Vignettes

The rays of the setting sun refract as soon as they strike the bullet holes in the windshield, and they cast even more dazzling colors down upon cracked leather upholstery. Max has no idea how long the wrecked RV has been sitting here, on its side in the ravine, but it will make a comfortable enough shelter for the night.

Stick figure drawings of two children and two adults are tacked to the walls, drawn by the hand of a child and faded with time. It is likely that a family once called this vehicle their home. They might have loved one another here, and dreamed of a better world. The signs of love still linger in the place. Well made custom cabinets, clearly designed to hold cooking implements lay cracked open near the remnants of a gas stove. Fold out bunk beds lean out from the wall that now functions as the RV's ceiling, their hinges rusted and cracked.

Max almost feels bad harvesting the springs from the bunk beds folding mechanisms. But no matter how beautiful the sentiment behind those beds, their creators are long dead. Just like everyone else who dared to dream before the Fall.

"Tell you what, pal. How about you install the Neuro transmitter, and I'll give you three MREs, a spiked bat, and this old wristwatch. It just needs a new battery and it'll be as good as new. Whaddya say?"

Dr. Scarz looked at the bounty. It was a good haul, to be sure, a couple days of food, some good barter. Putting in a Neuro transmitter was pretty easy, as far as surgery goes. It was one of the first things he had learned how to do when starting his surgeon training in posterity. After all, in order for any prosthetics to work, you needed to have a one. So, before you could learn to attach anything else, you had to learn this.

"Well, it looks to me like-" Scarz didn't get another word out of his mouth before he was bumped out of the way.

"Well, it looks to us like you are trying to get some amateur to do the job."

Nothing remains of the old world but a carcass of what once was. The lost cities loom over the endless waste like pillars of sand whipped bone. Mad cults and cowering survivors scramble through the blasted landscape, buzzing like flies over the dead. Chaos is the lifeblood of this new world. The flesh and sinew is insanity and wrath. Nothing remains of the old world, but buried in its corpse is a bastion of reason. Posterity.

It is not perfect here. Not by the widest margin. Even within these submarine walls the creeping rot of civilizations extinction can be felt. The cities inhabitants choose to bury their heads in the safety of this coffin while the rest of the world burns around them. Yet there is the glimmer of hope in these corridors. Science lives here. Intellectual minds working to rebuild the lost knowledge of our ancestors and creators. Here the power that built the old world thrives. I hope, someday, to see that power actually used.

The dust is choking out here, even through the helmet my throat dries at the sight. It's a windy day and with each invisible billow comes another wave of sand. I can feel it through the suit, the way the little grains get in everywhere and make the armored plates scrape. Little nails on a big chalkboard. Wind devils twist in the distance under an orange sky. Somewhere smothered in the haze of that horizon are mountains, but the ashen smog is too thick to make them out. So much for a landmark.

I pull up my display, hoping it'll actually function today. Of course it doesn't, giving me a few half hearted fizzling noises and the barest glimpse of an error screen. The suit was a relic of the old world, but these days it's just a flashier suit of armor than most. One day I'll get it working right. One day. Until then, it'll have to be old fashioned analog maps and... non-existent landmarks. Oh good. This bodes well.

Dr. Julia Washington has set up a hospital kind of in the camp. At any time people will hear classical music playing or see her reading through an old book that looks to just about be falling apart from how many times it has been read through. Dr. Scarz will recognize it as one of the advance medical books from home. Julia was kind of a weird one she would take that stupid book with her where ever she went.

There is a notice tacked up outside the tent. It is addressed the Doctors and Healers of the camp that the main area was for everyone's use, however, the back area was her private place and to keep THE HELL OUT. There's even a drawing or a door with a circle and line through it hanging next to the obvious flap that leads to the back area.

Their back was turned, muscles relaxed, tail swishing idly.

Now was her chance.

The pitter of bare feet running was their only warning before a body slammed into them with the weight of a pillow and latched onto their shoulders. Little EA giggled wildly as Crooked Tooth stood from their seat on the ground before the fire pit and she held on tight as she could as the dirt fell away below her.

"Woah!" Crooked Tooth cried cartoonishly. "I wonder what that was!" They turned in circles, "looking" for the source of the weight, while EA did her best to stifle her laughter. "Could it have been... AHA!" With what seemed like no effort at all, Crooked Tooth hauled EA up over one shoulder, practically flipping the wulfen child over in the process. Gleeful shrieking dissolved into a torrent of laughter and what indignance a toddler can manage.

Kountkillz sat on the hill, and watched as the wasters as they left the settlement. They were off to do something stupid. Maybe save a kitten in a tree or something stupid like that. Didn't really matter. The meatbags, and grinders were so screwed. They had no idea that over two dozen Atom Bombz were sneaking up on their stupid little camp.

V-Rex had sent Kountkillz and his crew to set up and get ready for her attack later. She would come in from the front, and Kountkillz would spring his attack from behind. The stupid wasters would be caught between. The death toll would be glorious.

Shifting back from the hill Kountkillz slowly let the bush go back into place. Trying to keep it from moving too fast with his shaking hand. Kountkillz's stomach lurched a little. Apparently the last bach of food they got was bad...

The smell of burnt flesh never quite leaves your nostrils, it stains everything inside you in a way that blood just can't. Blood and bullets and screaming were all background noise now to Alejandra, they were a common occurrence but the scent of burning would never meet that fate. At least it wasn't her own, and at least she could run away. But running is a thousand times harder when carrying every book you can in your arms.

Screaming could be heard in the distance, cries for water and the explosion of bullets behind her. The bare plains of the waste were easy to spot someone in and sure enough they could see her.

"Don't look back, you'll only slow down."

Suddenly the sound of bullets were all the closer, the plains were gone and so were her books. All around her were ancient ruins of Lost Angels and angry C.U.CK idiots. Or maybe she was the idiot for trying to steal from them? It didn't matter, she was alone...

It's rare to see Wulfen pups outside their packs protection, but apparently there are a few in the slums of Victoryville. This kid can't be older than nine, though Max knows that hunger and hardship can stunt a child's growth, so this one's true age could be anyone's guess. They're ribs are visible through the shredded tatters of a Winnie The Pooh t-shirt as they rummage through a midden heap behind a ramshackle tavern.

Max can smell it from all the way down the alley, but that's not surprising, the slums just smell bad.

The child lets out an excited shout and emerges, triumphant, from the trash pile with a handful of maggots. They hold the larvae up to the sun, as if to give thanks for this bounty, only to cry out in pain as a larger human child strikes them in the eye with a closed fist, and takes the food.

Max rushes over, worried that the older child will continue beating the smaller one, and the thief scampers off.

"Alright, Dr. Washington here's the clinic the area has been secured you should not be bothered by anyone. We will be back to pick you up in a few days."

Horror filled her eyes and she gripped her gun a bit tighter. "You have to be kidding? I have never..."

"Dr. Washington you'll be fine we have been coming to this area for the last several weeks and we have not had any issues. There's a set of buildings not too far from here that we are going to be searching we will be back in a few days. You have food, water, and a weapon here if you need anything just radio us." He handed her a old radio that she doubted actually worked and if it did she was not sure it was going to have any real range to it. Sighing she took the radio and climbed out of the truck flinching as the sun hit her directly. Immediately she regretted having argued with her director if she had just kept her mouth shut like she was told to she wouldn't be out here.

It was too hot out today. It was hot a lot on the outskirts of VictoryVille, but today especially. Mealy Dan stared out over his crops, which to anyone looking, seemed just like a vast pile of garbage. But to Dan it was the lifeblood of VictoryVille, because as you looked closer you could see the garbage was teeming with life as mealworms worked their way through the refuse, growing big and plump and ripe for harvest.

Dan was proud of his farm. Because of his work, lots of people in town got fed, were able to survive. Nobody bothered Dan out here, too — no bandits or wasters ever gave him any trouble. He wouldn't say he was a celebrity in town, but people knew who he was and never gave him any trouble. If some out of towners tried to start something with Mealy Dan, well, there would be ten townies to let that person know why that was a bad idea. Hell, Burnt Ambrosia even knew him by name, and said hello last time he was at the FUBAR. Yeah, it weren't glamorous...

Smoker lit yet another cigarette and took a deep drag.

"Could you put that out please?" The weedy little bastard chided him.

Smoker didn't do this often. But everyone had to have standards, and this was one of his. He got right in the bastards face. Psionic or not, Smoker wasn't going to let him get away with that.

"Could you..... Go fuck yourself with a rusty shiv...." He vented the raw smoke into the bastards pale veiny face prompting a cough. ".....please?"

The dickhead backed off. Good, he was smarter than he sounded. Smoker kept sucking down the cigarette. Finally the awkwardness was broken by a the sound of a bulkhead bolt clanking open and a poorly greased door screaming open.

Fuck, Smoker fucking hated this place.

It wasn't everyday a target made her do THAT. The self-proclaimed hacker prodigy extraordinaire spent the better half of her short life learning how to slither in and out of a system's mainframe, ruining their computer (and day) without even being detected... but this wasn't like other times. Normally she would complete a job such as this one in no time flat; five minutes maybe even ten minutes was all she needed to wreck some shizz and leave her enemies in the dust.

She had done a preemptive analysis: running a few quick scans to assess the enemy's load out, inserting a few extra programs to make it an easy fight... theoretically nothing should be going wrong!! Her fluffy flaxen ears twitched in annoyance as she leaned in closer, typing faster and coming down a bit too hard on her old dusty computer keys.

"Fliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip. DIMITRI ORION TUARINSKY MAMBANI THE SEVENTH WILL NOT LOOOSE TO YOOOU!!"

The midday sun peaked through the shitty blue tarp on the side street of cardsharp lane in VictoryVille. The best place to lose your assed chaps or make a fortune in Sokal outside of Last Vegas itself. Smoker looked over the cards in front of him. A two of clubs and a seven of hearts, excellent... But he'd had worse. Well, that was a lie. It didn't get worse. If he'd counted right the board wouldn't have anything for him either.

Of course the guy from the ZFEC raised. If there was anything those bastards like to do it was show off how much they had, this Big Bob wasn't an exception. The old lady Scav was playing a lot more prudently. She held, meant she probably had something. Smoker had taken to calling her Nana and she didn't protest.

"Come on, I ain't got all day. Put down your barter so I can win it and we can get on with our lives." Big Bob spat through a mouthful of Mut-Ant slider that up until a hand ago had belonged to Smoker. He was trying to throw him off his game...