[b]Red Hook, Brooklyn[/b]

	A row of battery-like objects protruded from a steel shelf. Each of them were slotted into hundreds of ports along dozens of rows of these shelves, each of them flashing blinking green lights to nobody in particular. They all made a low humming noise and radiated warmth into the room around them. Upon closer inspection, these batteries were hundreds of energy cells and electron charge packs sitting in gigantic charging banks. A man in a black suit with a gaggle of technicians wearing mismatched jumpsuits inspected one of the charging shelves.

	The man in the suit ran his hand over the energy cells until he picked one at random to yank out from the socket. The flashing green light turned yellow as it waited for the battery to be reinserted to finish its charge. The energy cell was still warm to the touch and carried a noticeable heft in his hand, like a loaded magazine. Its metal was dented and scratched. The labeling and letting from the original manufacturer had long since worn off. But prewar technology was robust, with these energy cells capable of being recharged dozens of times over before it was time to totally throw them away.

	“How long does it take to charge these?” asked the man. While he had managed the company’s up and coming energy weapons department, he was never inclined towards the specifics of the technology.

	“Well, about two days for a full charge. We’re working on another set of charging banks in the back specifically for overcharged cells, which should take four days,” explained a technician in a red jumpsuit tied around his waist. He wore a faded undershirt bearing the logo of an old world baseball team in Brooklyn. The manager nodded and stuck the energy cell back into its slot. The light turned back to a flashing green.

	The manager’s name was Mario Leonetti and he had just overseen the opening of this particular assembly line for Brooklyn AA&E. Famed in the region for its weapons production, Brooklyn AA&E’s iconic stamp could be found on its signature goods: arms, ammunition, and explosives. Usually consigned to restore and produce a sizeable selection of conventional firearms and ammunition, Leonetti spearheaded the development of an energy weapons refurbishment branch. The rows of charging banks, themselves found in the basement of a RobCo facility in the industrial hellscape of Jersey, had been fixed up and put to work recharging spent energy packs. It was the first tangible success of the project.

	“May we continue?” he asked the technicians. They all nodded and shuffled out the door, following another lower manager in a white short-sleeved shirt out the door. Only a pair of employees remained in the charging room to monitor the status of the energy cells on a desk with a computer terminal placed nearby.

	Across the hall of the old brick building was their open-floor workshop. Lined up in neat rows were workbenches and workstations cluttered with tools, parts, gadgets, and components. Mechanics, highly talented and gifted technicians from across the city, had been hired to work on energy weapons in this bay. Across their desks was a wide assortment of laser weapons, plasma guns, and a fair share of more exotic armament. Most of these were gutted and disassembled with technicians working determinedly to fix them. From the corner, Leonetti heard a slam and turned his head to see a mechanic loudly thumping the stock of a laser rifle against the desk. He grinned and walked over.

	“What’re you working on?” asked Leonetti, a measured air of genuine curiosity in his voice. The mechanic looked up from the chamber of the laser rifle, clutching a flashlight between his teeth. He quickly removed it and put it down on the desk.

	“Sorry about that, heh,” he said, looking back to the chamber of the gun. “This sonofabitch right here,” he motioned towards some vague internal piece of the rifle, “is supposed to reciprocate. It’s stuck, so I figure if I can give it an ‘ole slam then it should come unstuck.”

	Leonetti squinted but couldn’t make heads or tails of the part that the mechanic was referring to. Instead he just nodded his head: “Well I’m sure if you keep smacking it like that you’ll get it out of there in no time. Good work from you, son.”

	He returned to his entourage of technicians and surveyed the room again. A rack of weapons laid against the opposite wall, each of them in various states of disrepair. Rusted, broken, or missing components. Leonetti had asked specifically for a cut of AA&E’s revenue for this branch. To front the operation, he had paid dozens of contracted scavengers to loot for energy weapons that others may have missed or thrown away. It now looked like his big bet was paying off. AA&E had asked the City Council for The Economist’s input on laser weaponry and other high technology sites, and a mercenary crew was dispatched to the RobCo facility in Jersey that yielded the energy cell chargers. Right on the money, as per usual.

	Leonetti returned to the hallway where the floor manager was standing, idly chatting with one of the technicians about something. All Leonetti could understand was some technobabble about the overcharge banks having electrical issues. He figured it was a problem, like usual, with the old technology. He had confidence that they would figure it out eventually. The floor manager noticed Leonetti’s return: “How’s it looking, boss?” he asked.

	“Pretty good in there,” Leonetti replied authoritatively. “You guys are really putting in the work I like to see. We’ll have those laser guns out of there in no time, right?”

	The floor manager nodded vigorously. “Oh, of course. Two or three weeks tops and we should have a whole bunch of guns to sell off,” he casually assessed. He looked at a clipboard that he had been holding tucked under his arm and nodded again. He repeated his timeline of three weeks.

	“Good, good,” Leonetti said, crossing his arms. He checked his watch in a feigned display of hurry. He always had work to do, and often used that as an excuse to cut social engagements and tours short regardless of the specifics. “Well thanks for showing me around today gents,” he announced as he clapped his hands together. “I’ve got to run… sales is going to love this news. Keep this up and you boys might be getting a nice bonus for your troubles.”

[b]Almont, Upstate Wastes[/b]

	“I’m getting tired of hearing that fuckin’ kook on the radio,” grumbled Charlie from his bunk.

	The half-crazed mayor of Almont had just wrapped up his rambling “newscast” of the afternoon, talking about… something. Charlie tuned out the insanity and tried to get back to the music instead. Unfortunately for him, there wasn’t much this far north. New York’s comparatively more civilized DJs had long since turned to static as they rounded the bend of the Hudson south of Newburgh. Local settlements sometimes had their own radio stations, of course, but those were more for communication and less for entertainment. After a certain way up the river, Hathaway’s madness was the only sound they had.

	Sanjay shrugged in his chair as he set down another card. He had gotten used to playing solitaire in his spare time. Another sailor was up on the deck, keeping watch for the dangers of the wasteland. Luckily for them, this trip had so far been uneventful. Maybe the dreary weather was keeping people away. After all, nobody liked to be stalking around the mountains in soaking wet clothes and boots. The weather was still forecasted to be like this for another few days; it was good enough of a cover to get them to Almont and mostly back to New York before it let up. Charlie was just glad that Sanjay had been right about it being an “easy job” for once.

	They were a few hours from docking at Almont. The rain pattered at the boat as most of the crew took cover beneath the structure of its bridge. The dull thrum of the engine propelled it further up the river, unceasingly beating against the mild current and light winds of the Hudson. Charlie dozed back to sleep after checking his watch, realizing that morning was yet to come. Their ships had gotten awfully good at scheduling their docking at Almont.

	Charlie was awoken from his sleep with a light push. He opened his eyes to see Sanjay standing above him, clad in combat armor. The plated vest, a relic of the old NYPD riot teams, was painted dark grey to match the rest of his uniform. He clutched a carbine in his hands. “Charlie, man, we just docked!” he said as he jostled the sailor from his sleep.

	The sailor grumbled again, swinging his legs out of his bunk. He shooed Sanjay away, urging him to head topside while he changed. Charlie wore a pair of underpants and a plain white shirt as he stumbled to his personal locker. Inside were his work clothes: he much preferred a blue jumpsuit with nothing underneath. Anything besides the jumpsuit was too much of a chore in the steamy humidity of New York’s summer. The weather was changing to become much cooler, however, as fall fast approached. He had heard that once upon a time the trees would change colors to shades of orange and red before the leaves fell for winter: not anymore. The land was still too scarred from the war.

	Charlie went to work on the boat mooring it to the dock. Almont was nothing like New York. It looked and felt like an active warzone in a carnival. Neon signs lit up all sorts of establishments of sin in town: bars, casinos, brothels, and everything in between. A loudspeaker played the same deranged rantings of the mayor that permeated the airwaves from his radio station. All across the dock was a flurry of activity as the shipment began to be unloaded. A team of local mercenaries had been hired, under Sanjay’s supervision, to guard the pier where the sailors were offloading their wooden boxes. They stood in a tight line, clutching bats and blunt instruments.

	Out of the corner of Charlie’s eye he saw a trio of kids, no older than their early teens, try to make a break for a crate that had been set down close to the line of mercenaries. They scrambled out of the shadows, one with a bright red flare gun that he waved wildly in the air. The kid hopped over a crumbled concrete barrier and, to his own surprise, discharged the flare gun straight into the ground next to the foot of a guard. His friends realized that they had blown their cover and rushed away, leaving the teen to his fate. Sitting down on his rear, staring up at the mercenary and clutching the flare gun, his eyes widened. The merc spared no words, strategically lining up the teen’s hand with his bat and smacking the gun away from him.

	The would-be thief yelped in pain and evacuated himself into the shadows, clutching his hand. Charlie just shook his head. Vagrant kids were a constant annoyance. He was sure he’d find them begging for caps in an alley later that night. Sanjay turned to Charlie, shrugging with his carbine in hand. He was under orders not to fire inside the city limits unless absolutely necessary: the former Gunners were trigger happy about that sort of thing. Charlie kept unloading the wooden boxes, stacking them neatly next to a weathered wooden shack marked “DELIVERY.”

	The captain, satisfied that the cargo was completely offloaded after an hour’s work, hobbled himself off the barge. A stiff leg that never quite healed from a break crippled his movement. Tucked under his arm was a clipboard with paperwork and forms that TraDiv needed from the registered merchants: another cause for griping from the old man. He met with a merchant on the pier who appeared equally as apathetic as the sea captain, merely scribbling a curved line on the form to act as his signature. Another, far more traditional exchange happened as well when the merchant passed the captain a clinking bag full of caps.

	The captain hobbled his way back to the ship and motioned for the sailors to cut out and go about their business. He had briefed over the intercom when to expect a muster the following morning: seven AM sharp. Failure to show up used to be punished with a beating, back in the old days. Now, it was more than sufficient to just sever the contract right then and there and leave the tardy sailor stranded alone in Almont. Most of the crew would prefer a beating. Charlie lit a cigarette as he went back down belowdecks for his things. Sanjay followed: he had to trade in his carbine for a sidearm before going out on the town. Company policy dictated that they couldn’t have anything bigger than a handgun out in Almont.

	Sanjay ditched his armor and opted for the simple blue uniform shirt, like usual. Charlie couldn’t have been bothered to change out of his jumpsuit. They both filled their pockets full of caps, strapped on their holsters, and went out on the town. Almont was rough and grimy, dangerous and shady. Like a pack of migrating animals, the sailors all headed in one direction to the neon-lit entertainment neighborhood. They would be safer in their massive group, and they all knew the bars and clubs of Almont had little tolerance for allowing violence. Armed guards patrolled the streets, breaking up fights and fending off potential troublemakers. After all, it was far more lucrative to have a drunk New Yorker spending caps at the bar instead of going home empty-handed after getting robbed.

	Charlie and Sanjay peeled off from the group once they hit the strip of bars. They had one objective, and that was to get absolutely blackout drunk at their favorite establishment: [i]Stella Supreme’s[/i]. Jubilantly, Sanjay practically kicked in the door to the dive bar. He always made a point to come to this place when they were in Almont, if only to see the one special girl that he always liked to spend a night with. Without fail, she always frequented the bar at [i]Stella’s[/i], and she was there again that night. A tall brunette with a cigarette in her mouth, she smiled when she saw the pair: “Back again, huh? I thought you’d miss me.”

	Sanjay sidled up to her and flipped some caps on the table while Charlie ordered some liquor. His goal that night was to get as drunk as possible on the cheap, and with cash to spare to bring some bottles back home with him. Almont was half the price of New York for almost everything, especially luxury goods like alcohol and chems. As Sanjay tried to pay for more attention from his friend, Charlie fed himself shot after shot. Minutes passed that turned into hours as [i]Stella’s[/i] got more and more packed. Charlie dropped deeper into his state of intoxication as he kept drinking. He danced with the girls, argued with the guys, and in the middle of things lost sight of Sanjay.

	It was close to midnight when Charlie said, or rather slurred, something to the wrong guy. He didn’t quite remember what he did wrong, only that he took a haymaker of a punch to the face in response. With all the coordination that his drunk self could muster, he swung back. He didn’t quite remember if he connected or not. A gang of four people rushed him and before he knew it, he had taken a swing of something heavy to the back of his head. He blacked out before he hit the ground and woke up sometime later still drunk in an alley with a figure towering over him.

	“Come on, man,” said the figure. Charlie groaned and covered his eyes as the rays of the sun peeked through the scrap-metal awning that provided him shade. The blurriness resolved as he got his bearings: he was curled up next to a dumpster with empty pockets, no gun, and blood staining the front of his jumpsuit. He rolled over, putting his hands on his head, struggling to get a good look at whoever was standing next to him. It was two people: one in a white lab coat of some sort, while the other dressed in a black turtleneck. The man in the coat kneeled down and laid a bottle of water on the ground.

	“Who are you?” he grumbled. The man in the lab coat was not actually a scientist, and in fact looked more like a doctor. He was stern behind a pair of thick glasses, entirely unamused with the scene.

	“I’m the guy who found you kicking around in this alley,” deadpanned the doctor. He motioned to the water: “Drink this. You got your ass kicked.”

	“Fuck,” mumbled Charlie as he sat up. The doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around. Charlie noticed a silver watch on the man’s wrist and asked what the time was. Nine in the morning. Way past manifest. Charlie swore again, cursing the company policy. He was out of this contract’s pay and had to figure out how to get out of Almont. He took a swig of the water and looked back up at the doctor: “You seen my buddy around?”

	“You had a friend? Would have been helpful in that fight.”

	“Yeah, well, the kid ran off chasing a broad,” Charlie said. He spat blood onto the concrete before chugging some more water.

	“You sailors are all the same,” the doctor sighed. He extended his hand out and offered to help Charlie up. The sailor steadied himself to his feet and got a better look at the man. The doctor wasn’t an average physician: he wore the distinct armband of the Wasteland Aid Society. Charlie had seen them around and figured they were some sort of charity and volunteer group but had never talked to them beyond that. He figured they gave food and medicine to the needy or, in his case, picked up drunks off the street.

	“Trust me, you’re fucked. Missing your friend and you missed your boat,” the doctor explained. The man in the turtleneck next to him clutched a rifle in his palms, staring down the alley to make sure they weren’t suddenly attacked. The Aid Society always seemed to travel with bodyguards, seeing as they were as close to pacifists as one could get in the wasteland. “I’m the best friend you’ve got. We’ll go looking for your buddy and hopefully get you out of here in one piece.”

	Sanjay was just as drunk as Charlie was and probably was still in Almont as well. The pair desperately needed to regroup and figure out a way to get back to the city. He cursed himself again, wondering how he could be so stupid as to get his ass beat at a bar in Almont. Out of options, he nodded and finished off the water.

	“Yeah, good idea,” he told the doctor.