The Runners

A change of clothes

I take deep breaths and look around. After calming down I stand up and walk towards the bathroom. "Hey. Had too much to drink last night?" I spin around in fear and after seeing Sovetsky there I try to calm down and catch my breath. "Shit. you scared me." I say breathless, "You okay? You seem on edge." He asks somewhat worried. " Oh, dont worry just had a nightmare." He gives me a shrug and says " well whatever caused it, it seemed bad. Go drink some water you look hungover." He ends the conversation by walking away. I continue walking to the bathroom and take a shower. I get out of the shower and catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror, I look horrible. Stubble, dark spots under the eye, and overall an unhealthy look. "God I look horrible, the stubble looks good at least," I say with a shrug

I put on some horrible spare clothes and walk out of the bathroom. "Dude your clothes look like shit." I turn my head towards the voice of Ren who looks slightly disgusted at my choice of clothes. "What? We haven't really had time to buy clothes, after all, we are on the run from the military." He shrugs and responds "you dont have to dress like it, you look homeless. Come on we're heading into town, your getting new clothes." I look at him with the " are you shitting me" look and he continues " Sovetsky and Ren are have been arguing all day and I dont want to be around It, so let's go." "So where are we heading?" I ask him as I get in the car. As he starts the engine he answers "There's a mall about 25 minutes from here, I heard they have good stuff there." I shrug and reply back "Ok, whatever your driving."

 After 30 minutes of driving, we park and walk in. "You sure this is a good idea to be in public since you know who, is after us," I ask quietly. "They wouldn't try it here, too many possible civilian casualties. Oh, there it is," he points out a store and we start picking through clothes. After a while of picking things out, I see across from the store another store selling flasks. I walk over and buy it and that's when I notice something odd. Some guy eyeing me from a distance. I'm trying to get a better look but Ren walks up to me "What are you buying?" He says intrigued. "Oh just a leather flask, thought it would fit the style I'm going for." He raises an eyebrow and asks " and what would that be then?" I motion towards the bag I'm holding and say "Formal, I got some dress shirts and flannel, Thought I could pull it off." He was about to say something but I cut him off. "Hey dont look but did you notice that guy watching us? He is starting to make me paranoid." I say with a whisper. "Yeah I did, I dont like it at all. We should head out." He says. I nod and speak up a bit "Yeah but first I'm gonna go to the bathroom." He shrugs and I walk towards the bathroom. I enter a stall and start switching into my new clothes. After I'm done I walk to the mirror to look at myself, I grab a bottle of whiskey I bought and start filling up my flask. At the end of me filling up my flask, two people walk in and one of them being the one I caught watching us. "Mist you're coming with us, surrender your outnumbered." I sigh and reply annoyed "I am not nearly drunk enough for this shit. Can you just fuck off?" One of them walks up and grabs me. In retaliation, I punch him in the face and slip his leg causing him to hit his head onto the edge of the counter. "You should really ask before putting your hands on a stranger, you could catch a case if you dont," I say sarcastically. The other one rushes me and tries to attack me with a knife. I dodge but the knife knicks my face and I grab his wrist and shoulder and slam him onto the counter and disarm him. "Always remember I let you live," I say as I stab him in the shoulder. As I Start to walk out he shouts " We know who you are, Tome." I stop in place and I shiver. Not in fear, but in rage. " You do not call me that!" I yell as I turn around brandishing the knife and walking towards him. " Oh, what are you gonna do to me." He says trying to be cocky. I smile as I speak and as I do I speak with seething rage "you say you know who I am but you clearly have no idea what power that name holds, stay still and I'll show you."

"Hey what took you so long, and Is that blood on your face?" Ren asks. I wipe off the blood and say "oh I just tripped and cut myself." He scrutinized my face to see if I was lying, I'm lucky that I know how to cover any tells for lying."Well let's get back to camp, we dont want to be in public for long. Also, Sovetsky is making something and wants us to see the prototype." We hop into the car and take off home. The drive is uneventful, boring, and silent until Ren asks me something " While you were in the bathroom I heard screaming, Do you care to answer why?" I look forward and answer "spies, they had spies watching us. Two of them came in and attacked me." He takes a second to think and asks another question "It took a while for the screaming to start. To me it sounds like you tortured them, what information did you get?" I lean back and answer "not much, I didn't do it for information they just pissed me off." He shrugs and we continue driving home.

Getting out of the car Sovetsky greets us " Privet! Welcome back." I respond confused at his cheerfulness "What's got you in such a happy mood?" He answers enthusiastically "I'm making a fifty cal Ak!" I'm taken aback and ask "fifty cal Ak? How the hell can you make an Ak in 50. Bmg. That sounds terrifying." He laughs and continues " Well yes, it's going to be hard but worth it. It's also not done yet all I have is the frame, but I'll need more parts and time to finish it." " dont you need an inordinate amount of weight to mitigate the recoil?" I ask hesitantly "What? No of course not, this thing has to be a semi-auto. If it was automatic it would be liable to just explode and the recoil would be unstoppable, no reasonable amount of weight would be able to stop that."

 After discussing what would be needed for the weapon I went to the table in the RV and got on the laptop to think of ideas for future attacks and plans for getting supplies and parts. About a few hours into it Sovetsky comes in asks me something "Hey I need your help, there are some things I need." I lean back and ask him for details of what he needs and where we need to go. "I'm gonna head to the junkyard in an hour when it gets dark, I need someone to help carry scrap metal and parts." I take a sip of my Whiskey and spoke "Why can't Ries or Ren help you with this." He sighs and answers "Rens drunk and Ries has been helping me all day, I'm pretty sure If I take him with me either I'll kill him or he'll kill me." I finish the glass and set it down and speak "sure I dont see why not, come get me when we're set to go." He leaves and I go back to what I was doing. An hour after he first came in, he came back and spoke up to get my attention "let's get going, the sooner we go the more we can get." I get up and put on a jacket and head to the car.