The Protagonist System

With the information at Bill's place about his resource network, it was easy to find the details about Joan's sister, Tammy. She really had gone to Wyoming after breaking away from the resistance and had set up house there with a large group of others with a similar mentality. She wanted away from all the madness that Joan and the Fireflies were involved in and to live a normal life.

I totally agreed with that decision, since that was what I had done back in The Walking Dead. I was setting up a free-standing but small community that was both independent and safe. It was just unfortunate that I wasn't a completely ruthless bastard and hadn't taken over everything to run it properly.

I chuckled at that thought, because I had previously realized that someone who thought they had the authority to do that, didn't deserve it. It made my decision to not become a dictator at the survivor's camp, be the smartest thing I could have done at the time. In fact, I wasn't going to be one when I went back, either. Why would I bother? It wouldn't make things better and everyone would resent me for it, even Amy.

I locked up the house that was now practically empty and I climbed up into the cab of my large truck. I realized the problem immediately and sighed at being so short. I had to take out a pair of boots and cast an extension charm on the soles to make them into platform boots nearly 8 inches high. I put them on and nodded at the perfect fit and being able to reach the gas and brake pedals.

I drove away from the house and headed over to the gas station. It was working, since everything had power, and I filled up the truck's tank before I went inside. It was full of things, which surprised me, because the food should have passed their expiration dates years ago. When I checked, they were all real and had more recent expiry dates.

That meant some food factories and things were still working across the country, which was probably why the government was able to keep the quarantine zones from rebelling. My thoughts went to the local hydroelectric dam and I remembered that there were a few places like the Hoover Dam that powered most of the state of Nevada.

Places like that would have a lot of people around and I was going to avoid them as much as possible. I didn't need or want anything they would have, since I had a bunch of things already and I was about to add a lot more to that. After I cast a spell to see if there were any spores or fungus on the packages or inside them, just in case.

They came up clean and I shrunk and stored everything, just because I could, and checked the cash register. I looted the old money there and the ration tickets before I went into the office. I used a spell to find the safe and the Alohamora spell opened it with no trouble. I stored the stacks of cash and ration tickets there, proving they traded for a long time with other people, and closed it.

If anyone else showed up here, they would waste a lot of time trying to open the thing and would get nothing, which made me laugh. I went back out to the store and looked at the large standing coolers, grinned at the thought, and disconnected them and stored them, too. They would help keep fresh vegetables and food for a lot longer than trying to fit everything into the limited number of fridges we had at the camp.

I went outside and looked at the gas pumps and chuckled at another thought. I went back inside the store and went to the register. It didn't take me long to figure out how to ring up some gas and it showed the number of gallons left inside the main tank.

Make that tanks. I thought at seeing the total and had to sit down to figure things out. There was power, so all I needed were a whole bunch of containers to hold the gas. Just leaving it here sounded like a stupid thing to do, since no one else was going to show up here besides raiders and infected, and I'll be damned if I was going to let raiders take it all to use it to raid other communities.

So, I went to the other businesses and looked for things I could use. I found a 10 gallon portable gas tank in the second place I checked and it wasn't going to be big enough. I tripled the size and stored it, then went back to the gas station. I took out the tank and used the copy spell to make 10 copies, each able to hold 30 gallons, and filled them. I shrunk them and stored them.

I made 10 more copies of the original tank and filled those, shrunk them, and stored them. I repeated this over and over until all 18,000 gallons were siphoned out, giving me 600 shrunken gas tanks of fuel. Of course, this made me wonder if there were still factories producing fuel from oil somewhere. I shrugged at the thought, because it didn't matter if they were.

I wasn't going to wait around to see if there was going to be a delivery and hopped back into the truck and drove over to the large gate in the fence. I hopped out and hit the button to leave, waited for the gate to fully open, and hit the button again. I jumped back into the truck and slammed onto the gas to drive out just in time to miss the gate closing.

With the map as a reference, I knew which roads were safest, and where certain groups of bandits and communities had set up roadblocks to charge tolls or to rob people, sometimes both. I had Bill's passcodes that he gave out for smugglers working for him, so I wasn't worried. At best, I would only be a little bothered and inspected. At worst, I'd have a bit of work to do to clear out anyone dumb enough to try and stop me.

I drove out of Lincoln with a smile on my face and managed to get back on the interstate without trouble. Once I was on the open road, I pulled out a box of Twinkies. I cancelled the shrinking spell and tore one open and chewed on it. It tasted great.

*

The group of people manning the New Jersey Turnpike, the main toll road through New York State, saw the FEDRA transport as it approached the roadblock. It was a little beat up and an older model; but, it was still in use and they didn't question if it was legitimate or not.

“We've got a customer.” The guy who thought he was in charge called out.

“No shit, Sherlock.” Someone said and everyone laughed.

“Shut your face, Jenkins.” The supervisor said. “We're enacting the usual toll for the feddies.”

“Right, ten rat tickets or a 6-pack of water.” Jenkins said and hit the trunk of the blocking car. “Get ready to back off.”

“Got it.” The guy said, his hand on the ignition.

They didn't suspect anything was wrong until the FEDRA transport started to slow down. It jerked a little, like the brakes were partially failing, then it evened out and slowed down at an even rate. They all took out their guns discreetly as the truck came to a stop beside the supervisor.

“Roll down the window and keep your hands where we can see them.” The supervisor said, his voice stern.

One gloved hand left the steering wheel and the window rolled down. That gloved hand went back onto the steering wheel and stayed there with the other one. “Is there a problem?” A young sounding voice asked.

“Jesus! You're just a kid?” The supervisor asked, shocked.

“I'm almost 15!” The kid exclaimed and then sighed. “That was stupid, Eli. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

The supervisor waved his gun at the kid without pointing it at him. “Yeah, we're going to have to ask you to step out.” He said and took a step back and glanced at Jenkins.

“Can't I just say the passcode and pay a bigger fee?” The kid asked.

The supervisor shook his head. “This is too suspicious for that, even if the code matches.” He said and motioned to Jenkins. “We're doing a full inspect...”

*BANG!*

The supervisor fell backwards with a bullet in his chest and his blood spurting out.

“I'm really sorry it came to this.” The kid said as he ducked down out of sight.

“Shoot the bastard!” Jenkins shouted and raised his own weapon. His eyes saw that the kid's gloved hand was still on the steering wheel and he aimed for it.

The door of the truck opened and a small figure rolled out and landed on the ground. Jenkins was surprised, because the hand was still on the steering wheel and changed his aim and fired, which missed the kid and only hit the door. The kid's gun went off and Jenkins had a fresh hole in his forehead, ending his life. The others scrambled for cover, except it was much too late for that.

Eli continuously moved and fired, never giving them a good target, and he hit them all and incapacitated them. He went around afterwards and finished them off, even the guy in the blocking car, and he looked really sad about having to do it. He pushed the body out of the way and backed the car up, then parked it. He stuffed the five bodies inside and put it into gear, hopped out, and shut the door.

The car rolled backwards and kept going off the side of the road and down the large embankment as it picked up speed. It quickly crossed the small field there and slammed into the trees and almost disappeared inside.

Eli let out a groaning sigh at his plan not working, even wearing the FEDRA uniform he had. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking about altering his voice with a spell beforehand, so he did that now before he forgot about it. With luck, he wouldn't have to leave the cab of the truck until he needed to stop and use the bathroom.

He did a quick check of the other vehicles and found nothing worthwhile, so he fixed the bullet holes he found in the truck and checked to see the engine was undamaged. Things would have been a lot easier for him if he still had his divinely given body, that was for sure. He climbed back into the truck and unstuck his glove from the steering wheel and put it back on, hoping he didn't have to use that trick again.

*

Several hours later, I pulled to a stop in a small parking area that was just off of an off-ramp in Ohio. The spread out population of the state gave me more opportunities to stop and not worry about alerting an infected. I still set up alert wards and slept in the truck, though. I wasn't stupid.

I had also passed through three more roadblocks and wasn't stopped longer than it took to hand over the toll fees. The deeper voice let me pass off my looks as having a baby-face and being teased about it by my squad mates, which earned a few laughs. I also passed out a few MREs for not hassling me too much about it, too.

I slept fairly well on the bench seat and nothing came near or set off the wards. I woke in the morning and ate some spaghetti after using a heating charm on it. It was just as good as it was when I made it a few days ago.

I drove back onto the interstate and didn't find another roadblock until I passed into Missouri and neared Kansas City, which was funny, because Kansas also had a Kansas City. They were near each other on the shared border and it was going to be a pain in the ass to go through them. Large urban areas had so many unknown numbers of infected and fungal growths that it was extremely dangerous.

Unfortunately, the highway was completely blocked off and there was only one open route that led right into Kansas City. It couldn't have been a more blatant trap if it had a sign on the highway stating 'It's A Trap!' with a picture of Admiral Akbar on it.

So, I did the smart thing. I turned around and drove away with the pedal to the metal. I heard the ping of a bullet off of the back of the truck and mentally nodded. A scout or a lookout had seen me running and tried to disable the truck before I got away. He failed, because he would need a much higher calibre weapon for that to work.

I went back to the last off-ramp and came to a stop, then checked the maps I had taken from Bill's place. I traced a much longer route with my finger in order to get by the blockade and to stay well away from Kansas City. It would add another four hours to my trip; but, it was worth it to avoid the extra danger that the city represented with both infected and bandits.

I would need to take my time and be extra careful, too. There was no way to tell what the new route was going to have along it and I had to be ready for anything. I checked the map again and sighed, gripped the steering wheel, and drove down the off-ramp.

*

Several people in hiding from the bandits saw the FEDRA truck pass through their small town. They wanted nothing to do with either the government stooges or the people fighting them, so they stayed in hiding and didn't do anything to give away that they were there or that anyone was there. It worked against the bandits and it worked against everyone else, too.

*

I sighed with relief four hours later when I had passed the most dangerous areas and managed to get back onto the interstate without meeting or seeing anyone or anything. There were no roadblocks, detours, or piles of rubble from battle damage, either. It was almost like the entire area had been completely abandoned and anyone that came across it had left it exactly the way it was.

That thought made me laugh, because I had done that, too.

I drove on and snacked on things I hadn't had in a long time, like different kinds of candy, soda pop, pastries, and odd flavors of gum. It was both nostalgic and a little sad, because I knew there were sealed crates of them in my inventory that I hadn't even looked at yet.

I pushed those thoughts aside and drove on until it started to get dark and I had to stop in a relatively safe area and set up the alert wards. I had come too far to stop being diligent or let myself be caught by anyone, especially anyone that was infected.

Once again, I slept well and nothing disturbed me. I ate an MRE for breakfast and drove back onto the interstate. I was sure there wouldn't be much more for me to do along the highway, considering the interstate would pass up through Nebraska and into Wyoming.

I still needed to be careful at any roadblocks, even with my act perfected, and I wouldn't let the stress get to me. There were only about two more days of travelling left for me to do and I would arrive at my destination. Jackson, Wyoming, here I come!