I spent the next several days doing what I could to ambush any convoys that seemed to be transporting goods to Fort Matthews. Every one of them was a dead end. They’d occasionally be actual deliveries of raw materials or food, but just as often they were transporting nothing, and existed only as a distraction. A way to drain anyone trying to discover what they were doing of resources and manpower.

It had worked on me, and I was nearly completely drained of ammunition, had been shot more times than I’d care to admit, and was forced to rely on my sword. Power armored Remnants and STAR patrols hunted me constantly once they realized I was in their territory, and I was unable to rest. In large part this worked out poorly for them, but it did serve to wear me down. By the end of the week I felt raw, and on edge.

I made my way back to the dead-drop over the next few days, and found a small care-package of bullets, a las-pistol, and an update letter from Nico.

Donovan,

I’ve joined the Khan at the front. He’s been steadily pushing toward Fort Matthews and intends to surround it and cut it off from the outside, sieging them the same way he himself was besieged at Medina. I will have a contact collect from this drop in case you have any information regarding what the Remnants are planning, but we can’t wait forever, especially when the end of the war is so close. The Kaijin, the rest of the Deadman Militia, and the Horde all agree that this is the time to cut them off. Many of the STAR forces have deserted, the Republic is in open revolt, and all the major players of the Remnants are in the same place at once. Hard not to miss this opportunity, even if my gut tells me something else is going on. The siege won’t begin until around a week after the election, so don’t rush here to support if you don’t need to, but I know we could use your help when the fighting starts. You may be exiled from Pott’s, but the Khan, Bastien, and I bet even Leroy would be grateful to have you here.

Hope to see you soon,

Nico

P.S. Mama says don’t forget to vote, and Mercy says hello

Beneath that message, was another hat, an almost exact replica of the last one. This one had a simple note beneath it.

Donny,

Knowing you, you’ll need this already.

XOXO Deux

I chuckled, and placed the fresh hat on my head. That was just like Deux. I opened up the R.A.S. navigating to the election information.

Voting begins in 3 Days! Get ready to perform an American’s Greatest Duty!

I nodded. That would give me time to head back to my boat, resupply, take a day to rest, then turn around and reach Fort Matthews before the fighting began. Should even have time to participate in the planning or maybe be involved in any pre-siege operations.

I wrote a short message explaining what little information I’d found, then placed it in the dead drop, and sealed it back up. After that I turned in the direction of Jasper and my deadzone, and got to walking.

…

I made it back to my deadzone in record time, with a hunk of meat I couldn’t identify as either bovine or avian, that I placed in the usual spot for Gus, who didn’t wait long to lumber to shore and eat. After that I went back into the comfort of my boat. I was tired, but took the time to prepare my pack for the next day, put together an updated list of items I wanted acquired by Bill, and took the time to update my journals and maps. Once I was done, I walked through the boat, and took my usual moments of satisfaction with what I’d acquired, mapped, and accomplished. My maps on the walls, journals in neat rows beneath them. My old science fiction and fantasy paperbacks that had survived a war, and then some. I also had the stack of weapons, and items I still hadn’t determined a use for from various bunkers and other situations. Maybe with the war coming to a close I’d finally be able to rest and figure everything out, or even just spend a month in my deadzone reading with nothing else to do. I smirked, I doubted highly I’d be able to stay still that long. It sounded nice in my head for a moment though.

I stayed up until it was the next day, and cast my vote for Mama at 12:01 am, I received a notification as I did,

Congratulations Citizen! You’ve just earned an additional rank in NATIONALISM! You’re doing your part in recognizing that America is the greatest country in the world!

…

As I dreamt, I was surrounded by enemies. They were faceless, attacking from all sides. I cut into them, one after the other, with blade or claw until I was surrounded by blood I-

Something crashed into me with the force of a small missile. I felt my rib cage disintegrate and my spine snap, as I was hit from above with enough force to slam my body though the bottom of my boat. I opened my mouth to cry out, and irradiated water filled my lungs. Before I was able to fully realize what was happening, blows began raining down on me, barely slowed by the pressure of the water, caving in my face with incredible strength.

I managed to bring my arms up to cover my face, and the blows kept raining down, with such force I could feel my bones cracking and mending with every strike. The figure attacking me was in full power armor, the eye-lenses lit bright blue, heavy scarring all across the suit, and each blow raining down with a grace and efficiency I recognized. It was Graves.

I struggled beneath him, trying to escape, but between the drowning, the strikes slamming into me, and the initial hit, I was heavily weakened, not even including the arduous journey and harsh experiences of the last week. I focused, drawing in rads and letting them explode out of me in an attempt to get him off of me, but he held firm, continuing his onslaught. I caught his hand in mine to stop the blows, and he threw himself upward and began kicking me instead, striking me with even more more force then before. My consciousness started to drift with each blow, and I started to lose seconds of time here and there. My boat was sinking around us, papers drifting in the water all around us. Books and maps soaked through, and chunks of wood and metal hitting the ground kicking up little puffs of sand.

I lost another second, and when I came back I focused all my strength into a single strike, slamming my fist into his chest with enough force that he finally lost his grip. I pushed off the ground, I needed to make it to the surface, to catch a single gulp of oxygen and I might be okay. My body screamed at me even as my spine reconnected the halves of my body and I regained enough use of my legs to kick to the surface.

Before I reached it, a hand gripped my ankle and began dragging me back down. I looked down to see blue eye lenses lit beneath me. I reoriented my body to fight, but I didn’t need to. A massive white mass of scales, a billion of years of evolution, and rad power hit Graves with enough force to slam him into the other side of the lake.

With Graves occupied with Gus I shot toward the edge of the lake, through the debris of my life, loose pieces of paper clinging to me where I swam through them. Before I surfaced, I hesitated, even with every part of me screaming, Graves wouldn’t have come here alone. I activated my shield bracelet, then surfaced.

The second my head peeked out from the water, a bullet that could’ve pierced a tank lit my shield like a Christmas tree as kinetic force danced across it. I’d been right, Leah was there too.

I quickly pulled myself up onto the shore, but instead of running for cover, I ran in the direction of the shot, where I could smell Leah hiding. There were several additional shots, one going wide, and two right on the money, the last one breaking through my shield. I reached the source of the shots in a small patch of forest, and as I passed between the trees there was a small explosion, and a liquid shot from around me, covering me.

It smelled worse than anything I’d ever experienced before. Shit, death, and sulfur all multiplied by my enhanced sense of smell. I stumbled forward, no longer able to smell where Leah was, scraping the gunk from my eyes as I staggered to see a gun sitting there with the barrel still smoking.

“Hey Donovan,” said Leah, her voice as scratchy and damaged as ever.

I whirled around and lunged at the sound, but saw nothing.

“You won’t find me that way. I’m already preparing my next ambush.”

Leah wasn’t there, she was somewhere else. I steadied myself, taking a moment to breathe for the first time since the attack began.

The second I slacked, I heard a whirring behind me, and a small turret opened fire, filling my back with small arms fire. I leapt at it, and stomped it down with my foot, destroying it. I started to look around, but didn’t let my guard down this time.

“Not going to ask how I found you? Or why I’m attacking now?”

I ignored her, and the voice, and looked for any signs of where she went, finding a small broken branch that indicated she’d fled back toward the lake.

“I’ve done so much Donovan. Sacrificed more than you can imagine for a dream you seem determined to crush.”

I left the cover of the small thicket and was immediately struck in the chest by a sniper rifle round. I ran, moving serpentine in the direction the shot had come from, avoiding one shot, and taking another in the shoulder that spun me around completely, forcing me to the ground where I rolled to stand back up. Even as I ran, Leah kept talking.

“Graves and I were the first down. The ones who got to work out all the kinks in the drop pods.”

The moment I stood up, I dove and rolled again, narrowly avoiding another shot. Leah’s voice seemed to be coming from random spots all around me, the effect was disorienting.

“I was the luckier of the two of us. When we crashed a piece of metal lodged in my throat. Graves though… he was crippled completely. If we hadn’t had the power armor… I’d have had to put a bullet through his head right there to end his suffering.”

I got up and kept running, keeping my movements erratic as I moved, and struggling to scrape the goo from my face to maybe be able to find Leah’s exact location. A shot struck my knee directly, and I fell as I ran, sliding through the muck on the lake’s edge. I could see bubbles still coming up from its depths, and the occasional thrashing of a tail.

“We liked you, you know. Enjoyed working with you. I want you to know, unlike a lot of the Remnants, I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

My knee recovered and this time I bolted for a nearby boulder, but the second I got behind it I noticed a number of blinking lights. The explosion slammed me back toward the lake, my face briefly engulfed in flame before I managed to roll in enough muck to put it out.

“It’s not just about your people dying out. It’s about who they are. Their culture, what they’ve done for you. For the record, I recommended against the vaccine project. Masters didn’t have much time for my thoughts on the matter though. Didn’t like the idea of your people’s ‘hideous blemish’ existing in New America.”

I brought myself to my feet again, and finished making my way to where the shots had come from, but once again, Leah was gone and all that was left was a smoking gun. This time, four turrets appeared and fired at me at once.

“I fell in line, because that’s what good Americans do. What I was raised to do, and trained to do.”

I smashed one turret into another, and smashed the last two with a punch and a kick respectively.

“Now Masters is using our greatest resource just to stop you and your kind. If we still had Matthews, we’d maybe be able to use it more than twice, once for the test, and once for the execution, but without her technical expertise, it looks like my old home will die with yours. Fitting, huh?”

I moved out of the thicket back toward the lake, my sense of smell was starting to recover. Before I could fully use it though, a massive white mass smashed into me, knocking me from my feet. It was Gus’ head.

“It wasn’t the best home, but it was a hell of a lot better than here. Clean, sterile, safe, equipped with a laser capable of leveling a city, great view. If they’d followed my advice they would’ve simply wiped out Fette with it before they even arrived, but they wanted to keep their ace in the hole… I don’t think they expected it to work anyway. Besides, Masters has his new superweapon now.”

I held Gus’ head for a moment and found a wail coming from my throat unbidden. There was a cracking sound, and I was thrown backwards, the full force of a power hammer slamming into my chin. I flung myself to my feet, and snapped my shattered jaw back into place as I charged Graves.

Graves charged right back, his armor covered in fresh teeth marks and scars, leaking water from random holes, its servos screaming as he moved.

Before we reached on another, Graves brought his hammer down where he predicted I’d be, I slid to the side, and he quickly brought up his leg to kick me in the chest, sending me several yards backward.

“Masters is very excited to see how all the enemy forces are gathered before him all at once. In his mind, he’s expecting to have the presidency, absolute victory over the Horde, and an end to Pott’s almost simultaneously.”

Graves went to strike me again with his hammer, but this time, I caught the head of it, superheating my grip and melting it in my hands. He let it go to slam his fists into me, and I let him strike me, tearing into his armor with my hands as we both ripped into one another like mindless animals.

“Personally, I’m not sure it’ll be as easy as he thinks it will be. But he’s our leader. Descended from the president that went up. Heh, we’re as bad as the Rens.”

While my skin and bones healed with every blow, Graves' armor didn’t grow back, and soon it was too damaged to strike me with more than the weakest of blows. His skin was exposed in several areas, and what I saw was shriveled flesh and atrophied limbs. I knocked him to the ground and tore of his faceplate last. I saw his eyes for the first time. They were grey, and I was surprised to see no hate in them, just determination, and maybe respect.

“Do it.” he said, his voice barely audible.

I thought he was referring to me, and moved to oblige, when I noticed small lights start to flicker across his armor. I jumped up off of him, but it was too late, and again an explosion consumed me. The force of it was as great as the one in the bunker, perhaps greater, and I could feel myself fly into a dozen different directions.

It didn’t matter though. I’d already done this once, and this time I was deep in a deadzone, and ready. I reassembled myself with ease, and the moment my senses returned I smelled Leah. I looked up to see her standing above a crater where Graves had just made his sacrifice, pouring what smelled like alcohol onto what was now his grave.

I approached her, ready to end this, but something was different, her smell, something was off.

She looked up at me, a smile on her face as always. “I actually thought that might work. The bunker traps were Master's idea. I thought wearing you down with those, the traps here, Graves and me. I thought it would work.”

I stared at her silently. She was wearing her anti-rad suit, but the hood was off her face. She was already dead, not to mention the poison I could smell moving through her blood.

She nodded understandingly at me. “An agent ability. I can release the poison into my blood at will.” She looked at the sun. “Huh, that’s odd. Looks like I attacked you a little too early. You may actually have a chance to warn Pott’s of what’s coming. The satellite’s not meant to fire until the election has officially ended.”

“Why?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We were never going to win. That’s what I realized when Graves and I first got here. Even if we did, we wouldn’t be what we were when we arrived, we wouldn’t have been what we were in space. We would have been scarred.” She raised a hand to her throat “Maybe if we’d just kept to ourselves and waited longer… Looked for a different way, taken the time to figure things out.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She took a swig of what remind of the booze in her hand and sat down picking up a piece of Graves faceplate. She gently traced it with a forefinger. “The version of this story where Graves and I got to arrive whole and together, where we got to do things with as little bloodshed as possible, that was never going to happen, it was just what we were told to convince us to get into the pod.”

I noticed her breathing start to speed up sharply, and saw her start to shake, but in spite of her clear weakening, she kept herself sitting up straight, and looked at me, her smile at odds with the look in her eyes.

“You better get moving.”