Tale of the Reader Pt. 2
Here's the next chapter. Sorry it's so short, I've been busy lately. Next one will be longer.
"You have got to be kidding me." I stared at the approaching monstrosity. It was a Reaver. Think of the biggest grizzly bear you have ever seen. Now think of that bear with a horrible case of mange and huge fangs coming out of its mouth at weird angles. Now, that sounds pretty scary, right? That is basically what a Reaver is, except for one, small detail. It's as big as a house. As far as we can tell, Reaver's are a result of radiation caused mutation, but some of our scientists believe they might once have been a bio-weapon, like the super-soldiers. All I know is that they are big, mean, and try to eat anything they come across. Hard as hell to kill, too. Luckily for us, Reavers are extremely rare. In my 5 years as a WSR, I've only run across one other, and that one was old and dying. This one, however, looked as fit as a mutated, house sized, possible bio-weapon could be.
As the horrible looking creature got closer, I realized that, luckily enough, it was still a good ways off. It had just looked closer because of its immense size. That gave us, oh, about 5 seconds to come up with a plan. I glanced over at the others.
"So, anyone got any bright ideas?"
Nadia nodded. "Yeah, while it's eating you, the rest of us can make a run for it."
I shot her a glare. "Anyone have any helpful ideas?"
Simon nodded. "Nadia, put together the largest explosive you can. Me and Jarvis will distract it, and while it's occupied I want you and Reader to plant the bomb on its neck or head. Everyone got the plan? Good, now move!"
We all scattered away from the piece of highway divider we had been hiding behind. Good thing, too, because the Reaver had finally gotten close enough to crush the two-foot thick cement divider like a toothpick. Nadia and I ran one way, and Jarvis and Simon ran the other. The Reaver stood there for a split second, confused, until Simon raised his archaic .50 caliber sniper rifle and fired, punching a hole in one of its enormous eyes. It staggered to the side, making an unearthly roaring noise of pain, before it turned toward them with fury evident on its twisted face. As it rushed them, Jarvis opened up with his E-81 Minigun. The relatively new, six-barreled weapon spun up quickly, and unleashed a literal river of 5mm depleted uranium rounds. While not powerful enough to puncture the Reaver's tough skin, the sheer weight of the impacting rounds caused it to falter in its charge. I stood staring at this awesome display of firepower in a kind of awe, until I sensed Nadia tossing me a small, duct-tape wrapped package. Without looking away from the on-going firefight, I snatched it out of the air. I started toward the creature, the bomb in one hand, and my ancient .357 revolver in the other. I threw the bomb, and with just a touch from my mind, it landed on the creature's neck. I had barely a second of pre-cognition, and I rolled to the right behind another divider just as the bomb went off. Nadia, being Nadia, had rigged enough explosive together to not only kill the creature, but to almost disintegrate it. My roll to the right saved my life as a jet of flame and pieces of the Reaver shot out and splattered the street where I had just been standing.
I shook my head, still lying on the ground, then looked up to see a small mushroom cloud rising up from the black streaked, steaming ground where the Reaver had been. As I was gaping at the sight, my pre-cognition warned me of something else; something I knew I could not avoid.
I had just enough time to say, "Ah, sh--" before a rain of what was once Reaver poured on me. I managed to deflect most of the larger pieces with a kind of mental shield, but I still got sprayed by some of the smaller particles of gore.
I heaved myself off the cracked pavement, wincing at the sudden pain in my head, and looked around. Both Jarvis and Simon were staring open-mouthed at me, and I realized that my clothes were a charred mess, and I had bits of blown apart Reaver all over me. As I walked over to them, shaking most of the offending goop off, Nadia came bouncing over with a huge grin on her face.
"Did you see that! That was awesome! Man, the mushroom cloud alone..." She stopped talking as she saw the look on my face. "Oh...sorry about that."
I simply glared at her before turning to Simon. "Now can we please, please, go get some R&R?"
He chuckled, then stopped when he saw the way I was looking at him. I could sense a faint *Shit, he looks pissed* coming from him before he nodded and said, "Alright. Let's go. Hey, look at that; someone from New DC must of heard the explosion." He pointed at a small hover truck that was coming down the old, decrepit highway.
"Well, no wonder they heard it. It was freaking loud enough!" I almost yelled the last sentence as I took another glare at Nadia.
"Hey, I said I was sorry."
As the truck pulled up I turned away from her, muttering something under my breath. I caught a faint thought from her that made me feel even more ticked off. *He looks so cute when he's angry...Oh shit, I hope he didn't hear that...or sense that...or whatever he does...*
I glared at her again as five guys jumped out of the truck, wearing the standard Defense Force uniform of the UNC and carrying A-18 laser rifles (the A-18 was relatively new, the only laser weapon made so far entirely by the ANC. It's quickly become the premier infantry weapon of the ANC. The only reason we didn't carry it was that the power-packs were a little hard to charge out in the Wasteland). They quickly took up covering positions around the truck. The driver, a cat-morph, looked up at the fading mushroom cloud. I caught a faint *Damn* from him as he looked at the splattered remnants of the Reaver. He glanced at us, and I sensed a wave of surprise roll off of him when he saw that I was a human (like I said, we are really rare) and covered with some of the aforementioned Reaver particulate.
He gulped, then said,"Yall need a lift? We knew you were coming, but we didn't think that you would announce yourself. Weren't you supposed to have a truck? What happened to it?"
Simon busted out laughing, and I felt a small grin work its way past my anger. "It's a long story." Was all Simon was able to say. You see, when we were issued that truck, we were told it was the sturdiest hover model to come out of the factories so far. And it was pretty sturdy. Right up until a mutie blasted it with a rocket launcher when we were about 50 miles away from the nearest town. That was at the beginning of our little scouting mission, and ever since then, we have been using the most dependable transportation we knew of. Our feet. So, it wasn't really funny, funny. It was more laugh or you'll cry, funny.
The truck driver stared at us another second, and I caught *Man, these people have been out here too long. The bunny's hot though...ooh, would I like to--*
I quickly focused on something else. You would think being psychic would be fun, and most of the time it is, but I "hear" a lot of messed up stuff. Stuff that I can't necessarily do anything about, because if you beat the crap out of everyone who has a dirty thought, well, no-one would be walking around. Including me. (Hey, I can be honest.)
We all hopped in the truck, Simon still chuckling, and Nadia still looking at the remnants of the explosion with a look of almost rapture on her face (in case you haven't figured out by now, she really likes explosions). The squad of Defense Force soldiers quickly jumped in after us. The driver yelled something about being there in a couple of minutes, and I finally relaxed. As I sat there, I focused on my teammates, just getting a quick read of their minds. It's what I do after every fight we have. I can kind-of influence people's thoughts, so I usually smooth out a bit of nervousness here, a touch of anxiety there. They've never noticed me doing it, but I've observed that when I do it, the squad functions just a little better. So I must be doing something right. Jarvis was sitting there with his usual relaxed expression, though I could sense him constantly calculating alternate offensive and defensive attacks that fit the constantly changing environment around him. It was actually kind of fascinating to listen to his thoughts; they were orderly, unlike so many other people. Nadia was almost the exact opposite; her mind was chaotic. Thoughts, images, and emotions all swirled around inside her mind. Of all three of my teammates, she was the hardest to read. I simply could not keep up with her rapidly shifting mind. Simon was somewhere between the two of them. His mind was mostly ordered, though not as severely as Jarvis's. He maintained a kind of balance, which is why he was the leader. He could use emotion and logic together to make cool, rational decisions.
My thoughts (and theirs) were interrupted by the driver announcing, "Well, here we are folks. New DC."
I turned toward the front of the truck, and saw the capitol of the ANC...