Faction Infection

Becoming Something

"I'm ready to go." I walk into Z's room. He's got a group of people with him; Kenny, and 3 other I don't recognize. Two of them looked old enough to be my fathers but it actually made me feel a little more safe.

"Hey, babe. So these are the guys going with you later to scavenge. You know Kenny and this is Tyler, Nate and Stem."

They all give me nod and I do the same back, Kenny walks up to me, "Great to see you again! You seem ready to go all you need is weapons. You'll have to go through Process first before they can give you weapons."

I give him a blank stare.

"Process is when they test you on different types of weapons and they assign you a certain weapon based on your scores for each weapon." Z informs me.

"That sounds like a lot of fun actually. I thought I had to gather with the other girls first." I say looking over at Z.

He puts his arm around me, "Don't worry, love, I got you out of that. You just have to go to Process, which Kenny will take you to. I have some bad citizens to deal with. I'll see you later." Z kiss me on the forehead then Kenny and I walk out.

"I'm kind of nervous about this. I've never had to perform weapon skills for anyone. I don't even know how well I'll do. I just learned how to shoot a gun last week." I say to Kenny.

"You don't need to worry. Process is actually pretty easy and fun! There's directions with each weapon and you can't even tell that someone's watching you. You kind of just forget whenever you see all the fun things you get to play with. You get to choose the order in which you perform each weapon and if something is your favorite you just let the people know after."

"Ok. It does sound pretty fun."

Kenny and I walk across the community and it's so beautifully well-kept. Flower gardens. Food gardens. Markets along the Main Street. The people seemed really nice. It was kind of like gold again but not as high tech. I kind of forgot that there was an apocalyptic age going on outside these walls.

We walk up to a door to an old gym and Kenny stops and turns to me, "Oh yeah, whatever you do, act confident in what you're doing. Women aren't really common here at all so if you want respect you've gotta act like everything is beneath you."

Unsure of what that looks like, I stand up straight and confident with a smile.

"Exactly. Except lose the smile for right now. Be bold and serious. Speak to them like you own them. You can do this."

I get scared for half a second when Kenny opens the door but then I pull myself together and follow him in with a tough face.

"Hey, Aaron. I got a new recruit for scavenger."

Aaron looks at me then starts laughing, "Are you serious, dude? That's a tiny woman."

"Um, excuse me, why am I waiting so long to start?" I ask Kenny with some sas, "I thought that it was a quick thing. Let me in before I break down the door myself."

Kenny looks over at Aaron who has stopped laughing and looks like he just swallowed his tongue, "You better listen to the lady before we're both in trouble." Aaron reaches over for a button that pops a door unlocked, "Plus, that's Z's girl. I wouldn't mess with her too much."

"Right through there, ma'am and make sure you read the rules before you start," Aaron points to the door that unlocked. "Good luck."

I walk into a small room and there's no one. Just me and 4 walls worth of weapons. I'm in shock as to how much they have. My eye catches a spot on the wall with hand written directions.