"Whuuf?" Steak looked up to Garret and then back to the little blonde girl on the other side of the wire mesh gate. "Whuuf."
"The republic of what?" Garret was saying. He took a quick look up at the small fenced in compound, at the handful of buildings and the two brahmin. One of them mooed at him when he met its gaze. He looked back to the little girl.
"Dave. The Republic of Dave." She answered. "Now do you want in or not?"
"And you're who? The gatekeeper? Border patrol?" Garret was skeptical of the whole Republic thing, to say the least.
The little girl snorted at him. "What else would I be? Now do you want to visit and see President Daddy or not?"
President Daddy? Garret looked to Steak, Steak did something that looked a lot like a shrug. Well, President Daddy is better than Imperial Overlord Daddy. "Alright, I would like to speak to the President."
The girl nodded her head once, unlocked the gate and motioned for the man and dog to follow. They passed a few other children, and a young man repairing a gap in the fence, and a young woman dusting off an old book. The girl led Garret up to the central building and inside, where two women were having a hushed argument in one corner. Garret was about to interject, when a man stepped out of a back room.
He was tall, middle aged and had his hair cropped close to his head. He wore a thin moustache and had an assault rifle on his back. Steak padded over to the arguing women and snuggled in between them while Garret approached the man.
"I am President Dave, democratically elected leader of the Republic of Dave." By now, Garret was more than certain that Dave wasn't exactly stable. "Are you an ambassador to our great nation? A merchant perhaps? Or," some repulsion crept into Dave's voice. "A refugee."
Garret took another look around. The argument had ended with Steak's intervention, and the little gatekeeper was no where to be found. "I'm just looking for some information, actually, Mr. President."
Dave humphed at that, crossing his arms. "If you want some information, you can talk to the Republic of Dave's tourism office. And then you can leave. Or, you can leave right now."
Garret sighed internally. This was going to be harder than expected. "I can trade my services for information, President Dave. I'm a doctor. I can check over your citizens, make sure everything's ship-shape with them. And then, you can answer some questions for me."
Dave looked at the Colt .45 holstered on Garret's right thigh, then the combat knife sheathed on his left, then the 10mm pistol in a shoulder rig, and the katana handle sticking up over his left shoulder. "A doctor you say?" Dave sounded as skeptical as Garret felt. "A doctor of what?"
"Medicine. What else would I be a doctor of?"
"Robotics." Dave leaned in closely. "Which would do my people no good. They're not robots."
Garret looked over at Steak, who was laying on his back, feet flopping in the air, tongue lolled out of his mouth as the women rubbed his belly. He let out a little doggy groan as Garret looked away. This is getting worse every second. "Medicine. I am a doctor of medicine. Just medicine."Then, as an after thought, to be safe, he added: "President Dave. Do we have a deal?"
Dave chewed his lip, putting on a show of taking his time, and forcing Garret to wait. Which Garret thought was a terrible plan. He didn't have the patience he used to, especially not for morons like this Dave.
He was about to put his knife to Dave's throat, when the President finally spoke. "No deal, Doctor. The citizens of the Republic of Dave are in perfect health, and the majority are of my own blood. No disease can penetrate our borders."
Garret's fists clenched involuntarily, and his scarred eye twitched rapidly three times. His arm shot out, snaking around Dave's upper arm. With a smooth twist of his hips and a tug on Dave's arms, the president was laying on his back on the ground, Garret still holding his arm in his left hand, the Colt .45 in his other, aimed at Dave's face.
Across the room, Steak had the two women cornered near the stairs, crouched down in front of them, ready to spring. The dog was positioned in such a way that he could watch both the women and Garret. Garret wondered, not for the first time, how the thing was so smart.
"I need information, David." Garret's voice was filled with implications of violence. "Slavers took my family. My daughter is already dead. Now tell me where the fuck I can find the slavers, or I will shoot you and burn your little republic to the ground. I will leave here and it will be just another patch of burnt ground and I will find my information elsewhere. Now, Mr. President, where are those bastards?"
Garret watched as Dave thought things through. It took a lot less time than his last thinking break did. Dave was a killer, and a parent, and he recognized the intensity in Garret's eyes.
"West-southwest of here, a few days travel by foot, you'll find an old mall complex. It's called Paradise Falls. It's damn hard to get into. You'll need backup. A lot of backup. Backup the Republic of Dave cannot supply. Now you have your answers, get out and never return to my republic."
Garret nodded once to him, in thanks, then backed off. He and Steak left the Capitol Building, and Garret didn't re-holster his old pistol until they were behind cover and well out of range.
He and Steak sat down in the shade of an old tree, and Garret dug out some brahmin jerky for them to share. He scratched the big dog behind his ears, eliciting a pleased "Whuuf."
"This is a crazy backwards half of the country, Steak. I can't wait till we find my family and go home." He looked off in the direction Dave had pointed him. "Well, we have a direction, and a location. Paradise Falls. That's a hell of a name for a slaver's den." Steak whuufed around a mouthful of jerky. "We're low on light, Steak. Let's get going."
With that, Garret rose and began the long walk toward Paradise Falls, the big dog padding along at his side.
