Sshwick

"Did you hear? Virginia just passed total gun prohibition."

Sshwick

"Yes, I'm aware." The boy replied without looking up. "They also legalized marijuana with the same vote."

Sshwick

The old man slapped his knee with sincere enthusiasm. "Hah! They think that's going to help with the kills? Maybe, but if you ask me, they should be handing out free LSD." His big easy grin just hung there, like the remains of a long-gone Cheshire cat.

Sshwick

Jesse didn't reply, but he raised his head from his lap long enough to study the man for a moment. He must have been in his late sixties. Luxurious white hair fell in great waves from his hat to the shoulder of his dusty jacket. A rare specimen indeed, as so few men of his generation could be found alive.

A short glance to the back of his left hand told Jesse more than enough about this relic. A huge bar code, faded with age, stretched prominently across his wrinkled hand. The rarest feature of all was the lack of a red slash through those withered ink bars. No kill. This was the first time in his seventeen long years that Jesse had met a first-wave survivor with a clear record. He wondered briefly if the old record office was even in use today. Their archaic system of tattoos and filing cabinets did not stand up well against the test of human aggression. A hard lesson, and hard learned. The boy rubbed his wrist absently, feeling for the RF chip embedded there.

Sshwick

"Kid, you've been sharpening that knife for two hours. I can almost see right through it. Whatever business you have with that thing is no business of mine, but with an edge that sharp, you could shave an alligator."

Jesse gave it one last Sshwick across the stone before returning it nimbly to a long ornate leather sheath on his belt. He crossed his arms and leaned back against much-worn sheet metal that separated him from the inky black night outside. It was a darkness that felt heavy, even menacing, as it quietly licked against one speeding passenger car after another.

This, the final leg of his journey, was testing his patience. The old survivor across the aisle was unwelcome company, intriguing as he was. Jesse had enjoyed sole occupancy of this car for the first 16 hours, until he woke from a nap to find those intelligent grey eyes fixed directly on him. That smile, intended to disarm, was in fact far more unsettling. Sleep would surely elude him for the duration. I'll rest when I'm dead. He thought to himself. Unless I can put that traitor Roger in the ground first.

Thrumming with it's endless, monotonous work, the old train shot through the desert. The denuded ground as hostile to life as the society into which Jesse was born.