Clary Shae, 21
Hearing the sound of gunfire, Clary pulled the
Rocinante off the road and tucked it between a couple houses. She popped the velomobile canopy--waterproofed canvas stretched over bamboo slats bent in tension to produce an elongated teardrop shape with fins at the back to complete the zeppelin look--and climbed out. That stylistic choice was marred a bit by the fact that it now towed a bike vardo, a four-wheeled bike trailer similarly roofed with canvas and bamboo, but with more resemblance to a miniature Conestoga wagon. She snapped her fingers, then held out her left hand, palm toward the ground. Bjorn and Journey, her two sleek Belgian Malinois, both sat beside the
Rocinante to wait.
Pressing herself to the wall of a house, she drew a pair of fold-out binoculars from a leather pouch on her belt, and used them to peer around the corner. Up ahead, she saw a young woman shriek and duck. A man tossed something near her while blazing away at a group of attackers. Whatever brand of heat he was packing was
loud, with big muzzle flashes. Two of them got by him, and were coming at the female. She scooped up the object, then pointed it at them; apparently, a firearm. That was confirmed seconds later when the woman fired.
Huh, Clary thought, as the woman, apparently without a word of thanks for the man who had saved her life and provided her with a rather valuable resource, got up and walked off into the forest. She turned her binoculars back to the man, who was by now confronting another man, this one in OD-green pants with what looked like a military rifle propped over his shoulder. Macho posturing probably, but it didn't look like either one was in a big hurry to start killing.
Well then. Folk worth meeting, she thought.
She folded and stowed her binocs and unsnapped the shoulder holster for her .357 magnum hogleg so she could draw quickly if necessary, went to her vardo, lifted her Cold Steel Italian Longsword and baldric from the hooks that held it to the left side, then slung it over her shoulder. It would be a bit awkward riding with it the rest of the way, but one advantage (if you wanted to call it that) to being a girl in these times was that the wrong sort of men often wanted to take you alive. Which meant, they might be more inclined to close in to attack from melee range instead of shooting from a distance. Which meant, in turn, that Clary might have the option of defending herself with her blade instead of her pistols. Nobody was makin' bullets anymore.
Clary pulled a white flag out of a pocket of her coat pocket and attached it to the top of the bike's flagpole. Back in the day, before the Big Death, she kept the flagpole festooned with brightly-colored Tibetan prayer flags to draw drivers' attention to her presence. There weren't many drivers anymore these days, and it wasn't such a bright idea to draw attention to oneself. A flag of truce though? That might prove useful, or so she hoped. She loosened her sword in its scabbard, then clambered back into the seat of her recumbent tadpole trike, adjusting the sword and scabbard so she could close the canopy and pedal. She pulled the canopy down, poking her head through an opening rimmed in leather, modeled after the look of World War I fighter cockpits. Then, she poked a hand up through, snapped her fingers, and twirled an upward-pointing index finger.
Follow.
Clary used a bit of electric boost to get the
Rocinante moving, then pedaled to sustain momentum. Bjorn and Journey trotted to her right and left, dogs' tireless, casual jog. Their feet were enclosed in leather boots she'd made, to save their foot-pads from being worn down by the pavement.
"Howdy," she called out when the men noticed her presence, braking to a stop. She popped the canopy again, ducked under it and rose to her feet. "I don't mean nobody any harm. Mind if I come up and talk?"
