Engineer
By Den
Part 1
I've always had a
natural ability with tools and an instinctive understanding of machinery. From
the fragments that I have read, the world was a far different place than it is
now. Wags roamed the land, air and sea. With so much machinery, I can only
assume that people with talents like mine were quite common. Now, in post nuke
America, better known as Deathlands, most people are too busy with the basics of
survival to bother trying to repair what very little machinery remains. I grew
up with my two brothers, both strong and extremely talented with weapons. It is
because of my brothers that my talent for machinery was allowed to grow.
We lived in a log cabin, far from any Ville's or Baronies. My
name is Volun, the names of my two older brothers are Elan and Sanford. About a
half a days walk from our home lie some pre dark ruins. It is there where I
learned my skills, for years I would scavage the ruins for machinery, and any
scraps of knowledge on how to maintain it. My brothers took care of the hunting
and other chores giving me the necessary time to increase my knowledge. One of
my first major achievements was when I got a wag working. This was a great help
to me as it allowed me to transport the tools and machinery I found from the
ruins to my home. I always went armed on my visits, my weapons were a 9mm glock
17 handgun, a Rugar mini 14 rifle with a 30 shot clip, plus two spares, and a
kabar fighting knife.
The ruins had many dangers, from falling
debris to muties, both human and animal. Of the human mutants, the worse were
the stickies, if you are a resident of Deathlands you already know more than you
would like about the Stickies. Fortunately, the Stickies were not very numerous.
The same could not be said for the mutie rats, which were the size of dogs. The
rats were smart, vicious, and, unlike the Stickies, numerous. One of my best
finds was a portable generator. I was just pulling it out from a (surprise,
surprise)collapsed building, when from around the corner I heard the sound of
small rocks being disturbed, followed by a rather harmless sounding "peeeep". I
unslung my mini 14, jacked a round into the chamber and cautiously peered around
the corner. I was greeted by a wall of beady red eyes. There were 15 -20 of
them, ranging in size from a terrier to a German shepard. Their fur was matted
and dirty. There were patches of fur missing, and a host of vermin covered them.
The largest rat, who appeared to be the leader, hissed. I began to back away
slowly, hoping to avoid a potentially fatal confrontation. The lead rat snarled
and began to advance, his brethren following behind me. I immediately shot the
lead rat, a small red spot appearing right between his eyes. I backed away as
fast as I could, discharging the rest of my magazine into the pack. I was saved
by two things, the noise from my rifle startled the pack, giving me time to gain
some distance, the other thing that saved me was that the sight of blood and the
thrashing of the wounded muties drove the others into a frenzy,as soon as a rat
took a round, its brethren would attack and begin to devour it. When the Mini 14
ran out of ammo there was no time to reload, I turned and ran, there was only
about 100 feet left to the wag; normally a very short distance, with death
behind, an eternity away. I made it to the wag, fortunately there was only one
mutie rat behind me, the others were either dead, wounded, or eating one of its
less fortunate mates. I realized that I would not be able to get into the wag
before the mutie reached me, so I dropped the Mini 14, drew my Glock and fired.
My first shot missed, in spite of the fact that the rat was very close. The rat
halted its charge and stood up on its hind legs. Standing up it was almost at
eye level, its breath smelled of garbage and rotting corpses. I was about to
hand it a ticket on the last train to the coast, when it reached out and grabbed
my blaster from my hand! For a second I thought that I would be the one to get
chilled. If the damn thing was smart enough to grab my blaster, it was not hard
for me to imagine it shooting me with it. The mutie did not reverse its grip on
my blaster, it held onto the Glock by the barrel while I stared into it's hate
filled, close set red eyes. I don't know how long we stared at each other, time
seemed to stand still. The standoff was suddenly, violently broken when the rat
dropped my blaster. At the same time as my blaster hit the ground, I drew my
Kabar. The mutie snarled and lunged at me, its six inch fangs going for my
throat. I twisted aside, at the same time punching straight out, knife held
point down and blade facing outwards. I was hoping to cut it's throat but the
rat dropped his head and my blade merely sliced the top of his nose. The mutie
squealed in rage, the wound was painful, but by no means fatal. The advantage
was with the Mutie, If I did not win quickly, the other Muties would soon finish
dining on their dead brethren, and I would be the one heading for the coast. The
wag was right behind me, but to turn away, even for a second, would undoubtedly
prove fatal, two angry red eyes watched everything I did. Once again we stood
facing each other, the rat still on it's hind legs. I stood in a slight crouch,
left foot slightly ahead of my right. This time I made the first move, bringing
the Kabar up in a circular motion to again slash at the Muties throat. It reared
back, as I had hoped it would, and I continued my motion, circling downward and
twisting my wrist so that the blade pointed outwards. As the Rat reared it's
head back, it's body came closer, meeting my blade point first right below the
sternum. I jerked out the knife and the rat fell down, convulsed, and died. I
looked towards the other muties, and saw that I had an audience. The surviving
rats had paused from eating their brothers to watch the fun. Some resumed their
feast, but others began to slowly creep forward, while emitting an ominous
hissing sound. I threw the Mini 14 into the wag and retrieved my glock. I wasted
no time getting my ass into the wag; as soon as I slammed the door shut, the
muties lost their caution and charged. The wag, for once, started on the first
turn, and I was home free. Looking in the rear view mirror I saw that some of
the rats were following me, so I decided to give them a little gift. From under
the seat I pulled out one of my brother Elans inventions, a home made gren. In
deathlands, grens are very rare, almost to the point of nonexistence. Elans
grens aren't as useful as the pre dark variety, where all you have to do is pull
a pin to arm it. Elans are simpler, just a steel can with a fuse sticking out.
this one was a frag variety, it had bits of metal mixed in with the powder. The
fuse lit with a satisfying hiss, and 5 seconds after I tossed it out the window
I heard a "WHUMP", followed by squeals of agony. The sun was shining, the air
was clean, and my enemies were dead or in agony. It was a beautiful day.
End