( Did someone say... Team Tucker/Team Wash t-shirts?

ask-agent-eleven[dot]tumblr[dot]com/post/18910030075

I was halfway joking when I brought this up before, but if I actually see enough interest, then I may go ahead and make these. Take a look and drop me a message if you would want to make a purchase- the price would depend on how many people want to place orders, but I'd like to estimate that they'd be around $16 each. Let me know! :D )

The next morning, the Reds drove the Puma over to Blue base so that Simmons could reconfigure the AI trackers. Church, Sarge, Wash and Tucker were all assisting the maroon soldier; I could tell they were eager to head out and find the AIs that had caused us so much trouble.

Personally, I had thought that all my problems would be over once the Director was nice and tucked away in jail. Unfortunately, that hadn't been the case so far; these AIs were being a real pain in the ass. It didn't help that they had two of Project Freelancer's strongest soldiers on their side. Besides, I doubted that the Freelancers would allow the AI trackers on the vehicles to work. That would just make things too easy. However, I held my pessimistic tongue.

"Okay, I think they're almost ready!" called Simmons from beneath the Puma. "Go in and turn it on!"

"Bow chicka bow wow."

I rolled my eyes and hopped into the Puma, flicking the AI tracker's switch and watching the lights on the dashboard glow. They flickered for a few moments.

"You gettin' anything?" Sarge asked.

"No, I—" Suddenly, the light flashed green and a pinprick of light on the dash lit up the exact coordinates. "Wait! Yes, it's working! I have the location right here!"

I couldn't believe it. Donut hopped inside Sheila and activated her AI tracker as well; they both led us to exactly the same spot.

"Yes!" Church said, scrambling out from beneath the vehicle. "We are on a roll!"

I didn't voice my opinions regarding this. To me, this was just even more suspicious than before, but the boys had already shut me down, and there would be no point in arguing with them.

"All right, everyone. Hop in!" said Sarge. "Let's go before Grif—"

"I'm already here, Sarge," Grif said with a bored tone as he leaned against the Puma. "You must not know me very well. I'll do any work that involves sitting and doing nothing." He started trying to hoist himself up into the vehicle but stopped as he saw Simmons emerge from beneath it. "Oh, and Simmons?"

Simmons began cleaning his tools distractedly. "Yeah?"

"Shotgun."

"Shotgu—dammit!"

Grif finally pulled himself into the Puma and took the passenger seat smugly as Donut and Simmons squeezed in the back. There was no room for me with the Reds—which was a shame, because I wanted to re-watch Lost with Donut on the way there—so I clambered into one of Sheila's back seats. I knew Sarge wouldn't have had a problem with that, either. He still hadn't seen the last episode.

Church called dibs on driving, and we relented.

"I can feel their draw sometimes," he said in defense of wanting to drive. "I don't know exactly where they are, but I know I can definitely help make sure we're in the right direction with the tracker."

We didn't fight that. We needed all the help we could get.

Then, Sheila had made some interesting demands in return for cooperating with us. She insisted that Caboose stay in one of the front seats so she could talk to him more easily. It was at the same time sickeningly cute and absolutely irritating.

That left me, Tucker and Wash crammed in the back.

Just what I wanted.

I ended up sitting between the two soldiers so that they could have more leg space, but I was not happy about the seating arrangements. True, having the two sit on either side of me would dispel potential arguments, but… I really wasn't in the mood to deal with either of them at the moment. Furthermore, according to our trackers, getting to the AIs, Meta and Tex would take hours. Lovely.

As we got buckled in, Church started Sheila up and we began following the Reds in the Puma. I could already hear their vehicle's music—what was that, polka?—and we all shut the windows promptly.

"Are we there yet?" Caboose asked. We all groaned. We had moved about ten feet.

This was going to be a long ride.

I knew it was inevitable that arguments would spring up. With Church's bad temper, Caboose's incessant talking to Sheila, Tucker's distaste for Wash, and Wash's annoyance with Tucker all holed up in one tiny tank compartment, things were bound to go awry.

"You can't be serious," Tucker complained about an hour into the drive as Church put on his music. "This sucks."

Church looked at Tucker through one of the rear-view mirrors. "Driver picks the music, passenger shuts his cake hole."

They continued to squabble pointlessly until Sheila threatened to eject them both from their seats if they didn't shut up. We certainly didn't want to find out whether or not she was bluffing, so their fighting turned to whispers.

As they quieted down, my yawns started becoming more frequent. I was exhausted but determined not to doze off. The night before, I hadn't gotten enough sleep; I was too nervous for the coming day. Now, I needed to be awake in case anything happened with the AIs. We were still far away from them, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was very, very wrong. I knew Wash shared my sentiments—as a Freelancer himself, he knew that everything so far had been too easy—but he wanted those AIs.

I couldn't blame him for that. Not really. If I had been thrown in jail, I would want to do anything I could to get out of it too.

My eyes fell halfway closed as the tank fell silent, both Tucker and Church relatively satisfied with the music choice. Church was still muttering something under his breath, but he did that so often it was easy to ignore him. I shook myself quickly to stay awake, but my head began nodding a few minutes later. I could… I could just rest my eyes… not fall asleep…