Kyle West - Origins

“More than anything that story gave me hope. If Hideyoshi could rise above his circumstances, so could I.

“I kept that book and read it so much that it became a part of me. Later on, I found this blade and some books on swordplay. I don’t use just samurai forms. Sort of a mix and match of things that fit my style.” She paused. We were in the courtyard. “But fancy swordwork is only ten percent of being a samurai. The rest is honor, manners, principle, and heart.”

“So how did you, a person of honor, end up in Raider Bluff?”

“Well…anyone who wants to live needs to go where the people are. Where the money is.” She stared ahead. “I know this place is not perfect. Far from it, actually. But it’s better than working for the Vegas Gangs or one of the settlements that could be wiped out at any point. Besides, for a Raider and an Alpha, Char is good enough. With him in charge here, this place is much better off than it would be.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Look, I have to get going. Take it easy, Alex.”

She turned and walked toward the front doors. I supposed she was a samurai, for what a samurai was worth in twenty-first century post-apocalyptic America. I just wished I could use a sword like that.

I turned from the courtyard and made my way to the clinic. It was time to report to Samuel.

Samuel looked even better than he had a few hours ago. He sat up in bed and fed himself some more of the leftover stew.

“Good to see you up,” I said.

Samuel smiled. “If Makara feeds me one more bite, I’ll scream.” He paused. “One of the Raiders came in and told me what happened. Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Anna saved the day. She snuck into the building and assassinated the two guys holding Lisa hostage.”

Samuel smiled and shook his head. “You need to watch out for that one, Alex.”

I frowned. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Samuel ignored my question. “And Lisa?”

“She’s fine,” I said. “She seems a bit quiet, though. Pretty much your type all around.”

Samuel chuckled. “I guess we’ll see about that later. And Makara?”

“She’s fine, too. She didn’t look happy about Anna getting all the glory.”

Samuel shrugged and took another bite of stew.

“Char mentioned something about a Great Blight,” I said. “What is that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s the biggest obstacle we face reaching Bunker One. Hundreds of miles of old-growth Blight. I bet the monsters in the Great Blight will make Kari look like someone’s lost pet.”

It was hard to imagine any monster getting bigger than Kari. That giant had been at least three times the size of a normal human, but at least we had escaped her.

“Great,” I said. “Tell me, why are we going through that? Char mentioned something called crawlers, and from the way he described them, I’m thinking we need to come up with an alternate route.”

“That’s the way we have to go,” Samuel said. “Nothing we can do about that. We’ll just have to hope the Recon is faster. We have the turret and thousands of rounds of ammunition if things get dicey.”

“Hopefully, that’s enough,” I said. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Feels like hell,” Samuel said. “But I’ll manage. I’ve been doing some prelim scouting.”

Samuel reached for his bedside table and picked up a tattered, folded piece of paper. He unfolded it, revealing a map of the United States, along with its cities and highways. Several points on the map had been marked already — mostly in the Mojave area. In thick, red marker, a line had been drawn from Raider Bluff to Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

“I’ve been considering the most efficient route to Bunker One,” Samuel said. “We’ll be taking I-40 east most of the way. As we travel further east, it will get drier and drier. Our first obstacle will be a giant desert called the Boundless. Most who try to traverse it aren’t heard from again. Then again, most don’t have a Recon at their disposal. There will be a lot of empty, uninhabited land. And mountains. Lots and lots of mountains. But as long as we stick to the line of the old highway, getting there shouldn’t be an issue. We’ll take plenty of food and water; water both for drinking and to recharge the hydrogen cells. My main worry is the Great Blight — which starts somewhere in New Mexico.”

“How do we get through that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what to expect. It’s not as if we have satellite imagery of the Great Blight, so everything is up in the air once we make the border. No one even knows where it begins, exactly. All the same, we have to go through it, all the way to Cheyenne.”

I thought of the Blight that Makara and I went through while trying to find the entrance to Bunker 114. It was hard to imagine hundreds of miles of it at a stretch. The xenovirus would have had a chance to evolve a lot of deadly monsters in an ecosystem like that.

“Somewhere in there is the city of Albuquerque,” Samuel said. “There, the road turns north. We’ll be taking I-25 almost all the rest of the way to Cheyenne. After that, it gets a bit trickier. We’ll have to find the right roads to make it to Bunker One. If we’re lucky, we’ll find some signs pointing the way. If not, we always have a compass and landmarks to go by.”

“How long should all that take?”

Samuel shrugged. “In the Old World, two days at most. Now, who knows? It could take anywhere from a week to a month.”

Anna charged into the room, out of breath.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You won’t believe this, but it isn’t over.”

“What isn’t?” Samuel asked.

“There were a group of Imperials camped out to the south. They’re torching the farms. Without that harvest, the city might starve come winter.”

“What do we need to do?” I asked.

“Char wants everyone at the front gates, pronto. You included, Alex.”

My heart pounded. Here I was, not even a Raider, about to go fight their war.

“Come on!” Anna said. “He wants us at the bottom of Bluff in ten.”

Anna shot out the door. I looked at Samuel.

“Don’t get yourself killed. Stay with Anna and don’t take any risks. Makara should be down there, too; find her and tell her the same. Our mission is greater.”

I nodded. “I know that. I’ll find a nice rock to hide behind.”

“Good boy.”

I walked out of the room, Anna frowned.

“You’re a Raider now,” she said. “You better fight like one.”

“I could compromise, I guess,” I said. “Take out a couple Imperials and then find a nice rock to hide behind.”

Anna shook her head. “The gate’s only a couple miles down the road. I suggest we run.”

As Anna took off, I shook my head.

“Great,” I said. “I love running.”

By the time we made it to the gates I was, unsurprisingly, out of breath. The fact that we went downhill the whole way worked in my favor, but still, two miles in ten minutes was not a good thing in my book. We had gone down countless switchbacks to get to the desert below. The whole time, smoke poured into the sky from the fires consuming the farms. There was still time to save the greater part of the crop, but a lot of damage had already been dealt. I guessed Rex had an ace up his sleeve after all.

At the bottom of the bluff, Anna and I ran to join a group of about twelve Raiders. Among them were Char, Makara, and Lisa. Lisa held a sniper rifle, complete with scope, in both hands, and wore a grim expression to match.

“Good, Anna’s here,” Char said. “Here’s the full situation. There are five or six Imperials trying to escape along the river. We outnumber them two to one, but there are still enough to do damage. It’s likely they’ll take cover and fire on us as we approach. You know the drill, so don’t do anything stupid. They’ve already killed several of the slaves who weren’t quick enough.” Char looked around at everyone. I wondered what “the drill” was, but was too afraid to ask. “Keep low, form a half-circle and flank them in. None of these Imperials need to make it home. Right, let’s go!”