So, Amelia met a boy today. His name is Joey, and he was surviving in a shelter nestled into the south-western corner of the city. He’s a little bit older than her, and stronger, but he’s not the highest-energy wavelength of light in the spectrum. Amy gave him one of her spare radios so that they can keep in touch. There’s a lot of fungus creatures wandering around in that part of the city, though… so he might end up being another short-lived friend.
After that encounter, all attention was turned towards scouring the city for any more books and supplies she could get her hands on. The first stop was a nearby library, which didn’t yield much in the way of new reading material save for a couple new romance novels and book of essays. The library was right next door to a public pool, which meant there were quite a lot of swimmer-zombies in the area… but Amy’s silenced, laser-sighted, double-capacity (and extra-magazine) Desert Eagle made short work of the threat. Her aim has improved quite a lot over the last four or five days, though whether that’s because of all the fancy gizmos on her gun or some measurable increase in skill… she doesn’t know for sure.
The building just beyond the pool turned out to be just the kind of fancy electronics store that she’s been looking for. More importantly, with her acetylene torch, she managed to break in through the back and get into the showroom where… AHA! CBMs in each of the front cases! One quick smash 'n grab later, and Amelia had exactly the bionic implants she’d been looking for! Among those she found was an Ethanol Burner, a solar panel mod, a joint torsion mod, a battery power unit, a second power-storage mod, and even a mini-flamethrower. Up until now, the only bionics she’s had were a couple of passive implants for telling time and preventing glare and blindness. She had one power-storage mod, but her chain lightning has been completely useless on account of her having no ability to recharge. Now she’s got multiple methods!
With an army of zombies banging on the front glass, Amelia slipped back out the way she’d come in and darted down the street to the library where she’d left her truck. Safely inside, she installed the ethanol burner first. Excited to test it out, she fired up the engine and headed back across town towards the closest liquor store to home. There, she proceeded to drink an entire bottle of whiskey and another bottle of Wild Apple before staggering her way back into the bathroom and blacking out whilst puking her guts up.
Morning rolled around, and sure enough… her power cells were charged up. Her head also felt like a zombie brute had tried to twist it off, her eyes were too blurry and bloodshot to see, and her favorite outfit was completely ruined by an altogether unmentionable combination of contaminants. All-in-all, she felt like death. Everything ached and trembled as she limped her way back out to the truck. Amy drove the rest of the way back to the shelter at 9 Mph. Upon reaching it, she spent another half an hour retching in the woods before she dared to go inside.
When she did finally head in, Amelia immediately stripped down out of her filthy clothes, bundled herself up in a pair of electric long-underwear, burned the soiled outfit in the wood-stove, and collapsed onto her rollmat with the kind of agonized groan a dying elk makes after being shot by a hunter. Exhausted from her ordeal, she proceeded to spend the next three days doing nothing but reading, sleeping, and occasionally crawling out of her mass of blankets and pillows to nibble on a package of graham crackers.
If this is the price to pay for power overwhelming… she’s not quite as gung-ho as she was about it before. Alcohol was a big mysterious thing that adults could have before… she’d only ever seen the tipsy, giggly, fun-looking side when her family got together for big sporting events and reunions. Power overwhelming might have to come in the form of solar panels and whatever the hell a ‘joint-torsion ratchet’ is.
