After a
dozen tries, Mabel found a breastplate that she was satisfied with.
Then she picked a pair of elbow and knee pads.
"In
case someone decides to shoot me?" George asked dryly.
Mabel
laughed. "No. In case you trip and fall."
George
stared at her. "What? You expect me not to be able to stand on
my own two feet?"
"If
you can do that," Mabel said, "while bullets are flying and
explosions go off all around you, good for you. You may want to dive
for cover instead, though."
Okay, so
George had not considered the dangers of the wasteland seriously
enough. There was going to be flying ammunition and explosives and
possibly other material hazardous to health that he had not heard of.
It was going to be difficult to revel in the glory and spend his
earnings if he was stuck in hospital, or worse, dead.
"Relax."
Tricia clapped him lightly on the back. Well, it was a light clap for
someone in a power armor. It was a pretty heavy clap for someone who
was not in power armor.
George
stumbled forward from the blow.
"We'll
keep you out of any firefights," Tricia said, "We may not
even have one."
That was
not very reassuring for George. But the women were experienced
explorers of the wasteland.
"How
confident are you in that, based on your experience?" George
asked.
Tricia
paused for a moment. "You know, I'm sure we've had a fight each
time we're out there. Sometimes three or five."
Definitely
not very reassuring.
After
that, Mabel looked for armored boots and gloves for George. Again,
the teenager suffered countless tries to find a set that matched the
rest of his gear. When Mabel was finally done playing dress-up, the
Vixens took him to the transport waiting outside. Or rather, Tricia
carried him there. He really was feeling like a mannequin.
The
dark-brown transport outside looked different from the cargo vans
George had seen in the upper levels of the city. It had the general
boxy body shape, but it had pieces of armor attached all
over. A gun turret had been installed in the middle of the roof. The
vehicle stood on four large wheels, supported by heavy suspension.
The logo of a red grinning fox's head on a gray cloud had been
stenciled onto a flat piece of armor on each side.
George
sat with Mabel at the front. Tricia sat in one of the seats at the
back, one that was specially modified to fit a power armor. Some of
the space in the back storage was taken up by a small selection of
weapons and other equipment.
Mabel
rolled the transport out of the garage. The exits to the city were
not very far down, so there was no need to wait for the megalift, not
that there was any scheduled for such a short distance. They went down the highway that stretched across tens of levels.
Oh boy,
oh boy, oh boy, George was about to go on an adventure! What
excitement awaited him? What new sights would he see? What sort of
hazards and difficulties would he have to overcome? What would be the
first challenge they would face?
Answer:
Paperwork. The authorities required everyone leaving the city to fill
up lots of forms. The loveliness of bureaucracy.
"If
Laura were here, we'd be done by now." Mabel sighed. She turned
to George. "This is why we wanted to leave early!"
Behind
them, Tricia was typing away on a datapad. Mabel knew better than to
distract her so she passed her time by pinning the blame on the only
other person around.
"If
you'd been here early, we'd have left early," Mabel continued
nagging.
She
reminded George of his Mama. She had nagged a lot too.
"And
then we had to fit those armor on you."
Actually,
that had been Mabel's fault mainly. She had wanted to try each and
every piece of armor and had made certain that it matched each other
piece right.
"Hey,
have we any fruits or vegs to declare?" Tricia interrupted.
"No,
of course not!" Mabel answered, "It's not like we'd bring
any out of the city. I mean, who'd... Trish, are you filling the form
for entry into Covenant?"
"I...
Oops," the other Vixen uttered.
Mabel
groaned. "You've been filling the wrong form!?" She turned
to George and repeated, "This is why we wanted to leave early!"
Eventually,
Tricia was done with the paperwork and mercifully, Mabel's nagging
did end. Once the authorities were satisfied, they allowed the
transport to continue.
Mabel
had the transport crawl under the speed limit down the road to the
main ground-level gates of the city. Once they were through the
gates, the Vixen accelerated down the ramp onto the level sandy
ground.
Outside
the transport, George saw the ruins of the old city on which Covenant
had been built. Tricia told him that ages ago, the old city had been
scavenged for raw material to build the tower city Covenant.
Buildings, bridges, even the roads had been taken apart. Only the
base supports and foundations of buildings had remained. What had
once been highways were sand-covered land.
Free
from the restrictions of the city's traffic laws, Mabel sped off
towards the old city limits, towards the wasteland beyond.
***
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