Memory Gap (Alpha and Sigr)

[AlphaZero]

Sometimes things just went right. And that was the case the night Nick Sharpe took an entire table of ruthless killers for all they had in a game or cards. Of course it really wasn't luck so much as it was his own skill at cheating that won the day, but there was no need to Deadlock boys.
Credits, guns, one guys left arm and a plethora of other odd items had found there way into his possession all thanks to aces he had up his sleeve. He sold most of it to a scraper he knew that would pay well and crossed his fingers that the boys wouldn't go to try and take their stuff back. But the data pad had been a surprise. He had expected to find it loaded with porn and cat videos and other recreational shit. Instead what he found was a map to an old research station undetground, the kind of place with plenty to salvage and sell.

The enterence to the main bunker was set back from the main road along a winding streach of blacktop dotted with long abandoned guard posts and concrete barriers that Nick had to slow the truck to weave around. The road ended in a tunnel mouth leading deep into a mountain. As luck would have it the data he had liberated from the Deadlocks included a map of the complex and if he read it right there was some kind of vault on the lower levels behind a heavy blast door.

His flashlight cut through the pitch black darkness of the narrow concrete hallways, causing the shadows of overturned furniture and other discarded junk to dance across the walls. The datapad's screen glowed brightly in his in hand, bathing his scruffy features in neon lines.

The glanced from the screen, slate grey eyes following the beam of his flashlight as it traced across the heavy black steel blast door at the end of the hall.

"Bin-go."

He brushed back the hem of his weather beaten leather jacket and slipped the pad into a pouch on his belt as he descended the short ramp that lead to the door and came to a stop. A terminal next to the door let out a flat, timeless beep that almost caused Nick to jump in surprise. He hadn't heard a sound other than his own foot steps divine he entered the complex, power everywhere was dead but this terminal was still live.

He brushed aside decades of dust and debris with one gloved hand and pushed back the tattered baseball cap he wore, scratching the unkept snady coloured hair under it before tugging a cable connected to a box from his belt and plugging into data port on console. Several seconds ticked by before another beep sounded followed by the low rumble of massive locking bolts rolling back and the door hissed open.

The overhead lights inside flickered to light exposing a wide chamber with a low ceiling. Nick squinted against the flouresents, they seemed like overkill to his eyes which slowly adjusted to light.
The room with full of rows of tables and sectioned off low plastic deviders into smaller work spaces. He moved slowly past the tables, taking in the pristine looking tech that he couldn't even begin to identity before comming to a stop infront of what he could only describe as an upright plastic coffin.

Consoles surrounded it, flickering to life and displaying information that Nick couldn't fully understand. One of them beeped, and continued to beep, growing quicker and quicker, soon all the concoles displayed the same message .
'Unsealing the Hushed Casket'

His head snapped towards the coffin, watching a gap appear down the center as it slowly swung open.

 

[Sigr]

The worried face of a man. A little kid's tears. The last images on her mind were etched in fire. Then the light. Then nothing. There was nothing to call time, there was nothing that resembled space, there was nothing that she could call self. And then the red light, the beeping. Her open eyes looked at the light, were they opening for the first time or were they never closed? She blinked for a moment, almost trembling, afraid of returning to the nothing, but the light was still there, the beeping was still there. Where was she? Wait. Who was she? She found comfort in having a name, but there was little else she had.

A bright line of light showed vertically in front of her with a creaking sound and the beeping red light was gone. What did the line meant? But as it grew wider she understood, it wasn't just a light. She was inside, and the light was outside. Her understanding of the surroundings grew every fraction of a second, but as she recovered her motor functions one by one there was still so little she knew, and she was eager for more. Hungry for more. Without as much as a conscious thought, more of an impulse, her right hand moved to the light, and pried open the darkness for her to get out.

Her first step couldn't have been worse, as she fell to her knees, barely supporting herself with her arms, palms on the ground. Slowly and unsteadily getting up she couldn't but look at her arms, her hands. Translucent skin showed intricate machinery under it, and she could see the parts move with every slight movement test she made. It was a thing of beauty. It was a thing of horror. But she wasn't a thing, she shouldn't be a thing.

She didn't feel like a thing.

A white maze of tables and walls extended around her surroundings. Behind her, now wide open it was the place where she emerged from. Coffin, cradle and egg. White as the walls, the ceiling and floor, the pieces inside her skin and everything around but the man. He wasn't like anything around him, he was no worried man, no crying child. He was nothing like her, and yet he was. Without much of a thought her skin was translucent no more and resembled the skin tone of the man, even if he was dressed while she was not. She could feel hair on her shoulders, flowing from her head in the same color as the man's was, even if hers was longer. A she looked at the baffled man, he could see that her eyes that once where white now they looked like his own.

 

[AlphaZero]

Nick stood rooted to the spot, his average brain trying to process what he was looking at. The shape that descended from the coffin, pod or whatever the hell it was, it was shipped like a human woman that would be particularly attractive if not for the translucent skin that that exposed the high tech Skelton benith.
It reminded him of an old servent droid he had pulled out of a scrap heap once, only sleeker, more human looking in almost every way.
He watched awestruck as the skin began to shift and change, the skeleton disappearing behind the same natural tan of his own skin. The hair shifted and took on the same sandy hue of his and it wasn't long before he found himself squirming under the stair of his own slate grey eyes.

"Um.....The fuck?"

His legs found the power to move again and Nick turned, the flight portion of flight of fight kicking in, and slammed into one of the tables, toppeling over it and taking the contents of the table with him to land with a crash in a heap on the floor.

One arm shot up over the edge of the table brandishing a
gun in the general direction of the coffin and it's former occupant, "Alright scary.... Machine lady, you can just stay there and not eat my face. Ok?"

He perked up from behind the table, not bothering to move his gun.

 

[Sigr]

She recognized the language immediately as English, even if that man behind the table aiming at her with a gun had a quite colorful way of using it. Part of her urged to move, to take hold of the gun, to dispose of the threat, but she was too surprised at the sight and still trying to figure out what was going on to do any rash decisions. "I'm not going to-" she started to talk, but when she heard herself sound exactly as the man, she stopped. Something was not right, she couldn't completely mimic that man nor was a reason to, and her appearance was far from making him feel safer. Her proportioned body remained the same, but soon her skin was pale, the long hair turned auburn and the eyes looking to the man were chocolate brown.

"I'm staying here and not eating your face" she finally said, this time the voice was a female one, firm yet not threatening. She felt like she was still half asleep, as parts of her were slowly returning from being dormant, but none of them talked about who she was, where she was. "Can you put the gun down? It's driving me crazy" she asked, her mind blaring at the sight of it, marking the man as a target, a threat, someone to be eliminated. More and more parts of her started to wake, and now she had estimations of how long would it take for her to reach and incapacitate him, what objects where near to be thrown as an alternative. "I don't want to hurt you. Well, right now I want to hurt you, but I'd like to stop wanting it, so please at least lower your arm" she sounded agitated, and her hands were starting to flex her fingers, closing her hands into fists and opening them again. Closing and opening. Closing and opening.

 

[AlphaZero]

Nick's face twisted into some strange mix of horror and confusion and terror. Not only had the robot lady with the really nice rack decided to make herself look like him, but she decided to sound like him too!
This whole situation was starting to seem more and more like he was dreaming. Or maybe he was dead. Maybe he hadn't actually successfully cheated the Deadlocks at cards and they had left him strung up by his man parts somewhere in the badlands and he was having some kind of halusination as he was slowly pecked apart by buzzards that was the ONLY possible explanation for this whole weird ass situation.

Slowly he lowered the gun, feeling slightly less disturbed by the form of the pretty red head now infront of him. She seemed confused, a feeling Nick could easily sympathize with at that moment, considering he was pretty sure none of this was real.

With his free hand he quickly slapped himself across the face several times, leaving his cheeks red from the impact.

He stood there blinking, "ok....I guess I'm not dreaming. So....I guess.....Who are you?

 

[Sigr]

The alarms in her mind and the tension of her body faded as the man lowered the gun. There was still a humming in the back of her brain that alerted her of the pistol, but it was bearable and didn't call for immediate action. Even if he looked calmer, that man's behavior still felt erratic, and she tilted her head at the sight of how he was slapping himself, although his own words sort of explained the action.

"Inanna" she automatically answered as he asked who she was, prompting her brow to furrow, wondering what that came from. "Although that's just my name and..." she looked around, eyeing the plastic walls, the minimalist tables. "...not who I am. Something that I'm afraid I can't really answer" Inanna finished, looking disturbed but mostly curious. "Where am I?" she asked, even if she didn't stand still much waiting for an answer. Exploring the surrounding tables for anything that may explain the situation, for any shred of information, she found a box with something else that had a more immediately practical side.

Inanna pulled a set of pants and shirt that looked somewhat like medical scrubs, but as mostly everything in there, they were white and with that look and feel of plastic, shiny and weird. "I guess I can stop being naked" she said more as a matter of fact than relieved of being able to stop being bare. The clothes were a big baggy on her, and she was still barefoot, but she could make do. "What were you doing in here?" she asked, giving up in her search for a moment, since it seemed fruitless.

 

[AlphaZero]

Inanna.

Her name was Inanna and wile it seemed like kind of a strange name to Nick, atleast it wasn't some ID number like 1N-442 or something like that that he'd never be able to remember. He leaned casually against the table, his gun spinning with lazy arrogance around one finger, "it's your name but not who you are?" He repeated, clearly confused by her statement before giving a dismissive shurg.

He watched as she rummaged around the tables, feeling slightly disappointed that she found something to cover up with. But then again he couldn't really blame her for wanting to cover up, "Well, were you are in underground, obviously, as for what I'm doing here...."

"You're stealing our prize boyo!" Bellowed a loud voice that cut Nick off, a chorus of cocking weapons filled the air and Nick's head snapped towards the door to see a dozen or so armed men in weather beaten leathers standing there.

"Well.....Shit....."

One man emerged from the group, towering over the rest, he sportted a bright green mohawk and a scar that puckered his lip into a perminant sneer, "You done cheated and took what's mine Nicky, and I come to take it back."

"We all cheated, just did it better." He shot back.

 

[Sigr]

"I can't remember much else" Inanna may be a machine, but her voice clearly transmitted that she was disturbed by that fact. Once dressed, it seemed that he wanted to explain something to her, about where they were, but a bunch of new people entered the place. The variety of weaponry being exhibited made Inanna's alarms blare, her head filling with not only the need to stop the cause of those warnings, but also the know how about the alternatives she had to face that trouble in the most successful way. Who was she that could do something like that? Think in such a way? Even if she didn't know no better, she had the feeling that such a feeling was far from normal.

Just the fact that the weapons were mostly aimed at the man seemingly called Nicky was the only thing that allowed Inanna to take hold of herself from the moment, as it resulted to be some kind of business dispute that involved cheating on both parts. "Did you really take something from a bunch of armed people? That seems unwise to me, Nicky" she commented, finding a bit more at ease when he had a name she could refer to. "Newcomers, can we discuss this while lowering the weapons? They are making me uneasy" she said, her voice trembling as she restrained herself. "It would be just fantastic and I'm sure that we can reach an agreement that benefits all parts" Inanna said, having finished with her attempt at peace, even if her insides screamed for expedite action.

 

[AlphaZero]

Like any sane and rational individual would when found in a situation in which they found themselves confronted by a dozen or so angry thugs with high powered rifles, Nick let his gun drop to the floor and he raised his hands above his head.

"Just to clarify. I didn't actually steal anything. I won it at cards. Sure I cheated to win. Ain't my fault smiley here didn't catch me. But I won, so technically I didn't steal anything."

"Cheatin' is still stealin."

"That's not what your mother said!"

The large man charged across the room and drove one massive fist into Nick's gut, causing the junker to crumble to his knees.

"Ok...Maybe she does agree with you." He wheezed before being assaulted with a fury of kicks for the Raiders boot.

The large man turned his attention towards Inanna, "well ain't you a pretty thing. Maybe once we finish with Nicky boy here we can have some fun with ya. "

He drew a heavy looking hand cannon from his belt an leveled it on her, "But we don't want you going nowhere till then."

The shot echoed like thunder in the cavernous chamber.

 

[Sigr]

Inanna was on the edge, her words unattended, her well meaning squandered, guns still aiming everywhere. Both Nicky and the newcomers talked and behaved like a bunch of criminals, but she couldn't help but feel it for Nicky. He seemed to have found and awoke her, he was clearly at a disadvantage, and at least he had been reasonable enough to talk to her and lower his gun before. Whoever was right and even if he was a thief, Inanna was starting to feel sympathy for Nicky, more so when the boss seemed too eager to maul him even if disarmed.

Inanna knew she could do something, and yet she had trouble wrapping her mind about why she could do such things, or even more if she should do so. It was clear that things weren't going well, but it was also apparent that what was going on there wasn't her problem. Or was it? What exactly did Nicky steal from them if anything? The menacing man talked to her, leaving pretty clear that he didn't harbor any good intentions towards her, rising a gun at her. So close. Alarms blared. Her sight turned red. Her instincts had grown dull, her sleep too long, her past muddled. All those things and more piled up one over another, making her react all too late.

The shot tore apart the flesh of her left shoulder, just above the collarbone. Her artificial skin was tore apart, and the rest of the projectile ended up deflected upwards, scarring her internal structure. Had she been someone with a human body, that thing would have tore her whole arm apart. Inanna could see Nicky, fallen but not beaten, all too close of his gun that he had been forced to drop before, she was aware of the rest of the goons in the room with their weapons, but most of all she had their leader on her sights. If the gun was like lightning, Inanna crunching, breaking and shattering the bones of the leader's arm was thunder, the sound as painful as unpleasant. The cannon fell to her grasp while the leader tried to sort out what was going on with the blinding pain his useless arm flared.

If any of the goons was to try something, an arm would be the least of their concerns.

 

[AlphaZero]

Smiley let out an ear piercing shriek that drowned out the sounds of bone cracking on flesh ripping. The Deadlock's froze, watching as their leader was effortlessly and brutally crippled. Nick watched slack jawed and awestruck, she moved like a flash, a dangerous graceful storm of fury.

"What the fuck....." he muttered.

Smiley fell the ground in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood, his voice starting to go horse form screaming so much. Nick scrambled forward on all fours, snatching up his gun up from where it lay on the floor and recovering to his feet, turning his gun on the crowd of bandits, waving it at them, "Alright you screw heads, listen up!"

Another chorus of screams from Smiley cut him off and he waited several moments for him to stop before carrying on, "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. We, that is me, and my new friend over there who is looking so stylish with your bosses blood on her, are going to be departing. And you guys are going to let us go. Is that clear?"

Another shriek of pain.

Nick gestured with his gun and the goons parted, allowing access to the door, "Thank you gents." he said, taking a bow and tipping he hats, "Inanna, if you care to leave Smiley to his own suffering, we need to get out of here." he said, starting to jog towards the door.

 

[Sigr]

Inanna broke bone and muscle, tearing the skin and making the man bleed. For a moment she almost continued on, but the clattering of the weapon against the ground snapped her back to her senses. His blood slipped down on her plastic white outfit, dripping to the ground, making Inanna back off a step so she wouldn't dirty her bare feet. While the screams of the man echoed and Nick tried to reason with the remaining goons, Inanna was poking a finger at the bullet hole, looking mesmerized at it. She knew that there was no serious injury there, awed by the amount of information she could garner about herself and her surroundings, everything in her reach, but the information she wanted.

She wasn't a machine, she didn't feel like a machine. Sure, she had seen what her body was made of but even then, she had those... memories, those... feelings? Only the mention of her name made she focus on the problem at hand, while Nick had made the goons back off, threatening with his gun and with... well, herself. Inanna followed him, still silent, processing what was going on, what else could she do? As prompted by her question, the skin on her damaged shoulder plied and shifted, hiding the wound as if the hole didn't ever happen to begin with. "Nicky I... I almost killed him" Inanna finally talked, stating a fact while still dumbfounded about it.

They walked through dust and debris, no place Inanna could recognize, they may be leaving answers behind, but what little search she had done really didn't show any clues to that. Who she was felt like an important question to her, but after what she had done, what she was seemed an equally important one.

 

[AlphaZero]

"Yeah you almost killed him, and he had way worse planned for me, and you, and more importantly me." Nick said, barely containing his excitement at the whole thing as he shouldered his way through the door connecting the complex to the access tunnel, "I think I need to get Smiley a shirt to commemorate this occasion, 'I tried to gang rape a murderbot and all I got was a crippled arm' yeah I think that'll really sting him!" he said with a hearty laugh. It was entirely possible that Nick was taking far too much enjoyment out of the bloody maiming of another human being, but given that said human being was one of the most dangerous raiders in the badlands.

The door lead back out into the tunnel where Nick had left his van parked surrounded by dozens of other smaller cars and motorbikes belonging to the Deadlocks. The driver's side door let out a squeal of protest as he yanked it open, hauling himself up into the cab, "So....you might wanna get in before the rest of those numbskulls realize they can actually think for themselves and come gunning for us."

The van's engine struggled to life, the exhaust ports letting out an unhealthy sounds belch as it finally turned over.

 

[Sigr]

Inanna got in the big vehicle, dropping herself on the passenger seat, poking and prodding at her shoulder, now seemingly fine. "Where are we going?" she asked, lowering the window on her side and getting most of her head out, peeking around. "Where are we to begin with?" she didn't recognize the place, but then again she didn't remember anything.

But the man of the worried face. And the crying kid.

"I'm not a robot" Inanna said after a while. "I mean, I know it was a joke and how I look inside..." she sighed. "Look, I may not remember who I am, and I don't know what the hell they have done to me, but I don't feel... I don't think I'm a machine" Inanna looked at Nick. "Not just a machine" she insisted. Biting her lip, she doubted though. How was she so sure about that? She didn't know much else, she knew what could she do, and yet she was sure that she wasn't just a thing? That she was human? Maybe it was part of her programming, but she felt sickened just thinking about it.

"Fuck this shit..." she swore, getting frustrated with the situation now that the excitement of the danger had gone by. "What I'm going to do now?" she wondered out loud, rising up the window again, leaning against it and looking at the badlands pass by.

 

[AlphaZero]

The van rumbeled along the darkened roadway, the engine occasionally backfiring and causing the exhaust to let out a massive belching crash that echoed through the tunnel before it gave way to the open roadway leading away from the complex.
"Well, you're in the badlands, 'bout.....oh twelve hours or so from the nearest things that passes as civilization then another four hours to the outter walls of the city."

The van swirved to avoid a crumbling barrier before rejoining the main road which was cracked and littered with potholes and flanked by a dead forest. In the crumpled sleeping bag behind the seats something stirred and a mechanical cat leapt for onto the back of the drivers seat, streach out and fixing Iananna with a quizical look.

Eventually the forest gave why to open space, what may once of been a town now stood empty, crumbling building overrun with ivy and other plantlife, all under a sky the colour of a TV switched to a dead channel.

 

[Sigr]

"Twelve hours..." Inanna mused, slumping on her seat. The background moved along, a blur as indistinguishable as her own fogged memories. The small specks of memory she had annoyed her, as told of a past she had lost, they were evidence that something was stolen from her. If she didn't remember anything she could think of herself as someone new, as weird as such a thing could be, but now there was no fooling herself. She looked at Nick, his ragtag clothes and nonchalant attitude, despite having avoided a beating or worse by the skin of his teeth, but any further consideration would have to wait, as a little critter appeared on the back of his seat.

"Hey you" Inanna said with a surprised smile. Putting a hand as a bridge, the mechanical cat climbed on her, ending up sitting on her lap as it owned the place. "Does it have a name?" she asked, looking at the little thing, playing with it with a finger. The behavior of the contraption was surprisingly catlike, all the gestures, the attitude. "It's like..." Inanna realized what she was going to say and stopped for a moment, continuing with a lower voice. "Like it was real" she said, doubting her own being. But she was a person, not a thing, deep down she knew it but... how to be sure?

Looking at the dashboard of the van, Inanna fiddled with it, noticing that Nick's car had its own sound system. Music she liked, or so she thought, since she couldn't remember any song she had ever heard, not even a single note. Hitting the play button, she wondered what kind of music that man had on his vehicle.

 

[AlphaZero]

Missing tuffts if orange fur exposed the mechanical working benith, revealing the cat to be a marvel of modern technology that was. The wondern of modern robotics however, decided that he liked having a new person to shower him in affection he had promptly rolled onto his back, demanding that Inanna rub his belly of patchwork fur.

"That's Milton. I found him in a junk heap when I was kid. Had a stuck accuator in his rear legs and his optics where fried, not sure if happened before or after. Getting his leg unstuck was easy, finding replacement optics, not so much. For about two months I was the proud owner of a blind robo kitten. He even go to wear shades."

The cat crained his head towards Nick and let out an meow of agreement.

The radio blaster static and Nick flinched as he scrambled with the dial. A voice blurted out from the speakers, "How you doing out there in Dystopialand. Doctor Jack , your guiding light in the dark days ahead, is in. Hear me and obey."

Nick rolled his eyes at the radio, "Give a man an old FM transmitter and he thinks he's a god."

Doctor Jack continued to drone on, something about increased presence of Dynamic Energy severity troopers hanging around Traders Town and making life difficult for the people. A reported sighting of the Deadlock gang booking it easy bound in a big rush.

Nick didn't need to guess where they had ended up.

As the DJ began to fade out anold song, probably older than any person living on Earth began to play.

"Well, least he has decent taste in music.".

He turned up the radio as the van rumbeled on past the ruined landscape, the sky slowly growing darker.

 

[Sigr]

"Hello Milton, you are a sturdy little fellow..." Inanna kept playing with the cat on her lap, a bit more at ease, having heard their story of junk diving and repair. "He's cute" she said, caressing his head, a small sad smile on her face. The man in the radio talked about the world that now surrounded her, about soldiers from a place she didn't know and gangsters of a band she just met. He talked about a place called Traders Town, but it sounded like it had more trouble than trading. "I think I... remember this song?" Inanna doubted. "Maybe it's just catchy" she shook her head.

"So... Nick" Inanna commented, a question clearly incoming. "Have you been doing this all your life?" she looked at Milton, then back at him. "Salvaging old things?" she asked. Maybe she was one of those old things, even if she thought she was human. People had a purpose, and at her time of confusion she lacked one. Perhaps she could try to figure out who she was, or more important, who she is. Inanna threw her head back, looking at a sky that looked more and more like an oil spill, feeling suffocating, like they didn't have nowhere to escape no matter how far they drove.

"I need help. I need to figure out who the hell I am, what they did to me" Inanna let a small gasp escape her lips. "They... someone did this to me..." she mumbled. What was she going to do if she found that the truth was something she didn't like?

 

[AlphaZero]

"Well.....yeah. I been doing this as long as I can 'member. It's kind of a way of life out here. Find stuff, sell it. Sometimes," he gestured to Milton, then around the van, "You fix up what you find and you keep it. We live off whats left behind."

The headlights snapped on,illuminating the darkened roads ahead, "The way I see it. You don't so much need to figure out who you are so much as you need to decide who you are. You've got a blank slate, who you are is up to you. But if you want to know its not gonna be easy. We're gonna need to get beyond the walls, and that ain't no easy task for those of us out here."

 

[Sigr]

"Decide who I am..." Inanna repeated, thinking that everyone could do that, but such choices would come influenced by their past, something she seemed to lack. Maybe she was just someone good on hurting others, for what she had seen, but that felt... wrong. She would need to clear her head, see what's out there. "Maybe you are right Nick, maybe I should... move on?" she looked at the man, thinking how he talked about his life of finding stuff out there, aside from that seemingly impregnable city he talked about.

"If you have been driving where you found me you will be tired" Inanna noticed, thinking about the events of that late afternoon. "I can drive if you want to take a nap, just tell me where-" she stopped mid sentence, her eyes picking something in the black ink of the sky. "What's that?" she asked, even if she seemed to be looking nowhere. "There, look for the red blink" she pointed up and forward, her eyes having an easier time than Nick's to notice it. "It's a surveillance drone" she blurted, not stopping to think why she knew that so clearly.

"I don't like this, do you have anything bigger than your gun?" Inanna asked, nervous, feeling spied on.

 

[AlphaZero]

Nick stifled a yawn. She wasn't too far off the mark, the events of the day had left him feeling drained and with the andrenaline having faded from his system sleep would soon be needed. Trader's Town was still a long ways off and stopping to sleep would only make the trip longer.

But letting Iananna take over driving while he made himself comfy and crashed in the back meant he'd wake up that much closer to town. He was just about to pull off the road and relinquish the wheel when she shouted and pointed at something, forcing him to slam on the breaks and bring the van to a screeching hault.

Milton, not wanting to get thrown against the windshield, dug his claws into the meat of Inanna's thigh, ripping through the cheap plastic scrubs as he anchored himself in place.

Nick squinted out through the front window, barely able to make out the red lights in the darkening sky overhead.

"Dynamic has a power station a few miles east of here. It's probably just a routine security sweep. What, do you think they're trying to spy on you or something?" He said shooting her a lopsided grin.

 

[Sigr]

"So it's normal then..." Inanna muttered, with her eyes still glued to the ping in the sky. What made her think they were there for her? Was something she forgot or just part of her... machine self that alerted of things like those? "I guess that they aren't, no need to laugh" she said, somewhat embarrassed when she turned to him and saw Nick's grin. "But if they were they would already have a picture of your mug next to mine, so you better be glad they aren't" she couldn't help but smile a bit, maybe Nick was right and there was no reason to worry.

"Maybe I've been down there so long that there is nobody left that cares, maybe I should worry about a new beginning and not about an unfathomable past" Inanna sighed, looking down and petting Milton. "Although that will require clothes that Milton can't tear at the first chance" she added, seeing that the cat had made a number on her thigh. "Who is a naughty little boy?" she asked, playing with the mechanical pet. "So... do you want me to drive?" she returned her attention to Nick, moving her hair behind her ear.

"You'll have to give me directions though" she shrugged, getting ready to switch seats.

 

[AlphaZero]

"What makes you think the corporate boys don't already have photos of this stunning mug? But....then again....it's more than likely they probably do....."

Nick trailed off for a moment, looking concerned before cracking a grin. It was entirely possible they really did have some photos of him somewhere. He'd been arrested after that incident with the supply train, or that thing with listening post that had gotten trashed. And the thing with the downed drone. Ok, so maybe he had pissed off the company guys more times then he was willing to admit. He slipped from his seat and into the back. Milton leapt from Inanna's lap to sit on the back of her seat.

"Just keep following the road, you'll seen the signs for Trader's Town soon enough. Milton, stay up 'ere and keep her company. I'm gonna get some shut eye." He peeled off his jacket and let it fall on the floor along with his gun belt and shirt before kicking off his boots and wrapping himself in his sleeping bag.

The drone shifted it's course, falling into position and trailing behind the van.

 

[Sigr]

Even if Inanna's senses were keener than average, able to catch up on things here and there, she lacked the baggage to read Nick's eyes as he talked about the corporation having pictures of him. For all she lacked on past life an experience, he seemed to have it in spades, and yet, his past felt as impregnable as hers, if not more. Inanna rested her arm in her seat, and looked back at Nick's sleeping preparations, as he seemingly was accustomed and equipped to sleep in the vehicle, his life a nomadic one. Her eyes danced over his upper body as he peeled layer after layer of clothing before getting into an sleeping bag, his body a map of his life. After a split second her eyes returned to Milton, not wanting to ogle him. It wasn't as she was spying on him, but it felt... off. Inanna then remembered that he had seen her completely naked when she awoke disoriented, feeling a hint of embarrassment to it. Maybe at that moment she didn't felt that shape changing body as hers, and yet, it was. That was part of who she was.

Sighing she shifted from one seat to another, feeling Nick's lingering body heat, her hands on the wheel accustoming to the feel. She knew how to drive, even if she didn't remember who taught her, or what was her first car. Why did those things feel important? It was just a lesson, it was just a machine, and yet, not knowing that irked her. She started the engine once more, focused on the road and unaware that the drone was now behind them. "Lets go Milton, you and me on a road trip" she said, keeping herself to the road.

...

"Nick!" Inanna's voice sounded distant for the asleep man.

"Nick! Wake up!" she repeated, louder, closer.

"Nick!" she shook his sleeping bag, looking at his now open eyes. "There is half a dozen dudes in rust colored tunics coming from the east on horses" she blurted. The vehicle was stopped, she had been on the wheel about half a dozen hours without trouble until she spotted the unusual sight, but then again for her mostly everything seemed new. "Are they friendly or..." she wondered, unaware that their choice of a ride was about rejecting all of technology, blaming it for the state of humanity.

 

[AlphaZero]

It hadn't taken long for Nick to nod off to dream Land. And he had managed to stay asleep right up until the moment he was rather rudely awakened. He mumbled something about cows milking themselves and rolled over, trying to go back to sleep but the persistence of his human shaped alarm clock made him atleast partly acknowledge what was going on.

He sat up slowly, kicking aside the sleepingbag, "So if they're comming from a direction other than the one we're headed in, why did you stop? It's not like they're blocking our way or something." He grumbled as he pulled on a shirt from the various articles of clothing scattered around the floor. The side door rolled open with a rusted squeel and he hopped down to the battered blacktop, strapping on his gun belt as he did.

They where there, exactly as Inanna had said, a half dozen guys on horseback. It seemed that even after all these years the badlands could still manage to surprise him.

"Well that's not something you see everyday."