Work-in-progress - Genrenauts 2x01, part two (Patreon)

Hi folks! This is *not* an April Fool's post! I figured some of you might want something definitively not a prank to look at today, and I'm working on regaining my momentum with Genrenauts, so I thought I'd post a bit more from the first episode of the second season, "The Wasteland War". 

This is the next two chapters, following the prologue WIP I posted earlier. I still have a good bit of work to do on this episode, as it is currently very bare-bones (about 17k vs. the 20-30k words most episodes have been). I have edits due on a project very soon, so I will have to jump back to that project before I can get about the business of taking this episode to the point where it's ready for copy edits. 

Chapter One – The Mendoza Method

Shirin

King had been gone for three months. Bit by bit, the Charlie Team ready room changed to reflect their new leader’s personality. First it was just a few pictures here and there, then it was desks and copies of Robert McKee's reductive formalist drivel. She fought back as much as possible, keeping the treadmills instead of Mendoza's preferred ellipticals and maintaining some of the character of a fire station rather than a crunch-culture startup.

The one advantage of Mendoza's tenure was that the team was in the best physical shape she'd ever seen. Where King's training plan included a healthy schedule of PT, he favored research and study time to maximize genre familiarity plus a great deal of scouting. But if King was a comp lit professor (as he pretended to be when recruiting), Mendoza was a relentless personal trainer. Roman was setting new personal bests every other week, Leah and Mallery had even more energy than normal, and while Shirin missed the extra reading time, she understood Mendoza's approach. She could interpret it as him trusting their knowledge and wanting to improve other skills, but he did the same thing with Beta team. He focused on what he did best, what he knew best.

Mendoza had them doing wind-sprints in the gymnasium when the breach alarm went off.

"Oh, thank god," Mallery said, slowing to a walk. "My abdomen was about to storm the stage and shut this whole thing down."

Shirin grabbed a towel on the way out of the room and saw Mendoza jogging her way from ops.

"Ready room, now," he said.

***

"It's in my personnel file," Roman said. "I'm never going back there. King got it approved years ago."

Roman leaned against the wall of the ready room, arms crossed. It was as far away from Mendoza as he could get without leaving the room. Mallery and Leah sat beside Shirin as Mendoza held court, briefing material on the screen before them.

"The reasons are well-documented," Shirin added.

"I don't care. You know that region, you have the skills. You were born to thrive there. This is an o..."

"You don't want to do that," Roman said, cutting him off.

"I just did."

Roman pushed off the wall and stepped toward Mendoza. Roman had three inches on the new team lead, but maybe only twenty pounds. Not that Roman would throw a punch, even if Mendoza would expect it. That was part of the reason why Roman *didn't* want to go back to the story region that had been his first home. Wanting to not get sucked back into a life where violence was the first and last recourse.

"I always heard that larger groups were a liability for our work in this story region," Leah said, leaving "from King" unspoken in her recollection. 

"Lone travelers or pairs can move more easily. It's in our reports..." Mallery added.

"No," Mendoza said. "The breaches are still getting worse. We go in force, for safety. Shirin, get the gear ready. Roman, prep the ship."

"Are you going to call over Beta Team to drag me to the ship, then?" Roman showed just a hint of the “Try Me” look he gave enemy toughs on missions.

"I just might.” 

Roman rolled back his shoulders. They’re fully into macho posturing. Just what we need, Shirin thought.

Mallery and Leah looked to Shirin, the way they did whenever Mendoza threw his ego around. 

"Is it really better to go in small groups?" Leah asked. The newest recruit, she was the only member of the team that hadn't been to the Wasteland yet. The Wasteland region of the Post-Apocalypse world was ranked as one of the most dangerous beats, alongside Horror world and the disaster region of Action world. Only a handful of Genrenauts had died on duty, and all but one had done so in those three territories.

"Four or five is fine," Shirin said, stretching the truth. "Two can be better, but Mendoza's not wrong about the breaches. Of course, sending all of us means that there’s no coverage for any other world on our beat.”

Mallery led Leah off to prepare while Shirin leaned in to break the testosterone circuit.

"You'll need him on the next mission. What's better, for him to be angry and unfocused on two missions, or focused and happy on one?"

Mendoza narrowed his eyes, looked between Roman and Shirin, then leaned back on his heels. A long moment stretched out between him and Roman. "De Jaeger, since you won't be joining us today, why don't you inventory the warehouse? I've noticed a couple of discrepancies over the past month."

"Gladly. Be safe out there.” Roman turned and made for the logistics department.

"We'd be safer with you," Mendoza added, twisting the knife. 

But Roman was already out the door. Mendoza knew about Roman's protective instincts, and didn't seem to know to leave well enough alone. She'd complained up the chain of command about his abrasiveness, gone to Beta Team to try to get their advice. But all they could offer was, "You get used to it. He means well."

Work faster, King. We need you, she thought, pulling up her mental mission check-list to get to work.

Chapter Two - Shiny and Chrome 

Leah

The first thing Leah noticed was the dust. It whirled and whorled and danced everywhere. Orange and brown and soot-gray, this place had it all.

She pulled the scarf up to cover her nose, holding it in place with the goggles. She’d felt like a steampunk raver when she'd first put the outfit on, but it totally made sense, both aesthetically and practically. It was hard to keep your eyes open when they were constantly filled with dust.

Mallery hopped onto the hard-packed earth beside her, and Leah stole a glance. Where Leah had opted for loose, gauzy clothes over the leather armor, her teammate-slash-girlfriend opted for the body-hugging leathers and a bomber jacket, a shotgun slung on her hip, blonde hair tied up in chaotic braids, a single strain falling forward over one eye. She looked *amazing* and it was hard to not stop and stare, even with company. And by company she meant their boss who 100% did *not* know that they were dating. Mendoza was a total cop and would not tolerate fraternization, especially if he found out that the two had been together since before he took over the team from King.

After they'd sidelined him for championing *her* theory about Raven and her team of rogue Genrenauts, her mind added, bringing up that familiar guilt trip.

"Leah, Shirin, check the ship and then activate the cloak." Mendoza stalked ahead, a rifle on his shoulders. "Mallery, perimeter scouting. Start south. I'll get the car."

Back to business.

Leah and Shirin prepared the crank and lowered the ship so that it could fit into the cave beside them rather than sticking out three stories into the air. It was far easier to cover up the ship this way. The phase manipulator cloak would make the ship look like just another pile of rocks, but it never hurt to be careful. Especially in this story region, which was legendarily dangerous. Leah's stomach dropped every time the others told stories of the post-apocalypse, and now here she was. A world where life was cheap and hope was scarce. Just what she needed when she was already feeling down about losing King as a boss and having him replaced by stick-in-the-mud Mendoza. He was a great physical trainer but far from the most inspiring team leader.

"Are you okay?" Shirin asked as the cloak activated. 

"You guys have built this place up a lot."

"And not without reason. It is one of our most dangerous beats. Stay close and keep your eyes open. We're here as a squad in order to be safer. We'll be taken as a more serious threat by others, and maybe that will make facilitation harder...”

Lights flashed on from the cave, followed by the roar of an engine.

Mendoza tore out of the cave on a dune buggy with messy armor plating, kicking up a trail of dust.

"We need to get moving. If we don't make the battleship before sunset, structure says we'll get hit by raiders."

A minute later Shirin emerged from the cache, tucking a folded piece of paper into her cloak, the other hand hauling a bag.

Shirin dropped the bag in the back and slid into the cab, taking shotgun. Leah offered Mallery an arm to lift her up as the car rolled down the hill.

There's no way she would have been able to pull that cool action hero move when she joined the team. But thanks to Mendoza's Genrenauts-flavored P90X-high intensity workout, she felt powerful. Even if she still felt like puking every session.

She'd spent a fair share of time driving too fast in cars as a kid, windows rolled down with friends as the roared through the country, grabbed air over hills in crappy cars with questionable suspensions.

None of that held a fucking candle to what it felt like to drive in the Wasteland. Mendoza was kind of a jerk, but the dude could *drive*. 

"We must be going a hundred miles an hour!" she shouted, holding for dear life to the rolling cage.

"Isn't it great?" Mallery said. 

Leah whooped, sinking into her knees as the car drifted around a corner.

"What's that?" Leah asked, pointing to the horizon, where a wide cloud of dust rolled their way.

"Trouble!" Mallery answered, smacking the roof of the car two times fast, the "head's up" signal.

Mendoza's voice came on their comms, voice echoing in her right ear.

"Prep the long guns. I'm going to keep us in cover for as long as I can. We might be able to beat them to the battleship."

Leah still wasn't a fan of guns, but she'd gotten used to them, wasn't afraid of them in the way she had been that first day in Western World, stepping across dimensions to be an actor-slash-script-doctor-slash-action-hero. She pulled out a modified bolt-action rifle with a powerful scope and settled it onto the roof, sliding her feet into the firing braces in the rear bed.

"I count two intercept vehicles and a carrier. No, a crusher," she corrected, seeing the spiked grill on the front of the truck in the middle.

Mallery locked a light machine gun into the hard-point on the roof and double-checked the magazine.

"Long guns ready!" she called.

The car passed a hill formation and Leah spotted the battleship in the distance. It was probably three hundred feet long, bristling with rusted guns. The survivors had bolted fans and windmills and roosts and more onto the rusted hulk. It looked like a cross between an outsider art installation and a neighborhood festival setup, which was both bizarre and cool.

But she didn't really have the time to appreciate it fully until they were out of danger.

"I see their colors. Skull Boys. You should be in range now, Leah. Go for the tires," Mendoza ordered. The Skull Boys were the most common raider gang in this region, an amalgamation of thousands of post-apocalyptic gangs - brutal, cannibalistic, rapacious, sworn to an ideology of conquest and dominance. Negotiating just did not work with them.

Leah remembered her lessons from Roman. She adjusted for distance and wind, kept both eyes open, and squeezed the trigger. 

The bullet sparked off of the interceptor's hood.

She snarled frustration as she pulled the bolt, chambering another round. She fired again. This one missed the car entirely. The car was going so fast that even with the foot braces she was constantly being jostled.

Leah took a long breath, peered through the scope, and tried again.

Bullseye. The bullet tore through the tire. The interceptor swerved, dropping off the side of the road.

But then it climbed back up and into formation again.

"They've got run-flats," Leah said, dejected.

"Almost in range with the machine gun," Mallery added. "Go for the drivers."

The raiders banked off the road and into cover. This would let them chew up most of the distance between them. 

Leah looked back to the battleship, scanned the path from the settlement back to their car and to the Skull Boys.

They weren't going to make it in time. They'd have to fight.

"Hold on!" Mendoza said. Leah dropped and braced. Mallery reached out a hand to Leah, then fell into her lap as the car bounded up the hill to the high ground. 

Leah held on as the car bounced and bobbed. This was not a time for sexy thoughts, but they came anyway. She blamed adrenaline. Leah planted a kiss of encouragement on Mallery's shoulder and helped her stand, then took a helping hand to get up herself and re-set the rifle.

From this angle, the Skull Boy's cover only came up to the wheel line, leaving plenty of targets.

But now they were close enough that the Skull Boys were firing back. Mendoza kept the car moving, which made them harder to hit but also made Leah's job nearly impossible.

Mallery opened fire with the machine gun, putting down covering fire and driving the Skull Boys to move their formation around to put the Crusher ahead of the interceptors for cover.

"Bingo damage on the big one!" Mallery said. "Need to get closer."

"Try for the tires on the crusher, Leah," Shirin added.

It was worth a try or two. They still had the ammo to spare, for now.

The first shot impacted on the hood, but the second flew true. The outer of two tires on the front left side disintegrated, but the other kept going. 

"Got one!" she called, preparing another shot.

"Lost one of the interceptors," Shirin said. "Eyes open."

Mendoza pulled left, opening up the distance between them and the Skull Boys.

They traded fire for another half-mile or so, Leah taking as many shots as possible. It was terrifying and exhilarating but mostly terrifying. Mallery emptied an entire magazine into the Crusher, but it kept lumbering along, getting ever closer.

Leah caught something out of the corner of her eye while hiding from return fire, the glint of sunlight on steel.

"Behind us!" she called

The missing interceptor ramped up the hill and swerved as it landed.

Mallery set down the light machine gun and grabbed something out of Shirin's pack.

A grenade.

"Get down!" she said, tossing it back.

The two ducked behind the armor shielding on the back end of the trunk, but the heat of the explosion still rolled over them, telling Leah that Mallery's aim was as good as ever.

The interceptor was tumbling, gutted, seats on fire.

One down. Leah and Mallery took their spots again as the battleship grew larger in the horizon.

"If we're not done with the fight by the time we get into the range of their sentries, they're likely to fire on both of us," Shirin said.

"I don't understand why you don't have stronger pacts from these communities. King should’ve known better."

"Loyalty is expensive here," Shirin said. "We'll make it through."

Mallery totaled the engine on the second interceptor, but not before the Crusher got onto the road right behind them. Their dune buggy had the higher top speed, but not by much.

Leah heard the hoots and howls of the Skull Boys. Then a grappling hook arced over the Crusher's cab and locked onto their trunk. Mallery kicked it off with steel toed boots, but then it was replaced by two more.

"Boarders!" Mallery said.

"Worse," Leah realized.

The Crusher veered left, snapping the chains taut. The dune buggy fishtailed, dragged off course before the hooks ripped through or slid off the trunk. 

That cost them speed. And the Crusher kept coming. It slammed into the buggy, spikes piercing steel and slashing tires. The grinding sparks of steel-on-steel turned the back of the car into a fireworks show, just in time for a pair of Skull Boys to jump into the rear bed of the dune buggy. One had painted his face white and black in a skull pattern, the other wore a spiked biker's helmet. Both were skinny, malnourished, and hopelessly sunburnt.

They were too close for guns. Leah went for the knife on her belt, but the Skull Boy grabbed her arm on the way, and then they were wrestling.

Leah hated wrestling. She was always the smaller fighter. But these days, she wasn't always the weaker one. She dropped her weight and pivoted, throwing the Skull Boy face-first into the roll cage and then off the car entirely, gone in a wake of dust.

Looking up, the other Skull Boy was already bleeding on the hood of the Crusher, a bone-handled dagger in his side, Mallery atop him throwing punches. "Get us out of here!" she shouted to Mendoza. 

"Hold on," he said, and Leah reached out to Mallery, leaning back and bracing on the remains of the back of the trunk.

The dune buggy kicked into overdrive, wrenching itself from the Crusher. The back of the car sank, the wheels shredded. But they had run-flats, just like the first interceptor. It helped that the Genrenauts could repair their vehicles back on Earth prime, where materials were readily available, instead of on the "scrounge what you can" world they were in now.

"Grenades," Mallery said, reaching into the bag again. She handed one to Leah, and they threw them together, bouncing once and rolling under the cab of the Crusher before detonating. The cab caught fire, swerved, and lurched over onto its side, then kept rolling.

"We're clear!" Mendoza said. "Put away the weapons. We need them to see us as not a threat."

It was much easier to dis-assemble weapons when you were going thirty rather than ninety. But Leah's heart was still pounding like machine gun fire, her whole body shaking. Mallery grabbed her hand. 

"It's okay, hun. We made it. We're okay."

Leah curled up and breathed, trying to get her calm back. This job just kept getting more dangerous, even if she was learning along the way. How much longer would they all be this lucky?

***

The interior of the battleship was one of the few places Leah felt normal-sized, thanks to the low ceilings and short doorways. Mendoza had to duck, and Shirin put a hand on every doorway just to be sure she could get through okay. Mallery and Leah were fine. They were being led through the hallways by someone named Swab, one of the Captain's attendants.

"Captain what?" Leah had asked.

"Just Captain," Swab said.

And that was that. Post-apocalyptic names were something else.

"Good you came when you did. Revving up to a war, you picked the right side."

"What's the war about?" Leah asked. No reason to hold back or wait. Plus, they'd get a different answer from a flunkie than the boss. Probably.

Swab turned up into a stairwell, stopping at the landing above to make his point. "Cave-dwellers are holding back on us. Making fools. Captain'll set them straight."

"Holding what back?" Mendoza asked. 

Swab looked at Mendoza like he was from Venus. "All sorts of stuff! Ask the Captain and her cave-dweller groom."

Up two more levels and down another pair of halls and they made it to the command deck aka the cockpit, looking out on the Wasteland.

"Captain" was a muscular, short, dark-skinned woman in leathers with a mohawk. She sat in the captain's chair, which was covered and surrounded by blankets and pillows. Sitting at her feet was a lithe blond boy with freckles, dressed in loose robes. That would be Reed, her cave-dweller groom, then? His position and body language said "concubine" more than "husband." Guards filled the corners of the room, each holding a spear in one hand and a shotgun in the other. The consoles were covered in towels and blankets and topped with platters of food.

"Shirin," Captain said, not getting up. "Heard you were here. Where's the King?" said Captain.

"Deposed," Mendoza said. "I'm Mendoza."

Not one for subtlety. He treated every story situation like something to be solved with straightforward force.

Captain looked Mendoza up and down. "Really?"

"What's done is done," Shirin said. "There's a trio of vehicles on your doorstep. Skull Boys. We'd like priority salvage of two tires, but the rest is yours."

"Quite a gift," Captain said.

"We'd like some information in exchange," Mendoza said. "What's this war with Lex's people about?"

Reed stood, as if he'd just decided to be a part of the conversation. "My mother is a liar and a cheat."

"Promised me a quarter of their crop every season in exchange for the water to expand their garden. Boy here says the shipment she provided is no more than a sixth of their regular product. I don't take to being tricked. Lex doesn't want to honor her deal, I'll take the remainder by force."

That didn't seem like something that should lead to war. But it *was* a breach. It didn't always need to make sense. And longer the breaches went on, the more the story went off-track. A small breakdown in how a story was supposed to go rippled both in its own world and across dimensions, re-writing reality to disastrous results.

Mendoza crossed his arms, like he was figuring out the simplest way forward.

Shirin didn't bother waiting for him. "You go to war, chances are you'll burn more resources claiming what you're due than the amount you got shorted. You give us an emissary to negotiate for you, we'll give them safe passage to and from and bring the rest back. All for a reasonable fee to be paid in fuel and favors."

"We've settled grudges like this before," Mallery said. "And you can see from the Skull Boys that we can take care of ourselves on the road."

"She won't listen, Captain," the boy said. "She knew what she was doing when she shorted you."

No one was asking the obvious question, so Leah jumped on it. "Why are you selling out your own mother?" 

"I was never good enough for her. She wanted me to learn to fight, but I wasn't born for it. She sold me off like cattle and now I have a chance to show her my strength."

Captain held out a hand to Reed, who stepped back and wrapped himself around her. He perched on the arm of her throne, looking petulantly at the group. Leah adjusted her age-guess down to late teens. Nobody over twenty was that good at making a "fuck you for no good reason" face.

"You're welcome to try," Captain said. "Now get to it. I've got a war to run."