-RP- oAsiS

"What's your name?"

Elika sighed Meet-and-greet already, huh? With a crunch, she pulled a bolt from one of the guard’s chest and wiped it off on his clothes. She patted down the body for something of use. In the back-left pocket was what made out to be a wallet. She pocketed it and moved on to the next body. She kicked over the subsequently one. This poor **** was hit just below the heart.

"My name's Terrin."

The bolt in this one was in deep and didn’t budge. After some hard pulling and jerking around, she put both feet on the dead man’s chest and pulled. “Well, Terrin,” She said while using both hands to remove her seemingly affixed projectile, “perhaps you can tell me what kind of cargo you were escorting?”

“W-“ The crack of bone interrupted him, “…water…going to Fort Europa.”

She began to search the corpse; she found a few magazines for his rifle and an old revolver on his belt. She had an idea. She looked at the living guard, and then looked back at the gun. She removed it, and checked its ammo. Loaded. She pushed the cylinder back in and stuck it in between the leather straps on her thighs, stood up, and kicked over the body. She went back to guard’s side of the vehicle. He hadn’t moved. Good.

“Water, hmm? That’s all? Nothing else?”

“As far as I know of.” Terrin replied honestly.

"It’s good that you’re staying still. Lets see how long you can be good for.” Water couldn’t of been the only thing on board. She checked the inside of the vehicle: Blood on the back window, a few open boxes in the back seat, pens on the dash…and a clipboard with papers on it. Elika viewed it over for a few moments, and found it to be papers outlining the cargo. She hopped out of the cab with both feet, and looked at the shipment document. They detailed a cargo of only water…for a sum of credits that was not to be scoffed at. Elika thought to herself for a moment
“Seems here that this little shipment is worth a fair amount of credits.”

She drew the revolver and pointed it at Terrin. He shifted back a bit and held his hand between the two of them. It looked like he was about to shout “don’t’!”

“I won’t shoot – yet.” She said with a smile. “Tell you what, there’s a nearby town called Ryza, you’ve probably heard of it before. We’re going there.”

“…And then?”The guard asked nervously.

“I happen to have some connections there. We could get this junker fixed up, refuelled, and deliver the cargo.” She waved her sidearm in a gesture to get in the drivers seat. “I’m shotgun.”

Terrin stepped into the cab of the vehicle and took a deep breath. With any luck, this could end soon. The keys were in the ignition, another deep breath. His captor jumped in the passenger’s seat and continued to point the revolver at him. Deep breath.

“We’re going to meet up with my business partner. His name is Jaque. He runs a bar, but does quite a bit of trading on the black market. He’s the middleman for most of the things I loot and sell.” She looked at Terrin’s eyes: he wanted assurance. The only way he was going to comply with her is if he at least felt safe. “I’ve trusted him with my life for the past few years, now. He won’t let me down.”

* * * * *

They had parked the cargo a good 100 meters from the settlement ‘walls’. “Try not to give me to shoot you.” Elika tried to sound as imposing as possible while still giving the guard reason to not high-tail it out of there. “Just follow me.” She waved to give indication to start moving. As she lead them into the town, Terrin felt horribly out of place. It was dark, and wind sweeped the streets with dust and what seemed like paper, or ash. The whole place seemed dead. There was no one else but the two of them walking the streets at this time of night, and it was so quite you could hear a body drop (heh). In the moonlight, it was visible that the whole city was made from scrap: rusted sheet metal, old cracked plywood, anything people here could find in wastes. It was pitiful in Terrin’s opinion. These people lived their entire lives in slums, when safer, more sanitary options were out there – and not too distant. But as pitiful as it was, it was a stable community that was home to hundreds; a population slowly declining, however. Elika guided them down a street. Terrin couldn’t help but to notice the poorly painted sign hanging over it, labelled “Dynamism”. There, three houses down, was a building with large, barred windows and a sign saying ‘Pub’. There was a notice below that one that read ‘closed’. Elika stopped outside of it.

“So…this is the place?” He said, pointing at the shiftiest bar he had ever laid eyes upon.

“Yes, now promise me whatever you do, you keep your mouth shut.” She snapped, “Jacque is a straight-to-business sort of guy who cares about how full his pockets are, so I don’t want you screw up and saying anything that may make him think twice.”

Terrin backed off a bit and put his hands up in front of him. “…Yes ma’am…” He said softly.

Elika knocked on the steel door lightly, waited a few seconds, and then bashed it a few times furiously. On her last hit, the door creaked open, revealing tall caucasian man, no shorter than 6’3, in grey bed robes. His face was stiff in stature, and he had a scar running across the left side of his throat. The stubble on his chin looked like it had been groomed with edge of a dull knife, and his long nose stuck out from his face like an obelisk.

He spoke in a slight French accent.
“Little missy,” he said with a stretch “What makes you wake me at this godforsaken hour?”
“Would you be interested in making a little bit of cash?” She playfully replied
“Always.” He responded, sounding a little more interested

“Good, because me and my friend here found a shipment that’s needs to be delivered…if you know what I mean.” Jacque nodded with a smirk. “When we found them, they were on their way to Fort Europa delivering water. As it turns out, clean stuff in this volume goes for quite a bit up there.”

“So why not keep it?”

She paused for a moment. “My liver is strong enough to take whatever the local well gives me; and as I see it, this is great opportunity to make some easy credits.” She paused for a second “What I need is repairs and diesel for the halftrack it’s on.”

“Whoa there, Elly. I ain’t doing no favours here. If you need something from me, I hope you got the credits for it.”

“This isn’t a one sided deal” She quickly retorted, “I said you would be getting something out of this as well.”

He looked down and thought about it for a bit. “Well,” He responded apathetically “It can’t hurt to check…where exactly is the cargo carrier?”

The three of them walked over to the halftrack outside of town. Jacque looked at it and chuckled. “This jalopy looks like a handful,” He said while giving it a smack, “So how much is the cargo worth?”

“See for yourself.” Elika climbed into the vehicle and tossed him the clipboard from the cab. He took a look at it for a moment, and confirmed his interest with a shift of his eyebrows.

“These are very appealing numbers. ****, I like ‘em…but I’m, not sure how much these repairs may cost”. He looked up at Elika “How do I know you aren’t going to just run off with the earnings?”

“Please, you know me. You’re the only man I can do business with. That, and our partnership for the past few years should have granted me some trust by now.”

Jaque nodded in compliance. “So how much does this mean for me?”

“I was thinking 70/30. This fills your pockets and gives me more than enough credits to buy some gear I need while I’m up there.”

He thought long and hard on this. It was fairly apparent that this was no easy decision for him. Elika wouldn’t put it past him if he were calculating the profit in his head.

“Deal. The can get the fuel now; but the truck itself…” he paused and looked at the sad, steaming vehicle “…might need a few hours. Come see me here later today, near sundown – chances are I can get someone to fix it by then.”

“Well, Jacque, you once again never cease to please me.” Elika said with a smile “My friend and I are going to catch some shut-eye or something and come back when you’re done with this beast.” She turned and jabbed Terrin in the ribs, symbolizing its time to leave.

“Oh, and Elika?” Jacque called back after her.
“Yes, dear?” She said sarcastically.
“Never wake me up again.”