When the top was open, Boothe stood up in his seat, his pistol held in both hands. The wind raced past, blowing Boothe’s jacket behind him, dirt griming up his goggles. Scarlett held the wheel in both hands, gripping it tight while she pushed the accelerator all the way into the firewall. The dust cloud in the distance gradually grew closer. Boothe’s goggles highlighted the cars, and the bandits inside.
Enemies detected: 9 / Innocents 1
A shot rang out, then another, the bandits firing their pistols. One of the bullets dinged against the hood, then bounced off to the side somewhere.
“They’re shooting my car!” Scarlett yelled. “Shoot back, Boothe!”
He pressed the button on the side of his goggles to activate thermal vision, but still could just barely make out the shapes of the bandits through the dust. He aimed, and fired three times, but between the cloud of dirt, the distance, and the motion of the cars, every shot he took went wide.
“You have to get closer,” Boothe said. “I can’t get a clear shot!”
The bandits continued to fire, bullets bouncing off the hood. One connected with the windshield, sending a spiderweb of cracks through the glass.
“Shit!” Scarlett said. “I just got the damn thing and it’ll be destroyed before the end of the day.”
Closer now and with his target no longer obscured, Boothe took another shot. The bullet sunk into one of the bandit’s chest, knocking him backwards. The other passenger in the vehicle picked up the corpse and tossed it over the back. Scarlett tried to swerve to miss the body, but her tires bumped over it with a sickening crunch. The Falcon veered back and forth and for a moment Boothe was afraid that they may tip to the side and flip, but then Scarlett had control again and held them steady.
Boothe fired three more shots, but missed every one of them.
“Dammit!” he yelled.
“Shoot the bandits Boothe!” Scarlett ordered. “Jesus, do you need me to paint a target on them?”
“Could you please? That’d help a bunch!”
They were only fifteen yards behind the trailing bandit car now. The single bandit in the back seat stopped firing his gun, lit a Molotov, and quickly threw it at them. The bottle exploded onto the hood of the Falcon, sending flames over the windshield.
Dexterity (65%) - SUCCESS!
Boothe quickly ducked back into the car, a blast of heat blowing past his head.
“Alright!” Scarlett said. “That’s it!”
She grabbed Boothe’s hand and put it on the steering wheel.
“Drive!” she said. Then she jumped up to put her feet on the seat and climbed over Boothe. The car slowed down for a moment until Boothe could slide underneath her and get his foot onto the accelerator.
“You’re crazy!” Boothe said, holding onto the wheel to get the car under control.
Driving (70%) - SUCCESS!
“Yeah,” Scarlett agreed, then she popped up through the T-top roof and blasted the bandit in the car in front of them with her shotgun. The pellets spread across his chest, ripping clothing and flesh alike, and knocking him onto his back dead. With quick pump, she shot again, this time blowing half the driver’s head off.
The bandit’s car swerved sharply to the right, away from the Falcon, then tilted onto two wheels before finally flipping completely and tumbling through the air in a ball of dust and fire.
“One down,” Scarlett said. “Where’s the kid?”
Boothe looked over to where his drone highlighted the innocent in blue.
“The leader’s car up front. The one with all the skulls.”
“Get us up there,” she said.
Driving (70%) - SUCCESS!
Boothe glided the car across the dirt, dodging rocks and brush to keep as steady as possible. He felt Scarlett tugging at his belt and glanced down to see her take the frag grenade into her hand.
“You mind?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said.
The second car in the group had three bandits inside. Two knelt in the back seat aiming rifles at them. Bullets pounded into the Falcon, but the steel exterior was tough and absorbed most of the damage. Boothe kept his head low, and Scarlett ducked down in the passenger seat, so as not to catch any of the shots.
The Falcon was significantly faster and more agile than the vehicles that the bandits had cobbled together, so Boothe was able to catch up to them quickly. He pulled up to the right side of the bandit’s car; they were only ten feet apart now. Then Scarlett popped up, yanked the pin from the grenade, and tossed it into the back seat of the other vehicle.
Boothe heard the bandits screaming before he quickly veered away, putting some distance between them. In his rear-view mirror, he saw the other car explode into a ball of fire and smoke, sending pieces of metal, tires, and meaty chunks of bandit flying.
“That’s two,” Scarlett yelled. “One to go!” She shoved two more shells into her shotgun and then gave it a pump to ready it. She looked battle crazed, her yells just as wild as those of the bandits.
“We have to be careful not to hurt the kid,” Boothe reminded her.
“Just get us up there!” she ordered.
Boothe steered the Falcon behind the bandit’s car. One bandit was in the back, firing a rifle at them, while a second sat in the front seat with a pistol to the child’s head. The driver, a muscled man with a bulbous misshapen head yelled with a booming voice so loud it drifted over the noise of the engines and the tires and the gunfire.
“Shoot their goddamn tires out!”
The rifleman tried to aim at the tires, firing, then pulling the rifle’s bolt back and forth to set another round in place before firing again. The bandit with the pistol stood up in his seat and aimed his gun as well, emptying the clip at the Falcon.
Driving (70%) - SUCCESS!
Boothe swerved the car from side to side making it more difficult for the bandits to hit their target. Gradually the Falcon slid up to the left side of the bandit’s vehicle. He saw the driver’s snarl reflected in the car’s cracked side mirror.
Scarlett stood up in the passenger seat and aimed her shotgun down at the rifleman in the back of the bandit’s car. At this distance, the tip of her barrel was only a little over a yard away from the man’s face. She pulled the trigger and splattered him into a cloud of bone and blood.
The child screamed from the front seat, holding his hands over his ears, his eyes closed tight.
“Get us closer,” Scarlett said.
“Any closer and I’m going to hit them,” Boothe replied.
“Do it then!”
Boothe tilted the wheel until the side of the Falcon clanked against the bandit’s car. They were still going at full speed, the engines roaring, every bump threatening to send the cars airborne.
The bandit in the passenger seat reached for another clip to put into his pistol, yelling curses at Scarlett.
She tossed her shotgun into the floorboard and pulled her hatchet from the loop on her belt. Then after steadying herself for a moment, she leapt from the passenger seat into the back of the other car. The bandit didn’t have time to get his pistol back up before Scarlett’s hatchet came down into his skull. She put a foot against his face and yanked her blade free, sending an arc of blood splattering across the interior of the car.
The driver howled in fury. He tried to steer the car away from the Falcon, but Boothe followed, staying as close as possible.
“Come here kid!” Scarlett said. She reached down and lifted the boy from the floorboard with one hand. Her fist gripped firmly around his collar, she tossed the boy several yards through the air into the back seat of the Falcon. He landed with a thump, upset but uninjured and began crying.
Then the crazed driver yanked the wheel, jerking the bandit’s vehicle away from the Falcon.
Driving (70%) - FAILED!
This time, Boothe didn’t anticipate the move, and the bandit’s car veered to the right, while the Falcon kept going straight. Boothe slammed on the brakes and tu
rned the wheel, sliding across the dirt to follow the bandit’s new path. The car had pulled about 100 yards away from him. He saw Scarlett in the back seat tilting dangerously over the side of the vehicle, her hatchet gripped tightly in her hand.
The driver had a knife in one hand now and was stabbing at her while steering with the other. She defended herself, holding his arm back and kicking at his head, then with a single slash, she swung her hatchet into his throat. When she pulled it out, his head tilted backwards, spewing blood like some horrible Pez dispenser.
With the driver dead, the bandit’s car jerked to the left, then the right, two wheels lifting off the ground. Then, just when the car began to flip, Scarlett leaped off to the side. She tucked her arms and head in, landing on her feet and rolling to a stop, bouncing along the hard dirt.
The bandit’s car spun and flew ten feet into the air, landing with a crunch of metal before bursting into flames. A moment later, it exploded into a ball of fire and black smoke.
Boothe drove over to Scarlett, then jumped out and ran towards her. She laid on the ground, arms and legs spread out, not moving. When he got closer, he saw that she was laughing.
“That was awesome,” she said, smiling up at him.
“You’re nuts,” he said. “Completely freaking nuts.”
“Help me up,” she reached a hand up to him, her clothing ripped, scrapes all over her body. Her HP gauge read Scarlett HP - 1/6.
Boothe helped her to her feet and they walked back to the Falcon. The metal body of the car was now riddled with bullet holes. The windshield was broken in several places, and the remaining glass was covered with cracks that completely obscured all vision.
“Do you want to share the car?” Scarlett asked. “You’re a better driver than me, and you did earn it.”
“You just want my help paying for the repairs,” Boothe said.
“Well maybe,” she admitted.
They drove back to Perry, taking the return trip much slower. They stopped and checked a couple of the bodies, picking up the bandit’s guns and ammo. The weapons were all poorly made and badly damaged, but maybe Wulfa would give them something for the scrap.
The boy in the back seat didn’t speak, only watching his surroundings with teary eyes. Scarlett tried to comfort him while she used the medical kit on her wounds, but covered in blood as she was, she did not look very comforting. When they arrived back in town, people stood in the street waiting for them. A cheer rose as they pulled in and Boothe lifted the boy out of the back seat. A crying woman, the boy’s mother, ran forward and took her child into her arms. Then she put the boy down and hugged Boothe as well.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “He’s all I have. Thank you.”
QUEST COMPLETE: Innocent Bystander
Boothe gains 300XP!
LEVEL UP!
Boothe reaches Level 4!
You have unlocked a new class power.
“Ding!” Scarlett cheered.
“Congrats,” Boothe said. “Me too.”
He looked through the new powers available to him.
Choose a New Class Power
Combat Drone - Modify your drone to add a highly-accurate laser weapon. Your drone can attack once every three rounds with a +5 Aim bonus, dealing 2 damage.
Assistant Drone - As a Move action, send your drone to protect yourself or an ally, reducing all incoming attack chances by 15%.
Medical Protocol - Once every three rounds, your drone can administer a medkit to yourself or an ally as a free action. Your drone can carry 2 medkits at a time.
Machine Master - As an Attack action, you can send your drone to hack a robotic enemy, disabling it.
After reading through them a few times, he decided to go with Machine Master. Hacking enemies sounded fun, and he was a Techie after all. He’d likely end up with plenty of points in Hacking.
The crowd around them slowly dispersed, saying goodbye and returning to their homes, until only Scarlett and Boothe stood in the middle of the street with their damaged car.
“Well Boothe,” Scarlett said. “I think I’m done for the night. I had fun questing with you. Are you going to be on tomorrow?”
“Definitely,” Boothe said. “And I had fun too.”
Scarlett has added you to her Friends List, do you want to add her as well?
Boothe selected Yes on the menu.
Scarlett has been added to your Friends List - You will now be notified when she joins the game and can send messages to each other from any distance.
She smiled. She really was pretty, even covered in dirt and blood. “Alright then Boothe, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She slowly faded away, leaving him standing next to the Falcon in the middle of the street, alone.
Interlude 3
Highschool
I sat in Physics class, my last class of the day, drawing in my sketchbook. Mr. Barker stood at the front of the room lecturing about density in relation to an object’s mass and volume. I hadn’t really paid attention to any of my classes all day. My mind had been occupied with the game. And with Scarlett.
Adam kicked the back of my desk for probably the twentieth time in the last thirty minutes.
I continued to ignore him, instead focusing on the drawing, letting my mind wander back to the Wasteland. I could picture everything in my mind - Perry, the gecks, the robots, the bandits, the car chase. I played it all back, thinking about ways I could have handled the situations differently – tactics I could have used, and strategies to implement in the future.
“What are you drawing, nerd?”
The voice came from over my shoulder. Adam. Why did he have to be like this? Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? For some reason, he had targeted me as soon as I moved to this school. That first day in the cafeteria, he walked up and stood over me - tall and muscular, his hair perfectly messy in a way that I could never pull off. He had invited me to sit with him and his friends. I followed him over to their table and just as I was sitting down, he pulled the chair out from under me. I fell to the floor hard, fumbling the plastic lunch tray in my hands and splattering a plate of beef stroganoff all over my face and chest.
“Please,” Adam had said laughing. “You’re too ugly to sit with us. If I were as ugly as you, I’d just kill myself.”
Every day I came to school after that, I wondered what new hell Adam would cause for me.
“I said, what are you drawing?” he repeated.
“Just some stuff from a game,” I whispered.
“Looks like a girl to me,” Adam said.
I had drawn Scarlett in as close to perfect detail as I could. Not exactly like the game had shown her. The game was all pixels. Ones and zeroes. No, I had drawn her like I imagined her. I knew that she likely did not look like this in real life - probably no more than I looked like Boothe. That didn’t matter.
“Is she your girlfriend?” Adam asked.
“No,” I said.
“Yeah, I didn’t think a girl like that would date you. It’s a good drawing though. She’s smoking hot. Can I have it?”
“No.”
“Come on Bran,” he said, reaching over my shoulder to snatch the sketchbook off my desk. “I really like it.”
I spun in my chair to grab at my book, but Adam held it away from me, laughing.
“Just give the book back,” I said.
“Okay,” Adam said. He ripped the drawing of Scarlett out and handed me the rest of the book. “But I think I’ll keep this. Show it around, you know.”
“Don’t be a dick, man,” I said.
“Bran!” Mr. Barker’s voice raised. I spun to see everybody in the room looking at me. “Eyes to the front please. This information will all be on the test. You need to know it.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Now, one way to measure the volume of an object is displacement…”
Mr. Barker continued to lecture on, but I was only thinking about getting out of this place. I hated it he
re. All the other kids were dumb, only caring about dances and football. I had moved here in the middle of the senior year of high school. Everybody else was already cliqued up and had known each other for half their lives. How was I supposed to fit into that?
When the bell finally rang, I immediately turned to Adam and said “Keep it. I can draw more. Unlike you, I have skills.”
“You saying I don’t have skills? Is that why I play Center Tackle for varsity football and first base on the baseball team?” Adam said, standing up tall in front of me. He puffed his chest out, trying to be intimidating. Honestly, it was intimidating. He could probably really hurt me if he wanted to. I was a full foot shorter than him and around a hundred pounds lighter. Still, like always, I covered my fear with humor.
“Okay, I take it back,” I said. “You’re very skilled with balls.”
“Watch it, Bran,” he said, shoving me backwards.
Mr. Barker, who had been busying himself with the paperwork on his desk while his classroom emptied now walked up to us.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
“No,” Adam said. “No problem.” He threw his backpack over his shoulder, then gave me a narrow-eyed look that promised death, before walking out of the classroom.
“Do you need anything, Bran?” Mr. Barker asked. He was a kind man, nearing his sixties, who still had a hint of red in his gray hair. The thick glasses perched on his round nose made his eyes look huge.
“No sir, I’m fine,” I said.
“You fitting in okay here? Making friends?”
“Yes sir,” I lied.
“Your last test wasn’t too hot. A 68 I think. Better bring that up, get your homework done, study hard. I don’t want to see you here again next year, and I’m sure you don’t want to see me either.”
“No sir,” I said. “I don’t.”
“Alright,” he smiled, nodding towards the door. “You have a good afternoon.”
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