Why hello - we meet again. You're the one who like Vivaldi - right? Don't look so nervous. I don't hold a grudge against you for escaping - quite the opposite. Remember the old jingoistic war movies - "the first duty of a captured airman is to escape"? Well, it takes guts and bravery to make it out of a raider camp, and we respect you for that. Not that we really intend to let you do it again, of course.
Aside from being captured by raiders for a second time - has the zone been treating you well? Is one of the fine vehicles in that lot yours?
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Really - how interesting, we're looking for some replacements too. You don't really find good American Made off-road vehicles these days. Not in this part of the country at least. I for one voted against the idiots who decided to let individual states decide on alternate fuels. Fine for Illinois and Montana to produce corn for ethanol, and New Mexico to go solar-electric.
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Yes - this does have a point. What is your hurry anyway? I need to be technically knowledgeable about the vehicles before I pick one - making a technical is a bit more complex than just welding some machine guns to a stock chassis. And as to the second part of that snide comment - well I did the good citizen thing. Right up until the event. A government is there to serve its people, and when it can no longer serve that function, in no longer deserves loyalty.
No helicopters showed up to break up the reanimates when they came to our town, nor to mount a rescue. If they had only pulled six people out as a show of good faith - well, I might not be around to understand - but no help, no radio acknowledgment. That is when we knew the only ones to rely upon are ourselves.
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That is my point exactly. Mine was not the only city to befall such a fate. If there are too many towns that the government can't protect, then perhaps those places shouldn't have been charted. Shouldn't a group that allows for settling a flood-plane at least have plans about what to do about flooding?
Don't take this as me playing for your sympathy, nor am I retroactively justifying my choice of lifestyle. I'm not doing this for fame or popularity. But compared to living out my days locked in a cage of my own creation within an old arcology - no, there isn't any comparison really. For good or ill, we are making a choice.
-what? Oh yes, right. Um - I don't know - let the mechanics decide which ones. Thank you.
As my adjunct points out, this really isn't the place for debating lifestyles of liberty and legacy. If you'd be so kind as to join us back at the bivouac, we'll open a bottle of peach schnapps and roast a chicken. We've been brewing it ourselves, and its gotten quite good after the first few failed batches.
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