Acid Reign : Genesis

Ripp and Gus turned onto the access road for the depot and headed for the main complex. They weaved through the rows of rusted eighteen-wheeled transports and parked on the ramp that led up to the loading area.

The Umitilla Military Depot was home to acres of underground storage units, a large staging ground, and a main complex littered with warehouses that were all dedicated to the old army’s supplies.

When Ripp discovered the base, he had tried to break into some of the bunker doors with explosives, but soon realized the four-foot-thick steel doors simply weren’t going to be opened. As disappointed as he was initially, he was okay with never seeing what was behind those doors, because there was a lifetime of scavenging left for the main complex. Over the next five years, the depot became Ripp’s “gold mine” and established him as “the” runner. Other runners had tried to find out where he was finding all of the equipment, but were never able follow all of the way. Some turned back after hours of driving due to fuel restrictions, some turned back after fear consumed them, but mostly because when you were this far out in the Fringe, you needed de-radiation injections and those were costly and weren’t guaranteed to keep you from exposure.

Ripp had an advantage with his modified hot rod. It was a portable de-radiation chamber itself. One of only two working units in all of Nucrea. The other one was built into Johnny’s.

Ripp knew that eventually someone would find out where he was scavenging and accepted that it was too big of an undertaking to clean the depot out alone. Johnny suggested he team up with a trustworthy, robust regular named Gus, and the rest was history.

Together they found a great deal of the working technology in Nucrea machinery, building materials, piping, wiring, weapons, clothing, and nearly all of the armor and uniforms used by the Nucrean Guard.

Although all of those types of supplies always brought a nice payout, the seed stores and hydroponics equipment were what made Ripp and Gus their individual fortunes, positioning Nun, their contractor, as the indisputable market baron of the Fringe.

One day a new Runner named Tooth, managed to follow them all the way to the depot undetected. Tooth was able to make a good amount of money for himself with what was left, but always hated Ripp and Gus for finding it first.

Scanning every corner with their headlights, Ripp and Gus made their way through the offices on the second floor of the main building. They stopped at a wall ledger and tried to make out the faded lettering. He tapped a marker that read, Receiving Offices 202-216.

“Let’s go. Nun said the info should be in the manifests or shipment ledgers.”

“That makes sense, of course, if they haven’t disintegrated into dust like everything that was made of paper.”

“Stop complaining. This has to be the easiest con we’ve had in years.”

“All this way for some files that might not even be here,” Gus said more to himself than to Ripp.

“Triple our fee,” Ripp said.

“He offered us triple because he knows there’s most likely nothing out here.”

Gus pushed ahead of Ripp who had slowed down to scan the hallway. “Plus, I don’t like how quiet it is.”

Ripp closed his display and followed Gus. “Maybe you can head back to the water park and join the Fringers for dinner,” Ripp said, meaning every word.

Gus quickly held up one hand to quiet Ripp and put his other hand on his pistol.

Ripp shook his head and walked ahead of Gus, who was still in listening mode. A small crash echoed through the hallway ahead of them. They both turned off their headlamps and turned on a softer green light that illuminated everything for their visors, but didn’t shine like their headlights. Ripp crouched and slowly moved forward, gun ready. Gus followed with his pistol aimed just off Ripp’s right shoulder.

Two small crashes echoed through the hall. Ripp pointed at a broken wall ahead of them. Gus switched his position to the other side of Ripp, covering a better angle, as they approached the opening in the wall.

Ripp knelt and peeked around the corner in the room ready to fire, but didn’t see anything. Gus rotated around slowly. He saw a pile of junk and broken building materials in the middle of the room. A small animal that looked like a mix between a squirrel and a cat with no hair jumped out of the pile.

The gunshot was deafening in the silence.

“The hell, Gus!”

The washed-out light in their visors faded. They no longer saw the animal, but it had left pieces of itself all over the room.

Gus holstered his pistol and walked over to inspect the carnage.

“You have to admit that was a damn good shot.”

Ripp looked sideways at a grinning Gus, then pointed at a sign that said “Receiving”. “Let’s just find what we came for and get out of here.”

“You’re no fun, you know.”

They walked into the next room. There were desks and a handful of old computers covered in dust.

Ripp pulled out a small array of cords and inspected the computers. Using the various cords, he hooked the first one up to a portable battery and waited. Nothing. He moved to the next one. Nothing.

While Ripp checked the computers, Gus rummaged through rusted filing cabinets, obviously not worried about how much noise he was making.

“A little louder, yeah?” Ripp said as he threw a piece of plastic at Gus who had just started grinding another drawer open. It hit Gus in the leg, but he ignored Ripp and continued with the banging and screeching.

Ripp tried the third computer and got a working but fuzzy screen.

“Got one,” Ripp said quietly.

Gus stopped rummaging and burst into laughter. Ripp dropped the scanner on the table as he reached for his gun out of reflex.

“You see the way that thing just exploded?”

“You do realize I could just shoot you out here, and no one would know,” Ripp said.

“Yes, you could, but you love me way too much.”

Ripp took his finger off the trigger. After inspecting the device he searched its files for anything with Theonicorp’s name on it. “Not seeing anything here. Let’s check the next office.”

“Nun say what the files are for?”

“Nope, just that anything and everything with Theonicorp attached to it needed to be brought back.”

They worked their way to the last office on the floor. Ripp tried opening the door, but something was blocking it.

“Give me a hand,” Ripp said as he flashed his gun light in the opening of the door. “Door has a desk or something behind it.”

Ripp moved to the side and set his feet. Gus got set and gave him a thumb’s up.

“On three?”

Ripp nodded affirmatively.

“One, two.”

They rammed their shoulders into the door and drove with their feet. The door slammed into a pile of metal desk frames, leaving a four-inch opening.

“Hold on, let’s see what’s blocking it.”

Ripp used his gun light again and saw four desks lined up end-to-end spanning all the way to the other wall.

“Yeah, that door ain’t opening like this.”

Ripp looked closely at the hinge side of the door marking mentally where he thought the hinges were located.

“There are connected metal frames from the door to the other side of the room. I think we could shoot out the hinges and slide the door out of the frame, though. You want to do the honors?”

Ripp stepped away from the door as he motioned for Gus to do his thing.

Gus swung his shotgun around from his back, chambered a shell and shot the middle hinge. Sparks flew and metal bent inwards as the rusted metal door was bombarded. Gus made quick work of the top and bottom thirds too.

Ripp patted Gus on the shoulder for a clean job well done. He hit his shoulder against the door. The door jerked off the top two hinges and slammed against the metal desk frames behind it.

“One more on the bottom, good sir,” Ripp said as he graciously moved out of the way for Gus to fire one more round.

Gus shot at the bottom again. The door fell completely out of the frame and fell to the side.

There were large piles of boxes in each corner and a desk on the far side of the room. A body, long decayed, was lying flat on the ground just inside the door and another one sideways in a corner.

“No computers,” Ripp said, frustrated.

Gus started going through the boxes in one of the corners.

Rip looked in the desk. Nothing.

Gus checked one of the body’s brittle pockets and found a small device.

“What about this?” he asked, tossing it to Ripp.

Ripp caught it and quickly scanned the device. Nothing. He slowly looked around the room.

“There’s got to be something here.”

“Maybe Nun was wrong,” Gus said.

“No. It’s here.”

“Do you think Nun had anything to do with those Nukes following us out to the water park?” Gus asked.

“No,” Ripp quickly replied. Part of him considered the possibility that Nun had set them up, but knew there would be no point.

Gus walked over to the desk, sat down on the corner, and folded his arms.

“What would he have to gain? Nun is about results and return on his investments,” Ripp added.

Gus nodded his head in agreement as Ripp walked over to the body that was leaning in the corner. He squatted and turned around to look at the other body lying on the floor. He raised his arm and made a motion as if he had shot a gun in the direction of the other skeleton.

“Also, I know when he’s lying and he knew something was out here. No, this con is legit. I could see it in his greedy little eyes.”

Ripp stood up and looked back and forth at the two bodies, waiting for one of them to tell him something, anything.

Gus stood up and slowly turned around in a circle.

“Plus, I don’t get why they locked themselves in here. There weren’t any scratches on the door and we got through with a shotgun. If someone really wanted to get at them it wouldn’t be hard,” Gus said as he joined Ripp in his vision of might have transpired.

Ripp was half listening, half processing.

“He was almost desperate, and you know Nun. There’s nothing for him to be desperate about. He practically owns Nucrea.”

Ripp let out a sigh and put his hands on his hips.

“I don’t know.”

“Well let’s go. I don’t know why I let you drag me out here.”

Gus shoved the empty desk drawer hard out frustration. The sound of something hitting the back of the drawer caught their attention. Gus opened up the drawer all the way and started to wiggle it.

Ripp came over and watched as Gus pulled it out and shoved it again. There were definitely heavy objects sliding and hitting the back of the drawer. Gus pulled out the drawer again and smashed it hard with the butt of his gun. The drawer broke in half. Gus reached in the hole he had made and felt around.

“Bingo.”

He found a pistol, which he set aside, pulled out a crumbling notebook and two small rectangular boxes.

Ripp walked over and grabbed one of the boxes. He opened it and took out a data drive.

“Old data cards,” Ripp said with new excitement, turning the data drive in his hands.

Ripp found a slot that the drive fit and inserted the old data card into his scanner. Most of the files were corrupted, but some were accessible, and dozens had the title Theonicorp Deliveries.

“Have I told you I loved you today?”

“In every look you give me,” Gus said as he patted Ripp on his shoulder.

Ripp scrolled through the remaining files.

“You ever hear of Ana…gath...ics?”

Gus looked at Ripp with a twisted face.

“No. She sounds pretty though?”

“I swear I’ve heard that word before.”

Ripp made a copy of the files on his Pigeon then encrypted them.

“Let me see that other one.”

Gus tossed him the other box. He opened it and connected the data card. There was nothing on it. Ripp stuck it in a pocket anyway with the hope that he might be able to retrieve something from it later and closed his Pigeon display.

“Let’s go get paid.”

Ripp and Gus sped back to Nucrea. Ripp tried desperately to remember where he had heard the term Anagathics before, but couldn’t.

“You think I was too hard on Lilly?” Ripp asked through the comms.

Gus wanted to say yes, and considered telling him about the conversation he and Lilly had before they left Nucrea, but decided against it.

“You just want to keep her alive. Nothing wrong with that. I think she’d love to hear about the water park, though.”

“Yeah, she’ll get a kick outta that. We need to pretend like we don’t know anything about a missing Nucrean Soldier Unit until we can figure out why they were coming after us.”

“Lips are sealed.”

“I was too hard on Lilly, wasn’t I?” Ripp admitted to himself. “Let’s give her a share of the payout,” he said with a smile.

Gus loved the idea and was reminded of the complex man Ripp was.

“Small compensation for two days with Bean,” Gus added.

They both laughed.

They had survived an assassination attempt, for who knows what reason, Gus had his highly coveted and illegal Nucrean transport, and as far as they knew, Lilly and Bean were just lounging on a rooftop sipping ice-cold water, anxiously waiting for their return.