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                        Two Graves                         
                       -by Beraale-                        
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                          Prelude                          
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Prelude
The crisp chill in the air felt good on his face as he looked over the nightscape of Canterlot during its small hours. Standing at the edge of a cliff that overlooked most of the city was slightly risky. An aerial patrol of Thestrals could potentially see him as he took this little moment for himself, before it all began. A lot of work from a lot of people had gone into what would transpire tonight. The last three to four weeks alone had almost cost them everything on one or two occasions. Yes, a random patrol outside of the Guard's long established norm could spot him and the professional in him was urging he step back. He didn't listen though, not this time. This moment was his, and not a damn soul in this world would take it from him.
The human mentally pulled an augmented reality clock into his vision, placing it to the side as he looked up at the new moon sky as the seconds ticked their way to midnight. The night sky was as beautiful as ever and the grip on his rifle tightened unconsciously in anticipation as the clock briefly showed all zeros. When it did, he took a deep breath, relaxing his muscles and getting rid of his unwanted tension. "It's been two years now... since I made this promise," the human said in a voice so quiet only he could hear. "Two years." He had a brief moment where his emotions were a chaotic storm of a sadness, pain, fury, and, oddly, a bit of contentment. But he quickly regained control of himself. He began the process of focusing his mind to the single purpose of the completion of his mission.
There was a fairly high pitched, but clean and clear, beep that only he and the other team leaders could hear, followed by a gravelly baritone voice. "Viper 6 this is Rock 6. We've got everything ready. Over."
"Rock 6, Viper 6. Stand ready for final check-in. Operation will be a Go shortly after. How copy? Over." His response was perceptible to almost exclusively those within a meter or so of him. Sub-vocal mics were great for that.
The voice replied. “Viper 6, good Copy. Out.”
As he stood there a moment more, a ping occurred in his AR, signalling that a member of his team was approaching from behind him. Even though the RFID tag showed who it was, he didn't need it. The faint sound of talons and clawed paws on dirt and rock was the only indication that he needed to know who was present. "Sir," a feminine voice said in a nearly flat tone. However, for those that knew the speaker well enough, there was a thread of nervousness present. "The team has finished their final checks," she continued, "and are ready at your word," the griffon lioness finished.
"Don't be nervous Claudia," the human stated calmly.
A soft rustling of the lioness's feathers could be heard as a reaction to her name being spoken. "Sir, we're on mission. You trained us to use only our callsigns," she whispered to him.
"It's understandable. And I'd be lying if I said you had no reason to be nervous," the man continued, as though nothing was said. "We are about to do something that hasn’t been successfully done, or even attempted, at any point in the recorded history of this world. But whatever happens tonight, we'll all play our parts and what we’ve been working towards for will be achieved. One way or another, tonight this ends with us the victors," the human finished with clear confidence in his voice.
He looked over his shoulder as the cave entrance that she came from a few meters back was then filled with several others as they stepped out into the night air. "And yes, I used your real name. Because this is it… this is the end. After tonight, this is all over and we get to move on with our lives." There was a somewhat sad tone to what he said, as his mind drifted for a moment. This disappeared as he added with a small smirk, “also the Op hasn’t technically started yet and them hearing you name now wouldn't change anything.
Claudia raised a feathered eyebrow at the man’s technicality of an excuse.
"Boss, we're going to make things better tonight," the minotaur bull behind the pair said in his deep voice. He took his large right hand off of his machine gun and placed a fist over his heart, raising his head as he did so. He was therefore exposing the soft vulnerable tissue of his throat in a show of respect and trust. "Thank you for giving us this opportunity." The man took a step back and away from the cliff’s edge as he turned around to face his team, raising his head slightly in response to the minotaur's gesture.
Claudia was a meter away from him and just to his right. Behind her in a rough line was the rest of his team in full battle rattle, waiting for him. The man smirked. "You assholes ready?" He asked to relieve some of the tension in them, getting a couple smirks and quiet chuckles out of the motley crew that had become his team. Several simultaneous responses followed.
"You're such a pup sometimes," the older diamond dog, and team's resident mother hen, sighed while shaking her head in mock disappointment.
"I'll never really understand why you insist on asking that every time," Claudia said as she rubbed her temple, trying and failing to hide her amusement.
"Go buck yourself," the tall unicorn stallion present stated.
The man softly chuckled at his team's almost reflexive response. Once they'd all recovered and just had soft, content smiles that contrasted the gravity of what they were about to do, it was as though an invisible wave hit them and their smiles dropped.
Looking his team over from where he stood in a final check of their equipment, he keyed the team leader channel. "Attention on the Net. This is Viper 6. Status report in sequence and prepare to receive sync. Over."
"Viper 6 this is Rock 6. We are green. Over."
A deep voice followed. "Viper 6 this is Anvil 6. We're green. Over." A hint of excitement could be heard.
"Viper 6 this is Icarus 6. We are green. The skies won't be a problem. Over." Came a smooth confident voice.
"Viper 6 this is Shade 6. We are green and in position. Over." A slightly hissing voice said.
"This is Viper 6. Sending sync mark. Standby." The man waited a few seconds until he received the automated reply pings verifying reception of the mark, "Solar Deicide is a Go. I say again. Solar Deicide is a Go... Happy Hunting. Out." The man nodded to his team who promptly turned and started jogging and trotting into the cave, taking a side tunnel that would take them to their first objective of the night.
The man took a moment and turned around to briefly see the peaceful view one more time. One more time before it was ruined. The considerate part of him felt for the residents of the capital and the chaos they would have to deal with. The service member he was at his core held a level of empathy for those of the Guard that would oppose them. But like every soldier in humanity’s long history of conflict and warfare, he saw that it was him or them... and there was, absolutely and utterly, a zero fucking chance that he was going to let it be him. A long time ago he'd resolved to killing members of the Guard of Equestria if they got in the way of his goal. He'd avoid it when he could, as he always had; there was less mess and blowback with a low body count. However, this time it would be practically impossible.
Noting the time he mentally willed his clock out of view, spun around on the ball of his foot, and took off at a brisk pace to catch up with his team. He did so fairly quickly as they'd only had a dozen or so seconds head start. When the human caught up, he fell in next to Claudia at the head of the pack. He then spoke to himself under his breath. Not as a promise, as he did two years ago; but as a statement of fact.
"The Sun Bitch dies tonight."

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1
There was a sizzle from the waffle iron as Darius poured the plastic cup of batter on it. The sound was an annoying assault on his and his two compatriots’ slightly hungover minds. Darius finished pouring the last of the batter, then closed and turned over the waffle iron. A large dish sized AR timer appeared above the cooker and he stepped over to the table they’d chosen in the breakfast area of their motel a few feet away.
“Hey D, thanks for making me that waffle and all. You’re such a pal,” the over two meter tall, almost three hundred pound mountain of a hispanic man at the table said with a smile as he raised his cup of shitty coffee in a toast to the dark skinned man he addressed. Ignacio knew that Darius loved his waffles, especially after a night of drinking.
“Fuck off Iggy. You touch my waffle and I’ll make you hurt in places you didn’t know you had.” Darius pointed at the giant with his plastic fork as he sat down in his seat with his plate of crappy breakfast à la motel. “That goes for you too Lex,” he continued as he looked to his left at the man grinning through his cup of orange juice. “I don’t care if you got some surgeries from some doctor with a german accent. I’ll still break you.”
Alex snickered. “Even if you could hit me, which you couldn’t old man, I’d still win in the end.” Someone should never rely on warez, cybernetic or bio enhancements, or equipment to be what wins them a fight or keeps them alive. Though he was pretty sure that his radically enhanced reaction times could keep him out of Darius’ clutches, provided he didn’t do anything stupid. All three men at the table had some warez in them, came with the job and the times, but Alex had more tools in his metaphoric toolbox.
Visibly, all three of the men had a datajack. Nowadays it came standard if you opted into the procedure at the end of Selection. However, after Alex had been through an incident that damaged his hearing and left his eyes non-functional, he volunteered for a program that would restore both his sight and hearing, as well as give him some extras. His eyes had been replaced with a pair of cyberbernatics, bridged together in his skull behind his nose, that were fairly low profile. While still being obviously cybernetic, his eyebrows and the moving exposure lenses gave a surprising amount of expression.
His ears had also been replaced. Where they had been now were a pair of plates that covered the area where his ears had been and went halfway up his cranium. The plates then went back, leaving just over five centimeters between the end of one plate and the beginning of the other on the back of his head. These plates were the reinforced protective covers for other portions of his headwarez.
“Really,” Darius looked the tanned man up and down as though he was sizing him up, “how you figure?”
With a literal, and intentional, twinkle in his eye on account of his cybernetic eyes, Alex stabbed a link of sausage and took a bite. While still chewing he began his rebuttal. “Well I’ve got a secret weapon. One that didn’t come from an operating table.” Alex swallowed.
Seeing where this well tread path was going, Ignacio leaned forward in obviously fake and overplayed interest. “Wow Lex. What’s that? Some super secret squirrel combatives that they’re teaching all the new Pilot Enhanced?” His eyes widened as he said this, like a child talking to his hero for the first time. The absurdity of the act was accented by his large frame.
Tightening an invisible necktie, Alex laid out his master trump card. “Well that would be one Henrietta Green-Washington. My cousin and I are oh so very close. And the things she might do to you if you managed to harm even a hair on my head…” Alex sighed in false worry. “Well I shan’t even consider the awful things she would do to you. My innocent soul wouldn’t be able to handle the foul and vulgar details of such acts.”
“You gotta give it to him D. Your old lady would skin you alive if you killed her favorite cousin.” Ignacio said with mock concern on his face as he looked to Darius.
“Yeah...well... what she don’t know won’t hurt her.” Darius’ eyes shifted left to right as though looking for evesdroppers and after seemingly confirming there were none looked to Alex. “And Iggy ain’t no rat, so who’s your witness?”
“Shit,” Alex said with a befuddled look, “you got me there D. I guess I’m right fucked, aren’t I?” There was a few seconds of silence as they all sat there. Iggy broke first, his face cracking with a smile. Then the trio laughed for a bit, unable to keep up the act in their hungover state.
Once they’d settled down and continued eating their breakfast, a beeping came from the waffle iron. Both Alex and Darius got up from their seats. Darius to fetch his prized waffle and Alex to refill the group’s coffees.
Once they were all seated again, Alex threw out an inquiry. “So what’s our plan? I know I want to swing by that old geezer’s tables. Mr. Chang talked up that stand of his at the Tiger Valley match and what he was going to bring out. If half the shit he talked about is true, that old signaleer is going to have a lot of goodies that you can’t find of’n on the secondary market.” There was a giant swap meet of sorts happening this weekend. It was the reason they’d come here and yesterday they’d hit it late in the evening with only really enough time to get the lay of the land.
“I saw some stands for gunsmiths from the area that I’d like to touch base with, make a few contacts. Maybe I’ll get myself a few accessories for the toys,” Ignacio said, his fingers making a muffled tapping sound as he drummed them against his cybernetic left leg through his pant leg. He’d lost it years ago and drumming on it with two fingers had become a mannerism of his.
“Yeah, because you need more shit to put on your gats,” Alex shot at his friend.
Ignacio just gave him a look as though the giant man was unsure if he was the intended target of the comment. “Who, me? For real though, I do need to swing by Ted’s and pick up that trade he owes me for that project I did for him. Restoring a Label isn’t cheap or easy these days.”
With a roll of his eyes, Alex looked to the third of their number. “What about you D? You gonna take your balls out or your wife’s purse for the day and actually buy that deuce?” This succeeded in getting a flat, unamused stare from Darius as Ignacio chuckled with a mouth full of eggs. “Watchu laughing at Iggy? When does Sarah ever let you make your own decisions? You wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t asked on your knees.”
Darius and Alex both grinned as their friend abruptly stopped his antics mid chew. Ignacio swallowed, mentally making note to try and not leave that opening in the future, like he always did, and tried to bring the conversation back on topic. “Back to what Lex asked. You getting that truck or what?”
“First off,” Darius began, “you know that’s not just some truck. It’s a 2060 all terrain hauler the Army surplused that some brilliant, beautiful person then improved the already awesome suspension, power, and battery. That truck can carry or pull up to twelve tons and go at 95 km/h while doing it. And if the numbers on that battery check out, it should be able to do that for maybe eight to ten hours on one charge.”
“Sounds like you want it,” Alex stated matter of factly.
“No shit I want it and you can’t tell me that you don’t,” Darius replied. He then started scratching his short beard. He and Alex had stopped shaving while they were on leave for this nearly month long road trip and, being about halfway through, they’d both gained some scraggly, short laziness trophies. However neither of them could hold a candle to Ignacio’s well kept beard, as he’d had over three years to grow it. “I just don’t have anywhere to put it. Then there’s Henny.”
Alex smirked at that. “Look D,” he began, “cutting out the BS, I think you might get away with it. Also, I’ll go ahead and drop a few subtle comments and try and make her more receptive to the idea. I’ll be chatting your wife up this evening coordinating who’s making what for your daughter’s little birthday feast.”
“You’re tracking that she’s only gonna to be two right?” Ignacio chimed in.
“Well yeah. But any excuse to spend time with my cousin and in-law,” Alex tossed a salt packet from the center of the table, hitting Darius, “and eat a bunch of good food is always a good excuse.”
“Invitation is still open for you and the family to come, Iggy.” Darius said, turning to his friend.
“I’d love to, but Sarah’s been up my ass about spending more time with the kids outside of the garage and shooting ranges. Has this whole plan when we all get back from this trip where the kids each get four hours of exclusive daddy time,” he said while giving air quotes.
“What’s wrong with teaching a five year old girl how to shoot a scattergun?” Alex asked.
“That’s what I fucking said!” A look of bewilderment on Ignacio’s face.
“Alright, calm down you gun-nut,” Darius said to calm him down. He saw a couple families that had started to come down from their rooms to eat breakfast since it was no longer the early morning hours.
“Right,” Iggy said as he received a tisk-tisk from Alex, to whom he flipped the bird after checking that none of the newcomers would see. This got a dramatic, but soundless, gasp of fake shock from his target.
“But yeah, I got you brother,” Alex stated to Darius while finishing up the last of his bagel. “By tomorrow morning you’ll be in the clear, so I’d say go ahead. Try to get that hauler for the best price you can. It would be nice to have our next project be something we’re not building from scratch.”
“Definitely liking the idea of the next one taking less than four years,” Ignacio agreed.
After some thought, Darius spoke up. “Thanks man, but I’m not gonna get it. I got nowhere to put it and even if Henny gives the go ahead, I’d still have to pull the money from somewhere.”
Ignacio had to interject here. “What are you talking about D? Just use your car fund or trade for it.”
“That’s for my daughter’s first car. And we’re saving the trade fodder for our retirement house.”
“She’s about to be two,” Ignacio deadpanned. “You got plenty of time to save a little here and there to have a nice chunk of change to get her a dependable, safe driving car. Trust me, I know where you’re coming from. I’ve got five kids, remember? You and Henny are making enough money to save a bit each month for that.”
“Iggy’s right D. And if you think you’re retiring anywhere other than the family ranch, you’re delusional. Henny loves that place, so you’re retiring in Texas...period. You don’t want to miss out on the truck because you’re being a stick in the mud. We’ll get work out of that deuce so it will be worth it. I’ll even chip in if you want,” Alex added.
Darius screwed up his face in thought for a moment and then decided. “Nah, I’ll be fine. I don’t really need it.”
“Look D,” Ignacio began. “The Ex-Wife is done. At this point all we’re doing is tweaking this and that and we’re going to do that until we wreck it or blow it up doing something stupid.” At this, Alex hummed his approval. “The Ex-Wife is going to be hopping back and forth between me and Lex after this trip. Per your old lady’s directive I might add. So you’re going to have garage space just big enough for that monster. You get the base vehicle, we’ll chip in if needed, and the two of us,” gesturing to Alex and himself, “cover the lion’s share of the upgrades, parts, etc.”
Alex and Ignacio saw their friend think about it further for a while. The trios’ breakfast had been finished for a good bit now, the plates forgotten, and only the smallest dregs of coffee left in their cups. “How are we going to move it on such short notice?”
Alex scoffed at the question. “We drive it of course. Take it with us on the rest of the road trip.”
“Too easy,” Ignacio added.
Darius was skeptical. “I’m thinking we pass on this one. We can pick something else to work on later.”
This got a pair of sighs from the table’s other occupants. We’ll see how long this last, Ignacio thought. He’d known Darius longer than Alex but a shared look between the two confirmed that Alex also knew that Darius would probably change his mind at least three more times before the day was done and likely end up buying the thing.
“Okay you old geezers,” Alex said as he got up from his seat, picking up his disposable dishware to throw away. “Let’s get this train a rollin’ before all the good stuff’s taken.”
“You’re what, maybe five years my younger?” Darius pointedly asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Meh,” was the only reply Darius received before Alex turned around after pushing his chair in.
****
After a fair amount of arguing and insults to other drivers’ intelligence, the trio finally got through the hellacious traffic and backed into a parking spot on the ground floor of a parking garage that was fairly centralized in the areas that they really wanted to check out. They all hopped out of the Ex-Wife.
The Ex-Wife was a work of beauty, to some. It was a titanium and steel alloy frame with some weird metal alloy body that the three to this day couldn’t tell you how they actually ended up with it. All they knew was that Ignacio’s wife had showed up one day while they were working on the engine with a shipping crate, said that she still had some old friends from college that owed her, wished her husband an early happy birthday, and left. Compared to other up-armored civilian cars of similar size,the result was a relatively light weight, all-terrain vehicle slightly larger than a full-sized truck that could take a hit from most modern non-emplaced anti-material railguns and keep trucking on. They’d painted it OD Green with some patches of brown and dark grey to breakup the truck’s profile.
The three of them had dreamt up the idea one New Year’s Eve and before their better halves had caught wind there was an engine and some run-flat, off-road tires sitting in Darius’ spare garage. The concept had started out as a S.H.T.F. vehicle that was reliable as the setting sun and could travel long distances over any terrain one might realistically run into. This was refined into a truck that could go surprisingly fast for its size, 145 km/h top speed, and carry or pull two tons without much, if any, trouble. Not necessarily at the same time, obviously. Ignacio had also added a turret mount to the top of the thing between the second row passenger seats. Just unlatch and pop open the top hatch from the inside and with a practised hand one could have a mag-rail machine gun mounted and spitting 900 rounds a minute in a dozen or so seconds. The ladies of their respective households had just shook their heads when they learned about that.
Once they had that basic platform made, another fun phase began. Stored in the cab in separately secured compartments in the floor, roof, and behind the rear passenger seats were eight rugged solar panels to charge the Ex-Wife’s twenty four hour battery, or anything else they might need charged. When optimised for charging on a normal sunny day, the Ex-Wife could have its battery charged in roughly six hours.
Alex had stuffed more sensory and communications equipment than was generally or realistically necessary. It had cameras that gave complete vision around, above, and below the truck. It could detect several aspects of the weather, use radar and ultrasonic to various degrees, and even function as a communications hub. There was even an option, at the cost of the truck’s battery life, to turn the truck into a small mobile network server if they fed enough power to the stack. A little impressive, and a little expensive, even by modern standards. Almost every system had a backup or redundant system or part for reliability.
Early on the three of them had argued for days because the truck was losing it’s entire back row of seats to the “server room” being put in. It was then that Ignacio pulled the turret shenanigan, taking more room out of the cab, and they all settled on a four-seater. So they lost four of their potential eight seats, but the goal wasn’t to move a family to and from the church potluck on Sunday. This was a working truck for when it was you versus the world… and also a really cool and expensive man toy.
They also ended up sacrificing over a third of the truck’s bed to a large custom-made truck box that was half-filled with enough tools to fix anything short of totalling the vehicle or having to replace a big part. The other half of the space was reserved for safe and secure storage, and on this particular road trip that was namely weapons, ammunition, and Ignacio's portable gunsmithing tool set. Equipment always tends to break when you are on the clock under stress and they were hitting three shooting matches on this trip. The bed was otherwise empty at the moment as they had stored everything they felt they safely could in the room. They knew they were leaving the swapmeet with stuff, and it pays to prepare.
This almost month long road trip of eating, drinking, shooting competitions, camping, and hunting was the Ex-Wife’s maiden voyage. The ending event was a gunshow where they were going to show off their creation and Ignacio’s recently acquired FN Rapid-Rail 68 light machine gun. It seemed like every time they jumped out of the Ex-Wife’s raised chassis, they stared at her proudly. It’d taken them four years to complete and they were going to enjoy her.
“Alright, let’s stop ogling her so we can go get some shit to stuff her full,” Alex said with a sly grin.
“Giggity,” Ignacio followed up without missing a beat.
“Y'all stupid,” was Darius’s immediate response.
“No, you’re stupid,” Alex and Ignacio retorted in unison.
Having apparently heard the whole exchange, an elderly woman passing by chastised them. “Are the three of you children?”
“According to my wife: Yes,” Ignacio stated as the fact that it was. This just got the women to lightly laugh as she continued on her way wishing them a pleasant day, to which the trio responded in kind. Then they left with empty and nearly empty bags in hand ready to buy, swap, trade, and barter everything their skills and wallets could afford.
****
After an hour or so of browsing with a few small purchases amongst them, Darius spoke up. “Yo, I’m going to head over to that public shitter we saw a block back. Where you guys headed next?” There was something to Darius’s voice, though, that only so many people in the world would have heard and understood what it meant. Two of those people happened to be who he was addressing.
Alex and Ignacio had seen this song and dance before and did a well practiced job of acting like nothing was noticed. “Well Chang’s tent is over yonder,” Alex gestured down the street. About a six block stretch of three streets had been cut off to regular traffic and was being used in conjunction with the neighboring stadium and its parking lot as a colossal swap meet that happened annually in Denver. “I guess Iggy and I can head that way and you can meet us there.”
“Rog. See you in 20.” He started to move away.
“You birthing your second kid in there D?” Ignacio said with a smirk.
“Yeah, basically.” Darius lied.
“Leave the mother-to-be alone Iggy.” Alex patronized. “You know how pregnant women get.”
“My bad, D. Do go on,” Ignacio complied. And with that Alex and Ignacio promptly bowed slightly while dramatically motioning for Darius to proceed down the street toward the public toilets.
“You two are assholes.”
“We aim to please,” Alex said. To which Darius rolled his eyes and left. After he’d gone behind a vendor’s stall, Alex and Ignacio recovered. “So how long do you think we wait?”
“Oh, one mike... tops. I want to see the whole thing,” Ignacio answered. The chuckle Alex gave was all the acknowledgement he needed and they both leaned against a nearby railing. They both watched they’re clocks in their AR - for Ignacio his shades and for Alex the integral systems in his robotic looking eyes.
Once sixty seconds had elapsed, they were off. Rather than the roundabout way Darius had to take in his vain attempt to convince his friends that he was not going to go look at that truck again, they took the most direct path. When they drew close to their destination, they slowed down so they could spot Darius before he caught them following.
And there he was, just now approaching the owner of the truck of the hour and presumably all the other vehicles and drones in the immediate area. Ignacio had his hands on his hips as his head dropped, shaking left to right and he lightly laughed. Alex, had taken to a devilish smirk as he rubbed his hands together in preparation of the shit talking that would be at Darius’s expense.
With a shared look between the two, they both moved to a somewhat concealed position behind a tree in a planter. A nod from Ignacio and Alex pulled out from his bag one of the audio devices that he had traded for in the last hour. In a speedy fashion, he paired the directional microphone with his Personal Area Network, connected Ignacio and his PAN, pointed the device, and turned on the mic. Through his cyberears and Ignacio’s earbuds they began listening to the sweet, sweet music.
“-n that? Contrary to mah best interest, I’ll tell ya that you’re one of the few people in a while that’s interested in the thing outside of general curiosity.” The short stocky mechanic said. “But each of ‘m want it pridy bad.”
“I get that sir. I was wondering how much wiggle room you had on that asking price?” Darius asked.
“Oh, not too much ahm afraid. Pretty sure that a couple of the folks making offers already just gonna end up paying what I’m asking.”
“But they aren’t here right now. I am.”
“Yeah, hit’em with the old standby D,” Alex said sarcastically. Ignacio shushed Alex so they, and more importantly he himself, could hear. Alex in response stuck his tongue out at the man and received a flipping of the bird for the second time that day.
“Fair point. What’s yer offer?” The owner inquired.
“Well I’ve got 20k that can be paid to you directly right now.” This got the older mechanic to raise an eyebrow in an unamused expression. ”But I’ve also got this,” Darius continued as he pulled a small datastick from one of his pockets. He offered it to the portly man, who took it gingerly and plugged it into his commlink. A few seconds rolled by as the stick was verified and the moment the contents were visible became obvious to all observers as the mechanic grabbed his commlink in both hands and stared intently. “I’ll trade you one of mine for one of yours.”
Snapping out of his daze the mechanic looked at Darius. “Which one? And where’d you get these? I’ve only ever seen three in the same place and that was a classics drag race.” Darius had him … hook, line, and sinker.
“The first engine listed. It’s basically the same value as the deuce. Also I have them. That’s all that really matters.” Darius had acquired a small storage warehouse in an auction years ago and what was inside was worth far more than the relative pittance he’d spent. Inside, among the scrap and brokedown old combustion engine vehicles that were barely worth the metal they were made of, were eight unused 409 Chevy Big Block engines. Six were untouched, the other two missing a couple small parts that were not too hard to replace. Darius was offering one of those.
Since the transition to electric motors decades ago due to the revolution in battery technology of the 2020s, combustion motors that weren’t emergency generators or used for other specific applications had grown scarce, especially over the last three decades. The value of quality combustion car engines had grown to stupefying levels in some cases. But why complain when you had some that you can use to trade for stuff you’ll actually use, like a house.
“How’m I gettin’ it? I’m assumin’ you’re not carrying these around with you.”
“Well, I can transfer the bill of ownership to you right now. It’s at a storage unit in Georgia. I give you the address and some contact information and you pay to get it moved to wherever you want it.”
The mechanic rubbed his grey stubbled chin as he thought about the offer. “I’d p‘fer not pay’n to move it.”
“That’s my offer.”
The mechanic tapped on his commlink a few times and started looking around in front of him, obviously looking at the items listed in his AR. This presumably was being “displayed” directly into the part of his brain responsible for vision through the datajack connected to the commlink at the rear base of his skull. Or maybe through a pair of contacts. Those had become rather popular since their invention a few years back.
“Make it one a’the complete ones and we got a deal.” The mechanic said while extending a hand out to shake.
Darius thought it over. Over the last few years he’d traded off two complete engines and one of the incomplete ones already. He wasn’t too keen on trading a complete engine, but he could see that transporting the engine to somewhere that was most likely in this part of the country could get a bit pricey. Making a decision, he grasped the man’s hand in a firm handshake that the mechanic reciprocated. “You got a deal,” he said with a smile.
“Good doin’ business with ya.”
The two talked briefly as they coordinated logistics for transport of the engine. As the mechanic was looking to have it shipped inside the next week, Darius was forced to make a call home and set it up so that his wife would be there to deal with the pick up. Henrietta made it rather clear that she was not thrilled about the situation.
Once the deal had been finalized and the titles transferred to their new respective owners, a pair of applauding hands could be heard behind Darius. He turned around and glared at the culprits. “So how’s that not buying the deuce thing working out for ya?” Ignacio inquired as he and Alex approached the dealmakers.
“It’s working out great,” Darius answered in a flat unamused tone.
“Really? Because Henny doesn’t sound too thrilled.” Alex grinned.
“You tapping my calls again Lex? I told you what’d happen if caught you doing that again.” Darius threatened.
“That was a one time thing to see if I could and you know it. And no, I didn’t... Your wife happens to be messaging me right now. Apparently it’s my fault you bought the thing.” As though to accentuate his point, his messenger app pinged in his AR yet again with an angry text from his cousin. His only logical and practical response was to send her a text simulating a voice box asking her to leave a message and then promptly mute all notifications from her messages until she calmed down an hour or so later.
“Well she’s right.”
“The fuck she is. You bought that thing on your own.”
“Actually,” Ignacio interjected, “we did kinda convince him that this could be our next project.”
His head snapping to the side to look at Ignacio, Alex pointed at him with the small directional microphone in hand and with squinted eyes. “You are a fiend and a traitor Ignacio.”
Ignoring their resident asshole, Darius and Ignacio looked to one another. And then they looked to the mechanic that had a rather large and amused grin on his face. “Enjoying the show?” Ingacio asked.
“Ya could say that,” the mechanic answered and then addressed Darius. “Well your new truck has almost a full charge. Ya can drive it off right now or later this evenin’ when a lot o’ the foot traffic dies down.”
“We’ve still got a few places we want to hit before the day is over.” Darius explained. “It alright if we pick it up this afternoon?” The mechanic replied in the affirmative and Darius thanked him. Turning back to his resident asshole, “Lex, you want to actually go to that tent now?”
“Eh,” Alex said with a shrug. “Only if you aren’t going to go trade away more of the Free Parking you landed on in an effort to piss off your wife.”
Ignacio threw his arm around Alex and began pulling the shorter man in the direction of their next target. “Alright Lex, let’s go. You’ve bothered this man enough.” He then bid the mechanic a good day and started walking away. Alex just rolled his eyes as his giant mexican of a friend pulled him along.
Darius turned away from his friends’ antics, looked at the mechanic, and just shrugged. He then spun on his heel and followed his two friends off into the crowd of people.
****
“Damnit Lex! Why the hell did you get all this shit?” Ignacio barked. He’d dropped one of the six heavy 63-gallon tough boxes full of various electronic equipment that Alex had acquired. They were presently moving all the new stuff they’d bought and traded into the back of their new truck..
“Hey, I was able to get this shit for basically half of what it’s worth on the open market.” Alex had really hit it off with the retired Army veteran at the Tiger Valley match and they’d continued that trend when the trio arrived at Mr. Chang’s tent. The both of them being former como guys that had mostly experience directly supporting combat arms, they talked a lot of shop. Even if there had been a few decades between their respective times in service, Joes breaking shit and asking the closest signal guy to fix it hadn’t changed in centuries.
By the time they’d stopped swapping stories and Alex was putting together what he was looking to buy from the man, Alex felt like he was stealing from the old guy. What the old timer was asking for all that Alex had piled together was just criminally low. Alex and his friends had tried to convince him to take more than he was asking but the gruff and crotchety vet would have none of it. “I can tell you’re one of the good ones, kid,” he’d said to Alex. “You remind me of when I was your age. They might not have my old MOS anymore, but you’ve got the drive, skill, and, most importantly, the ego of a Charlie. I’m more than happy to help out one of my own.”
And just like that, the three men were lugging six large and heavily filled tough boxes several blocks and into the back of their new hauler. Very much so to Darius’ and Ignacio's annoyance at that point.
“Just because you robbed it from an old man, don’t mean it ain’t shit.” Ignacio said as he hunched over and rubbed his injured foot.
“You bought some stuff too Iggy,” Darius said with a grunt as he and Alex lifted one of the boxes into the back of the deuce.
“I got less than half the shit he did and most of it is what I was already owed.” He shot back.
“Sure. But we still had to drag it all here. Why didn’t you tell us what you were picking up from the start?”
Standing back up and moving to lift another of the boxes with Alex, Ignacio continued. “It was a surprise and I wasn’t really expecting that much machinery.” In exchange for the work Ignacio had done to restore several pieces of Ted’s French rifle collection, Ignacio had received a full set of equipment to make mag-rounds.
One of the benefits of the power technology boom decades ago had been the ability for small arms technology to have a large jump forward after decades of stagnation. With batteries now being able to hold enough power in a man-portable package to support a railgun, small arm ammunition was now caseless. There were many other benefits to the technology leap. One being that suppressors were no longer required as all you had to do was dial down the speed that you propelled the bullet to subsonic speeds and spend some extra time tinkering or extra money spent to get a mag-rail that didn’t make much, if any, noise during operation. Also, ammunition was far lighter and a fair bit cheaper to make, given that it’d lost a lot of the previously required components during the technological development.
What Ignacio now owned was a little bit more than just something to form a metal into something bullet shaped. His old friend Ted had given him the tools to make his own in-house specialty rounds. He could give it a core using different materials, shape the round to something more than just a blunt or pointed tip, and make a hollow point for self defense. More elaborate things could be done but the restriction with this new equipment was that he wouldn’t be mass-producing anything. However that wasn’t too much of an issue for him. Ignacio had acquired the Type 7 FFL only a few months ago and this was his ticket into a new market.
“Actually, this makes a whole lot more sense now,” Alex said as they lifted one of the last boxes into the back. “It was weird when we were starting this whole trip and you were adamant that we just buy the rest of the ammo we’d need for the last match later in the trip. I’m guessing you want to make it?” Darius then moved the box to the front end of the bed with the others.
“Not really. Though I’ve thought about it. While I’ve made mag-rounds before, it’d probably take me a hot minute to get used to this equipment. He gave me a bunch of material to get started from what he had leftover.”
“Let me guess...ugh.” Alex was lifting a small box into the truck that was heavier than its size had any right to be. “That’s what’s in this.”
Ignacio smirked. “Yes.”
“Alright, let’s close her up.” Darius said as he finished pushing the last of the goods into place.
Once the three of them were all on the ground again, standing near the front of their new project truck, Ignacio put forth his plan. “So how about Lex and go in the deuce to the storage place near the motel to drop all this shit off in an overnight lot. I’ve already called the place and told them we’ll be needing a garage and they’re holding a spot for us. D, you go drop off the Ex-Wife at the motel and meet us at that bar not far from it. Since it will be about four in the afternoon at that point, I say we get some grub, drink something nice, and get some shuteye before we leave in the morning.”
“Works for me.” Darius consented.
“Let’s keep the drinks down. The prices here suck.” Ignacio proposed. Darius and Alex both agreed.
****
Alex slammed the tailgate shut on the back of the new truck and grinned at the groans he got. The punch in the shoulder he received from Darius just made the grin even bigger. The three had just finished loading both of the vehicles.
“I fucking hate you right now,” Darius rubbed his eyes.
“I second that,” Ignacio agreed. Both of them were hurting from last night. They were safe to drive, it just wasn’t going to be fun. “D, next time Lex convinces me to go drink for drink with him, punch me dead in the face.”
“Done,” he acknowledged. “Lex, screw you and your neffy screen.”
“It’s a Nephritic Screen,” Alex corrected with his grin still. One of Alex’s few bio implants had been a modification to his kidneys. This gave them far better filtration of toxins, and the like, while also keeping good stuff in the blood. An added bonus was that he could hold his liquor three times better than some of the best drinkers out there and hangovers were basically a thing of the past for him. The only reason he had been as screwed-up as he was the previous morning was because he’d downed a few shots of Everclear to help counter his implant’s effects.
Alex chuckled for a few moments, until he’d gotten a pair of annoyed stares. “In my defense, flirting with the bartender got her to discount those drinks and save both your asses from your financially-inclined better halfs.”
They talked for a few minutes as they figured out the driving situation. By the end of it, Alex would drive the deuce the whole trip, while Ignacio and Darius drove the Ex-Wife in two hour shifts. That meant both of them would be driving twice to get to the land they’d leased for three days. Also, whichever of the two was not driving could ride in the deuce since it had more space in the cab to sleep.
“I set up some of the radio shit that I got from Mr. Chang in the new truck,” Alex added. “Did you realize he had a TZ/RCM-299R? You just don’t find that shit anymore. Only like two hundred of them made it to civilian market before they were recalled when the DoD said they actually wanted to use them in the birds.”
“I remember when we got those at Bat. All our RTOs wouldn’t shut up about them.” Ignacio received a look from Darius and Alex. “What?”
“The Regiment got that radio in 65... Damn you’re old.”
“I’m only 39. Fuck you.”
Darius chuckled. “Yeah, that means you’re ancient by doorkicker standards.”
“I could still break both of you in half and I’m a better shot than both of you. Fuck both of you.”
“I distinctly remember that we ran most courses of fire faster than you.”
“Well they did involve some climbing and crawling,” Alex chastised. “We can’t expect the old man to high crawl in the mud like he used to.”
“Alright assholes. D you’re driving first,” Ignacio said as he pointed a finger at the man. “I’m going to get some sleep and Lex is going to keep his mouth shut while I’m there.” He then got into the passenger seat of the larger truck while Alex and Darius just smirked and followed suit, getting in their respective driver seats.
As they got onto the interstate, headed north, Darius and Lex exchanged some text messages by way of their hands-free datajacks being plugged into their commlinks. Darius was looking to use one of the harddrives they’d brought on the trip to listen to an audiobook while they drove. One quick flip of a switch and Alex had the stack in the back of the cab up and connected to Darius’ commlink.
The rest of the drive went smoothly. It was late fall and the weather was chilly as they pulled off the dirt road in the woods and into the clearing they would use for their campsite.
“Okay, let’s get the fire going and the tent up.” Darius walked to the back of the Deuce and started to pull out their compact three man tent.
Ignacio looked towards the Rockies and the sun slowly working its way to the mountain’s ridgeline. “We got about half an hour before good old Bob gets behind the mountains.”
Ignacio and Darius then put up the tent as Alex went around collecting firewood. The duo got the tent up quickly, joining Alex, and by the time that the sun had set behind the mountains, Alex had a fire started and was heating up some water from the nearby creek for the dehydrated chicken and rice meals they’d brought. When Ignacio and Darius were back with enough wood to last the evening and part of the next morning after their small game hunt, there was a pot full of grub waiting for them.
As they ate, Darius stood up, walked over to the Ex-Wife, pulled a small wooden box out of the truck box, and returned to his seat. He then opened the box and pulled out three cigars, a cigar punch, and a lighter. The other two got passed out and they all prepped and lit them.
After a minute or so Ignacio broke their present line of conversation. “Lex, how much did you spend on all these?” He asked while enjoying the strong tobacco flavor. Alex breathed in sharply through his teeth with a painful expression on his face. He’d bought a dozen of them for this trip and this was the first time they’d planned to enjoy them.
“Ouch, that bad?” Darius inquired.
“Well at least they’re definitely worth it… even if I had to sell my soul.” Alex took a pull and after a few seconds blew the smoke out of his mouth. He then added with a smile, “and you know how much I like to spoil y’all.” Darius gave him a stare with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh yeah. I felt really spoiled when you gave me a pair of socks for my last birthday,” Ignacio said with a smirk.
“Hey! Those were some nice ass socks and you know it. Plus, you only got one flesh and blood foot. So I really got you two pairs of socks… from a certain point of view.”
“Yeah, ssuuurrree.”
They continued on for a while smoking and talking, whilst sitting around the fire. When the stubs of their smoked cigars had been thrown into the fire and burned up for a time, Darius and Ignacio called it a night and went to the tent and their sleeping bags. Alex stayed up a few more hours reading a book in his AR view and catching up on a podcast. His sleep regulator implant gave him less need for sleep and he spent most nights up a few hours longer doing things like this. However he still needed sleep and when he’d reached a stopping point and the podcast was over, he followed his friends and went to his own sleeping bag.
The night was chilly and had clear skies. They’d lucked out on the weather that had been projected for their area. It was going to be just cold enough to have that nice crisp chill and there was no precipitation expected for the duration of their stay. Though a little more than an hour before daybreak, it was suddenly very cold and there was snow on the ground.

//-------------------------------------------------------//
                             2                             
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Author's Note
I swear the word count wasn't intentional.
2
Darius woke up first and he noticed it was a little colder than he and his friends expected. Typical, weathermen can never get it right when you want them to, he thought to himself. He grabbed his commlink, flipped to the homescreen, tapped the weather app to get the new hourly forecast, and waited for the screen to refresh. He rubbed his eyes as he waited, expecting it to be done by the time he looked at the screen again. What he saw was a swirling loading indicator.
After a few moments the app displayed that no connection could be made."What?" Darius grumbled. It was then that he looked at what kind of signal he had. He appeared to not be on the grid. "You're shitting me." At this time Alex woke up, sat up, and asked what his problem was. "I ain't got a signal on my link."
Alex snickered as he stretched a little in their somewhat confined space. "When was the last time you soft reboot that thing?" He asked and received the answer of last week. "Well you should be good. They weren't scheduled to push out any updates or anything that would cause you that kind of issue," Alex stated and grabbed his own commlink, seeing it too had no signal. "The fuck?"
"You too?" Darius asked and Alex nodded with a raised eyebrow of confusion. "Grab Iggy's and pray his isn't fucked too."
Alex leaned over Ignacio, at their head, and snatched the man’s commlink. Looking at the screen, he saw that the third of their number was in the same boat with no signal. However, he noticed something else that was amiss about the device. To his knowledge, Ignacio had gone to bed with less than half a charge on his commlink and planned to charge it in the morning. However, it was fully charged. On a whim he checked his own and saw the same, which he knew shouldn't be the case. What the fuck? He thought.
This moment of discovery didn't go unnoticed. Darius saw the look on his friend's face. "That bad?" He asked as he sat up.
"D, check your link again. What's your battery at?"
"Probably seventy or thereabouts," he said as he looked to his commlink again to check. The moment he saw a full charge, he stated his own surprise. “The shit is this? I'm maxed."
"Alright, it's probably something weird, having to do with them pushing out a quick update or a hotfix gone wrong. Let's just keep an eye on the links. I'm going to pair mine and Iggy's to the Ex-Wife for a centralized signal. You should too." Alex wasn’t too concerned about the issue. They could still use the satellite connections they had on in the Ex-Wife and the backup satellite uplink box. Darius nodded and Alex started putting on his boots, intending to get outside and start breakfast. He would handle the signal thing after they had food in their bellies.
Iggy had been partially awake for some of the conversation and decided to get up himself. "So I'm guessing our technical overlords have said fuck us?" He asked as he started putting his own boots on.
"Pretty much," Darius responded.
In short order all three of them had their boots and coats on, EDC items were all in their proper place, and Ignacio was unzipping the tent entrance. However the large man stopped in the portal, blocking the way, and his compatriots voiced their annoyance. "Hey, fuck you. I'm just surprised there's like half a foot of snow on the ground," Ignacio stated as he continued out. There was just enough ambient light before sunrise that one could see there was indeed a bunch of snow outside.
"God dammit. Now all our shit's going to be covered. Well there goes the next twenty minutes," Alex complained as Darius exited next, followed by himself.
As Alex stood upright Darius made an observation. "Or maybe not."
"What do you…" Alex's question died before he could finish it as the three men briefly stared at their vehicles, field table, folding chairs, and even their firepit, surprisingly not covered in snow.
"How does that happen?" Ignacio asked.
"No clue," Darius answered, "and I ain't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. We don't have to get a metric ton of snow off of everything." This received two grunts of agreement from the other two and they began, again, to get on with the morning. Ignacio stepped over to prepare their fire and Darius to grab the food.
They were, however, again stopped in their tracks when Alex voiced another observation after he took a second to look around. "Guys, wasn't there a boulder right over there behind the tent?" He pointed with a thumb over his shoulder. "I also swear these trees were denser and…" Alex's face grew further confused as he paused before continuing, "and unless the mountains fucking moved, they should be on our left to the fucking west." Quickly checking the compass in his watch he continued, "which my compass and the coming sunrise is saying is that way." He accentuated his last statement by pointing to his left, west, with his other hand.
The other two stopped what they were doing and looked around for themselves. It looked like the Rockies had moved to the north and the clearing they were in was indeed different than what they all remembered from yesterday evening.
"He's right D," Ignacio said. “I don't see the path we drove here on either."
"Well I don't remember us taking any drugs. So either we've finally snapped and we're freaking out in sync, or we fucking teleported to a new clearling."
"I'm checking the Ex-wife," Darius stated.
"Why?" Ignacio asked.
"I'm checking the log on the console to see if we woke up, got plastered or some shit, and moved spots."
"Oh… makes sense. I'm pretty damn sure we wouldn’t do that. We aren’t that stupid.”
“I doubt that too, but look around us.”
“Good point.”
Darius opened the driver-side door of the Ex-wife, hopped in, woke up the computer, and brought up the logs."This can't be right," he said as Ignacio and Alex approached the truck. "It says the last time the bitch ran was when we got here. Also says the batteries are full."
"What's the GPS say? Where are we?"
"It says we aren't getting any satellites."
"Okay, this fucking weird shit has to go," Alex said as he hopped into the front seat and started going through some of the logs himself. He spent a few minutes sifting through logs with Darius and Ignacio watching intently, lending their own eyes. "It looks like about half an hour ago the batteries started to fill back up, fast… like stupid fast. But there’s no input for the power. It just started climbing. At the same time we lost all GPS signals. Also… wait, what? It says the temperature dropped from fifty-five degrees to fucking thirty."
"What's weird about it?" Ignacio asked.
"Well it's weird when it happens in a fucking second. No gradual change. It's just one temp one second and then the next it's fucking freezing temperatures."
"Right, definitely fucking weird."
Darius had begun leaning out and standing up, in the door of the Ex-Wife, looking around and over the truck to get a better look at his surroundings. None of this looks right. He thought to himself after a few moments. I've been coming to this area for years. I should at least see something familiar.
The three of them had been to Colorado a fair few times up and down the Rocky Mountains and something occurred to Darius, something that he asked in an open question. "Guys, do those look like the Rockies to you?"
This got both of his friends’ attention and both of them looked toward the mountains. No, they didn't look like the Rockies they were used to. They were too extreme on the incline. If anything, they looked like they should be seeing Russians or assholes trying to reach the highest point on the planet, most likely the latter.
"Where the hell are we?" Darius asked no one in particular.
“Fuck this, I’m getting some water from the creek… if it’s even fucking there.” Ignacio briskly walked over to their firepit where they had a twenty liter water jug. “If I see polar bears or fucking Santa, I’ll inform you. Oh and Lex,” Ignacio added while looking back, “get the azimuth of the sunrise when it happens. We can start figuring out where the hell we are with that.”
“You got it,” Alex acknowledged. As Ignacio went on his way, Alex spoke to Darius. “D, can you handle the fire and breakfast? I’m gonna troubleshoot this connection thing.”
“Sure. I’ll give Iggy a hand first. Keep us posted.”
“Yeah,” Alex answered offhandedly. “Actually, let me test something.” He then ran a quick command and received the desired responses. “Good,” he said with obvious relief in his voice. “At least some shit’s working right. Local coms should be good. Just don’t go out too far for now. I don’t want to push our absolutely fantastic luck right now.” Alex’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“You got it.” As Darius walked away, he put his earbuds in and turned on the microphones in them from his commlink. Plugging his datajack into his commlink, he then mentally keyed his microphones and sent a coms check. He received an affirmative and continued on his way.
With that done, Darius caught up to Ignacio. The man had found a creek. It was frozen over with what looked like an easily broken lair of ice.
“Well I found a creek,” Ignacio skeptically stated. “The one from last night didn’t look this deep or narrow.”
“There also wasn’t a big fallen tree in it over there,” Darius added.
“Exactly.” Ignacio set the jug down in the snow, picked up a football-sized rock from nearby, and threw it with great force at a spot where the water almost met their side of the creek. With a satisfactory breaking sound and splash, a large hole was created that they could collect water from.
Darius looked to his friend with an amused look on his face as he picked up the jug and walked over to the new hole, unscrewing the cap on the jug. “You feel better?”
“Oh, I’m not annoyed at all,” sarcasm blatant in Ignacio’s voice. “We don’t know where we are and there’s no reason we would have blacked out and moved to wherever here is” Ignacio looked in the direction of the rising sun. “Once we get the direction of that, we can start figuring this out.”
Darius, finished filling the jug, screwed the cap back on and began walking back to their camp with Ignacio joining him as he passed. “You’re right. Pretty sure our resident prepper has all the documentation we could ever need to find our position on those harddrives.”
“Yeah. I still remember most, or all, of the fieldcraft I’ve learned and we could probably figure it out. But having the math and reference material with all of it in black and white is going to be good for my sanity.”
“Eh, everyone knows you aren’t sane to begin with,” Darius retorted. “Oh, throw your earbuds in. Local communications are up and running.”
“Well at least something fucking works.”
They entered their clearing and Darius went over to their long dead fire to light it anew, dropping off the jug next to his chair. Today’s plans for an early morning trek through the woods for small game had clearly gone out the window once they woke up to a clearly different location than they stopped in originally.
Ignacio walked over to the Ex-Wife. He noticed that the truck box was partly propped open as he opened the back driver side door, stepped up into the cab, and stopped in his tracks as he went to turn on the stack in the back, behind him. Alex was crouched next to the stack, left arm between and behind several boxes in the stack and their neighbor devices. In his right hand he held a small testing unit, a cable coming out of the top of the device and following the man’s left arm behind the equipment.
“You’re working quick. Anything broken?”
“No. Not yet.” Alex’s eyes never left the device, his left arm moving slightly. He was checking physical ports and data flow. “And that’s the fucking problem.”
“You going to do anything that would stop me from getting access to the harddrives?”
“No. What you need ‘em for?” Alex looked away from his work, giving Ignacio an inquisitive look. When Ignacio explained why, Alex snickered. “You don’t need the stack up for that. The front console has all of that kind of shit, two sticks in the front have copies of the same, and all our commlinks have copies in a folder on those microsticks I put in our links.”
“No shit, those things aren’t just so you can fill ‘em full of malware?”
“That was one time!”
“Sure it was.”
“Go fuck with D. I’m trying to work here.” Alex then returned to his troubleshooting and Ignacio got out of the Ex-Wife.
Ignacio navigated to the folder on his commlink and, seeing the list of documentation, browsed for a moment until he found the documentation he was looking for. With a quick search in the table of contents he found the reference table and interactive map he was looking for.
“What’d you get for the azimuth?” Ignacio asked Alex and he received a text message as his only reply. It had the azimuth and time that the sunrise crested over the snowy, tree-covered hills to the east. With an amused grin he closed the door to the truck and walked over to Darius, who was building up the fire after getting it started.
“Can you start filtering that?” Darius indicated the jug of water they’d fetched with a move of his head, as his hands were preoccupied with the fire. Ignacio hummed an affirmative in response and began the task of running the manual pump on the side of the jug to begin filtering the water inside while controlling his commlink through his datajack.
“Well that can’t be right.” Ignacio said, confused, after a couple of minutes had gone by of the two doing their particular task.
“What now?” Darius looked up from his fire building at Ignacio, while still poking at the fire with a stick and waiting for it to settle.
“Give me a sec.” Ignacio plugged the information into the map again, went through the table again, and went over the documentation again to confirm, just to come to the same conclusion. “This makes no fucking sense. I keep getting that we’re either somewhere so far south we’re in South America or it’s fucking July.”
“What?!”
“You got the same shit on that stick Lex made for us. You do it, because I must be fucking up somehow.”
“Okay…” Darius then found the same folder and when he got to the appropriate documentation, Ignacio gave him the azimuth and time of the sunrise. He then went through the same process Ignacio had, came to the same conclusion, and triple checked his work. The results were the same each time. “This can’t be fucking right.”
The two of them spent the following half an hour discussing, debating, and verifying this outlandish conclusion while Darius started cooking up their breakfast and Ignacio continued pumping. Their talk was interrupted when Alex stormed out of the Ex-Wife, kicking snow around in frustration as he grumbled loudly.
“SITREP?” Darius called over.
“The situation?!” Alex growled. “The situation is that there apparently ain’t no fucking satalites or antennas!” Alex walked over to his friends as he continued. “As in none at all. I can’t pick up any type of signal, transmission, or literally anything that isn’t coming out of our devices. I’m picking up noise,” he accentuated with air quotes, “but even that doesn’t seem to be doing anything. I should at least be able to detect solar radiation having some kind of effect on some of our signals but it’s as if we’re in a vacuum that’s a radioman’s perfect wet dream. All the equipment I’ve checked is working fine… better than fine, actually.”
“Care to elaborate?” Ignacio asked.
“Sure!” Alex answered with an over-exaggerated grin, his annoyance and frustration starting to actually get to him to some degree.
“Lex,” Darius interjected, “calm down.”
“Right...right.” Alex took off his beanie and rubbed over his metal-covered cranium with his free hand as he took a deep breath. One of his flaws was that he sometimes let his frustrations get ahold of him when he had no answers to a problem.
“Okay,” Darius began, “what’s up with the equipment?”
Alex sighed before he began. “There is nothing wrong with the equipment as far as I can tell. Everything is working beyond perfectly, except that I can’t hear or pick up anything that’s not ours. Even the batteries are full. And I mean all of them.” He gestured to himself. “Even the internal batteries in my warez are full and I haven’t charged them since yesterday. Iggy, at this rate I’d bet a case of beer that your leg is full too, along with the wireless parts of both of y’all’s datajacks.”
All of their datajacks had wireless capability but for only so long as the internal batteries in them did not have the greatest capacity. Even when not being continuously utilized, the simple act of being connected to their commlinks meant that they should be slowly draining the battery. So with infrequent use when one didn’t wish to physically manipulate or to go through the motions of jacking into a paired device, a twice weekly recharge was usually required.
In response, Ignacio checked his leg while both Darius and himself checked the power on their datajacks. As Alex predicted, they were all at full charges and the two of them expressed their confusion.
“If it was just the links and the boxes in the stack that we have pulling updates automatically, I could maybe explain it as some really weird update spanning multiple companies and types of devices.” Alex put his beanie back on. “But it isn’t. Every single battery I’ve checked is full, even when there is no reason for it to be. I’ve seen some really weird, and wide in scope, technical problems in my life but this is the first time where I can legitimately say this can’t be happening. I'm expecting to wake up from this weird dream any second now, because that’s the only way this makes sense.”
“I hate to burst your bubble,” Darius said, “but I'm pretty sure that’s not happening.”
“Ditto,” Ignacio agreed.
“I know.” Alex replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. He then looked to his friends. “We at least have some idea as to where we are?” The look he received from them both gave him his answer. “Well are we lost or just definitely not where we’re supposed to be?”
“Both,” Darius answered.
“Well that’s just fantastic.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what we were saying.” Ignacio looked at the breakfast Darius was cooking and saw an opportunity to take a break. “Let’s eat, take a breather, and regroup.”
His two compatriots agreed and they took the break they all needed. They did some conversing during the meal in the form of talking about the trip so far and their usual shit talking. When they were done, Ignacio and Darius updated Alex on their navigational glitches. After some discussion involving combing through the virtual library they had, the three couldn’t make heads or tails of the impossible situation they found themselves in.
Once the discussion on that topic had ended and a plan for moving forward had been formed, they split into two teams to begin execution. Ignacio was to assist Alex with going over all their equipment again to see if anything got missed, while Darius collected more wood for the fire while getting a better gauge on their immediate surroundings.
****
Darius folded the handsaw and hooked it onto his belt. He had spent the last ten minutes breaking up a pair of large fallen branches he’d found into smaller, more easily transportable pieces that would be able to fuel their campfire for a couple hours. It had started lightly snowing as he worked.
In short order he had a stack of the pieces tied up in a bundle with two large loops of paracord hanging loose. He picked the wood up and put it on his back, using the loops to wear it as a backpack. He then picked up the rest of the pieces, also tied together in a bundle, and carried them under an arm.
He’d had this feeling of being watched for a while and as he walked back to their campsite, his head was on a swivel. His path back to the campsite was more direct as it had taken some time to find a good, large source of firewood around their new, snow covered, location.
As he stepped over a large rock, he noticed a disturbance in the snow. Stopping, he looked at it and they looked to be tracks. Something about the size of a small deer or other medium-sized game, at least by Darius' estimation.There also appeared to be several of them. He looked around him and followed the path of the tracks. It seemed that whatever animals these were, they had been moving to the northeast.
In short order he was back at the campsite offloading the firewood. While he piled the new wood onto what had already been brought in, he watched Ignacio and Alex running an experiment on the Ex-Wife.
“Iggy, when I said gun it, I meant foot on the floor.” Alex was in front of the truck with the hood open. He had a blocky portable terminal with several cables coming out of the back and connecting to several ports and nodes inside and around the engine and battery. “There we go.” After about a minute, Alex told Ignacio to kill it.
Ignacio stepped out of the Ex-Wife and moved next to Alex, looking at the screen of the terminal. “What we got?”
“Jesus, you’re impatient,” Alex complained. “Give me a sec.”
Darius joined them and watched as Alex opened up all the recorded readings they had just acquired. At first, everything looked normal, except that the batteries didn’t seem to be depleting. Even with the stack inside completely powered up, every single device and doodad turned on that could pull power from the batteries, and the engine being floored while in neutral, it didn’t look like the batteries were affected. Then they started slowing the data playback and looking at the numbers on a practically microscopic level.
“There, you see that?” Alex pointed to the screen. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”
Alex was right. What the readings were showing was that they were pulling power and batteries were depleting. The catch, however, was that as they were drained, they were somehow replenishing almost immediately.
“Just to be sure,” Darius began, “what are the chances that the software is bugging out and giving us false readings?”
“For only one, definitely possible,” Alex answered. “However every single way we have on hand of measuring this shit glitching in the exact same way with every battery we have, practically impossible.”
“Yeah, not likely that everything is broken,” Ignacio agreed.
For the sake of being thorough, the three of them moved over to their new vehicle and did the same test. They got the same results.
“That’s crazy.”
“Iggy, that’s not just crazy,” Darius said.
“That’s insane,” Alex stated as he rubbed his temples. “Okay, with that, what I saw when I was checking all that other shit earlier, and our warez, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are somehow charging all our shit through magic.”
“Not funny, Lex.”
“It’s a little funny,” Ignacio countered with a snicker.
“It’s really not.”
“It will be funny a year from now when we’ve gotten past all this weird shit,” Alex added. “But for now, this some bullshit.”
“True.”
“Hey Lex,” Ignacio began, “didn’t you get a drone or two from that old timer?”
Alex stopped rubbing his temples and looked at his friend. “Yeah, I got that larger one with the repeater and sensor rig. There’s also the four small ones he threw at me for shits and giggles. Pretty sure one of them needs to be fixed though. Why?”
“Well with this battery thing figured out, for now, maybe we use the drones to get a better look at our surroundings?”
“Well the batteries are prolly dead or low a…What am I saying? They’re probably fully charged.” Alex had an expression of resignation on his face.
They got into one of the boxes in the back of their larger truck and pulled out all the drones. The larger one required a bit of reassembly and while Alex and Ignacio did that, Darius looked over and tested the smaller ones. Two of them weren’t functional and required some repairs that they could look into later. He put them back inside the box.
With the three drones ready, and unsurprisingly with fully-charged batteries, Alex connected them to the Ex-Wife, started them up, and sent the smaller two out in a slow and tight outward spiral around their campsite to sweep their surroundings. The larger one, they took direct control of and began by sending it straight up a hundred and fifty meters for a bird’s-eye view.
They took turns watching the feeds for over an hour, each doing various tasks that needed to get done for their new survival situation. However each of them had the three feeds to the sides of their AR to keep multiple pairs of eyes on the video streams.
“I got something.” It was when Alex was flying the large drone over a clearing that something other than trees and rocks was spotted.
“Looks like a pack of wolves have their quarry stuck on a rock,” Ignacio stated. “Prolly be dead in a few. Credit where it’s due, it’s keeping them back fairly well.”
“Lex, can you get a better look at this? Might be able to know more about our locale if we know what those are.”
“Too easy, D,” Alex answered and began zooming in the camera. Ignacio looked to be right in his assessment as they got a closer picture. “Looks like a big cat. Maybe a small mountain lion?”
“What’s that on it’s back? It got something stuck to it?”
“Not sure.” Alex zoomed in further.
“The fuck?!” The three of them exclaimed.
“What the hell is that?” Darius asked, to no one in particular.
“There’s no way that’s what I think it is.” Ignacio was simply beside himself and it was obvious in his voice.
“It’s wing looks broken or something,” Alex pointed out after seeing that one of its wings seemed to be bent in an unnatural fashion.
“How is that the first thing you’re pointing out?”
“I hit ‘fuck it’ a while ago.”
“Is that… does it have something shiny under it?” Darius asked.
“Yeah,” Ignacio answered. “Wonder what it is?” Both Ignacio and Darius had moved over to Alex as he piloted the drone.
One of the wolves circling the creature moved in, apparently sensing an opening, and what they saw next made all three of their jaws drop. The creature spun around and hit the wolf with what looked like a sword, hitting the wolf in the head. The wolf recoiled and the prey began spinning around, assumedly looking for more takers.
Alex zoomed in further, foregoing having a view of the whole scene. Now the creature was all that was in view in that stream and what they saw was the strangest thing they’d experienced so far.
They saw what they assumed to be a griffon holding a sword out, keeping it’s attackers at bay. It looked to be wearing a metal piece of clothing or armor that was so covered in dirt and filth that they just now could see it and some kind of cloth or scarf that was now lightly blowing in the wind.
“Lex, where is this?” Ignacio asked as he climbed into the bed of the Ex-Wife and opened up the truck box.
"Five-two degrees, little under three miles out," Alex answered.
"Shit, Iggy, what are you getting us into?" Darius asked as he moved over to the side of the bed, almost assuredly knowing the answer to his question.
"He's going to go help ‘em and drag us with him."
"Exactly," Ignacio confirmed. "If that thing is intelligent, we need to help them." He then handed Darius his just loaded rifle and grabbed Alex's and his own now loaded weapons, while moving to get in the Ex-Wife. “We can also ask the thing where the hell we are.”
"I hate when you're right sometimes," Darius grumbled, slinging his rifle to hang in front of him and getting in the driver's seat.
"That is assuming that they speak english. Recalling the small drones to watch our shit," Alex retorted and then informed, taking his rifle from Ignacio.
Kicking up some snow, the Ex-Wife was off to the northeast winding its way through the forest. While not as dense as what they'd seen last night, the trees did slow them down. Though they were still traveling much faster than they could run.
Alex zoomed out the camera again and positioned the drone almost directly above the clearing for a full view of the scene. It wasn’t looking good. The wolves were getting more aggressive in their probing of their prey. One or two of the wolves were making a move towards the creature every few seconds now.
“We should be able to scare them off with the Ex-Wife,” Darius stated. Hopefully they wouldn’t need their rifles. “Lex, you didn’t get those two speakers working again, did you?” They had a pair of loud baseball sized speakers on the roof of the Ex-Wife, next to the flood lights, that they’d run into a technical issue with a couple weeks ago during a post-competition party. Apparently they didn’t like large inebriated hispanic men falling on them while attempting to river dance on the roof.
“Should be good. Running test,” Alex answered, and a quick beep-like tone was heard as they sped through the forest. “We’re good.”
“Hit them with something loud to scare them off.” Ignacio, like his compatriots, logically assumed that a large loud something coming in and asserting itself into the clearing would be enough to make the pack leave. If they didn’t, it would at least cause them to back off enough that the three of them could get out, assert an intimidating presence, and hopefully extract the assumed griffon without incident.
“I got just the thing," Alex replied, already at work.
It was only a minute or so after their exchange, time enough for Alex to queue up a speed metal song during a particularly heavy solo and loop that particular segment, that they got close enough to begin to see the clearing through the trees. A few seconds more and Ignacio clapped Alex on the shoulder from his seat behind the shorter man. Alex then keyed the music to begin playing and the forest suddenly erupted with sound.
They saw the pack jump, on the feed and from what they could see through the trees as they rapidly approached. A couple of them seemed to spot the Ex-Wife on its approach and appeared to bark, getting the attention of their fellows. The majority of the pack immediately responded by looking in their direction. One of the wolves, however, did not.
The supposed griffon was also momentarily distracted by the sudden noise and one wolf saw this as an opportunity to strike. The predator bolted up to the griffin and sank its jaws into the sword arm of its prey. The three men saw the griffin scream in pain as it pulled a large knife or dagger from somewhere on its person and began stabbing and hacking at the predator's head.
The trio in the truck exclaimed their frustration at the new development with a few choice expletives. The fact that the individual they were trying to rescue was taking further injury did not sit well with them.
In response to the reprisal, the wolf let go of it's prey and fell back and down to the base of the rock. A few more seconds passed with the wolf continuing to reel from the damage to its head and the griffon seeming to look to its new injury before the truck crashed through a small young evergreen that was unfortunately in between two trees spaced out enough for them to drive through.
Darius held down the horn as they entered the clearing, along with the breaks. When they entered the clearing, the truck slid forward a few meters and spun to the left some on the snow covered ground on account of their speed. Between all the noise and the snow being flung around from the evergreen they hit on the way in, the pack backed away from them towards the opposite side of the clearing they were on.
With the passenger side of the Ex-Wife being the prominent side facing the large rock their imperilled target still stood upon, Alex and Ignacio burst out of their doors and Darius opened his door, stood up in the doorway, and posted up a supported firing position on the roof of the truck where he had view of the clearing with the exception of the area directly behind the large rock.
The griffon, still on top of the aforementioned rock, looked to have a bewildered expression on its face as Ignacio and Alex moved towards the individual, though they could still see that it was in great pain.
“Can you move to us?” Ignacio yelled.
“Please help me!" It pleaded in a rather young sounding voice and began to stumble towards them, down the rock, before it lost its footing and fell a meter, or so, to the ground. It yelled in pain as it landed on its back.
“Shit! Moving," Ignacio called out to his friends as he rushed to the creature and six loud cracks were heard as a wolf began to charge towards the creature and Ignacio, only to fall to the ground and tumble a few feet.
"Fuck, these things are aggressive," Darius observed. Both he and Alex had seen the wolf as it began its rush to their friend and sent three rounds each to the offending predator.
"Iggy, throw it 'n back," Alex called out and both he and Darius put several more rounds in another charging wolf. "Jesus, these things should’ve scared off by now.”
When Ignacio got to the prone griffon’s side, he could see that it was rather small, about the size of a medium sized dog, and no longer conscious. It appeared that it’s injuries and the fall onto its already damaged wing had pushed it past its limits. In light of this, Ignacio grabbed the creature by the collar of its armor behind the neck, lifted, and began to half carry, half drag the creature to the truck. While he did this, he kept his rifle pulled into the pocket of his shoulder and ready to be used, minus his now occupied support hand. This was a good decision, as several wolves rushed them.
A cacophony of cracks were heard as the three sent a few dozen rounds into the wolves, stopping all four of them.
"What the actual fuck is up with these things?!" Alex exclaimed as he began moving back as Ignacio met him on the way to the truck.
That was the last charge as the men got to the truck. It appeared the pack had finally seen the light, though they didn't run. The three covered each other in sequence as Ignacio got in the bed of the truck, pulling the injured creature with him. Then Alex closed both passenger side doors and climbed into the bed with Ignacio. When that was done, Darius sat himself back into the driver's seat and sped out of the clearing back to their camp site.
The drive back was a little bumpy but the wolves didn't appear to follow them, as Ignacio and Alex kept in eye on their surroundings. Assumedly, losing seven of their pack was enough for them to be dissuaded from pursuing their prey. As the three men approached their campsite, Alex recalled the large drone to hold above their campsite while Ignacio began looking over their new addition. While not the worst injuries they had seen in their lives, it didn't look too good.
Now that he was looking the creature over, it became apparent that this thing had been through some shit. One of its wings was bent in a way that couldn't be natural. Ignacio was no veterinarian but he was certain that the first big joint in the wing didn't naturally extend and wasn’t supposed to bend as far as it was bent right now. While there were parts of its body that were caked in dirt and grime, large scrapes and cuts could be seen on its six limbs and head. None of them seemed to be bleeding profusely. The same could not be said for it's sword arm.
Ignacio realized that the sword had somehow remained in the creature's grasp. Looking to remove the weapon to safely manipulate and better care for the limb, he saw that it had remained by way of one of the creature's fingers, or talons, being hooked in a finger ring above the crossguard. He removed the weapon and fleetingly saw that the finger was bruised and maybe more from the ordeal of being stuck in the ring as the sword was moved about. The creature had a tunic or undershirt and the sleeve was getting in the way. Ignacio tore off the sleeve and Darius placed a bag of medical supplies they kept in the truck in the bed for Ignacio to use.
“D, Iggy’s got this. Help me with security,” Alex requested. Darius answered in the affirmative and one of the first things both men did was to get some of their match equipment out. Namely, Alex retrieved his battle belt with extra magazines, a holster for his full-sized pistol, a dump pouch, a small trauma kit, and a few other nicks and nacks and Darius went with his only option, his plate carrier with all it’s accoutrement. Alex was quick to be ready while Darius pulled security and swapped with the man to begin the relatively lengthy process.
“Shit, I wish I’d done another division at least once,” Darius complained as he finished placing the last magazine in his rig. In the line-up of shooting matches they planned for the trip, Darius had opted for the more equipment heavy trooper, armored, or battle rig type divisions at each one. This was in contrast to his friends in that there was one match that both of them were competing in other divisions for a theme that, while funny, Darius couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the idea.
“It’s your fault for being no fun,” Alex chuckled while keeping an eye on the perimeter of their campsite with his eyes and the drones that were now strategically hovering or patrolling around them. “Even Henie thought it was cool and she wouldn’t know cool if it crawled up her ass an… I got movement. East side, fifty, no, seventy-five meters.” Alex interrupted himself.
“Iggy, how’s it coming?” Darius inquired as he and Alex visually scanned to the east.
“Good. Got everything but the wing. Not sure how to tackle that. Just keep an eye out for those bitch ass wolves.” Ignacio had stopped the bleeding in its swordarm, addressed all of the more minor cuts that needed to be looked at, and was about to begin the process of trying to set a joint that he had no history with outside of shooting them up on a couple duck hunts. He’d heard Alex’s call out but trusted that they would cover his ass as he worked.
“What’d you see?” Darius asked under his breath.
“Swear I saw something go behind that tree. With the testicle rocks,” Alex answered.
“Can we send…”
“Already on it,” Alex interjected as he directed a small drone to fly over and behind the tree for a better view. “I got this, look around.”
Darius agreed with his friend's wordless implication. While predators hiding and sneaking up on their prey wasn’t a foreign concept, so far this morning they had almost exclusively abnormal interactions with said predators. All three of the men were getting weird vibes from this whole encounter and that was excluding the fact that they woke up in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t long, with the both of them looking around, until the drone got a view of the tree.
“We good,” Alex stated.
“Way to freak over a rabbit, bitch,” Darius chastised while maintaining his watch of their perimeter.
“Fuck you. Keep looking. Imma see if Iggy needs a hand.” Alex sent the command for the drone to return to its previous circular patrol pattern. “You comfortable handling the drones?”
“Sure.” Darius then received a notification in his AR that he was the primary controller of the drones they had up as Alex turned and stepped over to the bed of the Ex-Wife.
“Need a hand?” Alex asked as he hooked an arm over the side of the truck bed.
“Put the tailgate down,” Ignacio instructed. When Alex had done so, Ignacio moved his exotic patient to the end of the bed, on the tailgate, and dropped down to ground level for a better position that didn’t involve his large frame having to crouch down. “I think I know how to fix this thing,” he said while holding up the busted wing.
“You think you know?”
“You want to impart some avian wisdom I’m not aware of?”
“Calm down, what d’ya need from me?”
“Well I think that it’s just dislocated and I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out where it needs to go. So you hold this here,” Ignacio instructed and Alex grabbed the segment of the wing closest to the body. “Hold it tight and I mean it.”
“Got it.”
“Alright,” Ignacio said, doing one final check and feeling around the joint to make sure of what he was about to do. Feeling as confident as he could with his findings, he took firm hold of the other side of the joint with his left hand and held the base of the segment, at the joint, in his right hand. The hope being that he would be able to feel his progress and adjust if needed. “Three. Two. One.”
It was a rather quick affair. Ignacio moved his segment against resistance to a wall but once he passed the wall, it seemed to just fall into place. His patient gave a gruff and loud grunt and Alex saw its eyes briefly flutter open as its eyes rolled back into its head. Though other than that, it remained unconscious.
“Expected it to wake up from that.”
“It’s been through some shit,” Ignacio replied.
“We good?” Darius asked from the opposite side of the clearing, only briefly looking towards the two to confirm that they weren’t in obvious trouble.
“We’re good,” Ignacio answered and then looked to Alex. “I’m good now. Just going to look it over again and clean it up some. See if I missed anything big.”
“Kay, but grab your belt,” Alex replied. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”
Ignacio acknowledged with a nod and went to his case with his gear. Since they were in no particular rush, he did a triple check of what he was about to use and as he was doing a final adjustment of his sidearm holster, Alex spoke up.
“Well we got one thing going for us.”
“And that is?” Darius inquired.
“The fucker spoke English.”