Solace & Taproots

1.4 - Revised

The next day was shaping up to be a mundane one — Bex and Rhonda were only scheduled to be on duty for the morning shift. This time the ladies were in a vacant condominium on the southeast corner of the intersection. The overwatch posts flipped towards the middle of the day, to minimize the time they faced direct sun. Easier to see from, better concealment.

Each corner also had at least four locations, some in different buildings, to make them harder for a potential opponent to spot. It messed with the angles a bit, also making it harder for Bex to build an intuitive grasp of each hideout's slightly differing height and distance adjustments. But, a suave marksman from a patrol a few months back used their radioman's satellite uplink to download smartphone apps that could calculate offsets if any of their sentries got good enough for it to matter.

Bex had made it pretty clear his attentions weren't going to lead to anything, but he seemed quite happy to just get to chat up a local girl. They nursed loose approximations of bad mojitos for the two hours it took their respective comms teams to pull down versions for both major phone brands to one of Broadway's ("C.S. D-3's") functional laptops for later side-loading. The alcohol helped numb her background anguish long enough to be friendly company, and he bore little to no resemblance to anyone from her past and was generally inoffensive enough. If anything, it just harkened back to a night out at the bars with her girls.

At least apartment #712, where she and Ronnie kept watch today, had nice furniture. Their long guns sat ready on top of, or leaning against, the solid wood dining table they'd dragged in from #706 weeks back — she didn't think she had any kind of body image issues, but there was no way in hell she was going to trust a glass table with her weight. Not to mention the occasionally very pointy bits of tactical gear or a gun! Her feet hung off the back by several inches when she was ready to shoot prone, but once they had parked the couch behind it, they had a top notch leather upholstered sniper nest where they could take comfortable turns peering through binoculars. Things were literally cushy enough that it had become one of their favorites.

Ronnie returned from another lap of the condo and flopped down in the middle of the couch, closer than when they'd arrived. Bex handed over their better set of binoculars and tilted a few inches to rest her head against the solid shoulder next to her.

"How you doing over there, girl? I will respect your privacy, but don't you lie to me." It occurred to Bex that Mrs. (Mama?) Ellis must have been both awesome and terrifying, given the mannerisms she'd passed down to Ronnie.

"Y'know. The usual." Bex stomped one of her booted feet resting on the table against its edge, jostling everything atop it. "I don't want to make you sick of hearing me repeat the same B.S. over and over."

Rhonda was a sympathetic soul, but not given to undue coddling. "Hey now. It's not the table's fault. It's just holding stuff up and the floor down. Do you think I should let people blame me when you're all grumpy or mopey?" She shifted her weight back and forth enough to jostle the younger woman's head against her shoulder, and continued before Bex could respond.

"You need to raise some shit about it again. Lassart's been giving you his 'we don't have anyone else who can do it, just hold out, it's only temporary, everyone's had to adapt' speech long enough." Rhonda lowered the binoculars enough to accompany her mocking of one of the settlement's early co-founders, and sort-of official administrator, with air quote gestures.

Again, she plowed ahead before Bex could try to mitigate or defer. "Not that I'm trying to get rid of you, the whole sad eyed killer-of-men thing is quite chic these days. All the latest fashion trend. But you've literally been carrying your fucking cross with you all over. Make his dumpy hammer-swinging ass come up here for days on end. I'll beat some proficiency and basic tactics into him... or teach him some new vocabulary words like 'defenestration'."