“You’re not leaving until later this afternoon, so you have plenty of time to go over the plan,” Rena says, as she turns her attention back to cleaning the dishes.
Quin walks out of the kitchen in a huff, with me following.
We spend the next five hours going over the plan. There are three steps to retrieving the supplies, and Rena is correct, this is a two-person job. First, we will have to find a way to get onto the city’s territory, subdue whatever security that may be guarding the supplies, and then make it back to the Wasteland without getting caught.
When it’s closer to the time we need to leave, I change into my boots, a black tank top, and a pair of dirty black jeans while Quin gets the truck ready. I climb up into the loft, grab the satchel, which still contains the Beta gun, the night vision goggles, and then I throw in the last of the detonators and Quarum. I reach into the second hay bale for the Levin gun, but come up empty. I pull the bundles apart thinking it fell further in, but it’s gone.
Quin is loading a crate of goods into the cab of his truck as I walk over to him, grab him by the arm, and spin him around.
“Where the hell is it?” I roar at him.
“Where’s what?” He shakes me loose and begins to head back to the house.
“The Levin gun, Quin, what did you do with it?”
“I didn’t do anything with it,” he protests. “I didn’t even know you had one.”
As soon as he is inside I begin to rip apart the truck, but I can’t find the weapon. Rena walks out with a sack full of sandwiches and two thermoses of water. Quin soon joins us, stuffing a Regulator’s glass into his pocket. Rena hugs us each goodbye, tears in her eyes, and heads back into the house. I remember the tablet as we climb into the cab, but Quin says to leave it because if we get caught by any Collectors or Regulators from the cities, we will certainly be executed simply for having it.
The building we are targeting tonight is the one farthest away, so the drive will take at least six hours. During our preparation, Quin said he hadn’t been to the area for over a year. He’s not a fan of this particular storage hangar, but the other ones have been raided too many times this year, so the odds of extra security on the others are extremely high. This facility is located on the outskirts of Tyre; one of the Boroughs lies a few miles on the other side of a large rock formation that lines its borders. The hangar is at the base of the formation, where security is not as tight.
The delivery is due at the storage hangar around midnight, so we will have about two hours to get set up. We travel in silence, munching on sandwiches and drinking our water sparingly. I ask Quin if he wants me to drive, but he waves me off so I decide to curl up in my seat and take a nap so I can be well rested for our incursion.
Some time later, Quin shakes me, indicating we have arrived at our destination. I open my eyes, which need to adjust to the darkness that now surrounds us, and scan the area, but can’t locate any structures, even with the headlights of the truck on.
“Where is it?” I ask, as he shuts off the engine.
“We have to walk about a mile that way.” Quin points directly in front of us.
We exit the truck, Quin grabbing the crate in the back. I take the sack of sandwiches and thermoses. In the crate are several flashlights, a role of adhesive tape, rope, and various pieces of scrap metal. Quin hands me a flashlight, takes the rope, loops it between the handles on the crate, and slings it on his back. We turn our torches on and head into the dark desert.
I can hear the hum of the electrical fence before I see it.
We stop and crouch right next to it. I dig in my satchel and pull out the night vision goggles. Quin doesn’t seem surprised that I have them, which indicates that he has gone through my belongings, and reinforces my belief he knows where the Levin gun is, but I don’t have time to confront him at the moment. I turn the goggles to full power to see past the fence and the rail supports for the shuttle.
The building is about fifty yards from a lone road that separates the building from the fence. The structure has two large warehouses at each end with a small delivery bay in the center. The hanger appears to be fully automated as I don’t see any guards. There are cameras at each corner as well as spotlights that are dimly lit at present. Our target, however, is not the building, but the delivery truck. We are to take the truck before it gets into range of the security cameras and spotlights.
I hand Quin the goggles so he can take a look while I try to figure out how to get us over or through the fence.
The razor wire at the top will prevent us from climbing even if we are able to knock out the electricity, so the only option left is to cut through the chain metal. Quin hands me back the goggles and we proceed to go south along the fence until the hangar is behind us. The cameras and lights for the building will be triggered as soon as the truck hits the sensor pad in the road about a half mile from the building. We move another mile south of that to give us plenty of time to stop the truck before any alarms sound. Finding our spot, we
