A tall, abnormally muscular woman with short, strawberry-blonde hair helps Lori exit the suit. Lori's wild, bushy ponytail whips out of the compartment in the back of her helmet. She emerges from the suit, veins pulsating, muscles unraveled to almost twice their normal size, which then retract to their normal, toned but curved profile as she sits down, lightly saturated in sweat.

"Thanks, Ade," she says, accepting a bottle of water from her assistant. I try not to gawk too long.

Lori glances back at me. Awkward silence follows for at least a minute.

I should be excited, but really, I'm as terrified as I am aroused. Can barely keep my... member to sit down in my pants.

She seems grumpy, looking at the floor and then slowly closing her eyes and taking deep breaths.

Why did she break in just to grab me? I know, I should just be grateful instead, but seriously, why? Might this be some kind of psy-op? I still can't believe it.

"Can... I help you?" her eyes open, noticing me gawking.

"Um... Yeah... no, well... I'm... amazed, is all," I stammer like a complete buffoon.

Lori turns to the cab, walled off with a blurry window. "Ade, what's the ETA? Any places you have in mind?"

"Shit, if all goes smooth, 2 days-ish before the next place of interest." The window darkens, and a birds-eye view of a map appears in place of it with a squiggly line and a icon of the truck in the middle. "Some.... small village with some greenery and a big field."

"What, no camping trip?"

"Haha, you're funny. No, as big as this rig is, I don't think we can afford it, even if you weren't being sarcastic."

Out the window, there's little more than a vague path of beaten-down dirt that slowly loses clarity as we continue on. So this is what the UWWA did for us, they literally rebuilt civilization and life would be like this if it weren't for them...

Lori is across from me, also looking out.

"Do... you like what you see out there?"

She doesn't turn. "Quiet, yeah. But I imagine that might get boring soon. We also need to eat, and find shelter."

"Pretty... incredible, what the UWWA built for us, no?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Silence.

Wow, she doesn't even really want to talk to me. Now I wonder what I got myself-- or rather, what she got me into...

An hour or two pass by, and Ade slowly brings the truck to a stop. "Alright, kiddos, I gotta go potty, bang your hand on the cab if shit happens when it's your turn."

"Okay," I shout.

"Lori?" she calls.

"Okay," Lori replies, sitting arms folded, trying to sleep, I assume.

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"Geez, two days? What's even awaiting us then?"

"I don't know any better than you, but I'm sure it's better than Cauldron," Lori mutters.

Adel climbs back in and turns off the map to make eye contact with us. "Either of you gonna... go?"

I look at Lori, not really sure what to do.

"Go even if you don't feel like it, otherwise it'll... catch up at the worst times."

"Do you wanna go first?" I ask Lori.

She grumbles and gets up, climbing out the back and to the right of the vehicle.

I open the digi-slats on the left. The biome of the Outside is confusing. Unless it's just some mirage, there seems to be spots of vegetation here and there, in the not-so-distant view ahead of us.

"Hey, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Adel turns to me.

"What, water?" I say as Lori climbs back in.

"Yeah. I can go overfill the water tanks," Adel continues as I climb out. "There's a hydrocat separator that switches to water when the diesel runs out, so it's drinking water or fuel depending on what we need."

"Oh. That's.... cool."

"I know, right? Anyway, what's... oh, shit."

A Jackal is standing there, quietly drinking from the sparse water source.

"Well, I'm sure that thing isn't alone. Better get to it before the rest of the pack does," Adel says while pressing a button to engage forward gear.

"Wait, what?"

"We'll get some food alongside our water! Haha!" she shouts, sending the truck careening towards the lone Jackal, as it jumps aside, then failing to evade the massive tsunami of metal. With a complementary bonk and a small splat of blood on the windshield, it helplessly slips under, with Adel laughing in what sounds just short of pure joy.

"Lunchtime!" she sings. Lori groans in disgust. After enabling 360 View on the box walls, we see Adel trying to drag the corpse in by the one front leg still attached to the rest of the body. "Hey, Lori! Come gimme a hand!"

"No."

"Even if you don't eat it, I will. We're gonna need it later on," she drags a few more feet before taking a breather. "You don't need me to retell you the stories of how hungry the Defense Forces have gotten out here before, no?"

Lori groans again, then gets up. The two make it a few more feet before we hear footsteps.

"Oh, fuck. Leave it!" Lori shouts, as they both bolt in. Lori makes it in the cab first, giving Adel a hand, and Adel grabs one door, Lori holds another, and they slam it shut right between a Jackal's neck, as its biting head chokes between the pounds of steel squeezing it from both sides. Other Jackals start clawing the box.

"Corvus! Go get the ice hammer!" She points her nose towards the yellow box on the wall. I foolishly slap my hands around, and flinch as the two-sided tool falls just a few inches from my feet. The arm-long tool is a bit heaver than I expected.

"Alright, ring the bell!" she shouts, as Lori works with her to hold the doors against the strangled Jackal's head, with the muscles in their arms looking like they're about to burst out of the skin. They look away as I raise the tool and deliver one smack at the top of the skull.

The Jackal freezes for a split second. "Again!"

My second strike goes off its brow, across the left eye, and the head turns 90 degrees then goes limp. They release the corpse and slam the door again, this time on a Jackal wrist, and with a crackle and crunch the wrist disappears, and they finally pull it shut.

I look around to see probably twenty more outside.

"Well," Adel tries to catch her breath again, "We could A. wait until they get bored; B. spend some of the battery power on the turret; C. open some hatches and burn some ammo; or D. keep driving and leave all the food and water behind."

"I vote D," Lori blurts.

Adel squints in a moment of frustration. "Look, I know you're grossed out, but this isn't just about you-"

"Then who was this trip for? You? Me? The fucking UWWA?"

"Hey-"

The two squabble on, and I lose track. I stand back, as the clawing quiets down. A few of the monsters drag their two fallen comrade's corpses away,

Elena was wrong, these things really are hungry. For human flesh in particular, maybe. They'll eat their own if they have to, but only when other meat isn't available.

"The fuck are we gonna do when it starts to decompose and stink up the entire truck?"

"Oh, please, your attitude will do far worse and far more quickly."

"Pardon, but.. can we, like, grow up for a moment?"

More Jackals leave. It starts to quiet down. The corpses are gone anyway.

The three of us go silent. "Well, if the course is clear, I guess I'll go get some water," Adel mutters. Lori sits down, arms folded.

Man, I thought this was going to be a boring road trip...

Water sucks into the hose as we all wait in the box.