Jeurridam Ch. 02: The City of Rust

We got surrounded on both sides. Just as we were about to get rammed, I slammed on the breaks making both desert buggies collide. I drove around them, the buggies still in hot pursuit. They fired at the truck, having heavy assault weapons doing their bidding. Their buggies, turbocharged engine with hybrid air intakes as well as having twelve cylinders of power were more than enough to catch up to and ram the rear of my truck.

In fact, a bold Merchant Clan member hopped onto the back of the truck.

"Take over the wheel for a bit." I smiled. Heaven took the wheel, placing his foot on the gas as I slid out of the window and onto the hood of the truck. The man had a heavy pipe, tipped with a clasp. I had my two butterfly knives. We stood sizing each other up as the truck powered across the desert at over one hundred miles an hour.

Of course he was first to swing, I ducked out of the way planting a foot forward. He blocked thinking I was going to kick him low. No, it was to gain me leverage so my right foot could careen into his face. He was flung out of the the bed of the truck rolling across the sands.

The same buggy that rammed the truck before, came back again. I took out my pistols, firing at the drivers seat. The buggy began to veer, eventually tumbling across the dunes. Still we were being pursued by six more buggies. The next buggy came in, spraying with it's machine gun. I ducked down, lying flat across the bed of the truck. I looked up, ever so slightly aiming my pistol at the gunner standing up on the buggy.

The buggy began to move parallel to the truck, obviously another attempt to board us. Aiming the gun just ahead of the gunner, I opened the rear window hatch.

"SLAM ON THE BREAKS!" I said. The truck came to a screeching halt, as my bullets sprayed the gunner. The Buggy whipped past us quickly circling around to get back on our tail.

Smartly, Heaven began to drive in the opposite direction, heading southeast. However, our decrease in speed, made it very easy for a buggy to head us off. One got directly in front of us, matching the speed of the truck. It then began to break, causing us to slow down. The other buggies began to close in. There was little we could do.

Suddenly, the whirring of a thirty millimeter cannon rang in my ear. The buggy to the left of the truck went up in flames. The same with the buggy to the right of us.

"HEAVEN, SLAM ON THE BREAKS AND ACCELERATE TO THE RIGHT!" I said. He did so, dislodging the buggy breaking just in front of us, allowing us to continue to head south.

The two remaining buggies stayed in hot pursuit. However they slammed on the breaks as a hot stream of bullets crossed their path. They pursued no further, the thirty millimeter cannon bringing too much heat for them. We continued south, crossing the Hoover dam.

It slowly began dawn on us what just happened. I crawled back in the truck, looking at Heaven. We both laughed hysterically, realizing how close we came to death.

"I can't believe we're not dead..." He said.

"You know you did good today kid." I said, patting him on the shoulder.

"I can't wait to tell uncle." He said.

"We can't tell anyone... This is simply between us OK?" I said, making sure the message was clear.

"Why?" He asked.

"I don't think dad would be to happy to know what we did. We better just say we headed north of the reservoir to fetch supplies." I said.

"OK," He said, "I still never apologized to Tanzanir... I was really wrong about him."

"Eh, you're wrong about a lot. No big deal." I teased. He smiled at me as he drove down the Arizona highway.

We were home in the next hour. We parked the truck in the garage, not knowing it was riddled with that many bullet holes. Dad would not at all be pleased about this. We both looked at each other, fearing the chewing-out we were going to receive. We walked down the yard up to the Veranda. We paused, looking at each other.

"Now or never..." I sighed.

"Yeah, now or never." He laughed.