The van is beat up as all hell on the outside, but when you get in, it's got two rows of seats and isn't in bad shape. The thing is electric, too, so it's quiet, and pretty speedy.
You head on for about half an hour. Does anyone chat with Fence or DAP? Or with each other?
Chalk, the place they're pulling up to now, what's this place? It's kind of a standard meeting place for the Ravens and outsiders, isn't it? Where would folks feel safe meeting these crazed assholes?
Navarre, who did you end up sitting by? What has you most worried about this meetup?
Triss, you're up from with Fence, right? Who do you expect to see with Grim?
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Rifles are no good in a van. I have my pistol under my armpit and a knife in my boot.
I'm worried that I shot the wrong person which will force me to shoot lots of other people.
Grim.
I lean back against the seat, the padding threadbare and springs poking into my back, but I don't care. It's been ages since I saw the man. We might have gone our separate ways, but part of me still loves him. I close my eyes, picturing his face, and suddenly another face swims into view.
Mercury. I'd almost forgotten Grim's best friend. They had always been inseparable, where one was the other was too. It had irked me many a time, thinking I'd be getting Grim to myself, only to have Mercury there, hanging in the background. After a while I almost didn't notice him. But he was always there, watching. Observing everything and everyone. I wonder if they're still hanging together. Then I find myself wondering just who the mother of Grim's child was. It wasn't a fun path to travel, so I open my eyes and sit forward again, the leg jiggling away.
"How much longer?" I ask, scanning the road in front of us.
You reach Home Place a few minutes later, coming over a rocky hill and driving down towards the little trailer. It's already eighty degrees Farenheight outside, today is going to be a scorcher. Parked in front of it is a hearse. Yeah, an honest to God hearse, with metal plating bolted on, like the guy in it is in the pope-mobile-of-death or something.
Standing outside the hearse is Grimwall the Fierce, leader of the Ravens. He's changed over the last year after taking over the gang. His body shows signs of long-term radiation exposure, no hair, sunken eyes, waxy complexion. But he still looks alert, still more than capable. He's got three lieutenants with him, including seven half foot tall mountain of a man Canton. The big black lug wears fake dreads and sunglasses to hide his mutations, and the guy carries a stopsign club with a chunk of concrete still stuck to the end.
Grim walks forward to meet you, his cronies hang back. Fence stops the van maybe ten feet away from him and DAP opens the sliding door.
What do you do?
Triss, when he comes up to you, spreading his arms wide and smiling with yellowed teeth, what do you do?
Fence comes over to you, DAP hanging back like a wing-man. He stares at you hard for a moment, then says low, "Listen, Bunkie's guys are doing their own thing, right? But I ran with them for a while. I gotta know. Any of them still alive?"
Triss.
Grim pulls back from the hug, but keeps an arm on your shoulder, "I know, Triss. I know. Price of the game." He squeezes your shoulder a little, and forces a lighter tone, "Buck up, Triss. It'll be okay, now that you're here. C'mon, Deuce is in the hearse. Help me make sure he isn't there for long, yeah?" He leads you over towards the hearse.
Inside the open back door, you feel the cool air conditioning pouring out, and under a blanket with cold sweats is a handsome young boy, bald as a baby, thin, reddened nose with caked blood around the edge. He has his father's eyes. He tries to smile, his teeth look pink from the bleeding gums.
It's bad, Triss. You can see it, and so can he. What do you do?
Chalk,
Grim and Triss seem buddy-buddy, how does that sit with you? How do the Ravens know you? I mean, the infirmary wasn't too pleasant, is there beef between you and them? Or is this just a regular hate on for stupid folks who bother your people?
Oh and by the way, a couple of the Ravens by the hearse move up, looks like they're going to intercept you. One has a shotty in his hand, aimed at the ground. The other has some wildass lightning gu with a big battery backpack, looks like it'd be wicked painful.
What do you do?
They're going to intercept me? Oh no no. No, no no. "Y'ALL MUTHAFUKKAS KNOW BETTA THAN T'COME BETWEEN A BODYGUARD AN' THEIR LADY, RIIIIIIIGHT?" The mask's voice is full of sharp-edged rocks and dangerous humor, I let it talk some more. "NOW FUCK OFF AFORE I SHOVE THAT THING UP YOUR ASS AN' SHOCK YER COCK OFF." DAP's machete is thrust through my belt - I pick the axe up, so lightly, and hold it at waist level. No more threatening than a shotgun pointed at the ground.
Truth is my currency, and if I start sugar coating it, people won't trust me anymore. It's always been who I am. Will always be what I have to do. This little boy - even a month or two in a cushy spa and some chelation treatments wasn't going to cure him. It was a long shot at best. His best bet was on the other side of the fence, where society existed. Not in this lawless land. But might as well ask for a miracle to happen. It was far more likely than the powers that be letting someone from here out there.
"Wish I had some better news, Grim." I gaze into his eyes, waiting to see how he's going to react.
Grim's men let you in. They're watching you warily, though. Very careful. You see the boy, he looks so weak, he's dying. What does the mask think of weak little children?
Triss,
Grim doesn't flinch, his eyes don't well up with tears, he doesn't deny your prognosis. He nods once, "If he recuperate somewhere away from our territory, could you save him? Or is he too far gone?" Then before you can answer, he says, "Triss... what I'm asking is, what would it take for you to take him back with you and heal him?" He glances back at his men, to make this conversation is private. Of course, Chalk, you're totally close enough to hear this.
"Take him back," I say softly, leaning down so my face's immobile lips, pursed in a frozen plastic pout, are at her ear. "I'll help however you want. Just tell me how."
I fixate on Grim's eyes, and I see the love there that he has for this boy. I know then that I'd move heaven and earth to help this kid, even though he's not mine. But then, that's what I do. It's what I've always done, and Grim knows that. It's why he brought me out here.
"I'll do it," I tell him. "I'll do everything I can, but it's not going to be cheap. And there's no guarantee I can save him." I look down at Deuce, brushing my hand across his forehead. "No promises," I say quietly. "Just everything I've got. For a chance." For a moment, my sappy heart goes to a place it shouldn't. But I can't afford that kind of thinking. It's almost killed me in the past. I wall away that weakness and straighten my shoulders. I look back at Grim. "You could benefit from a few months away too, you know."
Grim nods, "I'll foot whatever bill, just send a runner my way under a white flag and write me a note in your hand, so I know it's genuine, and whatever it cost you, I'll send along in barter or jingle." He drops his voice a little, "And if I could go with you... I would never be here now.
As for healing Deuce...
Since you've got an infirmary, your cursory observation of Deuce is that it's going to take weeks of work to heal him. First, you'll need some Prussian blue dye to help him excrete the radiation to his internal organs, and he appears to have some bone marrow damage, so he'll need a transfuson of healthy red blood cells and platelets.
Also, it's going to mean exposing yourself and your colleagues to possible radiation from the kid himself for the first week or so.
Navarre,
Fence looks to and fro, not looking like he's "really talking with you", and says, "Well, if you run into the ones who attacked you, they're no friends of ours. Feel free to take whatever vengeance you seem fit, man."
DAP adds, "I'm just glaaad Clicks will make it. That would have been ugly."
What do yo do?
Already I'm thinking through isolation methods and what it's going to take to score the items I need to heal this kid. Because no matter how I feel about his father, I will do my very best to save him, regardless of the consequences.
Fence shakes his head, "Who'd believe us anyways? It's why its better if we stay in our territory. I told Grim this was a bad idea. But well... it's his kid, you know? Just keep an eye out for Clicks. And Deucey, too."
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Let's skip ahead a bit. I assume you carry the frail Deuce to the van, yeah? He weighs as much as a handful of blankets with sticks inside. Kid's majorly weak.
You all pack up for the ride back, I take it? It's quiet. Deuce coughs a couple times, a raspy tickle.
Once you get back to Triss's place, what do you do?
"You ok, boss?" he says with an uncharacteristic gentleness.
I rub my face. "Yeah. I'll be fine. Just... give me a while to sit here, ok?"
Rane nods and ducks back out, letting the curtain fall over the opening to the small isolation room. I know I shouldn't sit here, because I'm soaking in rads from the kid. But I don't have the energy to do much else. The wastes just suck it out of you sometimes, and you have to stop and sit down for a bit. Only sometimes, you don't get moving again. Sometimes, the cold desolation calls to you, and you hear the siren song of sleep and death, and it sounds like a lullaby. That's when this shit hole is most dangerous: when it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to give up fighting. Today isn't that day for me, but I do just want to take a breather for a few hours. Watch this kid I've promised to do my best to save.
Maybe... maybe if I save him, something might change in my life. Something good might come my way. I deserve it, right?