Three's Company

“How long’s it been, Zeke?”

Zeke turned his head. The scratched, dented motorcycle helmet he wore obscuring his features behind a black, mirrored visor.

“Nevermind,” Ariel sighed, the vapor turning to steam as it left the ports of her chemical mask.

Zeke turned back to the city ahead, his makeshift armor of scavenged metal and scrap rustling over his muscular frame.

Ariel checked the charge on her motorbike and frowned - Just under 30%, if her gauges were to be believed. After another long breath, she gently pressed the accelerator with her booted foot and her bike whirred to life, carrying her down into streets clogged by the burnt-out hulks of thousands of vehicles.

They wound between the crumbling skyscrapers of Old Chicago, pondering what must have been beautiful in its prime. Of course the distinction between Old Chicago and New hardly mattered, they were both wastelands now. World War V had seen to that, or was it VI?

After a time it got hard to tell them apart. Back when they were still receiving broadcasts from the Capital in California there had been plenty of experts to debate whether Five had ever really ended, but that was years ago now.

She shook the ashes of old memories from her mind and ran a hand through the thin, wispy remnants of her hair. The anti-radiation therapy pills were working, but only enough to delay the inevitable. She’d been blonde when she was younger, now her hair was the same gray as everyone else's.

Even the corpses had gray hair.

A soft beep drew her attention back to her battery readout, it was down to 25%. The damn thing had been holding less and less of a charge lately. She almost never rode it this low, but resources were scarce and times were desperate.

They wove in and out of traffic, doing their best to avoid the newer cars. Those nuclear batteries were notorious, and the more time went by, the more likely they were to crack, explode, or leak.

No point in upping your dosage.

She periodically checked her compass as they rode. Generally it pointed North, of course, but it was also great for sniffing out live electromagnetic charging stations.

Ah, speak of the devil.

She glanced at the instrument, either she’d gotten herself very turned around, or it was now pointing due West. She gave a short whistle, easily heard over the soft hum of the bikes.

Zeke turned and nodded silently.

It took some searching - the stations tended to polarize any surrounding metal - but eventually they traced the source to an underground parking garage. The door was shut, but didn’t present much of a challenge.

Zeke made a habit of carrying a high powered laser for just such occasions. Using it was risky. They had to slave it to one of the batteries if they wanted to power it, and endangering the batteries was tantamount to playing Russian Roulette. No one survived without transportation.

They’d learned that many times over as well.

Zeke popped off his bike, the suspension sighing in relief as he dismounted. Ariel eyed their surroundings warily and unholstered the shotgun she kept in front of her left thigh. It was a Marvis Arms 860, developed sometime in the mid-2300’s, but even being an older firearm it was highly reliable. Its most useful feature was the method by which it fired - it magnetically charged, then accelerated a ferrous slug at insane velocities. Whether by design or oversight, it had the ability to fire any iron-based object that would fit in the barrel. This quirk of engineering made it absurdly versatile since The Fall, and she’d seen men killed over the mere suspicion of possessing such a weapon.

She had a few real shells, but chose to load it with ball bearings or bits of rebar for the most part. Anything under 3 ounces would still break the sound barrier.

She watched from the street, knowing that her companion would alert her to anything below. The high-pitched whine of the laser started down below, and she could smell vaporized metal. Sharp, acrid smoke wafted up for a few minutes while Zeke worked, until silence from below told her he was finished.

She took one last glance around, then drove her bike down the ramp to meet him. She caught his eye, and took a glance at the rifle on his back. He must have agreed, because he adjusted his sling so that the weapon was on his chest.

They rode together into the unlit confines of the parking garage.

Their approach must have set off a motion sensor, because bright halogen lights flickered on above them, revealing a dozen charging bays. Three of the bays were occupied by vehicles, while the rest lay empty. What looked like an elevator shaft sat at the back, presumably it led to the building above and had been used by the workers there.

A quick search revealed nothing untoward. In fact, judging by the layer of dust on everything, this bay had remained sealed since the battlefront had moved north to the Soviet lines in former Canada decades ago.

Ariel parked her cycle and ran diagnostics on the bays. The first several were useless. They had power, but the coils were off. She’d gotten an explanation once from a man who called himself a physicist. He’d told her, way back when, that magnets under pressure required calibration so their polarity didn’t “undergo radical shifts, misaligning the entire machine.”

He was a nice guy.

He hadn’t lasted long.

She sighed wistfully, side-eyeing her friend. It was a wonder they’d lasted so long. Then again, they lived by strict rules. Rules that had been learned the hard way, and which had proven themselves over and over.

She was relieved to find that the sixth and ninth bays both worked, so they’d be able to charge both cycles at once. All the better. Hers was at 11% by the time she got it plugged in. She considered mentioning it to Zeke, but decided against it. No reason to worry him, he already fretted about her enough.

In his own way.

With their power needs met, she turned to their next task, food.

Zeke was ahead of her, he’d already unpacked their small stove and was boiling water from a jug. There wasn’t anything to be done about the rads, but at least they could avoid bacteria. Most of the strains that had survived the wars were chemically resistant, but sometimes the best solutions were the simplest. Boiling still killed just about anything.

Within a few minutes the tiny device was bubbling away nicely while Zeke rummaged around in the saddle bags of his bike. She watched him as he carefully retrieved a protein paste ration tube and unsealed one end of it. He pulled the brownish rod from within the tube and retrieved a knife from his belt. He precisely measured two servings, about an inch of paste, and cut it off. Not a single crumb was wasted, it all either went back into the tube, or into the pot of boiling water.

She allowed herself to relax a little as she watched him. His studious, carefully calculated movements always put her at ease. It was one of the ways that she knew he cared. His every action was an economy of movement, a conscious decision of when and how to spend energy. She admired him for it, and how could she not? He was strong and healthy, with excellently tuned senses that had saved them time and again.

She was unsurprised when he heard their visitor before she did.

Zeke cocked his head to the side, freezing as he stirred their simmering dinner.

Ariel stood, turning to the entrance as she shouldered her shotgun. Zeke slipped behind one of the parked cars, hidden from view of the entrance, his large body as silent as a shadow.

“I come in peace,” the stranger called out, halting just inside the doorway they’d cut in the plasteel of the garage door.

He had his hands up at his sides, but wore pistols at his hips.

“You alone?”

He nodded, not taken aback by her greeting or her question.

“I am, and you?”

“Perhaps. You a walker?”

He smiled.

“Ain’t no walkers anymore,” he laughed. “Parked my bike outside.”

He nodded at the bays.

“You mind? I need a charge ma’self.”

Tense silence filled the air after his question.

“Set your guns down,” Ariel said at last. “Then you can bring ‘er inside.”

She watched him weighing his options. In the end he slowly and deliberately removed his gun belt. He laid it gently on the ground, then kicked it out of easy reach.

“Good?”

She nodded, her attention caught by the small, silver, heart-shaped locket that must have slipped from his overcoat when he had bent down.

“Really,” she nodded at the locket.

“Ain’t sentiment what makes us human?”

Silence.

“What?”

“Nothin’,” Ariel sighed heavily. “Go on and get your bike.”

“Actually,” he looked embarrassed. “You mind helpin’ me? I ran out of juice a few blocks back.”

Ariel cracked a wry smile. It happened to everyone eventually, but it took a tough bastard to survive such an event.

Or a lucky one.

“Thought you said you wasn’t a walker.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She followed at a safe distance, weapon at the ready.

Her jaw dropped a little at the sight of his vehicle. It was a Sclera Valkyrie, not a jury-rigged rat-rod like the ones she and Zeke were riding but a real, factory bike. Matte black and slate gray curves put the rusty bolt-bucket she drove to shame, and it looked extremely well cared for. The machine was heavily laden with supplies, a full half dozen saddlebags, and it even pulled a small, make-shift trailer made of scavenged parts with a tarp over top.

“No wonder your batteries died, hauling all this.”

He shrugged.

“Well, see anything ya like maybe we can work out a trade.”

She took another long look around. There were no signs that he’d been lying about being alone either.

“Alright, stranger-”

“Jeremiah. Name’s Jeremiah.”

She started over.

“Alright, Jeremiah, you grab the front, I’ll push from back here.”

“Ain’t right,” he said. “You gettin’ the heavy end.”

“Chivalry’s dead, Jeremiah.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so he simply shrugged and grabbed the handlebars of his bike, pushing it towards the entrance to the garage. It took them several minutes before they got the machine down to the door, and they were both breathing hard and sweaty.

“Almost there now, Jeremiah,” she huffed. “Don’t give up on me yet.”

He wiped his brow.

“Ya know usually you tell someone your name they tell ya theirs back.”

She looked into his eyes, surprised at the genuine softness she saw there.

“Sorry Jeremiah, rule six.”

“Rule six?”

She nodded, leaning into the bike once more.

He followed suit, but wouldn’t drop the subject.

“Ah, so what, rule six means you don’t share your name with anybody?”

“Something like that.”

They cleared the doorway of the parking garage and found themselves once more within the well-lit confines of the bays.

A sharp, crackling bang filled the garage as Ariel crossed the threshold, and she flinched as Jeremiah’s head exploded into a spray of brain and bone fragments. He slumped to the ground in a twitching heap as she wiped blood from her face.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Zeke,” she called out, her eyes drawn to the locket now laying atop Jeremiah’s headless corpse.

Zeke emerged from the shadows, rifle in hand.

“Rule six,” she frowned, shaking her head.

Zeke nodded, putting an arm around her.

“Three’s a crowd.”

She turned, surprised he’d spoken aloud, but he was already moving off to search the saddlebags of their new vehicle.

“These rules of ours,” she asked, reaching for the locket. “How long’s it been, Zeke?”

Zeke didn’t answer, he rarely did.