The Water Spout

Four Years Later...

"Bye-bye, buck-o," I exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

A smidge over three thousand yards away, my target's heart went pop, and I was free to close in on the shipyard.

It was smart snagging this fancy rifle off that abandoned army convoy. The barrel was gangly but that infrared tracker was worth ten times my weight in water. Which is saying something cause I barely weighed nothin' and just last week a dude shot his own brother for a two-liter bottle.

I scampered in fast, taking out the patrolling watchmen lingering in my path. The sniper in the watchtower with a shortwave radio was neutralized, and I only had about fifteen minutes until someone came to check on him.

Plenty of time to create chaos!

Over the years, I've scavenged all sorts of weapons, most of them one-hit wonders, but I had three beloved old-trusties; my combat knife, my ice climbing pick, and my no-nonsense nine millimeter.

"Hey y-" a big Citadel douchebag tried to stop me.

I took out his kneecap and swooped in to ram my serrated blade up under his jaw.

There was a rickety metal staircase on the rear of the most heavily protected building.

Perfect. I never like using the front entrance.

I zipped through the goons on the rooftop and then shimmied in through the ventilation. The shaft reeked of dusty dead rodents, but I only needed to crawl through a grate connected to an empty office.

Once inside, I taped on a cheap little silencer and cleared the hallway. This place was swarming with beefy mercenaries.

These assholes weren't loyalists, just hired greedy buttheads.

Gonna have to do this the slow way.

I whipped out my ice-climbing pick and cracked my neck.

There was no other option. I had to kill everyone inside the warehouse.

...

..crich.. "Little Puddle to Fat Badger..." I waited a few seconds for a response. "Repeat, this is Little Puddle to Fa-"

"I hear you!" A man's voice rumbled through my walkie-talkie's speaker. "Stop calling me that! This channel's encrypted. Crazy f...k..n... mmmm.."

Big Larry's voice mumbled off into static.

"She's all yours," I chirped through the little intercom.

"What's the status of the lower levels? Reinforcements are en route," Larry huffed like he was out of breath. "We can lockdown the remainder of the Citadel troopers in-"

"Stand down," I cut him off.

"Oh'fer!" Larry became livid. "You better not have used explosives again!"

"Chill yer pan'ies," I laughed. "Cital'ers are dead. They were wearing badges, but I guarantee none of those losers ever stepped foot inside a sterile room let alone an entire fortress."

Dead silence came back through the intercom.

"Larry?" I smacked my walkie-talkie. "You there man? Fat Bad-"

"I'm here!"

I heard him breathe for a bit and had no idea what level of pissed-off was contorting over his face.

"Were you hurt?" Was all he said.

"Nah," I shrugged, kinda happy he couldn't see the blood oozing out the side of my jacket. "No more than usual."

"Return to headquarters," Larry was eerily calm. "I'll alert the retrieval crew to take care of securing the package."

"Right-o!"

...

"Christ, Aella," Larry lumbered into the seedy shanty bar and slumped into the bench next to me. He was a big, bearded, stocky dude with pale green eyes and one tooth a little more yellow than the others.

My shirt was off and I was in my sports bar almost finished stitching my side up.

"Sam," Larry threw his hand in the air and pointed down at me, signaling the bartender to bring me more corn whiskey."

Sam brought over a large brown bottle and another shot glass.

"That place was a bloodbath," Larry's hand was shaking as he filled the little clear glass to the brim.

I shrugged with a coy grin. "You said no explosives."

Larry eyed me, then took two more shots.

"Your people get what they needed?" I tried to be as serious as my grinning mouth would let me.

"Yeah," Larry let out a long, grateful sigh and nodded. "Enough gallons to see us through the winter."

"See," I padded his thick hairy knuckles. "This is why we work great together! Kiddos stay hydrated and I get a bed and a bottle of antibiotics."

I jingled the little brown plastic bottle at his face.

"My guys were ready to help you," Larry poured himself another drink but only stared at the shot glass. "You don't have to keep doing that shit solo."

"It was faster," I winked at him.

Larry frowned. "Oh, don't tell me you lined up another job with those shifty idealists!"

I snickered, then winced as I poured his whiskey over my weeping stitches.

"Is that why you do that psycho shit?" Larry groaned and rolled his head. "To stay on their radar?"

"They don't bitch about the methods," I leaned in with my chin on my elbow.

"Which should warn you that they're dangerous!"

"We both know there are sublevels I steer clear of," I raised my index finger matter-of-factly. "The Weavers are far from scumbags."

"Aella, what are you, twenty?" Larry leaned across the little wooden table.

"Almost," I corrected needlessly. I think it was August, so I had a few months to go until my next birthday.

"I get it," Larry got all earnest, even though three shots weren't anywhere enough to make him tipsy and huggy. "After The Fall, all our lives went straight in the shitter and anyone living today is only here on account that they endured and did things none of us would have bothered to conjure in our worst nightmares."

He laid his hand on mine, and I had no idea what was happening.

..is he... gonna cry...?

"Young people love bringing down the establishment," the big lug got all sentimental. "No matter the century."

"Are you saying the Citadels are running things well?" I pulled back with my brow twisted high in astonishment.

"What?!" Larry shuddered his head. "Fuck, no! They're power gorging hoarders. I'm saying, keep your expectations within reason. Let's say these Weavers, or whomever the next rebellion group is to rise up after them, does succeed. What good will it do if they replace the Citadels?"

He leaned back and sighed like he'd realized he was rambling.

"How sure are you that they'll be more fair than the last assholes?" Larry's eyes wandered sideways.

"I'm not enlisting into their organization."

"I'm not saying you are," Larry glanced down at my fresh line of stitches. "I just want you to be careful."

"Have you ever heard chatter about them doing stuff that was unsavory?" I sheepishly nibbled the inside of my cheek.

"No," Larry grumbled and crossed his arms. "If anything, they're our primary source for medical supplies."

"But I don't trust 'um," Larry blurted before I could respond. "Their leader never shows his face and you can't trust a fella who won't shake your hand out in the open daylight."