Black Market Merchant

Chapter 106: Crossing Over
Lisa left Sadie and Zane an hour after noon had passed. She didn’t want to waste too much time before leaving, but at least she took a quick moment to rinse off in the river. Sadie, true to her word, made sure that Zane was really feeling the pain from those sandbags. As Lisa left, carrying her coffin backpack, she could help but laugh to herself seeing Zane struggling as he walked with heavily labored steps up the metal stairs. His response to the workout reminded her of when she attended the Marines boot camp.

When Sadie asked her as to why she was taking the coffin with her, Lisa just gave a shrug. ”No particular reason. It’s just whenever I travel away from home for a while, I feel comfortable knowing I have everything with me. Besides it’s kind of becoming like my trademark.”

”Are you really going to be gone for that long?” Sadie asked craning her neck to watch Zane climbing up the last flight of stairs. ”Isn’t it just to have a quick meeting with Mrs. Smithy and the ERM leaders?”

”Yes, it is going to be just a meeting. However, they are a militia. I have dealt with several others before and it’s a good idea to know who they are, what they stand for and if they are actually going to do what they claim to accomplish.” Lisa replied with a serious expression. ”Militia tend to end up causing more problems than they intended too or are just using the people for personal gain. If I want to sell them electricity and other stuff, I at least want to know more about them.”

”That makes sense, I guess.” Sadie responded after some thought. ”So, I take it that it might be more than a day until you come back?”

”Probably.” Lisa said taking a step towards the exit. ”Make sure you stay safe, and don’t kill Zane while I am gone.”

”It’s you that should stay safe.” Sadie replied with a chuckle. ”You seem to like getting into trouble.”

”Perhaps. Bye.” Lisa said giving a grin. She then turned sharply on her heels and left the building. Her long black ponytail was trailing behind her as Sadie waved goodbye.

When Lisa left the building, she turned towards the dam instead of going to the southern exit to go towards the docks. Rather than take a boat across and meet the ERM in a normal fashion, she had a better plan. To see them from a natural angle like anyone living in town would. If things were going well or bad under their rule, then the people would naturally show it. Lisa was going to take the long route.

Crossing the dam, over the foaming murky river far below, Lisa looked ahead at the route she intended to take. From the past times she had gone into the woods to set her traps, Lisa noticed that the road going off to the left from the dam seemed to keep going north. So, taking it to try and reach the eastern shore of the town wasn’t going to work. However, turning right, once off the dam, she would quickly come to her second problem, a cliff.

Then looking at the rocky cliff edge ahead, she could tell from the topography of the tree line and beyond that the cliff went on for a long way. Possibly even going past the rest of the town all together. She had yet gone in the direction of the cliffs edge to follow it and see if there was a path that led down into the town. She hoped that there was; not only to make the journey easier, but if she intended to lay electrical wire or power lines to the eastern part of town, a pathway was going to be essential.

Leaving the dam behind her, Lisa entered the green forest and turned right to go down the trail leading to the dam’s tunnel entrance. Fortunately, the rockslide was intact and still completely covered the damaged entrance. Satisfied that all was well, she then left the area and headed towards the cliffs edge further ahead through the new growth of thick shrubbery and tall yellowed grass.

When she found the cliff and peeked over its crumbing edge, her heart sank. It was a jagged straight drop to the bottom. It would be a climber’s playground with so many crevices and handholds to scale the cliff, but not for her. It was approximately twenty-five or thirty meters down to the bottom. Looking towards the river on her right she saw that the cliff turned towards the dam. Judging from how the dam appeared to be built, it was wedged between the cliff and the steep hill on the western shore.

Then she had a revelation; the dam was actually holding an unfathomable amount of water! If the cliff was thirty meters and the dam was clearly even higher built, then the amount of water pressure that could potentially be used to generate electricity would be rather high. Taking a moment to give this some thought, Lisa calculated that the dam could generate enough electricity to not only provide for the town, but maybe even half the state of Utah!

Though the though of this was overly exciting she had to deal with matters at hand. Looking back the other way, she saw that the jagged edge of the red rock cliff snaked away far out of sight. The tree line also appeared to disappear not far from her current position. Without the rivers water the dry, barren lands could not support enough life to even grow a single tree.

Lisa then headed towards the area where the forest ended. Hopefully, she could get a better view of the situation and started walking, following the edge of the cliff carefully she looked precariously over the edge. On more than one instance she could hear an unsettling crumple noise coming from under her as the loose rocks started to slide towards the edge. It wasn’t until the evergreen forest roots fully disappeared that she could see the edge from a safe distance.

The sun glared down at her and a faint breeze breathed hotly into her face. The desert sand and rocks were all that she could see on the lumpy hills that stretched out for as far as she could see. The only sign of life was the black dot of a buzzed circling far overhead in the clear azure sky. A truly open and wild landscape.

Taking another look over the cliffs edge it appeared that her situation was no better here. The cliff hadn’t gotten any lower or easier to get down from. At least from here she had a good view of the eastern parts of the town that were now sprawled out below.

From the river on the right there were a few small docks that appeared to have a lot of debris pilled near them. She could only assume it was the scrap metal for the ERM to trade. However, from this distance it was much too hard to tell for sure. The rest of the town seemed to be in even poorer conditions than the side she was living on.

Buildings were crumpling piles of disrepair, dry rot, and negligence. Once comfortable homes and apartments looked to be now unlivable, even from this far distance it was clear to her. Lisa also noticed that the area was mostly industrial buildings, chemical towers, and distribution centers. They were especially obvious from the lack of greenery from all the concrete parking lots, tall metal spires and vent stacks.

This was a good sign for her. It meant that future investments into this aging infrastructure would likely be very doable. She then thought of the black-market hub that sold the illegal businesses purchases.

”I wonder if those unused building could be sold there the same way?” Lisa murmured to herself. She had started walking along the cliff at this point and was still inspecting the town down below. ”If I could buy or claim these places and resell them, it might make me a nice bit of profit. Then again getting them to produce products and owning all the jobs in town would also be a good long-term investment. However, it all depends on what the militia is up to and if I can control the area. I need to take over the Mad Dogs for manpower or workout some good relations with the ERM. If I can’t rule by the sword, I’ll do so by the pen.”

As she continued thinking of ways to accomplish this, Lisa could tell that the cliff was not ending any time soon. Its high rocky wall was as steep as ever and still maintaining a height of over twenty-five meters.

”Looks like I am going to have to speed things up. Otherwise, I am going to miss meeting up with Mrs. Smithy.” Lisa said out loud to no one.

The parch wilderness around her was as lonely as could be. Void of colors, other than sand and red rock, there was not much to look at. Leafless bushes had captured tumbleweeds and the distant sun baked rocks had a hazy mirage like appearance. Lisa took a deep breath enjoying the fresh air.

”Advance Armament: Stage One.” Lisa said softly to herself.

She could then sense her prosthetics welling up with power as they powered up. The feeling was hard to describe, it was like experiencing an adrenaline rush and speeding in a car at the same time. She could feel and control her power, but it really wasn’t her, just the prosthetics energy. It really was a wonderful feeling though. Like she could do anything at all, without any limitations.

Feeling that the power building up within her was exactly right Lisa started running, fast. Rocks and tuffs of dry grass zoomed by her as she quickly picked up speed. Normal running speeds for a human is around 32kmh and Lisa was surpassing that by far. With the help of her prosthetics, she was reaching a speed closer to 65kmh, double what a human is capable of.

Doubling her normal movements and power was exactly what Advanced Armament: Stage One was supposed to do. Compared to using mechs, conventional robotics, body frames and military battle suites Lisa’s prosthetics were far more versatile and did nothing to hinder the user. They were hooked up directly to her nervous system at the micro level and responded to her brain activity with exact precision. Then because they were robotic extensions of her own body, she could move in ways no normal human should just by thinking it.

Lisa enjoyed the feeling of the wind rushing through her hair, the sun on her skin and the power of moving so fast. Though she was forced to squint slightly from the wind, it didn’t hamper her spirit at all. Jumping occasionally from large boulders, half buried by the desert sands, she was able to cover even greater distances. Not even her massive coffin on her back felt heavy to her the entire time.

After nearly an hour of running at this ridiculous speed, Lisa finally noticed that the cliff height was starting to wane. The area below appeared to be much more washed out from the natural elements and the cliff was starting to turn into a steep slope of shale. It wouldn’t be long before she would finally be able to go down at a safe height and back towards the town.

The cliffs length far surpassed her original guess as well. It had been almost thirty kilometers since she had left the dam. That is when she saw it, the area where the bottom of the cliff met with the top. A long rocky, sandy slope of weathering had molded the two together for nearly a hundred meters before the cliff started to regrow anew in depth beyond the slope.

Lisa breathed heavily as she gave a satisfied smile. ”Almost there. Too bad I must end this run so soon. It’s actually a great path and day for a run! Seeing how long this cliff is, it might be more prudent to build my own path down the cliff wall by the dam. Otherwise travelling this route with others will be too much trouble.”

Taking another glance backwards towards the town she could hardly make out the outlying buildings and roads.

”At least I’ll have a good run back.” Lisa thought and jumped from the cliffs edge down to the slope. ”Let’s go!”

As she reversed her direction, unbeknownst to her, there was someone following and watching her every move. Carefully.