The Highway

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ajwilli1

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THE HIGHWAY: NOW GLUTEN FREE!


Best song I could find to fit the characters "predicament"

You can see it, the whole camp. The large bonfires made of ruined furniture creating the large smoke plumes that hover over the entire camp. The Raiders that patrol the makeshift pathways that lead to the platforms that bob around in the flooded Times Square. On the platforms, kitchens and tents, you can smell the sweet sweet scent of food. You look forward and see the large One Times Square building, it's signs fallen into the "sea" and the inner-building mostly in decay. You look towards your right and see one half of Broadway, large series of tents have been built atop the roofs; larger tents with ammo presses inside, you can see several Slaves working inside.

You begin to float away into the clouds. You feel your eyes begin to flutter open...

Slaves Opening

>You feel yourself waking up!

You look around at your surroundings and realize you're back in The Pit. A place made of concrete and old Broadway signs to keep the water from rushing in. The walls of The Pit are lined with staircases and small platforms with armed Raiders stationed on them, these stairs lead to the roof (duh) and to where you're forced to do the dreaded labor. Whether it be slaving over the hot Ammo Press or nearly drowning on salvage runs, it's never easy (again what did you expect!?).

But there are some perks; for starters you are fed everyday, you have shelter, your fellow slaves are nice, and there's one or two raiders that give you better supplies for things you managed to smuggle out of the salvage. So you can't complain to much.

You hear several of the Raiders beginning to shout down orders for you to head up. You already see the armed "retrieval" squad open the gate to the stairwell. Time to go to work.

Raiders Opening

>You feel yourself waking up!

You sit up from your bedroll that is comfortably situated on your cot. Yawning (quite loudly I might add) you arise from your cot, you do a couple stretches and head over towards the window that overlooks The Pit. Sighing and rubbing your eyes you lean against the window; you see Slaves slowly emerging out of The Pit like ants coming out of their hill. They go one of two ways: A. Towards the Ammo Press Tents, or B. Going towards the edge of the building where the rafts and scuba gear off.

Behind you, you hearing someone banging on the door.

"GET THE FUCK UP! THE BOSS NEEDS YOUR ASS DOWN STAIRS NOW!", Shouts the gruff sounding man.

You grumble something and get dressed. You haven't even had your coffee and he's already wanting you to kill some people, you swear you're turning into a slave with each passing day.


[[Sorry if the openings are lackluster. I just wanted to give you guys enough freedom to RP your own opening with.]]
 
The Justifier whirred back to life. The orb in his chest slowly illuminated the area around him as the wiring in his metal head began to send signals. Then, the orb that he used for vision on the front part of his head switched on. A bright white light. Liberty had awoken him. Well, mostly.

Justifier stood up. The gears in his legs groaned as metal scratched against metal, and the robot stretched his arms high above his head. He let out a metallic yawn before looking around. It took a moment for him to remember that he was still stuck in the slaver camp. It had seemed like a good idea to enter the raider camp in search for his... "Creator" or who he called his "Liberator". Unfortunately, the only thing he managed to do was get himself caught in endless labor. Though the Justifier couldn't really complain. He didn't tire or feel weary from work. Memories of him herding cattle and horses from across hundreds of miles flickered in his head. He'd never been tired then, and he wasn't tired now.

There was one thing that did tire him, however. The slavers. The sheer injustice. Just because the world was in shambles didn't mean they had to go off stealin' people! The Justifier would've long ago shot them all down with Pride, but his not-so-thought-out plan managed to get his guns taken away. He felt... Naked without them. How could he serve justice without them? Despite it all, programs in his brain told him he had to escape, save everyone, and ride off into the sunset as Pit rose up in flames. And that's just what he'd do....

After getting some oil in his system, of course.

"Mornin' partners! The roosters are awfully loud this fine day, aren't they?" Justifier said chipper in his cheesey, robotic cowboy accent. The call was to whoever just happened to be around at the time.
 
Roach slowly opened his eyes. Fucking slaver assholes. Didn't know his sleeping schedule; his eating schedule, didn't, know, shit. Whatever. He didn't expect a bunch of retards who need their work done for them to understand. And the pay was good enough, not like the work was hard. Just putting the screws to a few upstarts on both sides, here and there. Even the slaves got on his nerves sometimes.....thinking he was some sorta monster, all for doing his job!

Assholes.
Yokels.
All of them.

"Did I just hear some slave-taking, uneducated yokel try to tell me what to do? If you're not the boss himself, I don't fucking need you to tell me my business. Now, fuck off, I need a smoke before taking some fingers off."

Roach growled, buttoning up his dress shirt and throwing his jacket on. A familiar weight was present in the pocket: his Tools. Roach took a mental note of the contents, by weight: switchblades, check, serrated knife, check, hammer, check, pry bar, check, lighter fluid, check, yep, it's all here....with that, Donny finally swung his door open, lighting up a hastily-rolled smoke and puffing away as he strolled down towards the pit. The Boss liked keeping him as an overseer once in a while; Roach's presence alone was enough to keep most slaves in line.

(Fun fact: Donny's favorite word is yokel.)
 
Vanessa was shoving her right foot into her boot as the knocks began. It was the same every morning, but this time, the boss wanted to see her. There were only so many times that Vanessa could worm her way out of killing somebody; and she had a feeling that today wasn't going to go in her favour. It's not that she detested killing or was repulsed by it, in fact, she quite enjoyed a healthy fight; but this was wrong, she was being forced to kill the wrong people.​
Sighing and moving the majority of her brunette hair over one shoulder, Vanessa shot a glance out of the window and watched the smoke ascend majestically. There was no television anymore, or music, just the sound of people being put to work and the periodic sound of a gun being fired. It was hell on Earth, and being forced to penetrate Times Square in hopes of some ammo and food was far less enjoyable than she'd originally thought.​
"Alright, goddamn it!" Vanessa got to her feet and adjusted her vest before double-checking that her thermal wire wasn't visible beneath her tank top. The boss liked killers, but he liked them to kill with approved weapons; a traitor was the last thing he needed. Vanessa waited until the knocking had subsided to roll her eyes, it seemed that the only language these brutes understood was loud and trashy. Undeniably it felt a little good, being able to scream and shout first thing in the morning; if there was one thing she'd take from this experience beside food and ammo, it was this morning routine: it really set her up for the day.​
Vanessa crossed her small room towards the door and could feel her concealed weapons; there were two identical pistols beneath the hem of her top, held in place by the waistband of her combat trousers and her thermal wire was tied loosely around her neck. It was a little over-excessive for somebody with her agile capabilities but these Raiders were unpredictable and the last thing she needed was to be cornered by a group of them without a way to defend herself.​
Taking a deep breath of the stale air, Vanessa crinkled her nose and gently grasped the handle. The door creaked open as it did everyday and Vanessa nodded to a couple of the other Raider's that were heading to the same place she was. This was probably the perfect time for her snoop around and loot the empty rooms but unfortunately after her arrival, she had made the mistake of adopting a cold persona; it seemed that guys paid attention to the women they had no chance in hell of conquering. "But when has that ever stopped me?" Vanessa smirked to herself as she rounded the corner and descended the stairs behind a large brute. ​
 
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"Why should we continue fighting?" A voice said with fervor which was quickly fading as the figure slowly slumped to the ground. "Whether portal scum, zombies or desperate people, we are going to die." Tia watched frozen in place both due to surprisal as well as knowing that was already too late to do anything. As she watched the figure start to pale she could feel a pressure grip around her wrist. Focusing on the grip Tia noticed that her vision was ebbing away. As her vision became dark she could faintly hear other voices join the figure's voice.

"It's useless. There is a death sentence on our heads, everyone's heads. It's only a matter of time."

The single voice was gone when she opened her eye. However Tia knew that the nightmare was only starting as her eyes focused on a child's face looking at her with worry. The nightmare wouldn't end until the two reach safety.

"They want us to go up there again." Annie said as her grip tightened around Tia's wrist. "I don't wanna go with them. What if they take me away from you?"

Unclasping Annie's tight grip, Tia gave the child a tight squeeze as she looked up towards the source of the voices, the same voices that intruded her dreams. Although the two didn't have to worry about food since they were found a week ago by the Raiders, it was far from a good tradeoff for the duo. If she was by herself she might have been more willing to stay but will Annie around, she was one that would linger around until the first safe chance of escape showed its face. Until then though the two had to work hard to stay together and appear to be as harmless as possible.

"Stay close to me, okay." Tia said standing up before helping the child slip her backpack on. Both were without their weapons but Tia was glad that the two were able to keep their meager amount of supplies the two had. "Listen to me well Annie." The woman said ushering the child towards the exit out of the Pit as the two followed the other people and creatures alike. "Whatever happens, don't let them see that you are scared. Stay within the group and don't let yourself be singled out of the Raiders. I can help you if we are together but if we are split apart don't freak out or they will use that against you. Do you understand me?"

"I-I'm scared Tia. Did you see what one of the Raiders did to that one man yesterday? What if they get me?"The child said gripping Tia's hand.

"Don't think about it Annie. As long as you keep your head down and don't draw attention to yourself you will be fine." Tia said with as much reassurance as she could. She wasn't sure what to expect from the Raiders with only a week under her belt but she hoped for the best, what else was there she could do in a position as she was in. "And promise this to me Annie, be careful of who you trust. Even though those who are on the Pit are on our side, they might do some regrettable things. People will do some crazy things to survive and don't let anyone take advantage of you because you are young."
 
No, mother! Father!

BANG

Virginia jolted awake suddenly from her nightmare. Breathing heavily, she scanned her surroundings, taking a while to recognize the slaver camp. She sat and leaned her body to the front, closing her eyes in a grimace and supporting her forehead with her right hand while keeping her balance with the other. Another nightmare. Honestly, it wasn't a surprise. Not anymore. Nightmares became part of her sleep since the incident with her parents a while ago, they were constant, but this didn't mean that she was becoming more used to them. If not the contrary, actually.

With a heavy and shaky sigh, her breaths started to come out controlled once again. Bright emerald eyes scanned the camp, a frown slowly forming as the woman pushed her nightmare aside to fully annalyze her situation. Still trapped at the camp. Huh. For some weird reason, she thought that maybe, this night, some sort of miracle would happen and she would wake up at a beach house in Florida with a hot guy, or girl, laying besides her. Well, this is why you can't have nice things.

With a growl, she almost lay down again, but the booming voice of a said robot cowboy kept her from finishing the action. Now, she wasn't a snotty person, but she was also far away from being a morning person, especially after having slept for what seemed to be only 2 hours.

"Well, apparently, the roosters aren't the only thing awfully loud this "fine" day." Virginia snapped from the ground, making the air quotations and all. It wasn't fair to snap at the robot this way, but it also wasn't fair to work as a fucking slave. Life never was fair, honey boo. So, if you want to get out of this situation, get yo' ass up and try to find a way to get the fuck out. Well, wasn't her conscience rather cheerful this day? With a sigh (apparently, sighing became part of her routine by now), she pushed herself up. Shaking her black hair out of her face -- while making a mental note to cut it asap, since it's reaching past her shoulders -- she stretched lazily, only now fully awake.

"Well, another day, another dollar. Except there isn't any dollar. Just food." Well, at least there's food.
 
Krando woke up, surprisingly, instead of already being awake.

"Finally getting used to the sleep schedule" Rhodri said, to no one in particular.

He gets up, making sure his tail doesn't bump into anyone as he does. It's even more crowded than he remembered.

At least the raiders were kinda considerate, giving him warm clothing, and supplying him with his own... Different, diet.
images

Rhodri checks to make sure none of the douchebag slaves stole his stuff. Most of them are okay, but it never hurts to check.

"Still there..." Rhodri says to himself, as he pats his large, orange jacket. He hides all his stuff underneath it. He wonders about what he does today. Hopefully the ammo press. He doesn't like the scuba diving; the scuba gear is too cold!
 
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Justifier's robotic arms fixed the hat on his head, facing it the right direction. The justifier turned right around with a small kick in his step, and he faced Virginia.

He liked her name. Reminded him of back home on the prarie. His sensors could practically pick up the smell of hay, chickens, and manure. Justifier relied on no one but himself, but he couldn't help but feel strangely attached to the somewhat-grouchy girl. Though, the justfier did enjoy the tougher ones.

"Gotta agree with you there, darlin'. The prinnin' presses have been dronin' on an' on an' on. I may be a heavy sleeper but even dem damn things keep me awake." Justifier took a few steps over to Virginia. The light on the center of his metallic face turned a dark blue.

The Justifier listened to her comment about the 'dollar a day' mini rant, and the Justifier shrugged. He never accepted money to begin with. He was just after rightness and maybe a few cans of oil to settle his electronic bones. But, The Justifier could definite sense some distraught from Virgina. Probably because he used some help from him sensors.

"How are you, miss'um? Are you feelin' alrighty? I know that's prolly a dumb question, but it's a good thing to have high spirits." The Justifier fit his coat around him and lowered his voice. The robotic voice wavered slightly.
 
Vanessa and The Raiders (And anyone whose downstairs)


You walk down the stairs, the old boards and concrete 'moan' under the weight of your feet. You walk into a large lobby that was probably very nice at one point, with the now scuffed and burnt marble tiles; decaying large white pillars that are carved into the walls; the chandler that has now crashed onto the floor leaving one large mess of glass and bent metal; and the (busted) beautiful stained glass windows that are now covered with blue rain tarps.

The sides of the lobby are filled with make-shift mound houses that are made of rubble and Broadway signs for "windows", you see several children playing outside of these houses with their parents leaning against the 'porches'. Besides the whole, "Kill others for food and entertainment" it's quite 'normal' here.

In the center of this lobby is the "command tent", you can see your boss and several of his lieutenants surrounding a wooden table. Cigarette smoke lingers at inside the tent, and slowly floats it's way out of the tents flap; you can smell it from here. In front of the entry way of the tent are two heavily armed Raiders, the one to the left of the tent is Mike the nice one, and the one to the right of the tent is James... he's... well... a bit of a fucking dick; guess which one greets you first.

"Wow, you're actually up. Seeing what you were doing to the boss's di-", James begins to tease before getting cut off by Mike.

"Shut up! Vanessa, go ahead on in. The boss needs you and a couple others to go burn a village or something.", Mike says in a tired voice.

You're a Slave and you work all day!

You see a large group of slaves begin to crowd around The Pit's entrances. You can hear several raiders shouting at them to get back and organize a line. From what it looks like, you have a few more minutes to socialize before going to The Press or Boats.

>You begin to feel raindrops hit your face!

You see that the clouds are getting darker (more then they usually are); it's going to rain again! It seems like every five minutes that the rain picks back up and everything turns shitty.

The crowd begins to seek shelter under their shacks and tents, you should probably do the same. Last thing you need to be is sick.

[[EDIT: Going to add more flavor text to the Slave part, added more to the Raiders part.]]
 
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Donny follows Vanessa down to the Boss's tent. James and Mike were standing in their usual positions, mostly there to look tough, in his opinion. No one was gonna go for the Boss on their own, in his territory. He giggles at James' comment, dismissively waving as Mike shushes him.

Roach takes a puff from his own smoke as he strolls into the tent, noisily clacking his shoes as he walked to make sure everyone knew he was there. Some of the raiders, he could get along with, others.....they didn't exactly like his attention-seeking. That, or they had seen what Donny had done to raider upstarts challenging the Boss's authority.

"Morning, Boss. What's on the agenda today? Village burning, apparently? Wonderful.....any special someones in said village you need me to put the screws to?" Roach asks, not bothering in between sentences to wait for a reply, and still not even sure that Mike was being literal or not.
 
Allen rolled over in his bedroll, flattening the bedroll next to him as he hit his head on a rock. Rubbing the cement out of his eyes, he looked into the sky. The clouds seemed nice today, a hint of white within the dark thunderclouds. Groaning, he lifted his head to see that most of the others have already left and were at the gate. Cursing, he pulled on his pants and a shirt. He almost jumped into his boots and forgot his eye patch, strapping it on to his head. He ran towards the group through the dirt, flattening his hair and rubbing the sand out of his eyes as rain started to fall.
 
Duncan didn't mind the rain that fell from the sky and coated him as he continued his work as usual. Granted, it rained everyday it seems like but that would work into his plan if he worked everything out. Granted it was unlikely the raiders going to go scavenging today in their little rinky-dink sub but the chance was always there. The rain cooled him as he finally got into a line, the line he hoped would be the diving line. Hopefully the robot and the sisters would join him in his little 'escapade' since he liked the majority of them. Plus, he'd need the robot... oh yes... Today feels like the day he'll put the plan into action.
 
It wasn't difficult to see that the area surrounding the command tent was supposed to be the nice part of this hellhole. Only the more ruthless and brutal Raiders were allowed to sleep here with their families, but that didn't stop more than one of them demanding her company on more than one occasion. It was no surprise that Vanessa wasn't liked by some of the women that got by around here, unencumbered with children or responsibility, she had the perfect set-up for a post apocalyptic world.​
Vanessa rolled her eyes as she and Donny approached the command tent. It smelt like tobacco, as usual, and there was a steady stream of smoke seeping out from the opening. Outside stood two Raiders, or rather glorified lackeys. 'That's mean,' Vanessa thought immediately, Mike was one of the more tolerable Raiders. He still killed on order and treated the captured souls like dirt, but he didn't enjoy it; he was doing what needed to be done to get by.​
"Shut up! Vanessa, go ahead on in. The boss needs you and a couple of others to go burn a village down or something," Mike had evidently been on watch all night, which was rather ridiculous seeing as there were about sixteen off-duty Raider's between the nearest entrance and the boss. In Vanessa's eyes, that was somewhat of a shame, if somebody wanted to get to the boss, they'd have to go through James; everything about him screamed target.​
'One day I'll kill him myself, bloody asshole,' Vanessa shot Mike a wink before heading into the tent and became suddenly aware that all eyes were on her. "Hey, Donny, if we've got to burn down a village, it's probably something you can not only do but enjoy. So, you won't mind if I sit this one, right?" She leant in dangerously close and grinned.​
​
 
Donny uneasily backed up, keeping his cigarette in one side of his mouth as Vanessa leaned towards him. Now, he was a bit of a psycho, a little socio, and a torturer, but that didn't mean he wasn't vulnerable to women, at least a little. In fact, Vanessa almost intimidated him a bit; she was a survivor, and a manipulator, and he could tell that she was almost as cold as him on the inside.

"Sit this one out? Well, I doubt the Boss'll have any problems with it. We have enough men, and who could say no to a face like that?"

He asked playfully, looking over at the meeting table as he held the smoke in between two fingers. She did intimidate him, and yes, she was a manipulator......but hell, she was a looker, and Roach wasn't gonna complain, even if she was probably gonna use him.
 
The Justifier waited for Virginia to reply or tag along with him, but she seemed to space off halfway through their talk. He supposed she was still grogy from sleep, and he thought it best not to wait on her much longer. The patience of the Slavers was as thin as the body's of some of the workers, and he didn't want to malnourish them with his tardiness.

People poured in through the gates as the rain began to slow. The scenery was grim as the bodies morosely pushed past one another to their work areas. The Justifier quickly hopped in line with the rest. He stuck out with his large, bulky hat and the obnoxiously long cape. The Justifier liked that though. Plus, it kept the rain off of him so he didn't have to worry about rust.

As he packed through, he accidentally bumped into... Duncan. That was his name. The Justifiers circuits were still warming up and some of his memory banks were trying hard to pull up information on him. "Pardon me, partner." He said before sliding past him. The Justifier wanted to make it through another day. Hopefully this one he's get an oportunity to do what he did best.
 
The robot, another part of the plan if they make it that far. He quickly tapped the robot on the shoulder before it decided to wander off too far again.

He then quickly said as the guard's back was turned, "Justifier, I know working for these law breaking thugs is almost certainly against your standard laws. Listen," He looked over his shoulder to make sure they weren't being listened to, "I need your help to deal Justice out to these heathens of freedom. You are interested, right? I have to ask if you're waterproof first."
 
Krando simply walked towards the line, follows the crowd, trying to attract little attention. He's trying to think of a plan of escape. He doesn't know why he didn't start planning one earlier, maybe because he was too tired to ever think straight. He starts brainstorming. Maybe sneak away while scuba-diving? No, I'd freeze to death... Steal weapons and kill the raiders? No, gotta be more stealthy... Gotta pay attention to everything, see raider patrol patterns and the like. As he enters one of the many tents, he lets the brainstorming stop for a later time.
 
The Justifier turned around to face Duncan. The Justifier listened closely to the man, who the Justifier was just starting to remember, and then took a moment to intergrate this information.

The Justifier wanted to dish out freedom. That was the very root of his whole programming. But, another root seemed to keep signals from shooting to agree to the plan. The Justifier, being the well seasoned cowboy he was, was much wiser than to put himself and the others at risk by consenting to a possibly hasty and faulty plan. It was only moments ago that Justifier wanted this very oportunity, but the damned safety controls in his head seemed to take the wheel at that moment.

The Justifier pulled Duncan aside and away from the bustling crowd. "Well, partner, I'm not sure this is the best spot to... Talk about things like that." Then, he lowered his voice and spoke into Duncan's ear. His hat poked at Duncan's face. "But you're damn tootin I want to bring justice to these no-good bandits. I just don't think I can do it without Pride and Prejudice by my side." Justifier pulled back. He tried to convey his standing. The light on his face switched to red. "Where I'm from, we have a sayin'. 'When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin.'"
 
Undaunted by the red lights and strange saying he wasn't quite sure the meaning behind, he says, "Understood, we'll discuss this back in our sleeping area. Try not to inform others until then please."

And with that Duncan tipped his own hat at the robot and hurried back into line, the first step of the plan complete. The robot must of have cutting edge back in the day with a fully functioning AI and could learn and adapt. It's what he had been hoping for. The only question was to get the two girls onto the plan as well since he did enjoy their company.
 
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The Justifier understood his orders and logged them into one of his memory chips. Then, he too got back in line to get to work. Though he didn't have a heart, the fans and programs in his head ran faster than usually. It almost felt like adrenaline. And almost like a beating heart.
 
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