Benjamin Wray: Acid Reign: Genesis

One of the fighters, who was losing, saw his opportunity for a cheap shot and kicked the other fighter in the side of the head. He celebrated as his opponent hit the ground hard, but there was no one else to see it, because everyone was looking at Bean.

“Lilly!” she screamed as she frantically and clumsily climbed up on an uneven table and scanned the room.

“Lilly!” she screamed again as she bolted off the table and charged through the crowd.

Most of the people stepped aside, making room for Bean, but some unobservant people had to be shoved out of the way.

She grabbed the Lilly-hair look-alike and spun her around.

“Don’t you know…”

The skinny, wide-eyed woman with pigtails dropped her drink on the ground.

“Lilly, I thought…”

Bean gripped her even tighter out of frustration.

“That hurts, let me go!” the woman said as she tried to pull away from Bean’s grip. “What’s wrong with you?”

Bean seemed confused and felt sorry that she was hurting the woman. She let go, but then knocked the woman out cold with a heavy right punch.

Some of the crowd cheered.

“Lilly!”

The Bookie appeared and put a gentle hand on Bean’s shoulder. She turned with a raised fist but saw that it was him and lowered her arm. She began to breathe heavily, her eyes turning red, and her tears mixing with the sweat on her face.

“I’ve lost Lilly. Ripp is gonna kill me, Corn.”

“Let’s go look for her outside,” he said, knowing all too well that Lilly wouldn’t be there.

Ripp and Gus turned onto the access road for the depot and headed for the main complex. They weaved through the rows of rusted eighteen-wheeled transports and parked on the ramp that led up to the loading area.

The Umitilla Military Depot was home to acres of underground storage units, a large staging ground, and a main complex littered with warehouses that were all dedicated to the old army’s supplies.

When Ripp discovered the base, he had tried to break into some of the bunker doors with explosives, but soon realized the four-foot-thick steel doors simply weren’t going to be opened. As disappointed as he was initially, he was okay with never seeing what was behind those doors, because there was a lifetime of scavenging left for the main complex. Over the next five years, the depot became Ripp’s “gold mine” and established him as “the” runner. Other runners had tried to find out where he was finding all of the equipment, but were never able follow all of the way. Some turned back after hours of driving due to fuel restrictions, some turned back after fear consumed them, but mostly because when you were this far out in the Fringe, you needed de-radiation injections and those were costly and weren’t guaranteed to keep you from exposure.

Ripp had an advantage with his modified hot rod. It was a portable de-radiation chamber itself. One of only two working units in all of Nucrea. The other one was built into Johnny’s.

Ripp knew that eventually someone would find out where he was scavenging and accepted that it was too big of an undertaking to clean the depot out alone. Johnny suggested he team up with a trustworthy, robust regular named Gus, and the rest was history.

Together they found a great deal of the working technology in Nucrea machinery, building materials, piping, wiring, weapons, clothing, and nearly all of the armor and uniforms used by the Nucrean Guard.

Although all of those types of supplies always brought a nice payout, the seed stores and hydroponics equipment were what made Ripp and Gus their individual fortunes, positioning Nun, their contractor, as the indisputable market baron of the Fringe.

One day a new Runner named Tooth, managed to follow them all the way to the depot undetected. Tooth was able to make a good amount of money for himself with what was left, but always hated Ripp and Gus for finding it first.

Scanning every corner with their headlights, Ripp and Gus made their way through the offices on the second floor of the main building. They stopped at a wall ledger and tried to make out the faded lettering. He tapped a marker that read, Receiving Offices 202-216 .

“Let’s go. Nun said the info should be in the manifests or shipment ledgers.”

“That makes sense, of course, if they haven’t disintegrated into dust like everything that was made of paper.”

“Stop complaining. This has to be the easiest con we’ve had in years.”

“All this way for some files that might not even be here,” Gus said more to himself than to Ripp.

“Triple our fee,” Ripp said.

“He offered us triple because he knows there’s most likely nothing out here.”

Gus pushed ahead of Ripp who had slowed down to scan the hallway. “Plus, I don’t like how quiet it is.”

Ripp closed his display and followed Gus. “Maybe you can head back to the water park and join the Fringers for dinner,” Ripp said, meaning every word.

Gus quickly held up one hand to quiet Ripp and put his other hand on his pistol.

Ripp shook his head and walked ahead of Gus, who was still in listening mode. A small crash echoed through the hallway ahead of them. They both turned off their headlamps and turned on a softer green light that illuminated everything for their visors, but didn’t shine like their headlights. Ripp crouched and slowly moved forward, gun ready. Gus followed with his pistol aimed just off Ripp’s right shoulder.

Two small crashes echoed through the hall. Ripp pointed at a broken wall ahead of them. Gus switched his position to the other side of Ripp, covering a better angle, as they approached the opening in the wall.

Ripp knelt and peeked around the corner in the room ready to fire, but didn’t see anything. Gus rotated around slowly. He saw a pile of junk and broken building materials in the middle of the room. A small animal that looked like a mix between a squirrel and a cat with no hair jumped out of the pile.

The gunshot was deafening in the silence.

“The hell, Gus!”

The washed-out light in their visors faded. They no longer saw the animal, but it had left pieces of itself all over the room.

Gus holstered his pistol and walked over to inspect the carnage.

“You have to admit that was a damn good shot.”

Ripp looked sideways at a grinning Gus, then pointed at a sign that said “Receiving”. “Let’s just find what we came for and get out of here.”

“You’re no fun, you know.”

They walked into the next room. There were desks and a handful of old computers covered in dust.

Ripp pulled out a small array of cords and inspected the computers. Using the various cords, he hooked the first one up to a portable battery and waited. Nothing. He moved to the next one. Nothing.

While Ripp checked the computers, Gus rummaged through rusted filing cabinets, obviously not worried about how much noise he was making.

“A little louder, yeah?” Ripp said as he threw a piece of plastic at Gus who had just started grinding another drawer open. It hit Gus in the leg, but he ignored Ripp and continued with the banging and screeching.

Ripp tried the third computer and got a working but fuzzy screen.

“Got one,” Ripp said quietly.

Gus stopped rummaging and burst into laughter. Ripp dropped the scanner on the table as he reached for his gun out of reflex.

“You see the way that thing just exploded?”

“You do realize I could just shoot you out here, and no one would know,” Ripp said.

“Yes, you could, but you love me way too much.”

Ripp took his finger off the trigger. After inspecting the device he searched its files for anything with Theonicorp’s name on it. “Not seeing anything here. Let’s check the next office.”