Ain't Talkin'
Chapter 102 - returned-what

The gunshot wound broke the outside of Roche’s thigh, through and through. It had clipped through a good chunk of muscle and skin, but the walker could still run, though for how long was perhaps the better question.

Markus kept a clip ahead of the hunter, looking over his shoulder a half dozen times before they stopped to make sure Roche was keeping up. A kiddie-corner movement saw them two streets over and one alley up, and already the chaos the gunshots had caused was apparent.

People in New San Fran were still people, who had that ugly tendency of running towards trouble rather than away. Folks in night-dress and less stood on the stoops outside of their re-commissioned brownstone homes and leaned out of windows. Parents with squalling children held them tightly and chatted with one another.

“Gunshots?”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Are the soldiers out?”

“The hell?”

“C’mon, Roche!” Markus had made into a alley, slamming shut a chain-link entrance gate behind Roche as he barreled through, revolvers drawn at his sides.

Heaving breath, Roche turned and aimed squarely at the chain-link, waiting and daring any Res soldiers to follow them and appear beyond the gate.

Markus, frustrated kicked a garbage can against the cobbled wall causing a ruckus. “The fuck was that!?”

“He shot me and I killed him and we ran. Need further explanation?”

“No! Shit. I didn’t know you could. . .” Markus trailed off, sitting back against the wall. Somewhere in the city a siren sounded, the old wailing of an air-raid warning. The sound echoed a hundred times through the alleys, so loud.

“Yeah, well I can. The older we get the more we can manipulate the living world through the white. Doesn’t fucking matter now does it.”

“You let him go.” Markus was tearing up, his face growing red, he watched down the alley, hoping faintly that Doctor Weaving would be lying there shot, or maybe turning down the brick way.

“I did. Because I don’t trust your Res and I didn’t like how slow we were moving. I ain’t never been one for group-therapy and I sure as shit ain’t one for group-assaulting a city. I do this my way or not at all.” Roche spat, peeled the remaining tobacco from his gums with a finger and flicked it against the wall in a wet cud. “And you’re with me because I need someone who knows about how this is all gonna go down.”

“Well I don’t know about New San, motherfucker. I’ve never worked here, I’ve never been here. They were bringing me here when you showed up and brought me back to the Res. Why would you think I’d know anything about this place?”

“Because you’re a smart kid and you’d have at least looked up the city you were going to be working in and would have checked out the kind of work you’d have been doin’ for the Corp one way or another. You’re a dipshit, but you’re not fuckin’ stupid.” Roche grinned, and a sound of running feet made him slam his back against the brick and draw on the chain-link door to the alley a few yards away.

It was just scared locals running by, night-owls fully dressed to the nine’s for wherever they’d come from and folk who’d just been rudely awakened by a full-on panic-call from the siren’s and the coppers and the soldiers.

“Maybe you’re right. Look, I may have some idea where the doctor is going, but I’m not gonna be much use to you once we’re out of this alley.”

“Bullshit, you survived one gunfight with the Corp, you’ll survive another. Where we headed?” Roche took out his tin of chew he’d traded from the Res soldier back at camp and packed another lug of it in his bottom lip. He spit.

Markus stood up straight, sweating and tired already, red in the face, half crying, half exhausted, half something else. “City College is towards the western side of the city. Straight west and south from where we landed. If he’s running, he’ll make it there pretty quick. We can catch him, or maybe not, what about your leg?” Markus pointed to Roche’s gunshot wound with the barrel of his .45.

“Probably better than your old wound.” Roche pointed back to the kid’s calf, where he’d been grazed by a bullet, the bandage was looking rotten. Roche bent and tore open his denim around the bullet wound. He’d pushed past the pain of the shot and started running, by now the adrenaline had all but made him forget about it. Even, round hole. The bullet hadn’t been a mushroom-hollowpoint. It was assault ammunition, just a solid-rifled bullet, straight through. It was bleeding in pumps and fits. Roche dug through the garbage can Markus had kicked over, found an old shirt and tore it into strips. He balled up two small bits of cloth and stuffed them in the in-hole and the out-hole, then bound his leg with a length of shirt. “Yours looks like it needs a new bandage.” Roche held out the rest of the shirt. Markus laughed aloud.

“You’re shitting me. C’mon. Let’s get out of here. Weaving is moving.” Markus tucked his gun in his pants and started down the alley.

Kid was changing all the time. He’d make a wastelander yet. Roche stood, spat and kicked the ground with his boot to make sure his leg was good. Hurt, but he’d be fine. Not the end of the world. That had already happened.

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