We hopped into the two rock skimmers. Delta and Glory hopped into one, Glory driving.
"I'm driving." I called.
"Why you?" Cannon yelled.
"I jacked the key!" I jangled the ring noisily and sat down in the drivers seat.
"See you kid." Cannon winked at Dusk and slid into the passenger seat.
I put on my headphones and adjusted the microphone. "Can ya hear me?" I asked Cannon.
"Baby doll, You know I can always-"
"I'll take that as an affirmative. Glory, Delta?"
"Check, over and out."
"Awesome," I twirled the handgun I'd been handed for today. The first drill day was that every bogey in the 2000 acres were terrorists. We were to shoot to kill. Some had bombs strapped to them. The guns were loaded with blanks and paint.
I threw the skimmer into gear and rushed over the dry desert landscape.
"You know, this is cool." Cannon said. "We got a leafy forest thing for camp, with a swimming hole and all that feel-good stuff, then we got a desert for skimming and dirt biking, snowy mountains for climbing. If they whip out an ocean I'll swear abstinence for the rest of my life."
"We're in California. I wouldn't shoot my mouth off, Beaches are everywhere." I jerked a sharp right to follow Glory, who was obviously testing the tightness of turns on these rock skimmers.
"Good point. I'll stop, hm..."
"Harassing me?"
"You're the one that said not to shoot my mouth off sugar."
"ETA Delta?" I ignored the comment.
"Considering you're the biggest mischief maker at the compound..." Cannon began.
"Second, you're the first Cannon. The only first title I let you get away with."
He smirked. "Considering you're the second biggest mischief maker at the compound, you sure go by the book."
"I don't ever go by the book."
"Prove it."
I floored the engine and zoomed ahead of Glory in a force that threw Cannon against his seat.
"Yehaw!" He yelled as I pushed a turn and did a quick 360 and continued to the rock formation.
"Hey! What was that? That was awesome!" Glory came over the radio.
"Sliver's trying to kill me and make it look like an accident."
"I've never even tried to make it look like an accident." I replied simply.
"Beautiful, you're killing me!" Cannon put a hand to his heart.
"That's the plan." I hung a quick turn around a boulder.
Glory pulled up next to me. "Pull over here!"
We both parked and hid the skimmers.
I vaporized Maxell and mapped the area.
"I'm thinking, if I get a map everywhere we go. I can get a complete map. I'm not sure if it'll be interactive, but at least we'll have a navigational idea." I checked activity in the area.
"No one in site. Probably up the rocks a while. We got to proceed with..." I pointed on the map at something.
Five men, donned in black, armed with bazookas were hiding behind rocks, facing the other way. They didn't see us, but they were watching something else.
"What are they looking at?" Glory hissed.
We all took out our guns and headed behind the cover of rocks. I clipped Maxell to my wrist, the holographic map stuck out of my wrist in perfect view.
"Hm. That's interesting." I grinned.
"What?" Cannon leaned over, and his grin was bigger. "Midnight Sky, Ten o'clock."
"All right, we snipe the terrorists and then let Midnight Sky into the fact we saved they're behinds. You get painted, you're out for the rest of the day." Glory loaded his gun.
"How about we let them blow up Midnight's team with a satisfying explosion of red paint. Then snipe them, then laugh while Midnight Sky's team heads to camp?" Cannon grinned.
"We can't." Delta sighed. "I hate to be the voice of reason, but we can't be on their bad side."
"He was born, too late." Cannon loaded his gun.
"We snipe them and get credit. It's a bigger defeat if we save them. It's Biblical." Glory sighed.
"I like Cannon's idea. But yours is more reasonable." I let the bullets into the chamber of my gun and we made our way up the mountain.
I never would have seen these guys, if it weren't for Maxell showing us their hiding spots. They were wearing anti-heat suits, which keep all your body heat inside
your suit. I had only gotten them by movement and the gun metal.
I saw Midnight Sky leaning against the jeep checking his Uzi paint gun. It had good sniper sights and would be useful later on.
"Now." Glory whispered. "We get into view, spread out. Fire six shots each. When they don't move, Midnight and his gang will be firing shots. Make sure you yank out the bullhorn Silver. We search the bodies."
I nodded.
I climbed easily up the boulders, rolling under, sliding over.
I found a perch that had my sights on four of the five perps. I felt my fingers getting antsy. I had to wait for Cannon's signal.
"Nebraska! Get down! Get down! We got you covered!" Cannon yelled through the megaphone part of his gun.
I watched his team look confused, grab their guns, but a terribly aimed bazooka paint bomb only a few feet away from their trucks changed their mind.
I fired three. "Pop, Pop, Pop." I whispered. I got all three in the heads with clean shots.
The other two were shot by Glory and Cannon. Delta shot re-enforcement shots through the hearts.
The five took their black masks off to reveal green bandanas which signal being dead.
I held the gun to my mouth, which has a built in megaphone to alert anyone. "Compound Nebraska. You guys were nearly killed by the five bazooka men." I took it down. "Not that they were too much trouble."
I leapt from my perch to a death-defying thrill jump and landed with a roll on the rock a safe distance from them.
I knew that the other team couldn't see us from where they were. Delta had jumped on the high rock and was yelling down what had happened while they climbed up. Can't wait to see their faces.
I checked Maxell. "Trip wire by the chest. And a touch sensitive bomb under that dude." I pointed. Quickly I closed it; no one had to see our secret weapon.
Glory wiped his hair back. "You know it would take three hours to figure that out the old fashioned way."
"I got the bomb." Cannon tramped down to the body. He was stretched out on a rock.
I reached for one of the guys who lay with his eyes watching me.
"What was that you had, a metal detector?" He asked with a grin.
"So much for dead men tell no tales.." I answered blandly. I relieved him of his bazooka and a ball of fuse.
Cannon got a bazooka, Glory got a map full of coordinates for the 2000 acres. That'll help.
Midnight Sky's team tramped over the ridge and their eyes bulged at the sight of the bazookas.
They went for cover behind rocks. Well, three did. Midnight Sky stood where he was. He let some hair tumble over his forehead.
"Come on team." I scrambled up the mountain, not saying a word to the other team.
The boys took cue, clipped their equipment on their belts and climbed up the rocky terrain.
"Why did you save us?" Quickie popped out from behind the rocks.
I didn't turn. "Don't follow us again Nebraska."
We picked our way up. I used rappelling lines all ready laying on the ground to blaze the trail and set hooks for the boys.
I heard them turning and climbing back down to their mobile.
"Beautiful job." Glory whispered. "How did you know they were following us?"
"I checked out their transport on the scope. They had a buzz. They were buzzing metal. They must have picked up the bazooka metal instead of the rock skimmer and took a wrong turn."
He nodded. "Should have known they'd follow."
"Midnight Sky is still there." Delta murmured.
I used the mirror on my watch to see Midnight Sky standing in the same spot he had been, watching us with an avid, appraising interest.
"Ignore him. We have a task." I took out the little map Glory had gotten. "What are these coordinates?"
"When we get up the mountain." Glory whispered, "we'll map out the entire playing field. We can check these out. My bet is they're where other bazooka and terrorist groups are."
"Or, clues to the key? According to Agent One, that group should have sniped every team that got near that mountain. They were not expecting a Maxell, and they certainly weren't expecting those upgrades. If I was you, I'd keep it under wraps as long as possible. If they knew what we had, a few harder challenges might be thrown our way." Cannon suggested.
I looked at the coordinates. "I'm with Cannon. It's clues to the key. And roughly, one of these coordinates is on top of this mountain."
"Anyway. Can anyone sing something? I'm bored." Glory did a neat flip and landed on the side of the mountain, balancing on a dime sized ledge.
"Ok. Girls just wanna have fu-u-un." I belted out. Then grinned and launched a rock at him.
He jumped lightly, landing barely on the rock while it was in air, then over it into the next ledge.
"Hey! That was cool. Do me." Delta cried.
"Yeah Silver, do me, do me." Cannon cooed, coming up behind me.
"Get a life Cannon."
I threw the rock, Delta jumped, letting one foot hit the rock like a spring while it was in motion, and completed the jump, landing on a ledge.
"Come on, quit fooling around." Cannon grabbed vines growing up the sides of the rock and began using them like a rope ladder to pass us up.
