Black Market Merchant

The night passed on without disturbing the woman sleeping in the leaves. As the sun arose, distilling the night, it revealed that a thick fog had descended into the forest. The damp cool air soon woke up the woman. She sat up brushing leaves out of her long black hair and off her clothes. Looking around at the gloomy morning fog, it reminded her of when she first awoke in this decade. It gave her shivers.

At the time when she was released from the cryogenic sleep in the military base, thousands of miles from here, her vision was clouded. She recalled the confusion and fear that enveloped her at the start of her recovery. Her once muscular fit body had weakened, and most of her cybernetic body parts needed a major overhaul. After weeks of isolated rehabilitation in the military base, did she recover and receive new cyborg armor updates. Only then was she informed by the military that the world had changed far beyond what it once was.

She had voluntarily gone to sleep for the US military in 2076 after the end of World War Three and peace had returned. At that time, she was in the most advanced Cyborg Navy Seal Unit of the United States of America. As one of the most advanced military personnel, she wasn't needed for battle at the end of the war’s conclusion. Also prompting her decision to go into cryo-sleep, was that she couldn't join back into the civilian lifestyle with her military secret cyborg modifications. Upon her awaking she was so shocked to learn that the years had flown by in her sleep, and it was now 2278!

Four years before her awakening, the leadership of the USA had finally fallen from a Democratic Republic and into a radical Fascist State, the American Fascist Regime or AFR. The country was thrown into turmoil and after two destructive years of the new regime and on the anniversary of the nation's first American Revolution, a second revolution was declared in 2276.

Her cryogenic program had been overlooked by the past government leaders, this was due to the rise of many robotic programming and mass production breakthroughs. These breakthroughs slowly removed a bulk of military and police force personnel from direct conflict. The robotic forces created in this decade, in the Americas, were from three distinctly different companies. Astra Aeronautical Industry, or AAI, oversaw the bulk of aerial based robots, aircraft and spacecraft. Titanium Technology Corporation, or TTC, dealt with mainly robotic functionality, data processing in real time and robotic adaptation to the environment. Lastly, was the main producer of the individual robotic units and Artificial Intelligence programming, Silicon Valley AI Robotic Products, or SVAIRP.

The only reason that she and a three dozen others from units like hers were woken up, was that the base they were being stored at had come under attack. The entire base had to be cleared of all its secrets. They were moved, still in the cryogenic capsules, too another base under the command of this new Fascist regime and then were ultimately revived by them. It was done to determine if they could continue the Cyborg Studies Program put on hold all those years ago.

Long story short, after being revived the soldiers of old couldn't tolerate being under the new foreign regime and staged a rebellion of their own. Waves of enemy robots sieged them after they liberated the base from within. Only a few managed to escape and either joined revolution fighters or escaped into the nuclear waste lands, like she herself did. She wanted her days of war to end, after all, this was a second chance at a new life.

In her past life she had attended two marketing university's and was nearly completed with her degrees when the Third World War draft pulled her into battle. But now she was "free" from military service and able to return to her financial endeavors. She wanted to pursue her dream of trading with companies' all over the world to earn vast riches, despite her combative skills. She was wanted by the Fascist Regime and didn't want to become bogged down with rebellion factions, getting rich was her only goal.

Thus, this is how she had nearly traveled across the entire North American continent, building connections and learning what was valuable to trade in these violent days. All of this led up to where she is now. Sleeping in a pile of leaves in the middle of nowhere. Everything she had strived for till now had failed.

...

The woman got up off the ground and arced her back cracking it to relieve her stiffness from sleeping on the ground. She then loaded up her wooden coffin back onto her back and stepped onto the path to the town: The Damn.

"Such a vulgar name." She thought. "It had to be some morons who came up with that name."

She continued to walk lazily down the cracked asphalt road, with seemingly no goal in mind. All her efforts to set up a trade network in Salt Lake City area had gone horribly wrong months before. It all started when simultaneously the Regime discovered her, and a rebellion group seized all her assets. She had acquired a sizeable number of medical supplies and unknowingly to her the supply was already being tracked by both attackers. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, dealing in an area she was not yet established in or supported by a backer. The collapse of her efforts happened so fast that it forced her to relocate.

She saw a pebble on her path and kicked it forward, over and over, as she walked and thought. She had already decided to lay low for a while in these forgotten and lawless zones between the major cities and relax. Perhaps this time she could, but after fighting those men yesterday it didn't seem like this town was going to be the place.

The fog was thinner now and the sun now much higher. The forest had also abruptly ended, and she found herself now walking along some dried-up farmland. In the distance, peeking out from the fog, she could see the town. It was just like any other apocalyptic town. Buildings were burned, collapsed and rusting. Streets filled with useless cars, both gas and electric powered, were pushed to the side of the road rusting away. Trash was everywhere and animals were too, even in the town streets or buildings.

She continued on the cracked road towards this ordinary looking rundown town. Only one unique feature provided this wasteland town some unique appearance, it was the large Colorado River that had been blocked off by an unpowered hydroelectric plant dam. Somehow the dam still appeared to be in good condition despite being out of use, at least from this distance. It had no cracks, warped or collapsed areas on its walls. A single line of multi-wired power lines hung from giant rust red towers that led into the town. However, it was obvious that the town wasn't using any electricity, thus a main reason for its clear continued decline. The town looked like it could've held nearly thirty thousand or more people back in the day. But now she assumed its population was now half that or less. Still quite a decent number for a town in one of the Lawless Zones scattered all across the America's. Even after the dismal nuclear wars of old.

After a half hour she arrived at a roadblock that kept her from entering the town. Again, there were five more men guarding the entrance. Next to them were several objects and walls painted with the symbol of the snarling dog.

"Ho, ho!" Hooted a skinny tattooed teenaged man. "Looking good baby! What are you doing out here?"

"Here to trade stuff." The woman answered while patting the coffin on her back. "The other members of your gang let me through the forest yesterday. I got good stuff."

"Hmm, odd." Another gangster said. He had a red hoodie on and appeared to be the one in charge. "Those guys usually would rob anyone. What you got?" He got up and started towards her, two other thugs with him did the same.

"Toilet paper." The woman said unintimidated by their advance and simply kept staring at them with her steely gray eyes. "They were practically filling their pants with crap. One of them said he used poison oak by accident. Turner, I think his name was?"

"Ha-ha! They're such losers." The tattooed teen laughed and the other three stopped moving towards her and relaxed.

They knew the name, so it seemed she wasn't lying.

"No wonder they let you through. Give me two rolls and you can enter. Just to make sure you ain't lying to us. You feel me?" The hooded guy said gesturing with his hand for her to hand the toilet paper over.

The woman sighed and slid off her coffin onto the ground with a heavy thump. There was a time to fight and to trade; now was not the time to fight. She opened the lid so that only she could see inside and picked out two roles from inside. She now only had five precious rolls remaining in her possession. "Here. Don't use it all at once." She said tossing the rolls to him.

The gangster caught them and gently rubbed them. "It's been so long since I felt something this soft."

"Hey bro, let me go ahead and use that real quick." The tattooed teen said reaching for a role.

"Screw off." The hoodie gangster said shoving him back. "You can go in." He said nodding to her.

She put back on the coffin and entered the ruined town. She immediately headed towards the center of town. The population along the way started to thicken, and she soon entered what looked like a marketplace. Shacks and tents were scattered along the dirty, pothole ridden roadside. Most vendors were selling odds and ends products, others sold raw foods and some processed foods from out of town. There were a few weapons stalls and electrical parts dealers, which was a good sign for whenever she might need to fix her parts.

She saw several men and women dressed in nicer clothes, compared to everyone else, drinking beers outside a tavern. She needed a drink too. Badly! Her throat was dry from being on the road for so long. She entered the tavern and saw that it was mostly well kept, and the bar tender was a big fat man with a thick peppering in color beard. She raised her hand and held up one finger. The bar tender nodded understanding her intentions and filled a mug of dark beer.

She was forced to sit at the bar as most of the booths were already occupied with regulars. She kept her coffin on just in case there was a thief interested in picking around at it. She had only just finished her first mug when a sudden burst of drunken laughter erupted from outside. Sipping thirstily, she peeked from behind the rim of her second mug at the scene.

A young girl with straight muddy red hair had apparently been pushed into a pothole puddle and the perpetrators were kicking at the puddle too splash at her. She couldn't be no more than thirteen or fourteen and she looked far too thin, could likely be homeless. She was crying and cowering in the puddle. The woman shrugged and was about to turn away, but the girl suddenly locked eyes with her. The girls dull green eyes were pleading violently too her for help!

The woman sighed. Those pitiful looking eyes were just too hard to refuse.

"Fine. I guess I'll help." She mumbled slapping several coins onto the counter and turned to get up.

"Better leave it be, miss." The bartender said gruffly. "They are gang members. They can't be reasonable."

She waved her hand over her head as she headed towards the incident, signaling that she didn't care. She was going to hunt some fools. A visible smile crept onto her face. Fighting off bullies was always the best!