Prudence closed in on Jasper, this camp is going to reek even worse if he keeps this nonsense up much longer.
"Jasper Ishmael Jones, you know that Melissa here has been mucking around those scrap cars, trying to scavenge material for you militia boys. You most certainly have some gall, getting in the way of one of the few comforts available to Melissa and other hard working folks around these parts."
Most chastised boys would have interrupted the torrent of words pouring from Prudence's mouth from anybody else, but Prudence leaves no room for contradictions once she gets going. It presented an almost humorous sight, this lady with a carpet bag in hand, pointing a finger at Jasper, but she was not laughing.

00:06, Today: Prudence rolled 3,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3,4. Taunting Jasper.

The Jerk swung his attention around at the new voice, distracted from his current creeper tasks.  His eye settled on the rangy scav with the carpetbag and narrowed, "The fuck?  That's not even my name and this ain't any of your damn business..."  He adjusted the rifle over his shoulder in a meaningful way, "So.  Walk on.  Transient."  In this camp you are either a Registered Refugee or Transient.  Apparently, based on his tone, Jasper felt that being Transient was not a good thing.  His militia buddy took a few steps to the side, creating some space to maneuver if he needed to.  He, also, adjusted his rifle in an unsubtle meaningful fashion.

Melissa seemed almost as confused as her antagonist regarding the arrival of the wordy wanderer.  She chose not to say anything though.  She did glance quickly at Jasper as he spoke, making sure of where his attention was, then she slowly...carefully...stepped towards the showers.

Kelly stopped, though... not entirely.  She shifted subtly.

And she could not help but laugh and whoop at that.  If nothing else it would let Melissa slip on by.

"You have a hell of a way of talking to girls Jasper.  I tell you I have known some slick ones in my time but no one compares to you buddy.  I bet you get all the ladies with that silver tongue of yours."

She wasn't particularly smooth but Kelly didn't need to be subtle.  Poke him where it was tender.

The sudden laughter grated across Jasper's nerve and he shifted his attention to his new taunter, "I get all I want!   And I don't need any from you, filthy damn Transient scum.  What the hell are you covered in?"  He took in the full image of the oil and blood and...other stuff...covered Kelly and Martin.  "I oughta get you banned for the safety of everyone!  No tellin' what nasties you're bringin' inta the camp.  Jeezus!"  Jasper's buddy side-eyed from Prudence....to Kelly...to Martin.  He seemed to be trying to size up how much danger they might actually be in.  Might just be the smarter of the two.

Melissa wasted no more time in slipping off into the shower building.

Other camp people are pausing to take notice of the situation.  Some naturally concerned about any potential flashpoints of violence.  Some, more obviously enjoying Jasper being stood up to...  He doesn't seem to have many friends in this crowd.

"Truer words were never spoken, you haven't the spirit of adventure to be called Ishmael. A grand traveler of the sea, Ishmael was! A brave sailor sucked into a madman's pursuit of the greatest white whale there ever was. If you are content merely reading about adventure, instead of seeking it out yourself I have some recommendations for you! Moby Dick is a great starting point Jasper Trunchbull, if you ever stumble across a copy."

Prudence then turned to the second guy "Now you look like a Frank Hardy to me. I'm Prudence, nice to meet cha."

Prudence last turned to Kelly, dismissing the two guards "You look awful, mind if I spot you a shower? And your friend too."

Back at the truck, Harry and Turk chatted.

"Seems like it." Harry nods at the question. "And we've got a ways to go. We're trying to get to what remains of Bullhead City in Arizona. It's a long story. But we're going to need fuel, supplies, spare parts, and I need to know what roads are open enough to travel on, what settlements there are to hit, and what places really need to be avoided. Apart from Las Vegas, naturally." He looked back at the truck, then at Turk. "You wouldn't happen to need any help hauling things that way, would you? I figure you'd be the person to talk to about the things we need, and that you'd also know of any jobs a rig like this could be put to while we're going that way to pay for it."

"Oh God yes."  Kelly responded at once. She had no idea what the woman was talking about but she sure understood that last part. "Someone thought it'd be a dandy idea to cover me in goop and set me on fire."

She looked at Jasper as if to say, that's right, I was on fire, and now I'm here.  Think about that.

Back at the Truck

Turk's brows went up at Harry's litany of Need/Want.  He took it all in, sorted it into relevance, and began again with the need to know, "Right.  Well.  Bullhead ya say?  Dunno that I know that settlement exactly, but we do go through Arizona."  He paused, cocking a thumb back at his own convoy of trucks, "We run the Maze to the Oil Towns.  With a few places like TexArcana that can produce needs thrown in."  He adds, a little lower in tone, "We also try to hit as many smaller holdouts as we can...  Like the old days.  Not the same, but...we try."

The trucker turned his expert eye on the Black Dog, still obviously a bit amazed but trying to play it cool, "Hell of a nice ride ya snagged there...  Dunno that I have the spare parts and such to keep her looking like that though.  What I have, I'm willing to trade as always.  Convoy Discount."

His attention then went back to the big cyborg, a grin curling wider across his face, "Funny you should ask about a job.  The townies here are in need of a hauler.  If I took the job, I'd have to leave one of my boxes here.  Which is a thing I don't wish.  Since you're bobtailing right now, seems you could take it on.  Even roll with us, as its basically on our route."

Jasper and his buddy seem a bit taken back by Prudence's literary avalanche.  Not sure whether they were insulted or not.  They looked at each other, then back...and realized that they were now being snubbed out of the conversation.  Jasper started to gather himself, then caught Kelly's explanation...  Wheels turned in his mind, slowly, but they put some details about the woman's appearance together with her story and came up with...  Truth.

Like any good bully, Jasper realized he might have picked a wrong target.  A glance showed him Melissa was gone too.  So.  With a sneer, the militia man said, "Yeah...  Get your ass cleaned up before you walk around my camp..."  He tried to give it some authority.  Like it was his idea.  Yeah.  Jasper nudged his buddy and indicated they might walk on.

The buddy, already notable the smarter of the two, didn't seem to feel this was the worst idea.

"Bullhead was Prewar." Harry says. "Not sure if there's anything left there to find, but we've sort of got ourselves an obligation to check anyway." He looks at the truck. "It ties into this thing. Again, long story. But from what I remember before I got Canned, Bullhead was sort o' the gateway between North and South. You had Laughlin to the north in Nevada, and Bullhead to the south -- I went through Laughlin once, but I didn't stay long enough to get more than a burger and bathroom break."

It had been a road trip, as Harry recalled. Back when he'd taken his bike and decided to see the world, taking a year off school. It wound up being more than a year...the memory was hazy, but Harry had learned a lot that year -- about the road, about his place in the world, about the sort of man he'd wanted to be. Laughlin and Bullhead had been on his route because he'd wanted to actually see the CSA, something his dad had expressly warned him away from.

He grunted, putting the memory away. "Anyhow, any spare parts to keep this thing running would be fine. The body will either remain good, or it won't. That's life these days. But yeah, that sounds exactly like the sort of thing I'm looking for, and I'd love to ride with you again. Who do I talk to about the hauling job?"

"My ass may be the one part of me that's actually clean."  Kelly shot back.  "Don't go changin' on me while I'm gone though tall dark and gruesome."

She turned to the others and the generous and high talking stranger and clapped her hands.  "So,  shower party?"

Turk seemed to be much in agreement with Harry's sentiment, "Always good to see old faces.  Even your chromed-out mug.  The guy to talk to is...."

---

"Eldridge.  Eldridge Johnson.  Most folks just call me El."

After the "shower party" in whatever fashion that ended up being, Kelly and Martin made their way over to the Welcome Center where, once it was clear they were not applying for refugee status, they were shown to Eldridge.  Or El, as he said.

Eldridge was an older man, just how old was hard to say.  Apocalypses tend to age everyone badly.  But he was likely pushing "old" /before/ the End.  Patched plaid shirt tucked into patched khakis.  He had stood as the pair entered his cubicle, politely pointing to a pair of chairs.  He did not sit till they did, "You both came in on that fancy rig, eh?"  He peered at them over his reading glasses and settled back in to begin....

---

Harry (via Turk), Kelly, and Martin (via Eldridge) get the gist of the big current need here in TexArcana.  The TexArcanists are doing their best to provide for the refugees and are working towards incorporating them into the city.  Though they are being cautious and careful.  A big part of the problem is suddenly having more mouths to feed than they had ever accounted for.

While they are working to increase local production, the border city dwellers have been negotiating deals with outlying settlements with more farming capability.  A tall ask what with every survivor community stretched thin.  But the mechanics and junkers of this burg are offering some rebuilt, upgraded, and up-armored farm machinery.  Along with maintenance agreements.  The farming communes get some heavy-duty workhorse vehicles to help with the labor (and possibly defense) and TexArcana gets to reap the surplus to help feed its refugees.

But, its getting these machines out to the farms that is a sticking point.  They can't possibly make the trip under their own power.  Take too long, they aren't built for that kind of travel.  Not to mention being slow, lame ducks for anything that might take a shine on stopping them.  So, they need trucks and truckers to haul them.

That's where the Black Dog comes in.  Most Truckers these days don't drive around without a load and most don't want to leave that load.  TexArcana has a few haulers, but the quicker they can get these things out to the farms the better for all.  They are offering enough diesel fuel for the delivery plus another quarter-tank over by way of payment.  The trailer is also thrown in (they have or can make enough of those).  The TexArcanists will also be sending along a couple of their own people to see to the machinery (and likely to defend them should the hired truckers try to run off with them.)

Turk confirms that this load's delivery is a slight detour off his convoy's expected route, but they can negotiate a rendezvous spot for the Black Dog to link back up with them after the drop.

Information gathered, Kelly, Martin, Harry, and Turk reconvene at the Black Dog....

The Job
-Cargo: Heavy Farm Machinery to the farming settlement of Lockesburg, Arkansas.  A pair of TexArcana militia mechanics to oversee the load.
-Payment- Diesel Fuel for the delivery + a quarter tank (Near an extra 70 gallons, which would put the Black Dog near half its capacity after delivery.  Possibly enough to make Bullhead.  Barring any inconveniences...)

Once the delivery job is accepted, Eldridge, TexArcana's representative in this matter, arranged for the fuel delivery and gave directions for where to pick up the trailer.  Turk, for his part, shared out some road food and a couple of old five gallon water bottles.  A day or two at best on the food; dried "meat", drier biscuit, some very old military vitamin supplements.  Most everything else he had to spare went to the tent camp.  Food was hard to come by here after all.  Turk adds that its not entirely out of the kindness of his heart, of course.  Its an investment.  A downpayment towards earnings for the Black Dog joining his convoy and the added protection provided by Harry and his friends.  At least till Arizona.

Harry was also able to wrangle a few more trades out of Turk's convoy market.  A couple of shotgun shells were easy enough to manage out of the "cash" he had.  Spare parts were gonna be pricier; cutting into the fuel payment or into whatever trade-able goods they could put together between Harry, Kelly, and Martin's own stashes.  Of course, that's all depending on just how much these relative strangers might be willing to cash in on this rig....

As they got all this ready, Turk's convoy representative arrived.  It was, in fact, the woman that Martin and Kelly had met earlier outside the camp shower station while dealing with an unpleasant miltia member.  Prudence knew the ins and outs of Turk's  route; providing very useful navigational information for the crew.  She also seemed to know the ins and outs of the variety of firearms she carried in a very comfortable, unsettlingly professional manner.

Once done at the market, the Black Dog was started back up.  Smoke belched from the stacks.  The engine growled, almost happily, back to life.  The cab shuddered under the restrained power of that engine like it was desperate to go.  To get back on the Road.  This was a truck that had places to be.  The crowd of refugees watched the spectacle of the gleaming "new" truck starting back up almost in awe and with no small amount of jealousy at the thought of leaving on such a beast.  The convoy truckers, Turk included, watched too.  With a lot more jealousy.  Their battered, repaired, patched together haulers never started up so easily.  So cleanly.  It was a reminder of better days gone by for the older ones.  It was like science fiction to the younger crowd.  The Black Dog slowly rolled out from the gawkers and the envious wishers.

---

The load was waiting to be picked up at the east gate of TexArcana proper.  The survivor city was big by the standards of such places in the remnants of the World Before.  A goodly chunk of the old Pre-War city lay under its walls;  which were currently being expanded in areas to try and accommodate all the new arrivals if the rumor was true.   Old Texarkana just wasn't big enough to deserve any sort of buster.  The walls were high.  Poured concrete.  Very likely reinforced internally.  Sometimes a burg got lucky and had real engineers in their group.  Jagged rebar hooks and spikes protruded at the top.  The gates were welded together from plates of the heaviest steels that could be spared.  Emplacements were set atop the wall on either wide of the gate, likely in other places too.  It wasn't clear at first glance just what the big mish-mashes of wires, hoses, steel-lattice, and other junk might do.  But they were clearly considered to be some sort of weapons and the thought of being under them was a might uncomfortable.

Just outside the gate was a flat bed trailer loaded with a couple of odd looking vehicles.  They might have once been some sort of small truck or SUV, but the suspension and wheels had been beefily upgraded.  Steel plating was bolted on, with raisable panels replacing windows.  Some sort of weapon-y contraption is pintle-mounted on the roof; a very large steel-armed crossbow device with hoses running to it.  A pile of other cobbled together items is strapped into the bed of each of the two trucks.  Across the sides of each is spray-painted: fARMOR.

Eldridge Johnson is there, along with a handful of TexArcana militia of the sort that has been seen all around.  Another man is dressed in blue coveralls and wearing a very old, dirty maroon ball cap with the Texas A&M "Aggies" logo on the front.  He's got a belt of various tools wrapped around his waist and he's currently under the hood of one of the fARMOR trucks.  Two other figures are standing atop the flatbed watching the approaching Black Dog...

Kelly was hardly the diplomat of the group but she might be better than Harry, just for being not seven feet tall, dead and metal.

She was perched on the Black Dog, wondering if it would talk to her, hands on her recently cleaned levergun; its finish was worn but intact enough to keep it from being a rust bucket, provided she kept wiping it down with every spare oil she could scavenge.  She'd pitch in for spare parts but her personal "stash", as it were, was fairly small.  Maybe they'd have to go without and try to scare up a score.

She looked up, curious who was coming.  Lot of people lately.  She'd been watching them carefully.  Some weren't impressing her.  Others, might have potential.  Too early to tell really.

Sitting on the edge of the trailer, Dean idly chewed a piece of dried meat.  He wasn't needed at the moment; they were about as safe as they could be.  And outside of some decent shooting ability, his particular skills weren't needed.  So, Dean sat and waited for something to happen.  For the job to start really.

Just another day.  Just another job.  Didn't particularly matter what it was; he had little left.  Hells, he didn't even have a gun anymore.  The crossbow was quiet, which was a plus, but he missed his old gear.  But gear cost.  He'd only recently paid off the debt to get what he had.  Hence yet another job.  This one didn't seem to require a lot of walking though...

The ice-blonde cowgirl was, like everyone else at the gate, killing time while Black Dog made its way through the camp. She'd chosen to occupy that time with some gun twirling, flagging everyone and everything in her immediate area as the nickel-plated Peacemaker spun on her trigger finger like a whirlygig.

Ah, but the wait was finally over! The revolver stopped on a dime, returned to its cavalry-draw holster with that satisfying slap of metal on leather.

Delilah pushed the brim of her hat up to catch a look, and affected a long, ringing wolf whistle. "Now that is a pretty sight," she whispered, smirking at Black Dog and Kelly perched atop it.

"Hey, Mitchel!" She bent over the lip of the flatbed to look at the quiet recon-man, gnawing on his jerky. Crowing as she was, her sweet Texas drawl infected every word. "Mitchie, ain't that a pretty sight? I can't even decide what I like best about it; the truck or the hood ornament. Plum unsure. Whatcha think, Mitchie?"

"I think you need to get my name right," he remarked off offhandedly as he watched the large machine and it's crew approach.  He was marginally used to his companion's habits and didn't really pay them any mind.  Everyone had habits, good and bad.  Just something you had to deal with if you dealt with people.  Hers weren't that bad.  'Sides, she was a cute kid and handy with a gun to boot.

"Looks big and noisy.  Quicker than walkin I bet," he added after a minute, answering her sort of.

"Well, pardon the shit outta me, Mr. Mitchel, Grand High Chromedome of the Killjoy Tribe," Del snorted. Inwardly, she couldn't help reminding herself that Dean was a good sport, and somewhere a tiny imaginary Delilah put a little note on an itinerary not to rib him too much for at least a few hours. Fights had started over less than giving someone a pet name, after all. Bloody fights, at that.

As gingerly as she could, Delilah climbed down off the flatbed and waved at the huge semi. She leaned up against the armor plates and sighed loudly.

"I hope they got space for us inside, Mitchel, truly I do. If I have to hang off the side of another hauler like a damn monkey, my arm may up and snap clean off."

Inside the rig, Harry was more than happy to let Kelly take the lead in dealing with people coming over to check the Black Dog. He was more interested in trying to figure out how to improve their ability to communicate to the spirit within. That strangled message with the GPS was a start, but they were going to need more than that eventually.

Besides, a Junker had managed to get through to him. Once upon a time, his mind had been completely gone, buried completely under the directives and the programming he'd been given. He had no memories of The Last War. No idea what he'd done for years, guarding a completely empty suburb of a bombed-out city in Wyoming until the Convoy had rolled through and found him. He'd been returned to himself, been given a voice again.

This spirit here deserved the same, he figured. It had been trapped in this rig as long as he'd been in his can, at least as near as he could figure. Harry and the spirit had a lot in common.

But Harry wasn't a Junker. He didn't really know how they contacted the spirits, talked them into doing the things they did. All Harry had was his data link, and he wasn't sure how much control the Black Dog had over it's own systems -- it seemed to need them in the driver's seat, at the very least. So he sat and monkeyed about with the CB radio and some components he'd managed to barter here, trying to figure out if he could make some sort of channel that The Black Dog could speak through.

Prudence eyed Harry warily from the sleeper section of the cab, this was not exactly what she had it mind when she signed on with Turk... At least she gets to ride inside the rig, and the air conditioning worked on this one!  Prue hadn't seen anything like it in so long she felt 7 years old again.
"How'ed you end up with such a nice rig Huck-I mean Martin?"

Kelly wasn't the diplomat nor the most observant person in the world but she'd be both visually and hearing impaired to not hear and see there were others approaching the rig especially after a sharp whistle.  From her perch she bent over and looked down into the driver's window, looking at Harry most directly, her face upside down.  If she were any further along Connor might threaten to start sliding along in his scabbard.

A small piece of cord dangled down, a little thing made from some old corroded washers and nuts to look like a cross.  Its apparent lack of any actual material worth and iconographic shape implied Kelly might be a little more sentimental than she let on.

She rapped on the glass with surprising gentleness and half talked half yelled into the cab assuming the window was partially opened for the purpose.

"Hey, look alive in there.  I think those are the goons we're supposed to take along for this run."

Kelly didn't actually know if they were goons or not actually but that's why she wasn't the diplomat.  She re-flattened herself, rolled back onto her butt, and began to climb down the truck.  Kelly was sometimes grateful she wasn't very big sometimes, but she was being careful to not scuff the paint all the same.

Also not wanting to gesture with a firearm and muzzle sweep everyone like an idiot, she put the old levergun's improvised carry sling over her shoulder and not knowing what else to do extended an arm upwards, trying for the universal sign for Come Over Here Forthwith.

"You're pardoned," he said offhandedly, with a small half smile flickering across his face.  Swinging his legs down over the edge, he softly dropped down beside Delilah, still observing the truck and it's occupants.  He straightened his hat and rolled his shoulders a little, readjusting the weight of his gear with practiced ease.

"Doesn't look like.  There's 2 in the cab already, plus the one on the roof.  If there's more inside, doubt we'll be getting a spot.  Maybe they'll rotate out?," he said with a shrug.  It was definitely a long shot but stranger things happened damn near constantly these days.  "Probably space to sit on the trailer," he said, knowing it wasn't much of a consolation to her.

"Time for the meet and greet," he muttered softly as he saw a blond woman slide off the roof and wave them over.  "Shall we?"  It was rhetorically but he tried to be polite all the same.  He started off, letting his pace match hers, after a quick glance up at Johnson.

Delilah's nose crinkled into a scowl, and she pressed the crown of her hat to secure it on her irksome mane of hair. "Man, I'd take a spot on the floor. Hell, a lap."

For a couple steps she followed Dean, then a lightbulb popped. Maybe if she swung her proverbial dick a little, that'd be worth a spot in the comfy? With all the subtlety and ladylike grace of a rhino, Del shoved a hand down her shirtfront and fished out the old Texas Ranger badge from inside her layered garments, flourishing a bit as she let the pendant swing into place on her torso.

Satisfied with her decoration, Del picked her pace back up, not quite dragging her left leg - but not walking on it properly either. A perceptive fella might have noticed a little blush of embarrassment and gratitude aimed at Dean, for the simple courtesy of not leaving her in the dust.

"Hi, y'all!" Del waved primarily at Kelly, but also at the obscured occupants of The Black Dog. "Pretty sure you're the rig we're supposed to babysit. I'm Delilah Wolf, and I'm the finest gunfighter you'll ever have the privilege to meet. Tall, dark and behatted over here is Dean; he's probably second- or third-best, but the jury's out on account o' me not having yet met all the other contenders."

With a big, toothy grin, Delilah rested her hand on her pistol, the severe burn scars underneath her bandages shiny in the light.

Mr. Johnson caught Dean's look and gave a curt nod, standing up from where he'd been leaning on the side of the trailer.  Straightening his old shirt, he called up to the mechanic, "C'mon Fletcher.  Come meet your ride."  As he turned to walk towards the rig, he held a hand back to quietly signal to the militia squad that they weren't needed.

The mechanic, stood up and pulled a rag from his belt to wipe off his hands. He leaned out from the fARMOR's hood to get a look at the rig.  His eyes near fell outta his head, opening so wide, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmnnnn...."  He scrambled off the trailer, stumbling a bit foolishly but didn't seem to care.  He trotted quickly towards the rig along with everyone else.  Though it was obvious he only had eyes for the truck.

In reply to Kelly MacLeod (msg # 42):

"'Look alive,' she says." Harry grunts as he fiddles with the radio. "Tall order." He glanced briefly at the woman in the outlandish get-up who'd been tagging along. "The Black Dog pulled our asses out of a fire in Arkansas." he says, even though he hadn't been the one asked.

He glanced idly out the window, and caught a glimpse of the woman with the badge approaching. And immediately, he felt himself seize up.

Hostile foreign agent incoming. Moving to standby. the voice in his head chirped.

"Aw, fuck." Harry grunted. "No. No no no no. Ain't no CSA anymore." he twitched a bit. "Goddamn it. Kelly!" he shouted. "My chip's going funky again! I need you to order me to stand down so the damn thing don't make me make a scene!"