Oh good, she had a sword. He flinched a little when the cold steel brushed against his skin, but apparently she was just inspecting him. Luckily, his injury may have actually won him some sympathy points. And new bandages. That was probably a good idea, actually. 

He pulled off his duster and shirt, revealing a wiry, athletic build. A bulky physique was a liability when you didn't have the food to maintain it, but he was clearly very active and in as good of shape as he could be considering how often he went hungry. He gingerly went about swapping the bandage, but then stopped, freezing and staring at the case in her hand.

He wished he'd controlled his reaction. No doubt she'd noticed and no doubt he'd be unable to hide that it was important.

"It's a thing," he told her, "a very fragile thing. And it's locked with a code that only I know. You could try breaking it open, but it loses all value if it gets even a little damaged." He quickly went about finishing with the bandage, biting his lip from the stinging pain. "As for the job, I suppose you'd consider it an escort mission. I need to get some supplies and then bring that case's contents somewhere. I'd be a bit more specific, but trusting people hasn't done me much good lately, and you're not making the best case for yourself right now. Not the worst... but you could do better." He figured he should give her at least one concrete detail, however. "What I will say is that there is no client or middle-man, so to speak. Consider it more of a treasure hunt. And we'd have to go into the red zone..."

The "red-zone," aka the irradiated hell-hole that used to be the main mining colony before the transport ship blew its core. Over a decade later, and things hadn't improved much. It was known as the red-zone since most Geiger-counters tended to jump into the red once you went there.

The radiation wasn't even the worst part. By avoiding radiation pools and the old landing zone, you could keep away from the worst, and protective gear would handle the rest. However, there were violent, and often insane, groups that made their home near and sometimes even [i]in[/i] the old colony. Also, there were a few dangerous predators that had gravitated there. Perhaps they liked the shade the old buildings provided... or the dead bodies that the raiders occasionally dumped.