Mark took things pretty slow on the road, carefully avoiding abandoned vehicles and never going above sixty miles per hour on the open stretches. Despite that, it only took them half an hour to start seeing signs that read ‘Cuernavaca’.

Waia squinted and pulled the map close. “The fastest route to the city center is to the left. You said that the path you were taking would be faster.”

“Less cars this way. We’ll go a lot slower if we crash.”

“Not by much.” Waia leaned into the back of her seat. “We’ve already burnt a lot of dayli…” She looked up at the clouds of ash covering the sky. “We’ve already used up a lot of time, and we’re gonna use more on our way back. I figured we would’ve been done first.”

Mark shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. “Turns out, forty-five miles looks a lot smaller on a map. We can probably go in a straighter line on our way back. This thing looks like it can handle a little all-terrain.” He patted the steering wheel. “Enough to get us home, at least.”

Waia squinted at the map again. When the best map of the area that one could find covered the entire state, one really had to work to pick out roads. “Well, we should be seeing signs of life soon. You know what to look out for?”

“Military hardware and gas masks? I’m familiar.” Mark shuddered.

Waia put the map away and looked at the slowly growing skyline ahead. “Feels like that might be a bit too wide of a net with that description, with what the world looks like these days.”

“Meh, unless they don’t want to be noticed, cults are pretty easy to notice.”

“I hope you aren’t speaking from experience.” Waia realized that she may not want a definitive answer to that question. “You think the one in charge is gonna be here?”

Mark shrugged again. “I know as much as you do. Just in case, what do they look like?”

“Like a LARPer. Unless the Servants turn out to be way, way worse than I think they are, you’ll know them when you see them.”

“Good to know, because I just spotted them.”

Waia bolted upright. “You see the l–?!”

“Servants, I mean.” Mark held up a single hand and waved Waia back down. “Should’ve worded that better. One 0’clock.”

Waia peered through the windshield. After a moment, she noticed what Mark was talking about. Two Servants were sitting inside an empty truck, their gas masks visible through the scratched glass.

One of the Servants opened a door and climbed out of the truck, a battered pump-action shotgun dangling in one hand. Waia gripped the handle of the passenger-side door. “You ram the easy target, I get out and take out the one still in the truck?”

“An option. Or…” Mark turned the car and stopped, so that his side of the car faced the Servants. “Morning. This Cuernavaca?”

Any kind of emotion was nigh-impossible to glean from the Servant’s covered face, but a slight twitch upon Mark’s speaking indicated surprise. Their muffled voice indicated little else. When they spoke, only Waia was able to understand. “You new around here?”

Mark held back a groan. He really needed to learn Spanish at some point.

Waia leaned over Mark’s lap and looked up at the Servant. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, you aren’t the only ones these days. You with the Servants?”

Waia shook her head and patted Mark on the shoulder. “Not just yet. Do we need to do something to be let in and look around, or…?”

“Oh, no, go on through.” The Servant stepped aside. “We’re just here to stop thieves from leaving. We’ll never stop someone from joining.”

“Great, thanks.” Mark turned back onto the road and kept driving. Once he figured he was out of earshot, he nudged Waia. “Thanks for helping out. Maybe you do the talking from here on out.”

Waia grunted “Better than you playing charades whenever you want to ask a question. But what I wanna know is why we should be talking to these people at all. Those two are just gonna be a problem later on, we should’ve just dealt with them while they were alone.”

“This is a reconnaissance mission, Waia.” Mark once again refused to take his eyes off of the road. “The whole point is for the enemy to not be aware of how much we know. The best possible outcome for us is to collect as much intel as we can and leave without the Servants ever knowing we’re here. So keep as low of a profile as you can, and only use your crazy lava powers if you think your cover is already blown. You got all that?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Break into the evil cultist base, confirm the base has evil cultists in it, leave. Doesn’t seem like I’m missing anything.”

Mark sighed. “Nope, that’s everything.”

“What a productive way to spend our day. Wait, I can lie if I’m being blatantly sarcastic? How does this work?!”

The first few signs of life beyond the guard post were surprisingly easy to spot. Aside from the fact that around a quarter of the people on the streets had the standard full-body coverings, Cuernavaca looked like a remarkably normal city, albeit a poorly-maintained one.

Waia’s rant trailed off when she looked out the window at the sights around her. Several buildings were actually in the process of being repaired, with trucks and porters bringing in materials that looked like they had been scavenged from other parts of the city. A few houses had even been given fresh coats of paint.

She looked at a cluster of tents that had been pitched in a supermarket’s parking lot. “Doesn’t look like much of a military base…”

Mark nodded. “You can’t form a full supply chain without civilian support. Plus, did you really think there was a gun for every member of the global paramilitary?”

“That just means they’ve been growing faster than they’ve been scavenging.” Waia saw a few fixed-up houses that wouldn’t look out of place back in Hawaii. She looked away from the window view. “These people are genocidal. You don’t attract middle-class white-picket families with offers to wipe out the supernatural.”

“The middle class stopped existing roughly three and a half years ago.”

At that, Waia stopped talking.

Mark noticed someone waving at them on the sidewalk, leaning slightly onto the road and gesturing for them to stop. Mark pulled over next to them, rolling down his window. “Uh, h–hey?” He nudged Waia with his foot.

Before Waia could say anything on Mark’s behalf, the stranger spoke up in perfect English. “Hi, I just figured you were new around these parts. You look new.”

Mark gave Waia a quick look, partially confused, mostly stern. He looked back at the stranger. “Got it in one. Do you get a lot of new people coming here?”

The stranger shrugged and leaned through the window. “Well, what’s not to love? The Servants are humanity’s best shot at fixing itself, plus we’ve got thousands of people out there getting rid of the things that broke us in the first place! What’s not to love?” They made a show of looking over their shoulder. “It’s mostly the promise of people scrounging up food on your behalf, but everyone just pretends like that’s a side thing.”

“Right, yes.” Waia gave an awkward wave from the other side of the car. “Which is, uh, which is why we’re checking you out. Mark here thinks joining is a good idea.”

The stranger smirked. “Well, you’ve picked a good time to join. Torch is gonna be arriving in an hour or three, and they’re pretty much definitely gonna want to take a look at the latest few recruits. And unless we get a busful of refugees in twenty minutes, you’ll probably be included in that list. Might even get to be Chosen if you’re lucky.”

Mark was about ask what exactly one might be chosen for when Waia pushed him into his seat and looked the stranger dead in the eye. “Who’s Torch?”

“Oh, yeah.” The stranger waved dismissively at Waia. “Leader of this whole operation. Cloak, mask, sword, can’t miss ‘em.”

Mark struggled past the arm pinning him to his seat. “Okay, and–”

Waia pushed him back down. “And they’re coming in a few hours?”

The stranger nodded. “Yup.”

“Today?”

“Last I checked, that’s what’s implied by ‘a few hours from now’.”

Waia wordlessly leaned back into her half of the car.

Mark decided not to push his luck. “So, where do we go to sign up around here?”

The stranger chuckled. “Nah, c’mon. You think we’re the type to have some hand-slice-y initiation ritual? If you wanna help out, go on ahead. All humans are welcome, it would kinda defeat the purpose if we gatekept.”

“‘Kay, thanks, bye.” Mark rolled up the window and left as fast as he figured he could get away with without getting suspicious.

Esparza folded their arms and watched the pickup truck head down the road. “Yeah, they’re doing great. You can go ahead.”

-

Mark looked away from the rear view mirror. The stranger appeared to be speaking, but didn’t seem to be doing so to anyone in particular. He shot Waia a brief glare. “Wow, great job at keeping a low profile. Exactly what I had in mind.”

“Can it.” Waia leaned forward onto the dashboard deep in thought. “We’ve got a name. Unless… No, that’s the one. This Torch is the one who led the attack on Hawaii. And they’ll be here before seven.”

Mark gripped the steering wheel. “Waia, we’re in the middle of a city that houses thousands of Torch’s followers. Do not.”

“Hey, I’m not saying we just walk up to them and punch them!” Waia glanced at the metallic rolling-pin shaped object tucked into Mark’s pants. “I’m just pointing out that taking them out will seriously hurt the Servants. Maybe get rid of them entirely. It worked for this one Ali’i who crossed me a few centuries ago, it’ll work for the apocalypse cult.”

“Oh yeah? And how’d it go with that guy?”

“Well…” Waia glanced out the window. “I did end up running from half of Ni’ihau and spent two weeks hiding in a cave.”

“Exactly. High-profile assassinations take weeks of intel gathering and teams of experienced covert operatives. If you want to make it out alive, that is.” Mark stopped next to a building with a sign out front that he was pretty sure read ‘available rooms’. If not that, close enough. He got out of the truck. “Besides, you’re as far from ‘stealthy’ as I’m pretty sure you can get.”

Waia followed him out. “Maybe, but you can’t say my last attempt was a failure. What’s up over here?”

“From the looks of it, people.” Mark gestured for Waia to follow. “Let’s see what we can find out before Torch shows up. And remember: You do the talking.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Waia stood next to him. “I know what the rules are. The deciding factor of whether or not I follow them is how much I care.”

“I figure that’s as good as I’m gonna get.”

Waia went for the building’s door first. “Yup.”