Caught Somewhere in Time

"Car battery, or any large capacity power cell, and I'll also need a lantern and electrode rods. If I'm riht stimulating the coagulates in the Wraith's blood will cook it from the inside out. From there it should be child's play to draw up a design for a weapon designed to end them," she paused wiping a small amount of sweat and blood from her forehead while she examined what she could see inside the monsterous thing. "Like I said earlier humans seem to have forgotten that we have no natural predators, only things that without adequate adaptation could kill us one on one, that's how we reached the top of the food chain, adaptability, by it's mere existence in this hostile environment it proves my words as fact, you're alive because you adapted, I'm alive because I adapted, in my opinion it is one of the most advanced evolutionary traits available to any species. Adapting to quell the threat of these things is the only logical solution, to meet its strengths by exploiting it's weaknesses."
 
"I have to apologize, but there haven't been any cars around this area that haven't been scraped for parts already. Same for any other power cells. The only way you'd be able to get your hands on them would be in Willowshade." Mira said sadly. If what this woman was saying was true, then the number of deaths caused by the Wraiths could be dramatically reduced. "As for what you say of adaptability, you are correct. It is how we, the human race, were able to survive after the War. It was how I am able to stand before you today." Without humanities ability to adapt she would have died during her years living in the Wilds. She then gave a small chuckle. "It was also how you were able to take out that Wraith."
 
"Couldn't hurt to look, I saw what looked to be an old bulk buy store up the road. I'll check it out after I finish analyzing this blood." She stated, her voice growing rather robotic though still holding a slight stutter. She pulled out a device she'd been typing her journal into it held scanning equipment but it would need to be calibrated for small scale examination. Not sharing his tech prowess, she set the focus levels to as magnified as she could and increased genetic sensitivity 30%, all done with the interface. After smearing some of the blood and coagulate on a slide with was inserted into a plug in recepticle in the device. "Hmmm, blood type B...Bh+? coagulate composition iron-oxide celenium, 198-Au and white blood cells......These things evolved from humans......but gold is a super conducting metal...... and by the quantity in this thing's blood stream, estimated increased levels of it in the adult stage.......a concentrated burst of electricity introduced by a charged needle or dart will conduct through the gold in its blood, and then cook it, though, because it's a radioactive isotope of gold it might cause a sub nuclear chain reaction internally and cause it to explode like 25 pounds of cyclotrimethylene trinitramine......C-4......Knowing this it should be simple work to fabricate a prototype weapon with which to test the application of electricity to the high amounts of 198-Au." The way she sounded, it was more like Vera when she would run experiments in college, she completely lost personality and tone in her voice, and her mind was focused on fact and making new discoveries than likability or friendliness, though Babydoll wasn't usually very friendly anyway....That was a dead girl's act to her.
 
"Okay." Mira said ackwardly, not understanding a single word of what Babydoll was saying again. 'I have a felling that this is going to happen a lot.' She thought to herself with a sigh. 'I can only hope to learn as to how to understand her as time go by, if not then I'm going to end up with one major headache.' "Well, while your doing that, I'll be over there cooking the meat for when your ready to eat." She stated while pointing over her shoulder towards the camp the other woman had set up earlier. The taller woman then turned around and headed toward her stated detstinatin, shaking her head slightly as she did so.
 
Babydoll nodded and started to walk away, this time her combat knife was in hand at the ready, though against whatever the hell that thing was, her knife wouldn't be nearly enough. 'Couldn't hurt to look? What was I thinking.....I'm completely unprepared.....damnit....' She thought cursing herself for going through with such an obviously bad idea. Charred gravel ground against itself under her feet as she approached the ruined entrance to what was once a supermarket. "Here goes nothing I guess...." She muttered and pushed her way through the loose shards of glass that fell after being brushed by her passing crashing against the floor.

To her surprise, there was a large light source running, shining light onto the isles from the back of the store. "The ruins still have electricity even after so much time?" she whispered, unintentionally beginning to talk to herself. Her attention was then drawn away from her hushed monologue as a crash erupted from a few aisles over followed by an agonized scream. What Babydoll saw when she found the aisle was a man rotted but alive....as if no one had told him he died and he just continued to function. "What the f..." She started but held her mouth closed as it started to weakly shamble towards her.

It's dissolving mouth mimicked the motions of word formation, and a weak raspy voice was crackling out, but the image terrified her, to a point that as he got close she gave a quick yelp and managed to put her knife through the man's neck, dropping him to the floor dead. Regaining her more hardened composure she retrieved her knife and wiped his blood off onto his clothes. She then began to peruse what was left of the supermarket, and as Mira had said, it was looted, not much remained. She did find some more medications in the pharmacy, mostly anti psychotics and pain killers, and she found some more first aid equipment and a few canned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She also checked the sporting goods department and found a weapons cache, and signs that people had holed up here in the past.

She came back to camp rolling a shopping cart full of her findings immediately taking up a newer better pistol, and loading a magazine into it. "Guess I'm lucky..." she quipped as she began loading her pack up with two extra handguns all the ammo for the handguns, an assorted 150 rounds, put her medical supplies and pills away and slid a new knife that had already been modified to deliver an amplified shock from a short life battery into her knife holster. After strapping herself with a short assault rifle, she slid the rest of the cart minus three of six the food cans. "take what you want from that we'll sell the rest, if you think we can make something off any of it."
 
Mira had been sitting by the fire, watching as the meat slowly cooked, when a rattling sound caught her attention. Turning her head she saw Babydoll approaching while pushing a cart. She raised an eyebrow and thought, 'Well what do you know, she did manage to find some things.' Standing up, she made her way to the cart. It didn't take her long to go through it all. From it she only grabbed a single can of food and left the rest. "We can get a fair price for most of the things in the cart, so bringing the supplies with us will be a good idea. The cart itself on the other hand is a bad idea." Mira said retook her seat by the fire. "But I get the feeling the you already knew that. My pack would only be able to hold, at most, a half of what is in there. So we'd have to choose to either leave the other half or find some other way to carry it with us. Any ideas?"
 
Babydoll pondered Mira's statement for a moment pacing around the shopping cart, looking over it's construction. Cloth carrying net replacing the 100% metal construction of Shopping carts she used in her own time. This cart only had the metal frame, the merchandize was placed in a netted cloth that seemed to hold its strength even after 400 years. This gave the scientifically minded Babydoll an idea.

"Not as bad an idea as you might think, Mira...." She started her frigid tone coming across as if she were trying to freeze the very air around her. "This cart uses an elastic-like netting to hold the shopper's choices instead of being completely constructed of metal like I remember. If I can fashion a pole from the metal frame. I can cut the netting off and carry the supplies with the netting tied to the metal, like the old hobo bags from stories. But I'd need something that can cut through the metal." She stated, though again had slipped that she didn't belong here. "I hope Willowshade has batteries, I found a knife modified to deliver a powerful shock, but it needs a battery. People had been living in that store at some point, not sure how long ago, dust buildup suggested a decade or two, maybe 3."
 
Mira shrugged in response, not at all effected by Babydoll's tone. She had heard colder and scarier voices before. "Doesn't really surprise me that no ones been here for a while. The Wastelands are not a place to stay in voluntarily for to. long. Doing so generally winds up with your body being left to rot or being eaten." She said simply. "As for the cart, I don't know of anything to cut the metal with. If you want a suggestion, though, I'd say just cut the cloth where it connects with the metal and tie it around a metal rod instead of taking the whole frame." Once she had finished speaking, she briefly pondered what a hobo bag could be and why the younger woman had brought it up.
 
"That is the idea, actually, to take a section of this frame apart to make a slightly hooked pole to keep the netting secured to it. Now if I could think of how to....." She cut off as she delved into her thoughts, seeing her old self with text books surrounding her. "Battery Acid would cut that metal, too bad there's no batteries around." Vera said to Babydoll. This snapped Babydoll back to reality, "Hydrochloric acid, it'd eat through that metal fast, and I know how to get it help me out, please." She said blankly, almost robotically moving over to the large monster corpse she dropped earlier, in her hand her knife being brandished, and a sickened look played subtly across her eyes.
 
"Okay." Mira said skepticaly as she stood up. The words this woman uttered and the things she had done confused her greatly. None of it made any sense. She used long, confusing words, like the Doctor did, yet she was only a third of his age. 'Where could she have possibly learned such things?' Mira thought as she drew closer to the object of her thoughts. 'Maybe it has something to do with what she let slip out a few hours ago, about being from a couple hundred years in the future?' The older woman's eyes widened slightly. 'Could she be.... No that couldn't be possible. But the signs were all there. Was she...was she from the past?' The Doctor had mentioned that the people of the Old World had been able to do such things the last time she had visited him. She shook her head. 'This is not the time.' "What is it you need me to do?" She asked, trying to sound calm despite the shock her revelations had caused her.
 
"As it stands, my blades won't cut this Wraith? You called it?" She began, doing her best to roll the creature's corpse over. "I Estimate that the acid in its guts however, should be sufficient enough to eat through the metal wear I'd need it to. That's wear I'd need you.....your blade can cut into the creature so I can extract some of the acid, of course as soon as we're done here we'll need to move on towards Willowshade, too much blood will probably attract predators, and from the looks of this wraith, I don't really wanna good look at what else may have evolved to existance."
 
"You make a very good point." Mira admitted, seeing the logic of leaving as soon as possible. While she wasn't particularly worried about encountering another of the Wilds inhabitants on her own. Years of living in the harsh environment had given her the training she needed to either fight whatever she encountered and win or sneaking around whatever she knew she would not be able to beat undetected. Having someone along with her would mean that her only choice was to fight, yet even then she wasn't worried. The woman before her had proven her ability to fight, even though the style was rather crude.

Now standing next to the body of the Wraith, she drew her blade. Not even a second later it's stomach was cut open, filling the area with a fowl stench. Mira resisted the urge to gag. "I don't mean to sound rude, but could you hurry up and get what you need? I don't think I can handle this stench for long."
 
"Oof, speak for yourself, you're not the one who's gotta reach in and get this shit all over her arms." She said, her tone radiating sarcasm and irritation. Upon kneeling to the corpse, however, the smell overwhelmed her, and she tossed the contents of her stomach to the ground. "Yep.....Not looking forward to this..." She managed to wretch out before she dug her hands into the creatures guts, trying to find the stomach and gall bladder.

She pulled both organs out, and took out her knife. she held the stomach over the metal and poked a small slit into the organ with her knife, letting out an even fouler smelling fluid rush down onto the metal, which quickly ate it away where she needed it. "Alright let's get out of here." she said, tying the net to the metal pole after filling it with the rest of her looted goods.
 
Mira merely nodded as she grabbed her own bag, which had been laying on the ground where she had been sitting earlier, and threw it over her shoulder. She glanced up at the sky in order to get her bearings and once she had done so she began to walk towards the settlement of Willowshade.

The sun slowly began to rise over the horizon, bathing the surrounding land in a soft light. The landscape seemed to change as night became day. To someone who did not live in the Wasteland, which was nigh impossible now a days, the sight would have seemed tranquil and beautiful and the light would be welcomed with open arms. To someone who did live in the Wasteland, though, the sight would be nerve racking. The day was far worse than the night contrary to belief of many who did not know better. The temperatures were extremely high and many creatures were awake during this time, hunting for something, or rather someone, to eat. On cloudy days the light from the sun, as well as the heat, was bearable, but should it not be cloudy the sun would quickly burn any skin that was not covered. Unfortunately, as far as Mira could tell, there was not a single cloud in the sky. She swore under her breath. "It would appear as though our luck is against us. You have something to cover yourself up?" She asked as she looked over her shoulder toward Babydoll.
 
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