Chapter 219: The Can Is Ours
“Just wait—our little prize will be here soon.”
Across the Gobi-like Badlands, yellow sand swirled endlessly, dust burying nearly half the road. Whether stirred by a breeze or whipped by a gale, it rose in choking waves.
The target in the sky was clear enough...
The instant an explosion rang out, a ring of blue electric arcs flared around the black-dot silhouette of the AV. But it didn’t fall. Moments later, another object trailing a long plume of flame shot up from the distance and slammed into the AV head-on.
Inside the car, everyone sat bolt upright, eyes locked on the scene above.
“Uh... so if it was bombs, why’d they have to blow up that power plant?” Arthur lifted a hand helplessly. If he’d taken off his hat, they’d have seen his hair standing straight up.
“Move!” Jackie didn’t answer. He just floored the accelerator, gunning straight toward the AV as it started losing altitude.
The engine roared, carving a long, deep note through the dust-filled air.
That thing in the sky was badly damaged, swaying and struggling as it dropped slowly toward the plains nearby.
For an ambush team already waiting in position, catching up was no challenge at all.
Contact came fast...
Arthur drew Achilles, kicked open the door, and leveled his sights at the AV lodged in the yellow earth. One corner still belched black smoke...
Resistance flared—several small drones unfolded from hidden panels on the AV, wobbling briefly before stabilizing in flight.
“Bzzzt!”
Arthur didn’t hesitate. An ice-blue round cut through the air, blowing one drone to pieces.
Behind him, Rebecca scrambled onto the roof, firing her shotgun at another drone charging head-on.
“Boom!”
The shot blasted out like thunder. “Ow!” she yelped as the recoil knocked her backward, dumping her hard onto the dirt.
The handful of drones weren’t built for a sudden assault like this. After they all exploded and fell, the AV’s doors swung open, and a figure crawled out—its whole body supported by metal.
Slender in build, but with light machine guns mounted directly on its arms, it was clear these tin cans packed serious strength.
Still, they posed little threat. From their vantage point, cutting them down as they emerged was like a game of whack-a-mole.
“Let’s meet our little VIP...” Arthur barely paused for breath as he cleared out the last of the defenses.
Gun raised across his chest, eyes sharp, he crept closer to the wrecked AV.
“Let’s just hope nothing screws this up...” Jackie muttered as he moved in behind. But before he could finish, fresh engine noise rolled across the desert.
Too many of them. Not V and Panam.
Damn it... Jackie’s jinxing mouth again...
Arthur narrowed his eyes, scanning through the swirling dust. Figures emerged, shapes astride motorcycles. Corpo troops didn’t ride those.
“Damn it... Corpos react this fast?” Jackie growled, yanking out his twin pistols again.
“Then let these bastards taste this...” Rebecca was the only one who acted. The impulsive shorty already had her finger squeezing the trigger.
“Wait.” Arthur rapped her lightly on the head, his sharp eyes catching details the others hadn’t.
Through the haze, the figures became clearer—riders, all on bikes. Not corpo.
“Hey up ahead! What happened here?” a booming voice called as the group drew closer.
“We’re working. Don’t come any closer!” Jackie waved his massive frame, signaling them to halt.
“This never ends! You know this is our turf!” another voice barked, this one sharp and impatient. “Think you can just shit on our family’s head?”
“Bzzzt!”
Arthur’s bullet ripped into the front tire of the loudmouth’s bike, sending him tumbling into the sand and throwing up another cloud of dust.
That warning worked. The rest finally braked to a stop.
“The Badlands has turf wars?” Jackie shouted back, his tone full of disbelief. Still, the question broke some of the tension.
“Don’t play dumb!” The man who’d been tossed like a ragdoll scrambled up, ignoring pain and grit. He snarled: “You’re Wraiths! Don’t think I can’t tell!”
“Hey, misunderstanding—just a misunderstanding. We’re mercs, straight outta the city.” Jackie was smooth as ever. Arthur ignored them, keeping his eyes on the smoking AV in case more came crawling out.
“...Doesn’t seem like it, huh?” a bald man muttered to the hooded figure beside him.
“So what if it does? The boss told us to stay low. If they don’t need us here, we walk.” They didn’t raise their weapons, but their words were pitched just loud enough for Arthur’s crew to hear. Clearly intentional.
A few helped the fallen rider back up, still wary but already edging to leave.
...
The tension thinned. Then, from farther out, another dust plume rose, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Don’t shoot...” came a shout across the distance.
“Panam.” The bikers were the first to recognize her voice. Thinking back, it did match the Nomad girl they’d seen earlier that morning.
Small world. They knew her too.
“Whew—made it in time. You guys okay?” Panam shouted, breathless from the drive.
“Told you it wouldn’t blow up,” V said as she climbed out of the car behind her, looking far less ruffled. She walked straight to Arthur. “Status?”
“The can’s still sealed.” Arthur stood on a rock, eyeing the smoking AV below. His barrel pointed straight at it.
“Hope my savior didn’t get scrambled in the crash,” V muttered, watching the sealed hatch.
“He might not be much of a savior...” Arthur frowned. A gut feeling told him this run might’ve been for nothing.
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