La Puerto

Penny woke him around 10:00pm and together they rode south, along Interstate 11, until they could see the glow of bonfires a quarter-mile away. The sky was cloudless and lit by a bright full-moon, casting its silvery glow on the desert. There, in the sky, innumerable stars hung. AJ parked the Wanderer behind a rock with two Joshua trees on top of it to the right of the road and watched his daughter stare up at the diamond-dotted sky before she climbed out of the sidecar, rifle in hand. He got off the bike and the two of them approached the bonfires, going low and slow.

As they got closer AJ saw that the road had an inverted-U-shaped metal arch over it, the words 'El Portal a México' pinned to the arch. Two buildings flanked the arch, connected to it, and there was a fence that stretched on for miles in both directions, the holes patched with shipping containers or pallets.

Even in the dark, thanks to the burning barrels, AJ could see guards patrolling on the roofs of the two buildings. He and Penny crept up to the fence and moved along it slowly until they were under one of the building's windows. He looked at his daughter, who nodded, and reached up. The window was unlocked, and he pulled it open with ease.

The two of them climbed into the room beyond, what appeared to be a conference room of some kind. The room's bulbs were either off or out, leaving the only light the moon outside and some bonfires inside. The only door was open, and AJ moved up to it. The hall outside stretched down to an open space, a processing area from the looks of it. The highwaymen had knocked down a wall and converted the processing area into their garage, their namesake Chryslus Highwayman cars parked in the middle of the floor.

AJ crept up to one of the cars. Startender Brooke had said the highwaymen spoke another language, so convincing them to leave was out of the question. He was a little keen to avoid a gunfight, too, but he figured there was more than one way to break an egg. He pulled out his knife and drove the blade into one of the tires, blowing it wide open. It rapidly deflated, the rear end of the car sagging down. He did the same to one of the others and moved to the second car, keeping low. He relieved the second car's tires of their pressure and put the knife away. Finding cars and restoring them was easy, but finding intact tires that weren't bald or fraying was another matter entirely. Without tires these highwaymen would be out of action for weeks, maybe months.

"Let's go," AJ whispered.

"Wait, shouldn't we check the other building? They might have bikes or more cars there," Penny said. AJ thought about it a moment then took a peek over the second Chryslus. They were the only two people in the building, it seemed. Everyone else was either on the roof or in the other building. He frowned but nodded.

"Good thinking. I'll give you a reward for that," AJ said, and motioned for Penny to follow him.

He approached the other end of the building and looked out the window at the other building, more bonfires visible in its rooms. Every so often a dark shape would pass by the bonfire, meaning the building was occupied. Beside the building were a few camper trailers, seemingly also occupied, which would complicate things if it came down to shooting. He went left and crept up to a glass door, reaching up for the handle. There was another door on the other building, directly opposite them. All they had to do was cross four lanes of road without being spotted.

Christ, this sucks.

AJ took a breath to steady himself then gently pulled the door open and emerged out in the darkness, his daughter right behind him. He'd hoped to see dozens of cars stopped in the lanes, frozen in place when the nukes hit, but of course the highwaymen had cleared them all out and no doubt stripped them clean of spare parts. Assuming, of course, that anything of value had remained at all. He was pretty sure most cars would've been stripped within days of the Great War.

The two of them managed to cross the lanes without incident, coming to a stop by the second building's door. He pulled the door open and they snuck into the building, keeping low. The hall they were in ran along the outside wall of the building, a T-junction halfway down and a corner at the end, turning left into the building. There was a door right to their left, which AJ tried. Locked.

Moving on he crept up to the T-junction, peeking left into the offshoot. It stretched all the way to the end of the building, a window at the end. The hall was lined with doors on both sides, patrolled by a highwayman wearing a speed sign as his armor. Bent around his legs and arms were more road signs, protecting his limbs from both cuts and strikes.

He was without a helmet, though, and judging by his casual gait he was relaxed and likely very bored. AJ pulled out his knife, stepped back from the corner, and waited for the man to get closer. Penny was right behind him, carbine at the ready. He tensed as the man reached the corner and lunged out, pinning him against the wall. He pressed the side of his hand up into the man's throat, stifling his cry of alarm, and then he stuck the blade between his ribs and into his lung. The man's eyes bulged out and he gasped for air. AJ knocked the man's head against the wall, dazing him, and stuck him through the other lung. He collapsed to the floor, silently gaping as he struggled to breath. Within seconds he was out, dead.

AJ waited until he was gone before he stepped over the man, his daughter right behind him. He looked back at her and she nodded, looking uneasy. They'd been through a lot together over the years, he knew, but she still struggled with the things they had to do to survive. He was so loving and gentle with her, but the wastes were not a place where the gentle could thrive.

They checked the doors as they went, cracking each open and peeking inside before moving on. At the end of the hall were the last two doors. AJ checked the one on the left, nothing of value inside, and then checked the one on the right. As he cracked the door open he saw that it was a storage room, with four racks of shelves inside. For storing the personal effects of immigrants, he assumed. The highwaymen had repurposed it to be the storage room for their spare parts and tires, the heavy odor of oil and rubber hanging in the room. There were no windows, the only light a candle inside a glass jar. AJ flicked on his flashlight and held his hand around the end, narrowing the beam to lower the odds of detection.

"Get your knife out and start cutting these tires," AJ said. He walked up to a rack filled completely with tires and slowly stabbed each one, deflating them. He listened as Penny did the same, working her way down one of the other racks. The whole time he kept his ears pinned for any sign of alarm.

He was nearing the end of the rack and heard Penny walk around to one of the other racks, and he looked over her shoulder at him. He couldn't wait to get her back to the City of the Sun. They'd been in Sunshine a while, but before that they'd been on the road for a long time. She deserved to have a safe place to settle down in. A place where she wouldn't go hungry or thirsty, or have to fear a bandit or abomination attack. A place where they could be alone, away from others.

AJ finished stabbing the last of the tires and rubbed his knife clean, casting another glance at the door. Penny was picking her way through the spare parts, looking for anything they could use. He joined her, casting the flashlight's beam over the shelves. "Find anything?" he whispered, and she held up a very old wooden board. A hand-painted man's face was on it, his skin orange and his blonde hair wild and unkempt. The sign said 'El Hombre Naranja' on it. "What's this?"

Penny shrugged. "Dunno. It's kinda funny-looking, though," she said, and put the board down. As they searched the shelves for anything of value AJ saw a few parts they could use and put them in his pack, his daughter crouched next to him and checking the lower shelves. Eventually they found everything that might be of use and started heading back, cautiously moving back to the junction.

AJ made sure the coast was clear and was about to head for the door when he heard footsteps to the left. A highwayman, or woman, rather, was coming down the hall, a pistol belt around her waist. AJ pulled back from the corner and bumped into Penny, who quietly yelped. AJ heard the woman come to a stop and he bit his lip, praying she would come closer.

"¿Qué? ¿Quién está ahí?" she said.

Fuck, AJ thought. Just come a little closer.

The woman did as he wished, slowly approaching the corner. The cooling body of the dead highwayman was right behind him, silently bleeding onto the floor. AJ gripped his knife tightly, ready to pounce. The woman came around the corner with her pistol in hand, her arms stretched forward. AJ lunged and grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her towards him and stabbing her in the throat. Her gun went off, the bullet hitting the floor behind him, the flash bright in the dark hall. AJ swept his hand and knocked the gun from her grasp, using the hand holding the knife to push her away from him. The blade slipped from her throat and she fell to the ground, gurgling and spasming.

"¡Ey! ¿Quién está disparando?" another highwayman called out, and AJ decided it was time to go. He grabbed Penny by the wrist and hustled her over to the door, the two of them quickly crouch-walking across the road to the first building. As they reached the door he looked back at the second building and saw people with flashlights standing at the junction, looking down at the dead bodies of their comrades. They quickly rushed outside and sounded the alarm, shouting at the others in their language.

AJ and Penny entered the makeshift garage and maneuvered around the cars back to the room with the unlocked window. AJ crouched by the door, watching the hall while Penny pushed the window open. She hoisted herself up, struggling to climb out, and AJ decided they couldn't afford to stick around. He put his hand on her bottom and pushed her out, her yelp of surprise thankfully very quiet.

A group of highwaymen rushed into the garage a moment later and jumped into the cars, ready to head out and look for the interlopers. AJ watched with satisfaction as the electric motors came to life and the highwaymen gunned it, their cars slowly lurching forward on punctured tires. The men came out, saw what had happened to their tires, and started yelling to each other. AJ moved over to the window and climbed out, his daughter waiting for him. The two of them quickly beat feet back to the rock where they'd left the Wanderer, got on, and began the drive back to the City of the Sun.