It's Not Easy Making Money in the Apocalypse

I prepared myself for a quick sprint. Meanwhile, Zara positioned herself on the far side, ready to jump out from behind the cover and attract the auto turret. Even though Cici had never seen this particular vehicle before, she controlled enough auto-turrets to guess the algorithms. Thus, she was already able to calculate the amount of time needed and whether it was a suicide run or not. It was feasible that we could do this, but that was presuming nothing got in our way.

"Hey! You! Dumb machine!" Zara stood up and waved her hand.

The turret immediately turned in her direction. Without waiting, she started running, causing the machine to continue to turn to follow her. At that point, I jumped out from my hiding and raced forward as well. My eyes were on the machine and I was sweating. Even though Cici had told me that the turret was designed to deal with one target first, and only after it was considered no longer a viable threat did it target the next, I was still worried.

As soon as she got out of sight, the turret guns would move toward me. I heard them firing, and I just had to hope that Zara wasn't hit. My vision was entirely focused on the back of the truck, and specifically, the input port where I could connect the Perco. I already had the cord out in my spare hand as I ran. As soon as I reached it, I shoved the plugin. However, that's when I realized that the turret was no longer shooting. I heard it moving once again. I looked up just in time to see the turret pointing directly at me.

"Master code uploaded." Cici declared.

The turret turned away, going back into standby mode. My legs almost collapsed in relief. At that range, I would have been turned into meat without a single chance to retaliate. However, a distant boom reminded me I was still in a war zone, and I quickly snapped out of it. I glanced in the direction Zara had run. My eyes scanned the desolation caused by the turret. There were holes spread across a dozen vehicles. It was quite a mess.

"Z-zara!" I called out, just about to run to look for her.

"I'm fine." A voice came from right next to me, causing me to nearly trip.

I spun to see Zara standing there without a mark on her. I felt a pressure come off my chest and I reached out. She took a step back, holding up her hands.

"What are you doing?" She asked suspiciously.

I dropped my arms in embarrassment. "Sorry, I'm just happy you're okay."

She looked away. "Revenants are very agile. I'm more capable than you humans think."

"Right…" I turned back to the truck, feeling like I might have overstepped some boundaries. "What does the item you need look like?"

I reached out and tapped a button, causing the back of the armored truck to open. There were various boxes filled with supplies. Everything there had value. The other reason I helped her was to obtain this score. Once I cleared out all of the tech, there was no way that I wouldn't get into the Raider gang now. The pair of us reached out and grabbed a few items. I was about to start putting them into the digitizer when I heard several cocking sounds.

Zara and I turned to see four people with their guns all trained on us. One of them was the remaining cloaked man, and by him was the girl from earlier who had tried to kill me. The other two were the brothers from before.

"I told you he can get to the best stuff!" The girl told the cloaked man.

"You're all working together now?" I asked.

"You're one to talk." The cloaked man snorted, nodding at the girl. "I never could trust a man who would side with mutants. She might be pretty now, but a freak is a freak. I wonder how you'd feel when she takes a bite out of you."

"You should worry more about yourself." I shot back. "If it comes to trust, that girl is far more likely to stab you in the back."

"Don't listen to him!" The girl declared. "H-he tried to rape me!"

"I didn't! Zara, she's lying…" I glanced next to me, only to see Zara's expression unaffected.

"That isn't the kind of person he is," Zara responded.

"He's just the kind of man who likes mutant freaks!" One of the brothers spoke up and then tossed something.

It wasn't until it fell on the ground with a splat that I was able to recognize it. It was a head. However, the face looked strange. There were sharp teeth and a gaping maw that seemed unnatural. Zara snarled and took a step forward, but one of the men gave a warning shot. I grabbed her before she lunged forward, and she spun back. Her face was distorted and I could see sharp pin-like teeth and a mouth open unnaturally large. I had seen the face of a revenant before, but suddenly seeing it on her like that caused stunned me.

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When she saw my shocked eyes, she looked away, covering her face with her hands. This caused the cloaked man to break out laughing.

"Ah, did she never show you her ugly side? Well, it's too late. We took care of the other revenant and those grunts too. You're the last ones in our way."

"There are four of you. There are only three positions, right? It doesn't matter how much loot you get, you all can't join."

The cloaked man smiled. "You're right."

He turned the gun to the girl and fired. Her body jerked as a look of shock appeared on her face. The brothers looked at each other but said nothing. The girl fell to her knees. She looked back at him, a betrayed expression on her face.

"I… just wanted… you to protect me. I didn't want a place…"

"And why would I care to waste my resources on you?" He sneered, lifting his gun and shooting her in the forehead.

I looked away as the blood splattered and the girl collapsed to the ground. I felt I had grown pretty callous since coming to this world. When she had betrayed me, I wouldn't have teared up at all if I had shot and killed her. However, this just felt a bit crueler.

"Alright, we've wasted enough time." One of the brothers declared.

"Drop everything in your digitizer and we'll let you live." The other brother declared. "And don't try to deceive us. That girl explained how you have a bunch of stuff in there."

I was wondering why they were willing to leave me alive and hadn't already killed me, and I got my answer. Of course, I didn't believe for a second they'd let me live.

"Alright… alright, I'll give you everything I have!" I lied. "There is just one problem."

"What problem?" The cloaked man asked.

I pointed up. "The Roks have returned."

The three men looked up in shock. With my hand up, I grabbed the lid of the trunk with one hand and then grabbed Zara around the waist with the other. Her waist was just as thin and her body as light as I remembered. I jumped back and slammed the door closed. It locked with a click. The men only realized at that moment that they were duped. Several bullets struck the back of the truck, but its armor wasn't like the other vehicles and they bounced right off.

"Cici! Turrets!"

"Targeting." She declared.

I could hear the ratatata sound as the turret started firing on the three men. There was cursing and return fire, but there was nothing they could do.

"You can let go of me now," Zara spoke testily.

I sat up as I took my arm from around her, feeling just a bit like I was missing out. Zara's pale face looked a bit flushed, her red eyes uncertain. I reached up and touched her neck. She flinched, but I plugged my Perco in and then with a click, the entire thing came off. Zara's eyes widened as she looked at the slave collar now in my hand. She gave me a confused look as she felt her neck.

"I already said, I only put that on because I didn't see another way for us to part peacefully. There is no reason you should wear it now."

She bit her lip. "If we can't get out of this alive, then there is no point in this."

"Of course, there is a point," I responded. "I won't betray you."

She looked down. "Even though… you've seen my face."

"I don't care."

"How can you say that? Humans are just food to us."

"I could eat a revenant too." She looked at me dubiously, and I blushed. "I mean, I'd consider that cannibalism. That's the point I wanted to make. It's our choices that define us."

She looked away thoughtfully when Cici spoke up in my ear. "Multiple units are converging quickly on this location. It's the Rok. They are returning."

My face turned white, and Zara seemed to notice the fear on my face. "What is it?"

"It looks like we're going to need to trust each other anyway if we want to get out of this alive."