One such croak hitched midway through his larynx, and he resumed his previous glassy-eyed bumpkin disposition with such seamless elegance there wasn't a hope in hell of distinguishing whether he'd just jolted awake from a genuine little pit stop of a nap or not. He offered Mia a tepid shrug.
"Well, I's just curious, anyhow."
He took in the rest of Maeve's impromptu briefing, unable or unbothered to conceal a genuinely irritated eye roll at the salute and all that guff; though he did offer a pitched, appreciative whistle at the site of the rifle in all its dismantled glory.
"That the gun they shot Liberty Prime's balls off with? Too much kick for my blood."
And his trick shoulder, but he left that part out. Still; much as he hated the very principle on which the concept was founded, it was reassuring to know at least a little piece of that taxpayer dollar was being put to work. He met Maeve's probing with a terse nod and a sniff, finally thrusting the pitchfork deep into the haystack and leaving it there, then circled around to unhitch the wagon from whatever had been set up to tow it.
"Ain't an issue. Hustle, you said?" He flashed a crooked smile as the rusty iron pin slid through the hoop, detaching the wagon and enabling him to start moving it to one side with a grunt of exertion.
"Might be I know a thing or two 'bout that."
***
The Old World, beautiful monstrosity that it became by the final curtain, had certainly left behind its share of messes for folk today to contend with. Bombs. Robots. Mutants, the FEV kind and the radiation kind. Hell, his feeling at present was that somehow this little escapade mercifully keeping him from shovelling shit for the rest of the evening had its roots in the Before-Times too.
Made it a shame that so much of what they left also happened to be so goddamn cool as shit.
Running vehicles were a usual enough sight if one spent any length of time back in the heartlands, where the roads between Shady, Vault City, Dayglow and the Hub at least were pretty well-paved and traveled by now. A handful of trucks had even been requisitioned by the brass for transporting food, animals and camp supplies, though settlers were responsible for their own goods on an individual level.
Out here though, on the frontier? Cars were more trouble than they were worth. Most ran on fusion or energy cells better spent as ammunition, the roads were cracked and littered with debris; Vegas was House's project, and while the likes of Freeside and Westside had started to show signs of gentrification little of that had made its way out to the desert at large. To say nothing of upkeep, maintenance, and the amount of refurbishment required to even get such a thing terrain ready to begin with—Chryslus products made for surprisingly hardy off-road vehicles, but they hadn't exactly been intended to run on sand. To have a car in the Mojave practically demanded one be an engineer unto oneself.
All those aches and pains, all the breakdowns and changed tyres and scavenging for fuel and parts, all of that was worth it for moments like this.
A blur shot by Mia, then Job, tyres half-burying the latter in an avalanche of dirt and sand even as the heckler stuck his head out the window to holler back their way.
"Raiders walk!"
He did actually stop to let Mia in if she wanted, just not RoboAddict.
The pigrat was a hard line too.
He adjusted the gearstick and tore off with a chesty cackle, circling back around to take them onto the stretch of the 93 that was clear and drivable. The Chryslus Highwayman, structurally and mechanically, always had been a peach; It was
huge for a vehicle of its kind, somewhere between a muscle car and a lowrider, yet still hit zero to a hundred in a shave under six seconds and turned corners like a dream. This one had seen extensive modifying, the tyres replaced with something more fit to purpose for an ATV, bodywork supplemented with welded scraps of metal that looked like they originally came from old suits of power armour. The original seats and lining had been stripped out, enabling access to the prodigious trunk space and making better use of the sheer size of the car, and it could now fit six at a squeeze, plus one in the trunk. All of which was to say, it was a two hundred-year old piece of crap that had absolutely no business running.
Just another one of those things with a bit of destiny to them.
The man also appeared to be living here, judging from the minifridge in one corner, fairy lights strewn about the interior, and the various personal articles and sundries visible in the trunk. The most noteworthy among them was a raggedy duffel bag, rarely touched if the layer of dust coating it spoke true; containing an assortment of guns, knives, books, and a tiny glimpse of an old, faded helmet just about visible under the brown leather jacket draped over it, antennae and one small corner of a visor the only distinguishing features to be discerned.
"Y'all settled back there?"
The answer was no. It was a handy fit, but not necessarily a comfortable one, and the retrofitted seatbelts of his own making, while functional, felt about as secure as the cord during a bungee jump. At the end of the day they were wastelanders, and if something was functional then it was enough; but whoever had the foresight to call shotgun felt a distinct inclination to thank their lucky stars.
"500 meters wasn't a lot five minutes ago. S'less now. It's your outfit, scoutmaster; wanna do a quick pass, try get some early eyes on this thang, or we makin' straight for Poseidon?"
