“Let’s get back to base,” he said to the others. “If the night stalkers aren’t here yet, they soon will be. We’ve stood around for too long already. Let’s go!”
They all returned to their cars. Doors slammed, and as he crossed back to the driver’s side, she thought of making a run for it. But that would leave her alone out there, back where she started, on foot, making slow progress. And the more west she’d headed, the more these thugs had started showing up, not to mention the night stalkers.
She stayed put as he got into the driver’s seat. He started the car, then settled his eyes upon her. “Now you can tell me all about yourself,” he said, pulling away with the others.
She watched him drive, fighting a sudden territorial urge. She’d been the one to find the car. She’d been the one to get it working again and winch it up into the daylight. She didn’t want some violent stranger driving her car. That’s how it felt to her now. It was her car. Who was this guy anyway?
“Who are you people?” she asked.
“I get to ask the questions.”
She stared forward. “Can’t we just converse?” She tried to make her voice sound even, reasonable, when what she really wanted to do was slam his head against the glass, kick him out of the car, and get as far away from him and his posse as possible.
She looked back at him, considering it. He had a tough look about him, like he’d had a hard life. He was in his late twenties, she guessed, and his lean, muscular frame looked like it had been in a scrape or two over the years.
“What’s your name?” he asked again.
She grew silent.
“Did you come from a city center?”
She crossed her arms, fixing her gaze straight ahead as he drove.
“You know,” he said, looking at her, “you’ll probably find answering my questions a lot more palatable than if I left you to the others. Some of them don’t have my charm and patience.”
She said nothing. At least he was going west. After a few minutes of silence, she asked, “How far are we going?”
“About twenty miles.” The dashboard lit up his face.
“So you just drive around, looking for people to steal cars from?”
He readjusted his seat belt. “Something like that. We were just going to steal your supplies, but when we saw that you had a solar-powered car, that changed.”
“But why take it? You have plenty of other vehicles.” She surveyed the throng of cars before her.
“Hear that?” he asked her. “Their engines?”
She didn’t answer.
“They’re internal combustion engines.”
She raised a brow. She decided the less ignorance she showed of the outside world, the better. She didn’t want him to know he was right, that she was from a city center.
When she didn’t say anything, he went on. “It’s old tech, but it works. Also loud as hell, and our enemies can hear us coming.” He ran his hand affectionately over the steering wheel of her car. “But this? Solar power? Quiet. And from the size of that panel, I’d say this is pretty old tech too. But it works like a beaut.”
She had no idea what a beaut was, but she knew there was no way she was going to let this guy keep her car. She wanted to ask him how he lived out here, how they all got by, what they ate, how they survived the storms, but she kept silent.
“Even got one that runs on steam,” he said. “You should see it. And then there’s the Big Worm. Glorious.”
She finally lent him her eyes. “What’s that?”
“A steam train. Fixed the track from here to Delta City, and that thing runs like a blade on ice. But we have to find stuff to burn, which can be hard. But when it goes, it goes.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but tried not to let on. “So what’s the point in taking me? Why not leave me to the night stalkers?”
“Fun devils, aren’t they?” he said, grinning slyly.
“Yeah. Real fun.”
Something sad overtook his face, an old hurt. She watched his expression change. A second later, he came back to the present. “I took you because you intrigue me.”
She decided to go for it. “Look—I really do need to be somewhere. It’s incredibly important.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“You don’t understand.” She turned in her seat to face him. “Something bad is coming. Something that could kill us all.”
“And you alone can stop it?” he asked, with a half smirk.
“I’m going to try.”
He let out a laugh, and she rankled at the sound. “Well, hell,” he said, and she realized the laugh wasn’t entirely derisive. “Maybe we can fix you up with a methane-powered car later.” She didn’t know what methane was, but she believed that about as much as she believed he’d stop right now and let her have her own car back.
“I need this car,” she insisted. “I have a very long way to go, and won’t be able to get any . . . methane . . . on my way. I need the sun. It’s the perfect power source, right over our heads.”
“When you can actually see it.” He regarded her, then looked back at the road. “Listen. You’re determined, I’ll give you that. But you don’t seem to grasp a vital component of the situation here.”
“What’s that?” she asked, her wrath stealing up inside her again.
“You’re our prisoner.”
“What possible use could I be to you?”
He suddenly looked serious. “Information.” He pulled Willoughby’s PRD out of her tool bag again. “I’m no idiot. I know you’re not from around here. Where did you get tech like this?”
She just stared back.
“Did you kill whoever this belonged to?”
“Of course not!”
“See? If you were a Badlander, you’d brag about it. You’ve got an innocence about you, a kind of naïveté. That stands out. You did come from a city center.”
