FIFTY-THREE

Nellis Air Force Base

July 15th

14:08

"Your face looks funny."

"Tch. Your face looks full of snot," En said back at the little girl who'd waddled up to her to give her this piece of valuable information. She crouched in front of the little girl and wiped the boogers off her upper lip with a tissue. "There."

"Are you from, like, outside?"

"Uh huh."

The girl swayed from side to side, holding her doll to her chest. "Why?"

"Uh... I just am."

"Why?"

Ugh, kids and they why's all the time. "I was born there."

A woman came running, scooping up the child. "Don't talk to strangers, Lynnie, I told you so many times." She flashed an angry glare at En. "I don't know who let you in here, but if I see you near my child again, then so help me God."

Great. More drama. "Geez lady, don't get your panties in a twist. I was just – "

"Don't talk back to me, savage." Then she told her child, "These are bad people, Lynnie, Dirty people. I don't want you going near them."

En ignored the woman and waved at the child, fluttering with her fingers. "Bye little girl."

The child buried her face in her mother's shoulder, grinning and quietly going, "Bye bye."

"Don't speak to my daughter, savage," the woman snapped. Then she turned on her heels, taking her child back to one of the barracks.

"Sorry 'bout that," a man said, standing behind her. "Some of the people, they're a bit... mistrustful."

"Y'think?" En said back.

The man shrugged, somewhat awkwardly. He was a handsome guy with half-long dark blond hair in his mid-twenties, wearing a flight suit like almost everyone else. "Disadvantages of growing up in a sheltered environment. But hey, since you're from the outside, could I ask a favour?"

Of course. Everybody needed favours. Still, helping out would mean a more favourable opinion from these people, and by extension, that Pearl woman, and by extension, five thousand caps. "Uh, yeah, whatcha need?"

He looked down with an embarrassed grin, tapping the tip of his foot into the dirt. "It's uh... well, I've been looking out at the outside world for a while, you know, with my binoculars, and, well... there's this girl who works at a place called Crimson Caravan – I think, I saw it painted on a sign there, works the fields, and well, I was wondering if..."

En chuckled. "Say no more. So what's your Juliet look like?"

His eyes widened and he eagerly asked, "You know her name?"

Was he serious? Oh dear, he was. "Uh, no... I meant, because of Romeo and Juliet... the story... ergh, nevermind. What's she look like?"

He was visibly disappointed that she didn't actually know who it was. "Uh... she's got this fiery red hair, in a sort of messy haircut. And she's really pretty."

"Yeah, I gathered that. Um... if I pass by the Crimson Caravan, I'll see if I can find her. You want me to deliver a message probably, right?"

He nodded, his cheeks red. "A few times, well, she works the fields, right? And I saw her looking back at me. I think, because she doesn't have binoculars or anything, but I can really see her looking right at me. So yeah."

"So yeah, what?"

"Can you um... I dunno. Just... y'know. I dunno."

"If you dunno, then I dunno either, dude."

"Ah, you know, man, say I think she's real cute and ask her if she, you know..."

"No, I don't know." She was acting impatient with the guy, but she was actually having fun seeing him trip over his own words.

"Come on, you know what I mean. If she thinks I'm, well..."

"... yes?"

"... Come on, you know! ... Good-looking."

"Heh. Riiight. Sure, I'll ask if I get the chance. And who should I say is calling?"

"Calling?"

Oh dear, he was really head over heels. "It's an expression. Who should I say you are?"

"Oh! Right! My name's Jack. Just uh... just make sure she doesn't come here on her own or she'll well, you know."

"Get blown into bloody chunks."

He winced at the thought. "Yeah."

"Don't worry, I'll be careful."

"Thanks, man. Really."

"It's cool. So hey, I need to find this guy called Loyal. Any idea where he might be?"

"Oh, sure," the guy said, his face lighting up, glad the embarrassment was over with. "I'm his assistant. Come on, I'll show you."

She followed Jack to the farthest of the two hangars. As she trudged after him, she wondered what Garland was up to. Was his detective job going as well as her assignment? Probably not since the guy was probably a crack shot with plenty of charisma, but he was a reckless bonehead too. She wondered what the job was about though. Murders, probably. Or disappearances? It was probably something exciting. Or not.

They walked between the two hangars, in a narrow walkway. There was a heavy steel door set in the side of the hangar, and Jack turned the wheel to open it. "This way, miss...?"

"En."

He gave her a confused look after hearing the name, but didn't ask the perennial Anne-question. Good. He stepped aside and let her go on. "After you."

"Thanks."

En's eyes had to adapt to the gloom before she could clearly make out the interior of the hangar. It looked even bigger on the inside than from the outside, with crates and toolboxes and all kinds of junk stacked up against the walls, and the central area mostly clear apart from... holy shit a plane. And not just any plane. One marked with military colours. En didn't know much about planes as such, but this looked like the kind she'd seen in pre-War magazines – not the ones who did dogfights in the air, but one of those who just flew above cities and rained down bombs on them.

"Damn... does that still work?"

"Uh, nope," Jack said, suddenly becoming very evasive. "Loyal just... likes to tinker with it. Says it puts him at peace." It felt like a lie. He called out, "Loyal?"

"Yeah?" came a voice from somewhere in the hangar.

"Someone here to see you. Asks if she can help with the solar array."

"Oh, jolly!" A head popped up from behind one of the crate stacks. "Been a while since we've had any outsiders here."

"He seems okay with it," En remarked to the guy standing next to her.

"Yeah don't worry. Loyal's totally cool."

The old man briskly strode over to them, grinning from ear to ear. He was holding a wrench and didn't seem inclined to put it down, as if it had fused with his hand through overuse. "Welcome to Nellis AFB, young lady. So you wanna help out huh?"

He held out his hand and even though it was almost black with oil and grease, En shook it nonetheless. Always a good idea to show people you didn't find them dirty if you wanted something from them. Besides, she'd spent plenty of days up to her elbows in grease too. "Yeah, Pearl said I should come see you."

He wiped his hands with a rag that was just as greasy (after shaking her hand, how thoughtful) and explained, "Yeah. Got some problems with the solar arrays. Don't know how it happened, but a few of them got busted up and I really don't have the time to prance all the way up there to fix 'em. 'Sides, I ain't comfortably headin' up there with all the ants."

"Oh yeah, Raquel said something about that. Said you were working on a way to deal with them?"

"Yup, that I am." He motioned for her to follow him. "I'm thinkin', they hate sounds with a certain frequency, right? So if I were to make a device that imitated that sound, maybe they'd stop comin'. They'd pop up somewhere else, but at least they'd be outta the generator room."

"Wait... I thought they were in the solar array?"

The man gave a wheezy chuckle. "The solar array's built on top of the generator room, kiddo."

"Oh. Right, yeah, makes sense."

"So if you wanna do both at the same time, wipe out the ants and fix the solar panels, you can. You any good with repairin' stuff?"

"I'm the best," En boasted, feeling a sense of pride well up inside her. It'd been a while since she'd been able to show off her mechanic skills.

"Ha! Well, you sure got the right attitude," Loyal remarked. "I just need to cobble this whole sound amplifier thing together, but I'm kinda stumped. I think I got the frequency right, but I'm havin' some trouble hookin' up the speakers. Lackin' an amplifier, for starters."

"An amplifier?" En said. And as always, ideas began to form in her head. "Tch, that's easy."

"That so?" Loyal asked, crossing his arms and giving her a curious look. Then he swept his arm around the hangar. "My hangar's yours, use anything you want."

"You got it." She made a beeline for the bomber and rolled the ladder up to the cockpit. When she climbed up, she heard Loyal say, "Whoa missy, don't go breakin' anythin' up there."

"Nope. Just borrowing. You needed an amplifier, right?"

"Well, yes, but..."

She held out her hand, standing on top of the ladder. "Screwdriver, please. Phillips head, size 10."

She heard the sound of a tool box being ransacked, and a cold plastic haft was placed in her hand. She took a look at it and promptly gave it back. "This is a size 11."

Loyal's embarrassed voice came from below. "It's the uh... closest we've got."

With a chuckle, En made do with what she had, unscrewing the bomber's radio system. It was kinda tricky with the wrong size screwdriver, but still possible. She took out the radio and held it out to Loyal, feeling it being taken from her hands. "Amplifier, right there."

As she descended the ladder, she saw Loyal looking at the radio with a bummed face. Jack had wandered off.

"Aw don't worry, it only takes, like, ten seconds to install it again."

He sighed, still looking at the radio. "I s'pose."

"So where's your mystery device?"

Loyal showed her where it was, a contraption looking decently put together, but only half-complete. Together, they tinkered with it, attaching the bomber's radio to it to use as an amplifier, and soldering a few wires to the speakers. When they were done, En said, "You know, if they hate that frequency, it means it causes them like, physical discomfort, right?"

"I... would imagine so, yeah," Loyal replied, unsure why she asked.

"That means, if you were to boost the signal..."

His eyes lit up. "It might even hurt or kill them."

"M-hm. I'm pretty sure this amp can pump out a few decibels if we let it. I mean, this had to be loud enough to shout over the engines of the plane, right?"

"M-hm. M-hm."

"So right now, this thing goes like pow. When we crank it up, it'll go like PIDDLY-PAOW!"

"Err... if you say so."

"Let's see how loud it goes," En said eagerly, pressing the makeshift power switch and turning the cobbled-together volume knob. They'd built them out of spare parts, so the power switch was a big white wall switch, and the volume know was an old oven dial. As En turned the volume higher, they could feel a sort of vibration in their chests. She turned even further and the feeling became positively uncomfortable. "Y'know what?" En said. "I think this is gonna murder the crap out of those ants."

"I think so too, missy. Damn, I gotta say, that's impressive."

En picked up the device. "It's bug stompin' time."

"If you're headin' out there," Loyal said, "Take this too." He produced a sports bag full of what looked like tiles of mirrored plastic. "Replacement parts for the solar array."

"Cool."

"Hey kiddo, you goin' there like this?"

"Like what?"

"Weaponless?"

"Oh. Yeah, Raquel's got my weapon."

"That's a load of crap." He disappeared behind another stack of crates and came back with an M-4 carbine. "My personal treasure. Need something to defend yourself with, don't you?"

"Yep, I guess. Better to have one and not need it than need one and not have it."

"My thoughts exactly. Go on, take her with you. I'll deal with Raquel if she gets ornery."

"Cool, thanks."

He held up a finger. "Girl, watch out for those ants now, you hear. They already killed one of our people, wouldn't want to see another young life wasted."

"I'll be careful."

It was early evening when she emerged from the hangar, and she bumped right into – of course – Raquel. "Outsider, what are you doing with that weapon?" she shouted, mortified.

"Carrying it on my back."

"Don't get smart with me," she threatened. "Hand it over, right now."

"Yeah, no. I'll need it to protect myself from those ants. Loyal said it was okay and that you should go complain to him if you got ornery."

"Ornery? How dare – "

En shrugged. "It's what he said."

Raquel looked at the iron door for a moment, then let out a frustrated "Hmph" and said to En, "Fine. But I'm watching you."

"Knock yourself out."

"In fact," she said, still angry, "I'm coming with you."

"What, to baby-sit me?"

"Yes."

"Fine. You can show me the way then."

The walk to the solar array-slash-generator room was silent and the tension could be cut with a knife. Still, better to have two guns instead of one if things got ugly. Though En wondered how dangerous a bunch of oversized ants could get. The statue girl had once killed a bunch of them using only a spear and wearing nothing but some tribal leather, and all she'd gotten out of it were a few gashes in her foot. The guy who'd died in that generator room had probably taken a bad step and broken his neck or something.

The outline of a solar array stood against the horizon, the sun at their backs, getting ready to set. "There it is," Raquel said redundantly. It was the first thing she'd said since they'd left.

"You don't say."

That ended the conversation even before it had started, and they reached the solar array without saying another word. En gently put the solar panel parts down on the roof and said, "I'm supposed to fix this junk too. I'd like to do that first while I still have the light."

The light wasn't really relevant since the old guy had helpfully put a flashlight in between the parts, along with some tools, but a chance to spite the uppity woman couldn't be left untaken. A diabolical part of En looked forward to hearing her huff and puff in impatience as she fixed the solar panels as slowly as she could. It'd be too late and too ignominious for her to turn back after being such a hardass about accompanying her, so she'd be stuck, bored out of her wits. Muahaha.

"What, you wanna fix these things now?" Hee hee, yep, that's it. Right now.

"M-hm. Can't do it in the dark, can I?"

Raquel grunted in anger and flung herself down on a ledge, leaning against the wall of the generator bunker. "Hurry it up, will ya?"

"Of course." Not.

En got to work, at a leisurely pace. Most of the solar panels were dinged but still usable. Some had their silicon panels knocked out by flying debris or whatever, and those could be easily replaced by taking them out and installing the spare ones. A few were smashed almost beyond repair, but En did what she could, rerouting some wires to make sure all the spare parts were put to use, even if it meant leaving some panels only half-complete. It'd probably work much better than before now, so nobody should complain about a few aesthetic imperfections.

"You just about done?" Raquel asked, having crept up behind her as she fixed the last panel.

"Shit!" En breathed with a jump. "You scared the snot out of me."

"Can we go now?" No sorry or any other form of acknowledgment. Well, she had it coming, she supposed.

"Yeah sure. Fine." She got up and clicked the last of the spare panels in place.

"C'mon. Let's get this over with so I can go home and leave you to whatever the Hell it is you do."

Whatever the Hell I do will be racking up five thousand caps, you bitter xenophobe.

They trudged to the door and Raquel punched in a code, taking care En didn't see the keys she tapped. Yeah, after all, she might try and get into a place she was supposed to get into to kill giant ants for this bunch.

The door opened with a pneumatic hiss and a yellow rotating light flashing overhead.

Only emergency lighting was on in the bunker, and the room they were in had metal instabuild walls, a deactivated power console set against the wall, and another doorway that led to a walkway that looked to be suspended above a much deeper floor. Which seemed to be moving though it wa shard to tell in the darkness. "Indy... why does the floor move?"

"The ants are on the lowest level. I think if we're real quiet," Raquel whispered, "we can get close without them noticing us."

"Aren't we supposed to not get close?" En whispered back.

"Yeah, yeah, but if you wanna plant that noise-maker, you need to get close to their mound before the whole nest comes after you."

"Hm. True. I'm gonna let you in on a secret, but you need to promise not to tell, okay?"

Raquel rolled her eyes in the gloom. "I'm sure it'll be such a great secret that I'll have trouble keeping it inside."

Yeah, yeah, be sarcastic. "Stel, activate stealth mode and muffler."

"STEALTH MODE ACTIVATED. MUFFLER ACITVATED."

Raquel's eyes went wide. "So that's how you got past the artillery?"

"Yep. Now shut up, these batteries don't last forever."

Amazingly, Raquel did as she was told.

"Get ready to like, cover me in case those buggers come at me, okay?"

To her credit, Raquel gave a curt nod, and her face determined, she said, "Yeah." She didn't seem like she'd just let En get chewed to paste.

"Okay, here I go." Slowly, she went through the doorway and found herself on the suspended walkway, the floor beneath her at least ten metres lower. The walkway went to the far wall, then descended into a square-spiralling staircase going about halfway down, then the walkway inexplicably went on in a straight line, back to the wall it had originated from, and then finally, the stairs descended again to the ground level.

Why the Hell did people build walkways like these?

She quickly but quietly floated across the walkway, down the first set of stairs, and back to the other side. She quickly looked up and saw Raquel slowly creeping forward, much slower than En because it was far more difficult for her to stay quiet. En had reached the second set of stairs and crept down, holding the bug-zapper, as she'd named the acoustic device, in front of her. The zapper was visible, but that was all, bobbing along at shoulder height as if held up by an unseen force – which kinda was the case, actually.

She slowed down and sneaked down the last flight of stairs. Because of the gloom, she finally got a good look at the floor, and why it was moving. Ants crawled along it, giant varieties the size of a small dog, their heads set with mean pincers, which looked like they could tear a nice chunk out of someone.

En didn't think the statue girl had fought ants this big with only a spear. Holy shit. She swallowed and stopped for a moment.

"BATTERIES AT 50 PERCENT."

God dammit those things drained fast. No time to take a breath. She crept forward, quickly charting a path between the crawling ants, to the mound, which only lay a few metres away. Dammit, she now understood why one of those Boomers had croaked here. And just as she thought of it, she saw a clean-picked fresh skeleton from the corner of her eye. The remnants of bomber jacket strewn around near the body made it pretty clear who this had used to be.

She did not want to end up like that.

She carefully lifted her foot and laid it down next to one of the chittering insects, wincing when she saw it skitter forward, missing her foot by a few centimetres. Holy Hell that was close.

She'd almost reached the mound. "BATTERIES AT THIRTY PERCENT. ESTIMATED TIME OF WITHSTANDING ATTACKS FROM INSECTS, ZERO-POINT-THREE-TWO-FIVE SECONDS."

Cute, Stel. Very cute. Though if En didn't know any better, she could swear the suit sounded afraid.

She got another step closer.

"BATTERIES AT TWENTY PERCENT. CAN WE PLEASE GET OUT OF HERE?" Yeah, the suit sounded scared. Just a little longer, Stel. Her heart beat hard in her chest. There was a sudden sting in her shoulder and her heart slowed and she felt herself calming down. "ADMINISTERING LIGHT TRANQUILLIZER. EN, PLEASE PUT THAT THING DOWN AND GET US OUT OF HERE."

Even as the tranq calmed her down, Stel began to sound positively terrified, even going so far as to use her name. En stooped and put the bug zapper down, but as her finger reached for the button, Stel pleaded, "BATTERIES FAILING, STEALTH FIELD INTERMITTENT. WE HAVE TO GO NOW."

The stealth field failed, and En saw her own arm becoming visible as she shifted her hand from carrying the zapper to pressing its button. SHIT!

En quickly jabbed her finger down on the zapper's activation button and began running, not realizing she'd already dodged the first of the snaps the ants' jaws made at her. She sprinted back to the stairs, evading the pincers on pure luck as the ants all tried to converge on her, and more emerged from the mound.

As she bounded towards the stairs, she heard the dry cracks of an AK being fired, but she couldn't see where the shots hit, all she thought about was making it to the god damn stairs! And she almost did, coming within two metres of the metal steps before her foot got caught on the warped xylophone of the dead Boomer's ribcage and she keeled over, crashing down right on top of one of the ants, its thorax snapping under her weight, killing it stone dead with a wet screeching sound. She rolled over to her back, making more of the dead ant's exoskeleton crunch under her, and raised the M4, pulling the trigger. The assault rifle bucked in her hands, the muzzle flashes lighting up the gloomy generator room. She crawled backward, firing another salvo and tearing apart one of the ants that had skittered on top of her legs and looked ready to lunge straight at her face. She heard the cracks of the AK again and scampered to her feet, trying to reach the stairs and succeeding this time. She backed up the stairs, firing into the multitude of ants that skittered after her, yet more emerging from the mound. Crap crap crap crap.

She backed up again, firing another burst into the ants, accompanied by cracks of the AK. But as she blindly set her feet down on the stairs, she missed a step, her foot going through the opening between the steps and sending her down on her back, the M4 sweeping through the air in a wide arc, still firing. Her ankle exploded with pain, caught between the steps and the muscles in her leg felt like they were torn to shreds. Despite the pain and her awkward position, she brought Loyal's M4 to bear again and fired, emptying the clip so the last sound the weapon made was a cold click.

She was dead now.

"IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE TRAVELLING WITH YOU," Stel said into her earbud, consigned to her fate of being shredded by ant mandibles, soaked with En's blood and flayed off her body.

The ants came at her, and she closed her eyes... but nothing happened. When she opened them again, she saw the ants were all ailing on the ground, looking dead drunk. Some lay on their backs, their legs slowly making circles in the air, others seemed to be unable to support themselves anymore, lying down on their bellies, their mandibles feebly snapping at the air.

Right, the bug zapper! Haha, holy shit the bug zapper had got them! She clumsily got up, extricating her foot from between the steps and climbed, holding the railing and supporting herself on it to take the weight off her probably sprained ankle.

Oh, shit, Raquel!

The Boomers' security officer lay sprawled on the walkway, one leg hanging over the edge. What the Hell? En scampered up the stairs as fast as her aching ankle allowed and saw her lying down, her AK next to her.

Punched in her chest were two bullet holes.

Oh crap.

"Shit, Raquel, oh my god!"

The woman opened her eyes and had to force them to focus on En. "That... better have been an... accident."

"Oh shit, Raquel I'm sorry!"

Raquel managed to force a grin, her teeth red with blood. "Knew you... punk ass kid would be... death of me."

"Hold on Raquel, I'll get help, I'll – "

"Too late. Need to see... sky. Drag me."

"Oh shit, okay, okay."

En grabbed the woman under her shoulders and began dragging her up the stairs, down the walkway and through the antechamber. Her ankle screamed in pain and her muscles burned, but she gritted her teeth and kept dragging. "Almost there, Raquel."

"Ennhhh..."

Another effort and she'd reached the door, briefly letting one hand go and slapping it on the switch, making the door slide open. The sun had almost set , and stars were already visible in the twilight sky.

Her strength close to giving out, En lowered Raquel's upper body as gently as she could, laying it down on the soft earth. Raquel raised her hand feebly to the sky and croaked, "Sorry... sky... was hoping... but... won't... ever... fly now." Her eyes, barely able to keep focus, rolled towards En. "Ask Loyal... about the Lady... make her fly... it's... the least... you can...do... tell him... I said it's..."

She didn't finish her sentence and her arm fell to the ground.

En was alone.