3

With a sudden twang, the soil shifted under Brigg’s feet. Hoisted into the air by a glorified snare trap. The large metal counter arm shot up just a few feet away from the buggy, causing Brigg’s to swing back and forth, like some sick hypnotic toy. As Brigg’s came to a stop, his world was now upside down. The one thing he did notice, was due to the sudden jerking motion of the trap, his beloved shotgun was laying right next to the injured Hund woman.

“Perfect, just freaking perfect,” Briggs groaned as he reached for his knife.

With a quick pull, the knife was free, and one seriously strong ab crunch later, Brigg’s pulled himself up to where the snare had wrapped around his ankle. He knew that he only had a matter of time before whoever, or whatever set up this trap would come to make sure it did its job. Then he heard it, the sound of movement just over the next rise. It sounded like engines firing up, people shouting, and yelling with pure excitement.

“Great, just great, must be pirates, I hope they are the friendly kind,” he said with a grunt, then he remembered the poor woman at the buggy. “Or maybe they are just insane and will kill me rather than deal with me.”

With a few more sawing motions with his trusty dark steel knife, the cable snapped, then gravity decided to reassert itself on Briggs. With a solid thump, he hit the ground on his back, knocking the wind out of him in a whoosh. Briggs groaned lightly as he rolled over towards his shotgun, grabbing hold of it like a safety blanket. Rising slowly to his feet, he made sure to drag the helpless woman into cover, then he hid behind the destroyed buggy. It was only a matter of time before he received company. He did not have to wait long.

The rust-stained, pitted metal of the old truck rose over the dirt pile. It was in horrible condition, even without the nasty-looking paint job. On the hood was a crusty-looking symbol of a cracked skull over what looked to be a blood stain. Its engine roared all the way down the hill, and the dirt and debris kicked up acting like a smoke screen. The tires slid to a stop at the base of the hill, showering the buggy in small bits of rock. Briggs tried his best to hold his breath, even though his scarf protection, but a small cough escaped his lips. Luckily the truck was so ill-tuned that a bomb could have gone off and no one would have heard him. Two rusty doors swung open, Briggs squinting behind his goggles, trying to make out the passengers.

“What in the hell happened here?” A deep-voiced man said, walking towards the buggy.

“How should I know; the trap was trip-tripped, yes? A high-pitched voice answered, “I put the trap up, made that engine burn like you asked boss-boss. Then we waited till we heard the trap spring.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that the problem we have right now, runt?” The first man said getting closer to the buggy, the cloud of dust finally settling. “Now if your trap did the job like you said it did, why in this dusty ass place, is there no one in the damned thing?”

A heartbeat later the whiny man responded, “Look boss, I set up the trap, it did its job-job, there should be someone in it. That large Rig stopped; we both saw it.”

Briggs could hear them as clear as day, they were almost against the buggy, his finger slowly moved towards the trigger of his gun, hoping, and praying that he did not have to fire it. Then his luck ran out, the poor distraught Hund woman let out a shuttering groan. It was like a dinner bell was rung. Briggs had no choice, with a quick step he cleared the hood of the buggy, and finally laid eyes on the men. One was the larger of the two, and he was less than ten feet from the buggy. He wore a heavily padded jacket, a simple black-looking undershirt, a pair of faded jeans, and some seriously heavy-looking work boots. The small man was a rodent species, his face resembling that of a rat, he looked like he would only come up to Brigg’s waist. The rodent man was sporting a torn hoodie and a simple white shirt. His torn pants were closer to shorts at this point, and he was barefoot on the dirt. The rodent species was usually a heartier aberrant race, able to tinker with a wide variety of electronic and mechanical devices.

Briggs did not hesitate, he aimed at the larger man, squaring his sights on his torso. The man’s eyes widened in shock, everything falling into place about the vacant trap. He pulled his jacket aside to reach for a holstered pistol.

“Who in the fu….” The man’s sentence was cut short as Brigg’s shotgun boomed twice in the quiet air, peppering the man’s torso with buckshot. Briggs didn’t have to look at his wound, he knew he was dead as soon as his body touched the dirt. Multiple small holes ripped into the upper part of the buggy. Briggs took cover behind the central mass of the vehicle. He was not shocked at all that some people would open fire at downed civilians. Even though she was safe behind him from the gunfire, it was still beyond insane that someone would open fire like that. The chattering gunfire calmed the noise of the wind replacing it. Briggs slowly looked over the hood of the now shredded car, making out the shape of the rodent man hiding behind the back of the truck.

“Look, whoever the hell you are. I know I just wasted your boss or foreman, or whatever you were to him. I just want to go on my way, take this poor woman with me, and no one else gets hurt.” Briggs said, eyeing the shadow.

There was a small peel of laughter ending in a small burst of coughing, “Look normie, I was sent here to see what the trap pulled up. I can see that the trap did not do much-much, so here is what I say we do,” the voice trailed off for a moment. “I will take the truck, leave you two here, and you can have-have what’s left of the woman, and the buggy.”

“What’s to stop you from filling me full of holes when I leave cover?” Briggs responded as he loaded two more shotgun shells into the internal mag.

“We’ll just have-have to trust each other. That sounds good to you, Trucker?” The squeaky voice japed.

“Ok then, one the count of three we both come out, weapons down.”

“Deal”

“3 ... .2 ... .1” Briggs counted down, finger off the trigger. Leaving his cover at the end of one.

The two combatants rounded each of their respectable covers, Brigg’s trench coat blowing in the wind, the rat man’s hoodie shuttering similarly. Both had their guns down to their sides; it was as close to a neutral setting as they both were going to get.

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Briggs let out a small sigh through his scarf, “It’s nice to meet someone out here who’s not gone completely mad.”

The rat man nodded towards Briggs, holding his left hand out in a ‘hold on’ gesture, he put his small fully automatic mac-10 back into the voluminous space of his hoodie. After seeing that small display of trust, Briggs did the same, letting his shotgun fall back onto his sling. Its solid weight rested on his shoulder, it always felt like an awkward side hug. The rat man very slowly worked his way over to the dead man lying in between the two. Briggs reached for his shotgun on reflex. The rat man pulled his hand back fast as lightning.

“Whoa…. whoa…buddy slow down-down, I just need the keys to the truck. That is all I am doing, no funny business I swear.” The rat man said, almost all in one breath.

“Go for his keys nice and slow, no funny business.” Briggs’s gruff voice resounded over the still air.

“Ok, I swear nothing funny,” the smaller man responded as his hands went for a solid-looking key ring. The ring itself looked pitted and rusted, much like everything else out here in the wastes. The keys came free from the man’s belt with no resistance. In his haste, the rat man almost dropped the keys but recovered them at the last moment. He gave Briggs a half smile, followed by a short chuckle. He rose to his feet moving backwards towards the truck. “Thank you for not shooting me, you know…I am going to have to report this to my bosses. Not to mention signal them all with an emergency flare.” He said with a small sheepish grin.

Briggs almost took a deep calming breath on reflex but knew that he would close his eyes in doing so. “So, realistically, how much time could you give me?” his breathing shuttering.

“I can give you maybe at best, fifteen minutes.” The rat man replied almost instantly.

“Why so much time? Isn’t your main force somewhere close by?” Briggs knew how most raiders worked by now, this was a bit odd.

“The clans are up to something special, you see-see? There has been some talk as of late, very hush-hush. I don’t want to talk about it.” The rat man continued as he opened the side of the truck.

“You know, I don’t really want to know what the hell all you scavs are planning, I just want to finish my run.”

“Well then,” the engine roared to life in the truck, “I best be on my way, you can take my mate’s body if you want, you killed him, and you own his stuff.” The tires ripped into the sand kicking up rooster tails of dirt behind it. The truck bolted straight towards Briggs, who swore under his breath, and he rolled out of the path of the truck. The rat man cackled behind the wheel as the truck clipped the front of the buggy, moving it almost ninety degrees. Briggs sprang to his feet, the dirt as dust obscuring his vision, but he knew that the rat man kept his word. He was not going to try to kill Briggs, but they said nothing about when he was leaving.

Clever little rat-fiend, he thought ruefully. He unshouldered his shotgun, taking aim at the fleeing truck. He was hoping that his next shell was a solid slug, or else this was going to be laughable. The gun barked in his hand, pushing into his shoulder, small sparks flew from the fleeing truck, just before it dipped behind a hill. Briggs grumbled; I guess it was buckshot again. Briggs did not waste any time, he only had ten minutes. He darted towards his rig; it was the only way he was going to make this work. After a few moments, he was back at his rig, the shade from the evening sun was much appreciated, and the heat never seemed to let up in the middle wastes. He angled up to the middle container of his rig, it stood just as high as the engine rig in the front, this one though, did not carry cargo, it had a different purpose.

Briggs moved a small panel aside, just about eye level with the lower wheels of the second trailer. It showed a small, antiquated keypad and monitor, no larger than a TI-83 calculator. A few deft presses of the keypad woke up the inner workings of the trailer, a few clicks, clacks, and shuttering booms radiated from the middle car. The monitor booted up, showing lines of green, a small amount of text whirled past, kilobytes, megabytes, running program, C drive, was just a few of the mono green items that flew past. The side panel of the trailer slid aside, revealing a large-looking contraption that resembled something akin to a hydraulic winch. He looked down at the monitor, the green hue of the picture was that of the shady side of the rig, he could just make out a small figure at the bottom. The figure moved when he moved, Glad the lag time between the camera and the monitor is finally sorted out. He pressed a few more keys and the monitor zoomed in on the location of the wrecked buggy. The targeting reticle lit up in a lighter green, the text reading, “Target locked”. One more press was all he needed, then he turned around and ran back towards the buggy, and the poor Hund woman.

He always liked to race the targeting computer, it was always faster of course, but he always liked to think that one day he might be able to beat it. Today was not Brigg’s day for that achievement, and tomorrow was not looking good either. A shadow loomed over him as he ran over the hill, he was not afraid of the shadow, it wasn’t a bird, or a raider, just something to help him out. The chained disk object landed in a plume of dust next to the buggy, it was roughly the size of a man, but the powerful electromagnets helped with salvage operations. He hoisted the contraption onto the front of the buggy, and with a small press of a button on the machine’s housing, it affixed with a clang to the engine block. He pulled out a small harness from the magnets and attached them to the dead man just a few feet away. It was a ‘two birds with one stone’ kind of system, making cleanups a breeze and fast salvaging even more so. The small harness pulled the corpse towards the buggy, where Briggs fastened him to the chassis. He knew there was only one thing left to take care of, and as if on cue, he saw a flare fire up towards the northern sky. Its green illumination speckled his vision for a moment.

Great and now I am on the clock. Those raiders will be here any moment after seeing that.

Briggs moved towards where he left the Hund woman, she was still breathing, though they were short shallow gulps of air. He felt the sadness lurch in the pit of his stomach, he always believed in the best that all mankind had to offer, but seeing its cruelty was always a jarring moment. He reached down to lift the woman up off the sand, her body twitching in response to his touch.

“Hey, miss, we must go, I can take you with me on my Rig. I just need to pick you up, it’s going to hurt like the dickens, but you will be ok.” He assured her. “It’s only an hour to Horizon Visions, I can get you medical treatment for your injuries.”

She was barely able to open her eyes to acknowledge him, the tear stains had drawn rivulets down her dusty fur. She tried to speak, but it came out nonsensical. A few emotions flitted across her features, from happiness to disgust, then settling on resignation. She moved her left hand to draw something in the dirt that seemed to sap all her remaining strength. Her eyes rolled back into her skull and was unconscious yet again. Briggs looked over to her blood-stained left hand, her claw hand scribbled the words, ‘Kill Me’ in the hard-packed soil. Briggs hesitated, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him, he could feel his teeth press together, then grind back and forth. It pained him to see someone give up on life, he knew it was hard, and harsh given how the world was, but it was not a reason to just throw in the towel. He let out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding. His hand shook as he pulled out his knife, its black blade gleaming in the sunlight. It rose over his head as he gripped it with both hands and then thrust it down towards the woman.

Briggs climbed back into the driver’s seat of his Rig. Most of his gear was stowed back where it all belonged. He was still wearing his goggles and face scarf; he knew that it was going to be close. Deftly pulling out his truck keys, they slotted into the steering column, and the beast under his feet roared to life. He moved the gear shifter from neutral to first gear. The wheels started to slowly move, a little at first, then before anyone knew it, Briggs was back on the road, and the long haul was headed towards its destination.

Let the chase begin, he thought, a smile creeping onto his face.