Through the Dust - Section 6

“I can’t believe we made an easy 500,000!” Zinfandel sighed, peering into the bag and shuffling through it, happy to feel the cool coins against her fingers.

Alex nodded, and leaned back in the driver’s seat, “I was expecting more from him!” she agreed, turning her head back to her partner with a grin, “Do we know what we’re keeping out of what we took out of it?”

“Hmmm…”  Zinfandel pulled out her communicator – the models they owned, even though a bit out-dated, doubled as computers – and pulled up a stock list of some sort, Alex assumed.  “We should keep the University uniforms, some of the canned food, all of the fresh food – it’s all almost overripe! – a couple cases of the nutritional crap, and some of the medical supplies…  Last time we stocked up wasn’t too long ago, and our kitchen might not be able to hold much more, so.  We should be able to pull a decent profit with the extra stuff anyhow.”

Alex nodded, and unbuckled the harness, walking to the back of the cockpit, “That’s good news at least.  We should stop at the bank while we’re in Loika…  Carrying that much cash doesn’t bode well…”  Her voice drawled and faded as a video transmission was being requested.  “Who’s that from?”

Leaning forward against her harness, Zinfandel peered at the monitor, “Uh oh, looks like we have some trouble!”

Alex wheeled back on the dash, and pressed accept.  A woman in full University uniform, looking quite angry, greeted them.  “What’s the problem, officer?”  Though she tried to make the last word sound as honest as possible, she knew that she automatically spat the word, and she was sure that at least some of it seeped through.

“Pull over immediately by order of the University Special Task Force!” she yelled, as if over a loud noise before her.

Scowling, Alex leaned closer to the camera on her dashboard, “On what offense, officer?  We have an appointment to keep, and don’t have time to waste if there isn’t an honest reason to be pulled aside.”  She had leaned closer because Zinfandel had run out of the cockpit to dispose of the University-marked boxes and to store as much of the goods as possible in their respective places in the pod.  The more time Alex could buy her, the better…  Not that pods had large living areas.

“We know you were involved in the robbery that just occurred in Torenz approximately two and a half hours ago!  Stop your vehicle immediately!”

The transmission was crackling a bit, but Alex understood most of what she said.  Zinfandel was back, so Alex let her face fall in submission, “Sure thing, officer, give us some space to slow this boat down!”  She ended the transmission and turned auto-pilot off, starting to slow the large vehicle.  It took a bit of time to do, even on full brakes, and they had no intention of stopping the pod quickly.

“This doesn’t look good,” Zinfandel said, slinging a rifle across her back and slipping a handgun into her belt.

“Sure doesn’t…  Wonder how many there are?  She was talking in the plural…”  As Alex pondered this, she was hefting her cross across her back and checking her knife – they were almost at a complete stop now, and as the vehicle slowed, they made their way to the back hatch.  When it had completely stopped, the hatched lowered, and they walked down it expecting to be greeted by a police pod.

Instead they met the dark space of night, as dead as the ground around them, and the headlights of a single small-unit transport: something closely resembling an old-world motorcycle, but that was fully encased so as to protect the driver from the harsh wasteland conditions.  Standing beside it was a blue-coated University police woman with purple hair pulled into high pigtails that stuck out form under the police cap.  “What can we do for you, officer?”  They shared confused glances at the lack of back-up.

“I’m going to need to search your pod for the stolen ship that has been declared missing from the Torenz University Transport Station.”

Alex waved a dismissive hand, “Search all you want, but if you’ve ever seen a pod before, you know that the only place big enough on it to house a ship is the main cargo bay, and as you can see from here, it’s empty.  We don’t have any large cargo at the moment.”

The officer pulled her old-world rifle-style gun – bayonet-fashion – and held it to Alex’s throat in one fluid movement, the plasma generator whirring at full charge.  “Look here,” she hissed as Zinfandel’s rifle clicked and was soon pointed at her head.  “That was my ship you stole, and they’re holding me responsible!  I need that ship back, or else I’ll lose far more than my job!”

Alex peered down her nose at the sharp, charged knife pointed at her throat.  “You’re threatening me to give you something I don’t have, regardless if you’ll be fired or not, yeah?  So it looks like you’ll just have to run back to your HQ with your tail between your legs and become a commoner like the rest of us.”  All of the guns dropped, and Zinfandel and Alex began to walk back up the ramp created by the hatch door.

“Wait!”  The pair turned around and looked down at the officer.  “Don’t you know how the University works?”

“Why would we?  We were around for the Quake – we weren’t taken in and raised by the place.”  Alex crossed her arms as the woman ran up the ramp to them, nearly slipping as one foot stepped off of the track laid.

“I’ll be killed!  That ship was my responsibility and I failed!  That’s punishable by death!”  Zinfandel gave Alex a skeptical glance, which was quickly returned.  Seeing this, the officer straightened up and gave them a salute, “My name’s Red Queen, one of the first generation of those born after the Quake, in the year of.”

“Ah, so you were basically recruited by force as the University was still trying to gain power world-wide…” Alex said thoughtfully.  As she said this, Zinfandel pulled her aside from the officer a bit.

“We should take her with us,” she whispered, glancing at the woman.  “If she goes back, she’ll be killed for sure – I’ve heard stories of the cruelty of the University that you don’t really hear about on the streets or in the news.  Besides, she’ll have intell that we’d have no access to otherwise.”

“Zinfandel, I really don’t think that that’s-“

Zinfandel cut her off with a sharp look, “Yeah, she’ll be a fugitive, but so are we, technically.  Half of the jobs we’ve pulled since the University was established were illegal, and there will surely be more.”

“We don’t have a red flag over our heads though!  We’re not sought after, because they don’t know it’s us.  As soon as we park in a city she’ll be recognized and arrested, and us as well.”

“C’mon, losing a ship can’t be a major offense that would lead to them hunting her down.  They’ll forget about her in a few weeks and we’ll be in the clear!”

Alex was silent a moment, then gave a heavy, relenting sigh.  They then walked back over to the fidgeting officer, who straightened up from a bit of a slouch as soon as they returned.

“Look, we can’t let you go back in good conscious, knowing that they’ll kill you.  We don’t have your ship, and honestly by now, we don’t know where it is…”

Red seemed to wilt at that, “Then what do you expect me to do…?  I can’t go back to the University, then…”

Alex furrowed her brow and sighed, “Well, if you want, you’re welcome to join us.  I’m sure you know the kind of business we do and the kind of crew we run with, so it’s up to you.”

“Er…”  She was eying the cross across Alex’s back, “Are you a religious type?”  This made Zinfandel nearly squawk with laughter, and she took that as a negative answer.  “Well, they’re going to be looking for me, probably…”

“True,” Zinfandel responded, “but we’re making out way to Loika, which is still quite a way from here.  Maybe by then they’ll assume you’re dead – you did set out into the wasteland alone and without a pod.  You wouldn’t be able to survive long.”

When Red didn’t respond, Alex started walking back up the ramp, “Well, if you’re coming, get that bike in here and let’s get going.  Like I said, we have an appointment to keep!”