“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed with a grin. “That’s one of the added perks of being the head of the Scavengers. You can test out as many mates as you want, even ones outside your own age group.”
“Wait… ” I began as my heart started racing. “Does that mean you and him…?”
Natalie twisted her gaze over in my direction and looked like she was about to puke.
“Me and Marcus?” She stuck out her tongue and shook her head. “Eww. No! Some of the female Scavengers may not have the dignity to follow our sacred traditions, but I do. I would never give away my body so easily, especially not to somebody who was almost double my age.”
“You’re saying that in the future tense,” I chuckled. “Does that mean you’re—”
“I am,” the blonde woman grumbled. “But I don’t see how this conversation is pertinent to anything at all. What? Does your dimension look down on women whose purity is still intact?”
I could tell this topic had touched a nerve, so I didn’t want to push it any further. I quickly tried to change the subject.
“The rules of my dimension don’t matter.” I shrugged. “We’re in your dimension right now. Anyways… do you think Marcus is going to go for this plan?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Natalie mused. “It’s the perfect opportunity to wipe out our enemies once and for all and save our people in the process. If it works, Marcus would be seen as the savior of the entire human race.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “That dude’s already egotistical enough. I can only imagine him with a savior complex. I bet his head wouldn’t even fit on his shoulders.”
Then something happened I never thought possible. Natalie, the badass punk-rock warrior woman, laughed. It wasn’t a sarcastic or ironic laugh, either.
I may have just melted the ice queen.
As suddenly as it had started, though, Natalie snapped her mouth shut, cleared her throat, and then looked around nervously.
“What’s taking him so long?” she sighed. “He said he just needed to throw a pair of pants on.”
“Well, if it’s those leather skinny pants he was wearing earlier, he’s probably lubing up his legs first,” I joked as I tried to repeat my earlier success. “I don’t know how he even moves in those things without them blowing out.”
This time, Natalie was much more ready for it, and she didn’t so much as crack a smile.
“Funny,” she stated blankly.
The two of us stood there for a few more minutes as we waited for the Scavenger leader. We were now far enough away from the main encampment that the sounds of the celebration were little more than a faded drone. Instead, all we could hear were the calming sounds of the waves as they crashed against the sandy beach and the occasional rustling inside of the tent.
Finally, Marcus and the brunette woman emerged, both fully clothed. Marcus turned the woman so he could look her in the eyes and placed his hands on her shoulder.
“You would be a fine mate,” he announced in a ceremonious manner. “However, I must speak with my council before I make any decisions on the matter. Return to your dwelling and await further instructions.”
This must have been the Scavenger equivalent of “I’ll call you.”
The brunette woman nodded with a wide grin before she turned away and skipped off down the beach.
“Two seconds?” Natalie raised an eyebrow, and Marcus just scowled.
“There’s no need to be grumpy,” he sighed. “See? It was more than a few minutes, and the world is still here. It obviously wasn’t a life or death situation.”
“Oh, but it is,” the blonde Scavenger argued. “We have a plan that may just rid the entire Fallen Lands of its mutant menace.”
I could tell by Marcus’ expression he was skeptical, but intrigued.
“Really?” He frowned as he folded his arms over his chest. “Proceed.”
Natalie and I jumped right into the details of the plan. How we wanted to activate the nuclear plant, sabotage it, and then watch as all the Rubberfaces flocked to their demise.
“It wouldn’t have to stop there, either,” Natalie finished. “Rumor has it there are dozens of more nuclear plants across the world that were voluntarily turned off after Doomsday. If we were successful, we could spread the word, and all the people of the world would be free of those melted-fleshed bastards.”
“Natalie… ” Marcus hung his head. “It’s a noble idea. It really is. But it wouldn’t work.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “It’s a pretty straightforward endeavor. I’ve seen life without the Rubberfaces, and it beats this by a mile.”
I wanted to tell him I already knew it would work thanks to Dr. Nash’s algorithm, but that would require me to dive into the fact I was a Wayfarer. And, as much as Natalie trusted this guy, I wasn’t sure I could just yet.
However, my words only seemed to make Marcus angry.
“My people save you off the streets, offer to let you stay in our community… ” he growled, “and you have the gall to put down our way of life?”
“That’s not what I meant,” I tried to explain. “You Scavengers seem like a great group of people, and an even better community. But think of how things would be if you didn’t have to worry about the Rubberfaces? You could explore without having to worry about getting ambushed. Hell, if they were really gone, you could even repopulate the Fallen Lands and bring it back to its former days of glory.”
“I don’t know what kind of world you lived in up there in the Tundra.” Marcus shook his head. “But your people obviously live in a state of delusion. There’s no ‘killing off the Rubberfaces.’ Don’t you think we’ve been trying to do that for decades now?”
“Hunter’s plan will work,” Natalie argued.
“How?” the Scavenger leader demanded. “Say you somehow get through the Forest of Fallout unscathed… Say you do get to the plant. Who’s going to turn it on? There are no nuclear scientists in our group.”
Again, I wanted to reassure him Karla and Dr. Nash could walk us through the process, but I couldn’t.
“I know how to reactivate it,” I lied. “Believe it or not, we had a scientist in our communities back in the Tundra.”
“How convenient.” Marcus rolled his eyes to show he didn’t believe me. “Even then, that would be pointless. You sabotage the reactor and then hightail it out of there, but then what? There’s not going to be enough time for all of the Rubberfaces to come to the plant before it explodes.”
“We wouldn’t just start a reaction and then run away,” I explained. “We’d obviously program it to operate automatically for a few days. Maybe even a few weeks. Then, once the Rubberfaces are in the general vicinity, the autopilot will shut off. And when that happens… ”
I made a “boom” motion with my hands, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“That easy, hmm?” Marcus asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” Natalie interjected. “That’s why we need your support, and the support of the rest of our brothers and sisters.”
For a brief moment, it looked like Marcus might have been mulling it over. Then his mouth flipped into a frown, and he shook his head slowly, as if he was trying to explain to a child they couldn’t have another piece of candy.
“Absolutely not,” he announced. “There are way too many variables, and there’s no way in Hell I’m going to send my men into the Forest of Fallout on the pipedream of a newbie who may or may not know what he’s doing. Then there’s the fallout from the meltdown, both literally and metaphorically… If that thing explodes, it’s going to irradiate the entire area for years, potentially decades. We’d have to abandon our camp and maybe even our whole way of life!”
“But it would be for the greater good, Marcus,” Natalie pleaded. “Yes, it would be an uncomfortable change, but it would be the first step in getting the world back to the way it was.”