Radioactive (Hisao) - part 1

Radioactive


It's been half an hour, suppose those guys are still out there? I debate sticking my head around the corner for a full thirty seconds, finally deciding that it's worth a shot. Slowly and carefully, I steal a glance, which immediately earns me a loud spatter of gunfire. I duck back around the side of the wall as concrete splinters fly. Mystery solved.

“You're the persistent type.” I call.

“We've got all day, asshole!” Comes the reply. The voice is muffled through the material of a gas mask, but I can hear it well enough.

“All I want is to pass.”

“Then pay the damn toll and fuck off!”

I grit my teeth. Nobody cares about yen anymore, not since the military cordoned off the school and the surrounding 30 kilometers. The excluded zone or some bullshit like that, labels didn't matter once the survivors began tearing eachother apart for medicine and supplies. Pills. That's all that anyone really cares about now, there were too many students with too many medications that just suddenly weren't available anymore. People died, maybe more than in the initial blast.

The only currency now consists of pills, ammo and medicine. I need the first, and I don't feel like giving up either of the other two if I can avoid it.

These punks are making camp in the burned out wreckage that we once called the Shanghai. Good choke point, with the windows gone they can cover the whole intersection, and with all the rubble it would take too long to find a way around. This town used to be filled with old people but now it's mostly just ruins, raiders, and things that might be old but can't really be called people anymore.

“Do you have any insulin?” A new voice calls. It's just barely recognizable.

“Ikuno, what--”

“Please, Haruhiko. We haven't found any in days, and... and I don't feel so great.”

Still keeping out of sight, I pat one of the many pockets on my military jacket. Luckily, Kenji had stockpiles of equipment all over the school, hidden throughout the grounds, even in the goddamn trees. He'd been so damn prepared.

Kenji, if you could only see us now.

“Yeah, I've got some. Don't shoot.”

“If you try anything, asshole...” The male voice warns.

“Just relax.” I sling my gun over my shoulder, a custom present Kenji had given me himself, right before all it had all happened. I don't know much about guns beyond cleaning, maintaining and killing things with them, but this one's a beauty, I've been told. Nice scope, not too heavy, easy to reload. Hits hard and fast, that's all I really care about.

I raise my hands in the air and walk around the corner, taking slow, steady steps towards the smashed out Shanghai. I can make out two figures, but they're both geared up to the point where I can't even tell which one of them has a Y chromosome.

Heh.

“Hisao.” One of them calls, I guess that's Ikuno. The other doesn't lower his gun.

“Where's your gas mask, man?” He asks. “Are you some kind of mutant?”

“Do you want the insulin or not?” I mutter, carefully reaching into my pocket and pulling out a small glass bottle. Ikuno's face probably lights up, but it's impossible to tell behind the full mask.

“Toss it over. No, screw that.” The taller one climbs out of the shell of a building, still aiming a semiautomatic at me. I never really got to know Haruhiko, before the incident. Maybe I should have been more social, when there were still a lot of people left to get to know. But it doesn't really matter now.

When he gets not too close but close enough, he extends his hand. I deposit the bottle into it and immediately turn to leave, I don't have time to socialize. And if they're resorting to area tolls, I doubt they really have anything worth trading.

“Hey, Hisao.” A voice calls from behind me. I stop.

“Haruhiko, please don't--” It's a strange thing, hearing Ikuno's distraught cry get muffled by the equipment around her face.

I turn around to see my former classmate, the muzzle of his gun aimed right at my chest.

“Sorry man.” He says.

Greed, maybe. Desperation, probably. It doesn't matter now. It's too late to ask him. My hand was already gripping the detonator in my pocket, turns out I can squeeze it faster than he can squeeze the trigger. The tiny explosive taped to the bottom of the lid on the bottle of water he holds in his hand explodes, and then he doesn't have a hand. Or an arm, or, really, very much at all.

Ikuno's scream and the thump of Haruhiko's body hitting the ground are the only sounds to follow the blast. I glance over at her. Even though I can't see her face, I know she's torn between staying safe where she is and running to his side. And I can't blame her, he's probably got some good stuff stashed away in the few pockets he has remaining. It's all going to be pretty badly stained, though.

I turn to go and begin to hear her crying, a soft sobbing that she tries to suppress. Damn it woman, not in the gas mask. The nearest safe place to take that off is two kilometers away.

I don't know if she's weeping for him, he seemed like an ass anyway, of if she's crying for herself. It wouldn't surprise me if she only stuck with him because he had the means to keep the food and medicine coming. Well at least I'm not taking the gun, I can't afford to be weighed down right now.

I start to walk. Ikuno's sobs grow louder.

I never really knew her. We only even talked once or twice.

But I do remember the way she used to smile. I do remember the way she used to laugh.

...Damn it.

I reach into my pocket--different one this time, the one for the non-explosives--and pull out another vial of clear liquid. Without turning around, I hold it out, and I can hear her sniffles grow quiet.

For almost a full minute, nothing. Then I hear hesitant footsteps approaching.

“Is that... really?” She asks softly, as if not daring to believe. It's quite an act, if that's what it really is. And I don't have time to think about it any deeper than that.

“If I wanted to kill you too, I would have done it already.” I say simply. A few moments later I feel a careful hand take the vial, my arm falls to my side and I resume walking.

“Hisao...” Ikuno mumbles, her voice still distorted by the mask. Hard to thank someone when they just made your partner into mush. There are worse ways to go, though.

Who knows what will happen to her now. And she might even be useful, the Council is always looking for able-bodied workers, as long as they can pull their weight. But she probably knows that already, and if she isn't strong enough to make it there on her own, she wouldn't be any use to them anyway. So I keep walking.

Like I said, I can't afford to be weighed down.