I live, I die, I live again (Mad Max: Fury Road fanfiction)

Chapter 6 - High-octane Babushka

Now Nux hears that noise too. Footsteps, for sure, with one more clap. Steady now. Knock, knock, knack. Knock, knock, knack. Three legs? He's never seen that before but anything is possible. He's crossed people with one more eye. Kids with lungs out. Deep down, nothing will surprise him anymore. Volta stands between the wheelbarrow and what's coming, so he can't see. She is tense but she breathes calm, calm. She knows. She knows what's coming.

— Eto ya, Babushka!, she says to the darkness of the corridor.

One second goes by, another. Suddenly, a metal spike runs low over his shoulder and crashes into the seat right behind him. A bolt from a small Buzzard crossbow, as long as his hand. No poison this time, he'd say. As Volta lowers her dagger and steps forward, he catches a glimpse of the humanoid who just walked into the bunker.

An old, old woman. Older than anyone else, leaning on an iron bar as if she were one of Gastown's Polecats, her weapon in her other hand. Proud. Tough. Wrinkly. Wrinkly. Dry as if her carcass had already been upwind for twenty days. If himself is only a half-life, she has lived at least three lifetimes. Old as a front-wheel drive car. He raises his two hands and the four rings of chain that remain at the infusion device on his right wrist make an honest rattle.

— Easy, grandma, he says.

Another bolt goes off, ricocheting off the metal of the wall. The crossbow. Buzzards don't use firearms much anymore. Nux tucked his head in, but he's laughing. Laughing. He's sure he'll be dead before he can stop. Volta, on the other hand, has the seriousness of a crow's cage. She steps towards the old woman to master her weapon, to tell her that she is not being attacked. Volta barks things in Russian and the granny does the same. An argument that turns into a mix of russian and bad slang that he understands a little bit.

— This is no food, Volta, Dayu slovo !

— He's not for eating. He's worth at least twenty batteries, Babushka. I'm going to the Citadel.

— Konechno net !

She says that no one knows what the Citadel is like now. How are the people doing in there. She says they must wait. A few days. Let this madness end. She says the last of Gastown's officers are on the road. That she must not cross them. Volta snatched the crossbow out of her hands, and now it lies between the batteries. She comes back and she grabs the wheelbarrow.

— Volta, you not goin' ! Ty ostanesh'sya zdes' !

And the old lady swears, and she screams, and she cries. And Volta pushes her load into the corridor as the storm passes over again. The old woman screams a last word of rage, something that sounds like "NOVIC! " and then she smashes a button on the Lectricity control panel next to the door. Volta runs into the tunnel and the wheelbarrow is pitching. To the right, to the left, Nux grabs hold and nods his head as he watches her.

— Your grammy, she's high-octane, he says as they are speeding up at the risk of throwing him overboard.

Volta exhales, like a sigh. Like a sadness.

— She's not my grammy.

Her forehead is low over her black eyes where the glow of the Moths' larvae is reflecting.

— She was Matvei's. And Nislav's. Two who died the other day chasing the War-rig.

Nux isn't saying anything anymore. He's not laughing either. He was one of those who fought them, those Buzzard vehicles and their rusty carcasses. A Plymouth Rock, an Excavator. And he can't remember how many spiked bangers. Once they were blown up, the Immortan's armada took their place in pursuit of the tanker, right into that crazy storm now rumbling behind them. He was one of them. He never thought of the Buzzards as people. So he keeps quiet, and soon the door at the end of the corridor approaches, pouring orange light from outside. Volta is already scanning outside even though she's blinded as well. She clicks her tongue, this time nervously.

— She was Novic's grandmother too, she adds as they emerge in the daylight of the Storm Dunes outskirts. He'll be harder to convince than Babushka.

This guy stands there, his hand on the sharp spikes of his Staryytako. Not very tall but stocky as body shoppers often are. His face is covered in Buzzard strips. His goggles protruding like horns. His boots are shod. He's lost two brothers at chasing the War-rig, maybe other fellows too. He stares them down. Volta. Her wheelbarrow. Nux. He raises the palms of his gloves to the sky as a sign of bewilderment, but the old woman is already shouting orders from the depths of the tunnel. Without blinking, without a word, Volta pulls the Ural out of its rock shelter and transfers the War Boy into the sidecar.

— What the hell, Volta ?, Novic tells her through his protective gear.

Far away in the stormy tumult, an electric arc struck the lightning rod again. Volta wraps her strips too, around her head, while Nux wedges his metal-circled leg across the sidecar. Avoiding the grenades case. More comfortable, now that the copper bag is no longer in his back.

— Obey her if you want, Volta says to Novic as she straps her goggles on and gets on her motorcycle.

Now that it's cooled down, the Ural stomps around as if it's just waiting to start moving. She throws the throttle, and as high-octane Babushka comes out of the bunker brandishing her recovered crossbow, Novic dives into his Staryytako. The sand rises as the grandmother yells. And one second later, the ground starts scrolling under the sidecar in the thunder of its engine. Fast. Fast. Straight towards the track they came from.

This ride is probably the last, and Nux is aware of it. That incoercible acceleration to escape the assailant. That pinch that takes hold of the rib cage and goes up the throat. That speed that you don't bother to measure because it's never going to be fast enough. This is not his vehicle. It's not his Chevrolet, scattered somewhere on the other side of the storm after his fuel fiasco. He would have liked to drive, just one last time. But that will never happen again.

Novic doesn't intend to saw them down, the War Boy only needs a moment to understand that. He got to see a lot of Buzzards. Slit's blown up a lot of them, he's a good lancer. He was. Now he's dead, too, in this hellhole, and there are no Gates to Valhalla. Nux tucks his head into the sidecar again, while Volta roughly counter-brakes to get her fellow deported. This Buzzard guy has good skills, he turns away and back. He insists and so does she. He's not faster. And she's more mobile.

For a moment, Nux considers throwing one of the grenades at him. Volta guesses it and her sole meets his hand more than explicitly. This time it's not a kimbersnake they have on their heels. Instead, she decelerates suddenly. The inertia of the heaviest Staryytako takes it further, and Volta makes the Ural oblique to change direction in its back. Novic readjusts as she runs, he gets closer. Closer. Closer. If she does it again, he'll know how to anticipate. The more brilliant the manoeuvres, the more the War Boy raves about them. Volta blows under his scarf. This time, she's the one laughing in the biting wind.

Then she turns over and stares at Novic through the void where his windshield used to be, riding at his side. They rush in, again, again. They're a mirror of each other despite the difference in their gears. Volta waits for the right moment, her smile hidden by her strips. Then she finally makes a gesture towards Novic. A sign, like a hundred times before. Just like in the Pass. She joins her thumb and her index finger. I'm okay, she means. And they roll neck and neck again for a while, as if the Buzzard was weighing his decision. Five seconds, just like a grenade. Four, three, two, one.

Finally, all of a sudden, Novic moves away and the spikes are not on them anymore. Away. Away. Northeast. He gives up, and Nux pretends to be disappointed. Probably the grammy will tear him to pieces for that. He raises his bald head scratched by the copper shear and he exults again with exhausted joy while Volta resumes the course she had planned.

— This is definitely a lovely day, he whispers to himself.

They ride, they ride. In the distance, both at the infinite horizon and within reach the tiny reliefs of the Citadel towers are in sight.