Page 104 of Double Shot
“There you go, mate, that’ll set your clock right.” Lach laughed, pulleing me back up into the chair and giving me a few hard smacks against the chest.
“I think I need to go get cleaned up now,” Sadie said, standing up. “I’ll leave you some hot water.”
“My God, you two set me up.” I looked up at him. He only grinned.
“You deserved it,” he said and winked.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lachlan…
I handled most of the drive down to Texas, manning the driver’s seat of the once upon a time moving truck. The back of the vehicle was a finished mobile command center, with Roan’s second computer rig, mobile hotspots, a drone rack on the top. The front half had been given over to basic accommodations. There were cots, an improvised kitchenette, and a few other basics.
“You know, in the future, we could totally do thisBreaking Badstyle,” I said.
“What, get a shitty RV and cook meth in it?” Roan asked. The clicks of the push-to-talks were crisp enough we didn’t have to throwoverat the end of each line, and the fun of pretending to be truckers lasted about as long as it took to get out of Maryland.
“No, get aniceRV, and swap out a section of that for your mobile drone command center,” I said. “We’d have a nicer bed that’d fit the three of us, a shower, a kitchen table, you know, creature comforts.”
“He’s right,” Sadie agreed, sitting next to me. She wasn’t comfortable riding back in the box, but Roan was. He was still doing more of his keyboard warrior work. “I tell you; no one is getting lucky in this rolling goodwill dumpster.”
“I don’t blame you, Poppet,” he replied. “I was working on short notice, and trucks like this aren’t very expensive and they’re easy to work with.”
I had to lay on the horn for a second, watching some silver import jag back out of my lane. “It’s almost invisible too,” I growled.
“And slow, what’s this thing’s top speed?” Sadie pouted out the window. “Twenty miles an hour?”
“Sixty-five,” I said. “And that’s going downhill.” When traffic eased off, or we were on the long empty stretches of Virginia, Sadie drove. We parked at a truck stop before crossing the Appalachians on I-81, ate truck stop fast food, and slept in the back of the truck. We were on the road again before the sun rose, and we took turns driving. There wasn’t much for anyone to do, so all three of us rode up front. The bench was large, Sadie was small, and Roan could pop off his leg for extra room. He didn’t think this was amusing, butdidagree it was practical.
The drive took the better part of three days, even with changing drivers. The truck was slow, acceleration was imaginary, and it handled like an oil tanker.
Our final destination was a split-level ranch house less than a mile from the Final Prophecy Center. Nothing had changed in Oasis, but it would take something dramatic like a comet hitting the planet or Armageddon to change anything in places like this. It could have just as easily been 2000, or 1985, or 1955. No big box stores, lingering mom and pops, there were only a handful of modern fast-food places and they were clustered right at the highway exit. The only things of interest in places like this were obscure museums that were bizarrely specific, like just Native American arrowheads, or the car museum that only had six cars in its collection.
We hadboughta house in the town, and it had running water and electricity, but that was almost all it had. Sadie was the first to shower, while Roan and I worked on getting his mobile command center set up, running three extension cords to power outlets inside the house, and checking everything else.
“When is Grant going to be here?” I asked.
“He’s already here,” Roan replied, as he started his inspection of the quadrotors.
“Must have his camo on because I don’t see him,” I said.
“He’s here in Oasis, got here before us. He said that he was going to get a room at the motel by the highway,” Roan said, and started checking the next drone. “He’ll be over in a few hours, and he said he’ll bring dinner.”
“Last time I was here I ate at the B&B, nice couple,” I said.
“They’re still open here, but the business is for sale,” he said.
“Didn’t expect that,” I admitted.
“Someone gave them a good tip on a short stay last year, as soon as the bed-and-breakfast has a buyer. They’re retiring and moving back to Mexico,” he said.
“How the fuck do you know that?” I asked.
“I gave them the financial advice, after the job last year. I considered picking up the business, but it’s not really valuable. Nothing here to draw tourists and guests. Hernando admitted most of their clients were traveling with the petrol industry, or people with car problems.”
“Come for the gravel, stay because your radiator boiled over?”
“Accurate,” he said.
