The next ride (which I heard, from Espio's disgruntled voice, was toward Salt Lake City)… Well…
I owe it to my active brain that the next road trip wasn't sickeningly boring.
Back at the mine…
Blue… A pair… He could have stared into them forever… Wait, into them? Staring is usually directed at things, but you can stare into a crystal ball and search for your future, into a dark and demented abyss… and into… into someone's eyes.
Unless he had caught sight of two blue crystal balls that just so happened to be swirling with magic at the exact same moment in time… Well, why would his face feel the need to turn rosy at the confession of something like that?!
"…Okay, I really feel like there's something we can do to defend ourselves that we somehow haven't done already," Blaze stated.
"…Well… What?" asked Vector. "We've got more than enough guns, more than enough food… What more could we need?"
"Vector, having a zombie clinging to our car is not going to help matters!" Blaze argued. "…And besides, we could use a little work on our ammo usage. Admit it."
"That is true," Espio chuckled a little to himself.
"…Are you saying we need to do something about the car?" I asked.
"Kinda," Blaze nodded. "The muffler's as quiet as I think it's going to get, so… What I think we need to do is get whatever scrap metal we can in Salt Lake City and turn our car into a tank!"
"Hmm…" I mused.
"Well, what are we going to get that'll keep it all on?" asked Vector. "Huh? Know any welders?"
"…Dude, what zombie bit you?" asked Silver, acknowledging the clear bitterness in Vector's tone.
"It was an idea," Blaze shrugged.
"A great one, at that," said Espio. "Besides…"
We began to slow down.
"…We're here. All I see for miles and miles on end is dirt… and misery."