Season 1 – Chapter 1
September 21 – 0010 AF (After Fall)
The building had been a distribution hub before the Fall, then a battlefield sometime during and ruins since. Emma moved through the ground floor with her light low, stepping around collapsed shelving and the debris of whatever fight had ended here.
Thomas was on the roof. She could hear him on the earpiece, periodic and unhurried letting her know it was still clear.
The COR unit was in the northeast corner behind a collapsed section of mezzanine where Jonah said it would be. Emma crouched beside it and ran her light along the chassis. Standard units were built for labor. This one was something else. Heavier plating. The processing cluster at the base of the skull was three times the size of standard units. She knew what it was.
“Thomas.”
“What do you have?”
“Command class.”
A pause. “Jonah said standard unit. a… yeah… a Crab heavy patrol unit.”
“It seems his intel was wrong.”
She worked carefully. Command class cores were worth three times a standard unit on the open market and twice that to a serious buyer. She had the tools for it and got to work cracking the chasis open.
Thomas came down as she was finishing. She heard him on the stairs and crouched beside her, peering inside.
A Command class carried more than the core. She ran her light along the chassis again, slower this time. The storage compartments were integrated into the lower torso. She found the first one by feel, a recessed panel that didn’t open until she found the release. Inside, two secondary power cells, fully sealed. She pulled them out and set them aside.
The second compartment was the weapons cache. A heavy minigun was mounted to the unit’s underbelly , the barrel locked down, and the feed tray closed. She checked the gun mount. Intact. She ran her light along the barrel. just a little rust.
Beside the gun mount were, two sealed ammunition boxes in the automatic reloader. She worked the lid on the first one. Heavy-caliber belted rounds.
She sat back.
“Thomas.”
He crossed to her and looked at it without speaking for a moment.
“Heavy minigun,” Emma said.
“Yeah.” He checked the second ammunition can. “Ammo’s good.”
“This unit wasn’t running a patrol route,” she said.
Thomas stood. “No,” he said. “Command units never do.”
He looked at the unit, then at her.
“Good day,” he said.
Emma smiled. “Very good day.”
They loaded in two trips. The core was wrapped and crated. The minigun dismounted from the unit’s arm, barrel, receiver, ammunition, command core, and data units stowed.
Thomas drove. Emma watched the badlands as they moved and drove.
She had the data module case on her lap before they cleared downtown and worked the latches open. Six modules seated in a rack mount.
“Command data modules,” Thomas said without looking over.
“The core alone is three times what Jonah quoted,” she said.
“More with the modules. And the gun.”
Emma put the module back and closed the case. Home was just was twenty minutes away.
The entrance was cut into the hillside, the heavy doors already swinging open as they approach. Thomas pulled the truck in and cut the engine. Emma got out as the doors closed behind the them.
The bay was clean, everything in its place . The 4Runner and the two motorcycles beside it. Tools along the wall, ordered and precise. Emma set her bag down and felt her shoulders drop. “Finally home.”
They unloaded without discussion. The core, cells and data modules went straight to the workbench. The minigun components and ammunition were laid out on the tarp Thomas spread across the floor.
Emma pulled the bottle from the shelf, pre-Fall bourbon, one of three they had left, and poured two glasses. Not much. Enough.
She set one beside Thomas without interrupting what he was doing and leaned against the bench with her own.
They touched glasses and drank.
He said, “This is a once-a-year find.” Emma nods.
She drank her whiskey and let herself feel it for a moment.
Thomas had a portable diagnostic unit plugged into the core’s interface port, the readout running through its sequence on the small screen. Emma watched it over her shoulder.
The indicators came up green one by one. Power coupling intact. Processors undamaged. The memory is functional. The core had been sitting in a destroyed unit in a collapsed building for ten years, and it still worked.
Thomas looked at the readout for a moment. Then he unplugged the diagnostic unit and set it aside.
“It’s clean,” he said.
Emma looked at the functioning command core as she finished her whiskey.
“Jonah’s going to want this bad,” she said.
Thomas picked up his own glass. “Yes,” he said. “He is.
