“Let him in,” I say. I hope the guy is telling the truth. The wife unlocks the door and lets him get in the backseat.
We hear other people hitting the rear end of the truck and begging us to take them in too. I wish we could, but there is no way to help them all before the Ricas get near. I push the gas to the floor. Engine roars. We quickly get farther away from them.
In the rear mirror, I see Ricas taking them down one by one. I glance at the guy with the briefcase. He is breathing fast while looking back at the people we had to leave behind.
We drive about twenty miles without talking. The city is not visible in my mirror anymore. There is a salt land covering both sides of the straight road, which makes us feel like we’re driving on a snowy area in Greenland. This is another cinematic look we are witnessing today.
There is a chain accident in the middle of the road. There are at least five cars bumped into each other. I don’t see anybody around the vehicles. I pull the truck over to scavenge for fuel. We are at a safe distance from the city.
“I will be right back,” I say, looking at the couple and the guy in the backseat before getting off the truck. I get off the truck and walk around the collided cars.
I see dead people in two of them. I am not sure if the virus or accident killed them. I pick up an empty container from the trunk and the sink hose I got from the apartment. I check fuel tanks one by one.
Others except the briefcase man get off the truck too. They stretch their legs on the salt sand. If it was a normal road trip with friends, we would probably be taking some photos of this unique endless land.
“I am Carlson,” he says while approaching me. His wife helps Kathleen put peanut butter on the wheat bread for a quick breakfast. The man with the briefcase is still in the backseat.
One of the car’s tanks has not been emptied. I fill the container and carry it to our truck to do the reverse transfer.
“I’m Matt. Nice to meet you, Carlson.” I walk back to the truck. “What happened back there?” I ask.
He looks back in the direction of the city. He takes a deep breath before speaking. “We got vaccine shots. They asked us to spend the night there to make sure we don’t show any side effects... Then…a group of people entered the building around midnight. I think they said they were from that Republic in the West… The company guards argued with them first, but they let them in later… We woke up with the explosion in the morning,” he says, still watching the road we came from.
He must mean the Highland Republic where we are going to. That’s where my family lives.
“You think they blew the building up?” I ask.
“I think so. I heard that the Republic is in war with the company.”
It looks like there is a power game between the West and the company. I am glad that we were not in the Museum when things got heated.
He helps me to fill the truck’s tank and load the container with more fuel to use later. We join the others on the white sand for breakfast. The briefcase guy finally comes out of the truck.
“Are you going to show us what you have in the briefcase?” Kathleen asks while he sits next to her. He doesn’t respond. He grabs a sliced bread and takes a bite from it. He finishes the bread before our curious eyes. Then he stands up and walks back to the truck.
“Not an extrovert, I guess...” I say. I am starting to think that our decision for letting him in was not the right one.
He comes back with the briefcase. He puts it in the middle of us and opens it. On one half of the bag, there are two cartoons of needles and vaccine bottles. On the other side, there are papers and folders stacked upon each other.
“This is what everyone in the world is after right now,” he says while eying each of us. I wonder if he refers to the papers or the vaccine when he says this.
Carlson leans forward to grab the papers, but the guy closes the bag immediately.
“I have to take it to Weck Highland,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows. “Who?”
“The President of the Highland Republic,” he says after pausing a second while staring at me. He seems surprised that we haven’t heard of him.
I replay the title in my mind. The word president doesn’t sound right for a person who named the so-called country with his last name. Calling him Dictator makes more sense.
“We’re not stopping you from carrying out your mission. We just want to see what it is about. Don’t forget how you got here,” I say, reminding him that he has to be grateful to us for saving his life back in the city. I hope he is aware that we can simply leave him in the middle of nowhere if he doesn’t get along with us.
He relaxes his shoulders and leans back while removing his hands away from the briefcase. I lean forward and pull it to my side. I lift the one side of it and grab a stack of folders from inside. Kathleen picks up the remaining papers. Carlson crawls to the bag to have a closer look at the vaccine bottles.
One of the folders has a map of the National Parks around the country. Some of them have red circles. The map title reads Distribution Points. I shuffle through documents on my lap. I see pages with photos of anger houses and different species of birds.
Another folder has a list named Green Zones. I
