The white plains extend as far as the view could reach, a small group of dots looking around the emptiness of the place could be seen from far standing at the top of a snow hill.
"Where. In the frozen hell. Are we?" A dark-haired man with a scar on his forehead, the lowest on the group, said while lowering his binoculars.
"Beats me" A girl a few steps to his right said, her dark hair under a fur cap, eyes running through the frostlands.
The wind howling in their ears. The silence of the group was quickly broken, as some meters to the left, another voice called.
"Guys" A tall man with blondish hair and a cowboy hat, looking through a range finder called "We missed the city"
"What?!" The other man screamed and stomped his way to him as fast as his snowshoes would let him.
"There" he pointed to a bunch of small towers making thin lines in the horizon "We´re off by around…some degrees since we leaved the city" He clicked some gears on the rangefinder "Around a hundred seventy miles total"
"You do know, you're the only American here right?"
The man dropped the device giving the other a deadpan look.
"Around two hundred eighty or more kilometers off…" The last person presents in the group, a tall slim girl with binoculars pointing to the exact opposite direction they were looking, her hair black as coal and dangling in the cold wind. She clicked her tongue "Fuck"
"How can we miss something by that much boss?" The other girl asked, squinting her eyes to see the silhouette of what was going to be a new outpost on the horizon.
"Looks like the speed we got with the new snowmobiles made us lose some control, plus the direction device may have been compromised…" The short haired girl answered, still searching the white plains, her eyes caught a glimpse of smoke against the blue sky "What…"
"Great! Engineers! Aren´t they supposed to fix things that are broken? These were working just fine!" The short man screamed.
"Normal people believe that if it´s not broken, it doesn't need fixing. An engineer believes that if it´s not broken, it doesn't have enough features yet" The boss said, a playful tone in her voice.
"Your father said that?"
She nodded "What´s south-west from here? Around…one twenty I guess"
The other girl closed her eyes and frowned "Ahhhh…it was some sort of cave? Nothing reported by the other scout parties, why?"
"I saw smoke"
They all did an instant turn to the direction she pointed. Some rocks made a wall formation to what could possibly be a cave.
"I don´t see anything chief" The American said.
The boss lowered the binoculars and headed back to the snowmobile, a metal contraption with skies and a large track wheel in the back, a seat with the engine at the front to protect the pilot from the harsh cold and some space to store the cargo.
She turned the heating on, the frozen water droplets started to melt and turned into steam as the engine burned the coal.
"Blake? How far is it?" She gave a few taps in the temperature meter, the pointer started moving.
"Ahh…" The man let out an annoyed grunt, he knew where this was going. He pointed the rangefinder the other way "Hundred kilometers? Around two hours to get there if you go slow, to make sure you don´t get off course again"
"And to the outpost?"
"That would be…six hours tops, again traveling slow"
"So there and back to the outpost is ten hours?"
The man just gave a nod.
"Why do you want to go there? Nobody reported nothing and I don´t see nothing" The other girl asked.
"The earlier scouts reports are from six years ago, and no one has come further East from the city than the coal outpost since then. It´s just a guess, but there maybe survivors or something else there"
"Since we can´t stop you, should we at least send someone with you?"
"Negative" The temperature meter finally went up showing that the internal engine was warm enough, what was a must to guarantee that one of the pistons wouldn´t be cracked upon start "Securing the outpost takes priority, the outpost team should be here in two days and we are already late and off course"
"Okay, good luck going there alone" The short man said "And be sure to be fast, if you make it in ten hours you will be back at sunset and for the record, I'm not looking for your corpse"
"You better make sure to find me if I am not back, or you would wish I was really dead" Their boss shoot back with a sweet smile.
The man lips disappeared in a thin line with a murmur "Yes ma'am"
"And Mina is in charge until I get back"
"OH, COME ON!" He screamed.
The other girl made her way to their boss, already in her seat double checking all the meters.
"Make sure to come back, I can´t take him for to long without thinking of burying him in the snow" Mina gave her a bag, she gave a puzzled look to the girl "It´s my job, as second in command, to make sure our boss doesn't kill herself"
Inside the bag there was one canned ration, an extra fuel cell and some extra slugs for her rifle.
"Be careful Alice"
She was not frequently called by her name anymore, but when she was, she knew it meant how much they were worried about her.
"I will" She said with a smile, what made the other girl light up a little, then she turned to the other two "Get to the outpost, signal the beacon and get things up for the night, if I'm not there by sunrise advise the city and go search for me, but someone has to stay to report to the outpost team, got it?"
They all gave a nod.
"Good, see you all in a few!"
The engine roared alive, slowly at first but soon the vehicle made a snow cloud in the air and trailed off.
They headed back to their own vehicles and started the engine warm up, the short man stared at the other two.
"What's up Jory?" Blake asked, felling the stare as he checked the meters.
"She´s going to get trouble again isn´t she?"
The other two looked at each other and answered almost at the same time "Probably, yeah"
Jory slammed his head against the vehicle´s panel grunting.
"Come on slowpoke! I want to be there before sunset" Mina said accelerating, Blake on her tail yelling a loud "Yahoo!"
They both passed through Jory throwing a snow cloud at the man's face.
"Hate this fucking group, would be better being a cook, this fuckg…" And he went after them, mumbling under his breath against the cold wind towards the outpost.