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Wasteland Flame (PsionicCuttlefish & jd97)

PsionicCuttlefish

PsionicCuttlefish

Supernova
Joined
Apr 10, 2012
The scorching sun beat down on the barren expanse of desert. Mostly everywhere was sand and dirt, with the only life for the most part being small mutated reptiles. Small abandoned towns and outposts were interspersed here and there, and it was next to one such small cluster of shacks and buildings that the peace of the desert was broken.

"Crap crap crap!"

Markus fumbled desperately with the autolaser rifle in his hands, trying to slot in a fresh powercell while hunkered down behind his damaged Dunerunner. Bullets continued striking the outer plating of the three-wheeled laboratory-rover on the other side, and Markus thought bitterly about how he was down to his last few powercells entirely on his own weapon, given their high scarcity, while traditional weaponry was still cheap and easy to keep going.

Not daring to pop his head up, Markus raised his rifle over the top and blind-fired in the general direction of the incoming bullets. With the autoturret on the rover out of commission, he had nothing to cover him. There weren't supposed to be bandits out this far out from East Ravine! He had settled down in this area because there was hardly anyone else, yet enough hidden salvage that only he could find. The worst that was supposed to be out here were mutant-dogs and shamblers, he could handle those! Not a team of bandits trying to kill him and steal the treasure-trove of supplies and tech in his rover!

The bullets started to come from different directions then. They were spreading out. Flanking both sides. Markus chanced leaning around one side and blasting a few lasers in the direction of one of the flankers, but he knew he was a goner. Outnumbered and outgunned. All his prodigious technical intellect, and he couldn't get himself out of this one. He had let his guard down, and now it was over for him. The only thing that could save him at this point was a miracle...
 
Just how far were these bastards going?

Amy couldn't help but pant a little under the hot sun; she'd been tracking this sect of Los Cráneos for over four and a half miles now in blistering heat, ever since she'd found their carrier a little ways off the road. It was a flimsy thing, maybe a pre-war school bus. It was made for carrying people, not protecting them, but then, the Cráneos never really cared about protection, and she had no doubt the 32 this thing carried weren't any different.

She knew for a fact there had been 32; she pulled it out of the driver waiting alone with the carrier before she shot him.

It was like they had come kitted out for war, and yet, as soon as they left the carrier, they split up. Their tracks were easy enough to follow; it was almost like they had wanted to be found. They'd split into groups of four. Three of those groups had meandered off into the desert. They were easy to take down- their armor was weak and their tactics were almost nonexistent- but the rest had started hiding their tracks and met back up into one large group a mile off, like the others were meant just to be a distraction. Amy was almost impressed that this clan of bandits had actually grown a strategy beyond shooting whatever they saw, and a little worried that they were trying so hard to hide something.

It was that large group of twenty she'd been following since. They were good, but they'd been expecting to be hiding from some human. They hadn't expected her; no one ever expected her.

Before the War, humanity got genetic engineering pretty well figured out. Officially, engineering human babies was illegal. Of course, if the result wasn't human, it wasn't really subject to that law. Not according to the courts, anyway. Thence came the Anthros: "The Pet that Talks Back." That's what her kind was meant to be; pets. Usually sex toys, and really popular for it, too. Sure it was expensive as all hell, but the humans loved that they could screw like metaphorical (or literal) bunnies and not pop out a single kid, and the Anthros, well... they were bred to fuck. Most of them loved every second of it.

Yes, the Anthros made to be sex slaves were well known. Military engineering, though? Well, supersoldiers were crackpot stuff, weren't they?

Amy smiled as she walked. At over seven foot tall and with a physique most people would kill for, maybe not so crackpot after all. But that wasn't what had kept her alive. Sure, she was engineered to be the superior soldier; bullet-resistant fur, high pain tolerance, beyond-human endurance, speed, and strength with a killer rack to boot, but none of that mattered if her enemy was focused. If they kept their heads and thought engagements through. A bullet could still kill her if it was high enough caliber and wormed its way past her fur, but when some canine anthro shows up playing hero?

They laughed right up until they figured out she actually knew how to use that rifle.

Gunshots. Dropping to all fours instinctually, Amy slinked forward with her eyes searching the ruins ahead of her; this used to be a town. She could see movement, and what looked to be an armored Dunerunner beyond. Probably a meetup gone bad; these pricks betrayed everyone they ever worked with at some point, and she wasn't about to let them get away with it this time.

Rising to her feet, Amy broke into a sprint towards the battle. Sure, she probably should go for cover and take them out cautiously, but they were spreading out around the dunerunner so perfectly, and she couldn't wait to see the look on their faces. Her assault rifle- a heavily modified M4 carbine- was in her right hand and ready, but that wasn't what she was opening up with. She pulled her sidearm from its holster at her hip with her left hand, and hefted it up. A sawed-off, 12 gauge shotgun loaded with Flash Thunder rounds. Her ears clung closer to her head and she shut her eyes tight, then fired.

BOOM!

The force of what she just unleashed slowed her to a walk. Would she ever find two more Flash Thunder shells in the wasteland? Probably not. Was it worth blowing her only hand-held flash-bang on this group?

She dropped her sawed-off as she brought her M4 up into firing position. Her enemy was disoriented, dazed, a few were probably blinded permanently. They were shouting in confused spanish no one could hear over the ringing in their ears, all while they whirled around only to see her striding toward them, grinning from ear-to-ear ready to take them all on.

Oh, it was worth it, all right.

She opened fire in controlled bursts, wading through the battlefield. She smashed into their formation from the rear, and they started to disintegrate. The five guys in the back had no hope of resisting her; they couldn't stand up, much less stop her from putting a bullet in their heads. Around them, the Cráneos figured out what was happening and brought their rifles up, but she had already taken cover where their friends had been a second earlier.

She fired and she hit, dropping men first on one side of her, then on the other. They were managing to hit her, sure, but it wasn't often enough to matter. Their bullets hurt and bruised when they hit, but none had managed to penetrate her fur. Seven, Eight, Nine men were dead, and hadn't even reloaded yet. Their bullets were starting to rip apart the sand-whipped, crumbling wall she was up against, but it didn't matter. She fired again and made the body count ten. That was when she noticed them start running.

First it was just one, shouting in spanish and turning tail running away from her and the dunerunner. Then another, and one after that. Not on her watch, she wasn't letting any more of these bastards get away. She dashed after them; they didn't have much hope of outrunning a Rottie. She slowed once she'd closed the distance and aimed down her sights, then she heard shouting behind her.

She turned and felt her stomach sink as she realized two things; in her jubilance she hadn't bothered keeping track of the bullets in her magazine, and that Cráneo- who she hadn't seen hiding in one of the bombed-out buildings- was holding what looked suspiciously like an anti-material rifle.

Boom!

A shot, and searing pain lanced through Amy's shoulder. Weakly, she brought her M4 up to fire back as she stumbled toward cover, only to hear it click. Fuck.

Boom!

Searing hot fire in her stomach as a second bullet ripped through her. Where the hell did they get an Anti-Material rifle?! She growled deeply in anger and pain and dropped her M4, going down onto all-fours and going into a loping run. Faintly behind her, she could hear a laser rifle being fired, but she didn't really care right now.

Boom!

A miss, aimed at where she'd been before she dropped. Her whole arm felt like it was on fire and every little movement was agony, every impact with the ground torture, but adrenaline was coursing through her veins now. She ran with the speed only an Anthro could muster, rushing his position.

Boom!

It was no use, she was inside his effective range now, darting between and over obstacles in the field. He dropped his rifle and reached for a pistol, but it was too late; she was on him.

First her teeth tore into his arm, ripping out a huge chunk of flesh as she tackled him to the ground, straddling his waist as her knees pinned his hands to the ground. Her right arm was out of commission, but she balled her left into a fist and drove it into his face. Again and again, long after he stopped struggling, long after the blood rushing out of her mixed with the blood surging out of him, long after the edges of her vision began to go dark and her adrenaline surge faded.

Slowly, shakily, she grabbed the man's pistol and stood, turning back toward the battlefield as she struggled to breathe, each breath coming in a ragged gasp. Through blurred vision, she thought she saw a form standing and tried to raise her newly found pistol, but found her arm wouldn't obey her. It twitched upward before she fell to her knees, muttering threats right up until she face-planted into the sand, and her world went black...
 
The bandits were getting closer to circumventing Markus' limited cover, but he wasn't going to give up. It was becoming more and more inevitable that he wasn't going to survive this one, but he was going to do his damndest to make the bandits pay for every scrap of his salvage. He leaned out the front end of his Dunerunner and let loose a few shots from his autolaser rifle, then shimmied to the back end and leaned out that way to let out a few more shots. But even then, the bandits were just keeping him too well pinned-down. He couldn't stay still long enough to draw a bead on any of the bandits.

Then he heard a loud booming sound echo through the ghost town.

Markus flinched and thought they had thrown a grenade at him, but nothing hit his Dunerunner aside from more small arms fire. But then he realized something strange...the sounds of bullets pinging off the other side of his armored Dunerunner started lessening, and the shouts of the bandits suddenly got more frantic. Markus then leaned out the front end of his Dunerunner again, and this time, found that the bandits were...turning away from him? He caught glimpses of something flitting from building to building, behind the line of the bandits, taking them out. Too fast to be a shambler, too tall to be a mutant-dog. Had a speed-shredder found its way this far out too?

Well, Markus wasn't going to let this chance go to waste, whatever it was, and took the chance to take a bead on one of the bandits. He pulled the trigger on his weapon and the rapidly-cycling laser drilled a hole in the bandit's head. More booming sounds of a different pitch echoed through the town again, this time sounding like a really big gun, but again, nothing was hitting his position. And the bandits were fleeing. Markus stood up and took aim at the bandits, and managed to hit several of the running ones, but missed at least two. Dangit. That's not good.

Markus finally took the opportunity to dart from his cover towards the buildings to find out just what was going on. Probably stupid, given the circumstances, he should have just repaired his Dunerunner and made a run for it, but Markus was a curious person and had an intellect to match, but not much in the way of sense. He wanted to know just what had taken out the bandits. The gun-toting scientist carefully advanced, checking around each corner with a small hand-mirror before moving forward, until he finally saw a standing person among the bodies of the bandits. Not a speed-shredder.

Markus moved out of cover, holding his rifle at the ready, and the figure whirled around, raising a pistol his direction. Markus' eyes widened as he saw the face of his 'rescuer'. An Anthro! A live Anthro! Markus knew about Anthros from before the bombs dropped, six years ago, and knew that the Anthros had been typically traded as sex toys, though he'd never met one himself. What was an Anthro doing out here?

More to the point, how had an Anthro torn apart all these bandits like nothing?

Markus then realized said Anthro was severely injured, mostly by the fact that they then fell flat on their face. Well, Markus wasn't going to leave it at that. This Anthro just saved his life, and he'd be damned if he didn't try to return the favor. Markus ran back to his Dunerunner and opened up the cargo compartment, pulled out a medkit, and ran back over to the Anthro. He pushed them over onto their back (Oof! they were heavy!) and realized for the first time that the Anthro was female, by the rather significant swell of her chest under her combat vest. Markus noted two major injuries, one in her shoulder, and one in her side. He glanced over and saw the likely culprit--a dead bandit clutching an anti-material rifle. The armor must have deadened the bullets somewhat, but that alone couldn't account for why the Anthro wasn't dead already...but that was no matter at the moment.

Markus took two foam-sprayers out of his medkit. The first bottle he applied in both injuries was an anti-bacterial spray, and the second was a foaming blood-coagulant. He then followed it up with two bandages tied around the wounds. That should keep the Anthro from bleeding out until he could get her back to his home. "C'mon, don't die on me..." Markus muttered as he then ran back to his Dunerunner to check the damage. Fortunately it was minimal, just a severed power conduit to one of the wheels, and it was a simple jury-rig to reroute power. He then hopped in the Dunerunner and drove it back over to the side of the downed Anthro, where he then worked to try and pick her up and get her into the backseat. It was tough, with him being a scrawny guy and her being dead weight and built like a brick, but he eventually managed to get her into the seat with a minimum of agitation to her injuries. "Alright, stay with me, stay with me, keep breathing just until we can get home..." He muttered again as he drove off into the desert.

*****

Once back into the bunker that Markus had appropriated as his home, he enlisted the help of several of the robotic waldo-arms from around his lab to carefully lift the Anthro out of the Dunerunner more delicately than he had gotten her into it, and transferred her to a bed he could operate on. Markus then set about stripping off her vest and other accessories, in order to keep everything away from the wound while he worked. He was a prodigy, and knew a bit about surgery due to knowing how to install cybernetic implants. With surgical tools in hand, Markus then went about extracting every metal fragment he could get, then proceeded to stitch her back up...

*****

Markus leaned back, sighing and pulling off the bloody gloves from his hands. He had done the best he could to repair the damage and get the Rottweiler Anthro out of immediate danger. He had also managed to pull some of his lab equipment to distill a nutrient solution, which he then set up into a jury-rigged IV drip. Also with a cooked up makeshift heart-monitor, Markus examined the Anthro's current status. Her breathing was still very shallow, but her heart was still beating with good regularity. Which was a little suspicious. But in any case, Markus settled into keep a close monitor on her, as the next few hours would be critical. Markus also couldn't help noticing, now that his own heart was slowing down from all the excitement and he was really able to take stock of things...that the woman had a hell of a body, divested of most of her garments. Her biceps were twice as thick as his own scrawny arms, her abs were very well defined, and--Markus blushed a bit--she had one rather impressive rack. Markus shook his head, covered her up with a blanket, and willed himself to ignore all that. This was important, her life was at stake, he couldn't let himself be distracted by such things...

However, Markus couldn't help but consider several things that he had learned about her. First was her exceptional physique in the first place, for an Anthro. Second was during surgery, he found her muscle density to be ridiculously above normal and rather hard to operate on. But the biggest tip-off was the simple fact that the antimaterial rifle didn't core her. Markus had heard rumors. Allegedly, there was a program to develop 'Alphasoldiers', who had increased strength, endurance, reaction time, toughness, and healing rate, among other things. Now, Markus had to consider that maybe the rumors were true. Particularly as the hours wore on into a day, the Anthro seemed to be healing up exceptionally well. If she did have an increased healing rate, she'd likely be ravenously hungry when she woke up.

*****

When the Anthro finally regained her senses, she would be able to take stock of her surroundings and situation. First, there was a lot of pressure on her sides and on one shoulder; she was heavily bandaged around the waist and shoulder, and her arm was in a sling. She was also wearing only undergarments, with a light blanket drawn over her body. A monitor was beeping softly next to her, and there was a needle in one of her arms that fed from a bag of clear fluid. All around her, she looked to be in some kind of laboratory, with esoteric machinery and cobbled-together technical equipment littering the room. There was a table next to her, which had all her normal clothes folded up on it--washed of blood and with holes sewn back up--along with most of her accessories, but not her main weapons, plus a plate of food rations.

And, just beyond the table, was a man sitting in a chair. He was slumped down, with head against his chest, while he snored softly. A mop of black hair adorned his head, and a pair of rectangular glasses were set over his closed eyes. He had a round, boyish face, slightly smudged with oil, and he wore a long white labcoat, though it was slightly browned from extensive travelstains. He continued to snore.
 
Amy groaned as consciousness returned. She was vaguely aware of pressure; her sides and shoulder were being pressed inward. Had she fallen on her side? Maybe...

Her eyelids twitched as she began to awaken. She breathed deeply, taking in the smell of the desert sa-

No... no, she wasn't in the desert anymore. This was far too sterile. She sniffed again; chemicals and grease, scents that stung her nostrils. There was something else... then it hit her. Food. She became keenly aware of just how hungry she was, more hungry than she'd been in a long time... it smelled so good, but she used every ounce of willpower to stop herself from jumping for it. She'd been moved, someone had power over her. Once she opened her eyes, she might well have to fight, so she drew in as much information as she could.

Her ears perked; something quietly beeping beside her, maybe a heart monitor in pre-war style. Breathing nearby. Only one person, but he might have robot guards. Her right arm was restrained somehow, maybe in a sling? She pressed her left palm downward onto the bed below her. She wasn't on some table, so she was being well-cared-for... they definitely cared if she was alive. And then she noticed it; she wasn't in her fatigues anymore. Someone had stripped her while she was out. Those sick fucks.

Amy's eyes flew open, fury burning behind them as she sat up and looked down herself. She was in her standard-issue olive green bra and panties, but who knew if she'd been left in them, or some freak had stripped those off, taken advantage of her, and put them back on? Taped to her wrist was a sensor, a cord leading from it to the heart rate monitor beside her. She'd have to be careful; she would need to rip that off before she moved, but as soon as she did, it was going to make a lot of noise. She could see where she'd been patched up, and had an IV drip running to her right arm, feeding her clear liquid. She hoped that was saline, but she wasn't about to risk hope. Carefully, she pulled the IV out and then untied the sling her arm was in. Her arm was painful, but it would heal on its own. She might need use of it soon.

The table next to her had her clothes on it, which was a relief, but all of her weapons were gone. The clothes rustled softly as she searched them; they were stitched up better than they'd been when she'd taken on the Cráneos, but there weren't even any magazines left in her pockets anymore; she really was completely without weapons.

She looked around again; the room was cluttered with tech, extremely so, but the bed she was in was comfortable. Across from her was a chair, in which was a sleeping man who fit the egghead profile perfectly. He was kind of cute in a wimpy kind of way, maybe, but she was sure she could snap him like a toothpick. More importantly, he was standing between her and freedom. Considering everything she knew now, he was either here to keep her alive to be a prisoner, or he figured he'd found an anthro and was getting a free fuck toy. Either way, he was in for a nasty surprise.

She flipped her legs over the edge of her bed and hopped off loudly, a loud "Thud" and a little shudder going through the room as her paws hit the ground. She ripped off the tape holding the heart rate sensor to her wrist, striding forward as menacingly as possible. The monitor let out an ominous, continual beep as her hands balled into fists, the anthro glaring dead into the man's eyes as she approached him.

"Where. Are. My. Weapons?"
 
As the monitor stopped its steady beeping and instead let out a continuous beep after Amy took it off, the man in the chair started to stir. He looked up, blinking blearily--and found an angry Rottweiler face right in front of him, growling at him about weapons.

"Guh!" Markus startled and almost fell back in his chair as he looked up at the Anthro. "I--um--what..." He shook his head and got his bearings, then gulped and looked back at the Anthro. "Your...your weapons? I...um...I didn't have time to grab them when I was rushing you back here? But, uh, they should still be out there, we can go get them when you're..." He glanced down, apparently recognizing for the first time that she was up and out of the bed with her arm out of the sling. "...healed? Wow, you really did heal fast, and, um..." Markus also then seemed to realize that Amy was still only in her undergarments. His cheeks started turning red as he turned his head to the side, and pointed with a finger. "Uh by the way your clothes are all fixed up, over there on the table, maybe you'd like to get dressed?" He said in a small voice.
 
"You... LEFT my weapons there?! GRAH!: She let out a cry of frustration, clutching at her head, seemingly oblivious to her state of half-dress as she began to pace. "How long was I out? If it's only been a few hours, maybe there haven't been scavengers sent yet? ...no. No, with how bad I was hit, it has to have been longer than that. Damn it!"

She turned and rested her good hand against a wall while she thought, her stubby tail twitching anxiously above her rump. Finally she sighed and turned back around, arms crossed under her breasts. "So what's the deal then? You go out, drag some stranger home... for what? What's your angle?"
 
"You...you've been out for two d--" Markus tried to answer the raging Anthro in a small voice, but she kept on shouting and Markus fell quiet again. After that the Anthro went quiet and leaned against a wall, and Markus remained quiet, not wanting to set her off, until she turned to him and demanded what Markus' "deal" and his "angle" was.

"I...um..." Markus stammered at first, then found his voice again. "You--you saved my life out there! Those bandits had me dead to rights, and you just tore right through them! I couldn't leave you to die out there after you did that!" Markus said in a rising pitch, waving his arms a bit at the end while still sitting in his chair. "I stanched your wounds out there with biofoam, then brought you back here so I could operate on you, get the bullet fragments out of your body. I've been monitoring your condition ever since, hoping you'd make it through. A normal person wouldn't have made it." He finished at a more level tone.
 
Amy looked sideways at the man; saving her out of pure gratitude? Did he really expect her to believe that? The world hadn't worked like that since the bombs dropped; it was everyone for themselves out there, that's just the way things were. Still, when she spoke next, it was less a furious shout and more curious resignation.

"So you were the dumb bastard who got caught by the Cráneos? Huh, didn't expect you'd survive that. So alright, sure, your benevolence knows no bounds. Now seriously, why did you save me? What are you trying to get out of this?"
 
"I...um..." Markus looked down and fidgeted as she asked him what he wanted. What did he want? "Well, um...I honestly wasn't thinking of anything when I brought you here, but..." Now that he thought about it...he looked back up at Amy. "I...I guess maybe we could...team up? Stick together? I mean, I've got this bunker and all these supplies here!" He said, gesturing to the rest of the laboratory and workshop. "And you're such an amazing fighter! The mutants and bandits wouldn't give me trouble again if you stuck around. If you do, then I'll share everything I have with you. I've got hydroponics for food, a water pump from an underground well..." Markus explained. "A-and we can also still go out to where the fight was and pick up your weapons, there's a good chance they're still there..."
 
Amy thought a moment, regarding the man in front of her. The offer was pretty good, even if she disregarded that the man probably saved her life by taking her and patching her up. Lord knows she'd spent enough time scrounging for food that it'd be a relief to live off something dependable. If only for a while.

"Was that so hard? A protection deal... smart. And I get an even take? Hm... fine. You've got yourself a bodyguard." A smile spread across her muzzle as she stuck her hand out towards the man. "Specialist Amy, US Army." Amy seemed about to continue, then stopped as she looked down, seeming to notice her state of dress again. "Ah fuck, lemme get some clothes on."

With that, she turned back to the bed, bending down as she moved to put her pants back on. "And you, egghead? What's your name?"
 
Markus brightened up as the Anthro thought it over, then agreed to working with him. "Great! That's great!" He said as she stuck out a hand for him to shake. "Amy, huh? That's a nice name. Nice to meet you." Markus said, reaching out to take her hand, but she then pulled back, realizing she was still only in her undergarments. "Ah, yeah, right." He blushed again and looked away.

He then blinked and looked back towards her as she started getting her clothes on while she asked him his name. "Oh, right! My name is Markus." He replied, finally standing up from the chair he'd been sitting in the whole time. Once Amy was fully clothed again, Markus looked at her. "So, I'm guessing you want to head out and grab your weapons now? I'd normally like to observe you for a little longer, make sure you're staying stable and you're ready to travel, but...I think some of those bandits got away during the fight. We should hurry and grab that and salvage what we can if it's not already gone." Markus said.
 
Amy nodded as she pulled her shirt and vest back on. "Sounds like a plan, Markus. They're probably gone, but there might be something left there. First, though..." She plopped back down on the bed, picking up the plate of food.

"I'm gonna have a religious experience with this food, and if I ever say that about a fucking salad again, I want you to smack me. Go grab me a weapon for the trip, wouldja?" Without waiting for a response, she started shoveling greens into her mouth. It wasn't meat, sure, but she was so rediculously hungry, she was glad to have anything.
 
Markus blinked as Amy sat down with the plate of vegetable food picked from his hydroponics setup. "Uhh..maybe?" He said in response to her comment about smacking her for the 'religious experience', then followed it up with "Oh! Right, weapons, coming right up." Markus made his way through the cluttered workshop, around tables and past closets, to his makeshift 'armory'. He took his autolaser rifle and a more mundane assault rifle out of his armory and made his way back to Amy.

He approached her and held up both weapons. "Take your pick. I actually don't have much ammo--for either gun. I'm down to my last few charged powercells, still trying to work out a way to recharge them, and I never had much in the way of conventional ammunition to start with. But if all the bandit's weapons and ammo are right where we left them on their bodies, then that'll be a serious boost to our personal arsenal. And with you around, we'll be able to take on the dens of mutants sitting on stockpiles of supplies around here that I know about that I've never been able to get to in the last three years." Markus explained.
 
Amy looked up from her food, a bit of red juice dripping from her muzzle as she set the other half of a tomato back down, looking carefully at the two weapons he held out, before she reached out to grab the assault rifle from him. She tilted it this way and that, looking the weapon over. "I don't like laser weapons. Half the time, bandits are high off something. I'll take a weapon where when I shoot someone, they know they're dead before they stop moving."

She nodded approvingly at the rifle in her hands. AR15, Colt make. It was single-shot, but that might be a good thing. She did have a tendency to waste bullets on full auto... this rifle was fairly basic, no customization, but she could live with it. She could certainly kill with it.

She finished her inspection of the weapon by pulling the slide open and looking down the barrel. "No rust... no signs of wear... well lubricated... you take good care of your weapons." She looked up at him and offered what could be the first genuine smile he'd seen from her. "I like you. I think we're gonna get along just fine."

Then she checked the safety and held the rifle out to him, turning her attention back to the food. "Get your runner ready, assuming it's running after you used it as a bullet sponge? I'm gonna finish eating here, be ready in two ticks."
 
Markus shrugged as Amy took the assault rifle and explained her preference for it over laser weaponry. "Fair enough." He replied, and watched as she inspected the gun. "Yeah, I've got...a lot of time on my hands." He said at her comment about how well-maintained the rifle was. He accepted it back as she smiled at him--actually smiled at him!--and he blushed ever so slightly before quickly turning away.

As she said, he headed through the workshop to the 'motor pool' where he kept several vehicles, including the Dunerunner. He went over its systems, more in-depth than he had since the fight, and found a few minor issues from all the bullet strikes that could use some quick fixing. He got his toolkits and started patching up what he could in a few minutes while Amy finished her meal. Once she did and followed his path, she would walk past many more robotic systems and other machinery, some of it looking like it could work, others looking to be in a state of disrepair.

When she got to the motor pool, she'd find Markus working on the Dunerunner. It was an interesting vehicle, three-wheeled--two in the back, one up front--with an armored bubble canopy over the main body. There was a bigger large semi-truck looking vehicle as well, also with bolted-on armor plating, and over in the far corner, half-covered by a tarp--was that a tank?!
 
Amy walked toward the motor pool, taking in the sights as she went as a way to get her mind off the hunger still growling away in her stomach. She hadn't had enough, but she would make do.

This place was a tinkerer's dream. The guy was definitely a grease monkey. Machines half-built that she could only guess the use of, all in various states of wear, and then the motor pool itself. He had the Dunerunner as a light transport, some sort of Semi with trailer for hauling bigger stuff, armored vehi-

She stopped dead. Armored vehicle... that silhouette under the tarp looked familiar. A smile spreading on her face, she ran over and yanked off the tarp. She smiled wide until her cheeks started to hurt, and the sound that came out of her open mouth could only be described as a cackle; the sort you'd expect from a supervillain on one of those old shows after she'd just invented a death ray.

That was an M1 Abrams in working order, with TUSK equipped. That was a fucking tank. She hadn't seen one of these since her unit dissolved! Like a kid at Christmas, she rushed around to the other side to take it all in, then clambered on top of it, getting a good look at the turret on top, then inside the pilot's seat where finally her smile faded. Less than 100 bullets in the secondary gun, hardly any shells, and no fuel. Damn. Ah well, at least he wasn't dumb enough to try and use expired diesel.

A little disappointed, she trudged over to the Dunerunner, leaning up against it as she watched him work. "So what were you getting up to with the Cráneos back at the town?"
 
Markus looked up from his patching work when he heard the 'cackle' echo through the motor pool of the bunker. He glanced over and watched her as she got herself into the tank with an excited expression, but then left with a disappointed one. "Yeah, I've got almost nothing to actually run and supply that tank with. And the drivetrain's busted, I've not got around to fixing it yet." He explained as she walked over and asked him what he was doing with the bandits.

Markus winced. "I wasn't--getting up to anything with them, I mean. I've been slowly working my way through every town within a hundred-mile radius of this bunker, picking every bit of supplies I can find. I was in that town, in a basement collecting some things, and when I left the basement, the shooting started. They must have been nearby and seen the dust trail my Dunerunner kicked up when I entered the town. I let my guard down...I wasn't expecting bandits out here. Part of the reason I settled in this bunker is the lack of other people to compete with, but..." Markus rubbed the back of his neck. "I've been starting to miss having someone to talk to. Also, I think some nomads and other settlers will be encroaching nearby within the year, I've been seeing some of the towns in the distance get re-occupied."

Markus then packed up his toolkit. "Anyway! That's as good as I'm gonna get the Dunerunner for now, should be enough to get us out to that town and back. Hop in." Markus said as he raised the bubble canopy of the Dunerunner and got into the front driver's seat, leaving the back passenger's seat open for Amy. Markus then started up the vehicle, punched in a command on his wristcomp, and a large blast door started opening up. Markus drove on out, and as they left, Amy's sharp eyes could see a few hidden and camouflaged autoturrets tracking them around the rock formation the bunker was built into.

As they started out over the desert, Markus spoke up. "Hey Amy, I...wanted to ask you something." He said. "You're an Anthro, but...you took a hit that should have killed you. You healed much faster than expected. And of course, you're ridiculously strong and fit. I...heard rumors, before the bombs dropped. Are you what they called an 'Alphasoldier'?" He asked.
 
"You sure you weren't getting up to anything? I've been hunting the Cráneos for a long time. They weren't scavenging, that was a party with a mission. They were planning to meet someone, or ambush someone. We might find more than we expect when we get back there. Bodies or people." Amy climbed into the back seat, hunching over a little as the bubble closed behind her. As the Dunerunner roared to life, her eyes widened in realization. "We're making a stop after the town, about five miles East South-East of it. My Bike is by the road there. If they haven't gotten to it yet, it's in good condition and has some of my stuff."

She fell silent as he asked about her, choosing to look at his autoturrets tracking them instead of at him. She studied their positioning, trying to figure out ways around their firing arcs. She never fully trusted automated systems. Michael-Alpha-One had been their comms expert. She'd seen him seize control of an enemy's systems, use an alarm to lure them out, then blow them to pieces in seconds with their own automated guns. It only took one good hacker, and that fox was damn good.

She mulled Markus' question over. Strictly speaking, she was still property of the United States government, expected to survive and maintain a base of operations with communications until such a time as she was recalled into active duty. So long as she was US property, she was forbidden under charge of Treason to share classified information. Of course, her commanders were also expected not to withdraw support and leave good soldiers for dead. Fuck them and their secrets.

"Alpha-unit, but don't go getting too perked up over the name; Alpha stands for 'A,' and 'A' stands for 'Anthro.' Officially, we do not exist, and Amy is just a nickname my squadmates gave me. We kinda stared at our designations and tried to make something to call each other by that didn't make us sound like robots. My real name is Alpha-Michael-Niner.

"But yeah, we were supersoldiers, bred for our jobs. Some of us were made to be marksmen, some of us were bred to be crazy smart and jack enemy comms. I'm a GI, I'm bred to stop bullets." She chuckled. "Lucky me, right?"
 
Markus nodded when Amy mentioned her bike. "Got it. We'll check it out after salvaging what we can from the town, if there's anything to be salvaged." Markus also of course didn't know the thoughts Amy had on his autoturret defense, nor her conundrum about telling him about what she really was. But he appreciated it all the same when she did. He also found it a little sad that Amy only had a 'designation', not a real name, and that Amy was only a nickname. "Ah, I...see." He responded. "Well, I'm happy to call you 'Amy'. And huh, I knew that Anthros were originally created to be..." Though Amy couldn't see it, Markus blushed, "...well, you know. Though I never actually met an Anthro. But I also wasn't sure if the rumors about some being created as supersoliders were true or not. I guess in hindsight it wasn't all that far-fetched considering Anthros existed as artificially designed life already."

The Dunerunner sped on, its electric motors humming away comfortingly. Eventually, the town where the Cráneos had ambushed Markus came into view...but as they got closer, they could see tents set up, along with a few mutated but tame animals and carts around. "Nomads!" Markus said as they got closer. "That must have been who those 'Cráneos' were after like you said. Let's hope they're friendly..."Markus said as they pulled into town.

There were a number of people in heavy cloaks to protect them from the sun milling around, and as the Dunerunner arrived towards the center of town, the nomads started surrounding the Dunerunner, pointing weapons at the vehicle. "Well, they're not shooting yet, so...that's a good sign..." Markus said as he brought the Dunerunner to a stop and popped the bubble canopy, holding up his hands as he stepped out of the vehicle.

"Peace! Peace! We mean you no harm." Markus said as guns were pointed at him. One particular cloaked man stepped forward.

"What are you doing here?" The apparent leader of the nomads asked.

"We're here to pick up some things. I'm sure you've found the bodies of the bandits who were here, uh...we were involved in the fight that killed them." Markus started explaining to the leader. But as Amy looked around at the people pointing guns at her, her eyes would fall on one in particular;

One of the nomads was holding her gun!
 
Amy listened as Markus babbled, shaking her head. The dork was trying so hard to be nice, it was almost cute. Annoying, but cute. "S'pose not. Of course, I'm not a normal Anthro. I see you whip your dick out, you're losing it." Amy chuckled afterward, leaving him with a worrying question of whether or not she was joking.

As the Dunerunner hummed its way toward the town, Amy leaned forward, her face near enough to Markus for him to feel her breath on his neck. "Hm... look's like Job's people. Been meaning to find them. Move slow when we get out, word is they're twitchy."

As the Dunerunner stopped, Amy climbed out, AR15 in her hands but held at ease. She wasn't bothering with the whole hands up bit. This was all small-arms, it shouldn't be too big a deal unless... realization hit her and she looked toward the broken wall where the asshole with the Anti-Material rifle had been camped. The thing was gone, and she couldn't see any sign of it. Maybe it was in storage as they tried to find bullets and tools to repair it... or maybe...

She scanned rooftops and windows, instinctively bending her knees a little as she dropped into a more ready stance. She couldn't see a sniper, but that didn't mean one wasn't there... and if she couldn't even tell where it was, it would tear her apart before she could get to it.

She looked back over to Markus as he talked with a leader of the nomads. Was that Job? Maybe, maybe a lieutenant. Either way, she'd leave the talking to the dork. Bad things tended to happen when she tried diplomacy. If she botched this, she may very well need stitched up again. She was going to tread care-

Wait. That woman. That gun. That was her M4, right down to the custom camo and hash-marks she used to mark the number of hulkers she'd killed! She scanned the crowd and saw her sawed-off, too. These fuckers were threatening her with her own guns?!

Amy cut into the conversation. "Hey! HEY!" She pointed her left hand at the woman holder her M4. "That's MY gun, girl. That too." She pointed to the man holding her sawed-off. Amy was suddenly keenly aware that most of the guns in the area were trained on her, but she didn't care. She'd be damned if she was going to let these bastards waltz off with her weapons after she'd saved their asses. Accidentally? Sure, but it was the result that counts, right?

"These bodies were my kills. They were sitting here to ambush some unlucky bastards- guessin' that's you- and got blown to shit when I ambushed them. Woulda looted them after, but that Anti-Mat knocked me down a peg and I had to retreat. I don't give a damn about most of their stuff, but howsabout you hand over the gun, eh pumpkin? That's Government property."
 
When Amy made her half-jesting threat to Markus about treating her like a 'normal' Anthro, he sputtered and stammered. "I wouldn't--I'd never..." Then fell silent with his cheeks burning red the rest of the way until they got into town.

Once he was out of the Dunerunner and conversing with the nomad, he flinched when Amy suddenly cut in from behind him, causing all the nomads to fractionally raise their weapons her way. "An Anthro took down the Cráneos? No way." One nomad muttered. "Government property? Feh, there ain't no governments left anymore." Another nomad spat. Markus' eyes flitted between Amy and the nomads frantically as he tried to think of a way to defuse the situation.

"W-wait! Water!" Markus blurted out. "I can offer you some water!" He said to the nomads. "I have...access to a source." The nomads then lowered their weapons a little and muttered between them. The man Markus had been listening to turned and walked away. There was an awkward pause for several long moments before the man returned, with another nomad. This one was carrying a hunting rifle and carried himself with an air of importance.

"I'm Job." The man said as he looked at Amy and Markus. "Hansen tell me you're looking to trade some water for weapons?"

"Uh...yes, that's right." Markus nodded. He pointed out the same two weapons Amy had. "Those two weapons, plus all the ammo for them, for...say...three gallons of water?" Markus offered.

"Five." Job counteroffered in a firm voice.

Markus winced and meekly said "Okay." When then probably pointed out something of a problem to Amy with letting him handle the negotiations; Markus didn't seem to have much in the way of confidence for haggling, and didn't seem to think of even bargaining for other supplies besides the weapons she wanted.
 
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