Earlier that day, Scratch had driven the unhitched water truck toward the limits of the Gauntlet, unloading three passengers whom had been riding outside the cabin on the fifth wheel coupling. Shamrock, Carrrion, and the Nomad had continued on foot from there, making their way toward Gaswells in the west.
Liu and Socky had remained with Scratch and the others in the cabin, going north to find the 'Virgin Road' that would take them to El Dorado. Apprehensive of becoming entangled with any scouts on the highway lanes, they drove cross-country over the desolate terrain until the glare of noon.
The trail of dust raising behind the truck had summoned an entourage of biker scavengers, gaining ground rapidly as their numbers converged at the rear. Wrenching the steering wheel to the left after he had caught sight of the mirror image, Scratch sent the truck out wide to cross the approaching lanes of the Gauntlet, pulling back on the rim to realign the tyres with a twisting squeal to continue northward.
Scratch kept the truck manoeuvring through and around the attempted blockades of the bikers, drifting over lanes to keep the flat nose of the truck free from their predator tactics.
"They'll keep using our draft to carry themselves, until they're ready to make another attempt." Socky called back over his shoulder, watching the bikers return to the slipstream of the truck through the window. "Keep 'em dancing! Scattered! Don't let 'em organize."
A red light glowed from the console, illuminating the symbol of a fuel can on the petrol gauge.
"No, no, no! Now's not the time to go dry baby. Keep it together, don't quit on me!" Scratch tapped on the gauge glass.
"How long until it's empty?" Leaning closer to the warning light from the sleeper cell behind the row of seats, Liu searched for an answer among the sombre faces.
"Twenty minutes of growl left, I reckon." Socky replied.
"We can't outrun them, we need a better plan than that. Anyone got an idea?"
There was no immediate reply, the occupants of the cabin bracing themselves against being thrown from their seats by another pull on the wheel, leaning the truck frame away from the lengths of spikes being dragged and released from the bikers previously ahead of their position. One of the tyre spike plates had been funnelled under the front left side of the rig, the corner sagging as the rubber blowout exploded with a cough of released air.
"Nobody? Not even Chocky?" Liu asked again.
The puppet swung its wrinkled frown from side to side.
Frantically exploring the spaces of the cabin interior for any help, she stripped the mattress lounge and raised it to uncover a crank rifle they had not found the night before.
"Scratch, don't scatter them anymore," Liu loaded the rotary barrel with a twist. "If I can hit one, they might crash into the others."
Giving a nod of approval, Scratch pumped the gear shaft to reduce speed, falling back into the pack of scavengers that had been nipping at their heels.
Flipping back the roof hatch, her straight hair unravelled in the wild breath of the wind when she raised her eyes high enough to glimpse the spread of the raiders closing in around them.
Panning the barrels across the aft of the unhitched rig, Liu fired into a mass of vehicles, clearing half of them away to awkwardly collapse and fall by the wayside. The moment she reloaded the rifle something bit her shoulder, a grazing bullet wound that made her flinch and misfire.
Turning herself to face the bow of the truck, her eyes locked onto a gunner riding double saddle among the contingent forming ahead of the truck's grille. Liu and the gunner loaded and fired together in a synchronous showdown, unsure if they'd struck the other, unable to tear their gaze away.
Liu's bullet had missed the gunner, instead puncturing the neck of rider whom controlled the bike. In sympathy with his loss of life, the machine abruptly folded into the raiders nested close by, dragging them all down onto the pale concrete of the highway before the bullbar of the truck ploughed over them in a wave of churned metal viscera.
"Storm!" Socky announced, pointing to the spreading stain that was growing out of the east.
"Liu! Get back inside! If we can reach that storm we'll be free of 'em, they won't survive on their bikes!" Scratch warned the young woman as he adjusted the steering wheel to get clear of the carnage on the road.
"What about the lightning?"
"We'll have to risk it!"
Climbing gears with the selector, Scratch stared directly into the path of the turbulent static clouds, straining the truck's engine to fight for speed as he clamped his foot down onto the pedal.
The driver's side window shattered from the stunning whip of a chained bola, leaving Scratch coated in crystal shards.
Liu fired back through the missing pane, aiming into the gathering fury of the elements sweeping over the Never-Never. She could no longer hear herself or the others travelling in the cabin, the air deaf with a ceaseless grinding, the friction hiss of tiny stones colliding in the energy of the coming storm.
Sand particles began to scratch the hull of the truck, tidal walls of abrasive cloud sweeping the imagery away of the road ahead.
"Cover the window!" Scratch called for help as he held onto the wheel, the biting dust sweeping in through the broken glass.
Bending the clumsy shape of the mattress against the inside of the driver's door, Liu and another Scabeater held the barrier in place against the mounting pressure.
The remaining bikers turned back from the gale as it began to buffer their machines, pushing them sideways out of the chase as the lone truck was absorbed into the maelstrom, lost from their sight in the broiling sand.
* * *
Trapped inside the rig until the storm had subsided, they listened for some time afterward to be sure they were alone. The sand had risen up to the doors, heaped over the windshield to obscure any chance of viewing the outside world. Spreading the debri away in arcs from where the sand had piled high against the truck, Liu opening the passenger door wide enough to allow the washed out light of early sunset into the cabin.
Extending the door further, the young woman exited with care, guarding herself by remaining close to the truck's profile as her boots slipped through the piled grit.
"No sense of direction..." She thought aloud, scanning the same contoured texture of flint everywhere she turned, all landmarks including the road now buried under the dunes.
"Buried up to the mudguards. We could be here all night digging the wheels out." Scratch lamented from the other side of the vehicle.
"How close do you think we were to El Dorado, before the storm?" Liu wandered halfway around the truck to where Scratch was pawing away the loose sand.
"Hard to say, more so when you've never been there." He replied before calling up to the broken window "Socky, how many miles to the end of the Gauntlet, would you say?"
"Another twenty clicks, maybe. We'd have to be close to Terminus."
"Terminus? What's that?" Liu asked.
"The end of the highway... the Land of No-Roads. Bad hunting grounds with nothing to catch."
"Have you been there before? To Terminus?"
The question made Socky introspective as it dredged up the disconnected memories of his former life, before the accident. The moving pictures of his mind made him uncomfortable, as though he were watching another man whose character was very alien from his current temperament.
"Once, a long time ago. Chased a rabbit all the way to the end of the highway, but no further." A calm, intelligent voice spoke as the puppet on his left hand mouthed the words.
The ventriloquism and coherent accent alarmed Liu and the survivors from the Junkyards, staring at Socky as though he were a stranger in disguise.
"We better start digging." A voice diverted the mood back to their plight in the sand.
* * *
Working tirelessly against the dimming light, Scratch and his kinfolk scooped away the loose flint by hand, clearing a pathway out from under the axles. Liu had gone hunting for anything that could lend itself to ease their race against the sinking sun, dragging back corrugated metal sheeting that had been carried with the storm.
Some of the scrap helped as improvised shovels to clear the wheels, larger segments tucked under the tread to provide a stable surface to grip roll out of the ditch. Needing more of the windblown sheeting to ensure they could break out of the sand, Liu returned again to the surrounding desolation to pace the dunes.
A footprint Liu had left impressed on the surface began to crack apart as it rose silently in the seconds after she had passed on, cascading away from the crown and shoulders of a hidden being emerging from the underground.
The locking click of a rifle loading behind Liu's ear halted her progress, raising her hands slowly in surrender.
"Sit with your hands on your head, right where you are and don't turn around." A calm voice directed her.
Lowering herself to the ground, Liu's heart drummed against her ribs as she tried to calm herself and ease the situation.
"We're not Skin Pirates, listen, please..."
"You're driving one of their tankers." The unseen voice replied, feminine in tone.
"That's true, we are, but it's a long story and I don't have a lot of time to explain. We're looking for a place, the Virgin Road, can you help us?"
The rising shrill of a whistle sounded from far away, a code for the unseen woman.
"Where are you from?" The voice asked.
"We've just come from the Junkyards, something terrible has happened there. We need to warn the others." Liu pleaded.
"Who are you trying to warn, girl? What happened?" A genuine concern softened the woman's voice.
"El Dorado. We need to warn them that Uncle Know-it-all and his people are dead!"
"Come then, we'll take you and your friends where you need to go."
Peeking through the crook of her raised elbow, Liu saw an enclosed face mask with a breathing filter on its' cheek, weatherproof clothing arranged over tactical armour that was buckled tight around an athletic frame.