The red, classic car eased behind a tall agave for cover. The blacktop between the car and the bar shone with the low sun. Neon signs flickered to life one by one, though half the letters were burned out around the small downtown.
A half-dozen vehicles, plated with sheet metal, came to a halt. Men in tactical vests poured out and secured the area around the buildings. Having found no threat, they leaned on trucks, popped open beer cans, and milled around with rifles slung over their backs.
A street light blinked on in the dusk and bathed the scene warmly. According to Zaisy, the Semi-truck at the center held the nuke. Its trailer was armored, and the wheels had spikes pointed outward. Anyone who tried to sideswipe the thing would be minced to pieces.
Oliver stood with one hand on the car's open door, ready to jump back in at any sign he’d been spotted. If so, his uncle would have to punch the gas. Luckily, the convoy didn’t look fast, but he had no idea if the car was quick enough to outrun the armored pickups.
Four people exploded from the bar’s side door and sprinted away. One was a woman from upstairs, wearing lingerie. Her thighs flexed as she strained. Another was Jeb, out of shape and falling behind.
A man with a rifle bit into an apple, sunglasses tacking the four runners. He grabbed a grenade and pulled the pin with his teeth.
Oliver knew the man was a Player. It was something about the grin and the perfectly cooked nade.
The nade detonated directly in the path of those fleeing. The woman splattered, and Jeb dropped and let out a cry from a ruined throat. One got up, but the Player pulled a revolver and put a stop to it.
Oliver wanted to throw everything he had at the Player. But even if he didn’t create a dirty bomb in the process, if he left any alive, they had guns and would kill at least one or more of his friends. “Let’s go.”
Hunter, Owen, Halfdan, and Oliver scrunched into the front bench seat. Behind, Sigrid, Elstina, Charity, Thalia, and Saj seemed to have more room, though there were five.
Uncle Brent pulled the column shifter to D and rolled off a curb. The suspension was soft. It was like driving down the road on a living room couch. “I think we should just warn the authorities. These guys are ruthless.”
Oliver held awkwardly to his swordstaff, with the blade in the back window and the staff part bumping into the princess. “Maybe, but we’ll have to plan on stopping them ourselves.”
His uncle looked at him. “What’s happened to you? Where’d the confidence come from?”
“I don’t feel confident at all.”
“How could you not be confident,” Hafldan said. “You’re the most dangerous man I know, and that’s no small feat. You held back on them because you’re seeking a better strategy.”
Saj spoke from behind. “No, I do believe I’ve felt a waning spirit in Oliver. This happens to us all at every crossroads.”
Uncle Brent adjusted the rearview mirror, illuminating his eyes. “Not something too dissimilar happened to me. But I didn’t think you had it in you to be a man, Oliver. It wouldn’t have been your fault, but I see strength in you now.”
The road neared a large reservoir with a dam on the far side. Along the bank, the husk of an airplane, its fuselage pocked by fire, lay in a derelict town with docks. From there, the road cut straight through the desert and into the foothills.
Zaisy rolled the back window down, and a relatively cool air whooshed in, tossing her dark hair to the side to whip Charity. “When we died fighting that man, I woke up here. I glimpsed a woman, all of white, fading away.”
“Eldrin, the scientist we met at Highside,” Oliver said. “Calls them psychopomps. Mine’s a white reaper.”
“Mine has wings and horns,” Hunter said.
Oliver didn’t have much to share with them. “I don’t know what they want other than mine made some kind of bet. I think, to them, NPCs and Players are entertainment.” He yawned as the engine hummed. “Anyway, I can’t blast the nuke without spreading radioactive material everywhere. What else can we do?”
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“We take it and bury it?” asked Saj.
The uncle turned the wheel, steering the car around a pothole. “If they’re blowing up Las Calas—and I get that, I’ve wanted to level the place a time or two myself—they’ll have to go through the mountains. It’s two lanes, and if we drop a tree in their way, they’ll be forced to stop. All we gotta do is find a rock on the precipice and give it a little nudge.”
Halfdan nodded with approval. “You sound like you’ve done it before.”
“I'm quite, but forty years ago, and on the other side of the world, I’ve set my fair share of ambushes.”
Oliver rested a hand on the car door. “You believe there’s a nuke?”
His uncle gave a short chuckle. “I’ve never known you to lie. You’ve always been down to earth. If you say they’ve got a bomb, I trust you.”
They drove for hours, leaving the settlement behind until it became a few twinkles in a dark landscape. The road climbed and ran through cutouts in the land. Bushes were black against the moonlit grass. Ahead, it all turned dark where the forest started.
His uncle pulled over at an outlook. “Let’s get some rest. Not much we can do in the dark.”
The car started down the road before dawn.
Oliver’s eyes were heavy-lidded. He watched the yellow stripes pass and dozed again before a pink light filled the East.
The forest surrounded them with large pine and a few girthy redwoods. The car pulled to the shoulder at a sideroad marked “Crystal Cave 10.”
“We can set up here,” His uncle said. “We got to get a tree down and loosen those boulders. It’s not ideal, but I don’t think we’ll find anything better. Five more miles, and we’d be heading down the other side.”
Sigrid eyed the steep inclines. “Those boulders?” She eyed a ridge of granite. “It looks formidable. Oliver, could you knock it down.”
That was an easy question. “Yep.”
His uncle pulled an axe from the trunk, giving it a practice swing into a stump.
“Why do you have an axe?” Oliver asked.
“Road rage. If some bastard comes at me with a bat or knife, I pull out the axe. Trust me, they get back in their car real fast. If they pull out a gun, well, I have other toys. Well, you better get chopping.”
“No,” Oliver said. “If we do it now, any car that comes along will call it in. Can you wait a few miles down the road and warn me that they’re coming?”
“I don’t understand. You won’t have enough time.”
“I’ll have plenty.”
His uncle hesitated. “Look, I trust you and all. But it’s not adding up.”
Halfdan pried the axe from the stump and hurled it end over end to thunk in the middle of a sapling thirty yards away. “Yes, go. He can, and if he can’t, I can.”
“That was a hell of a throw,” Uncle Brent said. He repeated himself in a lower voice, climbed into his car, and pulled a U-turn. He leaned out the window. “If you see me flying like a bat out of hell, they’re coming.” He hit the gas, and his tires chirped as they found traction.
A little way up the hill, Oliver found a spot behind a double-trunked conifer. From there, he could strike the boulders and a tall tree to block the road. Unfortunately, he could still be seen with sharp eyes. “Everyone, go uphill until you can’t see the road.”
They complied instead of arguing. Nobody could do anything until after he sent the boulders tumbling down to wipe out the convoy, and they knew it.
He looked at every rise and dip in the landscape. The boulders' path seemed predictable, but he walked it and ensured it was right. A small guardrail protected the other side of the road before it reached the sideroad to Crystal Cave. That’s where he needed to stop them.
If the convoy suffered little or no damage, the tree would still blockade them and give time for an escape.
A red streak swarved around the bend below as he pondered all the scenarios. Already?
His uncle slowed and shouted, “The fuckers are right behind me.”
Oliver watched the runes on his swordstaff glow. Why did he think something had changed? When he saw the trucks, he targeted the tree and loosed an Astral Lance. Bark exploded in a shower of splinters, and the pine cracked as it went down. It crashed onto the road and broke again near the top, leaning over the drop. It lay right where it needed to.
Two men came out with rifles shouldered.
One of the Players stepped out. This time, it was a guy who must have weighed in at four hundred pounds. “I saw a flash. It’s a weapon.”
The other player appeared with a damn missile launcher over his shoulder.
Oliver cut the earth under the granite boulders with Star Beam. There’s no way they could miss that spell, so he ran.
The boulders began a ponderous roll, the earth sliding down with them. Trees snapped like matchsticks.
He bumped into his uncle, who had a handgun in two hands pointed to the ground. “You should have driven away.”
“I’m not running from a fight.”
The Player hadn’t taken cover but took the time to aim. The missile streaked up toward them.