For a long time, her world was nothing but a floor.

Memories, flicking on and off like a Zippo lighter...

She remembered seeing things from a prone level, her cheek laid flat down and her hip pressed hard beneath her, while the floor made a flat horizon against the far wall. She saw brown dust from the road and white dust from the broken drywall, all of it mingled and lying across the floor in a soft carpet. She was her own footprints in the dust, like craters, and the long trenches her curled fingers had carved by dragging through it. She saw fragments of glass, all different sizes, making glittering green canyons and cliffs where the light slanted down through the broken windows and hit the floor. She saw flecks of blood dotted here and there, dried up ponds and sinkholes. Dirt became whole boulders, strands of hair turned into wispy fences. She didn't want to contemplate what the puddle of vomit spilt across the newspapers in the corner was. Perhaps a very large bog.

She saw a vast ocean of empty bottles spiralling out all around her, each one casting a soft sea-blue glow on the floor where the sun shone through the sticky plastic. Pepsi and Mountain Dew and Orange Crush and finally Evian water, each bottle revolving gently when the wind nudged it. Crumpled candy bar wrappers were strewn in between the bottles, forming giant glossy formations in her horizontal line of sight. Empty chip bags made shiny silver caverns here and there. Twinkie crumbs sprawled thickly in the dust. Fallen shelves had crashed into one another and disgorged their contents across the floor upon impact. And there, rolled out of the reach of her fingertips, was the dented can of beans that she had attacked several days earlier, still bearing the small crimp in the top where she had weakly tried to saw it open with her car keys, and failed.

She saw...

The broken windows at the front of the store, shards of glass still clinging to the frame like sharp little incisors while smoke drifted up behind them and cast a haze of pollution against the blue sky outside. The looming front counter with its smudges of dirt, like a towering cliff face that threw a long shadow across the floor in the morning and evening, and the cash register that surmounted it, the last gasoline total still glowing triumphantly from the very highest peak. Rows and rows of identical tiles high overhead, stained with old damp spots and yellowing cigarette smoke; an electric fan thumping mindlessly amidst a shattered display case full of cigars and racy silver custom lighters, still waiting to be engraved; a poster for popsicles slowly peeling off the wall above the ice cream freezers, one corner at a time...

There was the heavy lingering stink of smoke and gasoline and unwashed sweat, chemical bathroom smells overlaying those of human excrement...

And then, above the restless buzz of the flies, the rev of an engine winding down, the gravely crunch of tires rolling on asphalt, the tinkle of a bell ringing over the door...

As quickly as that her world changed, melting away into something else while she drifted through the dark space in between. When she surfaced again the back seat of a car had replaced the gas station floor. She saw brown upholstery, felt it scratch against her cheek, smelt the jumbled odours of dogs and coffee and smoke rubbed into the fabric. The plastic armrest was pressed against the top of her head, tousling her hair. A seatbelt dug into her hip, while the rest of the belt twisted beneath her stomach and flopped over the edge of the seat. There were newspapers under her ear, and a blue windbreaker had been tossed over her shoulders, draping with light and fluttering touches right down to her knees. One of her legs was sliding over the seat as well, beyond the control of her flaccid muscles. She could feet the tip of her running shoe bumping against the floor, her ankle bent awkwardly from the weight of her calf and thigh.

And if she slid her eyes upwards she could see nothing but more sky through the far window, blue and cloudless while telephone wires whipped up and down in a racing hypnotic fashion. Turning her head made her neck ach abominably, but then she could look up and see the back of the driver’s seat, framed at the top with a dark wreath of shaggy hair. There was a bare arm resting flat along the windowsill, tanned and spotted with a wrinkled elbow and dried up fingers that bent to point a cigarette towards the highway. There was a silver watch reflected in the side mirror, and cracked yellow fingernails. The smoke from the cigarette flagged and tore away from the tip, which burned fiercely in the wind.

Jolting and banging, the scattershot sound of gravel being hurled against the undercarriage as tires cut through a soft shoulder, the car rolling and lurching beneath her while through the window flooded the dry honest smell of dust and open desert…

Things changed.

When the light came back there was a warm, human smelling sweatshirt under her head, and a yellow rain jacket was wrapped around her body. Old orange life jackets packed her tightly in place, and beneath her was a juddering rubber surface lashed here and there with nylon mesh. Where her ear was pressed against it she could hear the plastic echo of water rushing and slapping against the sides of the raft, and beyond that the full-bodied roar of a river in full swell. The air was pale with mist, leaving her bare cheeks wet and cold. She could taste the moisture and feel droplets streaking through her hair and down her neck. Beneath the rain jacket her clothes were dry and warm. Someone had removed her shoes and tucked her legs beneath the jacket as well. Above the collar her hair whipped madly, tousled by the wind and current

Beneath her the rubber raft bucked and plunged, leaping and twisting and heaving like a wild mustang. She could feel it surge forward whenever the water swept out from underneath it and drove it between the rocks. White water smashed upwards to either side of her, filling the sky with foam. The sound of the river drowned out all other sounds and filled her ears with a ceaseless roar, but she felt curiously sheltered from its fury, insulated as she was within the warm mound of life jackets. She understood that she was lying on the bottom of the raft, somewhere towards the back. There were spare oars strapped beside her, and a canvas sack tied down with bungee cord, and a white plastic jug. Jagged red cliffs rose high overhead, and the sky was blue and sparkling where rays of sunshine blazed down through the spray.

She heard the shouts of the unseen paddlers seated ahead of her and could feel them digging in long and hard as the raft began to coast. The bow swung wide and then ploughed so smoothly into calm water that it felt to her as if the rapids had been snatched away like a tablecloth. The river sound continued past her, receding in intensity as the broad strokes of the paddlers pushed it further behind them. The canyon wall loomed higher and higher as the raft drew near, until she could squint through the mist on her lashes and see the broad layers of red and buff rock that striped its face…

This time she fought back when her concentration began to drift, but there was still a brief whorl of disorientation that drew her mind into an indeterminable period of darkness before she was jolted awake by the sensation of damp sand against her back. She staggered through the next few scenes, threading in and out of things like a casual observer. She felt her limbs jerk and fold without being aware of moving them, felt herself gently sway above the sand as she was lifted in a stretch of fabric with the shape and paunch of a hammock, heard dozens of different voices jumbled up in snatches of conversation around her, mingled with the deep throb of a generator and the clang of machinery as if she were being carried into a busy garage…

… and then the blue sky and red walls disappeared as a dark roof slid overhead and, reassured by this new shelter, her brain switched off her personal universe and everything went black.

She woke up in noise and darkness. She blinked as she tried to reconcile the two and ran her fingers over her cheeks to check that her eyes were open.

Her hand came out from underneath something that was heavy and scratchy. She prodded her face with stiff fingers for a moment and then slipped them down to pad tentatively at her chest. There was a woollen army blanket wrapped snugly around her body. She could feel it scratching her bare arms and legs as she shifted her weight beneath it, taking stock of what bits were still attached and how badly they hurt.

Her muscles ached and shivered as they writhed beneath the blanket, but nothing seemed to be too badly damaged. Even the pain in her neck had faded, allowing her to twist her head back and forth without discomfort. Even then she still couldn’t see very much of her surroundings. She couldn’t stop blinking. Her eyes felt full of sand and water and stung fiercely, as if bloodshot. Tears gummed up her vision, and she drew the back of her hand across the bridge of her nose, swiping them away. She wiped her nose with the heel of her thumb and then bunched up a fold of the blanket in her fist and dabbed at her eyes.

All at once the river came rushing back to her. As the white rapids roared through her mind she remembered feeling mist in her hair and lashes, and spray beading on her skin. Now she touched her face and encountered only sand. It fell from her cheeks and gathered on her throat, and on the blanket. She absently brushed it away with the side of her hand.

Even that small exertion left her feeling drained and exhausted. She fell back onto the bed and squinted up into the darkness. No, not a bed- a cot, she realised as it sagged beneath her weight. She could feel the canvas fabric cradling her body and rocking unsteadily whenever she moved. It was very narrow, not much wider than her shoulders, and her hips sank deeply into it. Army blanket, army cot. Probably one of those khaki green ones that collapsed and folded up into a tiny packet of canvas and steel poles. She could picture dozens of them lined up side by side in a single tent, all ridden with old socks and pistols and sand.

She thrust her nose back into the blanket and sniffed. It smelled like mildew and soap. She turned her head and rubbed her cheek against the pillow. It smelled like soap too. It was so worn that it was nearly translucent in places, the fabric delicate and soft. But it was clean, and the blanket was warm, and she huddled beneath it and enjoyed the feeling of being clean and warm for the first time in nearly three weeks.

The air was warm too. It was a dry and desolate warmth that seemed to radiate from the rock and sky. She recognised it as the warmth you got from an afternoon filled with sunshine rather than the oasis of heat from a fire. It was a true desert heat. She knew it very well. Back at the gas station it had blistered her lips and dried all the sweat from her skin. It had sucked every drop of water and sugar from her body and left her dehydrated and sick and sprawled on the floor. Even in the shade she had been unable to escape it. But here it merely felt like the glow at the end of a hot day.

Which brought up her next question. Where was here?

Wherever it was, it was very dark. Or was it? As she lay perfectly still on her back and let her sore eyes adjust she became gradually aware of shadows stretching across the rocky ceiling above her. You needed light for shadows.

She darted her tongue over her lips and carefully turned her head, resting her cheek on the pillow as she took stock of her surroundings. Judging by the worn stone wall beside her cot she was lying in the far corner of some sort of shallow cavern. Her cot was fenced off by blankets that had been folded over stretched ropes to give her some privacy while she slept. Most of the blankets were also rough and grey like the one that lay over her body. One of them was a burnt sienna colour with elaborate Indian patterns woven in black and tan wool. She could see hooked beaks and claws and wide grinning teeth in the patterns, tattooed bodies, and here and there gazed a single black eye, ancient and wise.

Twisting painfully, she looked about herself. There was another cot in the little room of blankets, lying crosswise at the foot of hers. The blanket atop it was neatly tucked and a pillow sat at the head. A green army footlocker sat upright at the other end. An open combination lock was hooked on its latch and the door was partially open. She could see pink clothing lurking somewhere inside, with a hint of lace poking through here and there. A stout pair of black boots slouched against the door and prevented it from swinging open any further.

There was a white square of cloth on the footlocker, and an old yellow lamp. A pattern of horses galloped around its base, and its lampshade was riddled with holes. She could see a big silver brush with most of its bristles still intact, and a silver comb with missing teeth. Bottles and jars full of creams and lotions were neatly lined up behind them, as was an unopened pint of whiskey. More horses tossed their heads and leapt between the toiletries, but she could see that these ones were made out of glass or porcelain or plastic, all of them chipped and cracked and worn, and if they had all been lovingly wrapped up in socks and suffered a great deal of travelling in the past. One chestnut foal was missing a front fetlock, and another black mare had a splotchy white blob of bare porcelain where her left eye and ear had one been. The little herd covered the top of the footlocker.

Nonplussed, she let her eyes roam about the rest of the room. The bare stone floor was covered with a scrap of orange rug. Thick cables ran along the edges of the walls and disappeared beneath them. Flannel shirts and dusty denim jeans hung over the blankets. A black cowboy hat was flopped on a folding canvas chair along with some crumpled magazines featuring pictures of horses on the covers. There was a big rifle leaning up against the rocky wall, and she stared at it before noticing the ropes and knapsacks coiled up beneath it. Lying beside them was a bunched up leather jacket, and on top of that was a sheathed knife with a white bone handle, all wrapped in a studded leather belt. On the buckle was a mustang stretched out in full gallop.

After a minute she tore her gaze away and laid back and struggled to concentrate. Bits of her sunburnt brain were firing randomly, but the soft cot felt good on her body. She was warm and dry and for the moment she appeared to be safe. Her eyes still hurt, but at least her vision had finally adjusted to the dim light. Now she could see that to her right sunlight made a glowing nimbus around the edges of the blankets. Without craning her neck she rolled her eyes in that direction and tried to peer through a crack in the corner.

Staring only made her head swim, but she squinted hard and braced herself. She realised that the cavern she was in must be a very large one with a very wide entrance. From what she could see it had a low ceiling and smooth round walls. There seemed to be people moving back and forth through it; dark shapes continuously flitted across her narrow line of sight. She could hear them talking loudly over the sound of running machinery. Her impression of a giant garage was heightened by the smell of gasoline and rust that lingered in the air, and the clatter of metal striking metal. Bright lights sprang on and off and sparks hissed. In the distance she could hear the roar of the river, now nearly drowned out by the steady drone of an unseen generator.

Her curiosity was further roused. Just where was she? Who had brought her here? She could remember seeing red cliff walls and blue sky, and had felt the spray of rushing water on her face. A rubber raft had carried her down the river. Who had paddled it? What were the doing here? There was a lamp on the table. She could hear a generator. Did that mean they had electricity? And food, real food, and water and supplies? Did the rifle mean they had weapons to fight with? To fight back with? Her mind spun with questions.

Just as she was worming herself around to prop up onto her right elbow the Indian blanket swished aside. She froze. A tall woman with bushy red hair ducked under the rope and stepped inside. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that she was being gawked at. Then she grinned.

“Well, hey!” the woman exclaimed. “Somebody’s awake.”

When the only reply was a look of dim incomprehension she chuckled and strode across the room. She picked up the canvas chair and dropped it at the head of the cot and sat down on it heavily.

“Good to see you’re up,” she said, slapping her hands over her knee as she crossed her legs. “You were looking pretty sick when they brought you in. What’s your name?”

Lips flapped to make an intelligible reply. “Maggie.”

The woman kept grinning. “You got a last name too, honey?”

“June. Maggie June.”

“Well, hey!’ laughed the woman. “Now that is a wild surprise! I’m May. Rita May. When’s your birthday, kid?”

“Uh, September."

“Too bad! If it were in April we would have had a pretty good joke going. How do you feel this morning? Any better?”

“Okay, I think.”

Rita eyed her up and down. “You sure? You seem a little off-colour.”

“Just tired, I guess,” said Maggie. “I’m all right.”

“Fine, fine! I figured as much. I can get a good breakfast ready for you if you’d like. Everybody else has eaten already but there’s still some eggs and ham left over, with peppers and onions all minced up in it, and there's coffee in the pot if you’d like some of that.”

Maggie laid back as stomach rolled at the thought of greasy food. Usually it leapt for protein and fat and a good solid fried breakfast with burnt crunch bits still clinging to all the right places. The weeks spent cracking open candy bars and potato chips and chewing them right out of their wrappers back at the gas station had not been kind on her appetite, however.

“It’s okay, I’m not that hungry,” she said.

Rita’s grin widened. She lifted one hand and waggled a plastic bottle between her fingers. The water inside swished invitingly.

“I bet you’re pretty thirsty, though,” she said.

Maggie wriggled until she was sitting up a little higher in the cot. Her eyes followed the bottle hypnotically. Her tongue lashed over her lips. She swallowed. Her throat felt dry and parched as she croaked, “Yeah, I guess.”

Rita smiled and tossed the bottle onto her lap. Maggie scooped it up with both hands and unscrewed the lid, working feverishly. Seconds later she felt water filling her mouth and throat as it went rushing straight into her stomach. She gulped down huge dregs without taking her mouth from the bottle. It wasn’t very cold water but it was the most refreshing thing she had drunk in days, and when she finally pulled the empty bottle away from her lips she felt more alert and awake than she had all morning.

“That’s good,” she gasped, cradling the bottom in her lap.

“It sure looked like you enjoyed it,” said Rita.

Self-consciously, Maggie slowly twisted the lid back on. She kept her gaze averted from the red haired woman and looked down at the bottle instead. Her fingers smoothed over the plastic as she held it between her hands.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

“No charge, honey. You mind handing that back, though? I’ll fill it up with some fresh stuff and leave it by your cot for later. How does that sound?”

“Thank you.”

“Like I said, no charge.”

Rita gestured. Obediently Maggie relinquished the bottle. Rita checked the lid and then set it down beside her chair. She leaned back and laced her hands together over her thigh. Her grin returned. It seemed a very natural expression on her face. Little crinkles in her skin flowed into familiar creases as the corners of her lips stretched and lifted. Her green eyes danced.

Maggie took advantage of the moment of scrutiny to size up the other woman from the corner of her eye. Rita was a fine tall woman, even when she sat down. She was one of the tallest women Maggie had ever seen, from Montana all the way to Arizona, and she bore her height like a crown. She was wearing worn old blue jeans with white stitching and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The shirt was so bleached from the sun it was nearly the colour of cream, and her bare arms were freckled. There were freckles across her nose too, and splashed across her cheekbones. Her eyes were green, and her hair was brilliantly red, long and curly, with broken ends ending just below her shoulders. Her skin was deeply tanned, and she wore no makeup.

Maggie’s heart sank. Next to Rita she felt pale and flaccid, like a frog. She slid down a little on the cot and became instantly and unpleasantly aware of her hips and belly as she did. The blanket was suddenly a welcome screen against the sight of her own body. She’d spent most of her adult life in envy of these women, tall lean creatures with a natural attractiveness they were happy to ignore until someone else admired it. Much of her time in college had been wasted in the vain pursuit of walking and running and biking and dieting to look like one of these women, with no real results other than her mother’s approval. Now she was sick and laid up under the care of one of the healthiest women she’d encountered in a long time.

And she was being kind and cheerful and confident too, as if she didn’t have a trouble in the world, or else she had blown them all away like dandelion fluff. Maggie wanted to crawl away and hide again. In the background of her distress she was aware that Rita was still talking to her.

“They tell me they found you in the middle of a whole nest of empty bottles,” said Rita. “Some of them were water. Most of them were soda.”

Maggie flushed. She rolled her hands into fists and pressed them into the blanket.

“I wanted to save the water,” she mumbled. “There wasn’t very much of it in the fridge. There was a lot of Pepsi, though.”

Rita laughed. “That’s America for you, isn’t it? Even in the desert we stick to our cola. I bet all that sugar didn’t do you much good.”

Maggie was silent. That was something she had heard a lot in the past, first from her parents and then from her teachers and then, finally, from her college friends.

Rita continued. “We haven’t got much of that sort of thing here. We got lots of water, though. Plenty of water, so don’t you worry about ever running out. No chips or candy or sugar, but I can feed so you well you won’t even miss it. How do you like chicken and beans?”

Taken aback, Maggie said, “I like them.”

“Really? How about barbeque sauce and rolls and garden peas with a little apple spice cake?”

“I- yes, yes, I like them.”

Rita slapped her thigh. “Great! That’s what I’m making for dinner tonight, as soon as Curtis fetches me the rolls and the sauce. I know the boys like it, but I’m never sure with company. You’d be surprised what I can whip up on that little propane stove. I bet you never ate so well back at the gas station, eh?”

Maggie didn’t know what to say.

Already Rita was regarding her thoughtfully. She tapped her fingernails together. Maggie noticed that they were a cherry red colour. They were short and broken, but the polish was very clean and neatly painted.

“You were looking pretty rough when they brought you back from the Eagleson place,” she said. “How long were you stuck there, do you know?”

“Almost three weeks, I think.”

“You think?”

Maggie hunched her shoulders. “I dunno,” she said. “I lost count. I couldn’t keep track very well towards the end.”

“Three weeks,” said Rita. A loud high whistle blew through her lips. “Three weeks on soda and candy. Good lord. You hung in there real good, honey.”

“I ate dried food at first,” said Maggie softly. “Pasta and bread and things, stuff I could rip open with my hands. You know, things that came in a bag or a box. I couldn’t get the canned stuff open. All the food in the fridge went bad. There was no electricity to keep it fresh. I got real hungry. The dried stuff was no good. It made me even thirstier. I thought sugar and chocolate would give me more energy. But it didn’t. It just made me sick.”

She was aware of the woman’s green eyes upon her, and she squeezed her fingers around the blanket. After a moment Rita said, “Why didn’t you just leave?”

“I couldn’t leave.”

“Why not? Why did you stay there?”

Maggie shook her head, cringing in the memory of all that had happened. Embarrassment burnt fiercely in her chest. Her head ached and she felt sick again. It would be hard to admit her shame to this woman, who was so tall and bold and pretty and spoke with her so openly and gaily, as if undisturbed by such petty distractions as fear or suspicion. All her life she had felt like a poor comparison to such people. It hurt to dig out her faults all over again and admit them while she was in such a helpless state.

“I had to stay there,” she said. “I couldn’t leave. I thought there was- something outside.”

“Something outside?” Rita echoed. The chair scraped over the rug as she leaned forward onto her elbows. The broad white grin was gone, replaced with a frown. “You were afraid of it?”

Maggie nodded breathlessly. “Yes.”

Rita regarded her intently. “What did you think was out there?”

Maggie lifted her head and met her gaze. “It was a giant robot.”

She stared straight into Rita’s eyes.

Rita blinked.

“A robot?” she said.

“I didn’t just think it was out there. I knew it- I saw it!” Maggie said angrily.

“Autobot or Decepticon?” said Rita.

“I- what?”

“Autobot or Decepticon?” repeated Rita.

Maggie had been braced for laughter. The question blew her out of the water. “I- I don’t know…”

Rita waved a finger across her chest, pointing to each of her shoulders. “What colour was the little face on its body?”

“I, I didn’t see…”

“What did it transform into?”

“Transform…?”

“Sorry, honey, rebel term – what sort of vehicle did it turn into? What did it look like? Was it a car or a jet?”

“It was red,” blurted out Maggie. “It was red, and it started out as a car and then turned into a giant robot.”

“Shit,” said Rita. “Autobot.”

“The guy at the pumps thought it was an ordinary car,” said Maggie. Pent up memories gratefully took the chance to escape as a stream of words, unmindful of her embarrassment. “It was just a plain red car when it pulled up. I was coming out of the store and he was getting ready to give it some gas. Then I guess he saw that it didn’t have a driver.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” growled Rita. “You can only tell what the goddamned things really are when they get up real close. But go on, honey, what happened next?”

“The guy turned and started running towards the store,” said Maggie. Her heart felt as numb as her voice and her throat seemed tight, as if there was a belt wrapped around it. “He ran straight at me, and he was yelling for people to get out and hide, that it was an alien and it was going to kill everybody. There were a lot of other cars there. Back in Page they told me that it was the only gas station still working for miles around. Everybody went there. But not everybody there had seen one of those robots before, except on the news. They just stood around and stared until the red car turned into a giant robot right there at the pumps, and then everybody panicked.”

Rita was silent but she dipped her head once. Her elbows were on her knees and her weight was leaned forward onto her forearms. She had folded her hands together and braced her chin on her thumbs. She rubbed her upper lip with her index fingers and watched Maggie with her bright green eyes.

“I ran right back into the store,” continued Maggie. “The other guy didn’t make it. The robot shot him in the back with some sort of laser gun. He didn’t even burn up or disappear. He just fell forward, and his whole back was black. Then the robot laughed and started shooting the other people. I didn’t even run after them. It just stood there and picked them off. Or it blew up their cars. Even the clerks in the store tried to run out the back. It saw them too.”

“You hung tight inside?” said Rita softly.

“Yeah. I saw what happened to the people who ran. I saw the whole thing through the front windows. I hid behind the counter and watched it from there. The robot didn’t care about the store. It just killed whatever it spotted moving. I thought it would blow up the pumps when it was finished, but it didn’t. It just turned back into a car and drove off.”

“Did anyone get away?”

“I don’t think so. A couple people managed to get into their van and took out, but the red car left in the same direction as they did. I think it just followed them up the road and then killed them.”

“Why didn’t you escape when it left?”

Maggie’s breath hitched in her chest. “I thought it would come right back,” she said. “I thought as soon as I started moving, it would come back. All I could see outside were dead people. All of their cars were on fire. My car was on fire too. If I started running out in the open it could have seen me miles away. I figured I could just stay in the store for a few days and then try to sneak out when I was sure it was gone.”

“Honey,” said Rita. “You were there for three weeks...!”

“I wasn’t sure it was gone,” said Maggie dully.

Rita was silent for a moment. The corners of her eyes were crinkled as she thought. She idly scratched her chin with the tip of one red nail. Then she smiled and leaned forward and patted Maggie on the knee.

“Well, don’t you worry about that,” she said. “You’ll be safe here. That bastard is probably long gone towards Vegas by now.”

“I guess,” said Maggie.

“I know!” laughed Rita. “Trust me, honey, no giant robot steps into our area without us knowing about it. If even a little one wanders in here we’ll find out as quick as a flash and have everything so covered up and hidden that it could stand around outside on our doorstep all day and never once know we were here.”

She snapped her fingers in emphasis. Maggie wanted to ask just where ‘here’ was, but Rita was already talking again.

“So you just think about getting well and grabbing some sleep,” she said. The steel spars of the chair creaked as she shifted her weight and threw her arm over the back. “We’ll keep an eye out for your red robot, and you’re more than welcome to stay with us for as long as you like. Hell, I tell you what, it’s nice to finally see another girl around here, especially now that Lou is camped out at the Ferry.”

“Okay,” said Maggie uncertainly. She tried to smile back. Her dry lips cracked.

The grin instantly returned. “That’s swell, honey. The boys and I will keep you safe, and I can keep you fed. No more chocolate, I’m sorry to say! Damned if I don’t miss it myself, but that’s how it goes. Is there anything I can get you now?”

Maggie shook her head. The red haired woman’s boisterous hospitality was beginning to make her head spin. “No, it’s okay, I’m all right, thank you.”

Rita slapped her hands over her thighs again and stood up. After swinging the chair back to its corner she bent down to pick up the plastic bottle and rattled it in her hand.

“Well, I can get you some more water, anyway,” she said. “I’ll just leave the bottle beside your cot and you can have a drink whenever you want. If you need some more just give a shout, and I’ll hear you and scoot right on over.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“No trouble at all, honey. Was there anything back at Eagleson’s place you’d like us to pick up for you? Red and Lou can swing back before dinner if you left something there.”

“No, it’s okay. There’s just my car, but it’s gone.”

“They said they saw a lot of smoke and burnt out cars when they found you. They followed the smoke right to the station. Three weeks later and things were still smouldering. That’s a gas fire for you. Which one was yours? The white convertible?”

“No.”

“How about a green Bronco?”

“No.”

“They said there was a little hatchback spread around the place too, but they couldn’t tell what colour it was before the fire got it.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the one.”

Rita winced. “That’s a damned shame. Did you have anything important in it?”

“No,” replied Maggie automatically. Then she thought about it and said in a heavy voice, “Well, just all of the stuff I had left.”

“Ah, shit. Well, don’t you worry, we’ll get you all fixed up with what you need. I’ve got some clothes I can spare. They might be a little big on you, but they’re nice and comfy, and Lou can always dig up some more if you need them.”

She laughed and rapped the plastic bottle against her leg. “Hell, you’re in pretty good company. There’s nobody here who hasn’t lost a lot of something. Even I lost my good Vegas cowboy boots back when we dumped a raft back on Soap Creek, but the boys pitched in and gave me a pair of army issue to keep my girls warm. Isn’t that a hoot?”

Maggie shot a glance back at the footlocker, and then down at Rita’s feet. Sure enough, she was walking barefoot. There were freckles on her feet as well, and her toenails were cherry red.

“That was nice of them,” she said awkwardly.

“Don’t you know it! They’re good guys. The skipper will be around in a while to see how you’re doing, and we can get down to some real introductions then. I’m sure they’re real curious to see the new girl. We nearly had to thump them back with the oars just to carry you back here. They’ve been poking around outside ever since, giving any little excuse they can think of to wander by. Even Red’s been hanging around. And if Davey Moore grabs one more cup of coffee he’ll be spending more time emptying it back into the river in an hour than he will be tightening bolts or fixing lanterns or whatever the hell it is they’re working on now.”

Maggie didn’t know what to think of that, so she just slid beneath the blanket and squashed her head back against the pillow. Her eyelids sagged. The effort of trying to follow too many unanswered questions and mysteries was only knitting her brain into confusion, and already she could feel her body grinding down again. Exhaustion wore straight into her bones. The snarl of torches and the clang and clatter of metal being stuck over and over in the cavern beat on her consciousness and weathered it down. She didn’t even care where she was any more, or just what these people were working on. She was tired of being ignorant and tired of wondering. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and curl up under the blanket and spend some good solid time hidden away from the world and her own terrible memories.

Rita seemed to sense it as well, because she began to pad backwards, her bare feet flattening prints in the rug. She raised a hand and waved a little, then tapped her temple. “You look tired. I’ll get out of your hair, and you just get some sleep. If you’re not up for dinner I’ll leave a little plate out with a sandwich fixed up, or something, and you can eat it whenever you wake up.”

“Thanks,” said Maggie, too tired for anything else.

“No problem, honey. Sorry about all the noise.”

The Indian blanket swished again. Maggie rolled away from it and into a ball and pulled her own grey blanket over her head. The noise was instantly muffled, and she fell back into sleep before she even had time to drag a deep sigh down into her lungs.

When she woke again the cavern was even darker than before. The air had cooled and the mist from the river had swept into the cavern. Blearily she licked the taste of her pillow out of her mouth and pulled down the blanket. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were gummy with sleep, and she wiped them with her knuckles. After rolling onto her back she peered up at the rocky ceiling. The shadows were long and scattered now, as if cast by pockets of torchlight.

Maggie turned her head. The glowing nimbus around the edge of the blankets was gone. She realised that she must have slept through the entire afternoon. The sun had gone down. She could only see darkness between the crack, and little strips of light on the floor from electric bulbs burning out of her line of sight.

She yawned and rolled onto her stomach, pressing her face into her pillow. It was warm and soft against her skin, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It felt good to be out of the glare of the sun and in a calm, sheltered place. In the back of her mind she was aware that most of the noise had finally ceased. The generator still rumbled quietly in the background, but the clashing din had stopped, as had the shouting. She could still hear voices, but they were softer now, and friendly, the conversations casual in their cadence and lacking the workmanlike edge of before. Whatever they were working on, it sounded big, much bigger than a car or truck. The sheer breadth of space that the electric lights were spread out over made her wonder it was something far out of the ordinary. What on earth were they building out there, a fighter jet?

As Maggie held still and listened she found herself wondering if Rita was out there somewhere as well, behind a stove or a sink, or slicing up wedges of pie, or brewing coffee. Without thinking she lifted her chin and sniffed the air. The smell of gasoline and grease dominated the subterranean space, but she could pick up traces of smoke and meat and fried butter still lingering behind. Dinner must have come and gone.

After wiping her nose on her pillow she turned her head and lay on her stomach and listened to the sounds in the cavern. A feeling of comfort flowed through her body as she relaxed into the cot. The prickly tension of the previous weeks seemed to be melting right out of her muscles and bones. It was a pleasant thing to be able to lie perfectly still and enjoy the knowledge that she was closed off from the rest of the inhabitants of the cavern, and could rest in peace and silence without worrying about being disturbed. Maggie had always felt awkward around other people. Here she was alone, wrapped in her own little world of blankets. The hectic life outside of it was nothing that she was a part of.

Then it struck her that she still didn’t know who shared this room with her. There was a second cot, which meant a second sleeper. Was it Rita? Despite all of the battered green army equipment it certainly felt like a room that had been softened by a woman’s hand. There were all the creams and lotions in their dainty glass bottles, and the little horses, and the lacy pink clothing stashed away in the footlocker. Rita had said it was nice to see another girl around the cavern. Were there really no other girls here? If that was so, then this must be the women’s area.

Maggie immediately felt ill at ease all over again. If it was late at night then Rita would probably be returning soon. She found herself hoping that the red haired woman was a late night person.

Roused by a memory, another thought hit her. Shuffling on her stomach, she lowered one hand over the site of the cot and felt around the folding leg. Sure enough, after patting the rug for a minute or so her fingers finally encountered a damp plastic bottle, and a paper plate.

She couldn’t help but smile as she rolled over and leaned back and lifted the plate onto her stomach. There was a sandwich made out of brown bread slices sitting on it, cut into two diagonal halves. Gingerly, she peeled back one slice. She almost laughed at what she saw. Leftover barbeque chicken. Rita had kept her word.

There were no chips on the plate, but Rita had cut some carrot sticks and piled them on the side instead. Maggie ate the sandwich with relish and then set about chewing on the carrots. The cool juice burst in her mouth at every bite. It slaked her thirst almost as easily as the water had.

No sooner had she popped the last carrot into her mouth than the Indian blanket stirred and one corner was pushed aside. Rita’s red head popped into the room. She held back the blanket and glanced about. Her eyes fell on Maggie. They widened briefly, and then Rita grinned broadly.

“Oh good, you’re up!” she said.

Maggie tried to chew faster so that she could reply.

Rita laughed, but she didn’t step inside. “I see you found the sandwich. I just came by to check. I’ve been poking my head in every half-hour. Sorry, we’re all out of mustard, or else I would have put a little in it. Still, that’s good chicken. But don’t thank me, thank Curtis. He’s the one who scrounged it up. I just roast the bird. Want something a little more robust than water?”

Coughing down her carrot, Maggie couldn’t keep up with the woman’s flow of chatter. She sat up and set down her empty plate. After flattening her hand over her chest she nodded to show that she was fine.

Rita beamed. “Great, I’ll get you some coffee. Just sit tight a sec, and I’ll tell the skipper you’re up. He’s been wanting to talk with you all evening. Hope you don’t mind a little company, but you look up to handling it.”

“I- okay,” said Maggie, bewildered.

“Awesome! Be right back.”

The corner of the Indian blanket flew shut. Maggie barely had time to compose herself before Rita stuck her head back into the room.

“Almost forgot,” she said. “I laid out a shirt and some track pants at the end of the cot. You may want to throw them on before the boss arrives. I’ll stall him a bit, give you some time to get changed. Don’t worry, he knows better than to walk in on a lady’s room. I think he had a couple girls of his own once anyway. Sound good?”

“I- thank you,” stammered Maggie.

“Great! I’ll get right back to you with that coffee. Up, up you get. Everyone’s dying to see you’re okay.”

“I-“ said Maggie, but Rita was already gone, leaving nothing but a gentle swish of the corner behind her.

Maggie blinked and lifted her blanket. She peered down at her body. Breathlessly she clamped the blanket back to her chest, her cheeks flaming. Someone had removed most of her clothes. Granted, after three weeks in filth they hadn’t smelt very good, but they were still her clothes. She had been lying in her underwear under a blanket in the company of complete strangers. She hoped it was Rita who had undressed her. She didn’t want to think about any other possibilities.

For a moment she didn’t dare move. She held her breath and listened carefully to the voices in the cavern, her eyes wide and her head tilted. They sounded distant enough. She couldn’t hear any footsteps approaching. Still, she didn’t trust the flimsy cloth walls to keep her privacy. Without pushing down the blanket she shifted to her knees and knelt on the cot. It shifted back and forth like a taut hammock, but before long it was steady enough for her to lean forward and snatch the clothing that lay folded at the foot. She dragged it underneath the blanket with her and began to get changed.

After a moment she pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the cot. Her bare feet hit the rug and she wriggled her toes experimentally. Then she stood up.

Vertigo thrust her back down again. She gasped and clutched the cot as fuzzy black spots threatened to overcome her vision. Her arms trembled and her stomach made a nauseous sound. Her head felt as if it was swinging like a pendulum.

When she felt a little more sturdy she tried regaining her feet. This time she stood up straight and didn’t wobble. Her stomach quivered but the sandwich didn’t seem inclined to leap back up into her throat. She rubbed her feet into the rug and smoothed down her new shirt. It was so faded that the logo had nearly vanished and it hung nearly to her fingertips, but it was clean. On the other hand she was dismayed at how little she had to pull on the drawstring to tighten the waist of the track pants around her hips.

At least her feet weren’t cold. After looking around at the bottom of the cot she found her shoes. They were tucked up underneath the end. Her socks were missing. There was no sign of any of her other clothes, and she didn’t bother searching for them. She could vaguely remember the foul odour that had started to cling to them after the first week. They were her clothes, but she could admit that she would probably throw them out if they were given back.

Rita has said she was meeting the boss. Out of habit she raised one hand and lightly touched her hair. It was flat and oily beneath her fingers. Quickly, she stepped over to the footlocker and searched in vain for a mirror, her hand fluttering nervously over the little jars and horses. After a minute she had to settle with the back of the silver brush. She lifted it to eye level and peered at it anxiously. Her round face loomed like ball in the shiny surface. It was the first time she had seen it clearly in three weeks.

Her red eyes shocked her. The whites were so bloodshot it looked as if she had been crying. Her sunburnt skin made her lips seem pale and rough. They had cracked, and in the cracks had formed dark scabs, giving the flesh a pitted appearance. Limp hair and sunken eyes with dark rings left her face with a ghoulish cast. She probed her skin in disbelief and slowly set down the brush, fumbling to lay it down flat. She couldn’t remember a time she had ever looked so unhealthy and wan.

The Indian blanket flapped open just as she was sitting heavily on the edge of her cot. Rita ducked into the room again, carefully manoeuvring a steaming mug. This time a tall black man was accompanying her. He moved with slow, respectful strides, carefully shouldering his way past the blanket and straightening again. He wore a light windbreaker over a navy blue polo shirt with a stiff collar, and a blue ball cap with gold writing on it, but he swept the cap off of his head as he entered and held it against his leg. His gaze was calm and attentive as he first glanced about the room, taking in the clutter, and then looked straight down at Maggie.

Something about those composed dark eyes made her put her hands on the cot and brace her arms in preparation to jump back to her feet, but the man held up his other hand and smiled.

“Please, don’t let me disturb you, Miss June,” he said. “I’m just here to visit. Rita has been telling me about your story, and from the sound of things you’ve more than earned your rest.”

Rita leaned forward and held the mug out. Her grin was proud. “She looks a lot better than she did coming in, eh?”

“How do you feel?” said the man, directing the question at Maggie.

“Much better, sir,” said Maggie, vividly aware of her own expanding sense of awe as she wrapped her hands around the mug. The smell of freshly brewed coffee wreathed her face in warmth.

“Want a chair, skip?” interrupted Rita.

The man turned towards her briefly, pivoting on his heels, still clasping his hat in front of him by the brim.

“I’m sorry?” he said. “Oh, yes, that would be fine, thank you,” he added as the red haired woman swept up the folding chair from the corner and positioned it near the cot.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Rita, flapping the magazines into the corner and dropping the black cowboy hat onto them. She switched on the lamp while she was there, and instantly the small room was filled with a soft yellow glow.

“You should see my table,” sighed the man as he lowered himself into the chair. “Jackson left the last AOM schedule with a packet of chewing tobacco, and somebody got into one or the other and now everything is all strewn together.”

“Rough luck, skip.”

“Don’t I know it.”

After discreetly kicking over her boots and nudging the footlocker shut Rita dusted off her hands and pressed them against the small of her back. Grinning, she looked between the man and Maggie and said, “You folks want me to hang around or would you like to chat in private?”

“I don’t mind if you want to stay,” said the man. “Maggie?”

Maggie’s mouth opened and closed around a few voiceless words before she managed to say, “I don’t mind either way.”

“Think I’ll stay then,” said Rita.

The man seemed amused by her assurance, but his own air of patience remained unshaken. He crossed his legs and hung the ball cap from his knee and returned his attention back to Maggie. She took in his close-cropped hair and square jaw and recognised military poise where she saw it. Instinctively she straightened, throwing back her shoulders and flattening her feet on the floor, swivelling the mug of coffee neatly into her lap. If he noticed it he let it slide with admirable perception.

“I suppose I should introduce myself,” he said. “My name is John Bruce, Commander John Bruce, skipper of the VF-42 Black Hat naval squadron.”

He held out one hand.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” babbled Maggie, squeezing it.

He smiled. “Just call me John. The last half year I’ve been semi-retired anyway.”

Rita laughed. “We all just call him skip. Or boss.”

“Formality doesn’t mean much out here,” said John, tactfully rescuing his hand from Maggie’s limp grip. “Most of this crew is mixed air force and navy personnel anyway. We’re getting all our officers crossed.”

Maggie shot an anxious glance at Rita, who caught it and blinked.

“Who, me?” she said incredulously. “Oh, hell, no, honey, I’m civilian straight through.”

Conflicting information snarled into a knot in Maggie’s brain.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Is this a base? Am I okay to be here?”

“Of course,” said Rita.

“A temporary base,” said John. “You’re in the Grand Canyon.”

Well, thought Maggie in a daze. That at least explained the river.

“The Grand Canyon?” she yelped.

“It’s a hoot, ain’t it?” laughed Rita.

“This is Redwall Cavern,” explained John. “It’s a large cave about thirty-three miles downriver from Lees Ferry, the eastern entrance leading into the canyon. You probably heard the river while you were recovering. There’s a small beach outside, and Nautiloid Canyon is only five miles to the west. We carried you here by raft from Lees Ferry.”

“I remember,” said Maggie torpidly. “There was a car before that.”

John nodded. “Lou and Curtis keep their Dodge hidden up at Lees Ferry. They were the ones who found you at the gas station outside of Page.”

“Sorry, hon,” said Rita. “Can’t say I helped you out much until you got here.”

“That’s okay,” stammered Maggie. “I liked your sandwich.”

“I see she gave you some new clothes too,” noted John.

“Yes, yes sir. I mean, yes, yes, she did. Thank you.”

“They don’t seem to fit you too badly,” said Rita, slouching sideways against the rock wall with a critical look in her eye. “She’ll still need a little kit of her own though, with rain and cold weather gear.”

“I can have one put together,” said John. “We’ll scrape up something.”

“Have I been here very long?” said Maggie hesitantly.

John and Rita exchanged glances.

“Lou and Curtis brought her in when, Thursday?” said Rita.

“Right, the twenty-sixth, at about seven-forty in the evening.”

“And today is Sunday, the twenty-eighth. Sorry, my watch is busted.”

“Ten thirty-five,” finished John. “So to answer your question, Maggie, you’ve been here a little over forty-eight hours. Of course, you were sleeping through most of it.”

Forty-eight hours. Maggie’s head swam dizzily and she clutched at the mug, burying her nose in steam. She had never slept for that long before in her life. The best she’d gotten before her world was hurled upside down was a solid eight hours on the weekend.

“I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon,” she mumbled.

“The view’s not as spectacular from the bottom, but the river makes it worth it,” laughed Rita.

Maggie lifted her gaze from her coffee and looked between the man and the woman. “Why are you all down here?”

“Well, that’s a bit of a story,” said John, shifting his weight as he settled back in the chair and clasped his wrist in his lap.

Rita sobered rapidly. The humour drained right out of her face. “It’s not a very happy one.”

John’s poise remained unbowed. “It's still what happened.”

“I don’t mind,” whispered Maggie.

Rita glanced between them. “Maybe she should get a little more sleep first, a good breakfast under her belt-“

“I don’t mind, it’s okay,” said Maggie, raising her voice.

“I’ll try to keep it brief,” promised John, looking straight at the red haired woman.

Rita shrugged one shoulder.

John turned back to Maggie. “About seven months ago the majority of the people here in Redwall were stationed at Nellis Air Force Base as pilots, RIOs, technicians, maintenance, instructors, medics, controllers, engineers, administrators, non-commissioned managers, support officers, petty officers, guards, enlisted men, etcetera.”

Maggie perked up in relief. “You’re all in the army?”

John’s lip twitched and his dark eyes sparkled with amusement. “I think some of the folks here might object to that description.”

Feeling foolish, Maggie deflated and tucked the mug in towards her stomach. Looking for help, she darted a glance at Rita, but the red haired woman was busy scratching her teeth with the tip of one nail. Resigned, Maggie turned back.

John continued. His expression turned grim. “As you likely already know, when the Autobots arrived last September their first objective was a three day blitz that knocked out all major American military installations and rendered our defences helpless. As a key centre of naval and air force activity in the south-west, Nellis was immediately targeted, and hit hard at roughtly oh-three hundred on the second day. Not only did we lose a dismal number of fighter and support aircraft, severely crippling the air wings based on the field, but thousands of brave men and women as well, from aviators to cooks, good people and good friends.”

As Maggie silently watched he laid his hands on his knee, his fingers gently touching the back of his cap. “At the time I was the newly appointed skipper to the VF-42 Black Hat squadron at Lemore, California. Two weeks prior to the attack my group was selected to be the first Tomcat squadron to undergo extensive modifications to our new aircraft, which would be completed at Nellis. We were preparing for a cruise on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and we were rushing to finish our training and get all fourteen of our aircraft in top order. The upgrades threatened to be a massive job that would severely undermine the squadron and threatened to set us back months while we tested and debugged them, and so we immediately flew out to Nellis to see them underway as quickly as possible.”

The gold writing on the cap read ‘USS ROOSEVELT’. A little aircraft carrier was stitched in white thread beneath it.

John sighed, scrubbing the heel of his palm against the corner of his eye and continuing the gesture to smooth back his hair. “We were waiting for our aircraft in the tenant units at Nellis when the Autobots came. I lost over half of my squadron in the initial attack, and two critical cases during the evacuation. An airbase like Nellis is like a small town. For over thirty years it has been a tightly knit community, with each member working hard to see that the whole base operates smoothly and well, from the showers to the hangers. Even the air force personnel stationed there maintained close ties to our own naval squadrons. They were friends and colleagues, many of whom had trained and flew in overseas theatres together.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then let his hand fall back onto his lap. “I was one of the lucky ones. What it all came down to wasn’t how prepared you were at all, but simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To watch those same people die without a measure of control in a matter of fifteen minutes was a terrible, terrible thing. To see it happen to my own crew and pilots was even worse. Thousands of people, dead in fifteen minutes. There wasn’t even time to fight back. Make no mistake, Maggie. It wasn’t like fighting an army at all. This wasn’t modern warfare. There was no engagement, no employment of manpower, no tactics. We weren’t their enemy. We were just something they needed exterminated. No one had a chance to show their bravery. They just lit up, and then they died.”

The coffee began to slowly cool between Maggie’s hands as she listened, too afraid to say a word. Her red eyes were wide and staring. She held the mug so tightly that her fingernails hissed against the enamel.

As if sensing her distress John pushed a smile back onto his face, but his mouth was tight and his brow knitted, his fingers laced together over his leg. “There were a handful of survivors. There always are. From an evac point established further out on the property we sent a team back to Nellis eighteen hours later to access the damage to the base. We learned that the Autobots had destroyed all of the aircraft parked on the flightline and tarmac and in the hangers, from the Predators to the Thunderbird performance planes. Most of the outlying buildings are now gone, including the hospitals and reception centre. Area Two is wiped out. Nellis Terrace is completely burnt to the ground, as are the dormitories and family housing units. All of the runways have been deliberately smashed, the equipment and munitions stores destroyed. To all extents and purposes the base is no longer operational, and I doubt it ever will be again in my lifetime."

He slowly shook his head. “Nellis was once called the home of the fighter pilot. It’s no better than a ghost town now.”

Maggie was shaken to the core by the man’s composure, by his air of beaten gravity. She could think of nothing to say in reply. Honest answers had always embarrassed her; now they didn’t seem to be nearly enough. The words wouldn’t come, held back by her shock and agitation.

The story had come like a blow. To see a strong man in defeat drove home the matter of her own vulnerability as directly as a spear point. She was not safe. If he hadn’t been safe back at his base surrounded by his fighter jets and his colleagues and his defences, then no one could be protected. In a matter of minutes her delight over rescue had reverted back into fear. Only now it was a wild terror, aimless and flailing, no longer focused upon one single robot, but an advancing army of them that existed beyond all scope of her imagination.

Her world was falling apart, and each new piece that crumbled away swiped more casualties with it. She had heard about the collapse of the American army on the radio and on television, but she had not once envisioned a scenario where it could have been so intimate and crushing, and so utterly complete. To hear it on the news made it seem like a great war had been lost, but with nobility and heroism, and the indomitable American spirit elevated into the realm of the divine in its loss.

But there hadn’t even been a battle. There had been no glory or dignity, only death. Her country had failed, and its soldiers had simply been murdered in their homes and bases and killed behind their weapons as easily as anyone else would have been. Their training hadn’t saved them. Their guns hadn’t saved them. Their airplanes and tanks and their bunkers hadn’t saved them. Everything that was supposed to make them stronger and cannier and better prepared than ordinary people had failed them. The wide gulf that had once existed between a naval commander and a plain girl from Montana no longer existed. The vast gulf between man and machine had made it insignificant in comparison, and in the end it would swallow them all.

Her mind seemed like ash. She didn’t feel angry or horrified. She only felt sick.

Distantly she was aware of eyes staring fixedly on her. She turned her head sideways. Rita was still standing against the rock wall, out of the way of the conversation. She was no longer scratching her teeth. Now she was looking directly at Maggie with intent green eyes. Even when Maggie bleakly returned her stare she didn’t look away.

“Don’t think it’s been all bad, honey,” said Rita.

John’s smile came more naturally this time. “Yes, she’s right. Compared to other installations in the southwest we’ve had a little luck as well. Nellis is gone, but we’ve had other places to turn to, including a number of very kind local towns and civilian airports that have hosted survivors. We've split up since then to cover our tracks, but the remainder of VF-42 has remained behind to keep on station in Nevada and the northern Arizona area.”

“They even shacked up in Vegas for a while,” added Rita. A wicked spark had returned to her eyes.

With oblique decorum John shifted his gaze to his knees, and his broad shoulders shook with humour. “Yes, that’s where we ran into Miss May.”

“I took good care of you, didn’t I?”

“You certainly did.”

Rita grinned. “Vegas is full of my boys. You want to disappear for a good long time, you come out to the Strip. Vegas can hide a man so well that even his mother won’t find him.”

“Is this entirely an appropriate subject to be talking about?” said John dryly.

“Oh, shush.”

Despite herself, Maggie was surprised. Rita was from Las Vegas? She would never have guessed it. The cowboy hat and the horses and the big voice with its bold drawl seemed from a wide open state, like Texas.

“At any rate,” John continued. “While Vegas and the local airports have the benefit of common luxuries, we became concerned that our presence in a populated civilian area may provoke hazardous attention from any Autobot forces still posted nearby. What we needed was an isolated space removed from the city but close enough for us to access its facilities. It was Rita who hit upon the Canyon as a place to establish a temporary base.”

“Curtis, Lou and I used to raft down to Phantom Ranch every other year,” said Rita. “Horn is pretty awesome when all of the rain gets into it in the spring. We’d all shoot the centre of it, boom. Just some amazing water.”

“Not to mention the fact that the cliff walls shield us from sight and from radar,” added John. “We also decided that the vehicle modes that the Autobots tend to favor would be nearly useless for navigating the narrow rocky beaches at the bottom of the Canyon.”

“And we’d spot them a mile away if they tried to climb down the cliffs.”

“Lees Ferry is one of best places to enter the Canyon,” said John. “It’s not much of a campground, but it’s a good spot to launch catarafts into the river, and we could post a small watch there if needed, with a vehicle that could make it into a nearby town for supplies. We decided to use it as our starting point.”

“I know the stretch between the Ferry and the Ranch pretty good,” chimed in Rita. “We used to poke around all of the caves while we were out on the river, like Shinomu Wash and what’s it called, Silver Grotto.”

“Silver was nice, but not what we were looking for. We needed a big, solid cave, something with a ceiling and easy beachside access to the river. Something dry and large enough to accommodate all of the equipment we were planning on bringing in.”

Rita tossed one thumb over her shoulder. “So I pointed them towards this one, Redwall.”

John looked over at the red haired woman. “I think we agreed on the spot that it was the ideal place to set up a base camp.”

Rita’s grin had a sheepish edge to it. “Sorry, I could have sworn it was unoccupied.”

“Don’t worry. Things worked out for the best in the end.”

Maggie blinked. Unoccupied?

Before she could wonder any further John stood up. The chair flopped as his weight lifted from it, and his shadow fell over the cot. Maggie blinked again as she was shaded in that length of darkness and looked up at him. He was settling his cap back onto his head, squaring off the brim with his fingers while he cupped the back firmly in his other hand. The brisk gesture made it easy for her to imagine him as a naval officer. After a few quick tugs he looked down at her. He smiled.

“Maggie, there’s something I’d like you to see,” he said.

Rita was eying the both of them warily, sliding her gaze from one to the other. “If you’re feeling up to it, honey."

Livid with fright, Maggie gripped the mug and said, “Is it outside…?”

“No, it’s inside the cavern,” said John, his brow slightly knitted as he looked at her askance. “We rarely venture outdoors at night. Usually the entrance is kept blocked off until dawn in order to cut down the shine from any lights we may have switched on as we work.”

"What are you working on?"

"That's what I'd like to show you."

Where the man’s eyes reflected curiosity, behind him Rita’s revealed shrewd insight. The red haired woman stood at the entrance of the room with one hand on the Indian blanket, her bare arm glowing pink in the light of the lamp. She was watching Maggie closely.

“Don't worry,” she said. “You don’t have to go outdoors. It’s safe in here.”

"I'm not worried," said Maggie.

To disguise her embarrassment she quickly stooped to place the untouched mug on the floor beside her cot. She was grateful for the way her lank hair fell about her face, hiding it from sight. Rita’s words had hit a little too close to home for her to feel comfortable with. She could have sworn the green eyes had seen right through her. Only when she felt a small measure of aplomb return did she push herself onto her feet and try to smile while avoiding Rita's gaze.

“All right,” she said.

“As I mentioned earlier, our luck hasn’t been entirely bad,” John was saying as they ducked through the Indian blanket and stepped out into the open cavern, Maggie shying at his heels while Rita brought up the rear. “In fact, two very fortunate oversights on the behalf of the Autobots have given us a slim window of opportunity that we have been swift to capitalize to the best of our current abilities. Brown, Jones, could I get lights B-4 through B-8 switched on, please?”

Sheltered behind his back, Maggie darted owlish glances about the cavern as she heard answering calls. It was difficult to keep pace with his longer strides, but she managed by lengthening her own. Rita’s bare feet muffled all sounds of her footsteps from the rear, but Maggie could catch sight of her arms swinging in the corner of her eye, and felt better to know that the woman was still near. It seemed that her breath was snatched away by the empty space of the cavern, leaving her dizzy and lightheaded. The night chill sent icy prickles marching up and down her bare skin and she rubbed her hands over her arms and curled her toes, which were smarting as they slapped against the rocky floor.

John continued talking. His words came like the ring of his heels, loud and assured and bold, returning to him as echoes from all corners of the cavern. The windbreaker he wore snapped like a flag across his shoulders. The collar was turned up and his eyes were fierce and dark above it. Without looking back he said, “When we’re finished our work here in Redwall we hope to exploit their first oversight, which is their belief that in the period of time that has elapsed since their capture of Oregon they have effectively neutralized our military, when in fact they have only wiped out our homeland defences.”

His smile was grim. “Rarely in her history has America ever kept all of her armed forces on her own soil. Even as we speak, the USS Theodore Roosevelt is returning from her cruise in the Ionian Sea, where she has been assigned for the past seven months, well out of the reach of the Autobot invaders, who as of this time appear to possess no naval or aerial troops capable of engaging her directly in conventional combat. Her crew has been fully briefed of the situation here through channels in Italy, and is due back to an arranged rendezvous point just off the coast of California in another six to eight months. At that time what is left of VF-42 will meet her there, and from that point on we will complement Airwing 8 to the best of our abilities and enter her flight operations, which involve her eight squadrons of reconnaissance and warplanes, nearly seventy aircraft in all, which are currently secured or else being armed either on her top deck or in one of the hangers below. And from then on, the sea will swallow us. We can only hope that it will swallow the Autobots as well.”

“Preferably whole,” said Rita grimly.

“Amen,” agreed John.

“What’s the second lucky thing- I mean, the second oversight?” said Maggie faintly. With the rate of speed they were travelling across the cavern her anxious glances could barely keep up to her surroundings, and the glimpses of things she was seeing in the gloom were only making her head swim.

“Do you remember, Maggie, how I told you that my squadron was ordered to fly its aircraft to Nellis in order to undergo extensive upgrades?”

“I- yes, yes, sir.”

“Good, and do remember how I also said that back at Nellis the Autobots completely destroyed all of the aircraft parked out on the flightline and in the hangers?”

“Y-yes.”

Without warning the naval commander drew to a stop, his feet tearing a puff of dust from the stone floor. Taken aback, Maggie held up her hands to brace herself before she ran into him, but fluttered them away before her palms could touch his back. He suddenly stood so tall and proud and upright that she was afraid to go near him, and she retreated back until she bumped into Rita, who leaned one arm across her shoulders as if she were the edge of a table.

“Stick around, honey,” whispered Rita into her ear, giving her a friendly shove. “Don’t worry. The skipper has been itching to show off his girl for months now.”

“Show off his what?” Maggie hissed back, shivering and staring hypnotically.

“AJ-289,” said John without turning around, gazing into the stretch of dark space directly ahead of them.

His dark eyes flashed as he passed them back a wry look from over his shoulder. “What’s really rather humorous about the whole thing is that previous to this experience I would have banged a few heads together to hear that some of those modifications had fallen behind schedule.”

Lights blazed on, turning all three of them into silhouettes.

Maggie squinted painfully into the stadium of light and was shocked to discover that they were, in fact, building one hell of a fighter jet.

At the other end of the cavern, covered partially in a tarp to keep the sand off, another consciousness blinked on as well, startled by the bright lights.

In a sleepy fashion it collected itself, stretching out senses that tingled as they sprang online. It was sitting near the entrance of the cavern with its spinner pointed into the drafts that blew through the screen. The lateness of the hour instantly registered in a glimpse of stars and dark sky, in the muffled roar of the distant river, in the chill of the air, which was cool and fresh, as if in darkness the canyon was quietly washing itself of the dust and heat of the previous day.

For a minute or two it sat quietly and listened, taking in the sounds of the river. Where the lizards had retreated the frogs had come out to take their place, and a chorus of their voices sang up from the scummy pools that dotted the beach outside the cavern. Water burbled and splashed between loose rocks where the shallow basin funnelled into a narrow rapid a little downstream of the entrance. The high cliff walls echoed softly with the rush of the river, and a gentle breeze ruffled through tufts of dry grass and scrub brush that lingered on the shore. The sounds of the night were in their natural harmony, and there was not a single discordant note that warned of danger.

With a sense of relief the consciousness relaxed. The drowsy peace of the river was a soothing balm. It loved the river and it loved the canyon, deeply, with all of its soul.

With its security assured it turned its attention to its own body. It could feel the tarp pressing against its back, the loose flaps weighed down against the sandy floor with small rocks that could be easily shrugged off. John must have asked for it to be covered up while it dozed offline. He had even made sure that the tarp was pulled back from its front windshield so that it could have an unhindered view of the cavern. That had been kind of him. It made a note to thank him in the morning before it left on its patrol to the gas station.

There was soft sand beneath its tires. That was nothing new. The wide beach that spread along the edge of the river swept into the cavern as well and covered much of the threshold with sand. The consciousness had elected to park at the front of the cavern so that its human friends could store their heavy fighter jet further towards the back, where the air was sheltered and the rock floor a little more bare and clean. It knew fully well what dust and grit could do to the delicate electronics and mechanisms of a flying machine. And it also knew that John and his technicians were having a difficult enough time as it was keeping the jet clean and free of sand, which blew nimbly on the breeze and invaded everything it touched. Every little gesture helped.

Raised voices bounded along the rear wall of the cavern. Curiously, the consciousness flicked its gaze towards the back, straining to look around its own long nose. In the corner of its vision it spotted the fighter jet. Several of the tall lights that surrounded it were switched on, blazing the jet in illumination. It too wore a mantle of tarpaulins. They were tightly lashed in place with ropes and thick cord. Only its nose poked out from underneath the covering, and the two big tailfins mounted on its engine housings. Its canopy was wrapped in blankets, giving it a peculiar blinded look.

People were walking in a wide circuit around the fighter jet. It quickly spotted John in the lead, instantly recognizable in his blue cap. A smaller figure followed him closely, and Rita trailed further behind, looking more interested in her nails than in the jet. That was no surprise. Rita, it knew, liked horses and mules much more than she liked cars and airplanes.

Brown and Jones were hanging about nearby as well, both of them drinking coffee and looking tired and taking care not to dislodge any of the wires running underfoot. But the consciousness' attention was drawn back to the small figure walking so closely to John as to shadow his strides. It was clearly female, that was plain to be seen, but much shorter than Rita, and lacked the older woman’s indifferent air. Unlike Rita, she gazed up at the fighter jet with undisguised fear and awe. Her steps were hesitant, and she stumbled over the wires when John stepped up to the jet's right intake and fondly ran his hand over the tarpaulin that was tautly stretched over it.

Intrigued, the consciousness watched them. It stretched up to the tips of its tires for a better look at the new arrival. Who was this girl? She was not anyone that it had seen around the cavern before. Surely this was not the same bedraggled lump of wet clothes and matted hair that Lou and Curtis had dragged out of a raft two days ago? That poor sodden creature had been limp, near lifeless, streaked in filth and soot with the weeks of hardship creased across its skin.

And yet certain resemblances lingered behind. The dark hair, still tangled and ratty, the pale flesh, the stocky frame built straight out of young bone…

How remarkable. The consciousness was surprised, but not disbelieving. Humans were proving to be resilient animals, and were apparently much hardier than either the Autobots or Decepticons seemed inclined to believe. Without claws or sharp teeth or hard shells they died easily, but those that were not killed the first time lay trampled and waited and grew again. And they remembered, and it was in their nature to hate and hold a grudge. Doubtlessly this human would see her Autobot attacker again one day. Whether it would see her was the interesting question.

John and Rita and the nameless girl were moving on to another part of the cavern now, and walking out of its line of sight. The girl, it noticed, was looking rather pale. Doubtlessly she had endured her own fair share of surprises for the evening. Bothering her with questions seemed inappropriate at the moment. There would be plenty of time to approach her with a friendly introduction later. Neither one of them would be going very far from the canyon in the months ahead anyway. The fighter jet would anchor them all to this cavern for a very long time.

One by one the lights began to shut down as Brown and Jones moved between them. Within minutes Redwall Cavern had returned to a twilit state, its darkness spotted here and there with glowing lamps that cast red light against red rock. Content that all was well for the time being, the consciousness sank down onto its tires and allowed itself to drift off again into electronic slumber, wrapped in its blanket of tarpaulin and cradled in sand.

For the first time in months, Maggie June sat down and ate breakfast.

It was a real breakfast too, and not simply whatever small candy bar she could dig out of her purse while driving her car and keeping a wary eye out for roadblocks. There was a steel tray in front of her with dry cereal in one section, dried banana slices in another, and two pieces of dry toast in a third. She had a small steel pouring dish of powdered milk beside her tray, and a small steel cup of powdered orange juice. The fact that most of what she was eating was once dry and only reluctantly liquid was of little concern. It was the best breakfast she had eaten since fleeing Montana.

Napkins. There was a real napkin. With an extra spoon on it.

With the other spoon Maggie dumped heaps of cereal in her mouth. With her free hand she wrestled onto the table the small nylon pack she had been given by Rita earlier that morning. Things clanged and sparked and ignited with light behind her, but for the moment she was much more interested in examining her new possessions than she was in gawking at the mechanics.

The new pack was an olive drab colour. It wasn’t very big, maybe the size of her old burnt up purse, and it was made of nylon, and therefore water repellent. Maggie thought that was a very sensible thing if she was to use it on the Colorado River.

It was beat up and worn and someone had once scribbled down some complex numbers in blue ballpoint pen on the back, but it was tough and free of holes. It had dual side mesh pockets and a single top flap that cinched down with buckles and straps. There were D-rings for hanging things from, and loops for a shoulder strap, which Maggie guessed was already inside the pack. There were clips on the back that would allow it to be fastened to a belt. Rita had called it a Butt pack. It didn’t take much imagination for Maggie to figure out where it was supposed to be worn.

Rita had given it to her shortly after she had woken up. Morning sunshine had already brightened their small sleeping quarters when Maggie’s eyes had blearily opened, her face mashed against her pillow. The room had been empty, and Maggie had gratefully changed alone. There had been clothes laid out again on the end of her cot again. She assumed they were once Rita’s, but now were hers. They fit like a tent, but they were dry and comfortable.

While she was sitting on the edge of the cot and tying her shoes the Indian blanket had flipped back, and Rita had barged inside. The red haired woman had been wearing an apron, and her hair tied back into a bushy ponytail. Her face had been red and sweaty, but her grin as wide as her cheekbones.

“Gotta go clean up,” she had said. “But I heard you banging around in here. This is for you. The boys got together this morning and put a Butt pack together for you.”

And she had tossed the green bag to Maggie.

“Come on out and I’ll fix you something to eat,” the red haired woman had added.

And she had.

Now Maggie poked the spoon into her mouth and used both hands to unfasten the buckles. She threw back the flap and peered into the pack. There were bottles and lumpy nylon pouches inside. One by one, she began to drag them out and unwrap them and examine them in the morning light, pulling out the largest items first.

There was a hard plastic canteen, also olive drab in colour. Its cap screwed on and was attached to the neck with a plastic loop. There were clips on the back to fasten it to a belt. Stuck between the clips were several yellow packets of water purification tablets. Maggie eyed the tablets and squeezed canteen to test its durability and then placed it beside her tray.

A black plastic bottle of insect repellent came next. Like the canteen it had a rugged Army look in its stiff yellow print, and she also set it aside.

Previously squashed between the two plastic containers was a folded up square of green nylon. Maggie turned away from her breakfast and shook it open and realised that it was a wet weather duffel bag. She rubbed it between her fingers and wondered at the way it felt like rubber canvas. After carefully folding it back up again, trying as best as she could to follow the original creases, she squashed it back into the pack.

Things were getting more interesting. She rummaged and drew out all of the nylon pouches at once, laying them out in order of size above the top of her tray. The tallest pouch contained a thin black LED flashlight. Its smooth handle had no buttons, and Maggie turned it over in her hands for a minute or two before she realised that you needed to turn the head to switch it on. After blasting a white disk onto the back of her retinas she returned it to its pouch and set it aside. The pouch, she saw, also had a belt clip.

A shiny stainless steel handle dropped out of the next pouch. Nonplussed, Maggie picked it up and turned it over between her fingers, wondering what it was. There were slots in the sides and for a moment she thought it was some sort of Swiss Army knife. However, as she began pulling out the blades she found a knife, a fork, a spoon, a corkscrew, and a small can opener, all of them detachable from the handle. When folded up, they all fit snugly inside. Maggie flipped out each utensil one by one and practiced removing them. They were tiny in her hands, but perfectly serviceable. After sliding everything back into place she held up the chow kit and admired its compactness and then latched it back into its pouch.

The next item made her draw in a sharp breath as she slid it free and flipped its lid open. Maggie had never owned a real compass before. This one was solid and metal, a lensatic compass with a self-luminating dial filled with liquid. A ruler was etched down one side, and a thin neck lanyard was rolled around the top ring. It was worn and scratched and the plastic was smudged, but the mechanisms were free from dirt and the numbers and gradations were still perfectly clear.

Laying it flat on one palm she swivelled back and forth in her seat. Obediently the needle remained facing north, and the dial spun easily when she turned it. Reverently she folded it shut again and returned it to its pouch

She had to admit she had no idea what the final item was as she plucked it from the table. Inside the pouch was a silver bar the size of her thumb, flat, like a magnet. It had a hole in one end, with a beaded carrying chain threaded through it. Hanging from the other end of the chain was a long thin metal cylinder.

She shook the pouch and they both fell out onto the table. She picked up the bar and held it between both hands, letting the other piece dangle. It was surprisingly light. There was writing printed faintly on one side, and she rotated the bar until she could read it. Beneath a string of numbers she could make out the words FIRE STARTING TOOL, MAGNESIUM, US PATENT NO. 4168 98.

Maggie was unimpressed. It certainly didn’t look like an object that could spark a fire. She would have expected an army fire starting tool to look more like a cigarette lighter. This was just a silver bar with a piece of metal attached, like a key on a keychain. She stuffed it back into its pouch and tossed it aside, pulling the butt pack closer to paw through the bottom.

As it turned out, there were a few more loose things rattling about inside. A toothbrush and a small tube of paste- army issue, she wondered? There was a pair of sunglasses and a nub of pencil and a black pen. Lying flat at the very bottom was a small white square, and she reached in to bring it out into the light. She nearly laughed aloud when she realised it was a scrapbook, complete with twelve plastic sheets for holding photographs and a small book of paper. Stamped on the front was a gold printed branch medallion, and above that the word NAVY was embossed in gold as well.

Maggie was grinning as she dropped it and trolled all of the other items off of the table and stuffed them back inside the pack. Even in a cave she was still getting courtesy items.

Satisfied with her new belongings, she set the pack down beside her tray and shuffled back around to face her breakfast. Just as she was splashing a little milk onto her cereal she became aware of heavy footfalls tromping up behind her. Self consciously, she hunched her shoulders and picked up her spoon again and dipped it into the sodden flakes, stirring the mass slowly as she waited for the person approaching to hurry on to another part of the cavern.

No such luck. A long shadow draped itself over her, and a friendly voice said, “Do you mind if we sit down?”

Maggie’s grin drained from her lips. Dismayed, she shot a helpless glance about the mess area, searching for a familiar face. Rita was still serving coffee and leftover muffins over at the food table. The red haired woman had shucked her apron but her hair was still tied back, and there was a dishrag flopped over one of her shoulders. With both hands she was throwing out a scoop of old wet coffee grinds and joking with several men in informal blue uniforms who were loitering beside the tall camp coffee pot. No help there.

“Oh, no, go ahead,” she said aloud, giving up.

Two men stepped into her line of sight. To her relief they set down their mugs and sat on the opposite side of the table. One of them was also carrying a clipboard loaded with paper, which was laid flat as he tucked his legs underneath his chair and slid it forward.

“Hi,” he said, smiling.

“Hi,” she replied, fidgeting her spoon.

He gestured with his mug. “Are you the one they brought in a couple days ago?”

Maggie nodded and tried to smile. “Yep, that’s me.”

“No kidding! How are you feeling?”

The question was getting old, but she made her reply as bright as possible. “Much better, thank you.”

He seemed pleased with the answer. The other man blew on his steaming coffee and scratched his wrist.

“Must be nice to be out of bed and walking about,” said the man with the clipboard. He folded his arms over the table and leaned forward. “How do you like the cavern so far?”

Maggie groped for an answer. “It’s… pretty big.”

He laughed. “One of the biggest on the Colorado, I think.”

“Have you been here very long?”

“About four months, I think. What do you think, Don, would you say four months?”

“About that.”

“Seems like longer,” the first man said, turning back to Maggie.

She was regarding him curiously now, some of her hesitation melting away as she tried to put a memory to his face. She had seen him somewhere before, she was certain of it. He was medium height and wore the same dull blue uniform as the others. His sleeves were rolled back, revealing bare forearms that were spotted and scratched and worn from hard labour. His face was narrow and lined and brown from the sun, but his eyes were blue and kind, and his thin hair had a ruffled look to it that made him seem more approachable.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, sitting upright. “Wait! Didn’t I see you last night?”

“Maybe!” he said. “I’m Brown. Jones is over by the jet. This is White, Don White.”

The quiet man beside him was sipping his coffee, but he set the mug down when he spotted her looking at him. “Hello.”

“Hello,” she returned shyly.

Brown grinned. “How did you like meeting the skipper last night?”

Maggie’s confidence began to slip away again. “He was really nice.”

“Yeah, he’s a good guy. He really did a number on squadron management before Nellis, and that made everyone a little wary for a while, but he brought in a lot of good people and was in the process of turning things around for the better when the damn Autobots hit. He’s the one who kept the Hats together after Nellis, so we’re sticking with him.”

Maggie looked down at her cereal. “I hope he doesn’t mind me hanging around here…”

Brown waved it aside. “No, don’t worry about it. You’re safer here than anywhere else at the moment, and that’s what’s important. He knows it too.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Maggie, and meant it. In a hurried voice she added, “I hope there’s something around here I can do to help out. I mean-“

“Don’t worry about that either,” laughed Brown. “I imagine Rita will put you to work soon enough.”

Despite the joking threat, Maggie found herself grinning at his easy good humour, and she ducked her head and pushed around her cereal with her spoon.

“I see they gave you a kit bag,” continued Brown, nodding at her pack. “Have you taken a look in it yet?”

“Yes, yes, I have, just now.”

“That’s all good stuff. You’ll want to keep that pack around you as often as you can, because I can pretty much guarantee you’ll need something out of it sooner or later.”

“Hang onto that bug spray,” murmured White with a yawn.

Brown nodded. “Yeah, that’s the good stuff, the same type they used in Vietnam. The blackflies can get pretty bad out on the river, so you’ll definitely want to keep that around.”

“There’s velvet ants too.”

“Oh yeah. And scorpions. And rattlesnakes.”

“Hanta virus.”

“And it gets as hot as hell in full sunlight. The temperature can reach well over one hundred degrees down here. Did anybody stick a hat in your pack?”

Face pale, her spoon dangling limply from her fingers, Maggie said, “Uh, I don’t think so.”

“I’ll go grab you a hat,” said Brown, pushing back his chair and standing. “You’ll burn up without one.”

White placed his fingers on the clipboard and swivelled it around so that he could peer at the top sheet of paper. “Are we working on the decoy-dissemination stuff today?”

“I’m coming right back,” said Brown, looking slightly exasperated as he sidestepped away.

“Give him a couple minutes,” mumbled White. He raised his mug again and buried his nose in it.

Maggie regarded him uneasily from across the table as she pushed about her soggy cereal. The man seemed completely unaware of her scrutiny, apparently more interested in pecking at his coffee than anything else happening in the cavern around him. His indifference made her feel uncomfortable. He lacked Brown’s pleasant air, and despite his quiet demeanour he seemed much less agreeable, as if he was satisfied with Maggie’s presence but not inclined to approach it in a friendly way. Like the other man he was of medium height and build and deeply tanned, but his hair was wild and brown and his dark eyes heavily lidded.

As White yawned over his coffee, Maggie once again she found herself looking about for Rita. She was dismayed to spot Brown lingering next to the camp coffee pot now. Despite the fact that he had a full mug waiting for him back at the table, he had picked up a plastic cup and was toying with it as he leaned on the pot and talked to Rita, who was idly using a fork to scrape food scraps from a greasy pan into a waiting compost bin. Both adults were grinning and laughing and seemed quite happy with the arrangement.

Maggie made a face and turned back to her tray. It looked as if White’s prediction had been right on the mark.

As if sensing her thoughts, the quiet man abruptly spoke up. “How do you like the jet?”

Startled, Maggie looked up and saw that he was regarding her from over the top of his coffee mug. Recovering herself, she said, “It’s really cool.”

“Did the skipper tell you what kind of jet it is?”

“Oh, yes, yes, he did. He called it a Tomcat?”

White nodded. “An F-14A Tomcat, yes.”

For his sake, Maggie looked intrigued. “What does the ‘A’ mean?”

“That it’s old,” said White, shrugging.

“It is?”

“Yeah. Literally, the A variants were the first Tomcats made and delivered to the navy.”

Maggie twisted around in her seat and gazed back at the jet resting on its landing gear within the circle of lights and wire. It had seemed massive when she had approached it the night before, but now, viewed from a distance and in the light of day, it seemed shrunken and small, wrapped up like a fragile and ancient relic. Here and there the tarps had been peeled back and men in dusty uniforms were crouched on the grey metal revealed. More cables lay draped across its back, and they dragged back and forth as the technicians moved under and over the jet and pulled their equipment with them. Beneath the protective covering the jet looked lumpy and formless, with only its long nose and its tailfins giving away any hint of its aerial nature.

There was a decal of a tall black hat on the tailfin closest to Maggie. It was worn by a grinning skull. The number ‘42’ was painted on the hat band.

“How old is this one?” she wondered.

“Almost fifteen years.”

Maggie compared that to her own age and raised her eyebrows. “That doesn’t seem too ancient.”

White shrugged again. “It is in fighter jet years. There are already other better variants than this one in service.”

“How come you guys didn’t get them?”

“We were supposed to at some point or another. Obviously that’s not going to be happening now.”

Maggie turned back to face him. “So the next best one would be the B version, right?”

“That’s right, yeah.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Better engines, better performance. These As are in constant need of tune-ups and upgrades and overhauls just to keep up.”

Maggie suddenly grinned. “That sounds like a classic car.”

White’s expression finally registered something other than sleepy apathy. Surprised, he said, “That’s a good way to put it. You like old cars?”

“Oh yeah,” said Maggie.

The man chucked a thumb over his shoulder. “I used to have a 1968 Ford Mustang back in Minnesota.”

“Nice,” said Maggie, still grinning broadly. “With the 428 Cobra Jet engine?”

White said nothing and simply gave her a long appraising look, his coffee momentarily forgotten.

Without warning the empty chair beside him scraped back as Brown returned and swivelled it away from the table. Moments later he dropped back into his seat and lightly tossed a ball of fabric towards Maggie. There was a red flush beneath his tan and a peculiar lopsided smile on his face, as if he were still laughing at a private joke, but he nodded at her as gladly as before.

“There you go,” he said, settling back down and reclaiming his coffee mug. “Don’t worry about getting it dirty, we can always scrounge up a few spares.”

“No more coffee?” said White dryly.

“Hey, I was just asking her something.”

Maggie caught the ball and unravelled it between her hands, shaking sand from her fingers as it trickled from the soft folds. It was a battered old khaki hat, rough and dusty like everything else in the cavern, but as serviceable as anything else she had already been given.

“Thanks,” she said.

"We were just talking cars,” said White.

“Really?” said Brown, looking between them with interest. “I had a Honda at Nellis, before an Autobot stepped on it.”

“That was yours?”

“A rental.”

“Ah.”

Maggie grinned, feeling bolstered by the friendly conversation. “My Chevy got squashed too, back at the gas station.”

“I heard about that,” said Brown. “Those bastards. If we ever make it into Vegas we should all go loot some Ferraris.”

“Decoy-dissemination apparatus?” said White. “Chaff systems, yeah?”

Brown eyed him as he lifted his mug. “Give me a minute to finish this, would you?”

“What’s all of that?” asked Maggie as she stuffed the hat next to her pack.

White answered for the other man while he was busy drinking. “It’s a decoy system against enemy missiles.”

“The jet doesn’t have one?”

“It does, but it’s outdated, just like everything else aboard it.”

Maggie tried to catch another glimpse of the jet from over her shoulder. “How much work do you still have to do?”

“At least a couple months worth.”

“And then we’ve got to debug and test everything until the skipper is happy,” added Brown, coughing on a mouthful of coffee. “That’ll be another couple weeks right there.”

“You’ll do that sort of thing right here in this cave?” said Maggie, her mind filled with gruesome images of blazing engines and ignited fireballs.

“Oh, no, not all of it,” laughed Brown. “Flight and engine tests will be performed on a small uncontrolled airstrip not too far from the canyon. We’ll assemble the ship here, confirm that all of the necessary flight control systems are working, then disassemble the whole thing and transport it to the airstrip, where it will be reassembled under cover and launched. Most of the serious work will take place after we’re all landed aboard the Roosevelt.”

“You’re going to carry a whole jet out of the canyon?” said Maggie incredulously. “How will you do that?”

Brown grinned broadly. “We’ll have help. You’ll see.”

Maggie paused for a moment to chew over that mystery. Maybe if the Tomcat was taken apart and packed up into wooden crates and lifted up the canyon walls, perhaps with ropes and blocks and tackle…

“So, what sort of things have you fixed on the jet?” she continued, pushing aside her thoughts so that they could be mused over later.

White exchanged a significant look with Brown. The latter shrugged.

“It’s not like the information is of much value anymore to the people we used to hold concerns about,” said Brown.

“I still think this is the sort of thing Bruce would look down on.”

Brown waved it aside. “Oh, it won’t hurt anybody. It’s Greek to most people anyway. Look, Maggie, how much do you know about modern jet fighters?”

“Like, this much,” said Maggie, holding up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

Brown gestured expansively to the other man. “There, you see?”

White gave him a thin look but turned towards Maggie. “Navigational, communications, and identification stuff is up and running,” he said evasively. “Chaff-flare dispensers will be finished in the next few days. Fuel cells are in and ready, feed systems looking good. The RWR and jammers are down, but TACAN is set, same as the IFF transponder, not that we seem to need it anymore. Mach sweep programmer is good to go, same as the flight surfaces, spoilers, speed brakes, flaps and slats, DLC, and all that. The radar and fire control computers are a no-go and the cannon is hosed, same as the cameras and the TCS. We’re still overhauling the engines.”

“I barely understood half of that,” said Maggie.

Brown grinned. “What did I say?”

Maggie shifted uneasily. “But you’ll be able to put it together again, right?”

“We’ll get it into the air, if that’s what you mean," said White firmly.

Maggie tried to keep her expression from falling. “So you won’t try to fight with it?”

“Oh god, no,” said White. He tapped the clipboard in emphasis. “It’s not in any sort of condition to engage the Autobot forces, not as it is here, or as it will be when we finish with it. Chances are it will never be in acceptable flightline condition again. Getting this thing off the ground will be a major accomplishment in itself.”

Brown nodded at the assessment. “Forget all of the Hollywood hype and glamour when you look at that machine. Make no mistake, a jet like this one flies because a lot of very precise and elaborate mechanics work together to keep it in the sky. The slightest overstress on the frame can be very dangerous and may ruin the aircraft, perhaps terminally, in the case of its pilot and RIO. This ship has already been through a lot. We can’t be certain of its stability as a flying vehicle, never mind as a weapon’s platform. We just don’t have the equipment here to make those sorts of safety checks. We’re doing a lot of this by the seat of our pants because we know the Autobots are out there, and we know that we probably don't have the time to properly strip down and inspect every single square inch of this aircraft.”

“It’ll be a miracle if she even survives the landing on the Roosevelt,” said White cynically. “What with the ship pitching and rolling, and with all that going on our pilot has to drop our fifty thousand pounds of unsafe metal onto the equivalent of a matchbox. Even a good landing is a controlled crash at best.”

Brown gave him an irritated look. “Hey, I oversaw the installation of the arrester hook myself, you know.”

“Yeah, but look at who we’ve got flying it.”

“Let’s not get into that now.”

White only shrugged. “At any rate, we’ll baby her to California, and we’ll baby her across the Pacific. For all we know, that may be the last flight she ever makes.”

Brown grew sober and regarded the girl intently, leaning forward onto his forearms. “We’re just trying to get one past the Autobots, Maggie, not win a war against them.”

“One step at a time,” murmured White into his coffee.

With her heart sunk deep in her stomach Maggie turned on her seat and looked behind her. This time she gazed at the covered jet and looked past it, to the entrance of the cavern. All of the scaffolding that had supported the screen during the night was folded up to the sides, and brilliant sunshine now streamed onto the sandy beach just beyond the threshold. She could see the red cliffs rising up outside, and flat blue water, and white rapids where the river surged through the rocks further downstream, smashing itself into foam. All was air and light and water that seemed as untouchable to her as the moon.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Yeah, I know how that goes.”

“Know how what goes?” thundered a familiar voice behind her. Maggie jumped.

Rita grinned down at the table from over her head. The tall woman was dishevelled and sweaty and was tearing the elastic from her hair as she talked, ripping her red hair free so that it could pile onto her shoulders again. She wore denim shorts and a faded green T-shirt with the studded belt and the mustang buckle. Her feet were still bare and coated in sand.

“I’ve got my flowered sports bra on too, not that you gentlemen needed to know that,” she added dryly, correctly interpreting the looks she was getting from around the table. “It’s real cute. I think they’re daisies.”

Brown had the good grace to look suitably embarrassed, while White simply darted his eyes elsewhere. Maggie stared blankly, realising that she never had finished her breakfast.

Rita was already talking again. With a wide smile she clapped one hand down onto Maggie’s shoulder, making the girl sag hard to that side. “Anyway, I just came over to ask if you boys wouldn’t mind me stealing Miss June away from you for a little while.”

“Not at all,” said Brown. “We should probably be getting back to work anyway.”

“Oh yeah? What part are you sticking on today?”

Brown whipped his head around and stared expectantly at White. In a resigned tone the other man droned, “Decoy-dissemination apparatus and chaff systems.”

“It’s all Greek to me,” said Rita. “Well, good luck with that. I’m going to teach Maggie here how to scrub the hell out of an army pot.”

Brown jerked his head in her direction and patted the table next to Maggie’s tray. “There, you see? I told you she’d find something for you to do.”

Uncertain whether or not she should be excited over this, Maggie said, “Oh, uh, okay, that sounds great.”

Rita nodded at her tray and released her shoulder. “You eat up first, honey, then bring that over to the mess area,” she said. “I’ve already dragged up some water from the river so we can get started right away.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” said Brown, grinning.

Rita brandished the back of her hand at him. Laughing, he snatched up his clipboard and stepped back, the metal legs of his chair squealing against the rocky floor.

“We’ll see you ladies later,” he said, and then the technicians turned and walked back towards the fighter jet, White trailing behind his colleague after giving Maggie a congenial nod.

Rita sighed and rolled her eyes to see that both men had left their coffee mugs behind, still half-full and already beginning to leave a sticky ring on the table.

“You’ll find we do a lot of cleaning up around here,” she said, wiping one hand over her sweaty brow and dragging her fingers through her hair, streaking it with moisture. With her palm still pressed to her forehead she shifted her weight over one leg and made a face. “You’d think the army, or the navy, or what have you would teach a man to pick up after himself. The first person who asks me to sweep up around their fancy jet is going to get a free punch in the nuts.”

Wisely, Maggie ate a dried banana slice and said nothing.

The sun was directly overhead. It turned the sky deep blue, and it turned the desert white. Shreds of cloud drifted to the west. Plumes of dust drifted across the scrub and rock and settled there, draping over everything it touched. A thick heat haze hung in the air just above the dry earth, and mirages shone like rivers against the horizon. Brown ridges and hills rose up in the distance, soft and pale.

At Eagleson gas station, the smoke was finally clearing.

Soot lay thick on the ground. It made the dirt black and coated the broken windows with ashy grey powder. The gas pumps were scorched up and down, their dials smashed and the glass lying on the gravel in glittering fragments. Burnt cars sat like twisted metal cages on the verge of the drive. Scuttled by fire, there was little left of them other than their frames. Even the tires had melted, and the molten rubber had spread out across the ground and congealed into lumpy magmata formations. A bitter chemical stink still lingered in the air.

Bodies were no longer flesh and blood. Now they were simply scattered patches of cinders and ash.

The gas station had once been a pleasant building, painted white with red and green trim, with a bushy row of red geraniums planted around it. Now it was discoloured with smoke, its windows broken and its neatly raked gravel pocked with craters. The front door was smashed and hung ajar, and trash lay strewn about the entrance. Great trees with broad green leaves brooded around the back of the station, shading it.

A brown Dodge Diplomat was parked out by the empty gas pumps. It was a big, squared off car with a black vinyl top, dusty flanks, and a broad, shiny front grille. Not a trace of soot lay upon it. Its tires were turned towards the station, and its driver’s side door was swept wide open. The sun shone down on its windshield, turning it a brilliant white as well.

Sitting on the end of the hood was a woman.

She wore sandals, and her feet were resting on the front bumper. An olive green hat shaded her face, and an unbuttoned olive green shirt hung about her body like a tarp. Beneath it she wore Bermuda shorts and a sleeveless top. Leather strings of Indian beads were wrapped about her neck. There was an elastic band snapped around the crown of her hat, with a crumpled packet of cigarettes thrust beneath it.

Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark orange aviator sunglasses. Curly blond hair with streaks of grey poked out from beneath the hat. Her bare skin was weathered, tanned and worn. Hard muscle stretched over old bone in meagre strips. She might have been forty, or she might have been fifty. Her age was indeterminable. Behind her sunglasses her gaze was ancient, eternal, and wicked.

She stared out over the gas station with alert interest, unmoved by the destruction. Her hands moved restlessly together, the long fingers hungry for a cigarette. A toothpick bobbed up and down between her teeth. The wind flagged her shirt and her hair. Dust blew against the side of her body.

Without raising a hand she swivelled the toothpick around in her mouth and began to chew on the other end. After a minute or so she spat it over the side of the car and onto the ground and shouted, “Curtis!”

Glass crunched underfoot, and then a younger man walked through the front door of the station. He stood in the empty frame and squinted out into the sunshine.

“What?” he shouted back, shading his eyes with one flat hand.

“Find anything?” said the woman

The man started to reply, then shut up and moved forward. He strode across the gravel towards the brown Dodge, stepping carefully around the worst of the debris. Smoke blew around him when the wind picked up. Through the haze he was a tall dark form, shifting in the heat.

He stopped in front of the car. He scratched his chest through his black T-shirt and knuckled his hands over his hips. His expression was perplexed.

“What?” he repeated.

“I said, did you find anything?” repeated the woman patiently.

“What? Oh, no, not much,” he said, shaking his head. His shaggy brown hair swung back and forth. “Nothing worth salvaging, anyway. The freezers are shot and everything smells like shit.”

The woman sighed. “Yeah, I figured. Was there anything in the register?”

“Uh, one hundred fifty eight bucks?”

“Give it here.”

Curtis obediently thumbed a roll of bills from the pocket of his jeans and slapped it into the woman’s open palm.

“Want the change?” he said, digging his hand back into his pocket expectantly.

“You keep it,” said the woman, looking amused as she cocked her head and buried the money in the cigarette packet.

Curtis wiped off his hands and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “While you were off down the road I grabbed some plastic bags and hit the aisles and loaded up the car with canned food, cigarettes, gum, cleaning things, paper towels and toilet paper, stuff like that, stuff we missed last time, so that’s good, at least.”

The woman grinned slyly. “For us or them?”

Curtis grinned back.

“Where’s Red?” said the woman, shifting tacks.

“Around the back, checking for bodies.”

The woman grimaced. “Better her than me.”

“That’s what I said. I’m telling you, man, the stink is unreal. I totally can’t handle it.”

“Me neither. These cars are full of dead people. I’m not touching them.”

Curtis looked interested at that. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and rocked back on his heels. “Any sign of our Autobot?”

“Yup,” said the woman. The hood buckled and creaked beneath her weight as she turned, swiping a crescent into the dust. She sat side-saddle over the wheel well and pointed towards the open highway. “Two sets of tracks lead out in exactly the same direction as that girl said, heading down the road. Neither set turns back. I figure our boy chased somebody down, killed them, and then took off.”

“Which way?”

“If he stuck to the highway, then northeast.”

Curtis squinted over the desert. “Think he’s in Vegas?”

“I don’t. I think he’s still in the area. I think he knows that there are people still hiding out here, and he’s having a jolly good time hunting them down.”

"Are you sure?"

"It's what I would have done."

Curtis curled his lip and hissed and stamped one foot into the ground, kicking up a puff of dust. With his hands on his hips he stared down the highway. Heat was streaming up from the dark asphalt, making the air shimmer and broil above it.

“Shit,” he repeated. “We’d better call this one in.”

The woman flattened her hands beneath her and pushed off of the car with a grunt. Her feet hit the dirt hard and she straightened.

“That’s what I was thinking,” she said, slapping dust off her thighs. “Is the radio still in the boot?”

“Yeah.”

“How is the battery?”

“Still charged.”

The woman walked around to the back of the Dodge, shaking a ring of keys from her pocket as she did so. After finding the right key she thrust it into the lock and lifted the lid, holding it open as she ran her eyes over the interior of the trunk.

Curtis’s voice drifted back. “Here comes Red.”

“Keep her occupied for a sec, would you?” said the woman. “I’ll be right there.”

There were spare blankets and life preserves folded in the trunk, along with jumper cables, maps, food packets, and extra boots. Pushed into the far back corner was the radio, half-hidden by an old sweater. It was still strapped to its manpack frame, which left it suspended up from the floor by several inches. It was a large device with a roughly rectangular casing, olive drab, with shiny black switches and dials on the long front panel, which was also black. White gradations and numbers were printed around the dials.

Thin wires looped here and there. The casing was scratched and dirty, its paint chipped in places, and someone had once written numbers on its side in black marker. Canvas chest and shoulder straps were lashed across the frame. The battery pack was fastened to one end. A phone cord spiralled in a long coil from the other end. Attached to the cord was the hand set, which looked much like a telephone receiver itself.

The woman propped up the lid, then reached inside and dragged the heavy radio forward. Its long antennae wagged at the motion. They were borrowing it from one of the technicians inside Redwall Cavern. It was not navy issue, but a private item carefully rescued from the ruins of Nellis. The technician had told her it was a Clansman PRC-320 manpack radio, British issue. The woman had immediately felt at home with it after hearing that.

In the background she could hear Curtis and Red talking quietly. She leaned forward into the trunk, ducking to avoid the lid. After switching on the radio she lifted the receiver to her ear, dialled the cavern frequency and keyed it.

“Back Fence, this is Dodge One,” she said. “I repeat, Dodge One, come in, over.”

With one hand braced against the side of the trunk she waited, gazing out over the desert. After a moment of fuzzy static she heard a voice in her ear. “Dodge One, this is Back Fence, over.”

“Happy morning, cats,” said the woman. “Is that you, skip?”

“It’s me. How is the patrol going?”

“So far, no good. We’re at the big scorch now. The fires are all out and the smoke is down, lots of fire damage, burnt cars.”

“Any more survivors?”

The woman dropped the mouthpiece and peered over the lid of the trunk.

“Any survivors?” she shouted.

“Nothing,” replied Red.

“Nope, doesn’t look like it,” repeated the woman into the radio. “Sorry boss. Looks like that girl was it.”

The voice swore. “Damn. All right. Any other signs of Autobot activity?”

“You bet. I found tracks leading out of the gas station, just like that girl suggested. You gentlemen had better be careful. I think it’s still in the area.”

“Have you seen it?”

“No,” said the woman. “Just call it a hunch.”

The voice on the other end sighed. “We’re already pressed tight in terms of security as it is.”

“You’ll want to get tighter. You really want to trust me on this one, boss.”

There was a moment of silence. “All right. I will. Is Red there?”

“Yep.”

“Could you ask her if she’d go out a wide patrol for me? If we can’t get this thing under some sort of surveillance until it leaves the area, then I at least want to find some more tracks, anything that can give us an idea of the places it frequents, and how we can avoid crossing them.”

Quickly looking up and over the trunk, the woman waved one hand, gesturing rapidly. “I’ll ask her to get right on it, sure.”

In a low and serious tone, the voice said, “In your opinion, do you think it’s looking for us?”

“Could be,” said the woman, shrugging. “Or maybe it’s been sent from Oregon to hunt down Nellis survivors in general. The Autobots have already shown that they have an aversion to the air force.”

"I imagine we have the Decepticons to thank for that."

"I imagine you do too."

“But it’s a thought. We’ll have to warn the others somehow.”

“Tell you what,” said the woman, leaning one arm against the trunk and glancing out towards the north, the phone cord stretching to follow the motion. “I need a new diesel generator. If one might happen to find its way down to our camp, then Dodge Two and I could probably get to work on warning the rest of your scattered Nellis personnel, no problem, providing you don’t need us or the car at the Back Alley for the next couple days.”

“I don’t think we do. We’ve got enough supplies stored here to last us that long. I’m certain that an extra generator would pop up if we took an inventory this afternoon.”

“Well, that’s good,” said the woman. “That’s very good. In that case, we’ll put the word out about your Autobot. Maybe somebody in one of the other camps has spotted it and made an identification.”

“Tell them we’re looking for a red car, or else a red robot. If anyone out there knows which one of the Autobots it is, then we’re going to need to know that information right away. With a name or a better description attached to it Red might be able to determine its particular armament and weaknesses.”

“I was thinking along similar lines.”

The voice sighed again, a deep and weary sound. “Good luck, and thanks again. Keep in touch whenever you can.”

“I will,” said the woman, and reached into the trunk to flip off the radio. When she slammed down the lid and turned around, she saw that both Curtis and Red were standing nearby and regarding her curiously.

“What’s up?” said Curtis.

The woman spun the keys around her finger and sagged back against the Dodge. Her smile was as wide as the Pacific. “We’ve got a new generator.”

“Uh, that’s good.”

“In a related story we’ve also got a bit of driving to do, so get ready to leave right away.”

“Where are we heading?”

“Williams, and then Flagstaff, to find the Nellis camps there. If you need the washroom I recommend going now, because when we’re on the open road I’m not stopping for anything, not if there’s an Autobot in the area.”

“I’m fine,” said Curtis dryly.

The woman grinned faintly and turned, her sunglasses flashing briefly as they caught the light. “Red, the boss was wondering if you wouldn’t mind extending your patrol this afternoon to cover a bit more territory.”

“How much more?” said Red.

Despite her hat, the woman still found herself shading her eyes with her hands as she stared up at the other female, nearly straight up into the sun. “Maybe go out forty extra miles, keeping this gas station at the centre?”

“That seems reasonable. What am I looking for?”

“Any trail that red Autobot might have left behind.”

“Blazing paths of destruction, and the like?”

“I’ll settle for simple tracks, thanks,” said the woman sharply.

Red rubbed her chin in a speculative fashion. “Only forty miles? In two days it could have covered a good deal more ground than that.”

“Bruce is only looking for a way to track it at this point, I think. Nobody wants to stumble across it face to face. Don’t put yourself in any danger. You’re too easy to spot outside of the canyon.”

Red looked amused. “Very well. I’ll keep my head down. Enjoy your new generator, darling.”

There was a blur of motion, and a whipping tempest of wind that sucked a tornado of dust up from the gravel and sent it bursting into the sky. The woman and Curtis ducked instinctively, their arms raised to keep dirt from peppering into their hair and faces. When the wind died down they hesitantly straightened and turned back and saw that Red was long gone, leaving nothing but footprints behind her.

The woman ripped off her sunglasses and peered up at the sky, not looking with her eyes but listening with her ears, tilting her head to catch the quiet strains of a familiar sound, one made faint and wide by sheer open space and distance…

… there, the cheerful snarl of an airplane’s prop, retreating swiftly to the north.

She followed the sound with her eyes, the crowfoot lines in her face softening as her expression reflected her preoccupied thoughts. The wind gently ruffled her hair, tousling the dry curls. There were no clouds, no white contrails stitching across the blue sky, just waves of heat and the low soft whir of spinning blades. After a minute she became absently conscious of the way her partner was clearing his throat.

“So,” said Curtis. “Are we seriously going all the way out to Flagstaff, Lou?”

The woman grinned slyly and pushed her sunglasses back over her eyes.

“That’s right,” she said. “What do you think the chances are of us crossing paths with that Autobot en route?”

Curtis grinned back.

Lou said nothing and slapped a hand over his shoulder as she circled past him, moving towards the driver’s side door. She slid onto the seat and punched the key into the ignition, one leg stretched outside of the car as she tested the engine, which caught with an angry heated roar. A moment later the Dodge lurched to the side as Curtis settled his weight onto the shotgun seat. Both doors slammed shut, throwing out puffs of dust.

Gravel hissed out from beneath the brown car’s tires as it fishtailed around the gas pumps and bumped over the verge of the drive, pointing towards the open highway and dragging a rooster tail of dust and smoke behind it.