Road trip: the term was archaic English for a type of routine excursion on Earth. He knew people still called them "road trips," but the desert expanses didn't have anything to build a road on. He remembered the old file feeds from the SEEDS ship. It never ceased to amaze him how tenaciously people clung to a sense of normalcy, even when everything was going to hell around them.
There was sand for iles around them in every direction. The monotony usually caused him to get lonely, but with the girls around, it wasn't so bad. Still...with them around, it reminded him of the person who was missing. He knew the girls felt it, too. Wolfwood's warm, cynical, charming presence had been replaced by a cold, uncaring, and seemingly lifeless body. When he drove over those desert plains at night, he thought every once in a while about the freedom he'd have if he just had the wherewithal to stop the car, drag his brother's body out of the truck, and put a bullet in his head. But he knew he couldn't do it. He wouldn't be able to live with himself after that. Rem died for Knives, too...right?
He knew the humans weren't perfect. They lied, they stole, they killed, they hurt each other over and over again. Hell, they hurt him over and over again. He subconsciously rubbed the metal grating over his chest as he thought. But they were capable of so much more than hate and violence. He just couldn't understand why they couldn't see that themselves. That was the worst thing about Knives' logic. In all probability...his brother WAS right about humans: their fear drove their violence and they usually didn't stop to try to understand what they were afraid of in the first place. He kept telling himself that the real reason humans acted the way they did was because of the hardships they had to endure on this planet, but every so often, Vash had to ask himself which of the two brothers was really the one playing god. Vash wanted to tend the ant farm, while Knives liked melting his charges with a magnifying glass: two beings who both had the power to see their vision through... There really didn't seem like a place for them to fit into this world.
He looked over for a moment at the girl in the passenger seat. Meryl was scrunched up against the door with her head rested on her arm. He was glad to see her getting some rest. She usually didn't sleep well on trips. Her partner, however, was another story. Milly was asleep on the bench seat behind them, snoring. He wondered if it really was a good idea to bring them. If something happened to them, he would never forgive himself. Besides Doc, they were the only real friends he had.
He turned back to the desert in front of him. When he was bored, thinking too hard, or the driving got too monotonous, he'd usually pick on Meryl for relief. She was asleep though, so that was out of the question. When he thought about it, though, it wasn't as much fun as it had been in the past, really. She was getting quieter, reacting less to his poking. She would look out the window like she was trying to remember everything, to take in everything she could...even if it was the same for iles and iles. This worried him to no end. What was bothering her? Had she lost faith in him? Did she still trust him? He didn't want to think about it anymore. He rolled the window down and the cool, dry evening air came in. The wind was picking up. There looked to be a sandstorm coming on.
They had been driving for a week. They were making good time. Every 4 hours, they took a break and made sure Knives was still sedate. Meryl had stopped picking on him about his driving skills days ago. Since the car ran on plant cells that needed to be recharged, he turned out to be the fuel source, but he barely felt the drain, really. Nothing a five minute nap couldn't fix. They hadn't run into anybody the entire time despite rumors that slavers patrolled this area. He was almost beginning to think that this would work, that Doc would be able to help him, and that Meryl had it all right when she told him he needed to put a little more trust in others.
He noticed a small noise to the right and looked over to see a groggy Meryl looking around. She rubbed her face.
"Is it my turn to drive, yet?" She stretched as much as she could within the confines of the cab.
Vash laughed a little. "No way. Milly and I just traded off 2 hours ago. Go back to sleep."
She sighed. Her voice was flat. "I can't. I keep having the same dream over and over."
Vash frowned and looked at her again. "Was it a bad dream?"
She looked at him incredulously. "Vash, are you any good at analogies?"
He cocked an eyebrow. "...I guess so..."
"Let's just say," she started, looking out the window at the suns as they made their way below the horizon, "that it would be like...if every single donut was blasted into oblivion and the recipe was lost forever."
The truck suddenly swerved erratically, but kept moving at a frightening speed.
"VASH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" She clawed at the arm rest to steady herself.
He was hyperventilating. "Sorry, sorry." He tried to get his breathing under control. "That was just...the worst thing...I've ever heard..." He looked over at Meryl, his face full of concern. "It must have been a very, very, bad dream then."
She felt pinned in his gaze and felt a blush coming on, but quickly broke eye contact. She looked away. "Come on, stop teasing me!"
He looked away dumbfounded, confused at her reaction to his concern. He looked back at her. "What do you mean teasi--"
"LOOK OUT!" She pointed in front of them. He saw something moving in the headlights and swerved to miss, throwing the breaks on just in time. A cloud of sand surrounded them, obscuring their view of the object in the road. Vash had both hands on the steering wheels, the knuckles on his right hand going white. Meryl looked over at him. He looked back, shaken.
Milly suddenly popped her head up. "Oh, but I couldn't possibly eat another bite!" She looked around, confused. "Hey guys! What are you doing at the First Annual Interplanetary Pudding Convention!"
Meryl and Vash looked at each other for a split second. Without a word, both jumped out of the cab.
From opposite sides of the truck, they approached the organic object in their headlights carefully. The dust kicked up by the abrupt stop was still hard to see through. Vash was amazed Meryl had even been able to spot it in time. It was darker than the sand surrounding it, and only about one and a half feet cubed. It moved and Meryl jumped. Vash kept approaching. He put his gun away and knelt down next to the object. He started talking softly to it. She approached and was startled to see the object was actually a little girl. She had injuries on her face and arms and she looked severely dehydrated. He reached his hand towards her, but she cowered away from Vash. He looked up at Meryl helplessly. She quickly looked down at the gun in her hands and holstered it as fast as she could. She knelt down along side him, in front of the child.
"Hey sweetie," she cooed. "What are you doing out here by yourself?" As the female voice hit her ears, the girl looked up at Meryl. She couldn't have been more than 8 years old, maybe even younger. The girl unexpectedly launched herself into Meryl's arms and started crying. She shushed her and looked back at Vash.
"I think we need to get out of here. I'll check on Knives. Get her into the cab." He turned and ran to the back of the truck.
Milly finally got out of the cab. She ran towards Meryl. "Sempai, what's going on? OH MY GOSH! What's this little girl doing here? You must be lost. Where did you come from? Where's your family?"
The little girl looked up. Her tears were washing paths down her dirty face. "I've been hiding from the Bad People. They took my mommy."
Meryl and Milly looked at each other. It had to be slavers.
Vash quickly made his way around the truck to the back. He could feel something was wrong, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. In the back of the truck, Knives had fallen off his cot and some of the vials of sedatives were broken, but he was unharmed and still unconscious. Vash cursed as he gathered his brother up and repositioned him on the cot. They needed that medication if they were going to get to the SEEDS ship in time. He put his hand to his temples and rubbed, trying to clear his head. Everything was ok. They would just have to move their schedule up 12, maybe 16 hours. He scanned the truck one last time and caught a glimpse of his brother's relaxed face. For a split second, he was back on the ship with Rem and they were in the rec room eating lunch and playing chess. He felt so far away from that memory.
Then a gun went off.
Meryl and Milly were tending to the girl when a bullet took out one of the headlights on the truck. They looked around, scared out of their skulls. Somebody was out there. Had they followed this little girl? They huddled in the light of the remaining headlight. Meryl tried to scan the horizon, but she couldn't see beyond the headlight's beam. She caught a voice.
"Damn, Chief, you were right. Letting the little runt go was a great chase..."
A whistle.
"Well, lookie lookie what we've got here, boys. I do believe we've hit paydirt."
Milly grabbed the girl and ran to the cab. Meryl rolled to the side of the truck and pressed her back against the front tire. What the hell was Vash doing back there?
Another voice: "Aw sweethearts, don't be like that. We were just getting started... Don't you pretty things even think about going nowhere."
A torrent of gunshots erupted into the front end of the truck. Two tires went flat with a loud hiss. Somebody shot out the remaining headlight. In the dark, Meryl could now see what they were up against. In the moonlight, she could make out the silhouettes of 5 gunmen. Slavers. Meryl found herself wanting to spit. These scumbags made their living off of the misery of other humans, usually teenagers and children. She was itching to shoot them.
These guys were nothing they couldn't take care of. They would have to do it fast, though. Meryl could smell the fluid leaking from the engine. That was bad news. While her education on lost technology left a lot to be desired, she knew a few important things. Plant power was something akin to nuclear power, and if the machines that used it were damaged, they could contaminate the immediate area. One thing was clear to her, though. This truck was not going to be getting them to the SEEDS ship any time soon.
She took aim at the gunman who seemed to be furthest from her. She aimed at his shoulder and squeezed off a shot. He went down. Just as she'd hoped, the other thugs turned around to see their accomplice on the ground in pain. She resisted the urge to thrown the weapon down. She took aim at the second furthest and hit him in the thigh. Then three rapid shots above her rang out and the remaining slavers fell to the ground. She looked up to see Vash standing on the truck.
He hopped down and landed in front of her. He looked down. He opened his mouth to speak, but a gun fired and a bullet made its way through Vash's thigh. His leg buckled. Meryl looked around frantically and saw one of the slavers hadn't been entirely subdued. She aimed quickly and shot the man once in the shoulder and once in the leg. He screamed once and then continued to whimper every so often.
Meryl looked back to Vash and saw him tearing the bottom of his shirt to make a tourniquet. He tied the strips around his upper thigh tightly. The wind was picking up now and she thought she could hear engines off in the distance. No doubt it would be more slavers to help out their buddies.
"Vash, are--"
"I'm fine. We've got to find shelter." He tried to stand. He sucked air through his teeth. "Where's the kid?"
"She's in the cab with Milly..."
"Ok, just don't let her start the tru--"
Meryl heard the engine turn and suddenly the entire front end of the vehicle exploded into a huge fireball. Meryl and Vash had to dodge out of the way to avoid the shrapnel. And with that, Murphey's Law had officially laid waste to any and every thought even related to the idea of this trip going as planned.