Point of Documentation: Cadence, Crew of HMW Betty
A metal beast lugged its way across the sanding savannah of Suburbia. The Badlands was a torrented place bracketed by radioactive rain storms and heat that fed into one another. The cycle is only broken by the occasional dry seasons brought on by unnatural causes. Some of those being the monstrosities that lurk below the buildings and dunes of the destroyed cities that dot the Badlands. Monstrosities that, even now, peek out from destroyed mall entrances and stores long lost to time.
The metal beast on stilted legs lugged through the wind that cut with sandy fury. A road leading through a main street of a once blossoming city was its path, no longer dotted by lines nor rimmed by lights or cars. The legs that supported this thing were 7 meters high and possessed a basic rotary knee to allow movement. Deployable ladders hung off the side of the beast as well as a small amount of winches and gears for pulleys and other machinations. The six feet that walked along the roads walked at such a breadth that it easily trod on the edge of the two-lane road of the past. If there were cars present, there was no doubt that the cars would be crushed under foot of this thing.
The core of the machine seemed to be wide. If it was meant to be animal-like, then it had lost those semblances over time. It held only a tinted window on the front and two eye-like spotlights that pivoted back and forth as it walked. A couple guns sprouted from the thing’s back, and one under the belly near the rear. They seemed no more threatening than machine guns or small cannons. Threatening, that is, to the things that lurked behind the shadows as it passed by.
It lumbered on till it came to what appeared to be some kind of a square. A wreckage of stone and metal dotted the area surrounded by multi-story buildings. While thorned and mutant flowers sprung up at the base of some of these low walls, others wrapped their ways around destroyed and resting statues to taste the sunlight above. A large and now unfunctional fountain lay at the center. A small amount of water trickled out and on to the stones and hard dirt around it.
Slowing to a crawl, the metal beast came to a sloth-like stop but a few meters from the edge of the fountain. Its metal casings groaned under the ceasing of movement; steam being let off through a piston in one of the legs. When it finally came to a halt of all momentum, however, a new noise was heard. Rustling. Somewhere deep within it came movement that sounded like termites moving under a floorboard or a squirrel within the veins of a tree.
A hissing noise was heard once more as a seal on a round door at the top of the machine was broken. A masked and hidden form broke the surface of the metal beast’s back. No, two forms. Each helped the other up and out of the hole and resealed it behind them. The two forms seemed to be in some kind of hazard suits. A small box sat at one of the form’s sides as they turned to the fountain.
They each differed in builds in telling ways. One was lithe, a more dexterous build that relayed exceptional balance under the suit’s form. Smaller and slimmer than the other one. The second was of a larger build, obvious muscles rested below the suit that allowed the person to heave themselves over the behemoth below them and land on the ground below. They must have something to prevent the fall from harming them, as the drop of multiple feet was uneventful in the ways of damage to the being and the box at their side barely swayed in their grip.
“Cadence, keep an overwatch of the area and let me know if anything is around,” came a gruff voice from the speaker in the larger suit’s face. It was so intensely loud in the silent square to hear the man speak. The form above, apparently known as Cadence, just nodded to the man as he made his approach. He took some more steps towards the fountain, closing the short distance in no time, and set the box upon the edge of the once-flooded and now drying pool.
Whilst the man had spoken through the face’s speaker, a different mode of communication happened this time. From inside of the man’s suit, a woman’s voice floated through. “Roberts, we have multiple targets at the electronic goods store to the North. No aggressive movement so far,” came the calm voice of Cadence. Roberts gave a nod as he began unbuckling the case’s security fastenings.
There was a sense of hurry in his movements, but not of panic. Panic causes sloppiness, and sloppiness causes mistakes. He removed, piece by piece, the contents of the case and began to assemble them next to the fountain. Soon he had standing before him some kind of machine that sat upon three wheeled legs like a teepee and stood nearly as tall as him. He pressed a button on the machine and it whirred to life. In a moment it started moving around the fountain until it stopped a little ways away from the man.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The burst of rock as it shot a rod down into the ground causes a shower of debris to litter the area around it. The man unholstered his pistol and stood there. There was nothing to do past watch for the monstrosities in the dark while the machine did its job. Cadence also seemed to just be crouched on the top of the six-legged behemoth they rode in on, staring down at the storefront she had spotted previously.
The radio crackled to life with Cadence’s voice. “I swear, these water jobs are the worst. Sitting around like ducks on a pond is a good way to get ourselves picked off. What will we do if a Vulture-Class is around? Die?” Cadence’s complaint is not without a shred of legitimacy. There was always danger outside in the Badlands, and as night grew closer the danger would only increase.
“Can it for now, Cadence. Roberts, word on the Water Seeker?” This voice was different. Not gruff or stern, but more free of worldly troubles. It came through the speaker in the suits just as talking with one another did.
Roberts huffed and checked the device’s remote once again. “Negative Captain, it’s still– Ah, fucking thing. Yeah, it just updated as I looked at it. It’s getting back bad water, as usual.” The news wasn’t great, but it wasn’t unexpected.
“Well that makes 2 blue, 5 red then. Not a great score, Roberts. Get back in you two and we’ll–”
A shuddering growling came from the storefront down the block that Cadence was watching. She let out a curse in the comms and said “I think one of them just caught our scent. We need to go. Pile in Betty, now.”
Roberts recalled the machine back over to the box it came from, quickly packing the thing away without a single thought of accuracy this time. They needed to go. That was only punctuated as a shot rang out from atop the machine named Betty. She had a silencer on the rifle that she had produced, but silencers only muffled some of the noise it made. In this empty courtyard: any noise was a dinner bell to those listening.
And so they did listen. The buildings around them started to crawl with waking life that heralded the setting of the sun over one of the rooftops. The shop fronts of this once busy area began to squirm and jostle with movement that pushed through the broken windows at their front. Formless shapes, monstrosities that mimicked regular shapes in blinking frequency and soon shifted to another, rolled out from the shop fronts with a sense of pure, unadulterated hunger.
A second shot rang out as it was sent into one of the leading shapes. The ammo they fired was rated as a low-yield on the anti-voidling scale, but fuck it worked. The shape, the size of a greyhound and jostling, folded in with the impact of the round. It folded inwards and ruptured out the back with a hissing like a balloon being punctured by a needle. The sound and body, however, was quickly overrun and covered up by the mass of similar sized monstrosities that stampeded over it.
Another curse slithered from Cadence as Roberts spun on his heels and bolted for the machine’s ladder access. He made the distance in little time, a hand already on the first rung when the monsters had made it halfway across the plaza to them. To Roberts’s eyes, the monsters seemed to only be attacked from one direction, and a couple store fronts at that. As if a small nest was forming, Roberts thought.
To Cadence’s eyes, however, she saw that these were only a few of those waiting. She looked back to the mass and shot another round for good measure into one and then began clamoring back into the beast from above.
“Gwen, pivot to bearing 2-6-8. Cleared for 2.” Came the relaxed tone of the Captain over the comms. He was always the calm and collected type, and it pissed both Cadence and Roberts off equally when times such as these presented themselves and the Captain never seemed as alarmed as they were.
The gun on the belly of the beast swiveled to the bearing listed, which was the center of the approaching horde. “Rifle!” came the excited call of a woman as a shell flew from the gun’s barrel. It impacted in the center of them and detonated with force, throwing a good number of those in front backwards. That was not all that happened, as a rain of fire came down from the explosion and covered a large swath of them in napalm.
Some shrieked whilst others quickly dropped limp; the amount of destruction unequal across the line. As the ones in the back began to pile over the dead and only the toes lit aflame, Gwen spoke again. “Rifle.” A second shell left the barrel and repeated the crime against flesh, less so a crime against monster. The detonation sent a good number flying and doused more of the bodies with unquenchable fire.
Cadence gave one last look before she piled into the machine. It began lumbering out of the square as some of the other monsters came from their hiding places. Their aim not on the ones fleeing, but their dying brethren. A feast had arrived, even if it was of the flesh of the fallen, and those monsters would not let this pass up.