Chapter 11
April 2 0350 ATG (After The Gate)
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I was out in a place the old world called the state of Virginia. Getting there had been a right royal pain in my ass. I had stopped in town called Mottsville to get some supplies and stop at the local watering hole. You easily get a sense of a place by the local clientele. You can learn things about who to watch out for, and who the helpful types will be. It’s also a secret hive of intelligence gathering, which this man learned a little too late. Needless to say, one night with the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and suddenly I was being attacked for the books I had found during a previous Ruin dive. I killed the mother fuckers, and for good measure, the man pulling all the strings. I learned from then on to avoid any local watering hole if it has a brothel attached.
I found out later after… cutting the loose ends that the bitch had made copies of my journal’s notes and passed them off. It wasn’t my cargo that caused all this death. It was a lack of precautions. From then on, I have since employed an encryption method that is lost to time. only I know how to decrypt it. It’s called base 64. Of course, it looks like gibberish, but I am a math genius, a human abacus.
– Archeologist Jonas Skarts. “Jonas’ Journal”
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Little shit’s house and potty training had been progressing slower than Jonas would have liked. It wasn’t that Jonas was complaining that the puppy wanted to be on his lap all the time, but it wasn’t good either. She likely missed her mother and Jonas had essentially become that surrogate parent. protecting the little shit only served to gain its undying loyalty. Unfortunately for his loyal protector, she was still injured and would likely remain that way for a while longer, but it was still funny to see the puppy growl at the guards that got too close. Thankfully they found it adorable and they would toss her snacks when Jonas wasn’t looking, which he had noticed, but chose not to say anything. If they wanted to share their rations, who was Jonas to stop them?
This brought Jonas back to the lap situation. He felt like the little missy- Yes, the little missy was becoming spoiled. How did Jonas know? Well, Georgy was kind enough to angrily enlighten the archeologist after the little shit valiantly claimed the co-leader’s drying boot. To be fair, Jonas was proud of the wolf pup, because she voluntarily went outside, only to then come back inside the wagon piss on his boot. It really was Jonas’ fault. He’d forgotten that puppies had weak bladders, but the main point, was that she was beginning to understand the idea. At least, that was what Peter had told Jonas.
The puppy lay there sleepily, covered by Jonas’ Buffalo skin duster. He began giving the puppy pets and scratches with his free hand, when Jonas heard the wagon driver whine from inside the heavy wagon. The archeologist grabbed the reigns with both hands and steered the horses 30 degrees to the left. A particularly injury aggravating bump was begging to be driven over. It just happened to be a co-incidence that the expedition was making another coarse correction here. “Stop your bellyaching, you pussy.” Jonas couldn’t help but aggravate the man. After all, the man Jonas had come to know as Warren had kicked his dog. “Eafy for you to fay. You Muffer Fuck- OOOW!” Warern cried out. He never got a chance to finish that toothless statement, because the wagon hit the bump Jonas had been aiming for. “You did that on Purpose.” Warren said, struggling with the last word.” Jonas just turned around and tipped his hat to the man.
There was a purpose to the seemingly pointless torture. Jonas was wrong about the man. Warren was not a fighter and was, in fact, the cowardly informant type, and while that was a gold mine of a reason for torturing the prick, it ultimately did Jonas no good in the end. He already knew who the fucker was feeding his info too, thanks to Peter. It was given to the Lead guard on shift (Shalty, Nick, or Mayble), which was then given to Georgy. Who? Well? Jonas wasn’t sure. Georgy probably kept it in a journal somewhere. There was also the co-Leader’s pet raven. Though, he wasn’t sure if it was being used as a messenger pidgin or not. “Maybe I’m wrong. His suffering is worth something. No one is allowed near or in Wagon 3 except this mother fucker.” Granted it was only once, and Peter had been the only one to see it happen, but regardless, Jonas shoved it out of his mind. If Georgy was feeding information to the council Than it could work against them. He’d just have to get to a telegram to warn Erick. Maybe the shady bastard of a friend could intercept the messages. Or maybe he’d have the Rattlers shoot it out of the sky once they got to Cave valley Hights. There was also the fact that he was going to have to start working the leads of this expedition, but that was an issue of opportunity and success was never guaranteed, but that was a problem for future Jonas. For now, however, Warren was the focus.
“You still alive back there?” Jonas shouted, trying to start a meaningful conversation. He couldn’t just ask for the information outright, and not in a way that gave Warren away, but maybe he could he could get a hint about it from the snake. “Yeah. Whaf’s it fo you?” Warren spat back. “Oh, don’t be like that, now. Were just making friendly conversation. What do you say? It’s going to be a long trip.” There was a long silence as if Warren was thinking about it, but right when Jonas was going to give up, Warren bit. “Ok. Fine! Whaf do you wanf to talk afout?”
Their conversation was an interesting one. To Jonas horror, he was actually starting to like the man. It turned out, that Warren liked collecting coins from before the great forgetting. Jonas knew plenty of people who indulged in that sort of hobby. Hell, He’d collected a great many of them. Quarters, nickels, dimes, and even the elusive penny or two. There were even the half and whole dollars, but those were extremely rare. It was something He really didn’t want to part with, but he would if it meant achieving this lifelong dream of his. There was also an aspect of these old-world coins that Warren either didn’t know, or knew and failed to bring up, and that was the fact that they were used by the frontier and the elites as an alternat currency for high dollar trading and deals. The conversations moved onto various other topics, such as, favorite places in glory, and stories of Jonas’s more successful finds. This was clearly an attempt at information gathering. It also served as a reminder of who the enemy was, and that Warren was one of those enemies.
Jonas humored the man, and told him an abridged version of how he met Little Shit. The story wasn’t exactly true. It involved a doomsday bunker that had a working terminal in it. Jonas made sure to point out the terminal was now dead and useless for good measure. They were known to exist, and were found from time to time still working, running on some kind of power they just didn’t quite understand yet, but it was still finite with little time left up to a couple years of juice. “Thafs a dum name for a puppy.” Warren remarked. Jonas restrained the urge to get up and stomp on the man’s shattered knee. He instead redirected that anger into something more productive, a question. “Speaking of pets, I haven’t seen many on the expiation. Why aren’t there?” Warren was quiet for a breath longer than usual. Jonas had picked up on this. The man didn’t have any visible ticks that could be witnessed. No, his ticks were verbal. At least, that’s what Jonas suspected. It was how long Warren took to answer something.
Warren spoke in a cadence of sorts. He was always quick to answer and waited no later than one Mississippi and a half. Very rarely in all the time dealing with the man did he rarely take longer. However, Jonas also realized that wasn’t always a sign the man was nervous about an answer, but it could be a strong indicator at the very least. This pause was for one Mississippi and close to a second. Jonas didn’t rush him. Doing so would be suspicious, and lacking in manners. After all, Jonas had knocked out Warren’s teeth. “It is only a rumor, mind you.” The man was carefully annunciating his words with the obstical course that was his mouth. “Rumor is, is only practicle animles are allowed on the exthfedition” He paused to swallow some spit. “to redufe the thrane on resources.”
“Now that is a great cover” Jonas mumbled. “Waf That?” Warren asked. “It explains why dogs brought are practically non-existent.” Jonas said, covering for his slip up, but continued probing. “Did you bring a bird or something small like a puppy or guard dog.” Jonas threw the mention of a puppy in as a verbal barb to throw the man off. He was silent again. It was as if he was evaluating how much he should say. Jonas looked back, but didn’t see any anger on Warrens face, but he wasn’t talking either. “That’s fair. I promise not to harm your pets.” Jonas gave him a lop-sided grin. “Besides, you’ve paid your dues. I won’t pry.” Warren gave a sigh of relief, but it sounded forced. “It is hard to thpeak. Leth me know if you need any help.” Like that, Warren killed the conversation. It didn’t confirm much, but it was enough. That Raven had to die.
They’d gotten a good 15 miles that day when the wagons circled up to make camp that evening. Georgy took Jonas’s advice and had traps set for any wildlife that was unfortunate enough to get caught in them. Jonas was glad to see his advice was being taken. Even if they caught the odd coyote or two, it would extend their food supplies enough to where it wasn’t as high a toll as it normally would. The wood was another matter. They were headed towards the great plains in winter weather. The wood they cut down wouldn’t be ideal for burning and would take time to dry out, but if they could get enough, it could extend their reserves later on down the road.
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Jonas circled back to make sure Warren didn’t need anything. He had built a little bit of a repour with the bastard, it never hurt to deepen the relationship. After all, Jonas was no professional torturer or manipulator of information, but he did know a thing or two about the human condition, and one crucial thing was this, People tended to have loose tongues around those they liked or trusted. With that done he went to find the various leads and gather a report for their findings. Tracking these individuals down was a bit of a chore. Some were back and others were still out about completing their tasks
The first Jonas hit up was the lead in charge of security for that evenings shift. Jonas didn’t see the whole team, so he couldn’t just mark the area as safe. “Hey.” Jonas greeted with a tip of his hat. “Hey, Jonas.” Shalty greeted back a little coldly. “You could be a little nicer to me, you know. It might warm you up in this nasty cold.” Shalty was indeed feeling the cold. She also gave Jonas a deadpan look as she said, “Thanks for the reminder.” “Hey now, Piece, Shalty, peace.” Jonas took off his duster and draped it around her shoulders. The security lead didn’t look happy about it, but she didn’t shy away either, and excepted the warm buffalo fur-lined duster. “Thanks… I guess.” Shalty looked away for a moment before meeting his eyes with a hard glare of her own. “I take it you want our report.” Jonas nodded. She handed it to him and walked off to rejoin her people.
Jonas heard a whine and he looked down to see his wolf pup staring at him. “No.” The pup whined again and shivered. “I said no. You’re getting spoiled and you stink.“ Jonas accused and rationed out. The pup’s whine was longer this time and Jonas gave in, wishing he hadn’t lent his duster to the pretty women in charge of their security, but like Warren, it served a similar function. “Come here you, Little Shit.” Jonas picked the puppy up and wrapped her up in his coat. “Happy?” Jonas grumped. Shit didn’t make a peep. Jonas sighed as he finished his rounds. As he was skimming through the reports, he saw something in Tannrer’s scavenger report that caught his interest. His scavenging team had found an old world ruin off to the east by a river. It was a large one by the looks of the report.
Jonas pulled out the pages related to the ruin’s location, and skimmed through them then nosed his way into what they found in the surrounding area. Jonas could feel excitement boiling up from within himself. The more he read, the more excited Jonas got. It would actually do him some good to get out beyond the confines of the wagon. Surely, they wouldn’t mind If he disappeared for a few hours. “Well shit, it beats sitting around a fire waiting for a knife in the back.” Pluss, archeology had always been Jonas’ passion. It was why he’d become one in the first place. That’s not even getting into the many other reasons he had become one. There was the adventure, the excitement, the fact it made him feel closure to his past, but most importantly, his dream. It was also just… just a refreshing change of pace.
“Hey Jonas. What do you got there?” The sudden question caused the archeologist to jump with electrically charged reflexes. It was Lars. “Piece, Jonas.” Jonas didn’t tip his hat. “You’re going to give me a heart attack. What brings you this way?” Lars took Jonas’ bluntness in stride. “I’m just here to remind you which wagon the meetings going to be in. It’s gonna be in that one over there.” Lars pointed at the Wagon in the middle. Jonas chuckled. “We both know that will change the moment the man wakes.” Lars laughed. “Look, Jonas. I never thanked you for having my back out there the other morning. You know, when the expedition was attacked.”
Jonas knew nothing of the man or his tells. If Lars was being genuine, or if the man was trying to plant weakness, Jonas had no idea. One thing was for certain; he looked conflicted about thanking Jonas. There were also the covert scowls being thrown in Lars’ direction. “Well shit, Lars. You’d have and did do the same for me. So as far as I’m concerned, we are even.” Jonas wasn’t actually sure he had. A lot happened very quickly, and there was a lot of shooting and killing that morning, but Jonas liked to believe it was true. Lars clapped him on the back. “Well, thank you all the same. I owe you one.” Lars said, walking towards the team heading in the direction of the tree line. Jonas gave a quick glance at the surrounding people. Not everyone was glaring at Lars, but it was enough of the guard detail that Jonas mentally categorized Lars as a potential ally. He’d have to confirm that.
All his thoughts on who was loyal and who would likely kill him was beginning to stress Jonas out. The archeologist shoved all thoughts of betrayal to the back of his mind to focus on getting this last chore done, and getting his little loyalty test set up. Besides, he had more important things to do, like getting to those ruins. The mere thought of plundering its secrets filled Jonas with excitement. Remotivated, the archeologist delivered the report, but kept the pages detailing the ruin and its location a secret. Jonas had certain ideas about testing Lars, and didn’t want to be any where near the camp if shit went south.
Making his way back to his wagon, Jonas chose a path that put him in collision with Peter and Lars. It totally had nothing to do with spreading misinformation of any kind. Nope. He’d never, except he was intending to do just that. Though, Georgy happening to walk by while talking to Peter was a happy coincidence entirely, but first in line was Lars. “Hey Lars.” Jonas tipped his hat in greeting. “Jonas. It’s not really a good time. One of the scavengers is hurt and-” But Jonas cut him off. “I’m sure they will be fine. Were inside the encirclement and the security report shows were in the all clear.” Lars looked like he wanted to say something, but instead, opted to say something else. “Just be quick. I can’t dally too long.” Jonas nodded in acceptance. “Ok. That’s fair. I’m going to go check out some ruins off to the east. There might be some stuff that might help us out later on.” “Sure, sure.” Lars said waving him off to get back to the scavenger team.
Peter was next. Jonas tipped his hat. “What’s on your mind?” Peter asked. “Nothing much. I’m gonna leave my journal with you for a while.” That was when Georgy walked by. Jonas pulled the Journal out to hand Peter. Hanging out slightly was a paper labeled cypher. Georgy about tripped. “Can you make sure nobody takes this? There’s something I have to do and I can’t risk losing or destroying it.” Peter nodded and took the journal. By now, Georgy was out of earshot and having his own conversations. Jonas pulled Peter into a brotherly hug and whispered, “I’m testing Lars. This journal is a fake. Keep a loose eye on Shalty, and how the others react.” Jonas whispered rapid fire and pulled away. “Take care.” With that out of the way, Jonas made his way to the wagon to grab some extra ammo, and his spare duster. While it was warming up, it was still cold as hell, and without his stinky coat warmer, it was a little noticeable. There was also some other stuff he needed to grab, such as an extra bag for any books he might find, empty journals for transcription, food and water incase Jonas got stranded, and pretty much anything that could be of use in a run of the mill ruin dive.
Jonas felt his spirits soaring as he finished packing. Shit was scampering about without a mind in the world, which reminded Jonas that he might want to bring the leash just in case. He didn’t think the puppy would run away, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t. Jonas also felt compelled to start training the little shit in the art of tracking. Even though Jonas had no idea how he would start, he could at the very least introduce the idea to the puppy.
Jonas didn’t wait or leave under the stealth of night. He wasn’t no prisoner, and the idea was for him to be seen leaving, anyway. Otherwise, his loyalty test wouldn’t work. He was still nervous, however. After all, Jonas had painted a large target on his back after openly handing that fake journal to Peter. It also depended on weather or not Georgy acted to rashly or not. Jonas didn’t think he would. He would likely wait until he knew the cypher worked. Of course, Georgy was still a bit of an unknown. So, anything was possible.
Jonas was now on now beyond the encirclement with his bag over his shoulder and his adrenalin pumping. The wolf pup was hot on his heals, no doubt excited to be on an adventure. At least, that’s how Jonas liked to Imagin it. The reality of it was, that the puppy was just happy to be wherever Jonas was. This little exercise in imagination did help to slightly distract from the anxiety of being shot dead. The hardest part about the whole affair was resisting the urge to look back like Jonas trusted those snakes to be in his blind spot. His companion couldn’t fully be trusted to warn Jonas anymore, anyway, because the wolf pup had gotten used to the people in the expedition. It didn’t help that they always tossed the bottomless pit little bits here and there.
Jonas sighed nervously, even feeling his body slowly becoming electrically charged. It wasn’t until Jonas was at the tree line that he started to relax. It wasn’t like there weren’t any people around him that gave Jonas a sense of security. It was the fact that the scavenger team sent out here didn’t all hate him, and the security that was out here wouldn’t have received any orders to shoot or apprehend, and even if they had, he would soon be lost within the trees. It still didn’t stop Jonas from going all jumpy when the sudden cracking and the fall of a massive tree invaded the silence of the forest around him.
Jonas instinctively crouched, and reached for his revolver just out of pure reflex. “Shit!” Jonas cursed. “Give a man heart attack.” But, Jonas should have expected it, considering the reason the scavenger team was out there in the first place. “Which reminds me. Come here.” Jonas snagged his little ball of fluff and clipped the leash to her. “Don’t need you getting caught in any of the traps, now do we?”
