Repurposed 14.2

Interval 14.2
February 4, 2015
1130, City 47
Outlands / Exact Location Unknown



"Oh yeah, I just love it out here," Corey said, taking a big breath and pretending that there weren't a dozen reasons to start coughing. Burning rubble, old pig shit, dust clouds, gun-smoke left over from Geoff's maniacal slaughter of bullsquid. Corey was responsible for lugging around most of the gear, or at the very least helping Leigh punt it around as they moved through the area.

"It's refreshing," Zonie said, "isn't it just?"

"You guys are assholes," Leigh muttered, "that last fucking bullsquid spat a hole in my boot."

"Cry me a river," Zonie laughed, "least you have boots."

"Could we please be a bit more quiet?" Geoff said, distracted, but smiling. "And by we I mean you?"

The fact that the other three young men didn't respond brought an even bigger grin to Geoff's face. They weren't the normal crew he'd prefer to run around the countryside with, but they were entertaining, and he could stand to be entertained. The train yard they had just explored had yielded numerous caches of unused weapons and cargo: probably intended for the nearest National Guard station, never having arrived.

If only they could use the trains; if only they knew where the tracks led.

Slowly but surely they worked their way back north and east, along those tracks until Geoff could recognize landmarks or find some kind of map. Even if Leigh and Corey and Zonie weren't his typical crew... They made it much easier for Geoff to admit that he was dead lost, and that he would have liked it if Paxton's Replicas had been around to at least laugh and point at him for it.

Not like Zonie didn't do that already, but whatever.

They knew how to reach cover quickly, even if the bullsquid did get the better of Leigh's boot. Out here, there were fewer ruins and more half-dead or upturned trees to hide under. Overgrown farms, rotted orchards, vine-shadowed cemeteries, all far more rural than the urban areas he'd already mapped out closer to the Enrichment Center. By his guess, Geoff thought they may be around fifty or sixty miles south, south-west of the place. They'd been out for several days, tracking a long, curved arc along the uninhabited Outlands.

The train tracks at least gave him some sense that they could be heading in the right direction, since they ran north-south, and Geoff asserted that they'd follow them until they found a good highway or street system. Obviously he was more comfortable in those civilized ruins, but then they all were. The Enrichment Center hadn't exactly been a nature preserve. Though it was broad daylight, Geoff felt it was reasonably safe – far enough away from City 47 and in abandoned territory that they could just follow the tracks themselves instead of lurking under trees and skulking around walls. They could make far better time in this manner, at least.

So for the next two hours, Leigh and Corey jostled three large weapon crates while Zonie and Geoff scouted the area for activity. They hadn't seen any hint of Combine in the area, but there were a plethora of other unsavory critters. The night before, they'd been holed up in a farm house. Would have been a perfect place to actually settle down, except for the presence of nearly a dozen bullsquid that patrolled their territory with almost military precision. Sludgy runoff from some long buildings stank horribly and made for the perfect bullsquid housing. Zonie explained that there had been pigs in that structure, until fairly recently.

There were still a couple live ones, the ones that were big and tough enough to face down the alien life forms. And the guys just did not want to fuck with that.

"It is actually kind of nice out here," Corey announced, once they'd passed the last hog farm and headed into the woods. There were still birds roosting in the canopy. Under the branches, what looked like wild cats and small animals as well as a few escaped hogs, right along side the headcrabs and houndeyes, had their nests and territories.

There would be good hunting in this area, if they did decide to try and clear out that farm. They quietly discussed what might need to be done, in order to achieve that goal. Shortly however, they could make out a break in the trees: a road.

Properly paved, this time. Two others they passed were merely gravel, and it was highly unlikely that they led anywhere important. Certainly not back to Auburn or Fairport. This one, though, had a few cars scattered in the distance, and Geoff urged flotsam and jetsam over there to toss the crates – gently – in that direction. He and Zonie meanwhile made sure that there were no mines, hidden traps, or other typical dangers. On finding none, Geoff looked for road signs or directions.

There was nothing specifically visible, so Geoff began rooting through one of the nearby trucks looking for a map. The others took it upon themselves to get comfortable, see what else could be looted. They announced that they were, in fact, hoodlums, breaking several car windows and cheering at one another when they actually found a cooler with intact beer bottles in it.

Geoff didn't even bother warning them to shut up, this time. Maybe the sun had baked their brains into bricks within their skulls, it was a reasonably cloudless day and their behavior certainly said they were insane. Quietly he decided that he'd be damned if they'd be coming along with him on any serious runs. Meaning anywhere into formerly-civilized parts. Out here however, maybe if he snuck away they wouldn't even notice he was gone...

"You have got to see this shit, Geoff," Zonie said, startling him and suddenly backing off from Geoff's reflexively pulled pistol. "Fuck, you're fast."

Geoff holstered the gun and rolled his eyes, "yes, I am. And you're quiet."

"When I want to be," Zonie said. But he was too excited to continue being silent. His hay-colored hair was messy, grass green eyes wildly shining. "Come and see this," he repeated. He had one of the beers in his hand, offered it to Geoff who declined. When they got where he wanted to be, Zonie extended that now empty beer bottle toward the scene beyond a broken down tow truck.

Though Leigh and Corey were already disrupting it, Geoff could make out a number of ...interesting details. There were a couple of men laying dead across a section of the road, two other burnt out vehicles, a shack and a barbeque grill.

Geoff shook his head, threw his hands up and said, "I give up, what am I supposed to be seeing?"

"The murder scene," Zonie said in a ridiculous wavering voice, while trotting happily over a broken crate and onto the dirt road. This one spiked away from the main thoroughfare, to the south.

A ruined looking building was nearby, but Geoff suddenly realized that it hadn't been struck by anything recent like a Portal storm... It had always been exactly as it looked now. He had the impression that he'd get splinters just by looking at it. Unsealed and unpainted planks hardly dared to press up against the structure's frame, bent and rusted nails cautiously connecting them. An assortment of wooden planks and metal sheets made up the roof, a ragged hole seemed to have been a window at one point. There was a cracked, heavily stained cement slab below this thing, Geoff couldn't imagine it having been anything other than a run down, temporary shack and hoped that none of these dead people actually lived there.

He got the feeling, as he walked across the scene, that they had. Or at least one of them had. That would be the gentleman with the shotgun sitting across his lap as he sat, dead, on the porch of that shack. What a fine example of Humanity he was. Now, to be fair, Geoff had 'lived' in far worse situations these days, but that didn't mean he liked it. He wasn't so sure about the dead men's opinions on the matter.

It wasn't typical for Geoff to start giving more than a faint appraisal of individuals... He realized that it might be Zonie himself, projecting accidentally and drunkenly into their minds. Zonie's impression, then, was that these brutish hicks had some kind of argument and got themselves all broken.

Yes, that would be what he thought. Geoff tried to ignore the illusory emotions; why was it that some people could breech his mental defenses easily, and others not even get a ping through? It really wasn't helping that Zonie could get tipsy off nearly anything, and frankly, they never had much in the way of alcohol back at the Center. So Leigh and Corey were dubbed 'lightweights' by the tow-headed goof-off, and Geoff was chided from the sidelines for not wanting to indulge himself.

As he gazed across the road, Geoff's subliminal training started to bubble up in his mind. He really did get the sensation that something weird had happened here. It wasn't just that Zonie was trying to see nefarious doings where there were none. Leigh and Corey had picked things up and put them back down, but now watched with interest as Geoff started slinking around the place in earnest.

Four men, all dead. One with the gun had clearly blasted at the other three, but it hadn't been shot that killed any of them. More of the shot had actually struck the barbeque grill. That was what had killed the one man: the propane tank's line ruptured or at least sparked somehow, and one of the tubes looked like it had shot out a five-yard gout of fire. The man attending the grill was burned to death, and he'd done a lot of running around in the meantime. The flames had ignited one of the two vehicles, and had spread explosively. Probably more alcohol sitting on the seat? No, a second propane tank: its twisted remnants looked much like the fuel line back at the Enrichment Center.

It was one of those explosions that somehow shot off a chunk of the truck's door with incredible violence back through the air over the barbeque. The door handle struck the shotgun-wielding man straight in the eye, a fact which Geoff only realized when he found the thing lodged in the back of the man's skull. From the inside.

The other two had less easily spotted wounds. Geoff nudged one's head with his foot, saw a shard of thick green glass rising from the web-shattered bone: the same kind of beer bottle that Zonie was breaking out and sharing. But why? Surely these people were neighbors, or at least friends? What would turn them against one another? While they were having a pleasant cook-out?

The last man still clutched the broken beer bottle's neck in his hand, but was face-down on the ground. Obviously they'd been dead for months, but there were no creatures brave enough to come up to them to eat them or drag them away early on. Only ants and such, they'd had their fill and had left the corpses quite thoroughly picked over. Probably the propane flame kept most animals at bay. How long would a tank like that burn? Not that long.

How the last one died was now the subject of Geoff's intense thought. Soft tissue damage? Had to be: the only broken bones visible were his skull (probably fractured in his youth and healed years before this event) and his wrist, which still bore a rotted brace. He obviously didn't have any self-inflicted wounds, and didn't have a gun on him.

All three of Geoff's companions had situated themselves on the rear of the second truck, finishing off the beers. Geoff was so captivated by this bizarre death struggle that he all but ignored them.

"He's gonna do that thing," Zonie nudged Leigh, "watch. Watch. He'll do it." Even Leigh rolled his eyes at his companion's overly-energetic demeanor, but watched none the less.

And sure enough, Geoff did that thing: where he stood still, only moving his head around, letting his eyes take in everything they could. And then he raised his hand to his beard and slowly drew his fingers down his chin.

He stopped abruptly when the three other guys began laughing hysterically. His fingers found their way to his forehead, instead. Maybe he would just slip away while they were getting drunk. How was it that of the four of them, with Zonie the eldest-born... Geoff felt an entire generation more mature than the others?

But Geoff still got on with the last of his investigation. Now that there was a mystery and an audience, he could hardly just drop it. Kneeling, he gently turned the last man's torso over, and exposed what was left of his face. Had to be something unseen, poison perhaps? Choking? Geoff wasn't sure, and out here in the field, he couldn't make a proper analysis. The guy was just dead, and since he couldn't be said to have a face any more, it was difficult at best to determine if he'd died in pain or with an exaggerated expression.

Geoff slowly rose, swung his arms out, and said, "well this guy was probably the last one left alive," he nudged the man with his boot. "He brained that one there, those bottles – they're heavy?"

The trio of others hefted their bottles and of course pretended to hit each other – until Corey actually got hit at which point he let off a pained yelp.

"Yes, so they're heavy," Geoff muttered. They settled themselves momentarily, Corey occasionally reaching to his head and rubbing his scalp.

Geoff set the scene for the trio, and explained as best he could what he thought had happened. The explosive careening of a truck part was of special interest to them. Geoff was mildly glad that he wouldn't be telling this story again to anyone. More that it would be Zonie who would, his embellishments might make for a truly epic tale of soured friendship and betrayal back at the Center.

"But why?" Geoff said, as the story finished up, "why would they do this to each other?"

Zonie strode over to the barbeque, opened it. There were still baked remains, not of an expected headcrab or other small animal, but mostly unidentifiable to the other three. Zonie reached right in and pulled up a chunk of charred matter.

"Zonie don't-" Geoff started to say but by then obviously it was too late.

Zonie moved the piece of aged, thoroughly burnt matter around in his sensitive mouth. "Corn," he announced, did the same to another piece, "potato..." He dug around in the grill for any other food bits, apparently found a completely decomposed chunk of steak. He moved on to locate chicken, rooted around and discovered bleu cheese dressing, then stuck his finger onto what looked like a melted piece of glass that sat to the left of the grill and popped his finger quickly to his tongue. "Whisky," he grinned. If he started licking the grill, Geoff decided, there would be no other choice but to leave the guy here.

Though Zonie didn't resort to that tactic, he did continue to sample bits and pieces of the scenery. Where some of the Pantheon had very visible powers, like Rex and his pyrokinetics, or Corey and Leigh who could pulverize matter between them... Others had far more subtle applications. Zonie's, apparently, was that he could distinguish even slight chemical compounds – in addition to eating almost anything and living. And his annoying habit of projecting his spastic emotions to everyone in the area.

When he walked over to the last dead guy, however, even Corey and Leigh were grossed out – he pulled up a chunk of the man's throat.

Geoff quietly stepped up to the truck where the other two still sat and said, "he's a forensics nightmare."

"Kinda like Sandy is a surgeon's nightmare?" Corey said, and Geoff chuckled, nodded.

"Well?" Leigh said, "anything?"

"This guy... had to have choked." Zonie smacked his lips and looked thoughtfully into the sky. "Bloo Cheez Cheezee Poos, I didn't even know they made those after the Portal storms came!" Zonie proceeded to root through the man's remains, and pulled out what appeared to be a still-shiny crinkled bag with exactly that written on it in friendly, obnoxiously bright lettering. Quietly he added, "the things you learn out here in the wilderness!" He kept the bag, it wasn't empty. In fact, he pulled something out of it – it was dyed a brilliant shade of blue, matching the bag's appearance. Chewed on it. "Not even stale. Want some?" He offered them to the others, none moved to accept. "Hum, your loss."

With narrowed eyes, Geoff just remained silent. It was Leigh that spoke.

"He ... choked on snack food? With a barbeque grill filled with proper food?"

"He must have brought a knife to a gun fight," Geoff muttered. "Maybe that's why they started arguing." Brightly, he looked up with a completely fabricated smile and eager expression on his face. "Well now we know! Fantastic work, everyone! These failures of Humanity killed each other because they didn't like their choice of condiments!"

They were drunk enough not to notice how completely out of character Geoff's speech was, and applauded each other happily.

Maybe he could ditch them... But then  he'd have to carry those crates himself. Leigh began examining the dead men's shoes, traded out his own half-open ones for the ones belonging to the skull-fracture victim.

Geoff was about to try and herd them back toward the main road, having gotten a good idea of which direction they needed to head to get back over to the Center, from an old weather-beaten map he'd discovered in one of the nearby vehicles. But he paused. Something did ping through his mental defenses, it was probably Tina, as her range was growing stronger these days. She had to send the message twice, to make sure it got through – his own telepathic skill had never progressed any farther and this was specifically directed to him. Geoff cleared his throat, and waited for the others to stop picking through the remnants of the trucks.

"I've just gotten word that my idiot brother did something incredibly stupid yesterday, and we are needed back at home. Let's go."

They did pack up, wobbly and still discussing the crime scene. As Geoff urged them along, he heard Zonie. "Day's rations says what he really meant was brave, instead of stupid."

Geoff chuckled to himself. Then he turned and walked backward along the edge of the road. "Half a day's rations. It was stupid and brave. But he'll tell you all about that, I'm sure."