http://pre14.deviantart.net/1796/th/pre ... auabwi.jpg
"Two drums high octane gas, five litres good quality motor oil. One drum clean water. And I reckon I'll keep this carbine, and a case of shells to go with it"
The man's voice quiet, measured, almost soft. Tandy felt a cold, dead weight in her guts. This nomad trash was insane. He wasn't bluffing. If he didn't get a deal he liked, he'd calmly let his device count down to zero, and blow himself, Tandy, and the Tribe's main gas and ammo store to hell. He wouldn't bat an eyelid. It had been a big fucking mistake attacking his vehicle two days ago. Still, who'd have bet that anyone would be able to creep undetected in to the middle of the Tribe's stronghold, put down the guards without a sound, and rig a bloody bomb? And then have the sheer stone balls to call for a parley and try to make a deal?
Tandy hadn't risen through the ranks to become the Tribe's Warchief because she was gutless. She lifted her chin, grinning.
"What's to stop me blowing your fucking brains out, and disarming your bomb? Or moving it?"
"I wouldn't try it. Explosives were my thing pre-Event. You even touch the case, there wont be enough of you or this place left to fill a bucket."
Tandy's hand twitched, the weight of her pistol comforting in her gloved hand. She itched to just raise her weapon and put an end to this mad prick. Trouble was, she believed every word he said.
"Even if you got what you want, how would we know that you'd enter the abort code? You might just let this whole place go up because you like loud noises."
The man nodded slowly, expression and tone of voice completely, and worryingly unchanged.
"I might. But I won't. No mileage in it. You have fuel, oil, ammo, water. Stuff I'm going to need again down the road. We do a deal, I'll load up my vehicle, and enter the code as I drive away. We don't....well, take your time. You've still got seven minutes or so to mull it over."
Tandy glanced at the counter.
"Yes to the oil, the gun, the ammo and the water. No way we can spare two drums of high octane."
The man cocked his head. A moaning gasp from below made both he and Tandy glance down briefly. One of the sentries, still alive apparently, one of his crossbow bolts buried in her shoulder. He looked up again, fixing Tandy with his cool grey gaze.
"What happens to her?"
Tandy glanced down, contempt twisting her lips in to a sneer.
"That useless cunt let you get all the way up here, and got put down, without even getting off a shot or shouting a warning. She dies. Slow and painful."
He nodded. Thought for a few moments. The silence was crushing, as the timer's soft green light blinked its way toward zero.
"The oil, gun, shells, and water. One drum of high octane. And her."
Tandy glanced down at the sentry.
"Done"
The man nodded, still infuriatingly calm.
"You'd better get your people to load my vehicle quickly. Can't be any more than five minutes now. Nice doing business with you."
http://pre00.deviantart.net/7b9e/th/pre ... ausizm.jpg
Tandy was gripping her pistol so hard, she felt sure she'd leave finger marks in the metal. The Warchief was almost choking on impotent fury as the nomad's vehicle was loaded with the Tribe's valuable resources, and one worthless wounded sentry.
"The Tribe doesn't forget, sand-trash", she snarled. "We'll hunt you down and-"
"One minute thirty, and counting." His infuriating, calm, soft voice cut straight across Tandy. "You might want to pick up the pace a bit"
The moaning, semi-conscious sentry-cunt was now cuffed to the roof of nomad's ATV like a trophy. Tandy hoped the careless bitch died there, she deserved it for failing the Tribe so completely.
"Well, nice doing business with you. See you again maybe."
With that, the nomad gunned his engine. Fat tyres bit in to sand and dust, spraying Tandy and one of her Tribe-brothers as the ATV slewed away in to the Bitter Desert. The Warchief's fury was such that nobody dared look her in the eye, much less speak to her, for over an hour. That was nothing, however, to her incandescent rage when it was discovered that the nomad's bomb was nothing more than a timer wired to a lump of carefully wrapped modelling clay......