Road West

This is my story for Crime & Punishment 2023 Story Event! A thank you to sofia bbwlover for organising the event!

There is no sex in this story. This story is long and wordy. This story contains Australian phrases, colloquialism and swearing. The writer takes responsibility for all grammatical, spelling errors etc.

Story Preamble.

This story follows the fortunes of members of Territorial Confederation Patrol,TCP cops as told through the eyes of one of their own, John Worth. It follows a few years on after Mad Max 1, deals specifically with those left behind at Fort Menzies, when Max Rockatansky, Mad Max, hopped in his pursuit special and left to do what he would. No need to watch the film to understand the story.

History:

Post-apocalyptic Australia. Time period, early nineteen eighties. Apocalyptic because the war that came about and the events that occurred were a three-pronged attack on human civilization.

First came the loss and supply of resources driven by need and greed. In that order, exacerbated by changing, severe destructive environmental, climate and weather events.

The last ingredient was the breakdown in law, justice and ultimately democracy, freedom and human rights. The willingness to share with neighbours disappeared.

Not completely though. Some were prepared to fight against evil.

Out of the death and destruction they found their mission. Outfits like Territorial Confederation Patrol. A much bigger police unit than the old MFP that Max Rockatansky worked for but still made up of dedicated officers from different walks of life thrown together still with the same goals: Peace. Uphold the law. Restore and maintain freedom and democracy. Protection of the weak. Ensure Justice is served.

The biggest threat to TCP and what they are trying to achieve were a mobile Gang calling themselves BeserkToo, aka: beserk, bezerk, bejerk or similar. Made up of a combined group of road bandit and biker tribes they are murderous, dangerous and lethal.

A lack of organisation was their biggest problem and that came from the different tribal members not accepting control or discpline. TCP always saw that as an advantage.

Characters.

1. John Worth: TCP Cop. Main Character. Very close friend to Art and Jigger.

2. Stephanie Crick: Tech Wiz and Johns' ex-squeeze

3. Arthur 'Art' Burke: TCP Cop, Johns' partner

4. Wayne 'Jigger' Kelly: TCP Mechanic.

5. Constantine Vasilakis: Owns and runs the City Vehicle Impound amongst other things.

6. Alan Gale: TCP Commander, Outpost Division. Commands Outpost 'J'.

7. Alison Jordan. TCP mechanic and Jigger's new 'squeeze'.

Judge Kevin Golding. Commandant. Command Head of the TCP

People mentioned in the story 'lost' during the apocalypse:

1. Diana Kelly: Jiggers' Sister and John's first love.

2. Elizabeth 'Beth' Worth: Johns' Mother

3. Jack Crick: Stephanies' Father.

Note: All other characters in this story are wallpaper - there for the background. Don't get lost in the background.

--- --- --- ---

On with the story.

"How did these two idiots manage to wander into BeserkToo territory is beyond me, knobs the pair of them and they've done a bang up job of fucking their Interdicter."

I gave a grunt in agreement with Art. Now we get to tow the remains back to Fort Menzies. Not about to hang around though, we're chancing our luck every second since we came to their territory two miles ago.

Art had cleared his seat long before I'd stopped. The truck brakes helped to not put too much strain on the transmission when I slammed it from second into reverse. The truck wheel spun as I lined up on the dead Interdictor. Within twenty seconds of leaving the cab Art had the wrecker hooked to the car and was making it back to the cab.

I opened the driver's door and stood on the step looking and listening for the sound of BeserkToo Bikes, 'crudies'. Something else caught my eye, about forty yards out two pairs of feet wearing standard issue Territorial Confederation Patrol cycle cop boots, both of the clowns from the dead Interdictor were cycle cops gone for the safety of the patrol cars.

"Art, get ya arse over here and drive this."

While he shuffled across I reached down and dragged the TCP issue carbine from behind my seat, clicked the safety off and slung it over my shoulder, reached down to my holster, pulled out my forty-five sidearm and handed it to Art. "What the fuck are you doing John? You're gonna get us both killed!"

"Your two knobs are over there Art, you know the drill mate, just stay here, keep your eyes peeled and lean on the horn if you see or hear anything."

He didn't argue with me, given the circumstances of where the fuck we were was probably a good thing seeing as he'd probably be damn right. I shouldn't be doing this shit right now, I probably am gonna get us both killed.

"Ahhh Shit!" First body was missing most of one side of his face except for his jaw bone which hadn't completely seperated, also one leg seemed to rotate freely.

I loaded the remains on the back of the wrecker and scurried back for body two. Halfway there Art heard something. He leaned on the horn, I turned and gave him the thumbs up as I got to the remains, lifted it and turned to run. I realised the legs were still lying on the ground. "FUCK!!"

Bending, I grabbed a boot and dragged the carcass to the wrecker. How I hadn't heard the first bike I don't know, when I caught sight of him he was no more than three hundred yards away. At the speed he was carrying he'd be on me in ten, fifteen seconds if I was lucky.

I dropped the legs and rotated the carbine around on its sling till the barrel pointed in the right general direction, about the same time I felt Art relieve me of the torso, head and arms.

'Knee drop, pull the rifle in. One deep breath, pick the point. Slowly out. Fire.'

I saw the bullet do its thing as the body reacted to its sudden death but it hadn't stopped the bike.

I dived to my left as the bike grazed past my head with its dead rider, the throttle wound wide open. I thought the wrecker was gonna wear it but at the last moment the bike veered to the left and drove itself partially entering the dead Interdictor where the rear passenger door would have been.

'Partially entering' meant there was some obstruction, the lower part of the bike - front wheel, forks etc. of course it didn't include the dead rider's head which managed to explode with contact with the car roof leaving its mark on everything.

"Get us outta here Art, I'm staying on the back. Don't stop for anything."

It had gone through my mind to dump the Interdictor or what was left of it, it was now less than what it had been a minute ago thanks to the headless arsehole.

That would send the wrong type of message to those bejerky morons. In two miles and we had cover after that I was hoping. We weren't gonna outrun them was the only thing.

Two pairs, one set, rider and shooter coming in from the left flank but far enough away they couldn't make an intercept, closer than the pair behind us though.

We cleared the 'Y' intersection before the first two dropped in behind us, they hadn't really seen me until the shooter disappeared off the back of his bike from my shot.

'Easy kill - nice don't get many of those.'

Second set though realised they were next and the rider spent his time weaving back and forth using the dead Interdictor as cover. He knew the hook and cable, boom and steady mechanism were in my line of sight so to take a shot I had to do it around all that shit.

I'd take my time, the others were gaining on us but still two dozen or so car lengths behind, those shooter arseholes had scatter guns which meant they were blade guys, they had scatter guns because they couldn't hit the side of a house if it were five paces in front of them.

Guns aren't their weapons of choice, double edged machete's are, and for big guys they're acrobatic, agile SOBs so I'd give them priority.

A body shot wasn't on but maybe I'd get lucky. So one warmer just to see, nup nothing. Knew I'd hit something but must have ricocheted off the frame, which is a bit of a shame I was thinking right up to when the cycle erupted in a dirty black cloud of burnt engine oil, the bike and set disappeared into the distance.

Two sets to go. And then they gave up, that was strange. We still had the better part of half a mile to go to properly clear their territory and then three miles to Fort Menzies. Never seen that before.

Nor had Art, his facial expression questioning what was going on, I yelled loud enough he'd hear, "I don't bloody know mate. Weird."

I sat down hard leant against the back of the cab looking at the various body parts spread over the floor of the wrecker, trying to work out how these two idiots managed to get themselves dead so easily.

They didn't even work this sector, they were City, which must have been a good ten miles away from their patrol district. That and the disengage a minute ago didn't make sense really, at all.

--- --- --- ---

I got a couple of gurneys from our medicos and with their help we got the bodies in some kind of order with as much respect as we could, knew I wasn't looking forward to cleaning down the wrecker.

When I returned to the yard Art and Jigger had already done it. They were both staring in the engine bay of the weirdly painted two tone grey Interdictor. Art turned and spoke as I crossed the yard, "This isn't any Interdictor engine John."

"Nah mate it sure as shit isn't John." Jigger joined in.

"Christ! what's that doing in there, and why would they give it to two rookie ex-cycle cops?" I looked at the other two and realised they were looking to see what I was going to say. But I struggled with a valid reason.

The engine bay was filled full of eliminator engine, where what should have resided there was the smaller engine. The eliminator engine was like the City built pursuit engines but theirs was supercharged like the one they built and then promptly lost when one of their Officers buggered off with it and the pursuit special it was bolted into.

Irrelevant because this engine still had a good deal more horsepower over the smaller version. I spied a serious sized 24V alternator where the air con on a sissy car would normally be as well as the standard 12V alternator. A myriad of heavy duty earth straps attached from engine to the car frame as well.

Art had his nose stuck in the passengers side glove box area. "John what the fuck is this?" he moved out of the way to let me see what it was he was looking at. Stuck in the glove-box were 2 boxes, stacked and about two by six by four inches, two lights on each red and green and green was 'on' on both boxes, "It must run off its own power supply."

Jigger was looking in the rear passenger door, mainly because the open side was starting to stink up from human body fluids scattered liberally around. "Whaddaya think those mount brackets are for Johnny? And this roundy-roundy thing on the door. Huh radar. Rocket launcher?"

I moved to look at what Jigger had found, there were four mounts, two pairs mounted left and right of the driveshaft tunnel which normally wouldn't attract attention 'cept they were constructed out of half inch plate meaning they held some serious weight.

Leaning in through the door I realised it wasn't a door it was a quarter inch plate made in the shape of the door with a shit load of reinforcement in the way of the box and L section. It was designed to brace the door opening.

The 'roundy' part was a twenty inch disc, half inch thick set flush with the surface of the door plate. There were threaded holes in the disc which would allow fitment of whatever. From inside there was a support structure that mounted the whole drive assembly and planetary ring for the disc and mount for an electric drive motor.

There were separate wiring harnesses and multi-pin plugs disappearing into the structure of the vehicle all over the show. It wasn't obvious until I took a closer look but the car had a strengthened cage fitted, somebody had gone to a lot of trouble.

On the outside there were holes in the rear roof section with mount holes, another in the boot lid. The one question I had was gonna mean I'd have to take a look in the rear of the other side of the car. I checked the door mount points and found what I was looking for.

The door wasn't fitted when the two officers were killed. No marks on the paint and no damage or remnants of door hinges even despite the fact the whole area had suffered damage from the cycle impact, "So where's the rear door?"

Art replied, "Yeah I was wondering that too, and there's no way this was ready for any kinda action let alone patrol where they were."

"I know Art. If you want to know I'd say this was being delivered for fit-out somewhere else."

"And what! The fuck-ups just wander into the wrong sandpit John? Given what we just found in this Interdictor that's one hell of a stuff-up, I'd say whoever it belongs to is gonna be well pissed."

"Well that's the other thing, nobody here or at City is showing any interest in it, not a single whisper. Jig, do you know where we got the call from?"

"Our radio op, I don't know who from there, she said an anonymous tip-off ." Jigger moved to the boot and opened it, "Um I think I may have found what fits on that disc thing guys."

We moved to the rear to look at Jigger's find,"Strewth! How could they know John? We've never talked to anybody about our designs and nobody we use talks to TCP 'cepting us three. "

"No, it's none of that Art, this is someone else playing our tune." That got indignant looks from them both.

When Jig found the Rotary mount disc it passed through my mind that it could be used with a weapon we were developing, I'd not taken it seriously until now.

There were a few things in the boot, one of them was a rotating multi barreled rapid fire weapon, mini Gatling gun. The size explained all the internal bracing and cage in the car.

We'd designed a Gatling but struck problems, keeping the rotating assembly and barrels cool, feeding the weapon ammo and these weapons use a serious amount of rounds. Now things like the mounts in the car make sense. The gun itself was a mock-up.

The other things were mock-ups as well, the diameter of the holes in the boot lid and rear roof. Made of fibreglass and what appeared like a rubberised surface compound, used to protect nav and comm antenna fitted beneath them.

"Alright, change of plans, leave the car alone. Shut it up like it was but grab the Polaroid camera and take pictures of as much as you can, make sure it's done without snoops around and hide everything. Can you water blast the 'things' remains out of it? It'll stink by tomorrow. I'm going down to City to have a chat with Barry."

Art looked at me, "You think he made this?"

"Nah too subtle, knows something about it I'm thinking, for sure it wasn't built at any of the outpost's."

"Ah here's ya forty-five. You want me to come Mate?"

"Nah, if I'm right somebody's gonna want their toy's back, so I need you two to be here when that happens, don't stop them though, I'd say these boys play for keeps, I'll be a coupla hours."

--- --- --- ---

My first stop was City Vehicle Impound. Run by Constantine Vasilakis, I got on with him, showed the man some respect and we did for each other where we could. The yard was ten acres of what was the most secure area in the City, and the staff had the reputation of being the nastiest ever to grace the face of the earth.

The front and rear gates were forty ton battle tanks and you went nowhere without a heavily armed 'Thing' accompanying you. The rule was to act cool and do what you're told the first time. Funnily enough they didn't care if you carried, but I'd got use to leaving my side-arm at check in.

I don't know where Constantine recruited but these guys were all big, 6'-8'' or taller. Even the gangs gave Constantine and his guys a miss and rumour had it if they did 'field exercises' they picked on one of the gangs to practise on.

Constantine is an imposing figure himself, his 6'-6" stature dwarfed my 6'-2" 180lbs. "Good afternoon John, I trust all is well with you and your little band over in that rat hole you lot call a fort."

It wasn't a question, he wasn't interested in your well being and that was about as good as you'd get out of the man as far as general chat, "Can't complain Mr Vasilakis. I'm sure we'll survive."

"Great, so what can I do for you today?"

"Information, nothing groundbreaking. We picked up a dead Interdictor with some serious modifications, structural and it was outfitted with a eliminator engine. I'd want to say it was TCP but it hasn't got their signature on it. It's just to different smart, subtle."

"Hmmm, so you don't think it's Barry's work then?"

"No, like I said it's subtle and Barry doesn't do subtle, and it's designed to be out-fitted with new tech."

That seemed to ring a bell with him, he contemplated before answering, "You could be right, we've sold four Interdictor shells and enough gear to install eliminator engines in all of them to an unknown client all through the office of our esteemed Mayor. I wouldn't be surprised if Barry's involved somehow though.

As far as anything else the two gentlemen who came to pick the vehicles up were short on details, not my concern other than Nicky one of my guys ID'd one of them as a electronics tech from the service, said he was a genius but had the attitude of an arsehole.

Nicky was pretty sure he worked for commonwealth research after he left and we all know they were all a pack of arseholes from way back, eh John, Anyway."

'Anyway' means the conversations are over and he had no more to offer, or wanted to share. "Well Barry's my next stop. Thanks Mr V. I'll let you know."

TCP City HQ is different. They trust nobody especially peons from the forts or outpost's, everybody's fucking paranoid here - it drips off the walls. I sneak around if I can, get what I need and bugger off which is a good reason to leave Art behind, he lives off of other's paranoia, he'd have them all shooting each other in the head if you let him.

Barry -'Call me Bazza, or Baz'- Nelson was ensconced in his basement cave dreaming up some new shit to put on his beloved eliminator specials.

He hadn't worked on the vehicles but had heard rumours of a new section being formed where? no one knew, he did know that it didn't come with TCP backing.

Judge Kevin Golding, the TCP big boss and his cronies including my Station Commander were pretty pissed off about it all, except for one outpost out to the west of the city.

One of the most isolated outpost's they wanted solutions to quell and control the gang attacks they'd suffered on a daily basis, the outpost boss figured if he could call up some kind of strike group to back them up when he needed them. Fine. He couldn't see what Judge Golding's group had to moan about.

Okay that all made sense, and adding that to what Constantine had told me gave a bit better picture.

"So hazard a guess who you think is running the show Baz?"

"It's got the smell of that arsehole security officer the mayors got as a right hand man. Leonard. Know him John?"

"Nope, don't move in his circle Mate."

"Right fucking arrogant shit-covered dick sucker."

"Okay mate, given where we found the Interdictor and its crew, and given what we think it was going to get done where would you say it was heading?"

Barry gets these weird crazy face smiles, "Come on John mate, you can't be that blind surely?"

Well. clearly I am, I didn't have a clue what he was on about. "Bazza, spit it the fuck out."