Chapter Twenty-Nine

A great deal of preparation is necessary before one goes out on patrol in the Badlands, and it can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour to review your equipment and make the adjustments needed for venturing out.

Even longer if something is damaged, because of the isolated nature of your watch stations, vast tracts of desert, canyon, and toxic vegetation stretch out in all directions separate each post; each one a fortress against the elements and the lawless peoples who inhabit this hellhole.

You're meant to be hunting for refugees, illegal immigrants, unregistered Aldecaldos and everything in between.

Yet, whenever you venture out, you have always felt like the hunted; you are a man of the city, the urban jungle made of steel and concrete; this place is anathema to you; staring into the sands, you can feel yourself being swallowed by the desert.

It is a dreadful feeling.

Your desert equipment was the same as your usual shift gear, except, through experience and harsh lessons, each security officer had learnt how to best optimise their corporate-issued belongings to manage the extreme conditions of the Badlands.

Your baggy knife-resistant top and bottoms were not left to aerate freely; each gap that would expose your flesh to the outside was wrapped with electrical tape, and your wrists and gloved hands would enjoy the same; the crack of skin that would manifest after such a haphazard application was covered in equal measure with electrical tape.

There was a reason for this; the desert storms would chuck sand at speeds that would tear skin; the harsh sun would burn flesh regardless of creams, and worse of all were the bugs; you know not how they thrive in this lifeless hellhole, but their bites would remain present and discomforting, weeks after it happened.

For headgear, the overly confident (or just plain unlucky) wore balaclavas beneath their caps and privately purchased sunglasses to guard their eyes, though their utility was negligible when too much sediment was in the air.

Those lucky enough to have been issued with gas masks would take full advantage of it; whilst they may be breathing stale air, they avoided sand and the harmful substances that came from the mass heaps of trash that the City often dumped in the area for burning.

You were issued rifles, a handgun, some grenades and a baton; a medical pack in the form of bandages and boosters would be strapped to your back along with a few ration bars, as some dust storms would be so bad, they would waylay patrols for entire nights.

Sure, you would near-never be required to leave the confines of your armoured truck, but that did not mean you would never leave it; even more when the Raffen Shiv sighted you; while in Night City, assaulting Arasaka personnel was a risky proposition, out here; you were easy prey.

You were not a religious man, but as you entered the armoured truck, you gave a short prayer, pleading for the Lord's protection as you clambered into the middle seat, rose to man the turret and carried out mandated checks for the mounted weapon.

You've used the machine gun before whilst out on patrol, but doubt you've hit anything, not that it mattered; it scared the Raffen Shiv off, and no one terrified you more than those freaks; any man who wears flayed skin as a fashion statement is a man you want to be as far away from as physically possible.

Your patrol route was not one bordering the demilitarisation zone, of which your more well-paid and equipped counterparts sat comfy in their bunkers and watchtowers; instead, it was one of a dozen minor dirt paths frequented by coyotes.

You didn't have much opinion on people smugglers and the poor sods who paid their extortive prices to cross the NUSU-NC border; you could hardly blame them for aspiring to better their circumstances.

That did not mean you would be found wanting in the execution of your duties; even though the Badlands limited the oversight Arasaka could exude upon their subordinates, you still feared the company and what hypotheticals they could exact upon you if you were found lacking.

Sand clouded your vision, scratching at the plastic of your rebreather; with each breath you took, you could taste the foul smell of rotting foods and burning plastics; you were down-wind of one of the trash removal facilities; a fanciful term for a giant pit of burning rubbish.

You could hardly see a few feet in front of you and could only have faith in your partially-inebriated driver that he would not steer you into a ditch or, worse, an ambush.

But he is a Slavic and was accustomed to conducting his duties whilst two bottles deep into his illicit vodka supply, you could hear loud ethnic music on the stereo, as the third person in your group, a true-blooded American, like you, complained about the volume.

Your hands rested on the machine gun; the turret shield that would guard your flanks against small-arms fire, weathered and worn; black paint chipped away by the elements some time ago, gave a sense of security, though not enough to free you of the tension that clung to your muscles.

"It is good music; you have shit taste, American!"

You can hear the accented voice of the driver, the bulky east European who turns violent whenever someone implies he's Russian rebuffs attempts by his partner to CDs.

"Listen here, Ivan, a bunch of drunken farmers yodelling to techno, ain't good music!"

They're fighting again; what is the third time that they've been at each other's throat since you've set off from base?

"Will you two shut the fuck up? I'd prefer my last moments not be filled with playground insults!"

Your spine is tingling, the sixth sense that all men carry screaming out at you that something is wrong, though you can not tell what exactly; the dust storm is too thick, and radio chatter has been silent since you fell outside the signal range of the nearest Arasaka watch-station