Badass Dragons of the Wasteland - Round 1

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Yeah, that was me the year we left. Born a few years after Chelsea went down screaming, taking most of the planet along with her. I can’t remember who took that picture, or indeed who found a working camera that wasn’t fritzed by the EMPs, or used film that wasn’t fried by the X-rays. Shows what a hellion I was, wouldn’t hold still for haircuts and drew blood from any barber who tried.

I remember the waiting on the outskirts of the Bitch, waiting to see who would answer Cougar’s call. Early reports weren’t sounding good. The telepathy sent text and pictures and audio as well as the computers of the old days (or so Blazer used to tell me; I never saw a working computer myself), but you kids aren’t Drivers. You wouldn’t have any way to know just how efficiently the telepathy could communicate fear.

And pain.

Blazer was doubled over, regretting this whole operation, from the time the second Driver lost fingers to the filthy broken teeth of a ravenous zombie, or maybe felt the sucking squeeze of a tentacle around his neck within sight of the Orange County line… he couldn’t tell me. All he knew was that people were hurting. Angry, terrified, in agony. Some of them had no idea this trip would cost them so much. My dad was not what anyone would call a weak man (not if they wanted to live), but by the time Drivers began hobbling over to our makeshift camp, he’d been unconscious for an hour.

Cougar greeted them. Her telepathy was at least as strong as Blazer’s, but she knew this was going to be a bloodbath. That’s why she’d waited so long to call this mission. She wouldn’t consider it until all other options had been exhausted. She felt every last bit of the loss and sorrow and agony that was the Hollywood Run, the insane multimedia terrors of the San Diego Express, and the desperate bone-crunching slugfest that people could only later refer to as Gettin’ The Fuck Outta Riverside. She felt it all, but shed nary a tear, kept her gorge down, looked me briefly in the eye, and greeted the arrivals with rough cordiality.

She would do much worse before it was all over.

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Hey all! Still waiting for stats, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be in Mission 1 or not, but politeness dictates that I should introduce myself at this point, so here we go!

Wizard doesn’t remember his real name, or, at least, the name given to him by his parents. His friends call him Wizard, and Wizard is his name now. Why Wizard, you ask? What, you didn’t ask? Wizard doesn’t really care – you’ve got ears (or at least holes in the sides of your head), and Wizard likes to talk. It passes the time, especially in the wastes of the flat, deserted west. Sometimes Wizard makes himself laugh when he wonders if the desert is more or less deserted since the bombs dropped. Then Wizard gets sad. Real sad. Like, watching-your-dog-named-Scooter-give-himself-up-to-zombies-so-you-can-grab-a-can-of-gas sad. Like watching-a-good-friend-die-of-thirst sad. Like…

Wizard gets sad sometimes when he thinks about his old dog, Scooter. So sad that he forgets to finish his stories. Oh, right…why is Wizard called Wizard? Well, to sum it up, Wizard has a nose for finding gasoline where it seems no gasoline is. Hole in the ground at the service station? Gasoline. Big ol’ metal cylinder? Gasoline. Abandoned car? Gasoline. No one really knows how Wizard does it, but he seems to always know that where there’s civilization (or was, as it were), there’s gas. That’s why he became an escort: people out East paid good plates for access to Wizard’s nose, and, so Wizard heard after he crossed the Rockies, there’s quite a few survivors, with quite a few plates, living on the other edge of the world. Wizard is a long way from home, a long way from Scooter, and a long, long way from common sense. But common sense gets you killed. Or does it save you? Wizard always forgets.

If you haven’t already guessed, Wizard isn’t very smart. But he doesn’t know that, and people out East, where he’s from, sure didn’t know that. And he doesn’t care, because he’s got a tank full of ‘sniffed-out’ gasoline, a couple of big, shiny guns, and his car, a heavily-modified (and taped-together) '74 Dodge Challenger with more miles than some people have brain cells. Wizard is coming in from Riverside, around which he ran into a few other travelers headed towards LA. Wizard tried to explain his ‘nose,’ his ‘sniffing,’ and his name, but all he got were blank stares. Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, Wizard was afraid he had found people that were dumber than him. Little did he know that it was the opposite.

Username: WizardofWas
Character Name: Wizard
Class: Escort
Car: '74 Dodge Challenger R/T
Catchphrase: “Just wait! Wizard’s gonna conjure up some gas for y’all!”

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Gas works if that is what you got a nose for. How are you with sniffing out pepperoni pizza? I got a theory that a few jalapenos on that pizza pie and a little IBS and we get the SHITGO to take off like a rocket! Whaddaya say Wizard? Wanna help with an experiment or two?

We’ll call it Operation Chocolate Shotgun!

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Sounds like a plan. That’ll really help me conjure up some gas for y’all!

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Well shit, looks like we’ve got Crazy Larry hisself still driving a big-block Dodge.

Wizard, please tell me Dirty Mary’s still riding shotgun.

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Riverside, Get ready to learn some manners.

The escort of first resort! Gentleman Jim Brassers at your service, by contract or engagement. A man of his word who lives by the sword. Helping hand in a savage land, team player and Zombie slayer. Studebaker troublemaker.

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Yeah, my last wife said the same thing. Turns out I couldn’t learn to put the seat down.

But at least she taught me to wash my hands, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate when we shake in Riverside.

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pfft, no offense to the Wizard but the '74 wishes it was the badass '69 Crazy Larry was cruising in. 440ci with a 4 barrel carb they used in '69 was cut down to a 360 2 barrel by '74.

We get to Huntington there Wizard mayhap I’ll help you tinker that bad boy up, take it back in time a little if you will. Ought to be enough room under the hood, just gotta find the right parts…

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Zombie slayer will come in handy I am sure, how are you with the inbreds?

Ya know, looking down on those poor twisted igits in Riverside it is apparent that their family tree don’t fork. Reminds me of something my grandad once told me when I asked him who our people were.

See the last name Boyer isn’t too descriptive in that regard.

He told me we are French, pronounced it “Boy Yeah”. Said that since we were Frenchmen we had the widest family tree on Earth because Frenchmen ain’t picky. Claimed there might even be a little cocker spaniel in there somewhere…

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The guy admits to huffing gas for a living, I think we know why he might want a little more fuel economy…

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If the Chocolate Shotgun experiments work out like I think they will he can save all that gas for huffing the way God intended.

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The Wizard thinks you all may’ve misunderstood what his ride ‘Wanda’ is all about. What the ol’ '74 lacks in barrels and cubics and oil, it makes up for in weight, sluggishness, inefficiency and instability. What good is an escort that outruns its client?

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@William_Holz @SteampunkBanana you doggz may be pleased to know I am slowly, stealthily on my way back to Mann’s. Provisioning went well, recon went well from way up in the hills. Found my old Zeiss binoculars and artillery range finger, too. Stashed away in some hole or 'nuther. Not important.

What is important is: you buys ever heard of this place called “South Africa”? I heard a story once that you could buy these cars back there, way back, with flamethrowers on 'em, to knock out carjackers. Some kind old-world asshole thing I guess, just like today. Shit don’t change.

Anyway, we got 'em mounted on old miss 435 now. Good for cooking up popcorn too, now that I think about it. Theatre 'n all.

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Ahh, fire. I’d advise we keep flames to the rear of the convoy unless we run into something other than zombies to worry about. I dislike having to deal with flaming zombies . I think it’s the smell. Or the fire. Mostly the fire.

However, there is also if we get bored. I think if we get bored I would be amenable to burning things. Yes, that would do.

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There were long experiments done with various toppings, from what I remember it turns out that jalapenos creates some additional fiberous friction on the system (it’s typically the skins themselves, but the seeds play hell with the fuel injectors) which causes additional wear and tear on the Wellblight bladder transference.

Pepperoni’s natural quick digestive protein properties made it the ideal fodder for the system. I’ve heard of people going straight Slim Jims with fruit smoothies when short intense amounts of additional power were required back in the testing phase, but that wears a body out fast and it’s damn hard to get good fruit these days.

However, your IBS should definitely be looked at. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say. Stick with your IPAs with your pies.

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Pies? Now you’re talking. Proper pies, mind. Steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom…

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DO NOT EAT THE MUSHROOMS.

Back in the day we could get some decent mushrooms. You could trust the mushrooms. Portobello, shiitake, cremini… I recall an incredible evening spent in the company of a lovely lady and a miyake that left an indelible reminder.

That was before it got bad.
That was before the mushrooms wanted to get even.

Since then there have been countless lives lost outside St. Louis’s hotbed of white mushroom growing fields. The overflowing Mississippi made for a haven for the little bastards and their fiendish sharp teeth. Their crossbreeding has not gone well for the human race. If you see a mushroom on the ground you step back slowly and get the flamethrower out. I’d rather deal with a pair of mating bearaccoons than one of those little bastards.

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OOC – I missed the detail that this is supposed to take place in the nearer future than I thought when I came up with this character. But I asked the GM about playing a post-singularity android and he said OK. So I guess this must be a slightly alternate dimension where android tech is more advanced than now.

I look over at the lump of silicon, plastics, and polymers sitting in the passenger seat. He’d seen better days. A torso and head is all that is left of him. Most of the silicon flesh is gone, revealing the grey plastic under carriage. A tire mark slides across his chest. Despite all of that, there is still a spark of life. Servos whirl and click, trying to move limbs no longer there. I feel bad.

“So. Sorry about that.”

“No problem.”

“I really shouldn’t have just run you over like that.”

“No, no, it was entirely justified. I was trying to car jack you, after all.”

“Yeah, but I kinda feel like I over reacted. I mean, have I lost all of my humanity?”

“Well, gunning it and closing the distance to less than 10 meters so the AT4 rocket wouldn’t arm is one of the few things you could have done. “

“That… is totally what I meant to do. Does it hurt?”

“Nah, I shut down the pain receptors. It’s really odd though – like sleeping in a bathtub of water.”

“So what’s your name?”

“Well, I’m Simon. I am… was an employee of the Mindway Corporation as a ‘droid tech. I was trying to find the private residence of Dr. Levi. I wasn’t doing so good out there. I was barely functional. It was a last ditch effort to find someone to help.”

“’Droid tech – so are you a replicant or are you a person?”

“I… I don’t know. I am Simon Daley, but I can’t tell if I am really Simon, or just an AI running the clone of the real Simon. They started to do that to help stabilize the AI ‘droids.”

“I know how you feel. You’re too late with the doctor. He’s dead. I found his place a few months ago. He did leave a most amazing parting gift, however.” I wave my hand up and down my body, showing off the goods. “Well I really wish I’d known. I haven’t seen another ‘droid in years. I thought I was the last one.”

“I never would have attacked you had I known. You got to be aggressive. The moment they peg you as a ‘droid, they attack you. A gas mask only hides so much when they see your servos start to glitch.”

We continue down the highway in silence for a bit. We were kindred spirits, in a way; the last two sane men on earth. And I just creamed him. He probably doesn’t have much time left. I might be able to stabilize this power matrix for hibernation, but the lab is still an hour a way.

“So, who are you then?”

“Oh, I’m Jacky Blacque. This here is Apollo 69,” patting the wheel of my 1977 Unimog 404.

“You don’t sound like a Jacky Blacque.”

“Well of course not. Before this I was Buzz McCoy, before that, Sam Donaldson.”

“Sam Donaldson?”

“A Sam Donaldson – not the Sam Donaldson.”

I turn off the highway and start the trek along the side and dirt roads back to Levi’s lab. “Here, let me tell you a story, Simon. Believe it or not, I was a goddamn war hero –“

“Simon? Simon? Can you here me?”

“Yes… I can’t see.”

“There you go, try that now.”

“Yeah, I – I’m sorry I must have dozed off or entered sleep mode.”

“Nah – no problem. You just ran out of juice. I took you back to the lab and did some tinkering. It took awhile a few months, but your power matrix should be stable for now. I uploaded my collection of maps and some other information into your databanks.”

“I can’t move? I have no limbs.”

“Well, no, sorry. I can only do so much. But hey, we got each other for company, and I need a navigator/co pilot. Something big is brewing in Huntington Beach. I figured we would zip down through Hollywood and Los Angeles. Rumor has it there will be some zombies. And mutants. And if we are real lucky, zombie mutants.

“So, let’s crank up some tunes and I’ll tell you my life’s story on the way. It started back in the army…”

https://cdn.discourse.org//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/boingboing/original/2X/b/b788378c4230718dacc4129037020d48b61dde3d.png

Jacky Blacque - Go Apollo 69!

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~START TRANSMISSION~

This is Bill the BUM (that’s Badassed Ultimate Mechanic to you Mister!), en route from San Diego ( or whats left of her) in my [1980 Ford tow truck!][1] If you get stuck I got a winch on my cow pusher! If you get disabled in hostile territory give me a holler for my hook and I will haul your sorry escort ass outta wherever you get hung up! (just as long as you got the license plates to pay me…) You may not need my help by the time I get to the Bitch but IF you do I will be around, just call out on channel 19, I’ll get my drunk behind back on my ShitGo Throne eventually… BBUM OUT!

~END TRANSMISSION~

please send me an invite if its not to late :smile:

BREAK 1-9 BREAK 1-9: BBUM here: I’m Checking IN! I hear tell that a bunch of you ShitGo Jockeys are headed to the BITCH! Well COUNT ME IN! I wont get there by the time you arrive but I will be there when you need me most… Call out on 1-9 if you need my help, BBUM OUT!"

Prized Possion: A mutated (miniature) American Pitbull (Pibble) Terrier (F) named “Baby-girl”, Universal “Standard/Metric” Master Mechanics tool set, M4 Carbine rifle (5.56mm)
[1]: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1980s_style_tow_truck.jpg

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