A technomancer's journey in an apocalyptic world

Ryan looked at the big six-wheeled vehicle in front of him, a six-wheeled behemoth that was created to transverse through a battlefield at an incredibly high speed carrying troops from one place to another, while ignoring attacks from various landmines, RPGs, and bullets.

Navalach city police had been able to get their hands on it from the military, there was a huge protest against weaponizing the police even further because of it, and now it stood in all its glory standing in front of Ryan, it had been delivered a couple of weeks just before the tragedy struck and from the looks of it, it had been stuck here along with the other four police vehicle inside the garage.

His eyes momentarily went towards the location of the garage door as he let out a sigh of relief seeing them promptly closed, but the ceiling was a different matter, part of it looked as if it would collapse under a simple touch, the walls had held off well enough but were not in nest of shape either.

'I have to finish creating my vehicle fast, the walls are not strong enough to hold back that beast if it returned to hunt me and time is of the essence, not to mention those bats out there.'

He limped towards the vehicle as he began to inspect it closely. The vehicle was brand new for all intent and purpose.

'Hmm it is nice though I have to modify it a bit like the turret would have to go, I have to reinforce the windows and work on the engine the fuel tank, fuel accumulator, ugh so much work and I have no idea when I may be attacked again, on top of that I am hungry, tired, hurt, thirsty I need a good rest, food and water, damn it.'

He looked at the vehicle for a moment before he slapped his cheeks hard as he mumbled to himself, "Since when did you become a whining idiot, you are a doer so stop your whining and start doing it."

He limped forward as he thoroughly inspected the other cars, to use them as spare parts to be used for his newest project.

'I wish I could get my machines roaring but they make noise, lots of noise and as such, they are no good not to mention the problem with powering them up, without Michalina I would need to work a lot just to kick start even a single of those machines, so using my hand it is then.'

He did not dare remove his armour or any of his belongings at all as he was unsure when he might be attacked again and he was sure by now he smelt so bad that his innerwear had the power to commit mass murder.

The four other vehicles were quickly dismantled, as their doors, engines and various other parts were quickly removed from them, before arranging them in an orderly manner.

'Okay so I have four engines and I have yet to touch the one on the 'Behemoth'.'

Ryan looked at the cross between the South African Marauder and the American MRAP, standing proudly on its six wheels.

Ryan created a ladder to climb on it with difficulty as he opened the hood as he peeked inside and was greeted with the sight of a 6 cylinder diesel engine making him whistle in appreciation.

With great difficulty, he removed the engine and placed it along with the ever-growing pile of engines before he began to take apart its electronics, the lights, fuel tank, using a group of jacks and a lot of pain and hard work he managed to raise it high enough to remove its tires.

When he suddenly had an epiphany, "Well I could drive and all but my left leg is as good as dead, I cannot fold it from my knee, not with the split that is supporting my broken leg, I have to find an alternative, I can be use the accelerator and the break but using the clutch as well would be too much, hmm what to do maybe if I redesign the system a little bit."

With that thought in mind, he began to work on the tires first, and foremost, he did not wish to test the reliability of using multiple jacks and if by chance the vehicle falls over it would ruin everything.

To recreate his preferred type of tires like the one that was being used in the trailer, Ryan had to use up all the tires that were available to him, the six tires of the behemoth, the four police cars, any spare tires he could find in the boot, also the tower of made up of ten normal and the special big tires at one corner of the building.

He quickly changed the tires and by then he was once again feeling hot and feverish, his body wanted to lie down and rest but he refused he took a small sip from the soft drinks as he pressed forward.

The voice in his head had been sending warning after warning but he had long since stopped paying any heed to it, his only thought was that he needed to work and go home.

He took the handle that was connected to multiple jacks as he lowered the vehicle slowly when he managed he finally managed to lower the vehicle he could no longer stand as he collapsed on the floor heaving for breath his vision was swimming and he was having difficulty in breathing, with difficulty he tore the mask of his face before losing his consciousness.

An unknown time later Ryan opened his eyes once again as he sat up, his throat was burning from thirst as such he once again donned his helmet and he began to drink through the straw to quench it, and then refilling his canteen from what was the last bottle of soft drink that was available to him.

'If only I had some water.', with great difficulty he stood up he had work to do and he was nowhere near accomplishing his goals.

'Now get rid of the turret and seal the turret access, I think I can use the materials from the other cars to do this easily, but first I believe I have finished making the mana collectors while I was unconscious yet again, I will place them and finish working on the fuel tank and the rest of the connections.'

With that thought in mind a limping and wobbling Ryan began his work, the seats behind the driver had been deconstructed as he began to place recreate a system similar to that of the trailer but unlike it, he was making sure to place them permanently the reason was simple, he neither had the patience nor did he wanted to waste his already dwindling and precious mana to deal with it more than necessary.

Ryan like the vehicle that was dubbed as 'Goliath', he loved it, as it was made in such a way that almost everything could be accessed from the inside, he had just finished remaking the entire fuel system, sealing the doors of the 'Goliath' so that the only entrance was the one that enables to driver to climb in was his door, he had even removed the passenger seat.

'Now time to deal with the electronics and rest of the stuff with the engine at the very end.'

He pulled out the wires as he began to rewire the vehicle completely using the wires from the cars as spares since apocalypse many things have changed and many things may have stopped working but current still flowed through the copper wire.

He had refitted the lights all around the Goliath six at the front, two in the side and two at the back, he did not see any need to work with the extra lights that were needed in a police vehicle nor did he see the need of any indicators as such they were not touched at all.

He worked on the consol which now was slightly changed it had different buttons that he was slowly attaching to various functions that he had installed within the vehicle, like the lights the AC...

His eyes widen as his thoughts halted at the mention of the AC as he spoke with elation in his voice, "Wait a minute AC means condensation, and condensation means water"

An unholy gleam appeared in his eyes as he began to work fast, he would have his water soon he began to reconstruct his vehicle, the AC was not the only method he had available to him he had access to even more wondrous substance by the name of a fuel tank, that stored liquid mana which was cold enough to freeze water, thereby another condensation method.

As such an hour later he had already erected a rudimentary system, he had a generator that powered the electrical system but most importantly it recharged the battery that can be used to start everything, the generator was albeit a small but powerful one that can be started by hand using a small crank that can be attached to is momentary.

As such Ryan was working furiously with it, though with each turn a feeling of nausea hit him, "I cannot keep up with this long, just a little bit and I would be done.'

Then all of a sudden with a small rumble the generator started to work on its own as the liquid mana began to slowly feed it as it powered the electronics, the battery but most importantly the AC.

The newly created dashboard had a small canteen holder with a pipe attached to it, the pipe was attached with the AC system, the system that was now being used to create water.

Ryan looked patiently at the nozzle of the pipe when all of a sudden small drops of water began to drop and soon it was filling up one of the empty bottles that he had with him.

He watched each drop with undivided attention and when the bottle was only half full he picked it and eagerly drank its contents.

The cool water hit his throat quenching the fire of thirst as a small satisfied moan escaped from his lips as he was able to drink water for the first time in a while.

The water seemed to reenergize him as well as renewed his hope, "Well I better finish my work and I will be out of this city soon."

With the bottle filled up and the batter charged Ryan turned off the generator as he had no use for it for now, except in an emergency like when the battery is dead.

He began to work on the engine as he did numbness began to spread through his fingers as they began to gain a darkish colour making him sigh, 'Well I will have to rest for now otherwise I might suffer necrosis and the worst case being stuck in a coma.'

A quick nap later he which was broken by pangs of hunger against which he made the futile attempt to alleviated it by consuming the last few pieces of chips he had and thus making run out of food.

The engine took him at least an hour to finish, it was now upgraded from 6 to 8 cylinder, both turbo and supercharged which made him redecorate the hood a bit.

After a quick check of the system Ryan stood in front of his creation with a wide smile on his face as he studied it carefully, 'My ticket back home has been finished.'

With the snowplough in the position it had gained a rather menacing look, though he would have preferred to paint it but alas his options were limited.

A few more minutes later he was armed and ready, he slowly made his way to the garage door, as he removed a small part of the door to take a peek on the outside, he grimaced at that as he spoke, "Great from the looks of it, it is night time just great."

Suddenly, his eyes widen as he spotted a creature looking directly towards him, even after he had made sure to only remove enough for his eyes to look outside he got noticed, but before he could the creature opened its jaws and let out an ear-piercing scream.