Meryl slept for two days after the incident in Orleans. She woke to the loud tap-tap-tap of Milly pounding out what Meryl assumed to be a company report on the keys of the heavy typewriter.
"About time, Ma'am!" said Milly cheerfully. "Good morning! Well, afternoon, rather. Can I get you something to eat? You must be starving." Meryl's stomach grumbled in agreement and Milly laughed.
"It's alright, Milly," Meryl told the younger woman. "You finish up that report and I'll go down the street to the saloon. Meet me there after?" Milly nodded and Meryl dressed hurriedly, shoving her feet into her boots so quickly she stubbed the toes of her left foot against the insole. She was about to ask Milly for the wallet they shared but when Meryl turned around the younger woman was already holding a few double-dollar bills over her shoulder, continuing to type with the other hand as she waited patiently for Meryl to take the money.
Meryl fought back a grin and thanked Milly before practically racing out the door. Outside, the street showed evidence of further sandstorms while she slept; miniature dunes and drifts had built up against many buildings' faces. But now the weather was calm—and scalding hot. By the time she reached the saloon she was glad to step inside and just the few degrees' difference in temperature was enough to make her more comfortable.
The saloon seemed to have the same number of occupants as the last time she'd entered it, but somehow the place looked bigger, lacking all the tables that had been destroyed during the gunfight. Two men were already rebuilding the missing half of the bar.
Meryl managed to snag one of the only tables left standing, which she realized was actually just half of a table propped up against the wall, and waited to catch the eye of one of the men working the floor. It was the bartender himself who appeared at her elbow, and at her request returned minutes later with a cup of coffee and a small plate of beef and potatoes.
She practically inhaled the food, surreptitiously spitting out any gristle, and her growling stomach was finally sated to the point of silence. Then Meryl took the time to glance around the saloon as she sipped the last of her coffee. She recognized many faces from the day before, but couldn't find—
"He left yesterday," said Milly. Meryl sloshed coffee over the table in her surprise as the other woman sat down next to her, unexpectedly.
"What?" asked Meryl, trying to sop up the spill with her tattered cloth napkin. "Who?"
"Mr. Vash," Milly replied, with a look that clearly said, You know perfectly well 'Who.'
"Good riddance," muttered Meryl, without even bothering to correct Milly as to the man's identity. "Are you ready to leave?"
"We're all packed up," Milly confirmed, nodding. "Where next?"
"We hit the 4-month mark last week," Meryl told her, swallowing the last of her coffee. "We're due to check in with the company. Bernadelli has a remote branch in Little Kansas, and that's only a few days north of here."
"That's right, isn't it!" said Milly, looking surprised. "Four months already... Hard to believe it's only been that." She smiled pleasantly and Meryl glanced away, trying not to grimace.
It definitely felt longer than four months.
Half an hour later they had loaded up their Thomas. Meryl wanted to find McDonough before they left town, and wish him luck for the future, but she couldn't seem to track him down. Puzzled, she went in to the saloon to ask after him and was surprised to see that he was one of the men rebuilding the bar; she hadn't noticed earlier, in her urgent rush to find strong coffee.
"I figure I owe the bartender," McDonough told her, when Meryl finally caught his attention (he was so focused on the task that Meryl's tap on the shoulder eventually turned into a fist hammering on his back). "Most of this is my mess, after all," explained McDonough.
"Oh," said Meryl, startled. She realized it was her mess, too, and suddenly wondered if she should be there alongside him with a hammer. McDonough seemed to read this on her face because he laughed.
"No, this is my doing," he said. "I dragged you into it." Then he grinned, and Meryl blinked somewhat dazedly; she thought he'd been good-looking before, but with a smile in place of the grimace she'd previously seen, the effect was startling. "I'll take care of your share of the repairs," McDonough assured her, focusing her attention properly again.
"Oh," she said again, for lack of anything else. "Well," she managed. "Good luck." Meryl offered McDonough her hand and he shook it, his large hand enveloping hers.
"And you," he replied, smiling again.
A sudden shout and cursing drew McDonough's attention away and Meryl saw that the other man, one of McDonough's new deputies, had missed the head of the nail on his last hammer swing and was sucking on an injured thumb.
"Oh for god's sake, Armstrong," McDonough muttered. "That's twice today."
Meryl left the two men to their work and returned outside where Milly sat waiting on Thomas-back. With both hands on the saddle horn, Meryl hauled herself up onto her own mount, settling in for another three-day ride with no opportunity to bathe or eat properly until they reached their destination. She sighed resignedly and kicked the Thomas into a trot.
They rode in silence for a few minutes until they met the edge of town.
The Humanoid Typhoon
Adrenaline shot suddenly through Meryl's veins.
"Did you hear that?" Meryl asked. She pulled back on the Thomas reins and brought it to a halt, breathless. Meryl was certain she'd heard the words; carried on the wind, maybe... Whispered into her ear from far away.
"Hear what, Ma'am?" asked Milly. She had stopped and was looking back, bemused.
Inepril
Meryl was turning her head from side to side now, looking around the street for the source.
"I swear, I heard..." She was frowning, her forehead aching as she tried to understand...
Stampede
A sudden crackling, static noise—and Meryl figured it out.
"It's the radio!" she hissed. "Back at the saloon!" Meryl threw herself off the Thomas and raced back to the saloon, throwing herself through what once was a door. "Stop!" she shouted, to the room at large. "Go back!"
The bartender was looking up at her, startled, his thick fingers still grasping the knob on the radio, searching for a different frequency.
"What?" he spluttered. "Me?"
"Yes, hurry," Meryl demanded, pushing her way through the crowd, only barely squeezing between two more of McDonough's deputies at the bar. "What were they saying—about the Humanoid Typhoon?"
The bartender tuned the radio back and Meryl recognized the raspy voice she'd heard from a distance.
"—repeat, keep getting reports from Inepril that Vash the Stampede is in the area. He is considered armed and dangerous, and should not be approached for any reason. Again, the Humanoid Typhoon is thought to be in or near the Inepril—"
It was enough. She just knew it. Without understanding how; really, gut-feeling sure, knew it. Meryl ran out without even thanking the bartender and squinted into the sun, blinded for an instant, enough for her to collide with Milly's Thomas. Remarkably, it seized her elbow in its toothed beak and held her upright enough to keep from falling, though she saw when she managed to pull her arm free that it had nearly bit clean through the sleeve of her tunic.
"What is it?" asked Milly, clearly alarmed. "What's wrong, Ma'am?"
"Inepril," said Meryl, breathlessly, as she pulled herself into her own Thomas saddle. "We have to go to Inepril."
"What?" Milly asked, confused. "What about Little Kansas? The company—"
"I just heard, they say the Humanoid Typhoon is in Inepril," Meryl went on, anxious to leave. She gripped the leather reins tightly.
"But we always hear rumors, Ma'am," Milly said, perplexed. "How do you know—"
"Something's different this time," Meryl said, trying hard to pinpoint what it was that made her guts suddenly twist up with anticipation. The effort made her forehead ache, but rather than annoy her it seemed to just strengthen her resolve. "This time we'll find him, Milly. I just know it."
"But Ma'am," protested Milly, "Inepril's south of here, we're supposed to be..." Her ingrained sense of obligation toward company regulations seemed to be at odds with her friendship and allegiance to Meryl. In the end, her faith in Meryl seemed to win out and Milly turned her mount decisively to the south. "Then let's go, Ma'am," she said. "No time to waste."
It was a relatively short ride, less than a full day pushing the Thomas hard, and they reached the outskirts of Inepril in mid-morning the next day. They stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the city and stared down in disbelief.
"Half the city's covered in sand," said Milly, bewildered.
"Their plant must have broken down," Meryl reasoned. "But the damage is so extensive... Did you ever hear anything about this?"
"No," Milly said, shaking her head. "Inepril hasn't been in the news for years."
"How can no one have done anything about the plant?" asked Meryl, her forehead aching as she tried to make sense of it.
"Maintenance is expensive," Milly offered, though she looked upset at the idea of such a reason for neglect.
"But this town is dependent on that plant," Meryl replied. "It looks like it's been broken for at least a year, maybe more. Why doesn't—"
Meryl cut off abruptly at the distant clanging of a heavy bell. She surveyed the cityscape and gasped as she watched the tall bell tower suddenly crumble to the ground with a huge plume of dust.
"Ma'am, did you see that?" Milly asked, aghast.
"He's here," Meryl murmured, shivering slightly despite the high noon heat. Somehow she knew, with that same peculiar, irrefutable certainty she had felt earlier, that this time they had found the real Vash the Stampede. "This is it, Milly," she said, her heart hammering away madly against her ribs. "It's him."
Meryl hauled hard on the Thomas reins and kicked the animal into a gallop, hurrying to find the switchback trail that would lead them down the cliff. Milly followed, and a few breathless minutes later they had reached the main streets.
Another explosion, much nearer now, made Meryl wince. She slid down the considerable distance from her saddle to the ground, landing solidly on both feet, and threw the Thomas reins over the nearest post. Milly followed as she raced toward the center of the city.
Turning around the corner and into the heart of the commotion, Meryl and Milly were met with a scene of utter chaos. Within moments, they were buffeted to and fro as gangs of people ran in all directions, taking no notice of them whatsoever. Men and women carried revolvers and pistols and rifles and anything else they could get their hands on, all shooting—as far as Meryl could tell—at no more than a shadow, or just towards the sounds of more shooting.
"Somebody's going to get killed!" Milly said, terrified. "They're all just going to get caught in their own crossfire!" Even as Milly said it, Meryl realized they were standing in front of a veritable firing squad, a half-dozen men turning to face them as another explosion sounded loudly from behind where the two of them stood.
There wasn't even time to shout a warning. Meryl pushed Milly sideways, toward the building nearest them, hoping to flatten them both against the wall for what little cover it could provide. Much to her surprise—and Milly's, if her squawk of alarm was any indication—they crashed through an aging wooden door, sending splinters flying around the room behind it. Meryl collapsed on Milly, and if she didn't have the bulk to squash the other woman, it was enough at least to knock the wind out of her.
"Sorry!" Meryl said apologetically, shouting to be heard over the thunder of gunshots outside as she scrambled to her feet. Glancing around, Meryl found herself in what looked like a single-bedroom flat, the only occupant of which was an old woman, gray hair pulled back in a severe bun, sitting in a rocking chair at the very center of the room.
"Everyone is so animated today," commented the old woman, with a hint of a smile. Ice-gray cataracts blinked blindly at Meryl and a frail, wrinkled hand absently stroked a very familiar-looking cat sitting in her lap. The green-eyed, black feline rolled onto its back, purring so loudly it actually managed to drown out some of the commotion outside.
"What happened here?" Meryl asked, cringing as the floor shook again. "Shouldn't you move somewhere out of the way?"
"Oh, I'm alright," the woman assured them, tickling the cat's belly affectionately. Kureneko's eyes narrowed to contented slits.
"Nyao..."
"This all started yesterday, " said the old woman, continuing their strange, disjointed conversation in the midst of all the chaos outside. "Some story about a gang running away from their own hold-up in their underwear, I think."
"In their—what?" spluttered Meryl.
There was a high-pitched shriek just moments before the glass of the room's front window burst inward toward the three women. Meryl and Milly threw themselves to the ground as something flew into the room, passing right over their heads. It all happened in an instant; something exploded through the front window and smashed out through the back again in just a flash—of what Meryl could have sworn was a streak of brilliant red.
Leaping to her feet, Meryl stared out through what remained of the back window, something unsettling churning in the back of her mind, but she didn't have time to stop and think about it properly.
"Come on," she urged Milly, sparing a worried but resigned backwards glance at the older woman as she cautiously peeked out the door into the street.
Meryl's heart jumped up into her throat as she heard the words, "There he is!" She turned, but only for a fraction of a second, not enough to see the man in question, because a hurried double-take showed a younger man, about Milly's age, raising a massive rocket launcher to his shoulder just a few yarz away. She leapt toward him and knocked the weapon sideways, though the young man still held tightly to it, shouting in surprise.
"My god, where are you getting these things?" Meryl demanded, trying to wrestle the rocket launcher away from him. The struggle only ended when Milly finally grabbed them both by the scruff of the neck and hauled them apart, each glaring at the other and panting hard from the exertion.
"Enough!"
The word boomed loud around them, startling Milly into dropping her two captives. The voice echoed off the stone walls of the buildings and Meryl realized it had come from a public address system—she could see the large horned speakers at almost every corner.
"Message from Mission Control: temporarily suspend all pursuit of the Humanoid Typhoon! Everybody return to headquarters to discuss further strategies."
Meryl still refused to relinquish her hold on the rocket launcher and the young man made a face at her, making a show of forcibly dropping his end of the weapon and stalking away. Breathing a sigh of relief, Meryl realized she had no place to put the stupid thing, nor really any idea what to do with it at all. And it seemed to be getting heavier by the moment.
"Um..." she said, glancing uncertainly at her partner, but Milly just pulled the rocket launcher from Meryl's grip and slung it over one shoulder.
"Let's find out where headquarters is," said Milly.
"Right," Meryl said, glad yet again of Milly's ability to keep a level head in a crisis. "Right."
The resounding silence following the city-wide cease-fire was almost tangible as the two women followed the steadily increasing stream of people headed for what seemed to be the center of town. After several minutes it seemed the entire population was gathered, crowded, into the town square. In the very center, a large tent canopy had been constructed (somewhat haphazardly) and Meryl made a bee-line for it. From a distance she could see two men arguing, and moments later she could hear their voices.
"Maybe we should just stop now," said a tall man, trying to push his horn-rimmed glasses further up his nose, though they slid back down almost immediately on his sweaty skin.
"We can't!" said the other man, desperately. He sat in a folding chair, staring at nothing in particular as he tugged at his wiry long hair in an anxious gesture. "We need that bounty!"
"Yes, but Mr. Chairman—"
"He's right!" interrupted Meryl, stepping under the tent canopy's welcome shade. She nodded at the man in glasses. "This has got to stop!"
"Who are you?" demanded the Chairman.
"My name is Meryl Stryfe, and this is my partner—"
"Milly Thompson!"
"We're from the Bernadelli Insurance Company, and we're here to stop Vash the Stampede from causing any damage to people or property," Meryl was nearly tripping over the litany in her hurry to make herself heard. "Which your willful destruction of your own town makes very difficult to do!"
"But we have to catch him!" the Chairman shouted, jumping to his feet. "We need the $$60,000,000,000 bounty to fix the plant! Without the plant, the town will be in ruins!"
"The town is already in ruins!" Meryl shouted back, waving her arm at the area around them. "Look what you've done!"
The Chairman hesitated in answering, his eyes darting around as he took in all the damage they had wrought to their town. Finally he let out a defeated groan and sank back into the plastic folding chair.
"It's not too late," Meryl said, lowering her voice again, trying to sound reassuring. "Let me talk to him, to Vash." She felt a sudden stab of—panic? Excitement? "Lend me use of the PA system, I'll try to negotiate a truce."
"No, no," moaned the Chairman. "You don't understand... It's no use, it's already too late!"
"It isn't!" Meryl said, grabbing the man by the shoulders. "Just stop the—"
The ground under their feet shook suddenly; one brief tremor and an accompanying clap of thunder, as if an explosion had gone off nearby. But Meryl was familiar with explosions, and this was decidedly not.
"What was that?"
Milly had voiced everyone's unasked question.
"It's them," whispered the Chairman, going pale and tugging more furiously at his hair.
"What?" asked Meryl, confused. "Who?"
"I... I hired..."
There was another huge, booming noise and impact and the Chairman cringed noticeably.
"Mr. Chairman?" prompted the man in glasses.
"...Nebraskas..." mumbled the Chairman, in a barely-audible whisper, not meeting Meryl's eye.
"You. Did. What?" hissed Meryl, through painfully gritted teeth.