Ameriborne

//Unmarked Genesis Dump - Somewhere in the Deep South//

Three cabins bolted and patched into one, leaning like old drunks in a windless dusk. Rusted UEC vehicle parts hang like wind chimes from splintered eaves. The porch sags under the weight of a man the color of smoked leather, his muscle-packed arms too long for his body. He drinks thick, chalky pink fluid straight from a bottle labeled PEPTO-BISMOL (EXPIRED - 2028). He wears perhaps an over exaggerated thoughtful look on his face as stares out across their property.

Out front, his brother—shirtless and barrel-bodied—swings what could generously be called a stick but more resembles a toddler tree trunk. He slaps weeds and thistles in metronomic rhythm. It is perhaps a simple job, or one people might even say doesn't need doing. Still he performs it with a child-like glee that shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

WHOMP. WHOMP. WHOMP.

A unit of five UEC survivors, bloodied from some recent scrape suddenly break the tree line. Fanning out and leveling their rifles, their field commander tries reason with the locals as they slowly walk up on them.

He calls out nervously, "Identify yourselves. This is United Earth Concordat territory. We aren’t here to cause you harm, we just need this field for an evac zone.."

WHOMP, WHOMP, WHOMP

The man on the porch lifts a single finger in their direction without taking his eyes off the horizon. His brows crumple in immense thought. Then he speaks, words slow and syrupy like molasses chugging through a vacuum tube.

"Mmm... now see, that there's a curious incantation y’all just muttered. 'Not here to cause harm'—as if harm was a where, like a bus stop or a feed bucket. Harm ain’t got no ZIP code, sir." He wipes pink sludge from his lip with a finger that looks more like a cured ham hock.

WHOMP, WHOMP, WHOMP

"Just an old-fashioned Ameriborne citizen, survivin’ the way nature intended. My name's Veloca Raptor. You know—like the lizard birds they got on the old picture movies. You seen 'em? Quick as sin and twice as mean. Got me one right here—" He pulls out a faded plastic toy dinosaur. It’s missing an arm and has teeth colored in with what might be blood or permanent marker.

"RAWWRR!" The grown man exclaims to the UEC soldiers. They stare back in mute shock as the man who just identified himself as 'Veloca Raptor' begins to play with his toy dinosaur for a moment in the midst of their conversation.

His eyes lock with the UEC soldier that spoke before. The dinosaur remains mid-roar. The WHOMP behind them has stopped.

"An' that there's my kin. His name’s Buttermilk. You know why they call 'im Buttermilk?"

A silence seems to hang in the air..

The soldiers hesitate. “Uh.. because he likes.. buttermilk?”

"No. It’s cause he likes to beat people to death with a stick."

CRACK!!

The sapling explodes into splinters against the back of one soldier’s head. Armor crumples. Screaming starts.

Buttermilk doesn’t scream—he bellows, like a foghorn made out of meat and rage. He’s laughing too. Big stomping charge, stick raised. They shoot. It doesn’t slow him. It might even excite him more.

Two minutes later, the porch creaks again.
Buttermilk is dragging an improvised stretcher behind him, filled with rations and several fresh cuts of bleeding red meat.

Veloca Raptor is wearing a half-melted UEC pauldron like a crown.
"I done told you, brother... the pink sauce gives me ideas."

Buttermilk grunts and holds up a blood-slick commendation pin between two sausage fingers, beaming like a schoolboy.

Veloca Raptor nods, solemn as a bishop.
"Put it with the others."

He jerks his thumb toward the door. Inside, nailed crooked on the wall above a cracked recliner, are dozens of UEC medals, patches, and pins meticulously arranged. Beneath them is a hand-scrawled banner that reads: "TRASSPASSERS."