blood-red river

[pinnedwing]

You ever had one of them days..?

Here's how it was, and how it was gonna keep going.
By his count, he'd woken up at the awful rise of dawn - and he'd known it by the sizzling pain that lanced through his eyes, feeling for all the world as if it'd tenderly gone and cut his nerves - one by one.

Raiders were a new concept, he figured. Maybe not to most of the wanderers out there, but to him.

To Algie, things were simple. You found a nice cave, you camped out inside of it, and you went about your days - it was peaceful, it was kind, it didn't much run the risk of dying.
To his new hosts, things were a mite less simple. What had once been some kind of fenced complex, with long metal-and-plastic chutes that you seemed to slide down, for no reason he could explain? Yeah, those were armed to the gills.

A rotary turret he'd gone and prettied up for 'em was merrily clicking along, rickety wooden bridges swayed gently in the humid breeze, and they were littered with a mix of spike and the kind of mine that'd probably just hurt your ego, but - well, as much of an unkindness as it was, he did kinda have to admire his handiwork.

Now, Algie found himself with his gasmask tightly wound into place, killing time just to kill time, while raiders patrolled outside.
The moment they'd run out of things to repair, it was like he'd vanished entirely; and he'd thought about making a break for it, but then he'd seen how quickly a rifle round cut through a wanderer's arm; turns out, this wasn't so bad, really. He might even grow to like it in time. Mmnhmn.

With the gentle night mercifully settling in, he could actually start to enjoy the world around him.
Starlight above was soft and bright; and he thought he saw a kestrel or somethin' like it swaying from the high thermals.

From the bird's-eye view, he imagined what it must look like; tiny towers of fortified wood, a rickety turret, and a few bandits hoarding all their ill-gotten gains, some of which had once been his - spending every day eatin' stale mutfruit leather, and watching the sun rise, and the sun fall.
Warparties heading out and coming back, weighed down with scrap and scars and tales they wouldn't tell, until one day, they got a bit sick of an extra mouth to feed.

That was how it was, and how it was gonna keep going.

And with that firm certainty, he sat down at the husked corpse of a Protectron, entirely unaware of how things were going to change.

 

[littlekreen]

While many parties harassed the raiders, and they gleefully returned the favor, one in particular frequently had fantastically colorful language yelled after it on the radio. 'GODDAMN FUCKING FEN GREMLINS!' was frequent as its hallmark was butchered songs sung over the radio channels with a source that seemed to move from broadcast to broadcast. A spattering of tiny digitigrade feet was soon found all over the crime scenes. However, the utterly tone-deaf and nonsensical alterations did mar the song somewhat. The technically minded would realize the weak gain had to be transmitted from less than a mile away though raiders likely didn't.

Tonight, a song started to play over the radio, much to the dismay of anyone who had to put up with the resultant petty thievery and mischief.

When I was just a LIBERTY PRIME
I asked my AMERICA, what will I be
Will I be LIFE? Will I be LIBERTY?
Here's what she said to me

CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE
Whatever will DEATH, will DEATH
The OPSEC not ours to see
CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE
What will COMMUNISM, will FAILURE.

A raider sleeping on the job at a watchtower had been robbed blind, then carefully picked up and teetered on the edge of a barbed wire support line using the back legs of their chair and a fence railing, just on the wrong side of the railing.