Wasteland Flame (PsionicCuttlefish & Xeres)

[Xeres]

The soldier carefully studied the map shown to her, her eyes taking in each detail. Though she knew the area better than most, it had been some time since she had seen a digital representation of their location. Before Markus had even finished speaking, she was off, striding towards the nearest entrance and into the Dunerunner's driver seat, not bothering to see if the young man was following.

She patiently waited in the vehicle for him, and spoke when he was within earshot. "It's no wonder you got trapped in that town. You were going straight through the primary hunting grounds of Golden Cartel mercenaries." The solider was, of course, referring to the mongers that hired lackeys to comb the desert for forgotten or buried valuables. "Desert thieves, more like, but you were in their territory nonetheless." She paused, likely expecting Markus to give her the ignition key. "Surprising mistake, for someone with such an elaborate set up in the middle of the dunes."

 

[PsionicCuttlefish]

When the soldier turned and started heading for the garage, Markus stammered off at the end of his words and belatedly tapped out a command on his wristcomp to shut off the monitor, before scurrying off to follow her. No survival kit after all, apparently. In the garage area there were a number of small rovers stashed away in charging stations, and besides the Dunerunner, there were two other bikes, though one looked like it had a fight with a brick wall and lost. Further in the back, in a dimmer corner, was particularly large wreck of explosion-damaged metal half-covered by a tarp that looked suspiciously like it had been a tank, once upon a time.

Markus arrived at the Dunerunner, and blinked at the fact that the soldier had taken the driver's seat, though he shook his head and went around to the other side and got in the passenger's seat. Inside the Dunerunner, it was filled with electronic and sensor equipment everywhere, almost like a little self-contained laboratory. Markus, however, immediately looked up at the supersoldier's words. "Wait, what? You mean there's actually an organized group out here?" He asked incredulously. He really didn't know. "I thought...I mean, I only come out once or twice a week to scavenge, if that..I come across trails from time to time, but I thought they were just lone drifters passing through, I didn't know there was anyone organized out here, I though....I thought I was the only one."

After an awkward silence, Markus finally caught onto what wasn't happening, a little later than most people would have. "Oh! Uh, you need the vehicle started, right..." Instead of an ignition key, Markus actually folded out a small keyboard built into the dashboard with a status monitor, and typed out a sequence of of codes into it, bringing the systems of the Dunerunner online. Clearly, he'd done some extensive upgrading and modification of the vehicle.

"And hang on just a sec..." He then tapped into his wristcomp again, and with a loud clatter of machinery and heavy motors, the heavy blast door of the garage split down the middle and began to open, revealing a long upwards ramp-tunnel that led to a second horizontal sliding-back blast door. After maneuvering the vehicle out of the access tunnel and getting to the surface, the supersoldier could see that the blast door entrance to the bunker was camouflaged to blend in with the dunes, and there were even pop-up autoturrets hidden under fake sand piles that tracked the Dunerunner as it headed away, before they folded down and deactivated once the Dunerunner was out of range.