“It’s the job, ma’am.” The kid had a southern accent that she couldn’t quite place. Texas? Georgia?
McKinney approached the ten-ton truck, running her hand along its gleaming fender. His eyes darted toward her furtively.
It was actually an impressive truck. Brand-new and with a broad chrome grille and a crew cab that could probably accommodate four or more people. It was branded with the shield logo of Ancile Services and looked ruggedized for overland seismic work, with the door handle at about eye height. However, most of the cargo area was taken up with what looked like a multiton electrical generator with twin oversized exhaust pipes. The side panels of the generator were open, exposing circuit boards, switch boxes, and bundles of wires that the tech was examining.
She nodded toward the bundles of wires. “How’d you learn to do all this?”
He glanced up. “The training, ma’am.” He grunted as he reached deep into the equipment panel.
“What are you guys doing out here, anyway?”
He paused. “Can’t discuss that, ma’am.”
She nodded slowly. “All right…” She ran her finger along the truck again and started wandering back along the garage, examining the vehicles on the far side.
McKinney wandered past a large four-wheel-drive U.S. Forest Service fire control truck. It had an extended four-person passenger cab and equipment panels along the length of its enclosed cargo bay-all teal green. Whatever modifications were being done to it were either finished or not yet started. Her eye strayed past it to the workbench just beyond-where a key fob hung on a peg from a metal carabiner.
She glanced back toward Foxy and Smokey, who were still engrossed over lists on the clipboard, then over at the kid working on the nearby truck. He was focused on wiring. McKinney purposefully walked over to the workbench and slipped the key chain from its peg. It bore a plastic tag marked International 7400 DT530 in bold black letters. She turned to see the International logo on the nearby truck’s large chrome grille.
She took a deep breath. Was she really considering this? Was it lack of sleep?
But then again, if these people were who they said they were, this would only be an inconvenience. If they weren’t, then she might be saving lives-her own among them.
McKinney climbed the steel step near the cab and opened the driver’s door. With one last furtive look around she got in and flexed her fingers over the steering wheel. After gathering her courage, she reached out and pulled the cab door closed. Another swift motion, and she stabbed the power door-lock button.
She put the key fob into the ignition and cranked the engine until it came to life with a rattling diesel roar. A glance in the tall rearview mirrors showed the young tech dropping his wiring diagram and running toward her truck.
McKinney released the parking brake, then depressed the clutch and smoothly threw the shifter into first. She revved the engine and popped the clutch, launching the massive truck forward. The young tech was almost up to the cab, but stepped back and appeared to be shouting for help now.
It all seemed surreal in the haze of her exhaustion, but she really seemed to be doing this. She was mounting an escape.
McKinney was already slamming the truck into second gear. Even under the circumstances, she had to admire the quality of the equipment. It was nothing like the ancient five-ton Mercedes trucks she’d driven on rough mountain roads in remote stretches of Africa or the jungles of the Amazon. This thing was brand-new.
She glanced out the passenger rearview mirror and could see Foxy and Smokey running forward, submachine guns ready in their hands. The words tumbled out of her mouth unbidden. “Please don’t shoot.” She had to be too valuable to them for that. She had to be.
McKinney brought the truck surging toward the workbench and the corrugated steel perimeter wall that enclosed this building-in-a-cave. She remembered that the empty buffer zone was patrolled by Expert Five’s automated fish. Then it was a straight shot to the second perimeter wall-and to freedom.
She plowed the truck through the sheet metal wall with a thunderous crash that echoed in the cavernous space, with pieces of metal hardware clanging away. In the confines of the mine the noise was deafening.
But the massive Fire Service truck plowed through the wall like paper. The green paint of the hood was scarred and scratched, but otherwise she was already hurtling off into the darkness of the buffer zone.
The engine roared as she put the truck into third gear and kicked on the headlights-then the overhead lights and sirens. They wailed away like a banshee in the confines of the mine, the lights exposing the exterior perimeter wall ahead as she weaved past a huge stone pillar.
Dozens of flying sharks swam slowly toward her, but she plowed right through them before they could get out of the way. Some went under the tires and others got stuck in her grille and rearview mirror brackets. The truck was still accelerating. Thirty-five miles an hour now.
A glance at her side-view mirror festooned with shark balloons and she could see that she’d sheared away a long section of the prefab wall behind her. Men were rushing around the garage area. She turned forward again. “C’mon! Move!”
She smashed the truck through the second perimeter wall at forty-five miles an hour, wincing as the second thunderous clatter of steel panels and brackets blasted aside. McKinney then spun the wheel to the right, to bring the truck back in the direction she remembered as the entrance. The high center of gravity of the off-road truck made it lean into the turn, the tires screeching on the slick stone floor. She eased off and slalomed a bit to regain control.
McKinney slammed the shifter into fourth and started picking up speed. The twenty-foot-wide pillars of stone raced past on either side. The truck roared through the darkness, while McKinney searched for signs of civilization.
But headlights soon appeared in her rearview mirror.
“Shit.” That hadn’t taken long. Something smaller. Faster.
Looking forward again, she saw lights ahead-the inhabited areas of SubTropolis. And that meant marked roads. She pressed the pedal down and kept accelerating.
The headlights behind her had almost caught up by the time she merged onto a marked road with a friendly Exit sign. She eased up on the gas, realizing only now that the air brakes hadn’t had time to charge completely. The truck fishtailed and shuddered as she tried to slow it down heading into a curving turn, scraping against one of the massive pillars in a shower of sparks.
“Get it together, Linda…” But now she had the truck racing down an established roadway; someone up ahead was pulling over to let her fire truck past. She leaned on the horn as well, roaring past.
McKinney glanced at her speedometer and realized she was going sixty in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone. But a glance at her rearview mirror again made her stomp the accelerator down. It looked like one of the Bureau of Land Management Forest Ranger pickups was a hundred feet off her tail. It also had its sirens and rack lights on, the headlights alternating on and off.
McKinney roared toward a subterranean intersection with a stop sign. She started to ride the brakes and downshift. A glance in the rearview again. She shook her head. It wasn’t right to kill someone to save herself. She downshifted further and continued to slow, hoping her sirens would warn people as she approached.
McKinney slow-stopped her way through the intersection, and was already accelerating on the far side when she saw the BLM Ranger pickup pull alongside her. Smokey leaned out the window, shouting at her. She could see an automatic pistol in his inside hand, still concealed within the vehicle. McKinney cranked the wheel to the left, veering into them.
The forest ranger vehicle slammed on its brakes and just narrowly avoided being smashed against the stone tunnel wall.
McKinney turned forward as she emerged from the tunnel mouth into a cold Kansas night. She let out a howl of joy and tried to orient herself.
She recognized some of the area from when they came in. There was a truck stop across the wide road on the far side of railroad tracks. A strip of brown grass patched with dirty snow divided the poorly maintained concrete highway.
There were trucks and cars out here now, but she still drove aggressively, fire truck sirens blaring. She crossed the highway, dodging in front of an approaching semitruck and roaring across the railroad crossing.
A glance in her rearview mirror showed the Ranger following close behind. To any normal person this would look like two emergency vehicles racing to a call. She had no idea where to go-only that she had to find a large
