I hear the noise before seeing it.
The truck is barreling down on us as we lie in the middle of the road. Quin notices it as well, and gets off of me, muttering a few curses, still holding onto my Levin gun. I back up across the other side of the road, removing the Beta gun from my satchel. The idea is to blow out one of the tires to make the vehicle stop. When they get out of the cab to investigate, we jump. Rena insisted on placing a spare tire in the back of Quin’s vehicle, so we can replace the one we damage on the truck, and make it drivable back to the Refuge.
I aim the Beta gun at the left rear tire, fire, and it goes instantly flat.
The truck slows to a stop, but only the driver gets out. I creep up to the vehicle, slinking low near the ground. When I’m close to the driver, I hear a struggle behind me. The driver turns as he hears the noise as well and I move, taking him down easily, binding his hands, feet, and mouth with adhesive.
I walk around the back to Quin’s side, gun in hand. The security guard is halfway out of the vehicle. Quin pulling on the man’s uniform as they fight over the Levin gun. I fire a warning shot, blasting out the passenger window. The security guard gives up the fight, letting me bind his legs and hands. Quin jumps into the driver’s side, looking for the ignition switch. The guard begins to laugh as the vehicle apparently doesn’t have one.
“How do you start the truck?” I ask, as I take the Beta gun and press it into his forehead.
“Go to hell,” he says, spitting at me.
I stomp on his face with my shoe, breaking his nose, then tape shut his mouth, and walk over to where I left the driver. He cowers at my approach, curling into a tighter ball.
I’m kind of enjoying the viciousness that has come upon me.
“If you are nice to me I’ll be nice to you, okay?”
He nods his head in compliance.
I remove the tape as carefully as possible, trying not to rip off the sparse black mustache that he’s attempting to grow on his upper lip. “How do we turn on the vehicle?”
“I’ll only tell you if you take me with you.”
Somewhat taken aback by his response, as I was expecting a protest like that from the guard, I agree to the deal without consulting Quin. I use my knife to cut off the tape that I’d secured him with, and then tell Quin to scoot over. He stares at me, seeing the driver behind me.
“Are you fucking crazy?” he screams at me.
“He can start the truck and he wants to enter into the Wasteland, so what’s the big deal?” I protest.
“What makes you think he isn’t going to drive us into some kind of trap? You’ve gotten soft since Devlan died. If I had my way I’d leave your ass here, but seeing as Rena would kill me if I didn’t come back with you I guess I don’t have a choice.”
After a brief standoff, Quin finally moves over. I climb in the middle and the driver gets behind the wheel.
“Since you blew out the back tire it’ll be slow going, but I’m assuming you have a spare somewhere, otherwise why would you have blown it to begin with, correct?” the man asks, as he punches a code into the keypad on the steering wheel.
I nod as a screen rises up from the dashboard, requesting facial and voice recognition. He shifts his head directly in front of the screen and gives a password. The small camera built into the monitor scans his face and his voice is recorded.
The truck starts and I motion where to drive. He backs the truck up first so we don’t run over the security guard, which disappoints Quin. As we make the turn and begin to drive, the truck wobbles as it slowly rolls forward on three good tires. We make it through the opening in the fence, but just by mere inches. It takes about a half hour to reach Quin’s truck as the driver doesn’t want to damage the other three tires.
The changing of the tire on the delivery truck goes faster than expected since we now have someone helping us out. Quin decides to ride with the driver so he can direct him where to go, while I follow in the other vehicle. The only danger we now face is the drive back to the Refuge, since we have to ride with the lights on. This will make us visible to any Collectors who might be out roaming at this time of night.
We barrel through the landscape, with no more than a foot gap between the two trucks. I feel my eyes getting heavy with tiredness, but we have only been driving for two hours, and there are four more to go. My head feels groggy and my body starts to ache as my eyes begin to close, but I’m jarred awake as something impacts the truck.
My eyes fly open, anticipating seeing the delivery truck against the hood, but it’s not there. The vehicle is hit again, but this time it’s behind me. Looking in the rearview mirror, I see only blackness so I keep driving thinking I must have hit a rock.
The truck jerks sideways as another impact jars the wheel from my hands. My head slams into the driver’s side window, cracking it. I lift my head up as pain shoots down my spine, and notice my eyes are not focusing, so I force myself to blink several times until forms begin to take their shape. I see four small lights in the distance that are getting larger, rapidly. I
