image [https://i.imgur.com/ilU34LB.jpeg]
Joseph’s hands shook as they both worked together to lift his mug from the table, a feat that, in his youth, had been something that required no effort. Back then his fingers had been thick, his hands powerful, strong enough to shatter the dish with a squeeze, had he so desired… now though, they were thin, creaking and trembling as the spider-like digits struggled to hold the mug aloft. His dry mouth was so far away… The lip of the cup may as well have been on the other side of Old America.
Eventually though, after a concerted effort, he managed to take a single sip of his tea. He used to never have a taste for the stuff, coffee had been far superior in terms of caffeine content, but he had been around sixty when he became unable to handle even the weakest of joe. Truth be told, even this tea was starting to become taxing to drink. His heart just wasn’t what it used to be, just the lightest of stimulation seemed to be pushing it to its limit. Yet his addiction had to be sated, else the pounding headache would set in.
He gingerly set the mug back down upon the coaster, and leaned back in his chair with a ragged sigh. The leather was starting to become ratty and the cotton beneath was peeking through, but he just didn’t have the dexterity to manage fixing it. Nor did he have the strength necessary to carry in a new one, not that he would even be likely to find a perfectly intact chair in this day and age.
The End and the turbulent years that had followed it had made scavenging intact Pre-End items difficult. Not that scavenging was even in the cards for him anymore… he grimaced at the thought. The End was coming for him, as it came for everyone, but it was strange that he had lived long enough for this kind of fate to befall him. Should he really be surprised? The miniature reactor that he had found decades ago had ensured that Betty would never be without power, and with that he had gained the ability to live lazily within her thick metal confines. His massive freezer was filled nearly to bursting with perishable foods, and that wasn’t to mention the canned goods and water purifier. Betty was outfitted with all that he needed to survive, taking away any reason to leave her heavy-metal bosom. He hadn’t driven her in years… were his eyes still good enough to pilot her, he wondered?
He gently shook his head. He didn’t know, and frankly he couldn’t summon up the desire to enter the cockpit. Once, Betty had been a mobile death-machine, both unstoppable and immovable, it had been his chariot… but now, she was nothing more than a mobile nursing home. If nursing homes had tank treads… and was watertight, and had several turrets, and-
He smiled. Betty had been his greatest creation, something that had taken him four years to build. Scavenging the parts for her had been hellish and risky, but it had all been worth it in the end. It really did seem like it was the end, he suspected that Betty would soon graduate from an iron old-folks home to overly-armored sarcophagus. He almost wished that he could see the faces of whoever would find her in these wastes…
They had better treat Betty right, or he would haunt their asses for the rest of time. He chuckled at that before the laugh sputtered off into a fit of coughing. He wasn’t even allowed to laugh anymore!? His venerable age had taken much from him… even before The End, most people never lived for this long. He was one-hundred and two years of age, why was he still alive? Was he really so much better than the billions of others who’d perished in the beginning of The End? It was doubtful, he was simply lucky; more so than anyone else had been.
Lucky... He shook his head, it wasn’t luck that helped him to survive. It was a combination of good friends, smarts, and coincidence. Not that coincidence had always been on his side of course… definitely not. After all, those good friends were long dead, all thanks to coincidence. Picked off one by one by hordes of the dead, malfunctioning killer robots, swarms of gigantic insects, tears in reality, tentacled horrors from beyond, and all manner of other dangers had taken them one by one.
They hadn’t deserved it, but then again, had anyone earned this horrid fate, to fall to the various monstrosities that now prowled the Earth? He thought for a long while before he came to realize that yes, some people did. Roving gangs of bandits raped and killed anyone they could get their hands on, and slavers… Oh the slavers were far worse.
He put a hand to his chest as he felt his heart begin to beat faster, an ember of his dormant wrath awakening to boil his blood. He took a deep breath to steady himself, shutting his eyes tightly before he finally sighed. With the anger suppressed, he opened his eyes. Everything was blurrier now, Betty's interior obfuscated by two beads of tears threatening to come loose.
The slavers had taken his everything from him, and whatever fates those bastards suffered was always deserved. Old memories presented themselves, threatening to invade his train of thought and derail him once more into a weeping rage. Those memories could very well be the death of him if he acknowledged them… but would that be so bad?
What did he really have to live for? Certainly not for anyone else, there was no one to rely on him any longer, no one he was capable of helping, no one that would want him to help. Sure, Betty would be a great help to any survivor, but Joseph himself would only be a hindrance and he’d rather not be a bother to anyone. At this age, that’s all he would be. The young survivors out there didn’t need some old fart like him around… unless it was purely for his advice.
He had enough advice between his ears to bury someone alive with it; the problem was he had no one to give it to. He couldn’t fulfill the role of ‘wise old man’ When there was no one to give the wisdom to. That might have not been so bad really… to guide the youth, to help them know how to prosper in this ruined world.
He wiped away the budding tears in his eyes with a shaky hand, clearing up his view of his living room. He smiled as he saw the fuzzy hot-pink carpet he’d installed on the floor. He remembered getting some flack for putting it in, but his friends couldn’t comprehend the fact that it had been an intact roll of carpet. Sturdy too! Only a few patches here and there, and it was far softer than the hard metal that lay beneath it.
Slowly his eyes drifted up to the ceiling, seeing dozens of yellow lights hanging from it. Joseph had always enjoyed the warmth of soft yellow bulbs, white lights always irritated his eyes. They also helped make the room feel more cozy, obscuring the steel and heavy bolts above them. A dimmer switch next to the cockpit door controlled their brightness. Installing them had been a bigger pain in his ass than he had expected. It hadn’t even been the wiring, it was the arranging. Hanging the wires so they resembled a spider-web had been way harder than it had looked. A dozen bulbs hung from this web like cocoons, or perhaps eggs? He could almost imagine a massive spider having weaved the thing, it was quite the artistic accomplishment on his part.
Other than that, there was a large television that took up the entire wall before his chair, looted from an old Mal-Wart. Repairing that thing had taken some time, finding the intact diodes had proven to be agonizingly tedious. He hadn’t used it, his computer, or anything else within the long brown blocky entertainment center beneath it for a long while. He just didn’t have any interest in popping in an old movie he’d seen a thousand times already, and the video games? His old fingers couldn’t possibly keep up with all those buttons, and he hadn’t installed it for himself anyway.
Memories came forth, a young face he could barely remember, a smile, and a warm hug, a hug that could shut out the infinite cold of this dreary universe... His eyes were getting heavy again… it almost seemed like he spent most of his time sleeping nowadays… Well, no point in trying to stay awake. He let the back of his head sink into his seat, and in no time… he was snoring.
An hour passed, with Joseph not waking from his slumber. Then a second hour passed, and his snoring quieted, his heart still beating. On the third hour… the beating of his heart…
Ceased.
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Joseph’s eyes slowly opened, seeing only blackness around him. He stretched, and found himself shocked, both with how easily he performed the motion, and with how far his limbs actually managed to reach. How strange, his elbows usually creaked once they were that far above his head, yet they didn’t make a sound… very peculiar indeed, perhaps he had slept well?
No that wasn’t right, all he did was sleep and he mostly performed that task adequately. Something was different, why were the dimmer lights off? Did Betty's power shut down? It shouldn’t have been possible, the mini-reactor should be able to run perfectly fine for hundreds of years if maintained properly… unless it hadn’t been being maintained. His head hung low as he came to the realization that he truly hadn’t been looking after it as he should have. Betty’s heart had finally stopped beating it seemed. Well, he couldn’t just sit here and wallow in misery all day. His elderly form might not be able to get it done quickly, but Betty needed to be repaired.
He stood up, blinking in shock at the total ease of the motion. No pained joints, responsive muscles, no dizziness, he must have done it in under a second… and he was still standing!
“What on Earth…” He muttered to himself, blinking in shock again as he heard his own voice.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The deep scragglyness in his tone was gone, now it was deep and clear. His throat didn’t hurt from the speaking either, something that he had become accustomed to in his late years. Not that he had many opportunities to actually talk of course, he rarely got visitors these days. No, not ‘rarely’, just never. When was the last time he really talked? He was too accustomed to his own internal monologue, talking seemed nearly alien to him now.
“Hello, I am Joseph, but you can call me Joe.” He said to himself casually.
The sentence came out as smooth as butter, at least in his own modest opinion. What was going on here? He rushed over to the dimmer switch, and cranked it all the way up to its maximum brightness. To his relief, the light cooperated, illuminating the interior of his living room and revealing his hands. There, gripping the knob was a massive bear-paw of a hand, hairy, wide and looking more than capable of crushing tea cups. It was… by God it was his hand! Not the hand he was accustomed to now, but the hand of his youth!
He gasped and pulled his hand away from the knob, staring down at his open palms with wide eyes. There wasn’t a wrinkle on those ole mitts, and those scars were undoubtedly his. His eyes quickly found the door to the bathroom, and he quickly moved over to it, pulling it open with a slam and flicking the switch. He gazed into the dusty mirror above the sink, seeing a wide silhouette waiting behind the grime. He almost jumped in terror before he realized that the figure was alone in the mirror…
Meaning that Joseph was alone in the bathroom. This figure, this broad-shouldered stranger staring at him, was himself. He quickly turned the knob to the sink, water sputtering out of the faucet in a torrent. He then dashed his hands under the stream and slapped his palm onto the glass, wiping away the debris to reveal a young bearded face staring back at him.
image [https://i.imgur.com/9bc6T6b.jpeg]
Again he gasped, his back hitting the wall as he stared into the mirror. It just couldn’t be- that was impossible! It was him, him as a young man! He looked just like how Joseph remembered, deep-set eyes, prominent brow, thick brown hair on his head and face, and those gray eyes, by God it was him! He was… he…
He was young again! A minute passed, then two, then finally by the third minute, he began to weep. He was gonna be able to help more people again! He wouldn’t have to sit and rot away in that chair until he died! He wiped the tears away from his face with a big grin… Joe ‘The Wrath’ Haythorn was back! Besides aiding the well-meaning young survivors of the world, he’d be able to pursue his… other hobby.
He was shaking with sheer joy at that realization, finally he could slaughter more of those slaving bastards! He wasn’t sure how his body was restored to its youth, but he would not let this chance for extra vengeance slip by. Whether it was a gift from God, or some sort of freak mutation, he could fight once more. First things first though… he needed to see what the situation was outside.
He’d parked Betty somewhere close to the old Snake River Canyon a few years ago, when his eyes began to fail and his arms could no longer turn her wheels. Were they still there, or had time passed by and changed it into something else? He wasn’t going to throw any time travel shenanigans out the window just yet, after all, he had proof that strange things like that could happen, i.e his transformation.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen insane things out in the wastes, but to have something like this occur was unheard of. If this could happen to him, what could have happened to Betty? Sure, the power worked just fine, but what if she had been submerged in water? She could withstand a serious amount of water pressure, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d driven her out of a lake. He shook his head at the whirlwind of thoughts, leaving the bathroom and swinging open the door to the cockpit.
A series of LCD screens surrounded a single leather seat, ratty and torn with the monitors covered in a layer of dust. How long had it been since he’d sat in that seat? Since he’d last parked her, so years ago now… hopefully Betty wouldn’t have any issues with starting up. He flicked the switch beside the door frame, illuminating the interior of the cockpit before he stepped inside.
It looked more like a mall security office, rather than the driver’s seat. Was that not an apt description though? He supposed not. He had wanted maximum protection from the hazards of the outside world, and that meant ditching the idea of windows entirely. Betty was essentially a gigantic moving metal square with no openings, so naturally, he needed the exterior cameras to see. The screens all were linked to a different security camera, each one displaying what they saw on one of the dozens of screens before the chair. A large wheel shaped almost like a butterfly stuck out toward the seat, with three metal petals sitting beneath it. Slowly, he eased into the dusty old leather, letting out a sigh at the nostalgic familiarity of it all.
After a few seconds, he twisted Betty’s key, and the ancient beast roared to life. He quickly flicked dozens of switches, bringing the display cameras online and beholding the outside world in its… pixelated glory. The cameras weren’t broken of course, it was just that these were older models, meant to record the interiors of convenience stores. He hadn’t been looking for quality, just functionality, and these tools had fit the bill perfectly at the time.
Well, that and he couldn’t scavenge up anything better. Despite that, he had ensured that they’d still function, even if they were underwater. He’d removed the lens and electronics from their original plastic hulls, refitting them into portions of Betty’s walls, four on each side. They may have been waterproof, but he still dearly hoped that he hadn’t ended up submerged. Driving Betty out of lakes was always a pain in the ass, especially if given time to settle. Tank treads had a hard time moving in muck. Thankfully he had a couple other tools he could use to get him out of here if that was the case.
Yet -thankfully- it didn’t seem he’d been dumped in a lake, from what he could see. His eyes flicked from screen to screen, seeing that Betty had indeed been moved elsewhere. Rather than a rocky canyon, she seemed to be parked in the middle of a forest. There were sparse leaves on the branches above, but the forest floor was absolutely covered in them. Autumn had come in full force it seemed. Had someone towed him here-
He chuckled at the thought. What the hell would be able to tow Betty around? Maybe a tank could, but wouldn’t he have woken up from the motion? No, he didn’t think she’d been towed. Yet, she had been moved. The question though, was how? Through the cameras, he checked the ground surrounding Betty, but could not see any tracks a heavy vehicle would have left behind. Maybe the pixelation was hiding them, or perhaps it was the thousands of leaves obscuring the ground? Either way it would be best to step outside himself to investigate.
As just a precaution, he’d suit up. He didn’t see anyone out there waiting to shoot him, but again the camera’s quality could have concealed them from sight. They could be up in the trees or behind the bushes, or even under Betty herself, waiting for him to come out. He hadn’t survived this long by not being cautious, so if some bandits were out there trying to take a piece of him, they’d have another thing coming.
He stood from the seat, exiting the cockpit with grim determination. Which of his suits would be best to wear? He pondered this as he opened the door leading to his workshop. His hand felt at the wall next to the open doorway, searching for its light switch. When he found it, he flipped it up, illuminating his nigh-forgotten shop. It was absolutely covered with dust, more so than the cockpit.
On the left side of the chamber was where the magic used to happen; every old tool he’d collected over the years sat inside a grimy red toolbox, bolted to the floor to prevent sliding during Betty’s travels. Everything he needed to maintain or add to Betty was within that massive box, with its many drawers and shelves. He had everything from impact wrenches to arc welders, a collection he had proudly maintained once upon a time. He dearly hoped that none of them had rusted too badly in his old age.
Next to the toolbox sat a dusty metal table, thick smears of oil and other old fluid staining its top. He’d made a whole helping of goodies on that workbench, and the only wear aside from the dirt that could be seen were the various tiny dents in its surface. He’d need to give it a good cleaning soon. His eyes then drifted to the right side of the room, seeing several lockers bolted in place along the wall. Those would have a majority of what he’d need, guns, ammo, melee weapons, armor, you name it.
Yet considering these special circumstances… he wasn’t thinking of throwing on the old kevlar-reinforced plate armor. No, his eyes instead found the dark green suit of power armor that sat in the corner, looming over everything, even himself. It too was covered with a thick layer of dust, but there were no signs of decay across its frame. Would that he could wear it every time he went out into the field… but it wasn’t that simple.
It took a massive amount of power to run that beast, and it ran out of it fairly quickly as it was an older model… but damn, once it got going, nothing could stop it. That had been his luckiest find back in his scavenging days, an intact suit of T-12 armor, practically invulnerable to small arms fire and resistant to even larger caliber rounds, it was his last, and most effective, resort in a combat situation. It should absolutely have a full charge now, it had been sucking at Betty’s teat for well over a decade. It would be nice to take it for a brief spin again, even if it was just to take a gander in the woods.
He approached the armor’s tank-like bulk with a grin, reaching up to wipe away the layer of dust occluding its visor until he could see his reflection in the red ballistic glass.
“I’m back.” He told the armor, patting it on the shoulder with a smile, “Ready to get to work?”
The armor didn’t reply.
“That’s the spirit!” He laughed cheerfully, reaching around its frame to unplug the large port in its back.
A four-pronged cord the size of his head fell to the floor with a soft clang before he reached beneath the helmet's chin. His thick fingers struggled to find the small button that would open the suit. Had it really been that long since he’d used the T-12 last that he couldn’t find the damn button to open it? He fumbled for another minute straight before he finally felt a satisfying click beneath his finger. He quickly pulled it away and stepped back as the armor roared to life.
Slowly but surely, the entire front of the suit began to shift open, the chest plate, arms, and legs splitting open like an iron maiden. After the gears stopped shifting, he cracked his knuckles, his neck, then popped his back before finally stepping into the T-12. He had to turn to face outward, awkwardly slipping his head into the helmet before he stood straight-backed in the suit.
A series of pads sat just beneath the visor, allowing him to bump them with his chin to enable different functions. He bumped left, and once again the T-12 began to hiss, closing around him and encasing him entirely in its bulk. Once he was completely sealed into the armor, he took a step forward, the metal floor beneath his feet loudly clanging with each step. It would be just a short jaunt, then it would go back on the charger, he only had about half an hour or so before this thing would shut down. That’s what you get with these old models, but even still, power armor was power armor. He’d practically be invulnerable for those thirty minutes and he’d be done with his task well before then.