Chapter 1 Part One: The Wasteland Chapter 1: The Shot
The sun was a merciless white-hot coin in a bleached sky, and the metal of my T-5000’s barrel burned where my skin touched it. I wiped a grimy sleeve across my eyes, smearing sweat and dust instead of clearing it. Through the scope, the world shimmered in the heat haze.
Four hundred meters. A child’s shot. The thought rasped dry and bitter in my mind. But a child hadn’t been running three days on a cocktail of Angel-Kiss uppers and military-grade Stims, their stomach a shrivelled knot of nothing. A child’s hands wouldn’t be trembling like aspen leaves, making the crosshairs dance a jig over the target’s head.
I inhaled, a slow, deliberate pull of air that tasted of dust and metallic fear. The air in my lungs was the only thing I could still control. Three rounds. Two targets. Just get it done.
Breathe out.
The rifle bucked against my shoulder, a familiar, solid punch. A fraction of a second later, the flat crack tore the silence of the wastes apart. The first target dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. The second man, some feral scavenger with a face like rotten leather, jerked his head up. His wide, horrified eyes found the horizon a moment before my second round found him. He crumpled, a dark hole blooming between his eyes.
Then came the third shot. Not from my rifle.
A searing shock slammed into my leg, a hot poker of pure force. I stumbled, grunting. Wet warmth instantly soaked my thigh. No pain yet, the Stims dulled that, but a cold, clinical alarm bell rang in my skull. Impact. Penetration.
Instinct took over. I threw myself onto my back, the hard, cracked earth driving the wind from me. A third man, a big bastard I’d missed, hidden by the rusted husk of an old rig, was already on me, closing with a predator’s gait. His axe, a crude thing of sharpened rebar and hate, swung in a deadly arc.
I fired from the hip, blind. The shot whined past his ear. Then he crashed into me.
The world dissolved into grit and violence. The axe came down. I twisted, bringing the T-5000 up in a desperate block. The blow smashed into the stock, the impact shuddering up my arms, rattling my teeth. A sickening crack of polymer and wood echoed, the rifle, my beautiful, precise T-5000, was now a ruined, crooked thing.
It wasn’t a duel anymore. It was a slaughterhouse brawl, and life was the only currency.
He dropped the axe. His thick, calloused hands, rank with filth, closed on my throat. My vision tunnelled, narrowing to his furious, bloodshot eyes. Spots danced. No air.
My right hand scrabbled at my belt, closing on the worn hilt of my combat knife. With the last of my strength, I drove it up into the softness beneath his ribcage. A wet grunt escaped him. His body shuddered. The pressure on my throat vanished as he slumped sideways.
I gasped, raw and sucking, rolling on top of him. I yanked the blade free with a sick pull and, without thought, drew it across his throat. Messy. Efficient.
Silence returned, broken only by my ragged breaths.
Stupid. So damn stupid. The mantra beat with my pounding heart. Years of training with The Sisters, always expect the third man, the unseen variable. And I’d missed him. For a canteen.
I looked down at my leg. The “wound” was just the last precious trickle of water from my ruptured canteen, now hanging in tatters from my belt. Relief hit cold, quickly followed by a hotter surge of fury at my carelessness.
I left the ruined rifle and climbed down from my perch, body aching. The two initial targets were dead. Properly dead. I moved toward the mark, my actual prey.
He was lanky, sprawled in the dust, wearing a worn flak jacket that had likely saved his life. Two of my rounds had hit: one in the shoulder, one in the side. He was unconscious, but shallow, ragged breaths rose from his chest. Alive. Barely.
The smart thing, The Sister thing, was obvious. Slit his throat like the others. Loot the bodies. Take what I could from their scraps and my buried cache. Vanish.
My knife was still in my hand, warm with feral blood. I pressed the cold, clean part of the blade to his throat. And hesitated.
He was different. Not, a feral. His face, pale from blood loss, was clean-shaven. His features sharp, almost noble. Good-looking, a part of me noted, a part I thought Stims and hunger had killed. More than that, he was an opportunity. I’d been watching that fortified town, Oasis, for three days. Getting in as a stranger was near impossible. But him? He had the look of a local. If he lived, he wasn’t just a mark. He was a ticket. A chance.
A quick pat-down turned up a well-maintained sidearm, a Peacemaker .45 and a sharp hunting knife. I took both. The knife slid onto my belt. The heavy pistol tucked neatly into the back of my jeans, a cold, comforting weight against my spine. I left his jacket and started dragging him. He was heavier than he looked. My hidden shelter, a crevice between collapsed slabs of concrete, wasn’t far, but each step was fresh agony.
Inside the shade, I caught my breath and did something profoundly stupid. I used my precious, irreplaceable med-kit on him. The auto-injector hissed, coagulant and bio-sealant working their magic.
A memory surfaced unbidden: Marlys’s face, pale and still, blood soaking into the dust. No. Not again. He will live.
With him stabilized, I went back. Salvaged what I could from the ferals: three second-rate revolvers (twenty slugs between them), the axe, two rusted blades, maybe a single meal’s worth at a scrap market. The real prize was a decent pair of leather boots, nearly my size. I pulled them on, tossing my worn ones aside. Solid soles felt like luxury. I avoided their water bottles; ferals drank coolant and ate rad roaches. After dragging the bodies into a thorn thicket, I returned to camp.
Night fell like a shroud, plunging the wastes into deep, freezing cold. The man hadn’t stirred. Taking him to Oasis now, in the dark, was suicide, they’d shoot first, never ask questions. We were stuck until morning. If he lasted that long.
My eyes fell on the three reinforced supply cases strapped to my cart. My life, my past, my tools. They mocked me now. I couldn’t haul them and him. With a sigh, I dug a shallow grave with my knife, burying the cases and the shattered remains of my T-5000. It felt like burying part of my soul. I’ll come back for you, I promised the earth. I always do.
The cold leeched heat from my bones, freezing sweat on my skin. No fire tonight. Light and smoke would draw predators for miles.
Normally, the night was my ally, a velvet cloak to move unseen. Tonight, I was anchored. I sat against cold concrete, the Peacemaker in my lap, tracing constellations, the Rusted Gear, the Sky Serpent, as they carved their ancient paths. I was cold, hungry, thirstier than I’d ever been, playing a solitary waiting game for dawn.
My only companion was my new burden: the half-dead Wastelander I’d dragged from the ruins. His breathing was a faint, shaky whistle in the immense silence. If he lasted till morning, it would be a miracle.
I thought of Oasis. Not just the walls, but what lay inside: a real bed, a plate of hot meat dripping juices, a glass of whiskey burning away the past. Maybe even a warm bed shared with someone who didn’t stink of blood and dirt.
I glanced at the sharp lines of his face in the starlight and smirked faintly. Then again, maybe a shower first.
A shiver wracked me. Exhaustion dragged at my eyelids. But sleep wasn’t an option. Tonight, closing my eyes could be a death sentence. So, I watched, and I waited, the only sounds the whisper of a cruel wind and the fragile breath of the man who held my future in his unconscious hands.