Chapter 1: Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Bullets

The geiger counter at my waist buzzed gently as I walked along a ruined chunk of I-10. The rads were high on the route, but that wasn’t a problem for me. The only issue I had with them is that they made the already hot night feel just that much hotter. It would help if I didn’t have to cover my face, but that wasn’t really an option. Too many people would shoot a deadman on sight, even one that’s a courier.

I took a canteen off my waist, and pulled my bandana down from my face taking a long sip of water, clearing some of the dust from my throat. This was the most boring, but also most important, part of my job, walking. Sure I got to take a direct route through deadzones that would kill a normal person, and that saved a lot of time, but even a straight shot between most settlements is days of travel. Days of putting one foot in front of the other.

I’d known a few other couriers who’d used vehicles, cycles, cars, even one who used a series of motorboats on what parts of the Mississippi were still navigable. They’d all died. The noise the vehicles made had attracted raiders, or worse. Though one had simply disappeared into one of the stranger dead zones and never come out. Even if I was willing to risk it, my route was mainly along Iron Horde territory and they didn’t like to see anyone who wasn’t their own out on a guzzler anyway.

I looked back at my cart. It followed a couple yards behind, the 300 pounds of cargo it carried well secured in lead boxes to keep the rads from seeping in. I’d tried to drive it when I’d first gotten it, but apparently it could only follow. My weight probably would’ve cut into how much I could lug between settlements anyway.

I looked around for landmarks. My job gave me a kind of homing feature that pointed me where I needed to go, but I preferred to be certain. The ruined shell of an old gas station told me I wasn’t too far from Kind, the last stop for most of my load. I scanned the horizon, and noticed movement ahead. I gave no indication of noticing and just kept walking. I unholstered my pistol slowly, hoping my bulky clothes would hide the motion, and started making a headcount. There were two that I could see and a third I could only smell. The fact that I hadn’t been shot yet led me to believe they didn’t have anything long ranged, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have something with real punch for up close.

I walked until they were just within my range and waited for one of them to make a mistake. I didn’t have to wait long. One of them peeked his head out from behind a rusted out car. I swung my pistol up and took three quick shots, one of which hit true. His head jolted back from the force of the bullet before his body collapsed.

After that I dove behind my cart, making it behind the lead containers just before several low caliber rounds hit where I’d been standing. All of the shots were coming from the same direction, which told me that the one I could smell closing in behind me didn’t have a gun.

I popped out of cover and took a quick shot in the direction of the shooter, but hit nothing but air. I was forced to duck as he returned fire, one bullet tearing through some of the shoulder fabric of my jacket.

It was then that the third one revealed himself, lunging from cover toward me with an old fire axe above his head. He was a giant of man, wearing scraps of old tires on his chest and a worn out pair of jeans. His eyes were so bloodshot they looked red. I shot him two times before he could reach me, but he didn’t slow. I rolled toward him hoping to throw him off and stay close enough that the one with the gun wouldn’t be able to take a shot without potentially hitting his ally.

I sat up and put two more rounds into the large man’s back, but he just roared and turned around. I realized then that he was on blitz. I drew my machete and placed myself so that he’d be between me and the shooter.

He charged me, swinging wildly with his axe, the veins on his neck so engorged they looked like they might pop. I decided to try and make them.

Before he could bring down another swing I slashed at his neck with my machete causing it to shoot out a wave of crimson. He took a few more steps closer to me, his eyes full of rage, before his brain realized he was already dead, and the life faded from them. I caught his body as it was falling and brought my gun up in my left hand, popping off a round in the direction of my shooter. I started running straight for where I knew he’d taken cover, using the giant man’s body as cover.

The shooter began panicking, unloading whatever ammo he had left in order to stop me, but his fear worsened his aim and he only managed to fill his ally with more holes. I heard a click as he ran out of ammo and I dropped his friend so I could close in.

He chose that moment to cut and run, exposing himself. I took a breath, lined up a shot, and exhaled, dropping him. I walked over to his body and wiped the blood off my machete and onto his ragged clothes.

I wasted no time after that searching the bodies for anything useful. It was a disappointing haul. The shooter had used most of his ammo, and his gun had already been falling apart before the fight had started. The one with the axe had half a vial of blitz left, but the stuff didn’t affect me the same way it did humans and no one at a settlement would buy a half used vial. Too many risks taking something after a seal is broken. The one I’d managed to kill first had a handful of 9mm rounds on him and nothing else, which wasn’t even enough to make up for all I’d unloaded into his friend.

I sighed, noticing the telltale blinking of a notification in the corner of my eye. It looked like I’d at least gotten something out of the scuffle, aside from my life of course. I began walking, wanting to put some distance between myself and the bodies before something hungry smelled them. As I did so I pulled up the first notification.

Excellent work postman! You’ve successfully performed a secondary goal of your job ‘Protecting the Cargo’! You’ve earned 50 Patriot Points!

That seemed low, but that was the issue with secondary goals. The delivery part of my job was only mildly deadly and yielded much more PP than the portion that recognized the many firefights I found myself in. I checked my second notification.

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in Pistol! Good job exercising your 2nd amendment rights

That was good news. That brought me to rank 7. I was still low enough in it that I could actually feel the increase in ability as I reloaded my pistol just a bit more quickly than I’d been able to before. I’d been quite happy to learn that the Postman job included a combat skill. There were a lot of jobs that didn’t. That wasn’t to say a person without the ‘pistol’ skill couldn’t shoot, anyone could, it was just that they didn’t gain the benefit of having it as a skill. I holstered my pistol and got back to working on my now much inflated Postman skill, walking, which was sitting pretty at 33.

…

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in walking! A great way to see the beautiful vistas of this great nation

Wonderful, what a great and useful skill to have as my highest. I thought as I neared my destination. Kind was a small settlement. Maybe a little over a hundred people. Like everyone in the area they tithed to the Iron Horde.

I made sure that my face was covered by my goggles and bandana. It was difficult to keep them up without ears or a nose, but I managed. It was alright if my nose was exposed, most people could stomach that, but my teeth… they’d led to more than a few screams in the past. That was bad for business. I made sure my gun was holstered and kept my cart in full view, approaching the main gate slowly. Usually a desire to receive goods and send some out was reason enough to keep from shooting at me. Usually.

Once I was a hundred feet from the gate a warning shot rang out. I call that a southern hello.

“Stay where you are! Hands up!”

I complied, raising my gloved hands into the air.

“State your business!”

“Courier!” I yelled, hearing my own voice for the first time in days. There was a brief pause while the gate guard formulated a response.

“Come closer!”

I did, slowly, earning a full seventy five feet more towards reaching walking rank 35. I made out more of the walls as I got close. Walls turned out to be generous, it was more of a half circle of rusted out trucks and school buses with scrap metal piled around them. There were two men standing behind some sandbags stacked on the top of a school bus, rifles aimed. One was taller, covered in sunburn and bald, the other was shorter with a blue tarp draped over himself, likely to avoid the same fate. I watched as their eyes flicked to my cart and back to me.

“Where’s Slim?” the shorter of the two men asked.

“Dead. Swarmed by skippers in the deadzone near red lake. I took over this part of his route.”

“Damn, he owed me twelve cigs,” muttered the taller of the men.

The short one elbowed him. “What’s with the getup?”

Here came the hard part. “I’m a deadman. Didn’t want to scare anyone.”

The bald man’s mouth twisted up into a scowl, but the shorter man managed to adopt a more politic expression.

“Wait here. I’ll need to talk to Boss.” The shorter man hopped down and went off toward the run down structures in the distance.

The bald man watched him run, and once he was at a fair distance he lifted his rifle and pointed it at me, a scowl still on his face.

My gun was pointed at his head before he’d even turned around.

His eyes widened, but he kept his rifle pointed.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said.

“Can’t trust deadmen. You eat people.”

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“I’ve never eaten anyone,” I lied, steadying my hand, slightly adjusting where my gun was pointed. “If you miss me, I won’t miss you.”

I could see a bead of sweat drip down the man’s sunburnt face, before he pointed the gun down and looked away.

“Bad enough we already got one of you living here,” he muttered.

The other man returned then and opened the gate to let me in.

“Boss says he can come in. Deadman or not, if he’s got deliveries we want em.”

“Thanks,” I grunted, taking a moment to stop in front of the bald man. He was tall, but I had a few inches on him. I simply stood and stared down at him for a few moments until he looked away. Then I followed the other one into town.

It was unusual that I would actually be invited into a town, especially on the first delivery. There were a few that had grown used to me enough to tolerate me in their streets, but Kind seemed to be unusually, well, kind so far. Even the tense moment with the bald man was probably not even in my top ten worst first encounters with someone.

Once I reached the nearest of the structures I received several notifications.

Congratulations Citizen! You have earned a rank in customer service! Here in the US of A we know the customer is always right!

That one almost made me laugh aloud. I wondered if I’d received the rank for talking my way in, talking the other man down, or a combination of both.

Excellent work postman! You’ve successfully performed the primary goal of your job 'Delivery’! You’ve earned 151 Patriot Points!

Congratulations Citizen! You’ve earned a level in Courier, carrying on the legacy of the Pony Express. You have received +1 Speed, +1 Endurance, and +1 Perception.

5th level also unlocks

Special Delivery: You can mark a delivery ‘special’ which will allow you to track it if it’s lost.

Hmm, that one was interesting. The Postman jobwas a mixed bag in terms of utility, but overall I was lucky to have it. Sure jobs like ‘Marine’ or ‘Cop’ had an edge in combat ability, but they weren’t an option for everyone, and they rarely opened up on the R.A.S. Postman opened up constantly because of the high mortality rate, so I snagged it up quickly. It was one of the more common jobs for deadmen to take, we were uniquely suited for the work.

I pulled up the rest of my sheet.

Citizen: Donovan

5th Level Postman

Patriot Points: 27

SPINES: Be the backbone of America!

Strength- 20

Perception- 15

Intelligence- 10

Nationalism- 3

Endurance- 23

Speed- 17

Job Abilities:

Neither Rain, Sleet, or Snow: You are unhampered by adverse weather

Express: You gain a 5% bonus to movement speed

Special Delivery: You can mark a delivery ‘special’ which will allow you to track it.

Skills:

Walking- 34

Pistol- 7

Loading/unloading- 21

Customer Service- 12

Driving- 3

Below the standard sheet there was some visual distortion followed by something that as far as I knew, was exclusive to me.

Virus:

Deadman- Bonus to all physical stats +5, negative to social based skills

Natural weapon- Teeth

Night Vision

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