Point of Documentation: Cadence, Crew of HMW Betty
“I can’t get it out of my head that they must have been waiting for us.” came the surly words from Roberts. Cadence had just finished storing her rifle in the locker next to her bunk when the man had started his theory crafting. He always did this after a botched mission, even if it was a success at the end. To Roberts, this was just another way the world was fucking him over. And frankly? Cadence couldn’t care less if the man was a man cursed to always be ambushed. As long as it didn’t harm her, she didn’t care.
Cadence was a Roman-born woman who had fair skin and gentle curves. She was mostly muscle, but was generally underweight for her height. She blamed it on her father, a timid man, but was thankful for the light weight when it came to cramped spaces. Roberts on the other hand was an absolute unit of a man. He said his heritage was ‘Danish’, whatever that meant, and claimed he came from the Northern Steppes above the old Empire. Whilst he was odd in his ways and sometimes very backwards, he was reliable. Which made Cadence all the more annoyed at his fascinations of superstitions.
She closed her locker’s door and climbed once more unto her bunk. Cadence was so ready for this to be the end of the day and a moment of rest. “Roberts, seriously, do you ever stop your solo-conspiration? I doubt they were waiting for ‘us’ specifically. They were probably making a nice home in that GameGo, right before we stepped on their doorstep and started drilling.” She ran her hand over the side of the top bunk that she rested in, one of seven in this room and one of three that were used. “Besides, we got the job done and nothing happened to us or Betty. So win-win?”
Roberts gave a solemn stare as she spoke. She figured he had some rough remark cooking, but instead said “You know, that’s as good as calling bad luck on us, right?” He tapped a wooden lining on the side of the bed three times. Cadence had known the man to be a spiritualist of some kind, but really balked at the idea of religion as a whole. After all, this whole scenario was born from some fucked up version of that getting out of control.
The intercom sparked to life as the Captain’s voice followed it. “As much as I know you two want some shut eye after a day of work, we’ve got a live one. Come up to the Head.”
The two of them looked at each other in confusion, but gathered themselves up regardless and made their way towards the Head. Betty itself was a walker that had multiple sections in itself. It was like a train car, but rounder and wider in the sections. It stretched back some length from a Head, which served as its command point where the driver moved the vehicle. It all operated on an Artificial Intelligence from the old world, so it was more so plotting points and the walker routing to that point on its own.
Behind the head was the armory that had a gunner station in the center of it. The armory was more so for their possessions that were more situated towards killing things. These were locked behind some lockers that had combinations they knew keeping out unwanted assailants. Further behind that section was the living quarters, with the beds for the crew and a latrine set in the corner behind a door. To the rear of the beast was the storage and rear hatch. That hatch could be opened to let in loads as well, allowing heavier objects to be loaded in without the need to carry it up a ladder.
They made their way through the interior and the armory to the Head, coming through the door to a room filled with displays, two chairs at the front, and a terminal on the side with a headset hanging from it. The captain was sitting in one of the chairs at the front of the room. He was facing the terminal in front of himself as they entered, pressing some display options to bring up images on the main display at the front of the room. He turned towards the two of them, the chair swiveling around with him.
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“We’ve got some kind of contact still following us, but it’s small. Very small. Human sized, at that. It started following us as we left the last remains of a town.” He lazily gestured to the screen with the images of behind the mech, the smoke from his spliff swirling around his hand as he does. “I’m going to slow down the mech; but I need someone on the gun covering and someone to go out and make contact. Who wants to do what?”
Cadence gave a sigh to the scene playing out. They were being tracked by someone? Shouldn’t they have tried to hit them with something if they were hidden in the town? Or were they not some kind of raider? The likelihood of non-raider activity out here is so laughably low that coming across another soul not trying to gut you for a quick scrap run was rare. Even passing scrap or water excavators would hail long before they even came within firing distance of one another, and the known towns were still miles off towards the Wall.
“I’ll walk out and meet the person. Roberts over here is too jumpy to step a foot outside Betty anyways. He’s talking about jinxes and spirits again.” She said, pointing a thumb to Roberts.
Roberts stood a little straighter and guffawed at her remark. “Sure, I’ll take the gun then. I’ll have a good view of you getting gutted by a lone raider.” The sarcasm in his voice still held concern, Cadence noticed, but was still meant in a jesting tone.
The Captain gave a nod to this. “Alright, get on it then. Gwen, slow Betty to a stop. I want the spotlights trained around us in a sweeping pattern. Alert us if anything comes from around us.”
Cadence ducked from the room as she heard Gwen’s reply from the speakers. She went for the lockers again to get her EVA suit. Going outside in an unprotected suit was a wonderful way to get radiation poisoning or roughed up from the patches of Wilt that sometimes stuck out of the ground. It was basically mandatory for any step outside to have one of these suits on, and she was all too thankful they had backups whilst the main ones were being decontaminated. She slipped on the suit and then produced a pistol from the locker. It was no rifle, but having it on her hip would give her some assurance at the very least. After equipping the firearm she made way for the hatch between the armory and living quarters.
Roberts passed as she started to leave and called to her. She looked up only to have a water canteen shoved in her face. Confusion must have been obvious even through the completely sealed suit, as Roberts laughed at her. “Come now Cadence, you’re meeting someone stuck in the Badlands, and you aren’t even going to offer them water?” Before she could reply, Roberts closed the hatch behind her with a wave and left her outside on the gangway to the ladder. Of course she wasn’t going to give some stranger their valuable water! Roberts must have been out of his mind to harbor the thought… but it was in her hands now.
She made her way across the gangway to the ladders as Betty slowed to a stop. The ladder extended, and so too did she descend to the ground. Her feet hit the dusty earth with a thud and caused some of the more loose dirt to kick up in a plume around her. She waited for it to settle a bit before stepping forwards. It seemed that they had been walking along what was once a wide road, as the asphalt below her footprints showed an occasional white contrast to the darkening terrain around them.
The path along which they had come was not empty. A lone form rode what was a rusty and disheveled bicycle with shredded treads on the wheels. It screamed a metallic screech as it came to a slow stop some yards behind Betty. They raised a hand up and over their head to shield their eyes from the spotlight on them. The person seemed to have a masculine form below some strange armor that covered most of their body.
A shaky step off the bike and towards the walker prompted Cadence to call out to the man. “Halt! State your business and your affiliation!” She yelled this at the man alongside drawing her pistol. She didn’t point it at him, but held it at the ready. She doubted he could see her anyways past the light.
The man called out weakly, so weakly that Cadence couldn’t hear him properly the first time. She inched closer, closing the distance to a dozen yards from the man. His words were then audible, if but muted from the helm. “Phoenix… Crash… Help…” He collapsed after this into a heap on the road.