“In a few hours, this city will be under the direct control of King Krezzman,” the assassin explained as he wiped his bloody hands on the Donna’s tacky jacket “we strongly suggest you’re not around when that comes to pass.”
Annelise stood and stared with her mouth still slightly agape as the Donna gurgled and spluttered briefly as she died on the ground. Moments later she and Dallen were staring at the business end of several weapons pointed directly at them. Her instincts screamed at her to run, to dive into cover, to do something or anything as the assassin’s words rang in her mind and she simply stood and stared.
‘King Krezzan’… her mind flashed back to the group of raiders that had killed her friends and that had nearly killed her too. It was like she was there again, the pressure of the disgusting man as he had straddled her and tried to squeeze the life from her ringing in her mind, the clammy sticky blood that had covered her. The smell of fear and death as they struggled desperately with each other. The sight of Selby, Carrie, Stevens and Doc Hadley…Tony… of all of their dead bodies – it was all suddenly flashing back in her head and she felt weak in the knees for a few seconds before the familiar anger filled its place and she glared at this assassin as she tried to push it back down and she was once more in the casino.
"We were just leaving." came Dallen’s cool response, Annelise hesitating very briefly as her hand had been slowly creeping towards her rifle. She thought better of it, deciding that it wouldn’t make sense to die in a hellhole like this, at least not without first filling this Krezzman with a metric fuckton of lasers n lead. Besides Dallen knew what he was doing and so she followed his lead despite her flaring temper and tried to maintain her composure.
Annelise remained silent as they quickly left the casino, the patrons apparently being oblivious to the change in management of their little establishment. Reaching the streets the ‘fresh’ air (or at least what passed for it) hit her and she fought back a wave of nausea. She could see Dallen was pissed and she was glad he wasn’t focused on her as she followed beside him with her hands in the pockets of the trench coat he had lent her as she listened to his explanations.
He mentioned a mission he had been given, he mentioned a group he had been working with and he also told her about whatever this ‘project Hamilton’ was and she realised that he was opening up to her even more, though truthfully she only half listened as she wondered about this King Krezzman and the implications of a takeover here. She missed the connection between this King and his Pagans, otherwise she may have had opposition to this ‘mission’. Before she could voice anything however she followed Dallen into an alley where he started handing out chems in exchange for the location of a big buyer of some sorts. The chem addicts were for lack of another word, disgusting and in her current foul mood she felt little pity for them and simply stood and watched with a flat expression. Normally she’d have considered voicing opposition to taking advantage of their obvious addictions, but with everything that was happening it was becoming clearer and clearer that to survive you needed to do whatever it took. This was undoubtedly a lesser evil amongst the shit-show that was the wasteland and so she simply stood with her arms folded as she glared and waited.
They got two names, Dallen dismissing one of them and opting for a ‘Mr Redding Schmidt’ – several of the junkies eagerly pointing them in the direction of his ‘business’ as they hungrily eyed his bag.
As they again set off he further explained "We need guns, since the Donna situation didn't work out, now we need caps to get those guns," .
Annelise nodded before she repeated the name in her head over and over, it seemed quite familiar. She paused as the thought clicked and she blurted “Redding Schmidt! That’s the guy from the Desperados… The one those raiders were gunning for, the one responsible for that firestorm I suppose”.
As they made their way back through the town she considered all that Dallen had told her and she again continued to make a better picture of him in her mind. He seemed to have a finger in every kind of pie, though she guessed a mercenary like he was would have to. He couldn’t afford to be picky with jobs and because of that it was likely that he wasn’t picky with his morals either. She wondered if it would even be possible to live in any other way out here… No, no it wouldn’t be she decided firmly. She would need to get on board with whatever it was they had to do, and quickly. She would get back to the vault with those parts even if she had to sell her soul in the process she decided as they approached the ‘The Cracked Glass’.
