Shadows of JiangXi

[arvg]

He trudged up the rain sodden road, the asphalt cracked by disuse, grasses pushing up here and there, as he passed blackened and burnt out cars. The main highway into New HangZhou, weaving through the low hills it carved eight lanes straight into the heart of the city.

He could vaguely see it ahead, shattered and disused office towers, inter-speresed with a Taoist or Bhuddist temple, gaping holes where the orbital bombardment had ripped through half of the city, leaving it a massive gaping crater of dust. The Radiation in the dust-bowl was still at dangerously high levels, meaning transit through the city had to stay to the East, through what had once been the shopping districts.

The storm was passing, as dawn began to turn the sky a sickly shade of taupe. The rain still falling, but pleasent now, gentle, as if it tickled the surrounding trees. Soon he would need the gasmask again, but for now the shemagh doing the filtration for him as he kept back into his flektarn hood, his heavy AKM clutched in his hands as his boots walked along the road.

In its hey day, New HangZhou had been a metropolis of raised highways, glittering office towers, and prosperity. One of the key manufacturing areas of the Coalition, it had boasted a population of nearly five million people, and was arguably the largest city ever destroyed in Sirius.

He stepped off of the highway, pulling out a carefully laminated map book, flipping through pages. It had been printed before the destruction of the world, and the street map was now riddled with his permanent marker marks, indicating obstacles and hurdles that lay ahead.

The Nuggets were heading South, meaning they were going to need transportation. The more adventurous of them would try to find land transportation in and around the city, while others would try HangZhou canal, and some of the old Chinese style junks, or military skiffs that lay down there, head down the Canal to the shore a good two days away.

There was, of course, the third option. Working their way through what used to be the traitorous Commander Yue Fei's command bunker, where there were rumored to be some skimmers that might be airworthy... but that lay close to the radiation zone... and after Commissar-Captain Katz had crushed the Fei uprizing before his ascension to Premiership... it was a mess in that sector of the city, the bunkers only accessible through the underground reservoir system... and any one worth his salt, knew that there were monsters down there...

He swung Easterly, heading for the surrounding villages. He needed food, and the chances of finding something non-contaminated in a basement somewhere was all the more likely.

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