The Gift of Salvage

I wasn’t ready for another ambush.

Earlier today, I was shooting across the Vast when I was clipped by a mutant and her contaminated semi. I drive a sports car, sacrificing a bit of armament for speed and maneuverability, so even a light clip can be a big deal.

It was only a fender-bender, but I took a hard hit to my right quarter panel and fishtailed a bit before straightening out. She threw some flame at me, but only ruined my paint job while I bulleted away from her at top speed. I was lucky…at the time.

But now here I was, ambushed again. My earlier luck encouraged me to get sloppy. I was paying too much attention to the shiny bauble dangling from my rear view mirror and not nearly enough to the hazards ahead.

The city was close—just past the bandits and beyond a short maze of wrecks and rubble. There were only three of them, but my back right quarter panel had thick strips of rended metal curling away from it, and I was pretty sure I smelled leaking transmission fluid.

I dropped down to fourth gear and switched on my defense shield. The shield traced lighting sparks across my chassis, and then died. I cursed to myself, but I couldn’t turn back now. Getting to the city was too important.

All three of them were humans, like me, driving tricked-out motorcycles with chrome so polished that you almost believed they were brand new, except nothing was ever brand new these days. They must’ve come to town to prey on the traders coming here today. It wouldn’t matter to them if their victims had nothing to trade. Salvaged cars and trucks were always valuable, doubly so today with the swap meet going on.

I stepped on the big metal foot that was my gas pedal, spun my tires for a beat and spewed up gravel and sand behind me, and launched forward.

They took to the highway and raced toward me, side by side. I tsk-ed them as amateurs and sprayed them with my machine gun when they came within range. I hit the left one perfectly, shredding his tire, shattering the windshield on his capsule, and sending him careening toward the center cycle.

The damaged cycle started flipping sideways, and I have to give the middle driver credit—he did a great job avoiding his buddy’s new vehicular coffin. Unfortunately, he apparently devoted all his attention to the task and allowed me to barrel head-on into him. And that’s why I have that ram guard. Lemme tell you, that was a pretty sweet explosion.

More quickly than I would have dared imagine, there was only one cyclist left. Fast and maneuverable, he turned his bike hard and shot toward me with a vengeance.

I could’ve gotten away then, but I didn’t. I played it casual and let him catch up to me. When he was close enough, I jammed on the brakes.

He plowed into my rear bumper, jarring me forward before he flipped end-over-end to land in front of me. I thought of the damage my car was taking, and comforted myself considering that the back already needed serious work. I pushed foot to floor and drove through his cycle spraying bits and pieces of cycle and driver as I zoomed off.

Minutes later I was in the city’s town square, and found my girl after a short search. We embraced and I laced my fingers into her dirty blonde hair.

“Hey, Jenny, I got you something,” I said with a devilish grin.

“Oh?” She looked me up and down, searching for the gift. “What is it?”

I pulled a shiny bracelet out of my jacket pocket, the one same bauble that was hanging on my rear view mirror only a short while ago.

She laughed as she took the charm bracelet and flipped it over to read the inscription. Then she frowned, growled, threw the trinket at me and slapped me. Twice.

As Jenny stalked off into the crowd, I rubbed my reddened cheek in confusion, bending down to pick up the bracelet. I turned it over and read the inscription.

“Cecilia, you are my Valentine,” it read.

I sighed, tucked the scavenged bracelet in my pocket, and set off after Jenny into the crowd. Sometimes in this world, it’s not just car parts that need salvaging.