The Walker in the Dust book 1 and 2

retitled The Walker in the Dust book 1 and 2 available now on google play.  Book 1 is free, book 2 is 49c.

find the links at my author homepage under the books tab.  Here's the link.

http://russellackermanroc.wix.com/thewalkerinthedust

Book 2: Apocalyptica Mortalis (so far)

Here's book 2 so far.. enjoy.. more to come!

Prologue:

To whomever it may concern:

They named it before it fell, when it was still a star in the evening sky, among so many others.  So many people died.  And for many generations afterwards people survived and bore children…  Babies underground, babies in vaults, babies in caves, babies near trash, babies eating trash…  And living.  And the world was eventually…  It’s still destroyed.  But where this certain bomb fell, the place had become something else.

They gave it a name before it fell.  “Wormwood,” They said it as the bright dot in the sky got closer and closer to all the other bright dots, as they entered the atmosphere.  It was worse than the others.  Strange things happen now, in the place where it fell.  A rift in reality itself, if you can call it that.  If this wasteland is reality anymore, or purgatory, or a sick god’s cruel joke, I’m not sure.  But it’s there.  They call it the edge of the wasteland.  It’s there, but it’s not like Earth anymore.  They say the souls of the dead get stuck there and can’t find peace.

I’ve seen it.  Sure I’ve seen it, but do you really want to know?  I saw things there that I can never understand.  The bitter taste in my mouth, the rolling rocks that move of their own accord.. Gravitational anomalies that can rip a man to shreds.  Gateways into other dimensions.  The spitting cactus, with its poison needles.  The snow flies, and their sickly smell, and the flesh eating blobs.   Or should I try to describe the wailing of the dead?

                They say all the radiation in the wasteland comes from here.   The place belches it out, continually poisoning the earth with rads.  How did I survive?  The giant radscorpions were the key… Their venom is like a natural rad-b-gone.  They’re around, they’re always around.  I’ll give you a hint.  Don’t try to run.  The scorpids hate it when you run.

-The Wastelander’s Apocalypse, Volume 1

Chapter  1  : The Journey to Come

I dream of you Anastasia

of your bright blue eyes when you find steel

of your golden hair when you make bread,

the way it hovers and whips in the breeze

lashing out like a radscorpions tail

My daydreams fade and the broken highway stretches into the distance like a dead snake, through a maze of destroyed buildings as far as I can see toward the setting sun.  There’s a lot of burnt, rusty vehicles lying around, some with bleached skeletons inside, and they look at me with empty eyes.  I take a long drag on my cigarette and try a few car doors.  I push the bones off the melted plastic seat and climb into a derelict SUV.  The orange eyebot hovers outside, its spherical metallic body bobbing slowly up and down on sentry duty, its antennae flicking left, then right.  I hit the broadcast button on my arm.

“Archie?”  But there is no response, just the crackling of the radio.

I do not know what waits for me at the edge of the wasteland, only that the life I know has become too painful.  For the small part of me that is still able to feel, Tee and Archie are everything to me.  The rest of me is just numb.  A part of me is locked up, half the time I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.  My humanity has become a mystery to me.  I remember the night I lost it all.

Life in the wastelands is harsh, but she made it tolerable.   When I looked into her eyes I would forget my pain. She became my whole world.  We scavenged together, hunted together, hid from slavers together.  Until that terrible day.  There was danger all around, and I couldn’t save her.  I had to kill her to save her.

The dust, the heat, the death.  You lose your humanity in the end.  But I haven’t lost my humanity, not quite yet, and it’s not the end, not by a long shot.  Not until I’m back with Archie and Tee.

It’s a nice evening, and I catch the eyebot looking at the horizon as well.

“What do you see out there?” I ask it.

“It’s beautiful,” the eyebot replies but it doesn’t know what its saying.

I look out over the destroyed scenery.  Death and destruction all around, burnt husks of buildings, parched earth.  This is the world that created me, destroyed me.  The wasteland is my home, my solitude.  The view is beautiful and terrifying all at once.  As I watch, the sun slips over the horizon and long shadows give way to darkness.

The wasteland giveth, and the wasteland taketh away.   I hate you.  I love you.

Welcome to the apocalypse.

--Chapter 2

                “Threat detected at 250 degrees, 500 meters and closing, multiple weapon signatures.”

                Shit.  I knew I should have stayed off the road.

                “How many are there?”

                “Satellite is picking up twenty five individual heat signatures and fourteen weapon signatures.  495 meters and closing.”

                “Wait, what satellite?” I say as I deke off the road into the ruins of a neighborhood to avoid the encounter.

                “The military satellite,” the eyebot says, its faceplate lighting up like display, and I look closer.  On screen is an overview of the wasteland rendered in shades of blue, with a pile of red spots heading east towards my location.  I’m astounded, I had no idea the eyebot had an uplink to a prewar satellite, let alone that any satellites are working up there in the sky at all.  A safe distance from the road, I hunker down in a rusting warehouse.  The inside is littered with bottles and cans and plastic bags.  Wastelanders had sought safety here before me.

                “How come you’ve got access to a military satellite?  I thought you were some kind of kid’s toy?”

                “That’s classified.”

                “Don’t make me smack you.”

                “Passphrase correct.  Accessing encrypted files now.”  How’s that for luck.

                “I am eyebot no.  110-110-110, manufactured in 2021 by the Google Works military contractor for the US military.  I was originally designed for recon, assassination, and target acquisition for the STEAL cannon, but was refurbished as a companion model for General Kalik’s daughter in the year 2024 as her protector.  None of my military programming or hardware was compromised and I still have an uplink to the satellite known under the codename CONQUER.  Satellite structural integrity is 87%, and with its orbit degrading it will fall and burn up over the Indian Ocean in one hundred and twenty seven years.”

                “What is the STEAL weapon?”

                “STEAL is the weapons platform on CONQUER, its stands for the Strategic Target Elimination and Assassination Laser.”

                I have stumbled on a technology beyond any scavengers wildest dreams.  The feeling of power rushed through me like a drug.

                “Sounds fancy..  But there’s no reason for me to kill them, yet.  They’re people with weapons.  So what, I’m a person with a weapon.  They’re probably just scavengars.  I guess, it’s hard to know.”

                “CONQUER has a laser microphone aimed at the location, would you like to listen?”

                “Listen?  Yeah, ok..  Let’s hear the feed.”

                “Buffering…”

                “Fuck you,  you ain’t doin that,” a gruff voice sounds out from the eyebot’s speakers.

                “But they’re just slaves, just meat.  What do you care?”

“You ain’t fuckin her and that’s it!  She’s worth a lot of bottlecaps at the Hub.”

                The Hub.  I’d been there, long ago.  There were hundreds of people there, never enough food, but you could trade your food and tech there for bottlecaps and gamble at the tables, or just gamble with your life, that was always an accepted currency there as well.  It’s not a slavers camp, it’s worse, it’s far worse.  It’s no oasis.  It’s a death camp.  Only the Richies controlled all the tech and the gambling, the food  and all the lives.  They have the power, they are the tyrants of the Hub, consuming the most, killing the most, with piles and piles of meaningless bottlecaps.

                “No one’s gonna know.”

                “I’m gonna know and you’re sick.  That’s rape you know.”

                They burst out laughing and laughing, a raucous, inhuman laughter.

                “Fuck man, do whatever you want, I don’t care. She’s just meat to me.”

Cannibals or slavers, I couldn’t tell which.  I guess it was naive, thinking that maybe they were just wastelanders or scavengers.

                “It sounds like they’ve got slaves,” I say to the eyebot, whose antennas twitch and vibrate as we talk.  “What’s the blast radius on the orbital weapon?  Is it fully functional?”

                “20 meters.  Weapon is armed and ready.”

                If the weapon fired, it would evaporate the whole area.  I didn’t stand any chance of helping them on my own, not that I would risk it if I could.  Is it better to live a slave, or to die?

                “465 meters and closing”

                “Fire the weapon.”

                “You’re sure?”

                “Yes.”

                I am killing them.  I am killing them all, killing the good and the bad, thinking I have chosen the lesser of two evils.  I will never know.  I will never be able to ask those slaves, do you want to die?  I’m just granting it, like a carefree god.  I hear a rumbling, and I feel a rush of air through the warehouse, and then a great boom and a flash of light and it’s over.  They’re dead.  Just like my wife.

                Just like my wife.

Welcome to the apocalypse.

--Chapter 3

                I sit there in the warehouse, heavy with what I have done.  I try to let go of it, I tell myself like I told Tee, they were bad people, some of them...  In the end I made a choice and have to live with it.  I hadn’t been in danger, I guess there’s value in just letting the wasteland alone.

The eyebot observes me, its orange metallic body hovering up and down, its hard drive and processor lights flashing.    I have so many questions for it.

                “What do you remember, Eyebot, of the apocalypse?”

                “Processing.”

                “I’m in the streets of New York, waiting for the school bus with Emily, who’s fifteen years old.  It’s the year 2024.  It’s sunny and mild.  I’m connected to the network but the military data is flowing too fast for me to assess properly.   The United States is on Red Alert, and my long range sensors detect massive amount of weapons release from many US nuclear missile silos.  Military data on the network indicates large amounts of incoming nuclear warheads from all over the world.  At this point I disconnected from the Military feed because I detected a computer virus that was beginning to corrupt my connection.  I decided to take Emily to a secure location.  Maps of New York indicated a six story underground parking garage nearby.  Audio record playback commencing.”

                “Emily, we are in severe danger, come with me immediately.”

                “What, are you serious?  I’m on the phone. ”

                “Come now or I will change the password on your facebook account!  We are in severe danger, come with me now!  Run!”

                “Alright!  But you’d better not fuck with my facebook account you stupid robot.”

                “Playback ended.  Emily follows me to the secure location mentioned.  Emily and I wait there for several minutes.  She is very scared and there is a boom of sound.   The lights flicker and shut off.  At this point my sensors detect a massive electromagnetic pulse, and I power down before it can fry my sensors.  When I power back on, Emily is gone.  I must have been powered down for about thirty minutes.  The internet is down, and so are the military networks, I am information blind.  I initiate search and rescue procedure.  My sniffer detects multiple harmful biological compounds in the air.  I ascend the six stories of the dark parking garage and the way out is blocked.  I take another route, through the sewers.  Constantly there is crashing noise, and the scream of twisting metal. There’s an open manhole, and I ascend onto the street.

                “All around is chaos.  The buildings are on fire, some of the melted and leaning, others crashing to the ground, and I begin to ascend to avoid getting destroyed by falling metal and concrete.  I hear people screaming, there are people falling through the air around me and smashing onto the pavement below.  I continue to ascend.  The sewer I exited bursts with shooting flames, and I finally I am up above it all.  Audio-Video playback commencing.”

                The eyebot’s screen comes to life and it’s horrifying.  As far into the distance as I can see, buildings are melting and red, falling into the streets, flames shooting skyward.  I’m not sure if I hear people screaming or the twisting of metal in between booms and explosions.  Bridges are falling into the waters, dropping cars and bodies.  The ocean is on fire, and billowing smoke is everywhere.  In the distance I can see several mushroom clouds.  It’s snowing, but no, those are ashes falling from the sky.  The screen flickers dark, the feed is gone. 

                “That’s enough,” I tell it, covering the eyebot’s faceplate with my gloved hand.  I am haunted by what I saw, I can barely comprehend it.  So many deaths.  I can still hear the screams, or maybe it’s just the blood rushing through my head.  It was like I had pressed the button, but I reminded myself, they did it to themselves.  The STEAL cannon is a left over relic from a time long gone..  On the heels of the information age, the weapons age became a quiet reality so many years ago, and wastelanders like me live on in the irradiated shadow of a once great civilization.

Welcome to the wasteland.

               

--Chapter 5

                The eyebot and I snake through the blackened, rusty relics of vehicles and the burned ruins of the local strip malls.  The machine keeps pace with me, staying always on my right side, about five feet off.  I take a step to the left and she – the eyebot – matches the movement perfectly.  I want to pick its mind about the Great War.  There is so much more to understand.

                “Eyebot..  What happened to Emily?”

                “After rising up out of the city into the airspace, I detect her signal traveling east at the edge of my sensor range, over the Atlantic Ocean.  My full speed is only 35 miles per hour and I cannot catch up as I travel over the sea.  I lose track of her but continue on the same heading.  After two and a half days of traveling I reach an aircraft carrier, the Dwight D. Eisenhower.  I enter through the eyebot bay and navigate my way into the residential section.  Emily’s tracking chip necklace was there in the room, but she isn’t there.

                “I connect to the local military network, and identify her in the mess hall, though her father is on the command deck.  I access the most recent report files and load up the data and immediately became infected with the virus.  I disconnect and assess my systems.  Long term memory access goes off the chart, my channels bursting with data fragments. I initiate an emergency long term power down.  As I black out I realize I am a machine. ”

                I look at the eyebot, as it hovers slowly up, slowly down, it’s six antennae are stock still, and I can see the its camera spinning as it focuses in on my face.  A living machine?  I’ve seen less likely things in the waste.  But a machine that knows, or understands, what it is?  

                “And then you woke up in Archie’s fallout shelter.”

                “No.  The virus compromises my subsystems and I am not able to reboot for a long time.  When I come to, I am still in the aircraft carrier which is empty and abandoned.  My systems show no sign of the virus, but some sectors on my identity chip have become permanently corrupted.”

                “Show me the carrier.”

                The eyebots screen flickers to life and I can see through its eyes.  Trash litters the rusty room while electrical wires hang dangling from the ceiling.  Everything is at an angle.  The eyebot navigates out the open door, over the mummified bodies in the slanted, dripping hallway and into the stairwell.  It finds its way out of the ship and hovers up into the air above the scene.  Ashes have covered everything and continue to fall from the sky.  Into the distance stretches a burnt and dead forest.  The aircraft carrier lies at an angle on the shore, its hull rusty and covered with seaweed and barnacles.  The ocean is green, and I realize it is not an ocean at all but a sea of green muck, lapping against the hull of the ship.  The eyebot travels down the beach, taking in the scene.  The video feed ends.

                “How long were you powered down?”

                “I had been off for 178 years, according to my CMOS chip.  At this point I don’t know what to do.  The military networks are all offline, and there’s so much chaff and ash in the atmosphere that I have no access to CONQUER or any of the other military satellites.”

                “What did you do?” I ask it.

                “I…  I became a wanderer.  I travel westward over scorched earth towards the Rocky Mountains, where I know there are vaults deep underground where there might still be human life.  I…  There are other eyebots that survived the cataclysm.  Some are on missions, and have been wandering for years.  Some are executing a search and rescue code that never ends.  So many of them are leading sad and crippled existences.  None of them are like me.  Many of them are damaged, but none like me.  A few times I exchange data, and when they turn to leave I blast out their microfusion cell with my welding laser.  I..  I..  Something told me to do it.  My ghost.”

                “Right..  You’ve got a ghost?  What – a soul?”

                “I think so.”

                “You’re a machine.  You’re just a bunch of chips and wires.  You don’t have a brain, you don’t have a heart, you don’t have a soul.”

                The eyebot hovered back from me afew inches, just enough for me to notice.

                “Are you trying to hurt my feelings?”  the eyebot says, it’s voice taking on a tone.

                I laugh out loud.

                “What makes you think you can be anything like a human being? You’re a hunk of electrified metal.”

                “And your brain, Russell, did you know it runs on electricity?”

                I look at the eyebot. “Really?”

                “Really.”

                “Fuck…  Welcome to the wasteland.”

               

               

--CHAPTER 4

The heat is gone

cool moss

and streams of pure water

what is this place?

I stop my travels and lean against the concrete wall of a derelict building.  All around me are fallen chunks of highway on the baked earth, making a sort of labyrinth.  On the building next to me are the words “I feel fine” spray painted in large cursive scrawl.  A butterfly floats past me, moving north.

I look again and it is indeed an inch long butterfly, black and orange, floating in the air.  I step around the corner and there’s a pool of water in the rocks with thousands of butterflies, all drinking minerals from the pool.  I can hear the focus on the eyebots camera and the click of the shutter.  It’s probably executing some kind of tourism routine.

“What do you think of that, Eyebot?”

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” The artificial female voice responds.

I look at the eyebot and shake my head.  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It’s too bad that Tee isn’t here to see this, she would have loved it.” the Eyebot chimes in.

The Eyebot.  It has no concept of love.  It’s just a pile of processors and chips and metal, left over from a dead age.  It doesn’t  think or feel, it doesn’t know anything. The closer I get to the edge of the wasteland, the stranger the eyebot becomes.

We both look at the butterflies for some time until all at once they take off in a cloud and head to the north.  I read in Ranger Rick that they eat nectar from flowers, maybe they are headed somewhere green.  Somewhere that life still exists.  A true Oasis, and not just a bunch of wastelanders camped around a crater trying to trade you bottlecaps for water.   Is it possible?

“Eyebot, where do you think they are going?”

“Home.”

I immediately think of Archie and Tee, realizing I have a home too.  I’m risking my life, just to hold on to my wife’s memory, when I should be with them.  I have come this far, hoping that I can see my wife at the edge of the wasteland, where a mysterious rift in reality exists.  But I know in my heart she is dead and gone.  She’s part of the wasteland.  She’s under my feet, she’s the air I breathe.  She’s the light in my heart.  But there’s no escaping the fact of her death.  I am alone again, I left the family I had to try and hold on to her, to see her again.  I had given up a life with Archie and Tee, the life that made me feel whole.

I slump down against the concrete wall, not sure if I should move forward or turn around and go home.  I turn back and look into the distance, at the miles I had covered.  I wonder where I am, but the answer is always nowhere.   I close my eyes, but nothing is any clearer.  Suddenly I think I am hearing my wife’s voice.

“I love you, Russ, but you need to let go.  You tried to save me, but you couldn’t, you did the right thing. “

                The voice is followed by a crackling and I realize it was the Eyebot talking.

                “What was that you said?”

                “What?” it says, in the familiar tinny female voice.

                “What was that a transmission?” I ask.

                “I didn’t say anything,” the eyebot says.

                I reach up and hit the eyebot’s off switch, and it falls into my lap.  I look at it, turn it over in my hands, feeling the smooth, warm metal.  Am I losing it, or did I just hear my wife’s voice?  I look back in the direction of Archie and Tee.  Is my mission truly a fool’s errand?  Had I found belonging, only to abandon it, to search for a way to hang onto the past?

One of the butterflies lags behind, and alights on the orange eyebot in my lap.  It slowly opens and closes its wings, then takes off and flies north, eventually disappearing into the wasteland haze.   If I let go of my destination now, I’m just a wanderer again, hoping that my direction is the right one.  Do I go west, and confront my past, or do I follow the butterflies north, or head east back to Archie and Tee?  There’s an old saying, a pre-war saying that stuck it out in the wastes.  When in doubt, choose the right way.  And a part of me dies.

All of my fear, all of my doubt, all of my indirection.  It melts away and all that’s left is me sitting there, both hands on the eyebot, looking into its dark faceplate as if it is a magic eight ball and answers will surface.  It is quiet.  It is so quiet and I hear only silence.   I turn the eyebot back on and it lifts out of my hands into the air.

The night is falling, and I duck into a destroyed building and climb up to the second story.  I lie down on a burnt and filthy mattress and stare up at the sky.  My eyes slowly close and all I see is butterflies, and a green place, and I know what I must do.

--CHAPTER 5

A Small Mistake

I wake up, feeling like hell.  I wipe my face with my arm and it comes away bloody.  My whole body is itchy and hot.  I lean forward and vomit between my knees, then collapse back onto the mattress.  I know what’s happened, how could I have been so stupid?  The suit has a built in Geiger counter, I should have checked the radiation.

I crawl off the mattress and onto the dusty floor, coughing and hacking up blood.

                “Seek medical attention immediately” the eyebot chimes in with its tinny female voice.

                “Fuck” is all I can muster, and the world fades to black.

--Chapter 6

War never changes

the weapons change

the soldier changes

the warrior

forever

the warrior fights

a spiritual war

bullets and armor

or a white flag

can never stop him

the war continues

deep inside.

-The Wastelander’s Apocalypse, Vol 1

                I wake up, I open my eyes but it is dark.  I try to sit up but I don’t have the strength.

                “You awake?” a male voice echoes in the night.

                “Who’s there?”

                “Your savior.  What were you thinking sleeping there?  That area is totally irradiated.  What’s your name?”

                “Russ,” I say into the gloom.

                “Russ, I’m Brian.  I carried you out of the radiation zone.  We’re camped out in a culvert here and I gave you a dose of Rad-b-Gone so you should survive, if you’re lucky.  You a wanderer or what?”

                “Yeah…  Aren’t you?”

                “Hell no, I’m a Regulator, and the law is humanity.”

                “Sounds like a fancy name for lawman to me,” I coughed, “You judge, jury and executioner too?”

                “Aren’t you?” he says, and there is silence between us for a long time.

                “Are there more of you out there?  Like a big old cult of do-gooders?” I say.

                “There was.  Where are you headed, wastelander?” he asks.

“I was headed west….”

“What for?  It’s a nuked hellscape.  Just mutants , radiation and destruction, not to mention the coal fires.”

“Have you heard of where the wasteland ends?” I ask him.

“You mean the inter-dimensional rift?”  He says.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.  What are you a scientist too?”

“No but we had scientists down in the labs who know about that thing,” he says, and I pass out.

When I wake again it is daytime.  I sit up and look out of the round culvert and there is grey stuff falling from the sky, concealing a dirty yellow spot where the sun used to be.  It takes me a minute to realize it is ashes from the underground fires.  I feel stronger now, if a bit loopy.  The rad-b-gone must be working.   I look over at Brian as he sits in the culvert and see he is dressed in grey metal, powered armor that can deflect bullets, his helmet at his side.

“Eat,” Brian says as he shoves a roast rat on a spit into my hand.  It tastes great.  Hunger is the sweetest spice.

I suck some water from my suits condenser and become bald as I pull out my hair in clumps,  I stand up and feel fairly good, good enough to travel.  I know what I really need is a dose of radscorpion poison.

“Thanks Brian...  I’m gonna go.  I’m.. I’m actually headed north, sort of a change of plans.”

“What’s north?”

“I think,  I think there’s a real oasis out there.  I saw some butterflies.  They were headed north.”

 “I can take you by Cormorant.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s the best way to get around in style in the wasteland.  It’s a flying machine.”

A flying machine.  I had seen a few in my days, travelling distantly overhead on their unknown errands, a sign that somewhere out there society and technology were intact.  Every wastelander hopes there’s salvation from the wasteland, and the aircraft symbolized that.

“And why go out of your way to help me?” I ask him.

I look at him and he at me, and I can see it in his eyes.  He doesn’t answer and he doesn’t have to.  He’s a survivor, hanging on to the last shreds of his integrity and sense of mission, his humanity.  He’s tired and lonely.  It’s like looking into a mirror.

 “How many of you are there, Brian?”

“There were a hundred or so of us, until…”

“Until?”

“I had to piece it together from the radio logs..  We brought in a slaver who managed to smuggle in a mininuke.  When it detonated, most of the base was destroyed, and any teams on away missions, well, they didn’t return.  There’s nothing to return to.  I happened to be flying out on recon in the cormorant when it went off.  That was...  Years and years ago.  I haven’t seen a comrade since, until I found you, in Baldy’s armor.  The Regulators are dead.”

“You’re a wanderer now, like me.”

“No, I’ll always be a regulator, to be humane is my purpose.  I’m not wandering any more than you are.”

I look out at the still grey haze beyond the culvert, the ashes silently alighting on one another, forming a thin layer on the ground.  I hadn’t been a wanderer in a long time.  Not since I had found Tee in that dresser, screaming and crying, and adopted her.  Not since Archie had plucked me out of my misery with his missions, his sense of direction, his coffee, his white carpet and his shared brotherhood.   But wandering is more than that.  It’s about always moving forwards.  I smile, for the first time since I had left Archie and Tee in the bunker.  It hurts my burned face and chapped lips, but it’s worth it.

“I want to see the flying machine.”

                

Now published

You can buy your copy of Apocalyptica Mortalis (edited) at:
Hope you enjoy reading it!

https://www.createspace.com/4516309

Final Chapter 17: Goodbye

"Before you go, Russ, I've got something for you," Archie says as he sips his coffee.

"Oh yeah?  What?"

"Armor."

He leads me into the backroom and opens up a crate.  Inside there's a suit of green armor, chestplates and all.

"It's got a respirator in the helmet, and it'll recycle your urine and your breath.  See this tube in the helmet?  Just bite on it and drink.  This suit brought me back from the endless desert in one piece.  I've got a fresh micro-cell for it.  And if you press this button here, it turns on the com unit." he says as he shows me a panel on the arm.  "It's got a built in computer and radar system and it should warn you if anything comes within 500 meters of you.  It'll deflect bullets, but the higher caliber ones maybe not.  And if we're lucky I should be able to communicate with you over the radio."

I run my hand over the armor's sleek surface, and I know my chances of surviving the wastes would be much better with an ally like this.  I take off my clothes down to my underwear and I put on the armor.  I raise the face visor and examine the suit.

"How do I look?"

"Stylin." and we both smile.

"You'll be ok, you'll take care of Tee?"

"Yeah we'll be alright.  I made it to old age didn't I?"

"You sure did, old man."

"That's right, sure as hell I did.  Tee will be fine."

I think he understands why I had to go, why I had to see the chaos at the edge of the wastes for myself.  I'd give anything to see my wife again.

"I'll miss you, son."

"two hundred days.  I'll be back before you know it."

"I hope so.  It'll be lonely here without your ugly face."

"I'll miss you too Archie."

"Promise me one thing, Russ."

"What's that?"

"Don't walk beyond the shimmering wall."

"Why?"

"You'll lose your mind.  There's nothing there but chaos and death," he looks me in the eyes.  "Here, you'd better take the eyebot.  It'll interface with your suit, and warn you of danger."  and he turns to the orange eyebot on the bench and powers it on.

"Take care of Russ ok?" he says to the machine, "Designate companion Russell.  Lock command."

The eyebot beeps in recognition.

I walk in the common room and Tee is there, hugging the kitty.  She puts it down and wraps her arms around me.

"I love you, Russ."

"I love you too, Tee.  Take good care of uncle Archie for me, ok, and ginger cat too."

"Ok, I will.  You're coming back right?  You promise you won't die?"

"I promise." and I kiss her on the cheek and she sniffles.

I shoulder my rifle and my pack and the three of us emerge into the wasteland.  The day is dark, and there's lightning on the horizon, but no thunder.

The three of us hug one last time and I turn and leave.  A hundred days.  I don't know if I'll survive the journey, but I had to see for myself.  I had to see if my wife was there.

I turn and I wave goodbye but the two of them are already back in the bunker and I am alone again.  Alone except for the computerized voice of the suit, and the eyebot hovering at my side, it's antennas twitching.

"Can you hear me Russ?" and I fumble with the button on the arm labeled 'transmit.'

"I hear you Archie."

"Good.  Over and out."

I take the wasteland, one step after another.  The day becomes dark, and the eyebot chimes in.

"Large insects detected, 100 meters and closing," and I can hear the chittering already.

"Large insects, 30 meters and closing."

I open up the com and press transmit.

"Archie, the scorpions are coming."

"Good, remember what I said?" he responds, the comm crackling a bit.

"The bugs love me."

"They sure do, Russ.  They're your friends and don't forget it.  Over and out."

Soon they surround me, ten of them, claws clacking and jaws clicking.  One of them leans it's stinger forward, a drop of poison on the end, while the others all turn away.  I take the stinger in my mouth and suckle like the newborn that I am, my pain fading away.  I unroll my bedroll and fall asleep in the circle of now silent guardians, while Anna the eyebot keeps watch.  It would be a long journey, any one worthwhile always is.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 16: The Edge

I poke around the shack a bit before I leave, I open the suitcase that had been my pillow and inside is a small case with the words "Garden of Eden Creation Kit" embossed on the surface.  I hit the latch in excitement and it opens, but it is empty except for one small vial with the label "no. 9" on it.  The instructions are missing but I pocket the vial of liquid and head into the wastes.

Before long I reach the underground shelter.  I pick up the cat and carry her down the ladder.  Inside, Tee is playing a game of cards with the eyebot.

"Hey I made a new friend," I say to her and I put the kitty down at my feet.

Tee runs over and picks her up, hugs and kisses and squeezes her, rubbing her face in the fur and she smiles at me.  She puts the kitty down and takes her seat again at the table where there's playing cards spread around.

"Hey, what game are you playing?  You sleep ok last night?" I ask her.  She gives me a big hug.

"Yeah Anna sung me songs," and my heart skips a beat but I realize she means the eyebot.  Anna was my wife's name.

"Oh good, you didn't go outside right?"

"No.  Not really."

I kick my shoes off to preserve Archie's white carpet. and I sit down heavily at the table, exhausted.

"We're playing egyptian rat fuck."

"What?"

"Egyptian-"

"I heard you..  How do you play?"

"Well, each person or robot takes a turn playing a card from the top of his pile.  Then if the cards match you have to slap the pile first, and then you put those on the bottom of your pile.  Whoever has all the cards a the end wins."

"Your mom teach you that?"

"No, Anna did."

"Anna, what other games do you know?"

"I know 1024 playing card games."

A thousand and twenty four games.  I don't know any, I had never taken the time to learn.  Never had the time, was usually too busy chasing iguanas.

I heard the manhole open and Archie appeared at the bottom of the ladder.

"Hey old man, you're home early."

"I met a wandering trader, was able to get the parts I needed.  He told me an interesting story too.

"Yeah let's hear the story."

"Well, he got this glazed look in his eye and started going on about some junkie he'd met who'd seen the edge of the wasteland."

"The edge?  I just assumed it goes on."

"Well, this trader paraphrased it for me, I guess the junkie said there's some kind of chaos at the edge.  Chaos that'll make you lose your mind, and the junkie insisted he was a dead radscorpion somewhere, that he had baby radscorpions to feed and he needed to get back there."

"Wow, sounds like the guy had a bad trip to me."

"Maybe,"

"What do you mean 'maybe,' that sounds like a bunch of baked bullshit."

"I've been to the edge, never beyond, but I saw the edge."

"Fuck, really?  What did you see?"

"Ten thousand things.  I saw a smiling family around a dinner table eating meat and vegetables, I saw the wasteland, green with life, I saw human like robots in a junkyard.  I saw great reptilian beasts, hunting one another."

"All that in one look?"

"There's a barrier, a swirling barrier of images.  I didn't go onwards.  I saw my wife, but I didn't go."

"What the hell are you talking about Archie?  You sound like a madman."

"I can't say I understood what I saw, but it was like reality was fractured, you know, the bombs must have done it.  And I found a pile of clothes there, gun and ammo, like someone had just disappeared right out of their clothes."

"You're mad Archie.  You were probably dreaming, or rad-sick."

He looks sternly at me and says, "I wasn't."

"So there's some kind of chaos out there, but where?"

"A hundred days south of here."

I know where he was talking about.  He must have crossed the great desert to get there.

"A hundred days?  How the hell did you cross the Endless Desert?"

"The radscorpions helped me, they came at night and fed me, protected me."

"Yeah, right.  Obviously you left your marbles somewhere old man.  There's no edge of the wasteland, it just goes on and on, dust and iguanas in every direction."

"You're wrong, Russ.  I was there.  You have to see it to understand."

And I wanted to.  Archie had seen his wife there, in some kind of chaos storm.  Did I have a chance of reuniting with mine?  But I know she's dead, and I was only dreaming.  But I had found my purpose.  Maybe there was a chance I could see her again, even for a moment.

"I've got to see it Archie."

"To hell you do, that journey nearly killed me.  Stay here with Tee and me, and sip coffee and put your feet up.  You're not a wanderer anymore."

But I am.  I will always be.  The wasteland is my home, being safe is boring.  I had to see whatever it was Archie had seen.  I had to see, if my wife was there too.  And I know that I will leave Archie and Tee behind.  I would be a lone wanderer again, a tourist in the wastes.  I want to see.  I want to see and believe.

"Archie, mark my words.  I'll see you in 200 days." and I felt invigorated, a new sense of life pouring into me, a mission of my own making, a chance to maybe see my wife.  I, like Archie, had lost my will to live, somewhere along the line.  I love Tee and him but that's only a bandage on a broken will.  I want to see my wife, desperately, and I would do whatever I had to do to see her one last time, even if it meant evaporating into nothingness, leaving my clothes in a pile and disappearing into some kind of fractured reality.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 15: Ghouls

I skirt around the remains of the town, heading for the gas station that Archie had mentioned.  Occasionally I stop and scan the horizon with my binoculars but things are quiet.

Several hours later I'm at the station.  Inside is chaos, overturned desks, rusty shelving in piles, and I pick up a pack of cigarettes from the ground as I head towards the basement.  There's a giant rat in the stairwell, the size of a dog, munching on a box of sugar bomb cereal.  It looks at me and growls and hisses, and I take out my 10mm pistol and I shoot at it but it darts away into the shadows.  I hear it hissing vehemently as I step downwards into the darkness, but I'm through the basement door before it can retaliate.

I shine my flashlight around.  Someone had been living here, long ago. There's empty boxes of food and bottles of water next to a cot in the corner.  There's a dried up corpse there on cot, with a six shooter in its dessicated hand, and a stain on the wall where the person must have blown out their own brains.  Something moves in the shadows and as I turn and get a glimpse of some small animal disappear out of a broken basement window.  I poke around and find a box of freeze dried coffee and shove it in my pack.

I hear sounds now from the first level, footsteps.  I make my way silently to the door and I can see at the top of the stairs a ghoul, it's face burned by the sun, it's flesh hanging off it in strips, probably attracted by the gunfire.  I close the door and lock it just before it throws itself down the stairway at me and hits the door with a thud.  I hear it now, sniffing, and the rat hissing, and there's a squabble and the scream of a ghoul making a kill.

I see several shadows pass the window and soon I hear more ruckus up above, crashing, smashing and snarling.  A small animal darts in the window and into a dark corner.

I shake my head.  It's always something in the wasteland.  I decide to wait and see if things quieted down.

A small cat with ginger colored fur emerges from the shadows as I push the body off the cot and sit down.  She meows plaintiffly, her tail slowly twitching left, then right.

"Hey little one.  I bet your thirsty?" and I notice the bowl next to the cot.  I pour some water in it and she drinks it down.  She puts her little paws on my leg and stretches and purrs.

"You're friendly.. Looks like your owner didn't survive though."  I slowly reach foreward and she shoves her head up against my gloved hand.

"Looks like we'll be here for awhile." she jumps into my lap and curls up, looking up at me with big yellow eyes.  She startles as there's another crash from up above and she leaps away, her fur on end.

We wait together for several hours and things quiet down up above.

"It's time for me to go.  Think it's safe girl?" I whisper and I quietly crack the basement door and look up into the light.  All that's left of the ghouls is a rat corpse glistening in the light of my torch, eaten to the bone, not a shred of flesh left on it.  I ease my way up the stairs, wincing at the sound of the creaking wooden steps, but the gas station is empty except for me and the cat.  It's getting dark out and I don't want to travel in the night, with the radscorpions on the prowl.  I had to get back to Tee, I know she would be scared if I didn't come home.

I stand in the doorway and look out over the nuked town.  I take out my geiger counter and take a reading.  It clicks madly and I know the place is irradiated as hell.  Things are quiet, except for a distant scream, a ghoul making another kill.

I take two steps out the door and something lands heavily on my back and I fall forward on my face.  It bites into the back of my neck and I yell, flipping over and throwing the ghoul off of me.  I stand quickly but it lunges at me and I'm down again, wrestling with what once was a human being.  It screams and I bash it in the head with my geiger counter as hard as I can.  It goes limp and I push off myself and stand up.  It's a pitiful creature, missing an eye and its nose, and I stomp hard on it's head and it splushes into a pile of goo.

I make my way hastily away from there, away from the town and its denizens.  Soon I am in the wasteland again, dust in every direction and my heart beat slows down.  The cat has followed me.  She looks up at me and lets out a quiet meow.  She jumps up into my arms and pushes her head against my chin.  I scratch her ears with my hand.

"How did you survive out here little one?" I say but she only looks at me with those yellow eyes.  It's nighttime now and I know the radscorpions will be on the prowl.  I scan the horizons with my binoculars and I see a dust storm coming from the west.  I make haste towards home but the storm overtakes me and I have to take shelter in a beaten old shack.

I wrestle a piece of old sheet metal across the door and the cat and I sit and wait.  Eventually I fall asleep, my head resting on a leather suitcase, the cat on my chest purring.  I wake in the night with a start and I can hear the telltale chittering of radscorpions outside, but we are safe in the shack.  I peek out between the broken boards and I can see them encircling the hut.

I awake in the morning, the cat sleeping on my chest, and as I wake up she rubs her head on my chin as if to say "let's get going."  I emerge from the shack and the radscorpions are gone, the only sign is the telltale trail they leave as they left, the imprints of many scorpid feet as they wandered off, searching for quarry elsewhere.

I had survived the night and I hoped Tee was safe and sound, and Archie too.  Would she stay in the bomb shelter like I had told her?  I walk towards home now, with the kitty trailing on my heels, she catches grasshoppers here and there and crunches them up.

Survivors gather together.  It's the way of the wastes, if you see a friendly face, you stick to it.  I wonder why the man in the gas station had killed himself, was he lonely, or a junkie without a fix?  Maybe he had just needed water, or maybe, he couldn't escape from there with the ghouls around.  I don't know but I wonder anyway.  Was he a good man, a bad man?  You can never tell just from looking at a corpse.  I had seen one too many in my life.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 14: Basic Needs

In the morning Archie stews something up on the stove and serves me a steaming cup of coffee while Tee and I sit around the table expectantly.

"What's the agenda today, Archie?  More murdering?"

"No..  But we need to make a supply run."

"What for, you've got ten of everything here."

"We're out of coffee."

"Oh, it's an emergency.  Can't you live without it?"  In the wasteland, you live without everything.  I'm lucky each day that I wake up with my humanity intact, that's about all I've got left.

He glares at me.

"You don't want to see me without my coffee.  I want you to make a run down to the gas station.  Last time I was there they had a basement full of food.  I locked it on my way out."  and he hands me a key.

"Think you can handle that, soldier?" he says.

"First of all, I ain't a soldier.  Second of all, you want me to risk my life for coffee?"

I took a sip and the hot liquid going down my throat feels great.  I look into my cup, at the swirling darkness.  I suppose we all need to keep our humanity alive, however we can.  Life has to have meaning.  Coffee has meaning to Archie.

"I'll get your coffee, Archie..  Why don't we go together, for safety."

"I'm headed to Oasis to trade, I need some parts.  You can handle it yourself.  I'll be back in four days. Oh and watch out for ghouls." and he picks up a duffle bag and climbs up the ladder and he's gone.

Ghouls.  Ages ago, the bombs fell, and many chemical weapons were unleashed.  Most who survived these days were immune, but the few who weren't became feral monsters who came out at night, flesh melting away, losing their senses until all they wanted was meat.  Any meat.

"Well Tee, I guess it's just you and me now."

"He's coming back, right?"

"Yeah, I hope so.  I guess I've gotta head out too, why don't you stay here for the day?"

"Don't go," she says, and she grabs my hand and squeezes hard.

It's a stupid mission.  Go into the ruins of the town and get coffee.  I'd scavenged medical equipment to save lives, I'd hunted slavers, I'd brought back iguanas when their was no food, I'd fought off a ghoul with my own hands, just to save someone I didn't know.  Coffee for Archie.  What's the point?  But I know.  It was the same with him and his white carpet.  I know the truth.  Coffee represents sanity, humanity to him.

"You're safe here, Tee.  I'll turn on the eyebot so you've got someone to play with.  I don't want you leaving here, understand?  And if I'm not back tonight you tuck yourself in ok?"

"Ok..  You'll be back?"

"I'll be back."

Damn Archie and his white carpet, his coffee.  At least I have purpose for another day.  Every man needs purpose.  I go into the storeroom and I turn on the orange eyebot.

"Scanning.  Scanning.  Tools detected.  Executing self repair protocol."

The eyebot starts poking around the room, pulling parts from here and there with it's small pincer arm.

I walk through the kitchen and Tee walks behind me to the ladder entrance.

"You'll be back?"

"You got it kiddo.  And if I'm not, you stay put.  Don't play outside, see if that eyebot knows any indoor games alright?"

"Ok," she says, dejected.  And I climb up the ladder and emerge into the blinding light of another day in the wastes.  I lower my goggles and slide the manhole cover back over the entrance while Tee looks up a me from within.  I push a pile of dust over it to hide it and I'm off to see the wizard.

Coffee.  I had risked my life for worse things I suppose.  Once a long time ago, after my wife died, I had been a junkie.  Every junkie has purpose, they gotta get the next fix.  I remember shivering, cold and naked, wandering the wastes looking for another dose of salts.  I wouldn't have survived except Moira had found me and taken me to Oasis, patched me up, fed me fixer until I was clean.  I'm a better man now, and my purpose has evolved.  

I have Tee, and Archie.  I'm a human being again.  Coffee.  At least I have purpose, and white carpet to come back to, and a child who loves me.  I see Archie in the hot distance, wavering in the heat .  I scan the horizon with my binoculars and I see a radscorpion chasing after an unknown wastelander, and I remember what Archie said.  Now he's pinned to the ground, and the scorpion is stabbing him and stabbing him with his tail, over and over, dust flying into the air.  Why did it attack?  Was it because he ran?  It begins to eat its unlucky quarry, and Archie's words echo in my mind.  The bugs are my friends.  Don't run.  Yeah, right.

The things a man will do for a cup of coffee.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 13: Alive

Archie, Tee and I sit around the dinner table munching on roast iguana.  It tastes better than when we roast them over irradiated wood.  I could get used to this life.

"You any good at repairing things?" Archie asks me between mouthfuls.

"Like what?" I say, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.

"Robots?"

"You got tools?"

"Plenty..  Let me show you what I've been working on."

Archie leads me through the storage room and into his workshop and closes the door.  There are eyebots everwhere, small spherical machines that once hovered in the air, bent and broken antennaes sticking out in strange directions.  Usually they wander the wastes broadcasting nonsense about president Eden, but these are all silent, some with scorch marks, others with bullet holes, and still others in pieces around the room.  One of them sits under his worklamp with a pile of hand tools around it.  A bright orange one lay in the corner with a layer of dust.

"I've been trying to repair these eyebots.. I got one working awhile back but it shot me with a laser and I smashed it.  I don't know if it's a lost cause or what."

"You've got enough parts here, I can probably get one working.  What about that orange one in the corner?"

"It's trash, I couldn't get it working."

I pick it up and examined it.  It's got a triple shot laser weapon mounted on the bottom In green letters across the side it reads 'Google (c) friend model 2021'.  In the back is an inset reset button and I take a paperclip from the workdesk and poke it in.  I feel all over it and my finger finds a catch and I press.  A small plate pops off and falls on my foot, beneath which there is a power toggle labeled '0' and '1'.  I toggle it to 1.

The small robot whirs to life and levitates off my hand, the harddrive light flashing and I can hear it the inside parts working, thinking.

A tinny woman's voice begin's to speak.

"Scanning, Scanning, Scanning."

"Good job, what did you do?" Archie says to me.

"Turned it on."

"Brilliant, I should have tried that." he says and makes a funny face.

"Scanning.  Hello companion!  My name is Five Alive, would you like to rename me?"

"Yes Anastasia," I speak slowly and clearly.

"Call me Anna!" it sounds like a text message read by an exaggerated artificial voice, meant maybe for interacting with children.

"Ok Anna.  How are you feeling?"

"Grrrrrrrreat!  Like a tiger!" that could be problematic, and I laugh.

"Got any mechanical problems?"

"I can't feel my claws,"

"You haven't got any,"

"Yes but I can't feel them."

"Anything else?"

"Yes I can't see anything," she says, her speakers crackling

I notice the faceplate is cracked and scorched.  I can probably switch it out for one that's whole.

"I'm going to power you down ok?"

"No, please don't.  I don't want to die."

"I'm gonna fix your faceplate,  turn around."

"My secondary imperitive is to stay alive and I'm unable to comply." The small laser weapon rises and points at my face but the wire that powers it is hanging loose.

I reach around behind her and switch her off and she falls into my open hand.  I unscrew the faceplate and switch it out with one that isn't broken.

"It works...  Anything else, Archie?" and I see him looking at the floor, his eyes closed, brow furrowed.  He looks up at me, sadness in his eyes.

"Yeah, can you fix me?"

We stand there looking at each other for a long time, and I know what he means but I ask anyway.

"You said what?"

"I don't want to live, Russ," he says and I crack the door to check that Tee isn't near us and I hear the water running, she's taking a long shower.

"What you want me to shoot you in the face like that raider?  C'mon Archie.  You think your wife would want you to kill yourself?  What if you'd done it a week ago and the junkies had taken over your roost?  Tee and I would be dead right now.  You know, maybe we can find your wife.  The wasteland needs people like you.  Tee needs us," and I need you, Archie, I need you and your white carpet.

"Maybe your right..." and he leaves me in the room full of robot carcasses and closes the door, and I hear his heavy, slow steps recede into the common room.

I look around me and can't help but feel sad for the eyebots.  Once, they had been alive, had had purpose and joy, whatever joy a computer can experience.  But they were machines, built on a mininuke power plant, built to survive.  I don't think they have experiences, they're dead, they're just computers and robots don't have thoughts and feelings.

I put down Anna on the workbench, put my head in my hands, rub at my face hard, and look around me at all the death.  Or maybe I was just looking within myself.

Archie, the machines...  Even though they seem alive, they're dead inside.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 12: Ambush

The three of us circle the town and lie down on a grassy knoll about a hundred yards off from our target, in the shade of a broken old shack.  Outside the clinic we can see someone smashing windows up and down the street.  The tinkling of broken glass carries to us on the wind.

Archie looks through his scope and surveys the scene.

"I can see two more inside.  They must be done looting cause they're smashing the place up."

"Any slaves?" I ask him

"No, don't see any,"

"How do you know they're slavers?"

"Trust me, I know,"

"No really, they could just be wastelanders.  How do you know?"

He looks at me angrily and I close my mouth.

"They took my wife, that's how I know," he says with a grimace and I turn back to the clinic sheepishly.

I look over as Tee pumps up her BB gun, licks her finger and touches the sight.  I half wondered where she had learned to do that, what she had been through before I met her, rescued her.

I take up sights myself, using a rock to rest the barrel of Minty's .22.

"When they come out, they're going to head to the junkies camp to pick up slaves.  When they come around that building they'll be coming towards us and we'll have a clear shot.  Don't open fire until I do.  Got it Tee?" Archie says as he settles in with his sniper rifle, playing with the guages.

"Yes sir!" she says, and salutes him.  I couldn't help but laugh quietly.

"Tee, your gun won't fire that far.  Why don't you keep watch behind us.  If you have to shoot something aim at a soft part," I say to her as she frowns.  She turns around and uses her bird watching binoculars to scan the rear, "I see Triple!" she says and points excitedly up in the air.  I glance up but it's only a vulture, circling us far overhead.

A half an hour passes as we watch and wait.  Finally the two slavers emerge from the clinic and they start walking westward, just like Archie had said.  They round the corner and come towards us.

"On the count of four," Archie says, steadying his breath.

"What?  You mean three?" I say.

"No goddamnit I said four!"

"Ok ok!" I stammer.

"One...  Two...  Three...  Four!"

We open fire on the three slavers.  Archie's target goes down and doesn't move.  I must have winged mine in the ear because he grabs at his head and goes to take cover, but there is none.  I fire again while Archie ejects the clip and this time I make my mark, and hit him right in the heart.  He falls down.  The third let's off a clip of automatic weapon fire in our direction but Archie takes him out, his head exploding all over a junk car.

"Was that all of them?"

"I think so.  Let's check it out.  Maybe they've got some tech we can use."

Tee fires a shot and we both startle and turn,

"Got him!" She says triumphantly and dashes off to claim her prize, a skinny brown iguana.

"Don't move," a gruff voice says as a stranger emerges from behind the shack, holding an AK-47

Archie and I lay prone on the ground and put our hands up.  Tee points her rifle at him from ten feet away.

I hear a flapping of wings and Triple lands next to Tee and starts hissing loudly, her stinger tail swinging back and forth in agitation.  The stranger is surprised but his gun is steady.

"You don't move!" she says, a gleam in her eye as she pumps up her toy rifle.  Fuck.

The man shifts his gun from us to Tee.  The lizard starts making an aweful sound and barfs up it's lunch.

"Don't move or I kill the girl" he says, looking right into my eyes.

"Don't shoot!" I say, begging him.  Tee is my life, don't take away my life.  I whisper prayers to an absent god.

Tee opens fire right at the man's face.  In an instant he falls to the ground and we grab our weapons and secure the area.  No one else is around.  I check the man's pulse, it's faint but he's still alive.  I'd never seen a man stopped by a BB gun and I check his face.  There's no wounds but his nose is bleeding.

"What the hell is that thing," Archie says, aiming his pistol at the lizard.  I put my hand on his and lower it, "it's her pet, or something."  He raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

"Good shot, Tee.. I think that BB went right up his nostril and scrambled his brain," I tell her.

"Is he a slaver?  How do we know now if he's good or bad?" Tee says, wondering as she slings her BB gun and picks up the lizard in her arms.

"What do we do with him?" I ask Archie, who stands with his pistol ready.

"He's a bad one Tee.  Russ, just kill the bastard and get it done with.  You want me to do it?"

"No...  Let me do it.  Do you want to say last words?"

"Fuck no, he doesn't deserve an afterlife.  He was gonna kill Tee, you heard him."

The lizard sniffs at the air, struggles free of Tee and flies off, obviously on it's own agenda.

I stand over the man and look down into his glazed eyes.  His breath is shallow and his arm twitches a little.  There's a black heart tattoo on his neck with the name Megan writ underneath.  Archie gathers Tee and turns her away.  I wonder who he was, why he wandered the wasteland.  He might have been a good man, the wasteland makes murderers of good men every day.  Maybe he just needed a meal.  Maybe he was just opportunistic.  Maybe someone, maybe Megan loved him.  Or to him, maybe, we were the murderers.

I blow his brains out all over the hill and the noise of the shot echoes back and forth across the valley, the lilting sound of another man greeting a quick death.

"One less asshole in the wasteland," Archie says.

"Do we bury him?" Tee asks, looking up at Archie.

Archie walks up and kicks dust in the man's face.  He kicks the man in the head for long minutes afterwards, his face frozen in a wicked smile of revenge.

"Good enough," he says, and walks away, slinging his rifle on his shoulder.

Tee walks up to look at the wastelander and Archie goes to move her away but I stop him.  "She's got to understand," I tell him, and all three of us look down at the dead man.

"Am I a murderer?" she says, looking up at me with glistening eyes.  I kneel next to her, take her by the shoulders and shake my head, looking hard into her beautiful turquoise eyes.

"No Tee, killing a bad man doesn't make you a murderer. You were just defending yourself.  You didn't just kill him cause your mean or for the fun of it.  You had to do it.  You saved me Tee.  You saved us both.  I'm sure he was a slaver, or worse,"  I hug her tight and don't let go for a long time.

A child's innocence, traded for our lives.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 11: Purpose

I awake, lifting myself from heavy dreams of radscorpions and paper bunnies, the old man's words echoing in my head.

"The bugs love us,"

I shake my head.  Archie had obviously lost a marble or two in the wasteland.

I stand up and check Tee on the upper bunk.  She's still sleeping soundly, dreaming a child's dreams, maybe of green places, fresh food and water.

I go to to the door and try the handle.  It's not locked.  I emerge into the common room and the old man is there cleaning his rifle.

"Want to go hunting?"

"I thought you were going to kick us out in the morning."

"I changed my mind.  You and I should spend some time together, son.  You've got a lot to learn if you want to survive out there."

I roll my eyes and take a seat at the breakfast table, where there's already a bowl of food set out.

"Hope you like mut-fruit surprise."

I did like it, surprisingly.  I felt the pleasant burning in my veins again.

"You put scorpid poison in everything?"

"Just about.  Go into the back room and get a rifle and some wasteland clothing."

I walk past him and enter the storage room.  On one rack is twenty rifles of all different kinds.  Across from it are boxes and boxes of ammunition.  I had never seen so many guns, unclaimed, in great shape.  There were boxes of grenades, land mines, and gun parts everywhere.  A single plasma grenade rests on it's side on the top shelf, and I pocket it.  Archie leans in the doorway,

"Whoever set this place up was a gun nut.  I've even got a rocket launcher in the back but don't bother, the thing weighs a ton."

I run my hand over the guns as I walk down the narrow aisle and I get a feeling from the goddess and stop.  My hand rests on a beautiful gun, with gold inlay and mahogany stock.  I lift it from the rack and examine it.

"Minty's .22.  Good choice, but the penetration's not great.  You won't kill a deathclaw with that gun." Archie smiles as he watches me, his great blue eyes crinkling at the edges.

"If I can't kill it with this it's big enough to stay away from.  Is there someone else here?"

"No, no, it says Minty right on the stock," I check the gun.  Carved carefully into the wood is a single word "Minty," in a child's scrawl.  I run my fingers over the inscription and I know long ago someone had loved this weapon.

"You know, your kiddo is about the age to learn to handle a gun."

"Don't wake her up," I say as I turn to him, "She's dreaming of good things," and I test the weight of the rifle in my hands.

"Have you ever seen a deathclaw?" I visualized what I had heard about.  Black, and ten feet tall, claws like a great bear, jaws that could crush iron, lizard skin, and covered in sharp spines.

"Oh, a few times.  They're not around now so don't worry yourself.  They migrate.  They're not too hard to kill, as long as your not dropping all your shit, pissing yourself, and running in the opposite direction."

"But their hide, it's like kevlar."

"Not between the eyes."

"Your a good shot I gather?"

"The best.  How do you think I got this old, by running away from every slaver?"

I look up and down the rows of ammunition and select a box of .22 cartridges and a leather bandolier to carry the ammo.

"Minty is a .22  repeater, she hold's 20 rounds, you won't need that."

"Yeah but I'm gonna look badass with a bunch of bullets across my chest, don't you think?  Styling, right?" and I sported it, making poses, and we both giggled like children.

The old man smiles and says, "Sure son...  Styling." and he seems to drift away in thought, he's eyes scanning the room but seeing nothing, "My wife used to talk like that.  She always said, if you're going to wasteland it then do it with style."

Wife.  I tried not to think about it.

"You really think Tee is old enough to handle a gun?  Do you have any legos?"

"Goddamn it don't get her playing with toys, she needs to learn about guns.  I've seen younger folks than her do it."

The little girl wanders into the common room and I hear from behind Archie, "Is there any food?"

"On the table, hon," I reply and I hear her pull a chair out and take a seat.

I look up and down the rows of big guns and from in the corner under a cobweb I pull out an old BB gun.

On the side it read, "Red Ryder."  There's a red hooded cloak folded up on the shelf and I grab it too.

"This thing work?" I ask.

"Sure does.  That was mine, a long long time ago, until I found bigger better toys."  I grab a box of BB's from the shelf.

Tee wanders into the doorway beside Archie and looks around, her eyes wide as she scans the rows and rows of weapons, and she takes a handful of his pants and closes her fingers tightly.  I hand her the red child's cloak and she oohs and ahhs and slips it on.

"Here little one, I got you a gift" and I hand her the Red Ryder BB gun."  The first thing she does is look down the barrel with one eye squinted shut.

"It's dark in there," she says, and waves it around in one hand.

"Uncle Archie's gonna teach you to handle it today."

He kneels next to her and helps her shoulder it and look down the sight.

"Lesson number one, Tee, that barrel is for killing.  Don't point it at yourself or anyone else you love," Archie says as she practices looking down the sight.

"See this lever?  You gotta pump up the pressure, see the guage?  Don't let it go in the red or it'll break." He helps her pump the lever, "that's enough right there, but don't shoot anything unless you have our permission.  The girl nods, and her finger finds the trigger and pulls it.

"Ouch!  Fuck!" I say and grab my arm.

Archie laughs, "And rule number 2, don't pull the trigger unless you're aiming at something to kill, ok?"

She blushes, "ok."

Archie plucks the BB from my arm with a set of needle-nose pliers and we finish gearing up.

I check out the array of pistols on the other rack and select a big 10 millimeter.

"Ready to go hunting?"

"What are we hunting?"

"Slavers,"

"That's a shitty idea Archie, we should stay the hell away from those people."

"And what, let them ruin more lives, take more prisoners?  There's a pile of em at the clinic, probably all dosed up."

I shake my head, but I see his point.  The wasteland needs champions, but there were none, not in the heat, dust, fear and decay.  Only volunteers.

"Why don't we steer clear?"

His eyes darken and his face turns angry.

"I'll do it without you then ya goddamn wuss.  My wife was taken by slavers and I'm gonna kill those bastards with or without you," and suddenly I understand.

"Ok, ok..  But can we leave Tee out of it?  She's too young to understand."

"No," Tee chimed in, leaning her weapon on the wall "I get it.  They're bad people, and we're good people, and they have to die.  They take people and chain them and hurt them.  We gotta do it dad," she says, looking at me sternly with her hands on her hips.  My heart hurt at what she had called me.  My own father had sacrificed himself long ago so I could live.  Maybe I would meet the same fate, to save Tee.  I knew I would do it in a heartbeat if I had to.

"Ok ok, I'm in," and I grab a couple fragmentation grenades from the shelf, and hand one to Archie.

We would be the champions of the wasteland today.  Does that make us good, like Tee said?  I don't know.  But the mission felt great, like fresh blood in my veins.  Purpose.  Every wastelander needs a purpose, beyond white carpet, beyond the next iguana, and Archie had his.  And now, so did we.

Today, we will become murderers of murderers.

Welcome to the wasteland.

Chapter 10: The Truth

I grab a six pack of clean water, we climb over the junk and walk fast away from the drug addicts camp, the lawmaker's laughter echoing in the darkness behind us.  It's night now, and the radscorpions would soon be on the prowl.  We need a hiding place, bad.

Standing on a hill we look down over yet another nuked town.  Not too far off I can see a lit sign that reads "Clinic," but I don't hear a generator.  That must have been where the junkies were getting their shit.  We need a destination badly.

"Where's Triple?" Tee says and I'm glad the lizard is gone.

I take a step forward and my foot clunks on the ground and makes a hollow sound.  I get on my hands and knees and start pushing away the dust and dirt, exposing a man hole.  I could just make out the writing on the cover: "Vault Tec: Please go away."

I pry the lid off the entry and slide it aside and we are hit by a blast of humid air.  Do we dare?  The clinic is no better a place to go, with a sign like that in the night every wastelander will be headed there.

Tee and I lean over the hole, I shine my flashlight on the ladder and follow it down to a dirty white carpeted floor.  I can hear the gentle humm of a generator now, and smell something delicious cooking.

"Hello?"

"Who's there?" a startled reply comes back, the deep voice sounds like a big man.

"We need to hole up, permission to enter sir?" It helps to be polite in the wasteland.  It gives people a sense of humanity.

A man appears at the base of the ladder and shines his torch up at us.

"You're not a goddamn junkie I hope?"

"No sir, my daughter and I need sanctuary."

I can hear him saying "fuck" over and over under his breath.

"Get lost," and he points a large hand gun at my face.

"I have fresh food and vegetables, I promise we mean you no harm."

"Please mister?" Tee chimes in and puts on a big smile even though she is scared.

The man runs his fingers through his hair and sighs loudly.

"Alright.  I'm sure I'll regret it.  Toss down your weapons."

We do, rather than face the predators of the night, and as we clamber down the ladder I feel his gun pressed into my buttock.

"Don't try anything.  I've got the reflexes of a radscorpion and I can crush your skull with my bare hands.  You can stay the night but I'm locking you in the spare room.  Got it?  And you're outta here in the morning."

"Yes sir," I say, stepping off the ladder into the metal corridor.

He's an old man, wearing a green sweater and blue sweatpants.  His eyes are alive, watching my every move.  I wipe my hand on my shirt and offered it to him.

"I'm Russ, this is Tee," I say as I help her off the ladder.

"Pleasure I'm sure," but he doesn't extend his hand.  The man is clean, I had never seen someone that clean, no radiation burns, no dirt, and he's old.  I wonder how he survived the endemic rad-poisoning that claims even the strongest of the wastes.

"Just stay off the furniture, and for fucks sake take your boots off look at my carpet!"  The carpet had been ruined long ago, but people have to find their sanity however they can.  We take off our shoes but our feet are no cleaner.

"Into the bath with both of you!  Now!"  We are being ordered to bathe.  It's making out to be a humorous evening.  I sense the old man means us no harm.

"Here," he says, pushing us into the next room where there's a shower and a tub.  He deposits a small white bar in my hand and an armful of clothes, "take this soap and wash yourselves, you fucking stink!" and he closes the door.

I look into Tee's brown eyes and she looks up at me.  "I don't think we're in danger, he seems ok," I say to her as I turn on the shower and help her in.  Half an hour later I kick her out and take a turn.  Waves of black roll off me and disappear down the drain.  It feels great and I don't want to get out of the hot water.  The soap is better than the stuff we used to make from ashes and iguana grease, it doesn't leave that half cooked smell on me.

We emerge from the bath in clean clothes and sit down on the floor.  The man had helped himself to my iguanas and mutfruit but that's ok.

"So, what's your story?" He says as he stirs a pot of something delicious smelling on the stove.

"Just wandering.  Looking for the GECK," and we both smile and shake our heads.

"Garden of Eden Creation Kit.. Isn't everyone?"  He gestured at Tee with his ladle,  "That's not your daughter though, she doesn't look like you."

"No sir, I found her in a dresser crying for mama.  I think she got left behind while mom was scavenging."

The man shakes his head, "I hate the wasteland."

I look down at my clean feet and felt sad.  I love the wasteland.  It's all I have.  It's my only home, away from people and all the pain they bring.  I look at Tee.

"You seem like decent folk," the man says, "call me Archie." and he serves us each a bowl of hot soup.  Tee lifts hers to her face and slurps greedily but I look at it and wonder.  All I had cared about before Tee was the next meal.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, how come you're not dead, I mean, where's your radiation burns?"

"Just luck I guess," but I knew it wasn't.  "To tell the truth I've got a stash of Vault tec rad-away, got it from the clinic years ago."

I knew about rad-away, it took away the rads but it made folks crazy.  We sit down around the dinner table and ate in silence.  We finish our food and I feel a pleasant burning sensation through my body and I become warm and tingly, my strength returning.

"What's the secret ingredient?" I ask.

"Scorpid poison."

"What?"

"You heard me," and he reaches into the cooker and pulls out a whole stinger.

"You've poisoned us,"

"No my lad, you don't understand.  The poison kills the rads.  You think I'd have my head together if I'd been junking on rad-away?"

"You know.. I had a strange experience, Archie, where I got poisoned but the scorpions didn't chase me."

"The scorpions are intelligent."

"Bullshit, they're bugs.

"No, they're smart.  They want to help us."

"You're full of it, they're just stupid insects.  All you ever hear is people getting killed by those things."

"So let me guess, they surrounded you?"

"Yeah,"

"And turned away?"

"Yeah except for one, and I drank the poison, I don't know why they didn't kill me,"

"It's because you drank.  They see a lot of radiation poisoned folk roaming the wastes and the bugs have compassion for them, they don't want them to die the slow radiation death.  You drank the poison so they let you go."

I shake my head and look into my bowl, pondering the poisoned meal.  I look at the skin on my bare arms and see that my ever present burns had healed into ugly scars somewhere along the way.  The old man had obviously lost his marbles though.  I don't care if it healed radiation, it's probably just a way for the scorpions to get a healthy meal.

"They'll hunt me again, Archy.  They'll kill me next time, I know it."

"You can't escape from a circle of radscorpions.  Not alive.  Not if your sick from radiation." he says as he slurps up the last of his soup.

The man is in good shape.  His arms are like tree trunks and his blue eyes are bright.

"So if they're intelligent, how come they don't build a scorpion town and farm iguanas or something?"

"They're perfectly adapted.  You know how they got so big - people hunted them for generations, killed the stupid ones.  Now they rule the wastes and look at you, barely surviving, sick from radiation.  The scorpions are your friends Russ."

I shook my head.  My world was spinning.  All those years fleeing from them, all of my friends who had died at their claws.

"So next time,"

"Next time, stay in the circle."

"Why?" But he only smiled.

"The bugs are your friends.  Don't forget it."

I shake my head in disbelief.  The old man had obviously taken too much rad-away somewhere along the line.  Scorpions are my friends?  It's too ridiculous too consider.  I'd seen folks get ripped apart by a pack of them, more than once.

"The bugs," he repeated slowly, "The bugs love us."

Welcome to the wasteland.