"Is that why you wouldn't let me back into the workshop?" Mark said.

"Yes, I wanted it to be a surprise." Naomi said.

"Well, let's see it. Arlo, do you want to tag along?" Mark asked.

Arlo sat up from lounging in an office chair. "We have cars again?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it a car. I haven't decided what to call it yet, but it's closest to an off-road buggy, with a little extra. You'll see." Naomi said and beckoned for them to follow as she walked out of the town hall.

"Did working on something level up your class?" Mark asked Naomi on the way to her workshop.

"Oh, yeah. Quite a bit, even got some skills. That made it much faster." Naomi said. She led Arlo and Mark to the first garage in the workshop. "Now for the grand reveal," she said, slamming the garage door open.

Inside was more or less what she described, with an emphasis on more. It looked like a militarized version of a two-person buggy with thick armored plates all around it. On the back of it, where Mark had seen half-sized truck beds before, was a steel box with a hatch on top that looked like it was meant for a person to be able to shoot from. The wheels on it were large and designed with offroading in mind.

"This is amazing! It's much more than I expected. How did you put this together so fast?" Mark was expecting some kind of basic all-terrain vehicle, but Naomi had far surpassed that. Before she answered, Mark noticed that the two garages were partitioned with a large white canvas and asked a follow-up question. "What's behind the curtain?"

"About that. This actually only took me about an hour to make. Over there is a special project that I'm sure you'll love, but it's not ready yet."

"Now I'm doubly excited. Any chance you can give me a peek? Especially after seeing what you made in only an hour."

"Nope. Not a chance. You'll see it when it's ready."

Any further comments from Mark were cut off as an alarm started blaring from the vehicle. "Sorry! How do you turn this alarm off?" Arlo yelled over the alarm.

Naomi rushed over and pulled Arlo out of the seat, pushed a few buttons, and the alarm was quickly silenced.

"I was just trying to figure out how to turn it on. I'm sorry. I hope I didn't mess anything up," Arlo said.

Naomi sighed as she stepped out of the vehicle. "It's fine. I just panicked a little. You didn't mess anything up. There are just a few security measures that I installed, but you didn't trip any of them."

"Security measures?" Mark asked.

"Yeah. I don't think anything would happen with it, but you never know and it never hurts to be cautious."

"Could we still take it for a test ride? It looks pretty cool." Arlo tested the waters with Naomi, making sure that everything was fine.

"Absolutely. I planned for it anyways."

"Wait, how does it run? Last I checked we don't have anything that would run a vehicle."

"It's electric and I plugged it in to make sure that it would have power if you wanted to take a test run."

"Electric? Where does the power come from?" Arlo asked.

"Oh!" Mark said. "The second tier of the town hall provides power. Something about some kind of reactor in the basement. It provides power to the town, except for the barracks."

"Yeah, when I connected it, it mentioned the link to the town hall. Don't know how that one works, but it does, and it lets me use power tools." Naomi moved over and disconnected several wiring harnesses while they continued to talk. "Let me just get it unplugged, then we can go."

Arlo knocked on the metal exterior and it produced a hollow metal ring. "You mentioned power tools, but how did you move all this metal? And where did it come from?"

"Simple. That factory next door. It's got a machine that prints steel sheets into whatever shape and size I need. As to how I got it here, I'm stronger than you think." Naomi smugly grinned at the last comment.

Mark looked over at the last comment and noticed that Naomi definitely didn't look like she could move the large steel panels, she did look quite strong. Mark hadn't noticed before, but she was quite muscular. It seemed, to him, the kind of muscles that came from hard work, not from a gym. This was also the first time he had seen her not wearing clothes that were not baggy, with a mechanic jumpsuit half on and tied around her waist, and a tank top on underneath. Though he didn't know where she had gotten new clothes.

Moving past his observations, Mark saw that she was done unhooking the vehicle.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

"Yeah, let's do this."

"Sweet, I want to see what this thing can do," Arlo said, clearly wanting to jump back into the driver's seat, but looking to Naomi as if to ask permission.

"Alright, but I'm driving. There's a few 'quirks' to it that I should probably show you before either of you drive," Naomi said.

Mark knew that she was particular about the things she made, so he was willing to wait on her instructions before he drove it.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

They all climbed in, with Arlo taking the turret seat. Naomi showed them how the back opened for someone to climb in, or for cargo if it needed to haul anything.

"So the first thing: it's quick. When you hit the gas, it's gonna take off, so be ready for that. The second is that it doesn't stop well. Just make sure you have plenty of room. This thing weighs a little more than four tons, but it'll stop bullets, which seemed more important to me. You know what, this is a long list, I'll just tell you as we go."

She turned it on and slowly eased it out of the garage. Mark was expecting a little more show but was willing to let her take it at her own pace. Thinking he was in for a calmer ride than the warnings had inferred, Mark relaxed into the drive. That was a mistake. As soon as they were headed away from the town, Naomi floored it and they shot like a bullet away from the town.

Mark was slammed into the seat and felt like his stomach was climbing into his throat. He heard a yell from the back seat and turned to see Arlo gripping the handles with white knuckles but a wide smile on his face. Naomi let off the gas as fast as she had started and pulled the vehicle into a wide turn in the open area around the town. Once the town was in view, Mark saw that they had covered nearly half a mile in just a few seconds.

"How fast is this thing?" Mark asked as they slowed to a more reasonable speed.

Naomi shrugged. "I don't really know. I did some napkin math and it could probably get up to around a hundred twenty miles an hour, but that's really a rough guess."

"Wow," was all Mark had to say.

The ride continued for another thirty minutes, through which Naomi filled them in on some finer details about the machine, but most of the information went over Mark's head. They, unfortunately, did not have much time to joyride as night was approaching. Naomi carefully pulled the vehicle back into the garage and turned it off. They climbed out and Naomi started hooking it back up to the charger.

"I'm going to eventually make an easier way to charge it, but that may come when I make a second version. This one isn't what I would call a finished product, it's more of a proof of concept. Once I iron out all the kinks, I'm gonna make more. Not enough for everybody to have one, but maybe five or six."

"That would be amazing. Thank you for doing this, seriously. This is way more than I asked for," Mark said.

"No, I should be the one thanking you. I probably would've died to those wolves on the first day if not for you. Plus, you gave me all this. It's just my way of saying thank you," Naomi said, somewhat returning to her sheepish self.

"Okay. I get your point." Mark tried to placate her but felt as though he really hadn't done much. He made a mental note to figure out some way to pay her for her work. Not just her, but all the people who had helped out in the town.

Arlo yawned and said, "It's kinda late and I need some sleep. Some of us still need it."

"I sleep," Mark protested, "but I agree. Naomi you should do the same."

"I will, just gotta make a few notes. Good night," she said, turning to one of the stations with notebooks.

Mark didn't quite believe her, but if she needed sleep, then he trusted she would get some. He was not going to start micro-managing people.

Mark and Arlo left Naomi to her work and went back to the town hall and grabbed some dinner before turning in for the night. The next morning, Mark wanted to try to make the trip to the hills he had scouted earlier and hoped Naomi would let them take the vehicle in the morning.

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The next morning, Mark was awake before the sun was up, as seemed to be the new normal for him. He waited for everyone to wake up, and passed the time by collecting more wood, but was having a harder and harder time finding any logs worth hauling. By the time everyone was awake, he had scavenged nearly every available log from the surrounding area. He decided that he would have the people in the town try out the machines in the factory and see who could use what machines. He had gathered that most of them were for producing various things, but he had a sneaky feeling that he couldn't use most of them due to his profession.

He gathered the citizens at the factory and outlined the idea then turned them loose. He wanted to watch but was more interested in seeing what else was at the hills that Arlo had said contained iron. His goal was to find out if what he put into the Materials Processor determined how many basic resources it gave him.

At Naomi's workshop, he found her already at work, but she was behind the canvas screen. Respecting her wishes, he called out and told her he wanted to take the vehicle out for a trip. She simply explained that it was really his, so it wouldn't bother her at all, though she did have to unhook it from the charger. He could tell that she was eager to continue working on her secret project, so he left to get Arlo and the machine gunner.

Mark's forces had continued to populate, and he did a cursory inspection and saw that he was up to eighteen total soldiers. Based on Arlo's glowing report, he decided to allocate another specialty unit of each type for the time being. He still hadn't seen the combat efficiency of all of them yet but was sure that they had to be better than the regular soldiers.

With the Arlo and the machine gunner in tow, Mark made his way to Naomi's workshop and loaded up in the vehicle with the machine gunner taking the turret position. Following Naomi's lead, he eased the armored buggy out of the garage before getting up to speed. Arlo seemed a bit disappointed at the lack of takeoff but didn't make any comments about it. Luckily, the trees were rather sparse on the way to the hills, and they made the drive in only a few minutes.

Once there, Mark and Arlo got out to look for any minerals or metals on the surface that they could use for testing in the Materials Processor. It was slow going and took a few hours to find anything worthwhile. They finally found enough different materials that looked promising and had mostly filled the back of the buggy, leaving just enough room for the machine gunner. They were doing one last trip for materials when they heard the wolf howls.

Mark couldn't tell how many, but it sounded like a lot. Mark and Arlo glanced at each other and reached the same conclusion. They made a mad dash for the vehicle when the first five broke over a nearby hill.

Within seconds, automatic weapons fire filled the air. It came in short, accurate bursts. Each burst connected with a wolf, flinging blood and gore across the hills.

Mark and Arlo made it back to the armored buggy as another pack of wolves came from the opposite side. Mere moments had passed and four wolves were dead, but there were still six left.

The gunner switched targets, forced to focus on the closest pack. The tires spun slightly before catching, and the buggy shot away. The only problem was that they were headed the wrong way and had to turn around to get away from the wolves.

The buggy popped up onto two wheels from the intense turn, and the short moment gave the wolves time to get in front of it. The jarring ride was throwing the gunner's aim off, and only one more wolf had fallen when the buggy rocked from the first impact.

Mark corrected as the buggy was forced onto two wheels for a second time. The acceleration allowed Mark to narrowly avoid the next charge, but the wolf clamped down on the rear bumper. Arlo opened his door and leaned out, firing a few shots into the wolf, killing it, and freeing the buggy from its jaws.

Focusing back on the terrain in front of him, Mark swerved as a third pack of wolves appeared in front of them. There was a crunch as Mark clipped one of the wolves with the front left corner of the buggy.

"How's it look behind us?" Mark yelled over the automatic fire.

"We're losing 'em," Arlo yelled back.

Realizing he couldn't let the wolves follow them back, Mark veered east, away from the town, and slowed down. Just slow enough that the wolves would continue the chase, but fast enough to keep them from reaching him. The slower speed let the gunner fire more accurately and thin the wolves, as they led them east from the town.