V Gilly and Pajamas: Fury Road [Quest]

[Android XVII]

She woke up when her alarm trilled at her.

Rolling over in her bed, PJ slapped at the machine a few times until her fingers found the slider that put a throttle on its noise. After crawling out from under the heavy woolen sheets, the woman slipped them back into place and proceeded to stretch out her back. Over the last few years, the problems there had gradually become exacerbated, a side effect of aging and the harsh, scarring experiences of her youth.

Making her way over to the alcove that served as her washroom, the woman cranked the spout and waited a few minutes until it started to belch out water in intermittent gasps. As she had for the last week or so, she trapped enough to fill her basin and then turned off the flow. Using the limited amount of water, she took some soap and washed her face. Life on ‘disk desert’ had less imminent dangers than ‘icy hell prison moon’, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed trading endless snow for endless sand. Even with makeshift cloth shutters over her windows, the night winds still managed to infiltrate her simple living quarters.

Once she had washed the thin layer of desert grime, she did some last-minute hygienic functions and emptied the basin into the nearby ‘water recycler’ apparatus that stuck up from the floor. The folks at Syntech (a company that the woman never really expected to encounter out here in … wherever the fuck she was) explained that the system was capable of ‘effectively sanitizing and recycling sixty percent of used water’. She didn’t necessarily buy into anything they were selling, but she also wasn’t going to be a stick in the mud just for the hell of it.

Mostly refreshed and ready to go with whatever lay on today’s schedule, PJ glanced at the reflection in mirror. How long had it been on Inverxe? Months? Years? While clean enough ice could certainly resemble mirrored glass, she had spent most of her time on that icy hellscape smothered in layers. Like an onion, she had constructed layers of refuse and detritus scavenged from the dead—anything to try and allow herself to vanish… to slip into that spot where survival and animal instincts were all that mattered.

Now, she was forced to look at herself for what she truly was—a woman in her middling years who bore all the telltale signs of an abuse- and trauma-laden life. Sure, she knew that she was still pretty by most modern standards, but she also knew the ugliness that lay beneath. Her hair still burned like a fresh fire, but the flames that should still surge inside her body had long ago been ground into ashes. People liked to comment on her green eyes, but all PJ saw in them was someone who had been dead long before crashing onto Inverxe.

“Get it together, Captain,” she muttered as she pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and let it drape down one of her shoulders. “Just another shit deployment for a shit military officer,” the self-deprecating insult still managed to make her smile. Sure, it was pathetic, but it was also the little things that helped you get through life. It didn’t help that it was true. In her twenties, she had reported a famous, high-ranking officer for unwanted sexual advances and effectively scuttled any chance she had in a military career of any note.

She got dressed quietly and efficiently. After fitting a cap over her head, she tucked the scorched, twisted remnants of her dog tags beneath her undershirt. The last thing she did was find the padded gloves and slip them over her hands. They had tried to sell her on the fingerless gloves, but she had insisted in ‘full gloves.’ She didn’t need any unwanted physical contact with people. Her tenure on Inverxe had literally numbed her to that reality, but all it had taken was one of the construction workers placing a hand on her shoulder to remind her to take precautions.

Fifteen minutes after getting up and out of bed, PJ was standing just outside the small, adobe structure that she called home, at least during the extent of construction. Like it did every day, the sun was blazing down on the construction site that would eventually be the city of Uruk. The name, like most associated with ‘Gilgamesh,’ made the woman snicker, but that was only because she came from a world where cities had the most straightforward names imaginable. Oh, it’s near the middle of the planet? Central City. It’s in the Southern Ocean? South City.

“Hello, Miss,” a voice called. PJ glanced to see one of the construction workers waving at her as he operated a piece of machinery transporting bricks toward the ‘downtown’ site. Truth be told, the woman couldn’t remember his name, but he was young and derpy-looking so she tried to always be polite.

“Morning,” she replied with a wave of her gloved hand before pausing to adjust the blue jacket she wore over an almost identically hued undershirt. She knew that her outfit clashed with just about everyone else, and while she hated to stick out like a sore thumb, she had also grown vehemently opposed to the mismatch of cadaver clothes she’d worn to survive on Inverxe. Shedding that attire, along with the ruined remnants of her much older clothes, had been the first real step she had taken to not only accepting her new reality but also trying to genuinely live in it.

Truth be told, Inverxe had only been a few steps worse than her previous post, and while Mesa Roja was a blistering desert, there was nothing here that was actively trying to kill her. Hell, even the sun wasn’t that bad, since the clothes she wore had some sort of stupid fabric that trapped out the heat. They were good at trolling Gilgamesh and had a mixed record with the actual construction, but Syntech could at least make good clothes.

PJ made her way down the dirt path that would take her up toward the district where golden boy ‘lived’ during construction. As he had mentioned, he had been a king—or at least aspired to be one—and that much was evident with how large the foundations for the palace had become over the last few days.

On this day, however, the woman emerged from the footpaths to find that the foundations of the palace were home to much more than Gilgamesh and a coterie of scurrying Syntech workers.

“You dare accuse me of theft?”

The bombast was easily distinguishable from the rest of the crowd’s less incomprehensible rabblerousing.

“The Lars’ are some of the most trustworthy people in this entire region!” A man barked as he stepped out from the larger crowd and put himself to within a hair’s length of Gilgamesh’ face. “You think because you almost won some blood sport that you can just do as you please? That you can trample over the livelihood of us proud moisture farmers?”

“I would never do such a thing,” Gilgamesh growled, his posture noticeably tense even beneath the freshly crafted plate armor he wore.

“Then why have the aquifers run dry?” A woman calmly asked as she stepped forward and placed a hand on the shoulder of the young man who had confronted Gilgamesh. Almost reflexively, a man nearly her same age likewise moved in beside her, his posture revealing all the telltale signs of a husband wanting to safeguard his wife. “Forgive young Jeffrey here… he has been under so much stress lately trying to run his own ranch after his parents’ vanished.”

The young man with the sharp, angular features sagged at the older woman’s words, and without a rebuttal, he seemed to almost melt back into the crowd.

It was then that PJ made her entrance. “Everything okay over here, Gilly-Willy?” She asked softly, noting the king’s ire for a brief and succulent second before turning to the pair of moisture farmers. “Hello,” PJ extended a gloved hand. “Welcome to proto-Uruk… is everything okay?”

Gilgamesh leaned in close enough that the woman felt the spittle from his rancorous remark. “I told you not to bring up the island.”

PJ grinned as she gently and momentarily placed a gloved hand on Gilgamesh’s shoulder before whispering back to him. “It’s okay. Men can cry, it’s… well, whatever year it’s supposed to be.” She wasn’t sure, but she did know that she enjoyed ruffling the would-be/soon-to-be king’s feathers. With Gilgamesh sufficiently ruffled, PJ turned back to the other woman and smiled warmly as she shook her hand.

“I’m Beru Lars… are you the Missus?”

Both Gilgamesh and PJ coughed at little at the remark, but it was the redhead who replied. “No, Ma’am. This is one grave that won’t be robbed by a young scallywag. I’m just a friend.”

“I hate you,” Gilgamesh whispered.

At this point, the older man spoke up as well. “Owen, Owen Lars. There’s no denying that your arrival here coincided with the issues with the aquifers. Whether it’s you or someone else. something is out of the ordinary. We all rely on the moisture trade with Karim for our livelihood. You need to fix this. My wife can do many things, but she can’t hold back a mob forever.”

Gilgamesh scowled at the man for a few silent moments before turning to look at his wife. His expression relaxed. “Are there any others in this region? The Syntech workers mentioned having to fight off a couple of half-naked lunatics on… and I quote, ‘tricked out vehicles’.”

Some of the farmers in the crowd gasped audibly at the description, which prompted Gilgamesh to push onto his tiptoes to try and spot who had made the sounds.

“If that’s accurate, your workers are describing War Boys.” Beru muttered as she turned to look at PJ. “The War Boys are a vile group of nomads who pillage and destroy in the name of their leader, the Immortan. Smaller squads are more bullies than anything else, but if you start spotting them in larger war parties, it’s best to just pack up and leave.”

“I will do no such thing!” Gilgamesh barked as he turned to one of his nearby attendants. “Round up some of the workers and have them scout the south and east using the speeders.”

“Yes, my liege,” the man—one of the crew from Inverxe—replied. “Should I tell them that you’ll be following?”

Gilgamesh turned, his eyes meeting those of PJ. The redhead nodded her head at the unspoken question. “Yes,” the king spoke as he pivoted back to his attendant. “Prep a speeder for myself and Captain Pajamas over here.”

The attendant gave one final nod before scampering off to prep the vehicles.

“When I return with the heads of these… war boys, I expect apologies from all of you.” Gilgamesh demanded to the crowd of assembled moisture farmers before he spun and departed from the palace construction site.

With a small nod to Beru Lars and a wave to the rest of the crowd, PJ followed after the scowling monarch.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Water. Of course, he had settled on the planet that was scarce with water. He should be grateful, he thought to himself, that it was only water and various sand beasts that threatened his upcoming civilization. Gil knew that if he could secure water for his city, that people would soon follow. This reassurance did not quell his anger though, and he kicked up dirt and sand as he stormed towards the outskirts of the city.

PJ coughed behind him, waving the dust away from her mouth. “Hey, Gilly? When people say ‘eat my dust’, they don’t mean it literally,” she wisecracked between hacks. Gilgamesh turned to glare at her, just to see that shit-eating smile that she made whenever she irritated him. By the gods, she was annoying, but she was useful.

“You have quite the sense of humor, Pajamas” Gil remarked over his shoulder. “Maybe I should enlist you as my court jester,” he snickered. And while the Golden King thought his roast was clever, it largely seemed that PJ was more or less unaffected. It was clear to him that they couldn’t possibly be any more different. She seemed jaded and unfazed by the cruelties of the world, while Gilgamesh was infuriated by how little he could change it.

Eventually, the two came upon the makeshift barracks that hosted Gilgamesh’s crew of soldiers. While the first story had been nicely constructed, a few of the Syntech workers were in the middle of constructing the second one. Their sweat-drenched shirts were toweled around their head as they were nailing the foundations for the second floor of the building.

“Fuck this,” one of the men grunted. “It’s too fucking hot for this shit,” he groaned to his compatriots. Gilgamesh grimaced. Was this the ‘unbreakable human spirit’ that he had spent his entire life defending? Back in his day, people pushed themselves to great lengths to persevere and create great monuments. Now, the human condition was reduced to this?

“I did not pay for your lip service, mongrel,” Gilgamesh hissed at the disgruntled employee. The man was slightly startled at Gil’s presence before he went back to work.

“Asshole,” he audibly whispered as he went back to work. The King of Heroes sneered at him before turning back to PJ, who had an amused look on her face. Gilgamesh was about to speak before his minion came back with two speeders. Judging from their obnoxious purple color and the giant Pepsi logo pasted onto the front, Gil knew where they had obtained these vehicles. The soldier hopped off the sci-fi bike and nodded to Gilgamesh.

“Your speeders, my King,” the man bowed. “Is there anything more you require?”

Gilgamesh walked over to the floating speeder and placed a hand on it. “Inform the workers that PJ and I will be headed to the nearest moisture farm,” he commanded. “Tell them to investigate the nearest river, and to call me if they find something,” he decreed before he hopped on the bike. Gilgamesh nodded to PJ who gave him a smile before walking over and hopping onto the other speeder.

Gil’s minion gave him a salute, to which he just gave him a slight smile. He revved the speeder, startling it to life. Gilgamesh lost his composure for a second as the machine lifted itself off the ground, receiving snickers from PJ. After regaining himself, Gil opened his phone and found the directions to the closest Moisture farm. He then signaled to PJ and sped off, with her close behind.

Driving really relaxed the Golden King. The wind cooled down his skin from the beating sun. The squeal from the speeders didn’t bother him much as the speed was truly invigorating.

“Make a left at the next cactus,” his phone chimed in. Gilgamesh was truly grateful for the phone’s AI, Suru. “Your destination will then be on your right in eight-hundred feet,” her same monotone voice cheered. The small spec on the horizon gained more definition as they sped towards it. A few dome homes and a large contraption came into view. Gil turned his speeder to the side and slid to a halt, with PJ right behind him.

The speeder shuddered as he turned it off, slowly descending onto the ground. It was eerily quiet. PJ could sense it too. Instead of her usual witty remark, she signaled that she would investigate the house. The King nodded and decided to check out the large machinery, likely the appliance that precipitated the moisture from the air. As Gil crept closer, he could see that the machine was torn up and the container hazardously ripped from its place. Specks of chrome decorated the machine’s wound as if some ceremony had occurred at this spot. One thing was for certain: the war boys were no longer here.

Gil pondered over how why they decided to destroy the moisture farm, but his thoughts were interrupted by the periodic buzz on his side. He picked the phone up and cleared his throat.

“Yes?” even his questions were demanding.

“Sir, the river is gone!” the voice on the other line panicked.

“What do you mean the river is gone?” Gilgamesh exclaimed at the wild statement.

“All of it is dried up. All of it,” the worker continued. “They even squeezed the water from the plants.”

This was worse than Gilgamesh thought. This wasn’t some isolated theft. These war boys were razing the land! Though it seemed too organized to be the actions of one or two maniacs.

“I see a buggy in the distance,” the voice burst out. “Oh, we can take them,” it said confidently.

“Do not engage with those boys,” Gilgamesh ordered. “Wait until Pajamas and Ireinforce you.”

“We got this, my liege. You need not worry with this task,” he cried, before being drowned by the large revs of the War Boys engines.

“You look like you’ll be a fine blood bag,” he heard a gruff voice say before the phone hang up.

 

[Android XVII]

The farm was a complete and total wash.

The woman known as PJ winced as she navigated around the debris that filled the partially crumbled homestead. While there were no bodies among the rubble, that didn’t change the fact that someone’s livelihood had been decimated by a pack of roving vigilantes.

“Fucking men…” PJ sighed as she brushed aside some loose bricks to reveal a shattered family portrait. Even with gloves, she wasn’t going near that with a three-foot pole. For all intents and purposes, it appeared that the place had been ransacked by ‘war boys’. PJ knew that there were others who lived in this region, but scavengers would loot a home for valuables rather than pillage and obliterate it.

The sound of Gilgamesh ‘talk-shouting’ on his phone pulled PJ’s focus back to the world outside the husk of a home. Like many headstrong young men she had met in her lifetime, Gilgamesh was just as brash and ‘complicated’ as all of them. He was prone to bombast and borderline egotism but also capable of crying tears over the corpse of a friend. In that sense, he was like the thousands of young men she had watched die painfully, either on the battlefields of some far-away system or on an operating table.

Hell, she’d technically already watched him die on live television.

“Son of a … Pajamas!”

PJ smirked as she slowly wove her way back through the ruined household. When she reached the doorframe, she let out a long breath of air as she reclined against the warped frame. “All clear in here.”

“I figured when there was no shooting or yelling,” Gilgamesh barked as he pointed to the speeders. “We have to move out.”

The woman spoke as she jogged over to the speeder. “What happened?’

“Those scouts that we sent out ahead of us ran into trouble.”

“War boys?”

“I was planning to kill first and examine the corpses second.”

“With all that toxic masculinity, how do you not have a harem of willing, doe-eyed queens?”

Halfway onto his speeder, Gilgamesh abruptly stopped and craned his neck to glare at the older woman. His mouth opened, but whatever acidic counter-barb he had planned for his companion was lost beneath the roar of her speeder’s engine.

Smiling and waving a hand, PJ reoriented the hefty vehicle and speed off, leaving Gilgamesh quite literally in the dust.

“I went from Nippur to this?” Gilgamesh grumbled as he hopped into the seat and moved to pursue his companion.

***​

After traveling for a few more klicks, PJ abruptly laid off the throttle near the crest of a small hill. As the speeder quickly deaccelerated, she reached into the console compartment and fished out the heavy gun that she’d rested in there before they’d left Uruk. She’d had the weapon imported by some of the Syntech crews—it was the closest thing she could find to the sidearm she’d carried after finally getting her sergeant stripes: A 50 caliber Desert Eagle.

For some reason, she just loved the weight and feel of the gun. She was by no means a ‘gun nut,’ but there was something about the weapon that just drew her to it. Love at first sight? Maybe that was it. After all, she’d never been able to love another human being, especially after the war had taken everything from her. Throw on a history of abusive officers and ‘psychiatrists’ and you had the makings of a woman who would fall in love with a fucking handgun.

Whatever. PJ smiled faintly as she flipped off the safety and checked the clip to ensure it was fully loaded. The bullets de jure were antipersonnel rounds that were designed to leave lovely exit wounds.

Behind her, she heard Gilgamesh’s speeder came to an almost abrupt halt, and with a huff in his voice, the king hopped out of the vehicle and started ‘walk-stomping’ toward her with those big, gilded booties of his. She held up a hand without looking back over her shoulder at him.

He didn’t get the gesture.

“We’re not at the posi—”

“Shush, Gilly.”

“Did you just shus—”

“Shush, they haven’t spotted us. They’re probably driving the only pieces of crap louder than these speeders.”

PJ crouched down and crept toward the top of the hill. She was following moments later by a silent but clearly incensed Gilgamesh. The man glared at her as he came up next to her, but he kept his lips sealed as she pointed toward the collection of war boys.

“My men!” The gilded monarch seethed as his eyes fell upon the dismembered remains of his scouting party.

“They killed our boys in cold blood,” PJ muttered grimly as she glanced around the shallow valley. There were three vehicles, and each of them seemed to carry three war boys. “Nine of them and two of us.” She wasn’t a fan of the odds, even with Gilgamesh and his magic portal powers. The cars had heavy machineguns on them, and she didn’t think his shiny plate mail would hold up to anti-tank rounds.

“They should have brought more,” the man growled as he eyed the situation and made his own assessments.

“Plan?” PJ inquired.

“We kill them.” Gilgamesh smiled. “Then we find their friends and kill them too.”

The older woman grimaced as she slid out the clip and briefly recounted the bullets. “Let me go get another clip,” she grumbled as she went back to the speeder.

“Make haste,” her companion grunted as he kept his eyes glued on the snickering and partying war boys. “I want to watch the horror in their eyes as we descend and rain death upon them!”

The sound of a speeder roaring to life behind him caused Gilgamesh to crane his neck, but he immediately found himself throwing himself sideways to avoid PJ as she rushed passed him on her vehicle.

“Slowpoke,” the woman shouted over the roar of her engine as she went careening down the hillside on a one-way crash course with the war boys.

Fuming but also relishing the opportunity to enact some ‘justice’ on the vigilantes, Gilgamesh rushed back to his speeder. He crested over the little hill just as PJ bailed out of her speeder and sent it crashing into one of the war boy’s vehicles. A moment later, gunshots started to pierce through the mechanical din of the idling cars.

 

[Gilgamesh]

The plume of fire and smoke from PJ’s wrecked speeder reflected in Gilgamesh’s eye. He grinned, tightly gripping the handlebar and revving it. He snapped his fingers as he barreled down the hill, summoning a golden axe into the palm of his hands. As his vehicle drew closer, he could see the strewn bodies of one of the war boys, charred and broken. PJ was taking cover behind the burning rubble of the brutes’ vehicle, taking shots at the advancing men. One of the men brought back his arm, preparing to throw a spear with an explosive tied to the end. Just as Gil was about to collide with him, he cleaved the man’s arm from his elbow before jumping and rolling off. As the rocket tip collided with the ground, it blew up both the war boy and the King’s speeder. The explosion was forceful enough to send the Golden King tumbling into the dirt.

Gil was tossed into the dirt, dusting up her pristine golden armor. Eventually coming to a stop, he pushed himself off the ground to see one of the pasty, bald war boys pointing a crossbow at him. Quickly reacting, Gilgamesh summoned a shield in time, blocking the bolt, which had pierced through the shield and stopped an inch from his face.

Bang

The Golden King got ready to toss his shield at his attacker but realized that they were sprawled out on the ground, with a bullet hole between their eyes. From across the battlefield, he saw that PJ couldn’t help but give him a cheeky grin and a wink. He knew he wouldn’t hear the end of it. He didn’t have time to roll his eyes though, as he heard the click of a crossbow and the whizz of its bolt flying towards him. He brought up his shield as a second arrow sunk into his prized shield. He brought it down and grimaced at the fanatic, panting war boy on the other side. From the corner of his eye, he could see one of the berserkers running towards the back of their vehicle, attempting to reach the machine gun that decorated it.

“Oh no you don’t,” Gilgamesh shouted out, opening an array of portals behind him. As the war boy climbed into the trunk of his vehicle, Gilgamesh pushed his arm forward, sending swords and spears alike to find their sheathe in the car. Before the man could even fire a single bullet, each of Gil’s weapons sank into the car, and the war boy himself, totaling it.

Thunk

One of the crossbowmen had fired a bolt that found it’s mark into Gil’s shoulder, piercing through his golden armor. The King stumbled back, clutching his shoulder in pain. He grit his teeth as he yanked the bolt from his shoulder, blood trickling out of his armor.

“You dirty mongrel!” he shouted. “You dare make your King bleed,” he seethed, punctuated with the sound of a gunshot. Said ‘mongrel’ then collapsed on the ground. PJ let out another shot, piercing one in the stomach.

The war boy doubled over in pain and unclasped something from his hip. He then leaned back and brought a silver canister to his lips and sprayed silver paint over his mouth. He then let out a guttural roar, “Witness me!” as the rest of the war boys cheered on with him, “Shiny and chrome!”

“I shall cut this mongrel down,” Gilgamesh decreed to PJ. “Take care of the rest,” he commanded. With the flick of his wrist, an ornate spear glistened to life in his palm. The war boy took out a sawed-off shotgun from his back and aimed it at Gil. The King jumped to the side as the chrome war-boy fired off a shot. As he rolled, he thrust the spear forward, burying it into his opponent’s stomach. The brute then brought his firearm down on the spear’s shaft, breaking it off.

The King sneered, “You dare break one of my treasures!” he shouted as he summoned a sword to his hand and charged forward. The brute roared as he let out another shot, clipping Gilgamesh in the leg. Noticing his quarry didn’t fall, he scrambled to reload his gun. Gil stumbled forward, pressing on even though his calf was on fire, and raised his sword. Just as the second casing went into the chamber, Gil brought his weapon down, severing both of the war-boys hands from their arm. The berserker fell on his ass, the dirt clumping on his bloody stumps. Gilgamesh limped forward, the sword resting on his shoulder.

Gil could hear PJ slowly stride towards him, the soft gravel crunched beneath her feet. “Not bad, Gilly,” Pajamas mocked. “I can see why you got second in that murder competition,” she continued with a grin, stopped as soon as she was next to the King’s side. “Now what are we going to do with him?” she pondered sarcastically, ejecting the empty clip from her handgun.

The Golden King kneeled, grabbing onto the war-boys foot as he tried to scramble away. “We do need to know where all this water was headed,” he turned his head up to PJ. “And you will tell your King where he can find it” he threatened, grasping the sword with his free hand.

 

[Android XVII]

The solitary war boy writhed in agony as he was dragged across the blood- and oil-stained earth by an irate Gilgamesh. The chrome-mouthed zealot had already declined to answer the would-be king’s questions on three occasions, yet each time, Gilgamesh had responded by slamming the scrawny lunatic into a wrecked car.

On all three occasions, the war boy had simply started to laugh and scream for more pain—something that seemed to unnerve and flummox the golden-haired boy and his tendency to solve most issues with blunt force trauma. “I serve the Immortan! I am awaited in Valhalla!” The fanatic wheezed and screamed as he sucked in erratic breaths and stared wildly at Gilgamesh. “I ride eternal!”

A fist crashed into the side of the war boy’s face, but that did little to quell his zealous vindication. The bloody smile remained plastered on his visage as he waited for the king to end his life and send him to the gates of whatever afterlife he had been promised by his own liege.

“I don’t think you’re going to get through to him if you keep slamming him into things,” PJ remarked after Gilgamesh smacked the war boy in the side of the face with enough strength to know out some teeth.

The king, his hair ruffled and his body still a bit achy from the recent scuffle, turned and scowled at the woman. “Do you have a better idea?”

PJ frowned as she undid the Velcro strap on her wrist and slipped off her glove. “I guess,” she muttered in response.

Gilgamesh opened his mouth, perhaps formulating some acidic barb about the woman’s hands or the fact that she clipped her own unpainted nails, but he was shushed by PJ as she brushed him aside with her gloved hand.

The woman turned and looked down at the broken, battered war boy. With his legs having long-since been shattered by Uruk’s king, he had little place to go as PJ crouched down next to him and continued to stare into his eyes.

“Give me the one with the shiny,” the war boy spat as he turned back to Gilgamesh. “I don’t like this one – her eyes are dead.”

“Hush,” PJ whispered. “I wish I could say I’d done this recently, but I haven’t. I can’t promise it won’t be… unpleasant for us both.”

Perhaps piecing the puzzle together, the war boy’s pupils widened as he tried to scoot backwards through use of his ass and his one good elbow. He got a solid three inches before PJ clapped her ungloved hand over his mouth.

From a distance, Gilgamesh scowled as the older woman’s head suddenly snapped backwards—her now glazed expression staring straight up as her eyeballs bounced back and forth in her sockets. The king shifted on his feet, as if what he was watching was somehow … dirty. He didn’t like the feeling, not one bit.

For her part, PJ’s brain was a festering, pustulant mass of incoherent thoughts and experiences. Stories of chromed gates, babies born cancerous straight from the womb, and warriors who would rather lay down their lives than disappoint their hideous and bloated warlord. Her body shuddered as sharp bolts of emotional abuse washed over her in waves—memories of periodic and almost ritualized violence and mutilation on a tribal-scale flowed through her. Her own experiences at the hands of abusers blended in somewhere, and her eyes started to tear up even as her mind remained altogether detached from her physical form.

The captive and broken war boy writhed beneath the older woman’s vice grip, trying to beat her arm away with his stumps. Yet, he found he had no strength, not even the zealous and unmatched might of the chosen on the steps of Valhalla. Had … had he been lied to? Was this a cruel charade? Was his life really that of a disposable tool who could either die of cancer by the age of twenty-five or die in the service of some corpulent master?

Gilgamesh scowled as the war boy, who had started to sob, suddenly went limp. The creature’s eyes rolled up into the back of his skull as he went limp beneath the older woman’s vice grip. With a sudden, gasping shriek, PJ seemingly snapped back into reality. She bolted up and away from the limp boy, perhaps too quickly, because she lost her balance and went teetering over. The blonde-haired monarch sprung forward and caught her before she fell onto her head, and while she seemed glassy-eyed for another moment, PJ quickly snapped back into reality.

“Off,” she rasped as she jammed a gloved hand into Gilgamesh’s chest and pushed herself clear of him, even at the cost of causing her to crumple into a sandy heap next to the catatonic war boy. “I’m fine,” she added a few moments later as she shambled up to her feet and slipped her glove back over her bare hand.

“Care to explain what the fuck that was all about?” Gilgamesh asked as he pointed to the pale, drooling figure lying on the ground.

“Let’s go, I know where their camp is… it’s some type of way station between the operation out here and the headquarters of their leader. We destroy the camp; we probably buy this region a month or so of stability.”

“A month?”

“They’ll send more eventually … they’re relentless,” she spoke with a soft, almost fragile whisper as she pointed to the war boy. “They train these boys from birth to be cold machines. If they lifestyle doesn’t kill them, the cancer that’s inherent in their corrupted gene pool would. It’s pitiful.”

“How do?”

“It’s unimportant,” the older woman whispered as she pointed to one of the war boy’s vehicles. The jeep had a supped-up engine, armor plating, and a very pretty fifty cal turret. “You want to drive or ride shotgun?”

“What about him?” Gilgamesh asked, pointing down to the catatonic war boy.

“Kill him or leave him,” PJ muttered as she made for the jeep. “Won’t matter, because he’s dead either way.”

 

[Gilgamesh]

PJ stormed off into the driver’s seat of the jeep, cranking the ignition and spurring the engine to life. She tapped her fingers impatiently against the wheel before craning her neck towards the Golden King. “Let’s go, Gilly,” despite the obvious mocking nickname, her voice was laced with irritation rather than sarcasm. She pushed her hand against the wheel, letting out a loud *honk* and spouted flames from the vehicle’s exhaust pipes.

Gil cast down his eyes on the sobbing mass of cancerous flesh, curled into the fetal position. He laid there twitching, unresponsive. Gilgamesh had mixed feelings of pity and contempt, for those that degraded the human race to this blubbering mess and for the disgusting filth that this mongrel had become. Though it was not his duty to end this mutt’s life and he *really* didn’t want to get blood on any more of his treasures.

“I’m going to leave your ass if you don’t get in this fucking car,” she shouted, cupping her hands over her mouth. Not leaving another second for Gil to respond, she slammed her fist against the wheel, letting out another long *honk*.

“All right,” Gilgamesh screamed back, flippantly waving his hand at her. He started back towards the war jeep, giving the war boy one last scornful glance before he was forgotten to the desert forever. Gil walked up to the passenger seat and placed his hand on the handlebar to hop in before PJ tutted and shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she teased. She nodded her head towards the fifty caliber turret. “You’re on the turret,” she bossily said.

Gilgamesh sneered at PJ. “Your tone with your King is unacceptable,” he hissed, pulling himself up off the handle and hopping into the back of the truck.

“Oh I am *so* sorry,” PJ mocked, her hands clasped together and his lip pouting. “Can you get on the turret, please, princess,” she punctuated by batting her eyelashes. She rolled her eyes and chuckled at her own joke.

“Be grateful that you amuse me, Pajamas,” Gilgamesh decreed as he sat in the back of the trunk. He leaned back against the grate that served as a barrier between the two.

“Oh, do I entertain you, Gilgasaurus?” PJ rhetorically asked, raising an eyebrow as she shifted into first gear and pressed on the gas. The engine roared, flames bursting out from underneath the car as it sprang forth. Plumes of sand and debris flew into the air as the car drove further into the desert.

Gil turned his head, looking at PJ who had one hand on the wheel and the other on her leg. Through his brief interactions with her, he had grown to appreciate her wit and humor. The stoic face, seemingly unmovable, was not what he was accustomed to. The last words of the War Boy resonated within him, ‘I don’t like this one - her eyes are dead.’ What had happened to PJ and what the fuck had she done to that war boy. The King opened his mouth to speak but had soon closed it. Nothing would be gained from anything he said.

“If you keep staring, I’ll have to punch you like I punched my last captain,” she quipped without even turning her head. Gil whipped his head back around and stared instead at the massive turret that was attached to the back of the vehicle. He had no further words to say towards his companion and he thought that she would prefer it that way.

***​

Gilgamesh wiped a bead of sweat off of his brow. After what felt like hours baking underneath the sun, he heard PJ speak up from behind him.

“Their base should be ahead,” she said, turning her head back. Gil thanked god; for mile after mile of endless dunes, he was grateful for something else. Pushing himself up, he leaned against the top of the car. Ahead were large, rocky mountains dotted with spots of green and forestry. So this was where the water was going. A large crowd had gathered around one of the mountains, this one with a skull carved into it, and had outstretched hands. PJ slowed the Jeep to a stop, to observe what was going on.

“My people,” a voice boomed from the top of the mountain. “Our wealth is plenty, and our people strong,” it continued to cry out. “Take this water, but best not get too addicted to it!” the voice punctuated before the skull opened its large mouth. The metal inside groaned from the pressure as water spilled forth from its maw and down towards the clamoring masses below.

“Guess we know where the water is going?” PJ quipped, raising an eyebrow at Gilgamesh.

The Golden King raised his hand to his face as he furrowed his brow. “I guess that water is just...gone,” he groaned. He then nodded to PJ before slapping the top of the car. “Let us see if we can salvage whatever is left,” he decreed.

 

[Android XVII]

They had arrived at the outskirts of the war boy’s fortified camp. From what PJ could tell, this was likely some sort of heavily fortified waystation. From their spot atop a nearby ridge, the twosome could see the congregation that had gathered down below. A massively overgrown war boy was barking to the crowd and mocking his smaller peers and the assorted nomads who had gathered to drink from the machinery tucked into the side of the small cliff. She wasn’t an engineer or anything close to that, but PJ had to assume it was a fancy, high-tech version of a water pump, because whatever it was, it was spewing water from pipes down onto the huddled masses.

“Some sort of means to tap the aquifers or redirect the flow?” PJ asked in regard to the machinery.

“I’m not some kind of damn ... construction worker,” Gilgamesh shot back. When he saw the woman had started to chuckle, he furrowed his brow. “Is this situation funny?”

“It’s nothing,” the woman muttered as she dismissed his scowl with a wave of her hand. “But you were right when you said it earlier … we need to salvage whatever is left here. Those moisture farmers aren’t going to be content if we just bring back a sack of severed heads.”

“Why else do you think I mentioned salvaging what we can? I thought you were old, not infirm.”

PJ clicked the Desert Eagle’s safety into the off position and smiled faintly at the gilded monarch. “We hear very well, Gilly. How do you want to play this?”

“Play what?”

The woman fought the urge to palm her face as she pointed to the scene. “We can go in with our guns blazing, but I don’t think everyone down there is necessarily working for the war boys. A lot of them just look like people trying to live out here … they might even be displaced moisture farmers or aquifer miners. We’d get the drop on the boys for sure, but I don’t know if you want to do that at the cost of spilling innocent blood.”

Gilgamesh scanned the scene playing out in the valley several times before he finally let out a huff of air that was accompanied by his broad, plated shoulders sagging downward. “Damn it, you’re right.”

“I’ll make sure your pals in the locker room never know you said that,” PJ shot back as she gestured back to the scene. “We don’t have long before someone sees that we’re not cancer-ridden, bald, and possessed by the fanatical urge to throw our lives to the winds at the promise of Valhalla.”

“Can you create a diversion of some kind?” Gilgamesh asked as he hopped down from the turret. “I’ll deal with that overgrown mongrel on the ridge, but I will… require your support to ensure the odds don’t turn against me.”

PJ snickered. “You see that guy? I think the odds are already ‘against you’, Pal.”

“I am a KING,” Gilgamesh seethed as loudly as he could given the situation at hand. “Just pro—a”

“Provide you cover and watch your six, yea,” PJ interrupted as she glanced around the cab of the jeep for something heavy. Her eyes fell upon a discarded piece of plate armor that one of the war boys must have worn on his chest or shoulders. “You just stick to ye olde word play, and I can spew the military jargon when we need it. Ten-four?”

“What do numbers have to do with this?” Gilgamesh growled between clenched teeth.

“Tut-tut,” PJ whispered. “You better start moving, because once I get going, I ain’t stopping until there’s one hell of a diversion.”

“I ha—”

“I know.” The woman whispered as she jammed the warped piece of armor down onto the jeep’s gas pedal. As the vehicle accelerated down toward the camp, PJ slipped out of the driver’s seat and up into the turret cupola. Gilgamesh watched—slightly mesmerized by the lunacy of it—as his companion let out a few ‘whoop whoops’ before she started to fire the fifty cal up into the air and against the sides of the nearby cliffs.

Breaking off into a sprint, Gilgamesh set a direct course for the leader of the war boys. The massive warrior was screaming down at the gathered masses, likely attempting to calm his scrambled underlings and retain control of the situation. Unfortunately for the overgrown war boy, even his booming voice was like a whisper when set up against the cacophonous report of the fifty cal.

Eyes glancing up to see Gilgamesh moving rapidly into position, PJ swung the barrel of the turret downward and fired into a group of war boys. Blood and undiscernible pieces of meat splattered against the vehicle as it zoomed toward the end of its journey—a very unyielding rock wall a few seconds ahead of her.

Hoping that she had timed everything correctly, PJ yanked back on the trigger one more time, blanketing the cliff walls with bullets. As fresh clouds of disintegrated stone puffed out from the rock, the woman bailed out from the cupola. Tucking as she passed through the air, she managed to somehow land in a manner that didn’t shattered any of her bones, and after a short roll, she found herself on her knees and glancing down at solid earth.

“Get her!” A voice screamed through the chaos of the fleeing farmers.

Hand moving to her gun, PJ sprung up and leveled the heavy sidearm with the nearest chrome-tinted maw she could spot. With a resounding bang, the Desert Eagle sent the war boy on his way to Valhalla—or whatever actual afterlife awaited him. Where PJ came from, that afterlife involved wise-cracking kais alongside derpy ogres and pseudo-sentient clouds.

Focus!

She twisted just in time to lurch sideways away from the path of an oncoming spear. While she avoided having to see her guts exposed to the whole wide world, PJ still lost her balance as part of her evasive effort, and before she knew it, she was on her back with the spear zeroing in for a second attempt.

Rolling to her left, the woman grimaced as flares of pain shot up from her back throughout the motion. With her teeth tightly clenched, she hoisted the Desert Eagle and put a round through the chest of the spear-wielding war boy. As that devotee of the Immortan crumbled, he was replaced by another frothing, chrome-painted lunatic.

“I go to Valhalla!” He screamed as he threw himself onto PJ, knocking aside her gun before his hands clasped around her throat.

Eyes wide as she grabbed at her attacker, PJ writhed at the ground as the sneering man leaned in to relish in her misfortune. When he was close enough, she lashed out with her hands, grabbing his cheek with one hand and jamming her other thumb into his eyeball.

The war boy relinquished his grip with a scream, and a moment later, a pair of boots slammed into his gut.

“You bitch!” The fanatic, hand still cupped over half of his face, screamed before turning to see the barrel of the gun looking back at him.

“I get that a lot,” PJ smiled as she pulled the trigger.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Gilgamesh sprinted toward the command stations while PJ and her car barreled down the cliff, letting out a chorus of *bangs* as she went to town with the machine gun. He could see the ‘leader’ shouting orders to his clumsy subordinates, who were stunned merely watching the onslaught of the aged soldier. The commander then punched a smaller war boy in the jaw, startling the rest into action. Each of the soldiers gathered an explosive spear before they dashed to stop PJ’s assault.

“Get her!” he commanded, pointing towards PJ. Gil turned his head, partly following the man’s finger and partly making sure that his companion was still alive. For a moment, he was concerned about her safety. But he was soon relieved, watching her leap out of her car and quickly dispatching the charging brutes with her desert eagle. Concentrating on himself, the Golden King double his effort toward the roof of the command center.

A small gap separated the tower with the rest of the cliffside. Gilgamesh leaped across the canyon, rocks tumbled down the canyon below as he made the jump. As he did, he waved his arm, creating golden portals from behind him. Spears flew towards the Lieutenant and his vanguard, impaling some of the men and pinning one on the control panel. Sparks flew out from the machine, red lights flashed and it angrily beeped at its attacker. The King landed roughly, stumbling as he tried to regain his balance. “Fuck,” he mumbled underneath his breath. The more he damaged the machine, the less likely he was going to get the rest of the water out of here.

The overgrown war boy turned, somehow unscathed by the barrage of weaponry that Gilgamesh haphazardly flung at him. He furrowed his brow in anger, clearly annoyed at this turn of events: there was not only one intruder but two. “Who the fuck are you?” the bastard demanded, his hand subtly reaching underneath the whining panel.

Gilgamesh extended his arm, a golden portal opened, and slid an ornate pommel into his hand. He whipped the rest of the sword out, flourishing the blade over his head. “Not only do you refuse to kneel and grovel in my presence, but are ignorant of your true ruler?” Gilgamesh questioned with hostility. “You shall be quickly dispatched for your sins, cur,” he sneered, pointing the tip of the blade towards the remaining war boy.

“I only serve the Immortan!” the bastard screamed before pulling a pistol from underneath the water distributor. He brought the pistol up to Gil’s chest, but before he could fire off his round the King quickly sliced the man’s hand. The lieutenant screamed and dropped the gun, which was accompanied by his index and middle finger on the floor. He stumbled backward, his free hand grasped the remains of his fingers. Blood seeped from the gaps of his closed hand in pulses. He grit his teeth and hissed at Gilgamesh, “You will be a fine blood bag for the Immortan.” The King was not amused by the lieutenant’s idles threats and watching him squirm was no longer entertaining.

“I go to Valhalla!” he heard a squeaky voice from behind him shout. Unimpressed Gilgamesh turned around to see one of the impaled Vanguard charging at him with a heavy, lead pipe. He casually sidestepped the dying man’s clumsy attack and then effortlessly slashed across the boy’s back. He then followed it with a quick pierce through the war boy’s neck. As he withdrew the blade, the brute lost his strength and fell to his knees, his life essence ebbing out of him. Another second passed before he plopped onto the ground.

“I hate it when dogs refuse to die,” Gil muttered to himself as he wiped the blood on his sword onto the dead boy’s clothes.

*Bang*

The Golden King felt a sharp pain in his chest. He looked down to see a gaping hole in his ornate armor. Blood trickled out the front. He turned his head to see the lieutenant with the handgun, smoking in his good hand. The overgrown war boy had a shit-eating grin that infuriated the monarch. With fury, Gil attempted to step forward but lost the strength in his legs and fell to his knees.

“You are no ruler before the army of the Immortan! We all ride shiny and chrome,” he snickered.

Gilgamesh sputtered blood from his mouth, “You think because you drew blood, that you are worth something, mongrel?” The King weakly snapped, summoning a golden portal that hovered over his hand. An ornate crown, with charcoal black gems, floated effortlessly down into his palm. A sticky note was placed on the crown gem, “Feel free to use this when you’re in a tough spot. Xoxo, Karl Jak,” was written in purple ink. This felt like a concession to the mysteriously powerful CEO, but he would rather not die like this.

Gil roughly placed the crown on his head and within seconds, the black gems began to sparkle in the sunlight. The corpses that surrounded Gilgamesh began to shrink and wither, their skin cracking and peeling. The blood that poured out of them immediately dried up. No sooner after, Gilgamesh’s wound began to close up, and the blood he lost had magically reappeared in his veins. The bullet pushed itself out of his body and clunked harmlessly on the ground. With his newfound strength, the King got back onto his feet.

“What the fuck?!” the war boy shouted as he struggled to lift his hand. Using his other arm as a brace, he fired the rest of the clip into Gilgamesh’s chest. Even though he winced from the pain of each bullet, the wounds lasted for mere seconds before it was healed. “What the fuck are you?” he shouted, weakly tossing the empty handgun at Gil, which he easily sidestepped.

Gilgamesh grabbed the lieutenant by his throat and raised him into the air. The war boy weakly punched Gilgamesh’s arm and gasped. The King tilted his head. “Do you not hear well?” he rhetorically asked. “I am your King,” he grimaced as some of the boy’s blood trickled onto him.

After his brief moment of struggling, the lieutenant seemed to have accepted his fate. “I await the gates of Valhalla,” he managed to gasp out.

Gilgamesh frowned. “I have died a few times, and I can assure you. Valhalla is nothing but an empty promise,” he barked before he tensed his muscles and pushed the war boy down the cliffside to his eventual death.

The Golden King wiped his bloodied hand onto his golden armor and took a look at the malfunctioning machine. The impaled barbarian may be the culprit of the problem. He ripped the spear, with the crispy corpse along with it, out of the water dispenser and tossed it haphazardly onto the ground. The machine protested with a few groans and flying sparks but then went quiet after a few seconds. Gil looked at the complex machine with levers and buttons and his face grew pale.

“I hope there is a manual to this blasted contraption.”

For all intents and purposes, I have used a focus in this scene

 

[Android XVII]

The woman scrambled madly to avoid the war boy on the motorcycle as he attempted to run her down before he could get her bearings straight.

With Gilgamesh fighting up above their heads, PJ had quickly found herself drowning a glut of the raving lunatics, although most of the less resolute war boys had fled with the exodus of the nomads and displaced moisture farmers.

A few feet behind her, a war boy was rapidly choking on his own blood—his throat pierced with a knife that the woman had wrenched from her boot after being tackled back to the ground. With no time to retrieve the blade or the gun that she had lost a few moments earlier, PJ turned her focus onto the mounted man as he revved his bike’s engine. The manic look on the man’s face told the woman all she needed to know about what was going to happen.

“To Valhalla!” The mounted war boy shrieked over the roar of the motorcycle’s engine. He cranked the accelerator with one trembling hand as his other hoisted barbwire-coated pipe over his head.

Scrambling, PJ hooked and arm up under the nearest war boy corpse she could find and tossed it like a sack of potatoes into the path of her oncoming foe. While she had hoped for an outcome with a little more crashing, the woman watched with a scowl as her intended target managed to bail out of his bike before the corpse smacked into it and sent it into a squealing, spiraling crash.

Before she could do a thing to capitalize on the situation, the soldier was pounced from behind by another pale-skinned lunatic. His hands closed around her arms in an effort to pin them to her sides as an additional war boy came rushing at her with a shiv of unknown origins. Dropping suddenly to her knees, PJ then thrust her entire body forward like a battering ram. The war boy clasped to her yelped as he lost of vertical base and went on the trip—his form sliding forward and crashing between the crouched woman and the shiv-clenching zealot.

“Where the fuck is my…” the woman’s eyes settled onto her Desert Eagle, which was half-buried under a twisted piece of scrap from the now seizing mechanism that was drawing water to this area. “Gun!” She exclaimed with a faint grin before the weapon suddenly vanished amidst a spattering of white and blue light particles. PJ felt her stomach twist up momentarily, but then she felt a heftiness in her right hand as the gun rematerialized in her grasp.

Unable to dwell on the lunacy, she pivoted, hoisted the sidearm, and sent a bullet through the nearest war boy’s skull. Stepping forward, PJ took aimed and fired again, clipping her nearest adversary through the arm as he hoisted the barbwire pipe. Rushing forward, the woman flipped the gun in her hand and whipped the floundering lunatic with the firearm’s handle. In the distance, a body came crashing down from the cliff up above the basin, and it took just a fleeting glimpse for PJ to note that the corpse wasn’t decked out in garish golden full plate.

With their leader visibly dead and Gilgamesh now lording metaphorically over the scene, those scant war boys who remained on their feet turned and started to flee into the desert. PJ, never one to appreciate loose ends, adjusted her stance and proceeded to gun them down. Hands clenched around the Desert Eagle and one eye squeezed shut, she fired until the last shell casing bounced onto the ground and the heavy sidearm’s slide locked back.

Up above, Gilgamesh was still glaring bitterly at the seizing, sparking mechanism. By the time PJ had made it up to his position, the man had graduated to angrily smacking at the control console. Without bothering to look back over his shoulder, the gilded monarch growled as he took a step away from the device. “I don’t want to hear it,” he growled as he gestured to the larger device. “I believe that this… contraption is malfunctioning.”

“You… you believe that the sparking, stuttering machine isn’t working as intended?” PJ said with a sneer. “You really weren’t lying about not being a mechanic, were you, Gilly?”

“Insuf—” Gilgamesh paused shortly after turning to face the woman, whose features were almost nonrecognizable beneath a layer of grime and blood. “Did you fucking rip them apart with your bare hands?”

PJ smiled—her mostly straight teeth a bit of white amid the red and black stains. “I thought you were the hands-on type?” She asked as she shifted her focus to the mechanism. “Do you honestly think either of us is going to be able to decipher however this works? For all we know, it could run off sunshine and magic.”

“In this place?” Gilgamesh snorted, his adrenaline-laced brain failing to gather the subtle nuances of the woman’s wit. “It’s likely something to do with… gravity or oil or something. I think I broke some electrical component.”

“That would be the sparks,” PJ replied nonchalantly as she stepped a little closer to the device. Glancing down, she looked at the spout jutting out from the stone face for any indications or clues as to how it worked. “Your guess is as good as mine, Gilly. Again, I don’t think either one of us is terribly qualified to start dissecting this machinery.”

“Well, Pajamas, we can’t go back emptyhanded.”

“Why not?” PJ replied. She quickly lifted a hand to quell the scowl that spread across her companion’s features. “You have a crew of civil engineers and mechanics meandering around your half-built cityscape. Our farmers might have to wait a little longer for secured water, but I’m sure they’d prefer a professional than a patch job from two thugs.”

Gilgamesh’s mouth twisted up as he mulled their options. Eventually, he nodded his head and pointed down toward the empty basin below. “You didn’t break all the motorcycles, did you?”

“The one should work,” PJ replied, pointing to an idle chopper resting near a war boy with a hole in his skull. “You can ride bitch,” she said as she pat Gilgamesh on the back and made a run for the motorcycle.

“Hey!” Gilgamesh shouted as he raced to catch up to the woman. “Kings do not ‘ride bitch’!”