PAFS- Post Apocalyptic Fallout Scenario

Gathering A Team

“Oh my gosh! I can’t believe you brought my car!” Sierja squeals running to the car and hugging it.

“That is certainly impressive, you have great taste!” I compliment walking around the trailer pulling my dolly.

“Aww, dude...” ZcJay says in a somber tone walking towards me, “I didn’t want it to be true,” he says giving me a hug while his eyes well up with tears.

“I’ve made my peace with it, now I’m ready to move forward,” I say hugging him back, “thank you for coming back up here, I didn’t plan for any of this to happen,” I say apologetically as he helps us load everything, then I fetch the Voltex pondering if I want to drive it or not.

“If you want to drive, I would rather you drive my truck and just load your bike on the trailer, plus I’m tired of driving,” ZcJay offers laughing.

“That’s actually not a bad idea, since I pretty much know Aluri’s sign language now, and I wouldn’t have to relay directions,” I agree with him, then he helps me load the Voltex, “face it though, you just didn’t want me driving the bike with one arm,” I laugh sarcastically as we finish up, then we all load up in the truck, Aluri riding shotgun, ZcJay and Sierja in the back, and we take off with Aluri leading us to a loaded pharmacy where I pick up some much needed pain relievers of each kind and other medical supplies. After I replenish my stash of painkillers, which is much needed as it is growing increasingly difficult to hide the fact I am in a serious amount of pain, we stop off at a few other locations that Aluri informs us of, then we head out to a place Sierja leads us to, that is a little out of the way, but she insists that it has some of the experimental and very rare supplies from my list.

“How do you even know about this place?” ZcJay asks about the time we hit the halfway mark.

“My dad used to work for the government in a research and development type job, and I got to see a great deal of his work, so I’m sure that we could find some materials for the arm plus a bunch of other cool stuff,” Sierja explains showing us the location on her phone’s map.

“Here’s something I was thinking of,” I say gesturing for ZcJay to hook my phone up to the auxiliary port on the radio, “why haven’t you gone there before?” I ask selecting my driving playlist.

“I didn’t want to go there alone, I need help to gain access, and I haven’t had a good enough reason to go there yet, until now,” she replies showing us pictures of the place, which is a maximum security government research facility.

“I’ll go in with you, but ZcJay and Aluri need to stay with the truck to be our lookouts, is everybody good with this plan?” I ask and everyone agrees, “once we figure out the layout of the building and determine the amount of cargo that we want, then we can decide how to get it out of there,” I try to strategize hoping there will plenty of good stuff to loot, then I press play on my phone so we can travel the rest of the way with some music. When we arrive at the front gate of the building, ZcJay’s truck is low on fuel, but Sierja tells me there is a refueling station behind the building where the military vehicles are, so I ram through the gate and park behind the building. Sierja and I make our way around to a side entrance with less security than the main while ZcJay and Aluri refuel the truck. The side door we come to is not very strong looking and is only locked with a circular padlock, so I reach into my tool bag, take out a lock picking set, and get Sierja to operate the pressure knife while I deactivate the locking mechanism, then the lock pops open and we head inside. The interior is similar to a fabrication factory, but it seems to have ran using all robots controlled by people behind computers. We stroll through the entire building and the three basement floors finding much more than we anticipated, and once we finish, we gather everything we find worthwhile by the side door using dollies and hand trucks, then we load it all up and head towards Chattanooga. A couple of hours later I receive a call from Graveheart informing me that the other three have safely made it to the base, and I ask her to take them to my lab before setting up in the workshop, then she tells me that they have all of the items from my list except for what we just collected. The girls seem to have a great time during the road trip, even though we could not stop to enjoy the sights, and once we get close to Chattanooga, the sun is already below the horizon.

“I know we just passed through several big cities with their own tourist attractions, but nothing beats seeing Chattanooga, and she is even better at night because we light up the aquarium, walking bridge, and music park with all kinds of colorful and artistic designs,” ZcJay mentions as we pass Thrasher Pike, “this never gets old...” he says with a blissful sigh, then we come around Chickamauga Dam where there is a large hill that blocks the view of the city, and when we clear the hill, the sight of colorful lights surrounded by fortifications on both sides with the river separating them.

“I’m impressed, we have been told to never shine lights like that for fear of drawing the wrong type of attention,” Sierja says taking pictures of the city, “and Aluri says it’s really pretty and that she wants to live here from now on,” she laughs reading Aluri’s phone out loud.

“Just wait, you haven’t seen the best part,” ZcJay grins with a confident chuckle, then we pull up to the western gate where they patch us through.

“You’re both welcome to walk from here and go sightseeing while we drop off some stuff at the workshop, and I’ll make sure your stuff is brought up to your room,” I offer as we pass through the gate, “just remember, I’m holding a meeting in the workshop at 22:00pm, so don’t be late,” I say as the girls quickly get out of the truck, “actually, it might be better to take the Segways we took from the mall,” I suggest, and they run back to the trailer to grab their Segways, then they take off towards the aquarium while I drive over to the workshop, unload the materials and items I wish to use in the creation of my arm and also the Voltex. ZcJay agrees to take Sierja’s car to the garage for Jason, Jace’s twin brother and best mechanic, but I drive over to the apartment complex first, where ZcJay and a couple of other guys help me unload the rest of the loot and carry it up to the room I had setup for the girls, while I personally take my stuff, and Umbra, up to my apartment, which is the second largest, the largest being the penthouse top floor, which I converted into my personal lab. ZcJay takes Sierja’s car to the garage before heading home, while I start getting ready for the meeting, making a pouch and makeshift house until I can get an actual cage or terrarium, and attaching the pouch to my huckleberry rig harness, so that I can carry him around with me. I already know what I am going to say, but I thought that I would dress a little better than the backup I had packed, so I just put the blue dress shirt on over what o have on, and the white vest on top of that, then my coat, which I realized saved my life because it deflected the shrapnel, but the heat still got through to me. I also put on some of the jewelry I picked up just because I like the way they look, then I put Umbra in his house before heading down to the workshop where I see everyone not guarding the gates waiting for me, and I as I pass by everyone heading into the workshop, I hear them whispering about my injuries and wondering if I am going to be alright. As I approach the wardener’s scaffold, I am greeted by our five guests, then I climb onto the scaffold to address the crowd that seems to be growing, “thank you everyone for meeting me here today, I’m sorry to pull you away from whatever you would normally be doing, but I needed to address you all face to face. Yes, the rumors are true, I was caught in an explosion trap, I have lost my left arm, and I am not as ugly as I was before,” I say laughing causing the crowd to laugh as well, “but I am alive thanks to Aluri and Sierja, two survivors I met shortly before the accident, or attempted murder, who knows. I have decided to relinquish my command of this base to Benji and ZcJay until further notice,” I say pointing to ZcJay and his Husband Benjamin who is holding their son James, “furthermore, we are going to be doing a ton of work here in the workshop for a while, and any help will be greatly appreciated and rewarded. Other than that, I want to thank you all for your attention, time, concern, prayers, etcetera, etcetera...please keep up the good work, please have a good safe day and night, and please do not forget to have some fun, good night!” I say dispersing the crowd, then I step down from the scaffold and collapse on the floor causing the few people left in the workshop to rush over to me.

“Hey are you okay?” Graveheart asks picking my head up.

“Yeah, sorry, just this pain is unbearable at times, and I’ve had a long day,” I reply as she helps me stand up.

“We should get you to the lab so I can assess the severity of your injuries,” Graveheart suggests as ZcJay runs over and helps me to walk.

“Not the main lab, I have a personal lab in the penthouse suite of the apartments, you can examine me there,” I say feeling like I am losing consciousness, then I black out, but thankfully ZcJay and Graveheart had some help getting me up to my lab, which was Maxxy, Hāz, and Klárt while Zhou, Sierja, Aluri, Benji, and James followed them. I had hoped that james would not see me like this, but it does cause him to be upset and ZcJay takes him home, as Benji is the second smartest person who lives here, Jace is by far the most intelligent person I have ever met when it comes to the variety of her knowledge. When I finally wake up, I am hooked up to several machines with an iv in my arm pumping a strange glowing sky blue liquid which is extremely cold, and everyone else is busy working around my lab, “what the hell is going on? What are y’all doing?” I ask sitting up to see that I am laying in a bathtub full of ice.

“You passed out right in front of the apartment building,” Graveheart answers walking towards me, “and when we got you up here, we examined you to learn that your injuries are far worse than we originally thought,” she explains checking my vitals, “your left ear is gone, the left side of your head is badly burned, the left side of your torso has heat poisoning, five of your ribs, your left collarbone, your left shoulder socket, and your hip are all broken, so I don’t know how you were even walking, much less doing everything that you were. The heat poisoning was affecting your vital organs and brain, and the only way to cure it is to feed your body a concentrated liquid oxygen cocktail of my own design,” she continues as she carefully removes the bandages on my chest, “but, something in your DNA took the cure in a weird way, as your eyes have a slight blue glow to them, your vital organs and muscles have become almost twice as strong, and your hair has turned into a deep dark navy blue,” she holds a mirror up to me, “this is an unexpected side effect, but I’m glad you’re starting to feel better, and I’m going to stay for a little while longer to keep an eye on you,” she smiles removing the bandage from my head.

“So you’re going to have to explain this heat poisoning at some point, but thank you again...what is everyone else doing?” I ask looking around my lab.

“Different stuff, some are working on your VIOLET, some are working on some of your designs, and the rest are working on improving your hardware, we decided to start on the arm tomorrow,” Graveheart replies as the last bit of her cure drains from the iv bag, then she unhooks me from the machines, takes the iv out, and helps me to stand to my feet. She helps me to walk around the lab and I give my input on the things the others are working on, then Aluri helps Graveheart to get me down to my room and into my bed where I fall asleep almost immediately. I wake up around 12:00am having slept for twelve hours, I get dressed in my work clothes, feed Umbra, eat a couple of danishes, drink an energy drink, and check my phone to see a few messages from Graveheart telling me that she and the others have taken their projects down to the workshop and they will all be there when I wake up, so when I feel like it, I should come down. I grab my engineering equipment, bag of journals, and a drink cradle before heading down to the workshop where everyone is busy slaving away with their own different projects. I walk around to see what each group is working on; Graveheart and Maxxy are working on the Buckypaper nerve induction wires which allow for the nerves to be connected to a piece of technology and be controlled by the brain; Hāz and Klárt have taken my Lotus Ring off of my bike and are studying it while also building something using a Möbius Strip design; Aluri is helping Zhou with a project involving nanosperes and nerve interfacing; Benji and Sierja are working on some sort of visor and what looks like headphones using some nanotechnology and palladium micro alloy glass; with each group I try to give my input without bothering them, then I grab the crate of Graphene and Lonsdaleite and start trying to shape the exterior and outer plating of the arm. Once Benji and Sierja look as if they have finished, they take their project over to Graveheart and Maxxy where they collaborate and integrate their projects, then it seems they shelf the thing and start on something new. We all spend the rest of the day working on individual projects, periodically swapping ideas, collaborating, and doing some integrating, while others around the base also come in sharing their thoughts and ideas as well. At 22:00pm I decide that I have done enough for today, as I have finished shaping the materials for the forearm, elbow, bicep, tricep, and the areas between, and thought I would take them to the garage tomorrow to airbrush them, then I say goodnight to everyone before heading back to my apartment. I make myself some strudels, grab a couple of protein bars, and pour a large cup of tea before sitting down with Umbra allowing him to roam around freely, even though he decides to sit in my lap while I put on a random movie to watch and relax. Almost immediately after I finish eating, I hear a knock on my door and someone pressing the intercom buzzer, so I grab Umbra putting him in his pouch, hang it around my neck, take the last drink of my tea, and go to the door, where I have cameras set up, to see Klárt, Hāz, and Zhou wandering the hall of this floor trying to find which door leads to my apartment. I open my door and lean on the doorway watching them knock on each door until they finally turn around and see me.

“You guys looking for me?” I say with a laugh attempting to cross my arms, but realize having one arm does not have the same effect, “this whole floor is my apartment, since my lab is on the top floor, I took this one so I wouldn’t bother anyone if I was up all night working, and the rest of the doors are bricked up,” I explain as they walk back over to me.

“That’s a lot of room for just one person,” Zhou says staring at my nub.

“Well, I had planned to give you that half over there since it has access to my lab, and I only use this part of it,” I explain showing them the small amount of space that I use.

“Give to me?” She asks with a confused expression.

“Yeah, the room you’re staying in is a guest room, I’m having my guys renovate that end over there since you were going to move here...are you moving here?” I ask feeling slightly stupid for assuming.

“Oh yes! But I thought I would get some low quality hotel room or something, not an entire apartment, and especially anything with this much space,” she replies bashfully while biting her thumbnail.

“Well, I can always arrange a crummy hotel room if you want,” I say laughing causing the Klárt and Hāz to chuckle along with me, “I’ve already been told that everyone enjoys your company, and that you fit in quite nicely, so I’m sure everyone will help you acclimate comfortably...but I doubt that’s the reason y’all came to see me, what can I do for you?” I ask noticing that they are excited about something.

“Would you mind coming back down to the workshop?” Klárt asks looking as if he was about to pop.

“Yeah, sure, but may I ask why?” I step in and slip my casual shoes on.

“Firstly, we need your help, but also, I think we may have found something very interesting,” Hāz replies anxiously, then I follow them down to the workshop stopping by Gregoreo’s fruit stand to pick up a few berries for a snack, and treat for Umbra, “before we begin, I have to say, your Lotus Ring device is absolutely revolutionary! I’ve never seen anything like it, and it has sent my brain into overdrive,” he compliments me as they lead me to where they have the Lotus Ring sitting among other things.

“I can’t take all the credit, I got the idea from watching how Tony Stark built his Arc Reactor, I just took the same idea and added some other stuff to it,” I explain showing them the pictures I have of the Arc Reactors.

“You don’t even know do you?” Klárt asks looking at me in disbelief.

“Know what? Oh, and I built an even smaller one for my watch,” I say pointing to the pile of stuff that was left in here for us to work with, and Hāz blacks out for a moment almost collapsing.

“You created a miniature particle accelerator, but instead of particles, you have a plasma discharge moving so incredibly fast that it self contains and generates self sufficient energy,” Zhou explains demonstrating it on a sketchbook.

“Yes, yes, and so we took yours, and added a little tweaking with a Möbius strip, liquid helium, and metallic hydrogen...” Hāz begins to say.

“Holy shitballs...” I say looking at their improved version of my Lotus Ring, “you turned it into a Cryofusion reactor,” I say feeling utterly astonished.

“Huh, he guessed it right out of the box there,” Klárt says surprised at my reaction.

“It never occurred to me to use a Möbius strip, but I’ve been researching how to use the ring to create cold fusion, but at an even higher level than that,” I explain studying their notes and admiring the new ring, “have you tried hooking it up or testing the power output?” I ask having only one thing on my mind.

“Not yet, that’s why I said we need your help,” Hāz replies with a gloomy tone, “we don’t have anything that would survive that amount of power to test it, and none of us know how to operate your motorcycle,” he says shamefully.

“Here, take Umbra for a moment please,” I hand Klárt the pouch, then I slip my hand under the safety mitt, grab the Lotus Ring 2.0, and put it back in the Voltex connecting it to the battery and motors, “I don’t normally offer to let guys ride with me, but if you give Zhou that GoPro camera, she can ride with me and we will see how much power it can generate,” I say smiling as I lock the seat down, then I gingerly ride around while Zhou puts their GoPro on a helmet. I ride back over to pick her up while notifying the guards that I am taking a midnight run, then I help Zhou mount the bike while giving her a rundown of the do’s and don’t’s of being a passenger before leaving the base. I give the Voltex time to warm up before opening it up, but it is not until the return trip, where I have three solid miles of flat open highway to run on, that I actually get some workable data. I turn around at the end of of the three mile stretch, stop to get an accurate reading, and urge Zhou to hold on, then I pull the throttle back causing it to pull up riding on the rear wheel until I activate the weight shift which drops the nose, but barely. It shoots from 0-100 in 0.0012 seconds, but I was still climbing at 445 miles per hour when I had to slow down for the turn, then I pull back into the base stopping at the workshop. I dismount the bike with Zhou still clinging to me as if she is frozen, “you can let go now, we have stopped,” I say laughing.

“Well, how did it hold up?” Klárt asks anxiously as Zhou slowly climbs down off of me and hands him the GoPro, while I pull up the data on the Voltex’s HUD and take Umbra back from Klárt.

“If I had more room, I believe I could have broken the land speed record, and here are the numbers from the power test,” I say showing them while feeling surprised as well.

“That could supply power to the entire earth’s population for 1000 years or more without the need for fuel, or worrying about it going out,” Hāz says in shock.

“Well, what if we could rebuild the ring underneath the main lab? That thing is almost 100 feet in diameter,” I ask thinking that, with it being as big as it is, it could easily provide energy for anyone with nearly limitless range.

“I need to sleep on this discovery,” Hāz admits sounding weak and weary.

“Yeah, I can’t believe you almost hit 450 miles per hour in such a small amount of time and it didn’t even seem to be topping out,” Klárt gives me a concerned look as I remove the power key from the bike.

“I think we should keep this between ourselves, nobody outside you three, me, Graveheart, Maxxy, and possibly Sierja should know about this, but I’ll decide later if I want to share it with ZcJay, Ben, and Jace,” I suggest while rolling the Voltex inside the workshop, “now I think we should get some sleep, goodnight everyone,” I give them a wave before heading back to my apartment where I put Umbra in his house, do my nighttime rituals, strip down to my underwear, and head to bed, only to find Aluri laying there sleeping. I do not want to cause a fuss by waking her up and asking her to leave, so I lay down next to her, gentleman or not, I am not giving up the comfort of my bed just because there is a girl in it, who may or may not be too young for me to be sleeping with. Before I can situate myself to get comfortable, she wiggles her way backwards until her entire backside is making contact with me, and that’s when I realize she is wearing my blue plaid shirt, which is one of my favorites, and nothing else, then she grabs my arm and wraps it around her while interlacing her fingers with mine. I roll my eyes sighing while thinking if anyone was to come in here and see us like this, they would automatically assume the wrong thing, but I am too tired to really care at this point and decide to roll with it. I wake up at 11:00am feeling that I could probably sleep the rest of the day, but I know that I need to get up and help out with the arm, and I am also having phantom pains from how my left hand would often cramp up while writing, drawing, and working with it. Although this pain does hurt, I am relieved that, ever since Graveheart used that liquid oxygen cocktail on me, I have not had any other problems with intense pain, or any other side effects that I have been experiencing. I am also relieved that I can get my hand and arm free from Aluri which allows me to get out of bed without waking her, then I put my work clothes on, feed Umbra, make two servings of strudels, cook some bacon and eggs, pour two cups of tea, and prepare my lunch while waiting on the food to cook, which is just two banana and mayonnaise sandwiches, a can of ranch Pringles, two energy drinks, and two 24 ounce bottles of Dr Pepper, I have polydipsia that gets worse when I am working. Once the food is done, I go into the bedroom, sit on the bed, and gently wake Aluri, “wake up sleepy face, I’ve got bacon, eggs, and strawberry cream cheese strudels...and a cup of my chai tea,” I say, and she perks up when I mention the tea, “good morning miss beautimus, I made us some breakfast, it’s time to get up so we can eat,” I recommend in a calm voice as she raises up wiping her eyes and yawning, “I tend to be grumpy, bitter, and sickly if I don’t eat, especially when I have to take medication,” I admit just before she leans forward propping her chest on mine, then she wraps her arms around my neck, pulls herself up onto my lap, lays her head on my shoulder, and falls asleep, “you just keep making it so insanely difficult to keep myself from liking you, and it is already bad enough that you have those adorable cheek dimples, beautiful azure diamond eyes, and that lovely black hair,” I confess as I grab her buttocks, pull her into me forcing her to straddle me, and readjust my arm so I can hold on to her leg while supporting her weight with my forearm. I deliver her limp snoozing body to the couch beside Umbra’s house before running back and forth between the kitchen counter and coffee table moving our Champion’s of Breakfast breakfast to the couch. I put on a YouTube playlist of funny video compilations to watch while we, or I eat, and the noise of the television wakes Aluri, which is partially my fault because I probably accidentally left the volume on fairly high. She looks to be in a daze, confused as to how she got from the bed to here, so I grab her plate, catch her attention, lay the plate down on her lap, and sit back to eat comfortably while trying to enjoy the funny videos, then, with her being to the left of me, she she scoots over to me, lays against me propping her head on my chest, and starts eating while watching the videos.