X. Killshot
Eagle Eyed & Quick On The Trigger, The Force's Finest Face Grave Dilemmas!
The gas can’s noxious fumes snapped Captain Herrera awake, only to be met with a familiar foe. “La Caza,” the black-furred cowboy growled.
The infamous black android stood with its steeled hands wrapped around the neck of Jack Wellman. Alone in the East’s distant deserts, where irradiated beasts roamed, and the Black Country dwelled, there stood an agent of the Artificially Controlled Eco-System herself. The tan adventurer put up a brave fight, slamming his harness boots against the leviathan’s iron legs. Just when it tried to squeeze, Wellman shoved the arms open. He didn’t reach the ground before the android grabbed him by the waist.
Herrera grabbed the gas can, closed the nozzle, and traded it for his 50-cal. What he couldn’t trade it for was a line of sight. The towering metal monster behaved in a way the Captain had never seen. In a word, it behaved too cowardly for a machine of its class, turning its hostage into a meat shield. Aim for the visor, and it shoved Wellman’s head in front its own. When Grim aimed for the joints, he dropped the flailing body in front of his legs.
“The hell this thing doing!?” roared Jack.
“Keep your frame small!” Herrera shouted back. “I’ll take the targets where I can!”
Wellman nodded, crossed his legs and pulled them in against the metal wolf’s arms. “Just like pull-ups I guess!” the stocky wolf hollered.
Grim dove behind his prized truck, the deep-blue boxy Scout taking blow after blow for her master. “Gracias,” he sighed, “Hold ‘em as long as you can.” He jolted up and hammered the left knee with everything the M82 had. The semi-auto drilled into the joint, but the malfunctioning android shoved Wellman in front of its wounded leg.
“LIKE HELL YOU WILL!” he roared, and with a quick tan fist, split the metal wolf’s visor with a thunderous crash. The cut from the glass was nothing compared to the blood-red beam that skimmed the adventurer’s neck. Its vision impaired, head firing in all directions, the machine lumbered towards the pickup, grip tightened around Wellman’s waist as he tried his damnedest to free himself.
“KEEP CLEAR!” bellowed Herrera. “BEST YOU CAN!”
The stocky tan hound wrapped himself around the limb again and braced for whatever came next. Grim had to time the shot right. If he made it, he could blow the head off to kingdom come.
As it spun furiously, laser fire rocketing in all directions, cleaving through the morning mists, the black-furred cowboy counted. “Uno...dos...TRES!”
Grim fired, the head shattered, and the towering metal hound fell to the ground. Dead, with Wellman trapped beneath the 500-pound monstrosity.
“Targets online...whenever you’re ready Gen—”
The gun-range instructor’s voice drowned in a wall of pulsing blips. Triple-streaks of blue laser fire split the five panels megatank plating, one trigger-pull each. General Adam Knox was locked in, focused to a T, with Captain Herrera’s powerful gun roaring at his fingertips. The dark gray leader’s coat had grown full, and his chin rather scruffy. He also shook up his wardrobe, dressing in the same decorated jackets as old General Godred. The leather was black, with white ornamental straps and a painting affixed to the back. It was a gray cowboy on horseback, his tan steed reared back in her heels. When he had cleaved the last sheet of ultra-thick synthesized steel, he turned back to the remaining Top Brass and the Lieutenants in attendance.
“The first run of our Cincuentas will be our next step forward in combating those who cross us,” the General declared regally. “There will be one for each of you made, and special runs for the sniper task forces in both Auto and Moto Corp. While it may seem a small improvement to split the energy of one bullet into three, these beasts are built for range as well as power, as you’ve seen today. And remember: each of you will be carrying a piece of Captain Herrera with you at all times. Keep him and Mr. Wellman in your prayers as they continue their trek. Any questions?”
“Yes sir,” chimed Lieutenant Gibson Blanc, “can she hit that tin can in the way back?”
The General’s snout scrunched before his Chief Engineer pointed out the lone target missed.
“Waaaaay, way back, sir.” Chief Ridgefield pointed, waving a black hand towards the empty beer shimmering a half-mile off. Without missing a beat, the General swung the rifle up with one hand, hit the safety and blasted the can into dust.
“May that be a reminder to you all to never leave a job unfinished,” he sighed, “Dismissed. Buncha smart-asses.”
Everyone appreciated the laugh, the General most of all.
“Shall I take that back to Am Base Alpha, sir?” asked Chief Ridgefield.
General Knox shook his head. “No Chief, she’s going to the hound who’s about to need her most.”
Said hound was Auto Corp Sniper Johnathan Metcalfe. The arctic wolf with the red-hot Camaro was, without Captain Herrera around, the Force’s top-dog in sniping. In fact, he was one of the few promoted to Corporal in honor of his specialty. And he was quickly becoming the only dog in long-range full-stop.
A rash of hits on tower gunners in the Outpost network were killing some of the Infantry’s best shots. If the bastard had come any closer, he’d have been given a 21-gun salute in the chest. And if cloaked, the refined scanners Knox and Ridgefield had worked on would’ve detected the disturbances in the air. Whether skill or improbable luck, someone was trying to handicap the Force’s knack for firepower.
“Four killings, one a week,” Knox sighed, handing the case file over. “Hit two on Saturdays, one on a Monday and Wednesday. All have performed in the Top 20 of our gunmen, two of which made our Top 10.”
“I recognize the names,” the white wolf nodded, “Were any earmarked for my wing or black ops? Taking the pillar out of our plans for the final ride to Haven?”
The dark gray shook his head. “None. All just qualified men on duty. Local Hell Patrol ain’t turned up shit, nor anyone here on Base. If it’s Black Country, they’re trading on information Commander Zavia or Captain Maxwell leaked during their private trips. But if we’re three-for-three on idle thuggery, we got a serious morale problem in this desert, one I want to get to the bottom of.”
“Understood,” Metcalfe nodded. “And sir?”
“Yes, Corporal?”
“Thank you for this, the Cincuenta. Any word on Cap?”
Knox shook his head. “He’s far out of radio range, and any cell towers from the Old World haven’t been mended in centuries. If either of us tried, we couldn’t reach the other.”
“How’s Mrs. Herrera?” he asked solemnly.
“Wife and kid are holding up fine. Just keep the faith she’s keeping, John. You and I know Grim too well, the bastard just don’t quit.”
“Right sir.” The smile was sheepish, but honest; Metcalfe knew it was true. “I’ll keep in radio contact as long as possible.”
“Good man, Corporal.” the haggard gray wolf nodded. The two shook hands, and Metcalfe was off.
His first order of business: investigate the latest target, Outpost 312. Metcalfe’s glass-half-full was that his mysterious sniper hadn’t broken into Sector 200. Whatever info he was trading on, he knew it was suicide making it past the outer wall. The real issue he faced was the shot’s improbability.
When Metcalfe pulled up, flashed his badge, and was escorted to the tower, he was faced with quite the dilemma. All four had been domed in the head from a downward angle. And yet, there wasn’t a cliff, platform or mountain to give him that vantage point. When faced with such dilemmas, the Corporal made a habit of burying his snout in steepled fingers, a minor meditation to clear the mind. When Metcalfe raised his head and looked to the tower, he knew what to ask.
“What’s the interval on our outposts, sir?” he quizzed in his cold Southern accent.
“Every five to ten miles, Corporal.” answered the commanding officer.
“So he’d need a wonder weapon like mine for a snowball’s chance in Hell,” he surmised. “Next question: tallest anything within one mile. If it’s out here, I sure as hell didn’t pass it.”
“Not inside, Corporal,” the gray officer nodded, “But out there, closer to two. More like rolling hills than mountains, but, you see that incline?”
The slender white wolf nodded, ears cocked in the hills’ direction. “So a long shot, but at least it’s a shot. Thanks. Get your new gunman clear, throw up a marker around where Bloomsfeld’s head would be. I’m gonna see if it’s even possible to make with this new rifle of Herrera’s. Just to be safe, break out your P2Ps for me. If they want to hack us, they’ll have to do it under our nose.”
The Outpost commander agreed. “Better safe than sorry.”
When it was all arranged, Metcalfe gunned his Camaro for the hills. The muscle car ripped through the loose sand and climbed the gentle gradient. Soon, he was bobbing and weaving past the petrified trees to find a suitable vantage point. There came a glimmer of gold among the dark sands that sent the crimson-colored beast skidding to a stop. Metcalfe leapt out to take a closer look, and when he did, he was met with the sight of a shell. A plain-Jane .30-06, without a lick of laser tech within it.
Metcalfe grabbed the palm-sized disc and radioed in. “I thought your boys said he was done in with standard issue laser cartridge. I got an old-school slug of Springfield on my pen right now.”
“That it was Corporal. There wasn’t any lead in him and the wound was cauterized. Besides, ice woulda melted halfway from where you are.”
“Magic bullets or not,” came the white wolf’s stony reply, “Some kind of mad tech’s involved. Lining up my shot now, will radio upon contact.”
The sniper dropped to the ground, and lined up his shot. The iron sights were doing the trick, but he needed video of the kill. He mounted the scope and flipped a red switch on the side. Once it was rolling, he pulled the trigger, and a streak of blue split the air.
“No dice,” the gray officer radioed. “Got about three-quarters the way there.”
Metcalfe nodded. “Gotcha, setting her up for the full Monty.” He flipped the dip-switch and reset the recording. This time, three lines of red, white and blue crossed the clear sky and split the orange marker in half.
“I think we all saw that.” answered the bemused outpost officer.
“But he couldn’t have had that much energy,” Metcalfe radioed back. “Even if we had a ballistics dummy to replicate the shot with, this shit can shred megatank plating at close range.” The white wolf looked to the bagged spent casing once more. When he got back to his Camaro, he opened up the glovebox and pulled out his on-board computer keyboard. “Thank God for these analyzers,” he muttered under his breath, “like a radio show invention come to life.” He loaded the mysterious bullet into the scanning tray, closed it, and left the computers to their task. He was all set to head back down to base when he felt a rush of wind smack him across the face.
The arctic wolf snapped to attention, only to find nothing. Nothing but a trickle of red down his cheek.
He felt around to make sure a bullet wasn’t lodged in there, and there wasn’t. Not even BB pellet. A miracle of a graze in every sense of the word. He looked around for any disturbances in the air, ears cocking rapidly, hunting for a single sound. From the north it came, a faint rustling across the hills, past the dead forest’s gnarled trees. A faint rustling and a chopping sort of static; the chopping static of an invisibility cloak.
Without a second thought, the Camaro was roaring across through the rotted woods, bolting for the mysterious assailant. It was a bit too convenient for him to show so early, but there was a morbid fascination at the back of Metcalfe’s mind, of answering how the shots were made, of meeting this peculiar crack shot. There were no honors in taking a POW, but information to gain. Information the clean-cut cowboy, wrapped in leather, was going to find out.
The throttle grunted with each kick as Metcalfe shifted, his iron horse pounding the rarefied sands as she lunged for her invisible prey. He shared in the Chevy’s growls, in the adrenal race she ran. It wasn’t voluntary though, it wasn’t done with a smile on his face. The white wolf’s muzzle was neutral, his eyes laser focused for even the slightest shift of color in the air. All stopped when he flattened the brake and clutch. and the Camaro skidded to the edge of a cliff.
Below lay a steep drop and the rusted, ancient remains of less fortunate rides and drivers. He ripped the muscle car in reverse, backed off, and got his bearings. He cleared several miles of hilly terrain in the blink of an eye. As the dust of his skid settled, he returned to that open-eyed meditation of his, the steepled hands pressed to his snout. His ears fluttered, looking for the chattering static, and his eyes darted about, hunting for cloaking device’s road heat mirage. When he cast his gaze up to the rearview, he saw that warbling of air. Only the mass was huge, and it shoved itself into the Camaro’s rear with a roar.
Whatever it was, the ride was cloaked, and it was powerful. And whoever was driving it, they would have him over the edge if he didn’t act fast. “No guesses what Grim would do.” he chuckled to himself before making a fateful move.
The mists were cleared, the desolate East made radiant by the sun. What Grim hadn’t seen during the Caza-6’s collapse was Wellman’s leap from its loosened arms. All it cost him was a snoutful of sand. It beat the alternative of being crushed by the iron giant, but the tan-furred fighter cursed and spluttered all the same. When Herrera helped Wellman to his feet, both marveled the unruly machine.
“You fight those things often?” the black wolf quizzed. “That was a good crack on the visor.”
The stocky adventurer shook his head and dusted his cowboy hat. “Nope. I just have a nasty habit of hulking out at the best of times. How about you?”
“All too familiar I’m afraid,” he sighed. “But not this one. You’re lucky it didn’t shred you like Swiss cheese with that laser fire. What it wanted with a meat shield is beyond me.” The Gothic vaquero kicked the lifeless leviathan bot over, its cracked red glass staring skyward into the sun. “It’s from Haven, the machine that is. The Artificially Controlled Eco-System touted it as the first android C&C: conceived and created by her wolven machines.”
“Nice warbot-n-all,” chuckled Wellman to himself, “even if the screws are loose. But how can we put ‘er out to pasture for good? Nanotech comes back to haunt these things, don’t it? Fix ‘em up?”
The Captain paused, thumbing the gem of turquoise in his bolo tie before touching his black-furred hand to the cold obsidian steel of his enemy. “Let’s learn from it first.”
While Wellman took stock of their caravan, and the supplies, Grim set about hacking into the black android’s mind. He’d taken classes on these field dismantlings per Godred and Knox’s orders, both generals knowing the value of penetrating enemy tech beyond the mere destruction. He was always a sharp tack when it came to soldering and repairs, so the work came fast and easy as he hacked his way, physically and digitally, through the various firewalls.
“Well I think I know what caused its poor behavior.” Grim sighed, pulling out a sparking logic circuit. “It seems the nanotech isn’t what it used to be.”
When he finally reached the machine’s knowledge core, and a crude vocalizer was fixed in place, it was interrogation time.
“Mission.” Captain Herrera ordered.
“Seek. And. De-stroy.” Its answers came in garbled, bit-crushed tones. “Seek. And. De-stroy. En-em-y Targets. Ra-di-us: 50 miles.”
Wellman and Herrera looked to each other with hopeful eyes. “Guess he’s the watchdog,” the Indian wolf quipped.
“Home Base.” the black wolf ventured.
“Com-pound. Delta.”
“Location of Home Base.” Herrera pressed.
The garbled mess of “Code 2378922%^*^&I*” meant the Captain hadn’t cracked the final codes to get him past protections. He swung a gloved fist down on the metal wolf’s chest in frustration.
“Watch it! He’ll make you his next shield.” the bronzed wolf worried. He would’ve fretted some more if an idea hadn’t struck him. “It’s a 50-50 shot, but if you got in deep like this, you could trigger a retrieval of some kind, right? Tell the guard to leg it back for a shift changeover? If Delta’s 50 miles from here, there’s a good chance she’s in deep in the East. Whether she’s gonna tattle on her maker or take us to the B.C., it’s worth a shot.”
Herrera took a deep breath and nodded. He set right to work, engaging all the triggers. “Just one last item, Señor: we have to make sure it can still walk.” The civilian’s brow furrowed, but he relented in the end.
“Just ‘cuz you taller,” Wellman chided to the bot, “don’t mean I ain’t the bigger man here. Na’up you go!”
The two wolves, with heaving grunts and growls, and plenty of leverage from Herrera’s e-braked pickup, got the Caza-6 on its iron feet at last. The second it stood up, the machine began its slow lumbering march back towards home, wherever home was. When the black soldier and the bronzed civilian piled back into the pickup, all they could do was hope, pray, and follow.
Johnathan Metcalfe’s situation spun on a dime as he cut the wheel, floored the car, and swung the Camaro’s tail over the cliff face. He timed it to the letter, the cloaked machine roaring off the ledge and down to the rocks below. A blast sounded off, but without the usual fireworks show.
Instead, the cloaking device deactivated, and revealed to the white-furred sniper that which was neither car, truck, bike, nor plane. It had four wheels, but its body was made an angular mess. The layered, trapezoidal prism gave it more in common with a Mayan temple than a car. He waited for someone to crawl out of the wreck, but no one did. When he made his way down to the wreck, and pried open what looked like a door, he found the machine completely unmanned.
When he turned to face the woods, he was alone again.
He went to hop back into his Camaro, but instead, pulled out his old faithful: a Dragunov. He slung all-black rifle over his shoulder and carefully crept down the cliff-face again. He spotted the makeshift camera-eyes, powered down with lenses cracked. It was too kit-bashed to be an A.C.E.S. original and nowhere near the Old World military surplus the Black Country indulged in. He wanted to wait and see if anyone came round to inspect on the death of their handiwork. The lack of sophistication meant it is was more likely remote-piloted than fully automated. And if nothing else, a cherry red muscle car was a hell of a honeypot.
Metcalfe dirtied his coat with the soil of his boots, affording him the best possible camouflage he could make on short notice. Rifle clutched in his half-gloved hands, he leaned flush against the cliff-face, eyes darting to the land past him and ears waiting the sounds of engines or footsteps.
For the pensive white wolf, he was ready to stake it out for the rest of the day. The light danced through the forest’s many dead branches, the sun crossing from its rise in the east, slowly making its way towards another setting in the west. And even though the wait would be long, the white wolf took the silence in stride. He’d close his eyes, thumb the side of his rifle, then the cliff he was leaned up against, and breathe. Occasionally his gaze wandered to the wrecked machine, and the more he looked it over, the more he almost admired it. It was unorthodox, certainly, but its peculiarities of form and function kept him wondering about the fateful moment its owner would arrive. What kind of a hound would build such a thing.
It would be around three in the afternoon when a bike’s rumble shivered the earth, and in the woodland’s stillness, Metcalfe could hear the breath of someone. He craned his head to catch a glimpse of whoever would step near the edge. It had crossed his mind that he hadn’t radioed back to the Outpost before the incident, and he didn’t want to add a fifth body to the scoreboard.
When he looked up, he saw the bike pull up to the edge. It was a chromium silver, dusted by the desert sands, but clearly a recent build. The hound who stepped off it was wrapped in leather himself, dressed in a funereal black. He brandished a pistol, rather carelessly at that, a finger gently resting on the trigger. He was a tan wolf, though he couldn’t guess his age. Metcalfe always banked on the eyes when profiling, and wraparound shades hid the biker’s. Though the voice soon told all.
“Damn thing was stupid anyway,” he sighed before unleashing a hell of a scream. “I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE! I AIN’T DUMB ENOUGH TO BUM YOUR RIDE!” The biker’s scream was shrill, definitely that of a younger hound. “HOW ‘BOUT YOU KNOCK ME OUT TOO!?”
BANG! BANG! BANG! went his pistol as he fired wantonly at the machine, putting holes in the thin-plated armor. He was clearly having an episode, and Metcalfe didn’t want to get in the firing line of it. If the stranger didn’t know where he was, they wouldn’t have the chance. But that wasn’t what brought the white soldier into the open.
Slowly, tan hellion raised the gun still firing streaks of green through the dead forest. The laser fire scorched trees and stones, but he could see the arc beginning lifting higher and higher. There was no reason, nothing to shoot, no birds, no soldiers. It was only in the clarity of Metcalfe’s mind did he realize where the arc would ultimately go.
“DROP IT!” he ordered, leaping out into the open. The pistol was halfway to facing the biker’s head when Metcalfe fired a single round. The gun flew off into the air, and the leather-clad wolf dropped from few. Quickly he scrambled back up the cliff, gun slung on his back, hoping his shot was made. When he at last made it, he found the biker pinned beneath his own ride. Metcalfe scrambled to get the iron horse off of the stranger, and noticed the shredded leather of his gloved hand, and the dark red that filled its place.
The said-stranger was, indeed, an Indian wolf, one darker and earth-toned in color. His muzzle was short and his left ear crimped. The fur around his right eye was white with vitiligo, and his right hand was bleeding clear through his glove. When he looked up to see Metcalfe’s face, he didn’t seem phased by anything.
“Answer honestly,” the southern gentleman began, quick with gauze to undo his own damage. “Was that thing yours? The one that tried to run me over the edge?”
“Yeah.” The voice was plain in a gentle, youthful way. “Tested out designs wherever I could. Up here’s nice and quiet.”
“Did you use it to kill four wolves standing in high towers?”
He looked away before answering, his glove removed, and the gauze wrapped firm about his bloodied right hand. “Yeah. S’pose it’s over for me then.”
Metcalfe turned that dirty tan head back to face him. “I don’t know what’s going on in you man, but that ain’t a fucking charge I’m bringing lightly. If you did, I’d bring you in to answer for those crimes. So even if you are trying this suicide-by-cop bullshit, you ain’t getting out that easy.” The artic wolf’s piercing blue eyes cut deep into the biker’s brown before finishing. “There’s just one thing I gotta see about before we make that judgment.”
He hadn’t a chance to check on his computer analysis in all the commotion. When he opened his passenger door and leaned in, the results said it all.
“So you’re black, B-positive blood, about six-foot-two, with amber eyes.” he sighed, shouldering his rifle. “Kid, you ain’t even five-seven. Why you wanna die so bad?”
He gazed off into the distance, almost catatonic before offering a muttered reply. “What the hell else is there? If we’re all gonna go, if there ain’t nothing stopping that bitch out west. Might as well go in style, y’know. One hole in the neck and that’s it. All done.”
The white-furred soldier stroked his chin, and looked around before the words came to him. “If you managed to cobble together that remote drone, I betcha you’d find a good place working weapons for the Infantry. But if you didn’t, I suspect you got yourself a knack for stealing shit. That’s good espionage. But if you just took a shot at me hoping I’d blow your brains out, I’m telling you right now: find another executioner. Because you, son, you ain’t got the right to go and get yourself killed for the shits of it.”
The young stranger scratched at the crimped fur of his ear, almost ashamed.
“You rock that bike well?” Metcalfe smiled.
The speckled-brown hound nodded. “My old man taught me. It’s all I got left of him. He had started a drone like the one down there, but it went up with him and Ma when the war finally hit us. I cobbled this one together with a bunch of spare parts lying around.”
The white soldier nodded. “How’d you like a full-time job of it?”
“Too much responsibility.” he chuckled.
“Too little gets your head caved in for your own shits-and-giggles.” Metcalfe snapped back. “If you’re gonna die, try dying for something. Or better yet, maybe I oughta spare you the privilege. Lock you up behind the ammo crate, dump you at Sickbay, and fix it so old man Knox gives you the Gitmo special once your hands all good. Hard to rev up that bike of yours without it.”
It was that threat that brought the young hound around. “Alright...since I got nothing better to do.”
Metcalfe nodded, undid the cuffs, and helped him to the passenger seat. The bike was tied to the Camaro’s trunk, he touched base with the Outpost, and the sniper made sure the Force’s salvage team collected the drone for study. On the drive back, he left Knox a message that rang in the dark gray’s ears for days long after:
“For the General. I want to take this kid under my wing after he’s patched up and grilled a bit more about this affair. Military discipline’s one way to whip him, but I think a shot of meditation will do him good. Will still keep hunting for our headhunter, but you were right: we’re 3 for 3 on civvies not keeping cool. I don’t know what’s running through everyone’s heads, but it ain’t good. It ain’t healthy. In fact, even if we cream A.C.E.S., and her ilk...I don’t know where to start when everyone’s lost the faith that bad. You sort out morale, I’ll sort out your killers. And reform a few if I can. It’s what Old Man Godred woulda done, last I heard.”
Knox paced up and down the length of his office, the whole length from the unused whiteboard through the conference room threshold. He lapped the conference table, lapped his desk, and left the tape playing over and over. He read the dossier prepared on the biker. 21-year-old Cheswick “Chick” Glenn. Parents died during the Black Android assault on Saffton, ages ago. Couldn’t blame anyone for checking out the way he did.
He chewed on that. All the losses, all the uncertainty, all the madness that came home to hit his own Infantry. It wasn’t long before the patter of his work boots halted, and the General hunkered down to get some real work done. Pages flew off the typewriter and a lot of midnight calls were made. Any mayor, community leader, and organizer he could get his hands on was called, and dates were made. General Knox would finally get the answer to his questions, just in time for his team abroad to retrieve theirs.
They trailed the Caza-6 for hours, the metallic black android lurching and lumbering. If it was truly 50 miles from Delta, the damage done to the machine was taking it the long way round. Wellman had traded seats with Herrera, the bronzed adventure savoring some time behind the wheel while the black captain polished his own Cincuenta, though it was about to receive more than just a buffing.
“Bandannas up, big guy!” Wellman bellowed. “Sandstorm ahead!”
Both wolves tied their red cloths around their mouths, fixed their shades and hats, and braced themselves. The winds whipped and crashed around them, dust filling the horizon with a beige haze. And before too long, the sedimentary fog had swallowed the towering robot whole.
“DON’T LOSE IT!” roared Herrera, his driver quick to shift up and give chase in. Every time they thought they had it, however, the machine lurched off into the sandy fog again. Wellman did his damnedest, boot to the floor, praying they’d find it, but in the end, the machine was lost.
“Alright, fuck this!” the bronzed wolf roared and slammed the brakes. “I fucking tried, but there ain’t a snowball’s chance in hell of us finding shit.” He could see through Grim’s Aviators the widened, mad eyes, furious over the loss of what could’ve been their one true lead.
“Let’s wait it out in the caravan!” he bellowed over the winds. “Least we don’t have to shout in there!”
With a deep breath, Herrera’s Ahab complex subsided. He nodded, helped pull up the blue truck’s rag-top, and joined Wellman in his singed, messy abode. He marveled at the fact they hadn’t actually slept in the caravan often, and marveled even more at the fact the synthesizer worked at all. The two enjoyed freshly brewed water, and then freshly brewed coffee, though they timed the sips between the caravan’s rocking. Wellman, even though he had "superseded” his place in the mission’s command, found neither reprimand nor ire from his boss. The tall black wolf simply muttered something to himself in Spanish between sips of brew and bites of a nicely-done steak courtesy of Wellman’s own chops as a chef.
All the while, as the wind whistled, the two hounds collected their thoughts, got their bearings best they could based on what little mapping could be done. Inevitably, the meal’s fullness stirred them to a quick nap. A nap that lasted on into the evening hours, and a nap that ended when both could hear the whining wind in the distance, rather than buffeting them all over. But when they stepped out the door and looked to the East further still, they saw that the Scout had stopped just an inch from the drop of a dune. At the bottom of the mountainous pile stood what they hoped the android would lead them to.
It was a packed with silver domes, lined with strange old tanks, and was guarded by a legion of those towering Caza-6s. Right under their snouts stood the base of the Black Country...