For me, it was a little of both. Cramped for time, I'd agreed to lead a small convoy of raiders to a spot along this long scarp raised up during the Ripples, to the one spot short of the Herriman Slide, an uncontrolled ford existed on the Jordan Arm of Lago Nuevo Bonnevilla.
Salt Lake City, hell, all of America, fell apart in the Ripples, when we found out just what sort of seismic hell follows a truly large rock ringing Earth's bell. And now, I was payig the price for that fall. It's hell making ablative armor, when you are living as a renegade merc amid the dispossessed.
Chaucer and her folks wanted the road to the crossing, now they had it, from Magna to my secret hole card, a buckled stretch of road, and barely intact bridge just under the waters, where Taylorsville sat, before being shredded by the quakes. Now, she was paying me in lead, not more needed materials. I have enough lead in my body already to hold off the Corps and Religious Mighters 'til hell freezes over.
Goosing the electrons, I let Buzzer, my half tracked trike, alert my only ally by the debris and water plume the treads tossed into the night.
"Nice. Told ya the greedy witch would cross ya." Vulture's voice crackled in the headphones.
I grunt at that, following Redwood Trace, a remnant of road covered in places by sand, in others by shallow waters of the rising lake formed by cutting Great Salt Lake in half. "Later, got anything you can spare to save my ass?"
Buzzer rocks under a heavier hit. Crap, they had explosive shell weapons. Turning tight to the scarp face, the ass end of my baby shimmied, shook, and settled down, seconds before the night became day. Double crap, I thought, cutting speed fast, before the Mighters on the far shore could realize I was still alive. Somedays, playing dead works on them.
Not today. And the only reason I know it is still today is the continuing rain of Hellfire rockets.
"Dude, you are fucked. I'm dropping back to the Smelter Safe Zone." I cannot fault Vulture for that choice, like me, he's down to his last cards, one of which is renting out his last drones to the mining interests gutting the Oquirrh Mountains before the mines get swallowed by the growing lake. Even the nastiest Might Makes Right fool would not shell the Smelter, at their jumbled and broken northern tip.
Another moment of hell, and all four of my flare rockets cooked off, three rising wildly to the stars, well, into dead trees marking the old Jordan River in this part of town, the fourth wedged in the launch tube, exhaust eating through the wheel guard before me, blinding me, even as the tire under it melts.
"Shit, Vulture, is Shrike able to drop me some cover?"
"She bugged out, the minute the crap hit the fan."
The tire blows, freeing the flare into the rocks above me. Thankfully, the rim works, my steering is mostly off the tracks, the remnants of an old Bobcat we scavenged from the waters early on. "Great, remind me to send her a Clinton."
"She loves bills, and loves not paying them more, Cutter."
I winced. We rarely used our normal handles, when doing this kind of job. But it worked, two more salvos, then the fire shifted off me. "Let me guess, we're in the clear?"
"No, Brig's Angels say get the hell out, and thanks for delivering Chaucer and her meth runners." Vulture's chuckle mingled with some more fire off the druggies. "They already know about rathole seven, blow it, and haul ass, you got incoming."
Good thing, I already planned to use it. My only offensive weapon is a pea-shooter, small, homemade gyro slugger that tosses ball bearings we salvaged. Just enough to shatter the thin chipboard with rocks and dirt glued to it, that covered the rathole. Racing in, I groan as the left tread begins to shred, praying I at least make it through the tunnel to a better side of things.
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