A Shephard- ZoC Main Story Vol 1 Chapter 13

Part 13 - Lucky Lucy

After helping her up from her little fall, most of the remaining morning was spent walking in silence towards the southern compound. You noted with amusement that Lucy would now constantly check with her hands to see if her hood was still on, while glancing in your direction hoping you didn’t notice. Discretion being the better part of valor, you said nothing as you two walked on. This wasn’t quite as great as a piggyback ride, but this stroll with her was it’s own special delight.

Maybe it was because she was the first woman in a while do give a damn about you, or that there was finally a stalker in The Zone that you could trust, or possibly even the fact that having another person just made things less lonely, but you were very much enjoying her company even if she was oblivious to it.

Sometimes she would stop to crouch down and look at something, but quickly get up and move on; not wanting to hold you up. Seeing as you didn’t have a timetable to keep, you didn’t mind the brief but frequent stops she made.

You feel it’s been long enough to try again, so you start up a conversation.

“I notice you’re curious about a lot of things, stopping and looking around-

“I’m sorry, I-”

“No no, it’s not a problem, really. I’m more curious, is this the first time you’ve experienced these things?” Maybe by asking this, you figure, you can learn a bit more about what she is.

There’s a long pause while the two of you continue to walk.

“I’ve seen these things before. A lot, I think. But not like this?” she says as she points at herself.
“So you’re enjoying your increased sense of agency?” you ask. Has she not been like this for a while?

“Agency?” she asks, not sure of what you mean.

“Agency. Self Awareness. The ability to go where you want and do whatever you feel like. How you are now-”

“No! I’m a rifle! I help you, I don’t need-” she interrupts, falling into that objectification of herself.

“But isn’t that what you’re doing? By walking here? You’re exerting your own will.”

“But you asked me-”

As gently as you can, you interrupt her once more. “I didn’t ask you to look at that car earlier, or to feel shy about how you look. I didn’t ask you to give me that warm smile earlier, or to wake me up out of a terrible dream. These are things you do because you want them to.”

At this statement, she looks on in horror. You need to stop her before she shies away from this. “-and that’s okay.”

She freezes.
An hour later, you were on a hill overlooking the southern compound you saw in the distance earlier. It was around 11, and the pleasant sun of the morning turned into overbearing heat now. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t wearing that same heavy leather coat, gasmask, and loads of equipment.

At this point, what’s worse: heatstroke, chemical poisoning, or radiation?

“I don’t know.” Lucy responds. Shit, you didn’t mean to voice that aloud.

The complex you are overlooking is interesting. A series of small rounded hangar like structures are surrounded by a wall with checkpoints at the east and north ends. And towards the back of it all is a large 5 story building; dwarfing the rest and providing much needed shade to some of the buildings.

“See anything Lucy?” you ask. A second pair of eyes wouldn’t hurt, would it?

She takes off her mask and looks sternly at the compound, leaning forward a bit as she squints her eyes.

“There.” she says pointing at the northern checkpoint.

She has, or is, your scope, so you can’t confirm what she’s looking at. How she can even make out detail like that is beyond you.

“What is it?”

“A boar.”

Well, probably the one from earlier. You’ll give him some time to leave while you hunt in the fields east of the compound for artifacts.

You start walking in that direction, and Lucy give you a inquisitive look, but it quickly disappears and she hurries to catch up with you.
And shortly there after you find yourself smack dab in the middle of another anomaly field. You would have found yourself scattered all over the field if it wasn’t for Lucy’s sharp eyes.

You asked her if she had some sort of ability to sense anomalies, and she just pointed from her eyes to the pulsating air you almost walked into.

Fair point. Maybe you should use that basic ability of perception once in awhile, eh?

But now you were deep into it.

“Left.” she says. And you walk left.

It’s not like she has a special sense or anything, just good eyes. So between your bolts, detector, and her occasional callout, you’re making rapid progress towards what your Bear detector says is another artifact.

“Stop.” And you do.

She gets up from the rock she was sitting on outside the field, and walks a bit left, and then a bit right; all the while staring at the space around you.

“Right” she says, sitting down again.

It’s a bit hard to hear her at this point, but you’re not about to ask her to yell. Other than the one incident, her volume level has been medium to low; and you’re not going to stress her out by asking that.

So you comply, going a bit to your right. And you are rewarded by now noticing something very small pulsating behind a stump.

Grabbing it, you briefly notice it’s tan shape and oblong protrusions. Maybe this is a gravi? Pocketing it, you now retrace your steps out. However this takes longer than usual due to you using less bolts; a result of Lucy’s callouts.

With a lighter step in your feet, you walk over to where your spotter is sitting.

Can a sniper rifle really be it’s own spotter?

Anyways, you promptly sit right next to Lucy and exhale, a huge sigh of relief. You may now have a hang of it, but it doesn’t make you any less nervous about the whole thing.

“Thank you for your help, Lucy. Couldn’t have seen some of those anomalies without you.”

Lucy leans forward next to you, now looking in your face. She pauses for a moment, considering something. Then her left arm shoots out, extending her hand in a fist. She moves it downward a bit, and finishes the series of actions with a thumb extending up from the fist.

It was really mechanical, but that was definitely a thumbs up.

You raise your own arm and reciprocate the gesture.

And she continues to stare at you, frozen in that gesture. Blinking occasionally through the mask.

“Uh, it’s okay now. Don’t need to hold it forever.”

She looks aside a bit, and moves her back downward, resuming her same sitting posture she held while in the field.

“So who taught you that one?” you inquire, chucking at the odd nature of her execution of it.

“He didn’t teach me it, but I remember…” and then she looks solemn again, casting her gaze down. A bad memory, you theorize, and try to change her mood.
“Oh here, you can have this. I figure since you helped me find it, you should keep it.” you say, wanting to reward her somehow.

She puts her hands up in some sort of gesture of denial, but into those hands you push the recently found artifact. Must be exhaustion, but you feel a bit heavier now. Funny, you believed it would feel more of a weight _off_ your shoulders when you got out of anomaly field..

She holds it in her hands, a subtle yellow glow illuminating her mask as she leans into it. It’s more of a butterfly shape, with two very thick wings and a middle piece. Maybe. These things always look all sorts of funky to you. The only reason you know what they even do is having someone you sell them to tell you what their benefit is.

Lucy points at the object and then herself.

“Yes, it's yours. Seriously.”

You’re not sure, but she looks a bit excited now as she lifts it up, turns it around, and is positively absorbed in the activity of examining the thing.

You can’t help but just smile.

“Let's get going, more fields over there I think.” you state, gathering your backpack and looking back at her. She reluctantly pockets the artifacts, and motions to follow you.
Just as she’s rising, she seems to stumble a bit.

You rush over to catch her. Huh, she’s not as heavy as this morning.

“Are you okay?” you ask worriedly. Did the artifact do something?

She moves her mask side to side.

“Tired.” you hear a mumble as she leans against you. Now that you think about it, this is the longest period of time you’ve seen her like this since, well, when you found the rifle. You guess she’s not used to this.

“Comon, we’ll just go to the compound then.” You offer.

Somewhat lazily, she walks towards you and climbs on your back, even though you didn’t even prompt such a thing. Expecting the pain in your legs to return once more, you’re surprised when, as she latches onto your chest with her arms, you don’t really feel a new weight at all.

First the lean, and now this? Does she get lighter when tired? Or is this the result of the artifact?

Either way, it’s a welcome change as you hold your makarov pistol in one hand and keep her in place with the other. You’re pretty close to the east entrance anyways, you just hope that boar had cleared out.

The plan is simple. You wanted to explore the place thoroughly, but with the comfortable encumbrance on you right now, that’s not the safest idea. You’ll head to the center building and get some height again, hopefully to avoid the mutants that crawl around The Zone at night.
You were hungry as it was only shortly after noon, but you would struggle in the heat and find a way inside. The very faint, comforting wheezing of a napping Lucy on your back driving you onwards.

Headlamp on and pistol ready in one hand, you make your way through the compound towards the towering building at the center. You note the large quantity of abandoned army equipment, most of it rusted to hell after being left in the rain. You briefly imagine Lucy like that, and have to shake your head from the thought. It’s just too sad to dwell on at the moment.

The entrance of the large building is two swinging doors; long since blown out and their glass shattered. Carefully stepping over the mess as your boots crunched on the mosaic that now covered the ground, you briefly examined the entrance.

Some abandoned desks and broken 80’s computer equipment, but nothing much else to note. Finding a faded sign for stairs, you follow and hope that they’re still intact.

Good old soviet engineering, it is. Poured out of more concrete and rebar that was ever truly necessary, it’s still there and in one piece. You want to say that going up the stairs would be easier with Lucy’s apparent lighter weight, but it’s still an awkward affair to balance yourself with both hand occupied. Even if you did have that free hand, most of the metal railing was gone, or too dangerous to grasp casually.

Your flashlight glancing long shadows into the darkness of the stairwell above, you keep on climbing; occasionally stopping to listen for any mutants nesting this high.
Finally, you reach the top floor. Peaking around, you are surprised to find that a lot of sunlight can still enter the room, so you turn off your flashlight. More cabinets here, and an absurd wall of rusted out electronics forms a sort of wall you decide would make a nice barrier for a room. The drawers have all been pulled out, as if someone was in a hurry, desperately looking for something. But there was nothing here anymore, that you could tell, which would still be considered valuable.

You carefully let Lucy down, leaning her against one of the computer banks. She’s still asleep, even after the loud steps in the stairway. Good for you now, but maybe not the best skill to have when someone might be sneaking up on you.

Removing her mask so she could breathe a bit easier, you next prop her head forward a bit as you roll up your jacket and put it behind. A pillow so her neck wouldn’t be so stiff when she woke up. She instantly leans her head on it, trapping your hand between her face and the pillow. You note how surprisingly soft it is, despite the scars. You wish you could stay like this forever, but The Zone waits for no one, and you need to police the rest of the “camp” and make sure it’s as safe as possible.

An hour later, and having finally ate lunch, you’re sitting down on one of the overturned cabinets looking through those documents again. You take a very small swig of vodka, not sure why. You don’t have much better to do, you guess.. You left out most of your food so Lucy would be able to pick something out when she woke up.

You’re really proud of her today. She kept her promise, despite some difficult things you could tell she wanted to run from. Even to the point of total exhaustion, she’s still maintaining her form.

Going to the window again, the afternoon sun streaks in.

And in that sun, you see five figures approaching from the north. The green one, leading the other four in blue uniforms, suddenly points at you and yells something.

Maybe today isn’t so lucky.