Welcome to Anthracite City

Chapter Three: Post-Apocalyptic Paradise

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

Two hours after Welcome to the Urban Jungle...

"So the big problem with Mentalrix's group is not that they think they're too good, it's that they actually are too good?" Adam asked quietly as Elizabeth and he walked through the abandoned subway tunnels to the station at the Northgate mall.

The electric lamp cast shadows on the gray concrete walls as the two humans walked over inert tracks and navigated around stalled subway cars. Outside of small handcarts and other crude contraptions, Anthracite City's subway system lay inert. The enemy controlled most of the stations, sending patrols to clash with the humans struggling to hold on to the remaining terminals, there wasn't any point for the survivors to try and reactive the rail lines even if they could. And for whatever reason, the Rik-Tah weren't interested in getting the lines working either. At the moment, the mutant hunters had the tunnel to themselves... except for the ominous growls coming from somewhere just outside of their field of view. Adam gripped his shotgun tightly as the two quickened their pace.

"Yes, that's pretty much what the rabbit told me. They've been camping and hunting in Northgate and were starting to worry that the wrong people might notice the lack of man-eating mutants in the area. Apparently they were successful at knocking the damn things down a notch on the food chain." Elizabeth replied as her partner helped her climbed over a pile of metal debris.

"And I'm going to say what you probably already thought; that if we get there and don't need a truck to carry them away, then they haven't been 'overhunting.' I suppose someone somewhere will find it funny that I can take two heavily armed freaks in power armor in one day but I freak out about dealing with a giant pig." Adam grumbled and looked ahead, the Northgate platform in view.

The station looked ordinary enough, two platforms for incoming and outgoing traffic. A small donut shop sat abandoned on the incoming side, moldy donuts in the display case and Styrofoam coffee cups strewn across the counter. Posters for this major sale or that blockbuster video game release lined the painted cinderblock walls, still perfectly readable despite being left at the mercy of the elements for at least a year.

"Anyone who thinks that's funny hasn't seen the pig... or should I say the pigs?" Elizabeth grumbled and checked the magazine in her rifle, the elephant gun she christened the "Big Bitch." Sliding it back in, she fell in behind her taller partner. Adam meanwhile turned his lantern off and grabbed his shotgun before the two of them climbed onto the platform and carefully ascended the disabled escalator. Another noise replaced the sounds of the tunnel-dwellers, the porcine squeals of a pig... a lot of very big pigs.

Both wastelanders immediately tensed up as they climbed upstairs into the mall proper. Arriving in the central atrium, the two of them stood by a frozen fountain as they swept their surroundings. With the mall skylights completely covered by a foot of snow and the power off, it was as dark as the subway tunnels inside the cavernous structure. Adam switched his electric lantern back on and hoped he wouldn't immediately regret it. Menacing shadows lingered outside of their protective pool of light as coins glistened beneath the frozen water while the two contemplated which direction to go in.

The Northgate mega-mall was a four-story shopping complex with roughly an acre and a half of shops and support facilities to each floor. Cylindrical in appearance, Northgate was laid out to take advantage of every last inch of retail space. Stores lined the outer wall and both sides of five "spokes" connecting the wheel to the atrium and the anchor stores above it. Last either of them heard, Mentalrix and her group had holed up in the food court on the north side of the second floor. Obvious jokes about the food-themed heavyweights the psychic was traveling with aside, it wasn't the worst place to hide. The tables could be turned on their side and used as barricades, there was a gas-powered "fireplace" in the center of the dining area that might still work, and if they had a generator with them, one of the food stalls could be turned into a crude kitchen for the production of McMutant burgers. The question was how to get there? Mutants roamed the first floor in packs and likely infested the second and third floors as well. And of course, they weren't anything relatively manageable like the feral blind dogs and rat-wolves of Russian video games... no, the Rik-Tah decided to commission something special to troll the locals with.

Much like the rest of rural and suburban Pennsylvania, boars were dangerous pests in the suburbs surrounding Anthracite City up until the end times. Fish and Game frequently raised the bag limit above deer and the local hunting community often enjoyed fresh boar meat. Leave it to the Rik-Tah to turn something that would be mildly unpleasant after the apocalypse into a nasty beast. First they augmented the creature to withstand the frequent snows and intense cold of the area, tripling mass and body fat and turning it into something slightly smaller then a bison. Then they increased the muscle density, hardened its teeth and grew out its tusks, tinkered with the part of its brain responsible for appetite, and a whole lot of other little things to make the resulting mutant species a particularly nasty customer. The result was a giant man-eating beast capable of feeding a family of four for a month... if you could kill it and didn't dwell on what it ate. Suffice to say, power armor mercenaries and overgrown sandbox bullies with skin resistant to small arms fire weren't the only reasons why survivors packed elephant guns and large caliber handguns.

Which brought the duo back to their current question, how to get to the hunting camp on the second floor. The main thoroughfares of the mall were open to the skylight-studded ceiling, giving the mall a terraced look that resulted in the humans having relatively little room to maneuver on the upper levels. On the other hand, the ground floor with its access to the street was where most of the critters were likely to be, especially some nasty ones even bigger then the boars. Eventually, the straight shot through the second floor won out, most of these critters had to be too big for stairs right?

Up another flight of once-mobile stairs, into the men's wear section of a clothing store, the two humans stilled their breaths and listened for trouble. Lifeless mannequins watched silently as the intruding individuals quietly walked past untouched displays of jeans, shirts, hats, and coats, all as undisturbed as if the store clerks had just left for the day. Only the fine coating of dust on the cashier's stalls and the occasional pile of animal dung on the floor told the real story, no one had been here for months.

Out in the mall proper, walking past stores selling everything from handbags to candy, Adam felt his finger hover centimeters from the trigger on his shotgun as he looked down at the floor below. Even though the light of his lamp was poor at a distance, he could make out the indistinct shadows of something large moving about... several different predators roamed the ground floor, pausing to snarl at one another or find a quiet place to rest and let the day's foraging digest. Occasionally one would look up and see the two humans standing in the lamp light, leading to a few tense moments where the gunslingers would slow to a crawl and get wrapped up in a staring contest with the reflective glint of the eyes watching them below before their owner got bored and decided it wasn't hungry enough to try for the prey creeping on the floor above.

As they got closer to the old food court, it became apparent that someone had set up a camp and was still living in it. Tables were overturned and used to barricade all approaches into the open court yard, the faint scent of cooked meat lingered in the air, and the light of a gas flame could be seen. They were almost there... and then they heard a porcine snort from somewhere to their left.

Both fighters immediately turned their heads and raised their weapons. There, in the claustrophobic aisles of a shoe store, was a giant boar. Tusks gleaming in the light of their lantern, the alpha boar was as big as a motorcycle as it lumbered into view atop four sturdy obsidian hooves. Barrel-like abdomen wobbled with gelatinous fat as the savage predator greedily eyed up the two scavengers foolish enough to walk past his lair. The two humans merely glanced at one another and decided on their course of action with a single look.

Elizabeth started her dash for the camp as Adam pulled the trigger. With a violent roar that undoubtedly woke up their neighbors, his shotgun sent a spray of pellets into the face and front haunches of the alpha boar. The 12-gauge shell casing didn't even hit the floor before he took off after his partner. Both of them were running all out, vaulting over objects and knocking things over to try and slow down their pursuer. But the boar had no trouble keeping up after them; benches and vases were muscled aside, the feral pig fueled by pure rage as he plowed on after them. The camp meanwhile buzzed with sudden activity as its inhabitants moved to respond to the gunshot and the two humans running towards them.

Despite being smaller and carrying a much heavier gun then Adam, Elizabeth had little trouble keeping ahead of her partner. Her heart pounded in her chest and adrenaline flooded her veins as her feet carried her along. Flight or fight instincts pushed her mind into a surreal state of hyper-awareness as her body started to scream in protest from the continued exertion. Somewhere in the overclocked computer her brain had turned into, she registered a small, disc-shaped object conveniently placed about a foot in front of the barricade. Her mind only spent enough time on the metallic device to recognize that it didn't belong there and that she should avoid it.

"Trap!" Was all she managed to shout before jumping, clearing the object before vaulting over the barricade into the camp. Adam nearly knocked her over with his own momentum, barely able to slow down after dodging the device himself. Behind them, the shock mine came to life with a violent display of bluish-white energy, paralyzing the boar as electricity playfully danced over his body like a pair of tangoing lovers. Meanwhile several of the heroines in Mentalrix's party opened fire with bizarre energy weapons unlike anything the humans saw before. Laser sights connected with the boar, marking the animal for a "bubble" of heat distortion. Three, four blasts later; the mighty boar fell over dead, his flesh sizzling like he had been thrown into a giant microwave.

"Look friends, our guides were nice enough to bring us take-out!" A voice-tinged with a Russian accent jibed slightly as weapons were lowered. A few of the heroines giggled nervously, as relieved as Adam and Elizabeth were. As the adrenaline subsided in their bodies, concentration blurred and both fighters became lightheaded. Names and faces swirled through their heads but they were too tired to make the connections. War Hound, Venom, that damn boar... together they all took a huge toll on the two of them.

The next few minutes passed in a haze for Adam. Chairs were provided for both of them, and the group's muscle picked up the boar's carcass and carried it over to a table where another person began to butcher it. The longhaired man was barely aware of any of this; his body was too busy trying to recover without making him pass out completely. Somewhere, on the edge of his perception, there was a discussion to let them lay down until dinner or breakfast was ready that somehow turned into letting them sleep with someone. The tall, slender human wasn't awake enough to laugh at the absurdity of their perceived expectations yet he offered no resistance when a stout arm pulled both of them to their feet and guided them to a bed. Laid down, propped against something soft, they fell asleep almost immediately...

Elizabeth woke up with her partner a few hours later to the smell of meat sizzling on a grill. The scent of cooked pig brought back memories of Sunday breakfast with her family, of a normal day started with a plate of bacon and sausage. A remembrance that felt like a million years ago considering all that happened lately, bringing a tear to her eye. Hot, freshly made, food and people not trying to kill her, has it really been at least a year since she had either of these in any real amount?

The blond woman opened her eyes to find herself in the embrace of one of the anthros the two humans met briefly in Sentinel City, the ursine tank mistress known as T-80. Bulk metatype, super-strength and resistance to small arms fire wrapped in an incredibly stout body, the she-bear in the olive green jumpsuit was built almost as big as the tank she was nicknamed after... and seemingly enjoying the fact that she had both of them wrapped in a gentle bear hug. The bear's face was unreadable behind a full helmet with an opaque visor but her body language telegraphed her smile well enough.

The other camp inhabitants puttered about with various tasks, seemingly oblivious to the she-bear and the two humans as they either prepared breakfast or began to pack things up. Several tables were slid together to form a long row, surrounded by more chairs then Elizabeth thought was needed at first. Rump Roast, a brown-furred, bottom-heavy vixen in a tight red jumpsuit, tended to a crude iron grill with a giant barbeque fork. Two heavy-set rabbit anthros with a pair of thunderous thighs, one black and one brown, set the table while Mentalrix and a beaver girl that Elizabeth didn't recall Adam mentioning stood watch. Slightly more rested, the names and faces began to connect inside the gunsmith's head. The big black rabbit was Synriki, a Russian pastry-themed heroine with a creatively modified grenade launcher, the brown one in the hooded green unitard was Demeter the plant controller, and... the beaver girl still wasn't ringing any bells in Elizabeth's head though she looked like quite the tool-savvy girl... not to mention quite the lover of pancakes from how magnificently well-rounded her backside was. Ah well, judging by the way the vixen was handling the grill, it was almost time for formal introductions anyway.

A minute later, breakfast was ready and set on the table. Paper plates heaped high with grilled meats were placed next to cups full of a creamy, milkshake-like substance that smelled faintly of soy, all the tableware clearly flinched from the abandoned fast-food stalls. Both humans shot a quizzical glance at this then noticed that several spots were set with a much larger cup of the same drink but no meat. Apparently it was something for the herbivores, something produced by a backpack-sized machine happily humming away. As the two tundra-dwelling wastelanders were seated with the rest of the camp, introductions were made and hands were shaken. The beaver girl was an unregistered Canadian heroine by the admittedly silly name of Power Tool, a tech-savvy girl with a homemade multi-purpose power tool. Which... well a handheld device that apparently worked as a welder, cutter, drill, screwdriver, and several other things wasn't the worst gimmick Adam had heard. Still beat the pants off that one comic book villain with the superpowered universal remote that always made him groan; damn DC Comics and their character concepts. But regardless, it was apparent that Mentalrix was the only "A-lister" out of this merry band. Then again, for a team consisting of second and third tier heroines, they seemed to be doing all right so far. The barricades wouldn't last a second against any group with real weapons but they were effective enough to deter the boars and the camp was up high enough to avoid the larger mutants. And thanks to their latest addition, the heroines had a few surprises for the lesser threats to their general well-being.

While somewhat late to the celebration, Power Tool made up for it by bringing the party favors the two humans had just seen. It appeared on their own world there was a poacher with a fetish for hunting rare and exotic meat with high-tech weapons. Apparently the microwave rifle and shock mines were his... at least they were until a tech-savvy African heroine tired of putting up with his shit in her already lawless backyard attempted to fix him by replicating his weapons and posting the specs on half a dozen different websites and message boards frequented by technophiles, including some working for both federal and international law enforcement. Subsequently, by the time the powers that be finished making copies and forcing the websites to take down the blueprints to keep other poachers from getting similar ideas, most techheads already had the schematics added to their personal libraries in case they ran into something that sent them into the backcountry or somewhere similar... like Adam and Elizabeth's world a parallel universe away.

Neither human was particularly sure how they felt about their home being viewed as a giant camping trip but on the other hand there was a certain satisfaction that came from seeing the plates of food in front of them. It was a combination of the satisfaction that came from being ready to eat a hot meal mixed with the satisfaction of knowing exactly where their food came from, a nightmarish monster that doubled as a poster child against genetically modified crops and livestock...

And it tasted delicious. The first seasoned bite brought back a flood of memories for both of them, of a life so far removed from their current suffering that it almost felt like the images running through their minds belonged to another person in another time. Tears slowly ran down their faces as both humans began to cry softly at the simple comforts surrounding them.

Completely blindsided by their guides' reaction, the anthros either stared or looked to one another for some direction. Only Mentalrix wasn't entirely surprised by the breakdown, her telepathy giving the slender rabbit a slight glimpse of some of the suffering they endured. Finally Rump Roast decided to see what about her cooking elicited this reaction.

"Excuse me, is something wrong? You two didn't get a bone or anything like that?" The brown-haired vixen probed timidly.

"Oh hell yes..." Adam managed through a mouthful of food, hugging the vixen. "Rump Roast, will you marry me?" He asked boldly, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

There was a brief chorus of laughter as the Anglican grill master giggled and patted him on the head, but it was a mirth tinged with the sad realization of how far their new friends had fallen. None of them looked twice when Adam and Elizabeth joined them in asking for seconds. The following minutes passed peacefully, jokes were made and conversation was had, the atmosphere was relaxed until the party crashers decided to abruptly make themselves known...

The spiked medicine ball impacting into the long table was as sudden as it was unexpected, sending half-finished breakfasts careening up over the railing and down onto the level below. Underneath the feet of the hunters above, genetically modified boars and cows lapped up the sudden food, seemingly nonchalant about eating bits and pieces of their kin. Everyone stared at the damaged table in slight disbelief as their guides broke the ice.

"That was a plate full of beautifully spiced sausage..." Adam lamented before making a big show of sucking in his breath and turning in the direction of the thrown projectile. Seeing who decided to invite themselves to this gathering, his eyebrow twitched. The medicine ball should have been enough of a clue but at the same time, he had hoped for someone else.

Elizabeth was slightly faster, grabbing her rifle and dropping to one knee before searching the open corridor for targets. "Okay, who has a deathwish?" She grumbled and sighted her targets as the others quickly went for their weapons. "Oh great, it's you..." She replied with an exasperated sigh.

There were four of them, the wastelanders registering their number almost as swiftly as they recognized who they were; bodies ripped with overdeveloped muscles and clad in outlandish blue and white tracksuits that didn't look even remotely practical for the frigid climate outside of the ruined mall. And then there were the signature signs of the muscle freaks' lifestyle; bulging veins, the slight twitch of hypertension, and the smell... oh god the smell. A side effect of their overuse of steroids and their steady diet of protein bars was a near constant state of constipation interrupted by occasional episodes of explosive diarrhea, making their already foul mood and stench all that much more pungent. Perhaps it was a good thing that no one got to eat all that much after all.

"Yo that's right! The Fitmen are representing the AC here in the... AC?" The Fitman foot soldier stated with a slight stumble, quite clearly not used to thinking on his feet. Adam's hand slowly drifted towards the .357 revolver inside his coat...

The four muscle heads seemed to be ignoring both humans, focusing their attention entirely on the cluster of anthros dining with the furless gunslingers. Whether that was because they were stupid or because they were certain neither Adam nor Elizabeth could hurt them was unclear. Perhaps it was just as well given the general intelligence of the comments made by the Fitmen.

"Oh ho! Looks like we get to trash some punks!" The tiger leading the troop declared with a grin.

"Damn, is that Mentalrix? Let's see if the tits under her coat really are as big as they say!" A second one, a brown bear with a straw-like pelt, crowed sadistically. The humans realized with no small amount of horror that this one was a female, her body so over muscled and her breasts so shrunken that she looked indistinguishable from her male cohorts.

Several of the heroines looked like they were about to bother with a witty retort but T-80 decided to end the banter by flinging a table at the lead Fitman; the huge tiger deflected it effortlessly with a hearty laugh.

"Haha! Is the tubby teddy cranky because- URGGH!" The feline mountain of muscle never got to finish his attempt at humor before Adam cut him off with the report of his revolver firing a round into the feline's face. Elizabeth was right behind him, taking down the muscular she-man with a shot from the Big Bitch. The elephant gun ripped open the she-bear's shoulder with a satisfactory roar as the anthro heroines joined the fight. With two badly wounded and the remaining two grossly outnumbered, the Fitmen did perhaps the only remotely sensible thing Adam ever saw them do since the Rik-Tah plucked them from the mean streets of a place called Aphrodite City... they ran.

"We better get moving." Mentalrix remarked as they watched their opponents run off. "If they don't get killed, they'll be back with friends. Let's finish packing and make sure we're gone before they get back. By the way Elizabeth, where were you and Adam going to hide us again?" The masked rabbit asked her guide.

"Only place we can think of is a prepper bunker where we've been hiding outside of the city, not far from Black Lung. The original owners... don't need it anymore." The blond sharpshooter explained grimly. "It's small, it's cramped, and we crammed every square inch that we aren't using full of supplies. But it has some power, some running water, and a freezer we can stuff all your extra meat into. And it's not much of a hike from there to somewhere like here; we should be there around lunchtime. The only problem anyone might have is that there is only really one place to sleep, one small place to sleep. Which... well at least it will be warm for a change. It will last you until we can find somewhere else."

"I suppose it will have to do then. We'll head out as soon as the camp's packed up." Mentalrix replied flatly, her voice as expressionless as the gasmask over her face.

Later...

Overall, getting the six heroines out of the city turned out to be much easier then the two humans expected. T-80's immense strength proved useful for clearing a path through the rubble and debris clogging the tunnels leading to the city limits, something Adam was silently grateful for. There were areas in the tunnel to the mall that were tight even for two half-starved rebel punks, forget the band of stout anthros they were traveling back home with. Being used as a bulldozer was probably not what the she-bear pictured herself doing when she got here but it helped shave about an hour off of Elizabeth's estimate.

Outside on the surface, the group was greeted by an overcast sky and steady snowfall. The wind howled like a hungry beast as the guides slowly lead their cohorts through the gradually thinning urban decay at the city's edge and into the thick forests surrounding Anthracite City. The cold air cut like a knife as the procession was lead into the general vicinity of Black Lung. Mentalrix shivered slightly inside her trench coat as she stood next to her heavier costumed cohorts, thick fur coats and thicker coats of blubber helped them shrug off the worst of the endless winter's depredations, she could only imagine how the humans managed to hold up in this frozen wasteland.

Finally, their guides stopped in front of a low foothill in the middle of a thick part of the forest. At first the anthros thought the cold had finally gotten to their friends, this particular area of the woods looked no different compared to the six miles they walked through. But then Demeter noticed that the plant growth here was slightly younger and thinner then the rest... just as the humans disappeared into a doorway carefully hidden in the side of the hill.

The bunker interior was surprisingly modern yet every bit as congested as the two humans promised, obviously built during the last prepper craze before the world actually ended. The outer blast door opened to a small tunnel before taking a sharp right turn marked by a second one, leading into the bunker itself. The shelter itself consisted of two small, prefabricated modules placed side-by-side, one dedicated to sleeping and storage, the other given over to general living space and a small workshop where both humans kept their tools. The entire bunker was tiny, about the size of a small apartment, and as filled to the brim as Elizabeth had said. Cans, boxes, and bags of easily preserved food were stuffed under the bed and sofa, stacked up against the wall, or hung from the ceiling. In the workshop, shelves and bins were virtually overflowing with scavenged parts and neatly stacked piles of scrap metal. T-80, the largest member of the group, had to squeeze her broad figure through the narrow doors only to discover she needed to stoop or keep her helmet on to avoid banging her head against some of the harder objects the humans had hanging from the ceiling. The others fared somewhat better; at least they were short enough to move around without having to crawl around on their hands and knees. And there was this lingering chill that didn't go away once Adam shut both doors behind everyone...

"Well, this is cozy." Power Tool quipped, a pale blush forming on her cheeks as much from the cold as from the vaguely claustrophobic lack of personal space.

"Mmmm, guess we can make the best of it though." Demeter smiled as she "accidentally" bumped her generous rump against Adam's crotch. The human's face was a kaleidoscope of emotions ranging from embarrassment to desire.

Mentalrix shook her head and sighed before looking for a place where she could sit or stand and not be in the way. Eight people in a space meant to shelter half as many and only three of them were lithe enough to move without too much inconvenience. Yet their hosts adapted well enough, finding little cubbyholes to safely store equipment and managing to make room in their larder for the nearly one hundred pounds of butchered meat the heroines brought with them. Meanwhile the anthros either found a place to avoid getting under foot or stood perfectly motionless. Still, as Elizabeth said earlier, at least it wouldn't be cold for long. And indeed, as the rest of the day past by, dinner was had and the bunker gradually warmed up in time for bed. Planning their next move could wait until tomorrow, the rabbit could feel that Adam and Elizabeth were still exhausted and the cold had done a good deal to rob the others of their strength. Bed, with everyone curled up together to share body heat, sounded like a wonderful idea....