wide eyed, jaw dropped at what he sees. A mob of mad men are coming at them from behind!
"Psychos!" The fat little white boy shouts out loud, catching the attention of his peers. His peers and even the captain look backwards.
"God help us all." The captain in horror says under his breath, before shouting "Run!"
The group with their horses start galloping away from the oncoming mob, the mob however keeps persisting. They never stop coming, never tiring or weakening. Meanwhile, the horses are tiring and weakening from the already poor conditions they were in before being force to gallop away from a mob of psychopathic cannibals.
One of the boy's horses suddenly faints, the horse falling to its side with the boy scout on the horse. Boy boy scout hits his head on the hard concrete. He gets out his revolver, and starts shooting like hell at the oncoming horde, incapacitating a couple of the zombies before he is overwhelmed. The rest of the group run on without him, to save their own skins.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
One day, there will be someone who looks at my signature and wonders "who gives a damn?"
Owen treaded carefully down the muddy slope. A light rain the night before had loosened the dirt and brought the small winding creek bed in front of him to life. The patter of trickling water soothed the young man's nerves. He had never been this far from his home. What little time he has spent in nature had been along the same familiar trails near Green Bay. He had known those places, and what he could expect to find when wandering around them. He was not so sure about what lurked this far in the wilderness.
His guide was not as nervous. Raphael watched patiently as his horse drank from the creek. They had chose to lead their horses through the thick brush of the forest. Raphael was avoiding the larger trails and old roads. Thieves and cannibals lurk along the old highways. The rough looking ranger had been insistent on this fact. There were only two of them. Owen had never been in a fight. He was certain that he would only get in the way.
The young man stepped down from the muddy slope and onto the stones that dotted the creek bed. His horse slid down to him and found it's footing in the water.
Owen looked up at his guide. "How do you know which direction we are going?" he inquired.
Raphael looked up. Long grey strands of his ragged hair flopped across his forehead. "The sun" he stated abruptly, pointing into the sky. "It goes from east to west. Besides. I know this creek."
"How far have you been?" Owen asked.
Raphael looked back at his horse. "South to Milwaukee. East to Waupaca. I spent some time in Yooper territory."
"Yooper" Owen exclaimed, "I've heard they eat babies."
Raphael smiled. "I don't know about that." he said, "But they are a wild bunch. When I was in Escanaba, I saw a man drink three jugs of moonshine before hunting. He went into the woods and killed a wolf bare handed."
"Bernie says we might go to war with Escanaba" Owen responded.
"Maybe" Raphael looked up into the woods. "They are a hard people. I expect a lot of good men would die in that war."
Bernie did not respond. He turned back to his horse and ran his hands through it's mane. He could feel the pulse of the creature's muscles as it drank. An inquisitive look came over his face and he looked back toward the older man.
"What would you do?" He inquired.
"What would I do about what?"
"If you were in command. What would you do about the war?"
Raphael grinned. "Nothing." he said softly, "It's not my place to lead."
"I would stop it." Bernie answered ."I don't think we need a war. Now with the rabid's moving into the countryside. We can't afford it."
Raphael's expression grew grim. "We should get moving." he stated, patting his horse on the neck. "We need to move south and find a suitable place to camp."
A rancid smell pumigates the place, waking up to the smell is atrocious. Rotting flesh everywhere, bones littered all over... The Boy Scout who last remembers shooting for his life at these mad man awakens. His head still is bruised from falling of his horse, but he remembers that he was with his group scouting to find new populations to liberate from the democrats. Clearly that mission's gone astray! He hears the noise of mad men running around, shouting obscenities and all sorts of unpleasantness.
The Boy scout gets himself out if the meat pile and finds a dark spot to hide in, a vent duct. He however hears some of the democrats talking, and stays hidden in the vent duct hoping they go away.
"So I tell 'er ill mak a meet steek, a bik wun for 'er!" one bellows
"Oh yer? I got the beegist meet stick dere is, shee will luv mor den any steeks o meat you'd evr mak!" The other one, a particularly big boned one with no clothing except a horn covering his penis proudly claims back.
"Oh re'ly?! Nao how bout yu 'nd mee fight for de meet steeks." The little scrawny man with bravado demands.
"I'll whip yuor 'ss so he'd you'll cri lik a lil babee boy! You deat meet now!" The big boned one with a crazy look in his eye bawls in fury as he punches the little scrawny one, who is knocked on his ass by the big one. Than the big one as an act of cruelty sits on him and than starts asking him "So hoaws your dae been 'nyways? Feel in' down?"
"Git your fat 'ss offa me!" Scrawny little man starts shouting.
During this altercation the Boy Scout tries sneaking around the place, trying not to step on any of the flesh hoarded up in the storage room. They may be psychos with brain damage, but this Boy Scout knows that these democrats are smarter than they look and act; after all they staged a very nasty ambush that may have killed the rest of his group for all he knows.
The boy scout's creeping around rewards him greatly, as it turns out they aren't good at hiding things. His gun was just placed in some stinky muck, with a few bullets still in the chamber.
The Boy Scout however hears a couple of the democrats nearing his position. To avoid being eaten alive or worse he hides in one of the storage racks of the facility and prays to god the democrats don't find him. That would be awful if they did, for than they'd likely preach to him about equality and rainbows all day or give speeches about accepting cannibals as normal citizens in everyday society and try to pass bills about the legal right to eat other people without their consent. That's exactly what a democratic scummie is like, and even this little Boy Scout realizes that.
Thankfully, those two brain messed democrats pass by and don't notice him, they were talking about sticks of meat like the other two were for some lady. Though these ones talked about sharing their meat instead. How socialist of them.
As Michael traveled north, the roads shrunk into the earth. Brush and vine had retaken the ground. It slowed his journey and forced him to lead his mule slowly through the obscured pebbles that marked the ground asphalt had once ran. It was no matter. He was in no hurry. King Walter was not known for his hospitality. The bent old goat was an unpleasant person to spend any time with it, but business was business. The situation in Green Bay was deteriorating. Bernie had never been the most politic leader, but his poor judgement was starting to come with increased danger. This new world made sure that internal conflicts were payed for with tenfold the woe they were worth.
The road slowly gave way to a clearing, revealing the cabins and huts that surrounded the small village of Fish Creek. All of the original buildings had been gutted to make the new, as the locals did not trust the old construction. Michael found no reason to disagree. The older buildings in Green Bay were prone to catch fire, if they did not collapse first. Only the structures made from brick or stone resisted the elements, and even they shared their own dangers.
Barefoot children dashed from their games to catch a glimpse of the strange traveler as he made his way through the town. They kept a cautious distance. Strangers were rare this far north. The Door Peninsula produced little more then mud and fish, and the south had plenty of that for themselves. It's small population had unwanted land had protected it from the worries that most of the country had suffered at the end of the world. The lack of shipments had forced them to make their own tools, and find their own food, but neither had been particularly difficult. The soil was rocky, but it could sustain small gardens and grazing animals. What couldn't be grown in dirt could be fished from the lake.
Chickens ran freely alongside goats near the center of town. Here, the remnants of the old buildings could still be seen. Unwanted foundations had been filled with dirt and sand to keep animals or children from falling into them at night. The crumbling road had been stomped into the mud, and little repairs had been done. Michael mused about how quick things had degraded. When he was a child, great shining towers dominated the sky near the cities, and every road stretched wide enough to accommodate several cars. In little more then a lifetime, man had reentered the dark age. This must have been what Romans thought as they left their ancient city and found themselves in the capitals of the Franks and Angles. A disgusted sort of awe.
Before the road met the sea, her turned left and made his way up a hill. The Kings Compound had been constructed around an old mansion. This was true of many Doorish Compounds. The King found himself in competition with several other families which had grown important after the collapse. Oftentimes, it was those with collections of guns who found themselves on top. Well armed parties could be formed around such people. It rarely mattered how well they had done before the event. In the land of uncertainty, the paranoid man was king.
Michael made his way to the guard post in front of the compound. A crude wooden gate guarded the post, flanked by palisade walls that encircled the building. It was a simple form of defense, made to hold back raiding parties. If the Doorish ever found themselves in a true war, their compounds would serve as little more then a small nuisance for their enemies.
"Salutations!" Michael greeted in a friendly tone. The two guards stood still near the gate. Their were garbed in leather armor, and both men held long spears in their hands.
"I am The Witch Hunter" Michael continued, "I wish to meet your King."
Both guards continued to stare. "Are you armed?" one of them responded aggressively.
"Yes." Michael confirmed. He pulled his forearm blade from it's holster on his back and handed it to the man. Next, he pulled a pistol and several knifes from his belt. "That should do it." he said.
"You're free to enter." the guard replied. "We do not want to hold a member of the council back from his duties. In the name of King Walter of the Peninsula, Welcome."
The wooden gate slid open along a muddy cleft in the ground, revealing the house that served as the King's keep. It had once been a three story home; the sort that overpaid professionals would buy to show off to their own kind. Its many rooms served the purposes of its new owner much more functionally then it ever did for its old. The keep could hold a host of servants and courtiers, leaving plenty of rooms for guests. More guards milled around in its courtyard. The King was paranoid, and rightfully so. There were other well off men with compounds of their own who wanted to be King. The position was contested, especially as the King entered a sullen old age.
As he entered the building, he was greeted by the strong smell of fish being smoked over wood-fires in the kitchen. A small man greeted him before he entered the Throne room.
"Witch Hunter." the man said, the words pouring sharply from his lips. "The King is ill, I am afraid. Let me show you to your room."
"When will the King be well?" Michael inquired. "I have important business with him."
"I do not know." the small man said. He walked briskly toward the stairs and beckoned for Michael to follow.
"You can stay in your room for now." the man continued, "We will bring you a supper. The chef has a corn chowder in the cauldron as we speak, so it should be done soon. If you want beer, we have some of the finest in the basement. I could fetch some..."
"I don't drink." Michael interrupted. "Will I be able to see the King today?"
"No." the man responded bluntly. "Perhaps this coming morning. Would that suit you?"
"Is there any other choice?" Michael asked.
"No."
Michael shrugged off his coat. "I guess it will suit me then." he responded. The small man opened a door at the end of the hall. "This will be your room." he smiled coldly, "I hope you enjoy it."
Michael entered. The air was chilly. A raw wooden bed lay at the end of the room, draped with a cotton blanket. Michael placed his coat on the end of the bed and kicked his boots toward the corner of the room.
The mouth of the St. Claire River seemed to spew trash and filth into the blue waters of Lake Huron. Murky and brown, it was littered with old cans and other small objects. There were even things like washing and drying machines littered about the shores in defensive positions. Cars were especially prevalent on either side, continuing to form barricades. The other thing that popped out was the abundance of skeletons floating in the water of lying on the sands. They held rusty pieces of metal with rotted wooden stocks: guns from forty years ago. It appeared that it was the scene of defense against the Canadians on the other side of the river, or vice versa. But whatever it was, the event that destroyed the Old War had spurred these people to flee away from their homes in desperation. As the riverboat steamed downriver even more, the crew onboard could spot hundreds more skeletons covered in the filth of Detroit's nearest river, as well as mounds of discarded items and vehicles. But this was normal to them, as they had covered this route dozens of times. For The Courier, however, it was not.
The Courier stood over the starboard gunwale of the Lenin as he watched the buildings of Detroit start to appear from out of a smoky mist. They were ruined and dilapidated, but with no moss and vines growing over them. The ground was far too polluted for life, after the Old World factories had broken down and spewed their chemical products over the land and into the water. Combined with the trace radiation from the Ohio Wasteland, plants would never be able to grow again in Detroit for the rest of maybe four or five generations. But it wasn't like anyone would want to visit Detroit. The skyscrapers and buildings now gliding out of the fog were ruined. Large patches of them had fallen off and crumbled, roofs had collapsed inwards, and potholes in the roads were turned into massive shell crater-esque pits. All the metals had failed to escape corrosion, resulting in a city more orange than grey. The city even smelled of smoke, although the fires had long since passed. All in all, it was a black spot on the map. Desolate, ruined, and inhospitable to human life. Yet that was no problem for the Reapers.
The Reapers were what The Courier feared the most on the Detroit Route. Their shrieks were enough to put any man into a state of unmatched fear. Their hunger for human flesh, caused by some sort of virus or radiation poisoning, made them crazily dedicated to the point of being okay with suffering bodily harm for their goals. But even worse than that was their ability to use weaponry like knives and clubs, and sometimes even guns. Lifetimes of running around had made them highly athletic as well, and so they could outrun and out-climb a human being. They had been known to crawl up the sides of passing ships to slaughter their crews: a fact supported by the abandoned hulks of ships beached on the shores of the St. Claire River. Their hulls were covered in dried blood, and mutilated skeletons or half-decomposed corpses hung from the sides with crude rope. It was as if the Reapers knew the very sight of their victims would instill fear and weakness into the humans passing through. And it seemed to be working, because all of the riverboat Lenin's crew was at arms along the gunwales.
The Courier was among them, standing at the starboard bow with his M4 pointing at the shore. The mist had intensified, rendering his line of sight incredibly short. It added to the tense atmosphere of the journey through Detroit, darkening the skies and causing goosebumps to form on his skin. There was absolute silence on the riverboat's deck, instilled by a harsh petty officer who wanted absolute discipline from his crew. Captain Peterson was on the bridge nearby, directing the Lenin's journey through the perilous waters. The result was an eery feeling running through every one of the crew. This would certainly be the situation for the next few days as they sailed down the river, sputtering along slowly and attracting the Reapers as always. Sleep would be limited, downtime would be nonexistent, and the tension would be at a boiling point. The sheer psychological stress caused by the Reapers would be enough to expose fatal cracks in the riverboat's defenses. Captain Peterson and his men had done this all before, but sooner or later luck would catch up with them.
The boat sailed slowly along for another three hours, gliding through the maze of rotted and abandoned ships that cluttered the river. Some of them appeared newly scavenged, the blood fresh and the bodies still with scraps of new flesh attached to their torsos and heads. Every one of them screamed out in sheer terror, and evidence of their painful deaths could be seen in the cracked bones and portions of skull that seemed to have been bitten off. The Lenin sailed perilously close to each one of these dead ships, allowing for the crew to observe them all in excruciating detail. Even The Courier, who had seen similar atrocities before, felt an icy ball form in his stomach as they passed by a banner on the bridge that read: "DIE" in blood. Handprints and splotches of the fluid were scattered around the simple, terrifying message as well. It reminded everyone that the Reapers were both intelligent and fearsome. Further reminding them of imminent death were the quick, jarring movements seen in a variety of places. Sometimes a shape would move through a porthole, or a black figure would run across the top of a bridge. But nobody had a chance to fire upon them, before they disappeared into the fog.
The ship continued moving onwards, past the clogged entrance to Detroit. Now they were in slightly more open waters, but it still felt as claustrophobic as before. The Lenin small, black frame continued to glide low to the river, trying to hide amongst the ruins from the observers all around it. But Captain Peterson knew it wouldn't work, and soon ordered the ship to move to the center of the river. By putting space in between them and the shores, the Lenin would face fewer risks of Reapers jumping onboard. Yet they still had to worry about the Reapers who could swim, and then climb up the sides or the anchor. They were the biggest threat, seeing as nobody could see them until it was too late. The Courier kept his rifle trained on the boats far away, watching keenly for anything at all. Every few minutes, he noticed movement all around, and felt that he was being watched. Trying to shake off and subdue the terror he felt, The Courier began to close his eyes and take deep breaths. At the bow of the ship, he stood there. He willed his muscles into relaxing, and his heart rate into slowing. He tried to think of a peaceful place. Maybe a long, peaceful stretch of grassland. Nobody would be there to disturb him. No Reapers, that's for sure. The Courier felt himself calm down as the image visualized in his head.
And then he felt something fall on his shoulder. The Courier panicked, thrusting around with his M4 held by the barrel in an attempt to crush the skull of whatever had surprised him. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw the petty officer's face. Unable to stop the rifle's momentum, The Courier tried to divert it downwards. The petty officer, meanwhile, held out his hand to stop it. The rifle came to a jarring stop, causing no bodily harm to anyone. The petty officer was mildly amused, his face jolly. "Surprise you, son?" he asked.
"Sure as fuck you did!" The Courier exclaimed. "I thought you were a fucking Reaper!"
"That's natural. Everyone gets the heebie-jeebies their first time around. You're the passenger, right? The Talent Agent's man?"
"Yeah," The Courier replied as the petty officer offered the rifle back to him. He took it, and slung it over his shoulder.
"The Captain needs to see you."
"Sure. I'll head right on up."
"Good."
The Courier nodded and thanked the man quietly. He was happy to finally get off the deck. If anything, the bridge would be safer by miles.
The bridge of the Lenin was a modestly-sized room situated on the aftcastle. Its front was dominated by a panoramic view brought about by various windows stretching across the wall. At the center was the ship's wheel, manned by a helmsman dressed in flannel and jeans. Various consoles that controlled parts of the ship lined the walls and took up a row at the center, but the forefront was largely free of obstructions. The Courier found himself distracted by the view of the ship's deck as it glided slowly through the burned-out husks of abandoned boats clogging the river. Personnel milled about on the deck with their weapons out and ready, and discipline was still maintained by the Petty Officer with his whip. Looking around at the clouds of floating stationary smoke off of the bow, The Courier failed to notice Captain Peterson step out of a hatch and walk up behind him.
"Good afternoon, comrade," he said suddenly. The Courier flinched a bit, and turned his head.
"You needed me?" he asked blandly.
"Yes... Look up ahead again. Up the river. See that bridge?"
Captain Peterson handed The Courier a set of binoculars and stepped back to allow him to take a look. About a half mile up the river was indeed a bridge, rusted and dilapidated like everything else in the city.
"Normally, it's manned by soldiers from the local government. But the beasts overran it earlier this week, and I just picked up the emergency radio signal," Captain Peterson explained.
"What do you mean?" The Courier asked, confused. Why would a bridge be manned?
"It's a low bridge, comrade. It raises up electrically, and normally the soldiers took a toll to raise it. But they're dead, so we need to send a group of people up there to raise it and allow us room to pass."
"So we need to go onto that bridge?" The Courier repeated slowly. "With the Reapers..."
"There may be," Captain Peterson warned quietly. He looked up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact.
The Courier eyed Captain Peterson cautiously. "I want some payment," he demanded suddenly.
Captain Peterson sighed a bit as he looked back at The Courier. "Everyone does their share, comrade. You are an expert in combat, no?"
"I consider myself to be good at it, yeah."
"Then we need you to clear the way."
"But if I die, you're not going to have me for future emergencies. Maybe I need some protection and some ammunition," The Courier continued. His gaze turned defiant, and his hands tightened around his M4.
"What are you trying to say?" Captain Peterson inquired, shirking away minutely.
"I want some extra ammunition. And maybe a bulletproof vest," The Courier challenged instantly.
"A vest?"
"A vest. Do you have one?"
"I only have a few, I-."
"And do you ever use them?" The Courier interrupted.
"Well, I-"
"I'm going to be leading the crew, no? I will need to be protected. And I will need to keep it for my journey, captain."
Captain Peterson let out another sigh, his shoulders drooping with his head.
"I do have a vest in the cargo hold. Follow me."
The Courier smirked, his confidence shining compared to Peterson's. The defeated captain beckoned for The Courier to follow him, obviously unhappy that he had lost some of his supplies. The captain took The Courier down a hallway at the rear of the bridge, and then led him down three flights of stairs. Within a few minutes, they had travelled to a locked storeroom near the cargo bay below-deck. Captain Peterson withdrew a key from his tracksuit pant as he walked to a heavily reinforced door with "ARMORY" stenciled to the right. Unlocking it, he pushed it in with a squeak of metal. "In," he mumbled.
The Courier followed Captain Peterson into the armory. It was dimly lit with a flickering lightbulb, and shelves of boxes and ammo cans indicated that this was a vast stockpile. Captain Peterson led The Courier through this maze, until they reached a few lockers at the back lining the wall. Heading to one at the end, Captain Peterson bent over to undo the lock. The Courier waited behind him anxiously, tapping his foot on the steel floor. After a few seconds, a click signified the lock's opening, and Captain Peterson grasped a lever to open the locker's door. It was relatively roomy inside, but Captain Peterson moved his arm to the bottom to hoist up a green object. He slowly brought it out into the light, revealing it to be a barebones tactical vest in a dark green color. It bore the word "SWAT" in large white letters on its top back, while "SHERIFF" was embroidered in smaller letters underneath.
Handing the vest wordlessly to The Courier, Captain Peterson bore a small frown. After watching The Courier put it on and adjust the straps, he asked passive-aggressively: "All good?"
"I still need ammo," The Courier pointed out. He tapped his M4's steel magazine lightly while the captain rolled his eyes again.
"Listen," The Courier reminded him harshly. "I'm on an important mission, and if I don't have the supplies I may not be able to accomplish it. Whatever's in Akron may be important to restarting civilization."
It was a lie, of course - The Courier had no idea what he was picking up. He knew it was data and books, but he didn't know what for. But Peterson believed it, and bowed his head again. "Sure, comrade."
"Lead me to the ammo boxes," The Courier commanded slyly. And Peterson did, with The Courier nabbing several extra magazines for what surely was going to be a fight on the bridge. He was now ready to make the assault.
"Eh, you look like a slaughtered swine, comrade!"
The Courier eased himself out of the cot in the shipping container to see a man in baggy jeans, a red athletic jacket, and a red beret holding a container of paint thinner. A large table was placed against a wall, with several tubes, jars, cookware, and other assorted items occupying space. A strong smell of chemicals and urine permeated through the air, causing The Courier's nose to wrinkle in disgust. The other man in the room laughed and strode towards The Courier, brandishing a pistol in his hands. He placed it on the bed next to The Courier wordlessly and said: "You're lucky. You had a bad trip. I dragged your ass out of there before you shot someone."
"What? Bad trip?"
"You dropped acid, comrade," the man explained. He coughed into his arm and wiped his nose before gazing intently at The Courier, who was now struggling to stand. But The Courier's legs were shaky, and quickly gave way. Luckily, the man came over to help him back up.
"What the hell is acid?" The Courier asked bewilderedly. He had a throbbing headache and felt sore everywhere. He wanted to vomit.
"It's a drug. And believe me, comrade, I know my way around drugs." The man waved his hand over towards his table and drums of chemicals. "It's a very lucrative business."
"What? He drugged me?"
"I understand the confusion, comrade, but normally that kind of thing doesn't happen. I suspect you were unprepared for the... effects."
The Courier shrugged and replied: "I don't know."
"It's fine. You'll get it eventually. Now, say, I did not catch your name?"
"My name?" The Courier said as he scratched the back of his head. "The Courier."
"The Courier, eh? A man of his profession. My name is Tom Peterson. Captain, Tom Peterson."
The Courier raised his eyebrow. "Captain Peterson?" he asked.
"Yes, comrade."
"Heh. You're the guy I'm looking for."
"What a lucky coincidence," Captain Peterson replied with a similarly raised eyebrow.
"I'm looking for passage to Cleveland."
"That happens to be where I drive, comrade."
"So when does the ship leave?" The Courier asked as he started stretching his legs in front of Captain Peterson. Suddenly, some popping noises came from the table behind him and the captain excused himself to deal with it.
"Well, in about three hours. I'm almost done with the cook. I have a deal with the outpost in Cleveland."
"Three hours?" The Courier asked.
"Three hours."
"Alright. And where is your ship?"
"It's the Lenin, located at pier four."
"Okay."
"You can go down there. My first mate will check your baggage and get you a room. Just tell him Comrade Peterson sent you."
"Okay, got it."
"Alright?" Captain Peterson asked for confirmation as he poured a clear liquid into a glass vase.
"Alright. Thank you, captain."
The Courier waved his hand in a mock salute and started walking to the door. But Captain Peterson stopped him: "You forgot your gun."
"Oh, yes, thank you," The Courier said as he jogged back to the bed for his P226. He picked it up from the cot and carefully gave it an inspection for damage. There was none. The captain had gotten it back in quite a good condition. The Courier holstered it again and thanked the captain, who was monitoring a liquid column at his laboratory-like table.
"No problem, comrade. Now you can board my ship."
The Courier left shortly afterwards, and saw that he was on an elevated steel walkway. He was on a concrete pier with several shipping containers stacked like apartments, with two levels. He eyed a stairwell to his left, and immediately went down it to the ground. His next move was to find his Stryker, which was at Smokey's. He set out on his journey, and reached the familiar club thirty minutes later. The Courier got back into his vehicle with little difficulty, and activated the engine. He closed the hatches and gunned it down the alleyway, feeling a bump as he ran over some trash bags. The Courier nosed it out onto the street, and took the steps to find a path to pier four.
After another misadventure involving getting lost, he found the steamship. It was a large, metal-plated ship with several steam stacks jutting out from the side. The top deck had several distinct mounted guns, presumably to defend against hostiles coming from the shores of the narrow river running through Detroit and Sarnia. At the rear, a folding ramp was lowered onto the pier that led into a gigantic cargo bay filled with what appeared to be crates and munitions. A man in a reflective vest sat on a crate just off of the ramp, and he appeared to be startled by the beast of a vehicle appearing out of the buildings. The Courier chuckled as he drove the Stryker just up to the ramp, and then popped the top hatch to appear out of. "Good day, sir," The Courier introduced as the man scrambled backwards.
"Huh, what? Who? What the hell?" he stuttered.
"Are you this ship's first mate?"
"Y-yeah."
"Comrade Peterson sent me."
"Oh... Are you the man he took from the club?"
"Yeah."
"He told me about you... Are you looking for a boarding pass?"
"I need passage to Cleveland."
"Okay, okay. Are you bringing the vehicle?"
"Yes."
The man, obviously threatened, nodded. "Right this way," he said, gesturing towards the cargo bay.
The Courier waved thank you as he pulled into the cargo bay, upon which he parallel parked the Stryker between two large wooden crates marked: "Meth!"
He hopped out of the hatch and dropped to the metal-clad floor. The ship was built like an ironclad: sturdy and well-protected. It was obviously designed to withstand heavy attacks. The first mate had followed up the ramp and met with The Courier again. "Let me lead you to your room, where we shall discuss payment."
The Courier nodded, and followed the first mate towards the cabins near the bow of the boat. It took them a few minutes, but eventually The Courier was led to a dark, musty-smelling room with a single bed, desk, chair, and dresser. A window with an iron shutter was situated at the opposite wall, pulled down to shut out the daylight. The first mate walked towards the center and gestured to a lightbulb at the top. He pulled the cord, which then made the lightbulb shower flickering light over the room.
"Ship electricity?" The Courier inquired. The first mate nodded.
"We have a generator powered by steam like the engine. Captain Peterson worked hard to wire the ship. It can take a while to reach Cleveland, and he appreciates comfort for everyone."
"I see."
"Well, sir, now we must discuss payment."
"Payment for the passage? I believe I have an associate who's covered it for me."
The first mate raised an eyebrow. "Are you The Courier?"
"Yes."
"The, uh... Talent Agent sent me a letter and a package of ammunition as payment."
"I see."
"Well, I'm sorry to bother you, Courier. Everything is in order. I must return to my duties. Enjoy your stay."
And with that, the first mate left, leaving The Courier alone in his cabin. The shutter was still pulled down, and so The Courier turned the light off for total darkness. He was going to try and sleep off the headache.
The lakeside docks smelled of fish and smoke. Bernie had always found it an unpleasant place.The docks were lined with shanty taverns and whorehouses, each claiming to have beds. Sailors who dared to spend a night in one of these shacks often found themselves sleeping on straw beds in crowded back rooms. Most preferred to stay in the comfortable bowels of the ships they arrived on. Bernie didn't blame them. The smell of disease and stale alcohol wafted from the doorways as he went past, causing him to frown in disgust.
Bernie dodged the sailors and dockworkers as he made his way over to the ships. Men and women from other ends of the Lakes hocked a variety of wares straight out of the containers they had been shipped in. On any other day, Bernie would enjoy perusing the peculiar bobbles that the merchants brought. Wines from Mackinaw-Mackinak, Jewelry found by the explorers of Deep Harbor, and bright scarfs from Gaylord were gathered in a handful of small temporary stalls along the boardwalk. Even slavers moved their goods in the crowded seaside market. Though slavery was rare in Green Bay itself, slavers from the interior of the western coast brought captured men and women to be sold across the lake.
The ships were as various as the goods they carried. Smaller sailing ships were common, their masts rising like tall trees above the lakeside scenery. The smokey smell was attributed to the steam ships, which had grown increasingly popular over the last few decades. Their ability to move without relying on the fickle lake winds was worth the small cost of lumber fuel to manage them. Most of the steam ships still possessed sails, both as an insurance that they would not be stranded without fuel and as an option that gave captains better control of their vessels. Most of the ships were made from wood or light metals, with wood being the most popular of the two.
A ship painted in a thick layer of black alerted Bernie that he had found his destination. The slender steamship was marked with two great masts with their sails up. The front of the ship betrayed it's status as a fighting vessel. A long metal ram protruded from the bottom of the hull, the top of it slowly ascending toward the deck of the vessel and meeting with the bow spirit. The deck of the vessel was dotted with several smaller swivel cannons, allowing it to bombard other ships with relative ease. Bernie boarded the vessel.
The ship was empty save for one man. Bernie recognized the shadowy figure and greeted him politely.
"Captain Darcy. It looks as if you are getting ready to sail."
Darcy noticed his new employer and walked over to him. The Captain's black jacket and beanie contrasted with his pale skin, giving him a greyscale appearance. Despite his dreary color, Darcy bubbled as he reached out to shake the Despot's hand.
"Mr. Morgan" Darcy greeted enthusiastically. "I don't believe you have been on this beauty."
"I have been here once." Bernie replied, quickly pointing to one of the swivel cannons. "Those are new though."
"That's from your gold" Darcy grinned. "With that lot, this ship will be immortal."
"I think you told me that this ship was immortal the last time I was here." Bernie smiled.
"If there was any doubt, I think these guns will dispel it." Darcy retorted.
"That's good." Bernie nodded. "Remember, though. My money for your loyalty. Focus on Escanaba and her shipping lanes. I want to see their navy crippled before next spring."
"As long as I still get the loot, I am not going to argue." Darcy replied. "I'm your pirate"
The two men were interrupted by another familiar man wearing a long brimmed hat with a fluffy feather protruding from it's side. Bernie greeted him as they shook hands.
"Mr. Woolridge." Bernie spoke, "Where did you get the hat."
"My kind despot, this is a sailors cap." Woolridge responded, lighting adjusting the hat from it's brim. "This is what true sailors used to wear."
"I've met plenty of true sailors, but i've only seen hats like that when passing through Queer ports." Darcy chuckled.
"You must be popular in the Queer ports" Woolridge quipped. "I noticed the name of your ship. The Penetrator. Very colorful."
"I've got a name in those Queer ports." Darcy replied. "And the ship is popular there too. The name isn't a lie. This ram had opened more hulls then any other on the lake."
"I shudder to imagine." Woolridge chuckled.
"We were just talking about our investment." Bernie changed the subject, "Captain Darcy is getting ready to do our work on the lake."
"This is good." Woolridge nodded. "I like to see my investments pay off. If you capture any vessels, Mr. Darcy, I would be pleased to buy them from you."
Darcy smirked. "I wreck most things I take on."
The soft chirping of crickets in the soft cool August air was a soft calming relief from the sun of the day. Set on the old high-way glowed a soft orange light on the cracked asphalt. The pines that towered along the side of the road - their kin marching slowly to the road's edge as new saplings broke from the earth - gave a watchful vigil over the pair of men that sat camping in the road. Two solemn figures gathered around a small fire of sticks and leaves, a small make-shift soup pot hanging over the fire boiling.
Both stood in silent empty meditation staring into the hypnotizing dance of the flames. Their faces shrouded in thick black shadows and the soft illuminating warm orange. To studied men of the old world, the lighting and staunch faces, scarred by deep lines was like a baroque painting.
"How is id we can never get indo a bar." one of the two said in a depressingly empty, graveled voice, "Every dime we go do dine, or for you to sdare at your beer you ged angry."
"I don't like their songs." the other said, Charles DeSaille, "It summons a terribly memory of the south."
"How derrible could Detroid have been." said his partner cynically, "I'm seriously dhinking you only do dhis because you don'd like people!"
Charles was silent and drawn. A troubled guru who sat staring into the void emptiness in front of him. "You hear them yelling." he began, "It echoes in those towers. An inhuman war cry, you stand there with your brothers feverishly glancing up and down the street. Hoping, praying that their quarry was elsewhere. You're all hungry, you're all thirsty. You can't drink the native water. Or eat what grows there."
Charles paused, his glassy eyes flashing up to his partner, "You look into the overcast muddied sky. Inhuman in its color. Brown and black, tainted with sickly grays. Shrouding the sun it's blinded you from the heavens, and it glows dimly. There in the sickly scorched landscape you close your eyes and pray to Saint Remi that you are not to die.
"But the yelling and the screams do not stop. The ghouls draw closer at a feverish pace, and you can feel their voices peel at your skin. Already, you feel their teeth as you huddle together, crossbows drawn and blades at your hip as the sweat pools and wrecks you in a deep stench. Where ever you look the shadows grow thick and they close like knives."
Charles hesitated, licking his lips as he picked a large bowie knife from the ground next to him and poked the soup can. His follower leaned closer in curious. "Your heart turns to a frantic drum." he continued dispassionately, "Mouth turns clammy. As the war cries echoes. Peaking in rabid inhumane gnashing and shouts in strange tongues you realize the world has forsaken you. You're in Hell's corner alone.
"Then they come..."
"Who?" his follower asked.
"Detroiters." Charles said bluntly, "Scarred torn men with skin and flesh as black as the darkest night. Eyes a pale faded yellow as they charge you with a bloody cannibalistic furor. Snot and spit foaming from the mouth. It is no pretty sight seeing them charge, wearing unfortunate bones as armor and trailing skin flayed from their last bit of prey. Their bodies torn and scarred from the brutality of their life. Some come in bare-handed, with nails turned to claws from years of feral use. Some come with thick clubs tore from the old automobiles that choke their jungle. Many, if all nude as the day they crawled from Satan's womb trailing the viscera and blood of their birth.
"The singers in the bars, or the hunters they sit and gloat do not know nobility or terror. Their ignorance and arrogance tears at me. I've lost many friends, and nearly died myself scouting the area out. I've had burning bodies dropped on my canoes. Heads with every manner of sharp implement thrown at me. Great jagged swords torn from the bumpers of cars swung to my face.
"Their suffocating unearthly stench filling my nostrils as they tried to claw off my face, or the flesh from my very arm to feed their everlasting hunger.
"I fear for the life of every man who must sail between the Blue Water and Ambassador Bridges. I fear for the travelers who must walk through those terrible lands, or even around it. I fear for the communities that still eek out a living at the edge of oblivion and who sit awake at night preying those monsters do not scramble howling into their streets at night. And I hate those who, in their decadence and distance, do not know what it is like to even witness that Hell."
My DeviantArt, so sexy
Owen gawked at the humble wooden cabins and windowless stone houses. The town looked alien to the young man. There was no asphalt. The dirt roads seemed almost quaint in comparison to the smooth blacktop that made up the streets of Green Bay. Owen had heard that the city of Heavenly Jerusalem had been built by the Witch Hunter and his followers from scratch, but he did not know what that would look like. Now he seen it, it seemed like a novelty from an ancient age.
Though it seemed odd, Owen liked the town. It bared no signs of decay. Own had spent his life living in the pealing ruins of buildings that had outlived their civilization. Every home in Heavenly Jerusalem seemed to make sense. There was no vestiges of a dead civilization. Everything had it's purpose.
The people were nearly as foreign. The women wore long dresses and covered their heads, whereas the men wore thick jackets and coats. Everyone carried themselves with a sense of humbleness. And everybody seemed to have a job. Every person that Owen passed was busy with one chore or another. Even the children could be seen drawing water from wells, or hunting the bushes for the eggs that the free roaming chickens left behind.
As they approached the center of town, Owen's attention was turned toward the church. The building was small, unlikely to fit many people. It consisted of a shed sized building that was twice as long as it was wide. The first half of the building was topped with a tall steeple. Rows of stone benches surrounded the entrance to the building. It was unlike any old church Owen had ever seen.
"You have your religion meetings outside?" Owen asked the Witch Hunter.
"The world is God's house." The Witch Hunter replied politely. "It seems fitting to worship him."
"Why build a church at all?" Owen persisted.
The Witch Hunter chuckled. "It is a sanctified building to keep the objects of God within. "We have candles and bibles inside. We also keep holy relics within. The bones of martyr's, a stone from heaven... we have several precious things inside of that building."
"There is also a ham that had the face of Christ emblazoned on it's face." Raphael added. "The Lord has shown himself to us in mysterious ways."
"Sounds like it" Owen replied, gawking at the building.
Passing the church, the made their way to the stables. An old man stood in front of the building holding the reigns to several horses. Seeing the Witch Hunter, the old man began to wave excitedly.
"Michael!" the old man bubbled, "I got you couple of dem nags. These'un's will suit your boys real fine. Real fine."
"You have done well." The Witch Hunter smiled, patting the man on the back. Turning to the horses, the Witch Hunter dug through the packs strapped to their backs.
"Looks like you got the supplies." He noted, turning around and smiling at the man.
"I did" the old man nodded fanatically. "Anything else you need?"
"No" The Witch Hunter shook his head. "I think we are fine.
"What now?" Owen inquired, looking into the sky. The sun had began to set.
"You can sleep in Raphael's cabin." The Witch Hunter noted. "Tomorrow, you will travel."
((That being said, tweak it a bit to acknowledge the recency issue then repost it.))
"And what's puzzling you, is just the, nature of my game!" he quietly sang in a sort of whisper-yell that you used when you want to be the only one who can clearly hear your own voice. And then suddenly he wasn't singing. He wasn't quite sure, but he had the same bizarre feeling that something was about to happen as he had had right before wotz-iz-face nearly blew his head off the previous day. Klaus glanced around nervously, and, spotting nothing, walked quickly to the edge of the trail. He quickly entered the treeline, and with some difficulty began climbing the steep hill that had suddenly appeared in front of him, his boots sinking into the leaves-on-loam muck that made up the ground. He habitually slung his rifle over his right shoulder, and carried it in front of him, quickly adjusting for the weight change.
Suddenly, Klaus broke free of the foliage and emerged into broad daylight, on top of a forested ridge overlooking a motorway some 100 metres away. If his slowly-failing depth perception was anything to go off of, the motorway was on a 'shelf' of sorts on a large hill, some 500 metres off the ground. The safety rails had long since either rotted or been stolen, but a few pockmarks in the ground at regular intervals and a section of rail laying nearby indicated that there had once been one. Beyond the shelf, he could vaguely make out a large settlement, most likely pre-End, some five-or-so kilometres from him. A convenient roadsign that was only green in a handful of places and heavily dented indicated that, 3km away, was a settlement called 'Gaylord'. Klaus smirked, but wasn't entirely sure why.
Movement drew his attention back to the motorway. Several vaguely-humanoid blobs, as well as one larger blob were slowly moving across his field of vision. He looked through the scope of his rifle to get a better look, and saw a scene that would perplex him for some time to come:
Four men, each invariably dressed in some bizarre array of pinks, purples, neon greens and blues, and many other minority colours were walking, armed, alongside a large metal contraption of some kind that was slowly rolling on six (he assumed, as only three were visible) deflated tyres, one of which was missing on the side he could see. He focused on the strange men's rifles for a moment, and saw that they were not the rifles that could hurt him at this range, but rather automatic pistols with rifle barrels, as evidenced by the lack of an obvious rifle clip.
Click. A hammer being drawn back. A cold, metallic, all-too-familiar something was pressing against the back of his head. Fear traveled faster than adrenalin, and his body slowly went numb from his head downwards.
"A bit lost, aren't you?" a voice asked. It was male, no mistaking it, but the inflections suggested that it was a woman saying it.
Gah, these people are weird. he thought, against all better judgement of what he should be thinking about.
"Just passing through, sir." he replied, trying to remain calm. He slowly, slowly pushed his rifle forwards, drawing the scope away from his eyes without moving his head, and lowered the barrel.
"Don't lie. You were about to kill them." the voice still had the odd, off-feminine inflections, further messing with his mind.
"From this range? Hardly. I was just seeing who it was." he replied, and silently prayed to whatever deity had abandoned Humanity before he was born that the man attacking him didn't know much about guns.
"Maybe, maybe. In that case, though, what are you doing here?" it was, quite honestly, beginning to drive him mad.
"Again, just passing through." he repeated. A bead of sweat, almost ice-cold, trickled down his forehead, and dropped from his brow and made a minute crater in the soil.
"Tell you what. You don't belong here," Klaus had to make a serious effort not to yell, you don't bloody say?! " so I'll be nice and give you thirty seconds to get out of here before I start shooting. Tick to-" Klaus was halfway down the hill by the time the man finished 'tick', and had turned right and started running parallel to the road, just barely hidden by the foliage alongside the road. He overtook the caravan at about the same time as he had to start breathing heavily to keep up his breakneck pace, and by the time he heard the strange man's alarm gunshots, he was out of breath and nearly 500 metres away (far out of range for any pistol). Truly, there was not better motivator than a pistol pressed against the back of your skull.
He stopped after another quarter-kilometre and bent over, gasping for breath. Under normal circumstances, 750m wouldn't be as difficult as it had just been, but laden down with three guns, ammo and supplies for a 30-day journey it had taken a lot out of him. Klaus stood up fully for a moment to get his bearings, and found that he was near another creekbed, the road left far behind. He made a quick judgement of his current safety, and promptly fell down on his back.
I think I'll stay here for a little while. he thought.
The soft thud of a full glass bottle coming down on the age worn wood of a desk echoed in the still listless office. A large bottle of wine had found itself onto the desk of Mark Krabarren. Sheparded by the hand of an aide to the adviser. Both he and the powerful Kabarren looked to be of the new breed of men born to the world. With suits trimmed and patched over in fur. The stray hairs shimmered in the late evening sun shining through the wide windows behind Krabarren.
Glancing behind him Krabarren wrung at his finger nervously. "Well," he began in a soft voice, "It's certainly late enough. But you're not woman." he added with a thin sarcastic grin.
"It's not why I'm here." the aid said in a cold serious voice, quite obviously not in a humorous mood, "We've received a multitude of reports and complaints from the wine barons discussing the prospects of a potential loss to be had in MMR provided wine at the face of a unknown competitor, or group of competitors."
Mark Krabarren cocked an interested brow. Sitting down in his seat he stirred his hand through the soupy, dusty air. "Continue." he said.
"Well," the aide began, reaching out and pushing the bottle of wine over, "This we feel is from the potential culprit."
Krabarren picked up the bottle of wine. It was in all nondescript and unassuming. A solid dark-green glass bottle. Inside sloshed a dark liquid that shimmered in the fiery orange light. Adhered to the side in a tacky amber sap was plastered a simple white label. "GranTra wine." he read aloud in a smooth unassuming voice.
"Do we know anything about GranTra?" he plied, looking up at the aide from the top of his eyes, slowly lowering the club-like bottle.
"No, not really." the other man said shrugging, "The merchant that I picked the bottle up from in my investigation said he got it while boating past Traverse. But as far as we know, it's been a dead region."
"Dead region!" Krabarren exclaimed in mockery, "Apparently not. So the barons say this could be a danger to our national market?"
The aid shrugged, "There's not much we can do with the soil around here. As we all know, it's not farmable, and what's planted is for family sustenance and rarely community sustenance. Grapes have been one of the things to actually fair well here, and the wineries have been a major, considerable income source alongside timber.
"I will have to agree with them, we may be out-competed when it comes to production if we ignore this."
A dark shadow wrapped itself around Krabarren's eyes as he turned his attention to the unassuming bottle at hand. "Strange though, prices have been going up."
"Apparently it grows by the year too." the aide said, "Merchants I've interviewed said they can get to buying more year after year. It's been ongoing for four years now."
Krabarren nodded, "Right." he sighed, "I'll speak with Nowalski tomorrow in the morning. This is something to consider then."
My DeviantArt, so sexy
"So you're sure this neccesitates action, my boy?" said Nowalski rather shocked. His office was warm as the late-morning sun glided through the air. The windows facing out to the lake not far from the former hotel were thrown open, allowing a crisp summer's breeze to make its way through.
"Given the importance of the wineries in our economy," Krabrarren said, "I would say it indeed does. If we don't stomp out this competition with ever avaible means then we are looking at long-term collapse of a whole market. We will be able to cease to compete locally. Our trade influences over Escanaba and down the other way would be greatly threatened if the lake merchants discover a cheaper liqour to sell."
Nowalski was rather taken back, and perturbed. Leaning back in his chair he stroked at his chin and raped his fingers on the desk. "Is it neccesary to do it now?"
"Probably not," Krabrarren said, "we'd best to consolidate our resources for a good year before we need to make a move.
"I'm no general by any means, but I'm sure it would be best to investigate the situation."
Nowalski nodded, "It'd be sooner than I'd like to, good sir."
"T'would."
The republic's president turned in his chair and faced the window. A long thoughtful silence passed between the two men as the president considered the proposal. It was a considerably note-worthy event, and it weighed on him with a ton of bricks. He had entered office expecting that he could sail the Republic into far less conflict as to resolve the logistical pains caused by Darren's insistent campaigns.
"We may need to do it." he said suddenly, "I'm not going to be happy, but if we're to actually do something to atleast annex these territories and consolidate our monopoly in the region we will need action."
"Certainly." Krabrarren nodded, "And it need not approach the council just yet. They may not be fully aware of the situation. Our information gathering would be agreat service at least in convincing them to move."
"Indeed, my boy." Nowalski grumbled. Turning to the advisor he continued on: "I will trust you with a small purse, which I will hope you will use to find some private parties to head in our behalf. If we utilized any direct assets the council would be made aware eventually for sure and begin asking questions.
"I will speak to the generals too." he said with a sigh, "Speak with them on if they can make efforts to accumilate some form of leverage which to use.
"How long so expect this to go on for, sir?"
"I would imagine a year would be ample." Krabrarren said, "Study which wineries are open, who is working what, how strong they are, if there's weaknesses we can take advantage of. The normal stuff."
Nowalski nodded, "The normal stuff."
My DeviantArt, so sexy
“Less get these ‘auled in, I still need ter check the casks.” A thick patch of bramble surrounded them, but they knew better. Hidden under the shrubs and weeds were a handful of grape vines, which they were harvesting. “If ye get started with the pressing, I’ll be along ter help after, a’ight?” There was a quick affirmative issued and the men picked up the bottom half of a barrel and started carrying it back through the thicket. The duo didn’t seem to know much about viticulture, so it wasn’t clear if they were trying to conceal their product in the brambles, or just didn’t know better than to clear it out.
Then, suddenly, they were gone. A gust of wind was all it took to knock away a stray maple leaf that had been resting on one of the bushes. Why was their existence tied to the position of a leaf? The answer was the small spot of light, a specific wavelength of infrared that had called the leaf home. It flickered and pulsed with such minuteness that it would be nearly impossible for anyone to notice if they could even see it, but that’s where a lovely piece of scavenged ingenuity entered the stage. An amplifier circuit, connected to a tiny little photodiode, pumped into a pair of heavily insulated earmuffs. The whole thing was strapped onto a pair of binoculars, wrapped up in gaffer’s tape, in the hands of a German expatriate, on a rock, some distance away. The sewing needle used as a target for aiming the laser really wasn’t too much of an obstruction to his vision to be unable to continue watching the men, but it wasn’t overly important.
“Chris, that’s enough. Let’s get something to eat and debrief.” The lightly bearded man yawned and rolled over to sit up. He unwrapped the wire from the prong on the battery running the contraption and dropped down into the cluster of rocks they’d called home for the past week. Every day pretty much played out like this one, Lars and Chris perched up on the rocks, one with a rifle; the other with binoculars; watching.
“They’re harvesting again.” Lars nodded. “They might be the worst farmers I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s a bit harsh, I don’t think we could raise a crop if it stood between us and starvation. Didn’t you see that stockpile they’ve got? That kind of hardware doesn’t find it’s way into the hands of people who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“They coulda stole it.”
“Please? You saw them hunting. Maybe Jacob could kill a man. The rest of them couldn’t hit a caravan even if they wanted to pull the trigger; they’re farmers. Anyway, yeah, I noticed the harvest too. I wonder why they don’t clean up the fields, they might be able to see things were ripe easier.”
Waiting in the deepest recesses of the rocky formation here outside the largest settlement as far as they could see was a horrible thing to call a meal: some rabbit jerky and old biscuits. But it didn’t require a fire, and they couldn’t risk detection. Not yet.
“Mikhail, you’re on watch.” He was curled up with a pile of parts, trying to fashion some new gizmo. “Where’s the dynamo?” As he stood up to leave, he handed Lars a bit of metal and plastic stripped out of an emergency radio. It was the handcrank they used to recharge the handful of batteries they kept to run whatever needed running. Mostly their radios every now and then, and the optical mic when they were on surveillance. It worked well enough in a pinch while their jeep was out of commission, fuel-less, hidden in a thicket a few clicks away. Of course, the spark plugs were in Lars’ pocket, just in case anyone found it.
It had been a day since The Courier departed from Bay City, onboard the SS Lenin. The steamship chugged slowly through the calm waters, its hulking iron figure silhouetted against the sunset in the evening. Smoke bellowed out of its three smokestacks located to the port side of the aft, right next to the cargo bay. Those in turn powered a small paddle-like motor beneath the cargo ramp, which was largely hidden underwater. The inefficient placement combined with the small size of the motor drastically reduced its speed, but the Lenin still attained a modest twelve knots top speed. All in all, the ship wasn't exactly a speedy blockade runner like some of the other, more lithe craft. This was further evidenced by the large top deck, which contained several iron-plated panels with rifle slots in them. On this deck, various crewmen milled about; some standing guard along the rails with bolt-action rifles, while others carried crates around. There were about sixty sailors onboard, mostly young teenagers looking for food and lodging. They were necessary, seeing as it was a gigantic ship; easily one of the largest in the bay. It was also the most heavily armed and armored. But it was justified as something of a necessity, seeing as the ship was the only one that ran the infamous "Detroit Route."
The Detroit Route was the pathway from Bay City to the explorers and scavengers at Cleveland, who went through the wastelands to find anything of value. The SS Lenin was their main resupply vessel, and delivered food, water, and narcotics to the men there in exchange for old-world relics. The Detroit Route was so named because it ran through the St. Clair River, and by extension, Detroit. It was a ravaged city, wrecked both by old-world poverty and financial difficulties, and by post-war infighting and border skirmishes with displaced Canadians looking to escape the north-moving radiation clouds from the nuking of Ohio. A common joke around the area was that Detroit looked exactly the same as it did before the end, and from the stories circulated it seemed to be true. But while there was no civilization, there were still deranged murderers. Reapers prowled through the city and surrounding countryside, looking for victims to devour. They were the primary problem for the Detroit Route, and the ones that were the cause for the Lenin's heavy armament. The Reapers would climb up the angled sides of the ship, and leap onboard to wreak havoc on the hapless crewmen. Other difficulties included navigating the wrecks of refugee vessels on Lake St. Clair, which was a tricky job. Bandits also tried to pillage the Lenin, knowing its valuable cargo.
The Courier rested on a tarp-covered crate on the top deck as the sun went below the horizon, casting an orange light on the water. Winds gently blew about him, whipping his grey jacket around playfully. The Courier had his arms clasped behind his head as he stared up at some clouds, enjoying the smells of the sea and the coast. It was a much different place from inland. Part of him thought that he should have become a sailor. That certainly seemed like a much more exciting and much less dangerous career opportunity than being a simple mailman through hostile territory. He could travel without getting shot at, and that was a plus in The Courier's book. In fact, he enjoyed his time so much that he barely noticed Captain Peterson behind him, clutching a dull SVD rifle in his hands. "Having a nice time, comrade?" he asked. "Are you doing okay?"
"Me?" The Courier replied, moving his head backwards to look back at Captain Peterson. The image was upside-down, owing to his perspective.
"Yes, comrade. I trust you are feeling well?"
"Yeah, sure."
"The trip wore off?"
"I guess," The Courier answered. He shrugged.
"Eh. Good. I'm sorry your first experience with acid was that ty, comrade."
"Well, it certainly put me off it for a while," The Courier said with a grin.
"It's a wonderful drug if you do it right. I've had fantastic experiences."
"Hmm? Like what?" The Courier then moved to sit up on the edge of the crate, finding his current position uncomfortable. As he did this, Captain Peterson shifted the SVD's weight in his hands idly.
"I saw a monster in the lake," Captain Peterson recalled. "Right there."
His hand pointed vaguely towards the open sea in front of the bow.
"I wouldn't have if it weren't for the acid. It heightens your reflexes."
"Are you sure you weren't seeing things, captain... eh, err... 'comrade'? When I took it, I thought I was in some otherworldly place. Like the Hell those people at Green Bay preach about."
"No... It was real. I slew it."
"Slew a monster?" The Courier asked skeptically.
"With this very weapon, comrade." Captain Peterson gave the SVD a small shake.
The Courier made a face of disbelief, slightly rolling his eyes in the process. Luckily, Captain Peterson was still fixated on the horizon, staring off at the sea with a blank gaze.
"I see," The Courier replied. And then he tried to change the subject: "So what is this 'comrade' thing about?"
"Comradeship, comrade?"
"I guess," The Courier answered again, with yet another shrug.
"Well, we are all equals. All comrades in this world. Our lord, Marx, came to Earth many thousands of years ago to proclaim this."
"Who is Marx?" The Courier asked, his head cocked slightly to the side. Captain Peterson, hearing this question, turned his head to look The Courier in the eye.
"The liberator. The equalizer. He made all men comrades in this world, with his Communistic teachings. He told men to share, and to be equal. But of course the Bourgeoisie tried to silence him. They tortured him with the sickle, and nailed him to a cross with the hammer."
"A cross? Isn't that Jesus?"
"The Green Bay's prophet? No, they are mistaken, comrade. Their Jesus's story is actually Marx's. I think it is a simple misunderstanding."
"Right," The Courier said with a slow nod. "So this Marx..."
"Marx's spirit then left his body, and shattered into a billion pieces. One for every soul on the planet."
"A billion pieces? Were there really a billion people?"
"Oh, yes. At the very least."
The Courier was dumbstruck. "That's... a lot," he remarked.
"Yes. And Marx gave his soul to everyone. And so they set up nations following his example. The Soviet nation was one, but it was crushed under the boot-heel of the Bourgeoisie. So the ones strong with his Communistic philosophy scattered to start smaller, more easily hidden Communist nations. I myself am descended from preacher of Marx. That is why I set up my ship here. To give equality to as many men as I can without attracting the Bourgeoisie. It is a shame I can't give it to all my worldly comrades, but the Bourgeoisie will catch me. They are near omnipresent, but Marx's fragmented spirit tries his hardest to keep them distracted."
"I see," The Courier repeated. This was very strange indeed.
"I would die for any one of my comrades. Their life is worth as much as mine, and mine theirs."
The Courier nodded, as Captain Peterson went back to staring at the horizon.
"It will be curfew soon," he mentioned, jarringly changing the subject again. "I trust your accommodations are suitable, comrade?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Don't mention it, comrade. Tomorrow, we shall sail to the mouth of the St. Clair River. The day after that, we shall begin the most dangerous part of the journey. Be ready and be rested."
"I'll try."
"Good, comrade. Good."
Globs of blackened smoke rose from the stacks of the black ship as it cut through the nervous waters of the great lake. It's captain stood proudly on the bow. The erratic winds violently whipped at his black coat. The overcast skies had moistened the air. Lake spray and mist only served to gladden the pale pirate. It was perfect weather for a raid. The mist allowed the ship to slip in and out of obscurity. An unready target yielded greater rewards. Darcy scanned the horizon intently, hoping to catch sight of a victim.
His crew scurried behind him as they attended to their duties. The gunners sat in the center of the deck and played checkers as seaman restfully mopped around them. Sailors attended to the great white sheets that hung from the masts, adjusting the lines as they needed to. The dull work inspired them to sing in order to pass the time. Every man bellowed in their deepest voice in order to add to the chorus. The lyrical sound only barely managed to overpower the loud crashes of the lake against the vessel's hull.
A sharp whistle interrupted the carol. Captain Darcy turned his attention upward, where the sound had erupted. The look out was hanging by an arm and wagging a finger toward the horizon. "It's a ship! A ship, sir!"
Darcy quickly shipped around and pressed himself against the railing at the front of his ship. He took a pair of binoculars from his belt and focused them in the direction the lookout had claimed to see a vessel. Mist rapidly gathered on the lenses, obscuring his vision. He took a piece of cloth from his pocket and cleaned the glass.
It was a ship. The small wooden vessel bobbed alone in the water. It's flag was obscured by the distance. Darcy fidgeted with the binoculars, bringing the ship into focus. Squinting, he managed to make out the flag.
"Mr. Balecock" he shouted as he turned toward his crew. The plump, middle aged figure of his First Mate scurried toward him.
"Y-Y-Y... Y-Yes captain?" Balecock stuttered, spit flying from his lips with every letter.
"Get everyone on deck" Darcy roared. "And load the guns, we're have prey."
An approving cheer bellowed from the crowd of sailors, who quickly got to work preparing the vessel for battle. Balecock shouted angrily as he ran across the ship and quickly descended into the hatch. "Get on d-deck you lazy s-s-s-sons of h-h-h-huh-whores!" Men flooded out of the bowels of the vessel, scattering to their stations among the excitement.
Quickly, the slim black vessel cut through the water and came upon it's target. As they approached, the pirates unfurled their flag. The red-brown square of cloth began to thrash in the wet wind. With the flag up, Darcy gave the order to fire.
The swivel cannons on the deck of the ship opened fire, splintering their victim. Clouds of wood and sawdust burst from it's deck. Darcy pulled a grenade from his vest and lit it. He wasted no time in lobbing it toward the other ship.
The Escanabans responded. Bullets and arrows alike whizzed into the pirate ship and it's inhabitants. Darcy ducked as several grenades landed on the deck. The explosions sent splinters of wood shooting through the air at violent speeds, wounding several sailors.
The pirate's swivel guns replied, delivering concentrated fire and causing the enemy sailors to scatter. The two vessels were now divided by several feet. The pirates tossed planks of wood into place in order to bridge the two ships. As grenades and gunfire flew chaotically through the air, a wave of privateers began to cross to the other vessel. Captain Darcy was quick to join in the attack. Grinning manically, he fired wildly at the hapless sailors on the defending ship.
The two embattled boats fiercely jerked away from each other as a wave struck them. Several pirates fell from the wooden planks linking them. Their futile screams quickly disappeared below the waves, and the attack went on without them.
Landing on the enemy deck, Darcy and his men drew their motley weapons and began to dispatch the Escanabans. Knifes and swords met spears and harpoons. Balecock screamed manically as he burst through a man's head with a sledgehammer. Blood mixed with water and sloshed along the deck. A light rain had replaced the mist. Flashes of gunpowder reflected from the droplets, and the fog seemed to muffle their sound.
Darcy tossed a grenade down the hatch. The explosion was followed by the pain filled screams of the men who had been mutilated by the blast. The pirate captain smiled and moved on. The enemy sailors were growing scarce. Those who had surrendered were already being gathered on deck as the last of the fighting still roared. As the last corpse fell, a sudden silence came over the boat.
A line of prisoners was placed on deck. The pirates drove the last to surrender out of the bowels of the ship, shoving them as they emerged from the hatch. Darcy inspected the captives with his First Mate in tow. They were bloodied and dressed in rags. Only a young man at the end of the line wore nice clothes. Darcy stopped in front of him.
"You would be the captain of this vessel?" he inquired, looking down on the belittled man.
"Yes" the defeated captain admitted.
Darcy nodded. "What is the name of your ship and what is it's business?"
"This is The Spirit of Menominee" The other captain informed, "We were delivering goods we bought in Mackinaw"
"Mackinaw?" Darcy chuckled, "I might have to take a few crates of wine into my personal possession. Your men will help us load your stuff into our vessel."
The captive captain nodded submissively. As the smirking pirates led the Escanaban crewmen to began their work, the Escanaban captain began to stand up in order to help. Darcy quickly placed his hand on the Captain's shoulder and pressed him down. "You won't be goin with them. I'm takin' you into my personal possession." He winked. The enemy Captain fell numbly back onto his knees.
Quickly, the Escanabans rushed their boxes and barrels across the planks, delivering them to their captors. The two Captains watched the work unfold. As the last of the booty was loaded, Darcy led the captive back to the pirate's ship. The remainder of the Escanabans were ferried back on their ship. The two embattled vessels pulled away from each other. The captive captain watched as his boat and the remainder of his men slowly began to move away.
Once they were away from the defeated ship, several cackling pirates tossed jugs of Naptha at it. Fire burst on the deck of the Escanaban vessel and quickly began to consume it. The Escanaban captain watched in horror as his sailors and their boat were cooked.
Darcy grinned as he grabbed his horrified captive by the shoulders. "Come on." he intimidatingly whispered, "Let's get you below deck."
The Captain of the ranger expedition to find new cities to spread Freedom, love and happiness to is out of water. On the cracked highway, that's like a desert in the middle of a city the temperature's just getting worse. The boy scouts are also feeling the heat, as are the horses who are walking slower than ever. One of scouts, an indian seventeen year old, asks "If the horses knock out do we eat them?"
The captain looks back with a red face at the indian kid, and states "If we don't find anything in a couple days I will granted the right to eat your horse. You can't just eat the horse whenever you want, for all you know in just a few miles we might find a fast food restaurant with a few remaining cheeseburgers in it! Or at the very least some fries, or water or something. Let's just keep moving forward, and not look back."
"Got it, Sir!" The Indian juvenile gladly in his childish indian accent, despite the heat of the sun replies.
Looking forward through the mirage on the straight tract of high way through the place a large puddle of water is seen by the Captain, who's desperate for some liquids. The captain tells his scouts in a certain, commanding and texan tone, "Boys, straight ahead there's water! Giddy up, we're getting that water!"
The scout group holsters their horses, and makes them run even in their deteriorating condition. The group collective rushes to the water, but there was no water. It was just an illusion. One of the white scouts asks "What water?"
"I swear to god I saw a big puddle of water just a hundred feet ahead. Now it's gone!" The Captain laments in frustration, so he just reiterates to his group, "Well, let's just keep moving forward, there's no turning back now!"
Suddenly, a noise is heard. The quick moving of footsteps is heard, getting louder and louder. One of the scouts look back, and is wide eyed, jaw dropped at what he sees. A mob of mad men are coming at them from behind!
"Psychos!" The fat little white boy shouts out loud, catching the attention of his peers. His peers and even the captain look backwards.
"God help us all." The captain in horror says under his breath, before shouting "Run!"
The group with their horses start galloping away from the oncoming mob, the mob however keeps persisting. They never stop coming, never tiring or weakening. Meanwhile, the horses are tiring and weakening from the already poor conditions they were in before being force to gallop away from a mob of psychopathic cannibals.
One of the boy's horses suddenly faints, the horse falling to its side with the boy scout on the horse. Boy boy scout hits his head on the hard concrete. He gets out his revolver, and starts shooting like hell at the oncoming horde, incapacitating a couple of the zombies before he is overwhelmed. The rest of the group run on without him, to save their own skins.
Owen treaded carefully down the muddy slope. A light rain the night before had loosened the dirt and brought the small winding creek bed in front of him to life. The patter of trickling water soothed the young man's nerves. He had never been this far from his home. What little time he has spent in nature had been along the same familiar trails near Green Bay. He had known those places, and what he could expect to find when wandering around them. He was not so sure about what lurked this far in the wilderness.
His guide was not as nervous. Raphael watched patiently as his horse drank from the creek. They had chose to lead their horses through the thick brush of the forest. Raphael was avoiding the larger trails and old roads. Thieves and cannibals lurk along the old highways. The rough looking ranger had been insistent on this fact. There were only two of them. Owen had never been in a fight. He was certain that he would only get in the way.
The young man stepped down from the muddy slope and onto the stones that dotted the creek bed. His horse slid down to him and found it's footing in the water.
Owen looked up at his guide. "How do you know which direction we are going?" he inquired.
Raphael looked up. Long grey strands of his ragged hair flopped across his forehead. "The sun" he stated abruptly, pointing into the sky. "It goes from east to west. Besides. I know this creek."
"How far have you been?" Owen asked.
Raphael looked back at his horse. "South to Milwaukee. East to Waupaca. I spent some time in Yooper territory."
"Yooper" Owen exclaimed, "I've heard they eat babies."
Raphael smiled. "I don't know about that." he said, "But they are a wild bunch. When I was in Escanaba, I saw a man drink three jugs of moonshine before hunting. He went into the woods and killed a wolf bare handed."
"Bernie says we might go to war with Escanaba" Owen responded.
"Maybe" Raphael looked up into the woods. "They are a hard people. I expect a lot of good men would die in that war."
Bernie did not respond. He turned back to his horse and ran his hands through it's mane. He could feel the pulse of the creature's muscles as it drank. An inquisitive look came over his face and he looked back toward the older man.
"What would you do?" He inquired.
"What would I do about what?"
"If you were in command. What would you do about the war?"
Raphael grinned. "Nothing." he said softly, "It's not my place to lead."
"I would stop it." Bernie answered ."I don't think we need a war. Now with the rabid's moving into the countryside. We can't afford it."
Raphael's expression grew grim. "We should get moving." he stated, patting his horse on the neck. "We need to move south and find a suitable place to camp."
A rancid smell pumigates the place, waking up to the smell is atrocious. Rotting flesh everywhere, bones littered all over... The Boy Scout who last remembers shooting for his life at these mad man awakens. His head still is bruised from falling of his horse, but he remembers that he was with his group scouting to find new populations to liberate from the democrats. Clearly that mission's gone astray! He hears the noise of mad men running around, shouting obscenities and all sorts of unpleasantness.
The Boy scout gets himself out if the meat pile and finds a dark spot to hide in, a vent duct. He however hears some of the democrats talking, and stays hidden in the vent duct hoping they go away.
"So I tell 'er ill mak a meet steek, a bik wun for 'er!" one bellows
"Oh yer? I got the beegist meet stick dere is, shee will luv mor den any steeks o meat you'd evr mak!" The other one, a particularly big boned one with no clothing except a horn covering his penis proudly claims back.
"Oh re'ly?! Nao how bout yu 'nd mee fight for de meet steeks." The little scrawny man with bravado demands.
"I'll whip yuor 'ss so he'd you'll cri lik a lil babee boy! You deat meet now!" The big boned one with a crazy look in his eye bawls in fury as he punches the little scrawny one, who is knocked on his ass by the big one. Than the big one as an act of cruelty sits on him and than starts asking him "So hoaws your dae been 'nyways? Feel in' down?"
"Git your fat 'ss offa me!" Scrawny little man starts shouting.
During this altercation the Boy Scout tries sneaking around the place, trying not to step on any of the flesh hoarded up in the storage room. They may be psychos with brain damage, but this Boy Scout knows that these democrats are smarter than they look and act; after all they staged a very nasty ambush that may have killed the rest of his group for all he knows.
The boy scout's creeping around rewards him greatly, as it turns out they aren't good at hiding things. His gun was just placed in some stinky muck, with a few bullets still in the chamber.
The Boy Scout however hears a couple of the democrats nearing his position. To avoid being eaten alive or worse he hides in one of the storage racks of the facility and prays to god the democrats don't find him. That would be awful if they did, for than they'd likely preach to him about equality and rainbows all day or give speeches about accepting cannibals as normal citizens in everyday society and try to pass bills about the legal right to eat other people without their consent. That's exactly what a democratic scummie is like, and even this little Boy Scout realizes that.
Thankfully, those two brain messed democrats pass by and don't notice him, they were talking about sticks of meat like the other two were for some lady. Though these ones talked about sharing their meat instead. How socialist of them.
As Michael traveled north, the roads shrunk into the earth. Brush and vine had retaken the ground. It slowed his journey and forced him to lead his mule slowly through the obscured pebbles that marked the ground asphalt had once ran. It was no matter. He was in no hurry. King Walter was not known for his hospitality. The bent old goat was an unpleasant person to spend any time with it, but business was business. The situation in Green Bay was deteriorating. Bernie had never been the most politic leader, but his poor judgement was starting to come with increased danger. This new world made sure that internal conflicts were payed for with tenfold the woe they were worth.
The road slowly gave way to a clearing, revealing the cabins and huts that surrounded the small village of Fish Creek. All of the original buildings had been gutted to make the new, as the locals did not trust the old construction. Michael found no reason to disagree. The older buildings in Green Bay were prone to catch fire, if they did not collapse first. Only the structures made from brick or stone resisted the elements, and even they shared their own dangers.
Barefoot children dashed from their games to catch a glimpse of the strange traveler as he made his way through the town. They kept a cautious distance. Strangers were rare this far north. The Door Peninsula produced little more then mud and fish, and the south had plenty of that for themselves. It's small population had unwanted land had protected it from the worries that most of the country had suffered at the end of the world. The lack of shipments had forced them to make their own tools, and find their own food, but neither had been particularly difficult. The soil was rocky, but it could sustain small gardens and grazing animals. What couldn't be grown in dirt could be fished from the lake.
Chickens ran freely alongside goats near the center of town. Here, the remnants of the old buildings could still be seen. Unwanted foundations had been filled with dirt and sand to keep animals or children from falling into them at night. The crumbling road had been stomped into the mud, and little repairs had been done. Michael mused about how quick things had degraded. When he was a child, great shining towers dominated the sky near the cities, and every road stretched wide enough to accommodate several cars. In little more then a lifetime, man had reentered the dark age. This must have been what Romans thought as they left their ancient city and found themselves in the capitals of the Franks and Angles. A disgusted sort of awe.
Before the road met the sea, her turned left and made his way up a hill. The Kings Compound had been constructed around an old mansion. This was true of many Doorish Compounds. The King found himself in competition with several other families which had grown important after the collapse. Oftentimes, it was those with collections of guns who found themselves on top. Well armed parties could be formed around such people. It rarely mattered how well they had done before the event. In the land of uncertainty, the paranoid man was king.
Michael made his way to the guard post in front of the compound. A crude wooden gate guarded the post, flanked by palisade walls that encircled the building. It was a simple form of defense, made to hold back raiding parties. If the Doorish ever found themselves in a true war, their compounds would serve as little more then a small nuisance for their enemies.
"Salutations!" Michael greeted in a friendly tone. The two guards stood still near the gate. Their were garbed in leather armor, and both men held long spears in their hands.
"I am The Witch Hunter" Michael continued, "I wish to meet your King."
Both guards continued to stare. "Are you armed?" one of them responded aggressively.
"Yes." Michael confirmed. He pulled his forearm blade from it's holster on his back and handed it to the man. Next, he pulled a pistol and several knifes from his belt. "That should do it." he said.
"You're free to enter." the guard replied. "We do not want to hold a member of the council back from his duties. In the name of King Walter of the Peninsula, Welcome."
The wooden gate slid open along a muddy cleft in the ground, revealing the house that served as the King's keep. It had once been a three story home; the sort that overpaid professionals would buy to show off to their own kind. Its many rooms served the purposes of its new owner much more functionally then it ever did for its old. The keep could hold a host of servants and courtiers, leaving plenty of rooms for guests. More guards milled around in its courtyard. The King was paranoid, and rightfully so. There were other well off men with compounds of their own who wanted to be King. The position was contested, especially as the King entered a sullen old age.
As he entered the building, he was greeted by the strong smell of fish being smoked over wood-fires in the kitchen. A small man greeted him before he entered the Throne room.
"Witch Hunter." the man said, the words pouring sharply from his lips. "The King is ill, I am afraid. Let me show you to your room."
"When will the King be well?" Michael inquired. "I have important business with him."
"I do not know." the small man said. He walked briskly toward the stairs and beckoned for Michael to follow.
"You can stay in your room for now." the man continued, "We will bring you a supper. The chef has a corn chowder in the cauldron as we speak, so it should be done soon. If you want beer, we have some of the finest in the basement. I could fetch some..."
"I don't drink." Michael interrupted. "Will I be able to see the King today?"
"No." the man responded bluntly. "Perhaps this coming morning. Would that suit you?"
"Is there any other choice?" Michael asked.
"No."
Michael shrugged off his coat. "I guess it will suit me then." he responded. The small man opened a door at the end of the hall. "This will be your room." he smiled coldly, "I hope you enjoy it."
Michael entered. The air was chilly. A raw wooden bed lay at the end of the room, draped with a cotton blanket. Michael placed his coat on the end of the bed and kicked his boots toward the corner of the room.
"It will do fine." he responded.
The mouth of the St. Claire River seemed to spew trash and filth into the blue waters of Lake Huron. Murky and brown, it was littered with old cans and other small objects. There were even things like washing and drying machines littered about the shores in defensive positions. Cars were especially prevalent on either side, continuing to form barricades. The other thing that popped out was the abundance of skeletons floating in the water of lying on the sands. They held rusty pieces of metal with rotted wooden stocks: guns from forty years ago. It appeared that it was the scene of defense against the Canadians on the other side of the river, or vice versa. But whatever it was, the event that destroyed the Old War had spurred these people to flee away from their homes in desperation. As the riverboat steamed downriver even more, the crew onboard could spot hundreds more skeletons covered in the filth of Detroit's nearest river, as well as mounds of discarded items and vehicles. But this was normal to them, as they had covered this route dozens of times. For The Courier, however, it was not.
The Courier stood over the starboard gunwale of the Lenin as he watched the buildings of Detroit start to appear from out of a smoky mist. They were ruined and dilapidated, but with no moss and vines growing over them. The ground was far too polluted for life, after the Old World factories had broken down and spewed their chemical products over the land and into the water. Combined with the trace radiation from the Ohio Wasteland, plants would never be able to grow again in Detroit for the rest of maybe four or five generations. But it wasn't like anyone would want to visit Detroit. The skyscrapers and buildings now gliding out of the fog were ruined. Large patches of them had fallen off and crumbled, roofs had collapsed inwards, and potholes in the roads were turned into massive shell crater-esque pits. All the metals had failed to escape corrosion, resulting in a city more orange than grey. The city even smelled of smoke, although the fires had long since passed. All in all, it was a black spot on the map. Desolate, ruined, and inhospitable to human life. Yet that was no problem for the Reapers.
The Reapers were what The Courier feared the most on the Detroit Route. Their shrieks were enough to put any man into a state of unmatched fear. Their hunger for human flesh, caused by some sort of virus or radiation poisoning, made them crazily dedicated to the point of being okay with suffering bodily harm for their goals. But even worse than that was their ability to use weaponry like knives and clubs, and sometimes even guns. Lifetimes of running around had made them highly athletic as well, and so they could outrun and out-climb a human being. They had been known to crawl up the sides of passing ships to slaughter their crews: a fact supported by the abandoned hulks of ships beached on the shores of the St. Claire River. Their hulls were covered in dried blood, and mutilated skeletons or half-decomposed corpses hung from the sides with crude rope. It was as if the Reapers knew the very sight of their victims would instill fear and weakness into the humans passing through. And it seemed to be working, because all of the riverboat Lenin's crew was at arms along the gunwales.
The Courier was among them, standing at the starboard bow with his M4 pointing at the shore. The mist had intensified, rendering his line of sight incredibly short. It added to the tense atmosphere of the journey through Detroit, darkening the skies and causing goosebumps to form on his skin. There was absolute silence on the riverboat's deck, instilled by a harsh petty officer who wanted absolute discipline from his crew. Captain Peterson was on the bridge nearby, directing the Lenin's journey through the perilous waters. The result was an eery feeling running through every one of the crew. This would certainly be the situation for the next few days as they sailed down the river, sputtering along slowly and attracting the Reapers as always. Sleep would be limited, downtime would be nonexistent, and the tension would be at a boiling point. The sheer psychological stress caused by the Reapers would be enough to expose fatal cracks in the riverboat's defenses. Captain Peterson and his men had done this all before, but sooner or later luck would catch up with them.
The boat sailed slowly along for another three hours, gliding through the maze of rotted and abandoned ships that cluttered the river. Some of them appeared newly scavenged, the blood fresh and the bodies still with scraps of new flesh attached to their torsos and heads. Every one of them screamed out in sheer terror, and evidence of their painful deaths could be seen in the cracked bones and portions of skull that seemed to have been bitten off. The Lenin sailed perilously close to each one of these dead ships, allowing for the crew to observe them all in excruciating detail. Even The Courier, who had seen similar atrocities before, felt an icy ball form in his stomach as they passed by a banner on the bridge that read: "DIE" in blood. Handprints and splotches of the fluid were scattered around the simple, terrifying message as well. It reminded everyone that the Reapers were both intelligent and fearsome. Further reminding them of imminent death were the quick, jarring movements seen in a variety of places. Sometimes a shape would move through a porthole, or a black figure would run across the top of a bridge. But nobody had a chance to fire upon them, before they disappeared into the fog.
The ship continued moving onwards, past the clogged entrance to Detroit. Now they were in slightly more open waters, but it still felt as claustrophobic as before. The Lenin small, black frame continued to glide low to the river, trying to hide amongst the ruins from the observers all around it. But Captain Peterson knew it wouldn't work, and soon ordered the ship to move to the center of the river. By putting space in between them and the shores, the Lenin would face fewer risks of Reapers jumping onboard. Yet they still had to worry about the Reapers who could swim, and then climb up the sides or the anchor. They were the biggest threat, seeing as nobody could see them until it was too late. The Courier kept his rifle trained on the boats far away, watching keenly for anything at all. Every few minutes, he noticed movement all around, and felt that he was being watched. Trying to shake off and subdue the terror he felt, The Courier began to close his eyes and take deep breaths. At the bow of the ship, he stood there. He willed his muscles into relaxing, and his heart rate into slowing. He tried to think of a peaceful place. Maybe a long, peaceful stretch of grassland. Nobody would be there to disturb him. No Reapers, that's for sure. The Courier felt himself calm down as the image visualized in his head.
And then he felt something fall on his shoulder. The Courier panicked, thrusting around with his M4 held by the barrel in an attempt to crush the skull of whatever had surprised him. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw the petty officer's face. Unable to stop the rifle's momentum, The Courier tried to divert it downwards. The petty officer, meanwhile, held out his hand to stop it. The rifle came to a jarring stop, causing no bodily harm to anyone. The petty officer was mildly amused, his face jolly. "Surprise you, son?" he asked.
"Sure as fuck you did!" The Courier exclaimed. "I thought you were a fucking Reaper!"
"That's natural. Everyone gets the heebie-jeebies their first time around. You're the passenger, right? The Talent Agent's man?"
"Yeah," The Courier replied as the petty officer offered the rifle back to him. He took it, and slung it over his shoulder.
"The Captain needs to see you."
"Sure. I'll head right on up."
"Good."
The Courier nodded and thanked the man quietly. He was happy to finally get off the deck. If anything, the bridge would be safer by miles.
The bridge of the Lenin was a modestly-sized room situated on the aftcastle. Its front was dominated by a panoramic view brought about by various windows stretching across the wall. At the center was the ship's wheel, manned by a helmsman dressed in flannel and jeans. Various consoles that controlled parts of the ship lined the walls and took up a row at the center, but the forefront was largely free of obstructions. The Courier found himself distracted by the view of the ship's deck as it glided slowly through the burned-out husks of abandoned boats clogging the river. Personnel milled about on the deck with their weapons out and ready, and discipline was still maintained by the Petty Officer with his whip. Looking around at the clouds of floating stationary smoke off of the bow, The Courier failed to notice Captain Peterson step out of a hatch and walk up behind him.
"Good afternoon, comrade," he said suddenly. The Courier flinched a bit, and turned his head.
"You needed me?" he asked blandly.
"Yes... Look up ahead again. Up the river. See that bridge?"
Captain Peterson handed The Courier a set of binoculars and stepped back to allow him to take a look. About a half mile up the river was indeed a bridge, rusted and dilapidated like everything else in the city.
"Normally, it's manned by soldiers from the local government. But the beasts overran it earlier this week, and I just picked up the emergency radio signal," Captain Peterson explained.
"What do you mean?" The Courier asked, confused. Why would a bridge be manned?
"It's a low bridge, comrade. It raises up electrically, and normally the soldiers took a toll to raise it. But they're dead, so we need to send a group of people up there to raise it and allow us room to pass."
"So we need to go onto that bridge?" The Courier repeated slowly. "With the Reapers..."
"There may be," Captain Peterson warned quietly. He looked up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact.
The Courier eyed Captain Peterson cautiously. "I want some payment," he demanded suddenly.
Captain Peterson sighed a bit as he looked back at The Courier. "Everyone does their share, comrade. You are an expert in combat, no?"
"I consider myself to be good at it, yeah."
"Then we need you to clear the way."
"But if I die, you're not going to have me for future emergencies. Maybe I need some protection and some ammunition," The Courier continued. His gaze turned defiant, and his hands tightened around his M4.
"What are you trying to say?" Captain Peterson inquired, shirking away minutely.
"I want some extra ammunition. And maybe a bulletproof vest," The Courier challenged instantly.
"A vest?"
"A vest. Do you have one?"
"I only have a few, I-."
"And do you ever use them?" The Courier interrupted.
"Well, I-"
"I'm going to be leading the crew, no? I will need to be protected. And I will need to keep it for my journey, captain."
Captain Peterson let out another sigh, his shoulders drooping with his head.
"I do have a vest in the cargo hold. Follow me."
The Courier smirked, his confidence shining compared to Peterson's. The defeated captain beckoned for The Courier to follow him, obviously unhappy that he had lost some of his supplies. The captain took The Courier down a hallway at the rear of the bridge, and then led him down three flights of stairs. Within a few minutes, they had travelled to a locked storeroom near the cargo bay below-deck. Captain Peterson withdrew a key from his tracksuit pant as he walked to a heavily reinforced door with "ARMORY" stenciled to the right. Unlocking it, he pushed it in with a squeak of metal. "In," he mumbled.
The Courier followed Captain Peterson into the armory. It was dimly lit with a flickering lightbulb, and shelves of boxes and ammo cans indicated that this was a vast stockpile. Captain Peterson led The Courier through this maze, until they reached a few lockers at the back lining the wall. Heading to one at the end, Captain Peterson bent over to undo the lock. The Courier waited behind him anxiously, tapping his foot on the steel floor. After a few seconds, a click signified the lock's opening, and Captain Peterson grasped a lever to open the locker's door. It was relatively roomy inside, but Captain Peterson moved his arm to the bottom to hoist up a green object. He slowly brought it out into the light, revealing it to be a barebones tactical vest in a dark green color. It bore the word "SWAT" in large white letters on its top back, while "SHERIFF" was embroidered in smaller letters underneath.
Handing the vest wordlessly to The Courier, Captain Peterson bore a small frown. After watching The Courier put it on and adjust the straps, he asked passive-aggressively: "All good?"
"I still need ammo," The Courier pointed out. He tapped his M4's steel magazine lightly while the captain rolled his eyes again.
"Listen," The Courier reminded him harshly. "I'm on an important mission, and if I don't have the supplies I may not be able to accomplish it. Whatever's in Akron may be important to restarting civilization."
It was a lie, of course - The Courier had no idea what he was picking up. He knew it was data and books, but he didn't know what for. But Peterson believed it, and bowed his head again. "Sure, comrade."
"Lead me to the ammo boxes," The Courier commanded slyly. And Peterson did, with The Courier nabbing several extra magazines for what surely was going to be a fight on the bridge. He was now ready to make the assault.