Calico kicked over another stone that had the misfortune of being in her path. Kincaide arched his eyebrow at the other mercenary. She had her hands stuffed in her pockets and was paying far too much attention to the dirt beneath her feet. Kincaide followed the rock’s bouncing path as it tumbled away.
“Calico?” He inquired.
Calico stopped and looked up at the ghoul. Then she thrust out her lower lip and overdramatically stomped her foot. “I’m bored!” She whined. “There’s nothing to do out here but listen to you blabber about patterns and weaves!”
Kincaide’s mouth dropped open in shock. “So, you don’t like hearing about textiles?” He sounded hurt.
“Gah! No!” Calico exclaimed. “I told you that! Twenty-four times! But you didn’t hear me because you wouldn’t stop talking!”
Kincaide’s face dropped. “Oh. Well, okay. Then I guess I won’t talk about textiles then.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.” Calico said, relieved.
The mercenaries started walking again, back on course. Calico pointed out a shack in the distance and mentioned a shoot out she took part in around it. Kincaide told a quick tale of the time he brutally stabbed a slaver twenty six times and then set his slaves free in that same shack. Then they continued on in silence for a few hundred feet.
Kincaide broke the silence only a few minutes after it had become awkward. “So, what exactly do you have against textiles?”
“Gah! Again!?” Calico exclaimed, exasperated. “They’re lame. They make you lame!”
“They make the world go round.”
“Who thinks that? Who ever gave you that idea! Why would you think that? Gah!” Calico waved her arms about in frustration.
Kincaide’s face dropped again. “It’s just an opinion. Like how you think it’s caps that make the world go round.”
“Because it is.” Calico responded simply.
“See, that’s your opinion. I respect that it’s not mine and I see where it has merit.” Kincaide said.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Your opinion is lame.”
Kincaide shrugged. “Okay. Then never work with me again.”
Calico thought about that for a moment, then said, “But you’re a murder machine. And amusing, if your textiles are taken a little at a time.” She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. It was just a lot of information about yarn.”
Kincaide smiled warmly. “Thank you. Apology accepted. I’m sorry too. I’ll try to cut back on the textiles. We can find common ground for discussion, I’m sure.”
Calico nodded, smiling cheerily. “Deal.” The mercenaries started walking again. “So, hey,” Calico said. “That’s a nice minigun.”
Kincaide hefted the mentioned weapon easily with one hand. “It does the job. It’s a little awkward and I need to drop it if I want to move real quick, but when I open up with it people take notice. The taking cover kind of notice.”
“Handy.” Calico said. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. I prefer my shotgun. Gotta get pretty close for it to do any good, but when you get close-“She made a little explosion with her hands.
Kincaide grunted. “They do tend to put holes in things. You don’t find that they rattle themselves apart though?”
“I value the holes enough that it’s okay.” Calico said with a shrug.
Sixty hours later, the pair was on their stomachs atop a hill looking down on a raider encampment. They were hidden by some rocks and an ugly wasteland shrub, peering at the camp through binoculars (Kincaide) and a discarded scope (Calico).
The ubiquitous corrugated metal and a few cars walled the encampment in. The gate, as it was, was made of a trio of motorcycles hooked to a beam which could be rolled to open or close the gate as needed. Within the perimeter were three steel shacks and a tent. The shacks were made of the same corrugated sheeting and were arranged in a triangle, one directly across form the gate, the other two flanking it.
The tent was dead center (or as close as raiders got). Its door flap was guarded by a pair of raiders seated at a little round table pretending to play chess. The remains of drugs (alcohol and others) lay around their chairs.
Five raiders were visible: the two guards; an obviously drunk and probably high man pissing up against a wall; a mohawked woman doing some target practice on the south wall; and a scrawny fellow hanging a corpse as decoration.
“I can’t decide if I hate raiders more or less than I hate slavers.” Kincaide thought aloud.
“Slavers tend to have more caps.” Calico replied. “To loot I mean.” In the encampment the scrawny raider propped up the body by sticking a pool cue somewhere a pool cue shouldn’t be put. “Ew. And slavers don’t do that.”
“As much.” Kincaide amended.
“Right.” Calico agreed.
The ghoul shuffled forward a bit and nodded at the tent. “I figure his Royal Highness is in the tent. It’s guarded, central and different. Not all the raiders are accounted for so they’re either inside, died somehow-“
“Or are out raiding.” Calico finished for him. “It looks like those motorcycles are still working models. We put a couple rounds into them, good potential for a big boom.”
“Good. Armament doesn’t look too heavy/ the guards have a knife and an assault rifle-“
“Kind of lopsided.”
“The shooter has a hunting rifle, and Mr. PissPot has, a something. Can’t quite see from here.”
“And their decorator had a pool cue. Nothing too serious, they’ll all kill you dead if you screw up but I’ve had worse days. As long as they don’t have a flamer or missile launcher in one of those steel huts, we should do okie-dokie.”
Kincaide looked at her sideways. “We’ll do okie-dokie will we?”
“What?” Calico said. “I say that. So do other people! Okie-dokie.”
He snickered. “Lame.”
She glared. “Do you want to hear my plan or not?”
“Okie-dokie.”
She snorted at him. “Bitch. Anyway, here goes. We walk in, and ask to join.”
Kincaide stared at her in shock. “We what?”
“Walk in and ask to join. It was six words how slow are you?” Calico said.
“Why?” the big ghoul’s voice shot up a couple octaves in confusion.
Calico rolled her eyes. “We do that, we gain the element of surprise and put them at ease. Which will make our surprise attack all the more surprising.”
“Providing they don’t shoot us on the way down the hill.” Kincaide managed after a stunned silence that Calico surprisingly had waited through.
“Well they won’t.” Then she reached over and rapped her knuckles off Kincaide’s forehead. “There was no wood to knock on,” she told the flabbergasted ghoul. “I had to go with the closet thing.”
Kincaide looked to the wood in the shrub’s trunk between them. Then he thrust his finger at it. Calico followed the point and then turned her head back to meet his gaze. “That wood’s fake. Anyway, I’m going down there to boldly and spectacularly take a raider’s head. You can stay here and listen to the symphony of gunfire and screams, or you can come with me and get a front row seat.”
Kincaide sighed. Calico gave him a pointed look, tucked away the scope and stood. She took a couple steps down the hill and then turned, facing Kincaide, and crooked a finger at him. “Oh, for the loves of textiles.” The ghoul mumbled.
Then he stood up and they strode down the hill, Calico relaxed, Kincaide tensed to move them both out of the path of any oncoming munitions. It was a long, vulnerable walk down the hill.
That said the mercenaries made it right up to the gate unnoticed. Calico added a drunken sway to her movements and allowed some drool to escape her mouth. “Follow my lead.” She slurred at Kincaide with an over exaggerated wink. Then she swung to the face the raiders, leaning on the gate. “HEY! GUYS!”
Kincaide sighed as the raiders looked up. They then did a poor impression of standing and went for their weapons. “Whoa!” Calico shouted at them. “Hang on! Me and my big friend here want to sign up!”
Kincaide frowned at her as spit flew from her mouth. She slumped forward, putting more weight on the gate. She faked a slip and caught herself. “We heard you guys were the-“she stopped apparently lost in thought over her next words. “Goodest gang around. Hic! And we- hic! - we wants to be a part of it!”
The guards traded looks, and then looked back to the slumped Calico and her vaguely casually standing ghoul partner. A deep voice came from within the tent. It carried far enough the Kincaide picked up a few words. “Let….shoot….sexual….skilled.”
The guards nodded and then swagger-staggered over to the gate. The one with the assault rifle aimed form his hip. Kincaide became a whole lot less worried.
“Ye’ll have to leave yer guns and shit here.” He used his rifle to point at the gate. “But his Royal Highness’ll see you fucks. Find out if ya gots what it takes to be one of his Royal Guard.”
The other raider, who’s gaze hadn’t yet ventured above Calico’s chest or below her knees, or over to Kincaide, licked his lips and threw a switch on the wall. There was a growl as a poorly maintained generator started. The gate jerked and the motorcycle rolled behind the wall to let them past. The first guard motioned them in and told them to pile their weapons to the left of the gate. The mercenaries did so, Calico with a stupid drunken grin on her face, Kincaide with a look of exasperation on his. The second guard flipped the switch, rolling the gate back in place. The generator coughed as it powered off, trapping the pair inside. Trapping them a little at least since the gate was not much taller than Kincaide’s waist.
The knife raider pointed them at the tent, still leering at Calico, mouth open a little. Kincaide looked down at Calico and she gave him a big thumbs up before staggering toward the tent. Kincaide sighed and followed, trying to stay between her and the raiders so they couldn’t stare at her weaving backside. It was no easy task. Calico’s fake drunk walk took them on an erratic path to the tent.
When she reached the tent, she promptly hiccupped and “tripped” through the open flaps. She landed face first not on the dirt she expected but a very plush, soft rug.
She hiccupped again as Kincaide easily lifted her back up to her feet. The interior of the tent was a study in opulence. The floors were covered by four thick, surprisingly clean rugs. Pillows were piled in the two corners left of the door and between the cushion piles was a table covered in fresh looking fruit. A male raider was passed out beneath the table, an apple in his mouth and a needle still sticking in his arm.
King Big Bomb, as promised, was recognizable on sight. Flowing on and over a giant throne-bed made of mattresses and bed frames, the raider leader was easily well over four hundred pounds, a mass of fat. He had at least four chins and rolls of fat at every joint. He snuffled when he breathed and his overgrown beard was filled with mucous and food that had missed his mouth. To top it off, he was naked, his flesh covered in grease and sweat.
In his left hand, which was huge even dwarfed by his body, he gripped two lengths of chain. Each chain was linked to a slave collar, which in turn was around the neck of a slave. Both slaves were women in extremely revealing outfits. One woman was clearly an addict, her too thin body and hollow, prematurely aged face said as much. Her straw coloured hair was dead and it hung on her head ragged and limp. Her teeth, where they weren’t missing, were yellowed by disease and nicotine. Her fingernails were too long and filthy. She was little more than a shell.
The other slave was very dissimilar. She was young, on her way from “slave girl” to “slave woman.” She was pretty, even with eyes reddened by tears and the large bruise forming on her cheek. Her hair was a shining, flowing fire red and she was clean. She was also constantly adjusting her negligee to try and make it cover as much of herself as possible.
Kincaide pitied her, made a mental note to get her out okay. And the other one if he could. He realized his fists were clenched and that King Big Bomb was speaking in his deep rumbling voice. “Who are you that you think yourselves worthy of joining my guard?” When he spoke he rippled. “I am King Big Bomb, ruler of the wastelands! All who walk the dusty earth walk in my kingdom.”
“W-wow.” Calico sputtered, swaying. “You. You’re- you’re him.” She batted at Kincaide’s chest with the back of her hand. “That’s him.”
Kincaide nodded. His jaw had clenched when he had unclenched his hands. “He’s a- he’s dumb. I mean he’s sloooooow.” Calico leaned forward as she drew out the word. “I use him to, oh damn. What’s the word? Uhh, right. Carry stuff.”
King Big Bomb snorted. “And what would I do with a brain dead ghoul?” He let out a low moan as he looked Calico up and down. “Mmmm. I could put you to use though.”
Calico’s eyebrows popped as she slurred out her reply. “Really? Yeah? You promise?”
Big Bomb moaned again. “Mmmmm yes, sweets. Number one here-” he twisted the shell’s chain, jerking her to her back- “is all worn out. I could use more fresh meat. Mmmm, yes.”
Kincaide though he saw something stirring beneath the rolls. He shuddered. This was apparently Calico’s cue. “You want me to be your little sexy kitten muffin?” Any trace of her faked drunkenness disappeared. “Ew. That would be worse than sleeping with him.” She gestured at Kincaide.
“Oh. Thank you.” Kincaide said dryly as King Big Bomb went from confused to enraged.
“What!” He roared. “I will not tolerate such insolence!”
“Big words.” Calico said as he bellowed. Kincaide nodded.
“Guards! Kill them.”
By “kill” the mercenaries were already moving. Kincaide took two steps and leapt, arms outstretched, reaching for the fat king’s throat. Calico spun, delivering a right cross to the face of the assault rifle guard. As he reeled, Calico tore the firearm away. She drove the butt of the rifle into the other guard’s jaw. As Kincaide and Big Bomb toppled over, Calico tucked the assault rifle up into her shoulder and put three rounds into each guard’s chest. She put a couple more bullets into the passed out raider on her way out of the tent, confidant that Kincaide wouldn’t lose by being rolled on.
When she stepped outside, she found the three other raiders headed toward the tent. Three more were coming out of a shack, all armed and strangely naked. A bullet zipped past calico, fired by the raider who had been practicing. The mercenary squeezed a couple shots back and rushed the three naked raiders, getting out of the shooter’s line of sight in the process.
She caught the nude men before they could prepare, tearing open one’s abdomen with automatic fire. She reached them and booted one in the stomach. He doubled over and dropped his bat. Calico fired point blank into his back and then twisted, throwing the empty rifle at the last naked raider. He tried to catch it and dropped his 10mm. Calico caught it as it fell and pumped three rounds into the man’s crotch.
He screamed and gunfire spanged off the shack. Calico fired a few shots blind behind her and dove into the shack, kicking the door shut. Shots pinged off the steel construction as Calico looked around. The shack was fairly empty. It held a bunk bed on each side and a table and chairs on the far wall. There were clothes strewn haphazardly all over the place and the remains of a drug and alcohol party lay over the floor. The best part was what was sitting on the table.
Calico’s face broke into a huge smile. She snatched it up and threw open the door. The two raiders approaching the shack were surprised by her acquisition to say the least. Calico saw Kincaide run out of the tent, sans coat, as she fired the missile launcher. She chuckled as the two raiders were blown into tiny, slightly mulched up bits.
She started to reload, watching as Kincaide booted down the door to another shack. As he disappeared inside, a pool cue cut across Calico’s line of sight. The missile launcher clattered to the ground as the next attack hit Calico in the chest. She managed to keep her footing though she stumbled back into the shack. Her pool cue wielding assailant was the skinny one who had been decorating. Up close though, he was wirier, corded muscle than scrawny.
Calico drew the pistol she had stolen. She fired, he sidestepped and snap kicked her in the gut. She doubled over as the air left her body. The next blow cracked across her back and she slammed into the floor. Calico managed to roll away from the raider’s overhead swing, and kicked the off balance man in the side from her back.
The kick knocked him into a bunk bed and he dropped his pool cue. Calico got to her feet and rushed him, moving with fluid grace. She slammed him into the frame of the bunk bed again and then grabbed his ear.
She twisted and pulled. The raider staggered back away from the bed to keep his ear. Calico hit him with two quick jabs to the face from her right hand and then jerked on his ear, straightening him up. He parried her third punch, knocking it away with a circular sweep of his arm. The raider’s foot snapped out, connecting with Calico’s shin. The sharp pain caused her to hiss and she released the grip on her ear.
The raider stepped in close. He hit Calico with two elbows, one to either side of the head and then his knees pounded into her ribs. Calico grunted and backpedalled, throwing a punch to keep him off her. The raider easily dodged, but she got her space.
The two opponents settled into very different fighting stances. His was the practiced, trained stance of a martial artist. Calico’s was right off the cover of Pugilism Illustrated. One arm was forward, one arm bent in close, fists turned up.
“Alright, Sparky,” Calico said. “Let’s dance.”
She stepped in with a haymaker. The raider caught it and trapped her arm under his own, so she slammed her forehead into his nose. Both fighters reeled back, hands coming up to their faces. Calico bumped into the table. She snatched up a plate in her left hand and an empty syringe in her right.
He kicked, she sidestepped, and he slammed into the table. Calico whipped the plate around, shattering it on his face. He cried out in surprise and fell back to the floor. Calico dropped down atop him and began stabbing him with the syringe. She got him twice in the face and once in the throat before he managed to block with his forearm. The syringe dug in and snapped. Calico tossed aside the syringe, took a punch to the face, grunted and grabbed what collar he had.
The raider’s hands locked around her forearms in an attempt to pry them loose. She started pounding the raider’s skull against the floor. He roared in rage at her. She roared back and drove his head into the floor some more. The raider tried in vain to force or shake her off as his brain rattled about in his skull. Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. Finally, the raider worked his hands in and grabbed Calico’s chest. Then he squeezed and twisted.
Calico yelped in pain and threw herself back across the floor, shoving herself away until her back came up against a bed frame. Then she wrapped her arms up over herself. The raider slowly struggled to his hands and knees.
“You fuck.’ Calico growled.
The raider spat out blood and grinned at her as he wiped more from his mouth. “Like that’s the worst I’m gonna do to your body, bitch.”
Calico was back on her feet in a flash. She took two quick steps and launched a kick at his face. The raider rocked back on his knees and caught her ankle. He twisted, calico went down hard. She cracked her forehead off the table on the way down and bit her cheek when she hit the floor. She shook her head clear and spat out blood cursing.
Calico got her hands under herself, which only made it easier for the raider to get the belt around her throat. She threw herself backwards at him as he crossed his arms to tighten it. She slammed into him, but he had braced himself too well.
She was caught on her knees facing away from the raider, one arm raking at his, the other digging at the belt around her neck. As her air started to run out and she started gulping uselessly, the raider pushed his knee in between her shoulders causing her to lose the reach needed to get at him.
As a desperate last effort, Calico bluffed. She went limp after a couple weak grabs at the belt. He let her go, and she slammed into the floor face first. After the plan mostly subsided she thought: That plan had pros and cons. Next time I bluff I don’t fall on my face.
Then it took all her concentration to stop her body from reflexively sucking in oxygen. As she breathed calmly and unobtrusively, the raider started making disturbing sounds. First he caught his breath, quicker than Calico because he wasn’t playing possum. Second, she heard him take off his pants.
That was when Calico chose to act, quickly as a cat. She rolled to her back and drove her heel up at the raider’s exposed crotch. He was taken completely off guard. His face scrunched up with pain and surprise as he doubled over and collapsed to the floor.
Calico stood and looked down at him, pushing an errant lock of hair out of her face. Then she started kicking. She kicked him in the face, in the sides, in the back. She kicked him everywhere she could land a kick. She kicked until he stopped moving and her boots were soaked in blood form the numerous places she had split his flesh. And she kept kicking until he stopped making noise when he got hit.
Once that finally happened Calico knelt down beside the raider and took his throat in her hands. She looked him right in the eyes and clenched her hands. She strangled him until he died, through the struggles of his broken body, through the desperate attempts at getting air, through his body relaxing. She only let go once the light left his eyes.
Then she moved over and sat down on the bed. She slowly calmed her breathing and her heart rate came down. “Fuck.” She breathed. Then she looked over at the half undressed man. “Who’s the bitch now.” She said quietly. It hurt to talk.
She rose unsteadily, her body exhausted now that the adrenaline was gone. She left the shack and headed across to the one opposite. The door was lying on the floor just inside the door, thanks to Kincaide’s mighty kick. She stepped into the door way, resting her weight against on what passed for a frame.
The shack was almost identical to the one she had been in. This one had a raider’s body lying in the broken remains of a table, his arm and neck twisted to weird angles. Forks and a spoon stuck up out of his chest and face. Another raider was face down on a bunk bed, bed springs in his back.
Kincaide was sitting cross legged in the middle of the floor, holding a framed picture. A closed wicker basket was on the floor beside him. Calico thought he was tearing up. “Where’s your coat?” She asked, despite the pain of talking that loud.
Kincaide nodded toward the tent. “I lent it to the young ex-slave. I told her to stay there and stay quiet until someone came to get her.” He looked toward the blood and bruises. “What happened to you?”
She waved it off. “I got in a fight. What’s that?”
Kincaide looked down at the painting he held, smiled forlornly and turned it so she could see. Her eyebrows arched. It was a black kitten playing with a ball of yarn while another, full grown cat looked on. The other cat was a calico cat.
She would have laughed it wouldn’t have hurt. “You can’t see the irony in that?” She rasped.
Kincaide glanced at it. “A little.” He agreed. “I miss cats. I used to have four cats before the war. Sir Wilfred Laurier, General Sir Isaac Brock, William Lyon Mackenzie-King and Sir Muffin Fluffypants the third, esquire.”
“Those are weird names.”
“Have some water.” Kincaide pointed to a bottle by the ruined table. She obliged and took a sip. It was like ambrosia. Kincaide continued. “I’m Canadian, annex be damned.”
“So?” It hurt less. Not a lot less.
“I named my cats after Canadian political figures. Except Sir Muffin Fluffypants. General Sir Isaac Brock was the first cat I ever had. He was brown and grey and creamy white. When I was eight my mother and I picked him out at the shelter when he was two months old. From the start he was a grumpy, crotchety old man. He was my best friend for all his twenty seven years. He even survived the longest after the war, a fact I credit to spite.
“One thing I remember most is is one time he got into the basement and got himself absolutely filthy. So my mother and I gave him a bath. He hated it. He struggled and fought to get away. The thing is though, my mother got scratched and he put some holes in her shirt, but I didn’t. When he was trying to get away from me, he didn’t use his claws. He loved me too much. I loved him too.”
Calico swore she saw a tear run down the ghoul’s ruined face. She was in the same room where he had killed men with household items, normally non-fatal items, and she was watching him cry over a pet he had lost almost two hundred years ago. He was now sitting on the floor, smiling sadly at the painting.
“Uhh.” She was speechless, and uncomfortable as hell. So she changed the subject. “What’s in the basket?”
Kincaide almost jumped. He had been lost in thought. “Oh. Um, yeah. Yarn and knitting needles.”
Calico blinked at him. “Oh? For knitting?” It was a dumb question, and she knew it, but she asked it anyway.
Kincaide nodded, standing. He tucked the picture under one arm and took the basket up in the same hand. “The first thing I’m knitting is a pair of mittens. For you. They’re going to be green, with radioactive symbols on the back in yellow.” He extended his free hand to Calico. “Now let’s go get an ex-slave girl and go get paid.”
Calico took the hand and allowed the enormous softy to pull her up. “I’m kinda tired.”
“Don’t worry I’ll carry the heavy stuff.” Kincaide promised.
“Like the yarn?” Calico said after another sip.
“Yes the yarn. And my minigun.” He replied as they stepped outside.
“Laaaame.”
“Bitch.”
