Nicodeme

We laid him out next to his suit. “Now what?” I asked.

“We should make sure he’s okay.”

“He isn’t bleeding. Not much anyway. I’d guess a mild concussion is likely. If he broke something and can’t move, we can’t do much for him anyway.”

“We could light up a flare,” Estelle said.

“Sure. Somebody else might already be coming to check this out anyway. Speaking of which. We shouldn’t be around at that point.”

“Let’s try to wake him. He could come with us. If someone like Ruben finds him it could end badly for him,” Estelle said.

“Why would you want that. We don’t know him. He might be even worse.” I was becoming quite desperate and exasperated by Estelle. How could I keep her alive if she continued making such awful decisions. Even as I spoke she tried gently shaking the man, then poking and even pinching him. “Come on, we need to leave before someone else shows up.”

Just as I said that the man groaned and came back into consciousness. “What?” He mumbled.

“Are you hurt?” Estelle asked.

“Where? Who?” He was looking around with a confused expression.

“You crashed. Do you remember?” Estelle asked.

“Crash? Yes.” Slowly his gaze began focusing and the movement of his head more controlled.

“Maybe ask him if he has something worth taking,” I mumbled half to myself. Estelle turned around with an angry look. “Just saying,” I said and shrugged my shoulders.

“Can you move? Is something broken?” Estelle asked. He carefully moved his arms around, followed by his neck and torso. Once he winced in pain but from the movements is seemed nothing was broken.

“I don’t,” he started to say.

“Great, let me help you up,” Estelle spoke over him. She grabbed his arms and hauled him up. Instead of standing up, the momentum just carried him over and he crashed on the ground with a yelp.

“Stop you idiot!” He shouted. “Bloody rats.”

“Hey, watch your mouth,” I said coming very close to him and staring down. He glanced from me to Estelle. If he just provoked me, it could make it much easier to end this and be on our way.

“Wait. It’s my fault,” Estelle said. I frowned and almost let out a frustrated growl. “I’m sorry. Are your legs hurt?”

The man glared at us, then calmed down somewhat. “I can’t walk. Not without this.” He patted his exoskeleton.

“Oh that’s too bad,” I said with a fair amount of levity. “Come on, we should get moving. Bye.” I tried pulling a little on Estelle’s shoulder but she didn’t move. The man was glaring at me. Not so much with anger than with contempt or disgust. As if I needed another reason to hate him. He was probably a child of some gaffer at a corporation. Riding around in his daddy’s

“Gaetan stop,” Estelle said. “Let’s start this again. I’m Estelle and this is Gaetan. Who are you?”

He looked from me to Estelle and sighed. “I’m Nicodeme.”

“Nice to meet you Nicodeme. What is wrong with the exoskeleton?” Estelle asked.

“I don’t know. It must’ve been damaged in the crash,” he said.

“Yeah about that,” I interjected. “How did you end up in this situation?” His expression darkened.

“I was doing something. I can’t say more.”

“Oh that’s perfectly fine. We’ll let you get right back to it,” I said.

“Maybe you could come with us,” Estelle said, disregarding what either of us was saying. “We could help each other.”

I felt like screaming. I finally managed to pull Estelle aside a little. “Please listen to me. We can’t just take in a random guy. We can’t trust him. He’ll rob us and or kill us.”

“I understand you Tan. But he’s an outsider. He has no ties to any gang. We’re the first people he saw in the Zone. I think this is a great chance for us. We could even use this opportunity to go after the artefact in full force and …”

I shushed her. “Not so loud.” I looked at Nicodeme. He was looking elsewhere and seemed uninterested in our conversation. I didn’t trust him one bit. He was surely eavesdropping and his expression betrayed interest after Estelle mentioned the artefact. “Come on Elle. There is no harm in leaving him behind. We can even help him and then leave him.”

“Tan it’s fine. Trust me, it will be fine,” Estelle said and went back to Nicodeme. “So where were we? What’s wrong wit the skeleton?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some contacts got loose. I hope nothing is irreparably broken. Otherwise I’m as good as dead in this godforsaken place,” Nicodeme said and began pulling one leg closer to him with his arms.

“Let me look at that,” Estelle said. Without waiting for the response she began inspecting the tech. “So after we fix you up, would you like to join us, or do you need to get back to your own mission?”

“I think I might be out of my depth here. I think it’s best to stick to you two for at least a short while, to learn how to survive in this place,” Nicodeme said with a smile. “Of course I will work hard to contribute.”

“That settles it,” Estelle said. “Tan, come hold this bit.” After some fiddling we were able to find some wires that needed changing and some loose contacts. “Do we have any extra wires with us?”

“I don’t,” I started saying.

“We can use my power suit. It’s broken beyond repair, but we could be able to use it for parts,” Nicodeme interrupted.

“See, you’re thinking like a scavenger already,” Estelle said. Nicodeme’s face contorted in a grimace for just a split second. Estelle didn’t seem to notice or just didn’t react. I made sure my gun was in its place. After confirming that it was beyond saving, we took the power armour apart taking anything useful out of it including some ammunition for our coil gun, spare batteries and an explosive device. We had made heavy use of the plasma cutter completely depleting one of our batteries, so it was a genuine comfort that we got additional spares. They seemed to be of high quality.

The repair was a success. Nicodeme powered on the exoskeleton and slowly rose from the ground. “Amazing, I can’t believe it really works.” The exoskeleton was another wonder of CERN technology. I wondered how different the world would be if such scientific advancements had been shared with everyone. Without scavenging we would still not be able to create a wonder such as that, but they did it decades ago. Still, judging by their eventual fate, perhaps it was for the best that they isolated themselves from the rest of the world. As Nicodeme began testing his legs, I kept my hand close to my gun. Estelle, the things I suffer through for you. I had to keep her safe from her own decisions. It was the first time since we arrived in the Zone that I felt I needed to keep things from her for her own safety. After I deal with this guy, things will go back to normal.