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Chapter 22: They’re Back

With the Twizzlers in my pocket, I was now a happy man. I would share them with Rich’s great grandchildren the first chance I got but they would first have to promise me that they would eat them in front of their great grandfather. I am a bad man and every good looking guy on this planet deserves every evil thing that befalls them. I wonder if there is some way that I can make Sir George go bald and grow warts? Star just gave me one of her looks; I tightened up on my thoughts in response. I guess I slipped up a second ago and I didn’t even mean to. I gave myself minus one point. She would probably warn George and I can’t have him being warned. I finally started talking to the woman with the slightly dazed expression that was standing before me.

“Don’t let that little mistake, worry you Captain. I am the Hermit King Vincent Standish. My subjects can address me in many different ways but in order to keep my standing with the Ding-Ding System, which is what I call the people who send us warnings and messages, I request that outsiders formally address me as King Vincent, Your Majesty or you can use any of those other silly male monarch type titles, so long as it’s not insulting. I have a question; do you want us to immediately depart, because if you do, we’ll mount up and hit the road in record time.”

“No, Your Majesty, I would like to talk with you. I’m Captain Barbara Long and the Commander of this Armory.”

“Okay, a brief history lesson about me. Over a year ago I won a lottery jackpot and using some of my winnings, I had a modest house built about forty miles from here. When I received the Warning I used more of that money to buy supplies and secure my home. Shortly after I started my doomsday preparations, I opened up my home and land to some people so that they might find refuge with me. The DDS first named me a Professional Hermit and gave me certain bonuses for my class. A lot of those bonuses come into play only on land that I legally own. But as a caveat to that, it recognized me as being the ultimate authority on my property, an authority that I must actively defend. Later on, the DDS named me a king.

We fight monsters daily, while we have a machine shop and we are making many of the things that we need, we still occasionally go out on salvaging expeditions, such as this one. Though, we still haven’t built up our forces to such an extent where we feel entirely comfortable with leaving the Stronghold. I hope that one day, that the Hermit’s Guard will be powerful enough where they can go out on expeditions within a hundred miles of our home, in the hope that they might find other survivors and rescue them if they need assistance. An attack we had on the Stronghold three weeks ago has proved to me that we still have a long ways to go until we can safely achieve that goal. To that end, I would like to trade goods or services for some of the things that you possess within your Armory here.”

“Your Majesty, you tell me that you are the King of a piece of land within the continental United States. I am sworn to defend this country and the Constitution. I don’t know how I can trade with you. In fact, I should probably be arresting you.”

“Captain, as far as I know the United States doesn’t exist anymore. But I could be wrong. If a large force shows up at the Stronghold’s gates and proves that they are an official part of the United States Military or some other authority. My people can leave, they still have free will and I will not order them to fight but I’ll tell you this much, I will be dead before I give up a square inch of my tiny kingdom. I won’t take from others but neither will I allow things to be taken from me.

Captain Long, you have a chance here to trade some things that no longer work and get back some things that do work. We have fifty caliber Hawken rifles to trade, all revealing magic lights and fire stones which can keep you warm. If you need food, we have tons of calamari and even wheat.

What we want are some trucks, some cartridge casings and those 105mm cannons.” I thought about smiling at the woman before me, but she might punch me in the nose if I did.

“The 105s, are you nuts?!! They would have me shot, if I traded those away to a foreign power within the United States. It would be treason!”

“I tell you what we’ll do. In exchange we’ll put steam engines in those two Stryker vehicles of yours, how about that? You could be driving around in style.” This time I did smile, she noticeably winced. I refuse to believe that I am that ugly.

“They will still have me shot.”

“Okay, here’s my final offer. Don’t tell me your decision right now, wait awhile and think about it. You could take a walk outside with Captain Mesquida and he could tell you all about my Kingdom. He’ll give you all the nasty details and fill you in about my new dungeon.

This is my last offer, for two of the cannons and half of their shells you have stored here, I will personally enchant two more of those cannons for you to use. We will furthermore put 200 HP steam engines into each of your two Strykers. And we will do the same for up to eight of your trucks but we get one truck and a trailer for every truck we install an engine into. I’ve walked your parking lot. You’ve got twenty-seven of those massive semi trucks and at least eight of those slightly smaller ones. You must know that we can find similar trucks almost anywhere; it’s true that your trucks are armored but we’ve gotten extremely good at putting armor onto civilian trucks, like the one we’re in now. Honestly speaking, while I am impressed with the sheer ruggedness of your vehicles, I am not that impressed by their armor. I don’t think it’s strong enough to face all of the dangers of our changed world.”

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A few minutes later Captain Long found herself being escorted out of the truck by the scowling Lady Knight Star Astrologer, following Barbara was Captain Mesquida.

Once the door closed behind her she breathed out a sigh of relief. Captain Mesquida chuckled with sympathy.

“Sir Mesquida what is going on here?”

“I thought it was obvious to you. Electricity is gone, magic has replaced it, old people have gotten young again and we are all struggling to survive. The best hope my family and I have of staying alive is that man inside there.

Several years ago he was betrayed by his wife and daughters, then by his long-time employer and finally by someone who bought the company that he had been working for. I verified that information from independent sources by the way. He is a hardworking man of above average intelligence and average looks when he tries. Despite the fact that he wants to live alone, he has opened up his lands to hundreds of people. When there is trouble, he runs towards it in an effort to put himself between the danger and those being threatened. It’s a habit of his that we are trying hard to break.

Captain the last time we met with another group of survivors, Vince offered them a chance to see the Stronghold so that they could make a well informed decision. But that group was far closer to our home. It took us almost two hours to get here and I’m surprised that we didn’t have to fight along the way. If you want to see his Kingdom you’ll need to pay the fare both going and coming back. I think Vince is ready to call it quits here; other people would just take what they want but not him. I think it is all part of him being a King, if he doesn’t respect other people’s property rights, why should they respect his.”

“Would he trade food, black powder, repeating rifles, and some steam engines for a few of our trucks?”

Captain Mesquida looked at her like he thought she was crazy. “You don’t want much do you? There are heavy trucks lying around all over the place. How our shop crews modified the two trucks we drove here is a wonder to behold. Those vehicles could survive things that would easily kill your Strykers. If you supply some manual action repeating firearms he might enchant them for you but we have none to spare. Basically he makes it so your ammunition doesn’t need primers anymore; you’ll still need to load your cartridges with black powder, which we don’t have enough of ourselves, so we won’t be trading any of that either.

You have only one thing that we want and can’t get any other place locally, as far as we know, and that’s those howitzers. But if you offer us some brass or maybe one of your smaller trucks, you might be able to buy a ride for a delegation to and from the Stronghold. You have to understand, that we risk priceless irreplaceable assets whenever we leave the Stronghold, so the cab fare isn’t going to be cheap. In fact, now that I think about it, you’ll probably have to give us a truck and some brass for a ride home with us and another truck when we bring your delegation back.”

“I feel like you’re a shifty character trying to trade one of my trucks for a hand full of magic beans. Well I’ve got news for you, my name isn’t Jack.”

Captain Mesquida laughed. “You shouldn’t say things like that. We’ve got someone with Plant Magic back at home and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit, if she could give you some real magic beans. Captain, I don’t know what kind of shape your company is in but I don’t think it can be good. You’ve got one chance here at turning things around for your people. If the United States Government still exists you might, might be putting your freedom in jeopardy by trading with us. Personally I think that if they are still around, that they would do everything in their power to ally themselves with Vince once they find out what he can do for them. There are other nations that already exist within the United States, consisting of the descendants of people that were here even before there was a United States. So what I am postulating is not that farfetched. Right now, Vince has at the most about six hundred acres of land at three different locations; that really isn’t a lot of land for the U.S. to give up any claim to. Step up to the plate and make me an offer Captain, you’ll be absolutely astonished by what my King can do for you.

By the way, I assume to have survived this long that you must have the True Sight skill and maybe some other magical powers as well, so you should already know that we haven’t been lying to you.”

Captain Long took a deep breath, he was right her True Sight skill had told her that they hadn’t been deceiving her. But she decided not to answer him immediately. So instead she asked a question of her own. “You must have magical powers too Captain, what kind do you possess?”

He paused in making his reply, taking a moment to decide if he wanted to answer. “Well, I’ve got Fire Magic and Earth Magic. Other people have different kinds of abilities. There is a sergeant in the Hermit’s Guard, that can levitate and teleport. As for me, I’ve finally gotten my Fire Magic to where it can actually be useful as a weapon but I’m nowhere near being as proficient as the Boss.”

Barbara wanted to snort in disbelieve but again her True Sight skill was telling her that he wasn’t lying. Some of her people had magic; there were two with very weak Fire Magic, one screamer with Sound Magic, two with weak Telekinesis and four Healers. The only really useful ones were the Healers. “Can you show me some magic Captain?”

“Only a little bit, none of us like to waste our magical energies, we never know when we might need them to counter an attack.”

She expected him to show her a small hand full of fire. What he did was launch a gout of flame; fifteen feet up into the air. She could feel the heat on her face. Yes, that was indeed a serious weapon. There were yells coming their way asking if everything was alright, the Knight Captain took a minute to explain what he was doing to his concerned soldiers.

He resumed talking to her. “This has been a strange day for us, we’ve been here for almost an hour and we haven’t been attacked, nor were we attacked on the drive here. That has got to be some kind of record for us. We even saw monsters running away from us, which is a real first.

She too had noticed that things were extraordinarily peaceful that day; normally her people were all barricaded in the old factory trying to prevent some monster from tearing its way in. A strange thought entered her mind which caused her to stumble. Could the monsters be afraid of the Hermit and his Guard?

Throwing caution to the winds she made an offer. “Captain, you said that you wanted brass. Well, I’ve got four pallets of 20mm practice ammunition; there are thirty 100 round ammo boxes per pallet. It was dropped off here by mistake and we don’t have any 20mm guns. The fact that it’s practice ammunition just might save me from a court martial even though it is still deadly if you’re struck by one. I will give you a pallet of it, if you will take my delegation to your stronghold and another one when they return. I might be going along as well if I can swing it.”

Captain Mesquida couldn’t hide his glee, had Captain Long not noticed the fact that his vehicles were equipped with large bore rifles, or didn’t she care? It was true that a bureaucrat might think that practice ammunition was harmless stuff but for the Stronghold’s uses it was perfect. Six thousand rounds of twenty mike-mike, made the entire trip worthwhile; now the shop didn’t have to spend its valuable time making 20mm cartridge cases and bullets. He decided to sweeten the deal because he wanted those other two pallets of ammunition.

“Captain just to show our concern for your people, I’ve got ten, fifty caliber Hawken style rifles with bullets and bayonets that I can give you as a goodwill gesture. When you’re fighting monsters, those bayonets can really make a difference. We’ve also got some food that we can give you, flour, dried beans, as well as some potatoes and tomatoes from our greenhouses.”

Captain Long perked up at the mention of greenhouses; maybe these people really did have their shit together.

Slightly less than two hours later she and three of her civilians were riding in the back of the T800 armored truck along with the Hermit King and what looked like his bodyguard.

Howard King a former electrician and a member of her delegation, decided to risk asking a question. “Your Majesty, it has been hell for us ever since we lost our cars and guns. How have you managed to do so well?”

“Thanks to a lottery jackpot, I had enough money where I could buy things to prepare properly. I also had no one I needed to answer to, which I think was equally important. I could risk being wrong and making a fool out of myself. I was buying stuff within minutes of the first Warning but I already had quite a few things, like my own machine shop and a few years worth of food. I think anyone could have done the same thing, if they had what I had, to start with.”

There was suddenly a weird pattern of horn blasts, the truck slowed down and stopped. The soldiers were at the firing slits in the truck and readying their huge bolt action rifles. Barbara suddenly realized that the worthless ammunition she had traded away might not be as worthless to these people as she had previously thought.

She stood up to look out one of the armored windows. What she saw was a decent sized group of ragged people running away from three squirrels; very, very large squirrels. The soldiers fired their guns and cursed when only one shot hit, the squirrels were blindingly fast. They had large heads in relation to their total body size, just like normal squirrels, heads with very big mouths filled with very sharp teeth. She heard the Hermit King ordering the ramp to be lowered in an expletive filled voice. The good looking man, that she had mistaken for the King originally, was following the order but he was also trying to talk his King out of going outside.

A screaming man was brought down by a squirrel. The giant rodents looked to be toying with their prey and there seemed to be nothing that the Hermit’s Guard could do, at least in time to stop the enormous squirrels from slaying anymore of the running terrified people.

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DAMN IT! I knew we would be picking up refugees on the way back home, it almost always happens that way. People would hear or see our vehicles as we traveled away from home and later when we return, following the same route, they would be waiting for us. But those FUCKING SQUIRRELS were too bloody fast, only my people with the fastest enhanced reflexes were even coming close to hitting them. I needed to get out there or those people were dead meat. I was not going to watch some little children die, not today.

I had the door open at the back of the compartment but the ramp was going down so slowly. I was insane with rage and I started kicking at the ramp to speed it on its way. When I thought I had enough room, I slithered my way out, I then ran and leaped to get in between the survivors and those blasted rodents. Those fuckers might dodge bullets but how in the fuck are they going to be able to dodge a wall of flame. I screamed at them and I let loose.

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After some loud banging noises at the back of the truck she was shocked to see the Hermit outside and taking huge leaping running strides as he rushed towards the monsters. He was going up in the air at least eight feet or more and traveling over twenty feet horizontally for each leaping step he took. It was like something out of a comic book.

He came down just in front of the squirrels and he roared at them. Almost simultaneous with his roar, flames shot out of both of his hands. The flames were everywhere and there was no way for the squirrels to escape them. When she saw the creatures again they were nothing more than falling bones.

“Holy Shit,” she muttered.

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The squirrels were down, now there were some bodies for me to check on. I started walking towards them. OUCH!

DING

As per one of the listed attributes for your base class of Hermit; “some hermits are insanely strong or smell strongly, usually both.” Congratulations Asshole, you have achieved this distinction and in a fit of insane rage you have pushed your body beyond its physical limits. I bet you’re sore now, aren’t you! And I already know that you stink. For this accomplishment, your stats will now include a “Warning Label,” no need to thank me; I already know how much you appreciate all of my actions on your behalf.

Warning Label: Caution, This is an Insanely Strong Smelling Hermit, It is Extremely Dangerous When Enraged. Please Keep Hands and Feet Away From Its Mouth at All Times.

I was limping and groaning as I hurried towards the fallen man. I saw another two bodies behind him. I knelt down by his body; he was still alive even with his shoulder being nearly torn off and a large piece bitten away. I had a lot of magic left but I had better save it for now. I stopped the bleeding, put him to sleep and stabilized him, that would do for now. I got up to limp towards the next body. But I was passed by Clyde who drove the 590 tractor straight to the next body; he leaped down and started working on that person. Lady Knight Night flew overhead with her flight and landed by the third body. I decided not to move and just groan in pain for a few minutes, I really hurt.

Suddenly, Star appeared and she started casting aspersions on my character; such as dumb, stupid, idiotic, moronic and brainless. A fire team showed up shortly after, I asked them to rescue me from Star but the cowards refused. Another Healer also arrived and started working on the man that I had treated.

Seeing no other choice I tried to make my own escape but the Cruel Queen-Pin of Crime kept right after me, despite my best efforts in breaking the blistering speed of one mile an hour. I finally made it to where the crying refuge children were gathered by the C500. I started handing out some of the Twizzlers that I had won off of Rich. The dirty ragged children’s eyes got very big when they saw what I was offering. Star finally shut up.

I started using a trickle of magic to start fixing my poor abused body. The refugees were loaded into the C500’s trailer and I went back to the T800. I noticed that while the ramp was closing up that its mechanism seemed a little noisier than normal; I couldn’t recall it making those types of sounds before. The next time an emergency occurs, I’ll just go out through the driver’s compartment, it’ll be much faster that way.

With a sigh I finally sat down. Captain Long spoke to me. “It’s always difficult watching people die. I know since it has happened to me far too often.” There was a strong note of sympathy in her voice. “How many of your people have you lost over the last five months, Your Majesty?”

I let out a sigh. “We lost Private Quentin Lee about three weeks ago. A horde of King Mandrills attacked us and we weren’t prepared for them, they can climb walls like a gecko lizard.”

“You haven’t had any fatalities in almost three weeks? You must be the luckiest sons of bitches in the world,” exclaimed Howard King who had been listening in.

Sergeant Rich Jacobs spoke up. “No Mister King, we’ve only had one death at the Stronghold or amongst the Hermit’s people since he started granting people refuge. Of course there were deaths in groups, such my own, before they joined up with the Hermit but since coming under his protection only Private Quentin Lee has been killed. Though three others were seriously wounded at the same time and they have to be the luckiest people alive. Well over a thousand King Mandrills attacked the Stronghold. Those monkeys, while they’re not chameleons, have a natural camouflage that is unbelievably good. We didn’t see them until they were almost over our parapets. It was an ugly battle, we got almost five thousand pounds of monkey jerky out of the deal but of course we would all prefer having Quentin back with us.”

Our guests had stopped asking questions for some reason. Richard’s words reminded me that I had to tell them something. “When we get to the fortress you might not want to eat everything that you are offered. None of it is poisonous but a lot of the meat comes from monsters. In particular the calamari comes from some Sky Krakens that attacked us. Those monsters were all blue screen sentient beings. Only adults who know where the calamari comes from are allowed to eat it, you can of course refuse to do so and some of those in the Stronghold do. As for myself, those monsters came to our home looking to eat us, it’s not like we hunted them down, so I consider it just desserts that they help add to our diets and they do make a good source of protein. The largest ones were up to thirty-five meters long including their legs but their tentacles were up thirty-seven meters in length. With so many of their bodies laying dead I simply thought it too much of a waste if we didn’t try and harvest some of that meat, as it was we could only store a fraction of it and we magically incinerated the rest.”

The truck got even quieter. I always know exactly the right thing to say. I wonder how come, I’m not invited to any parties.

Three miles down the road we picked up another larger group of survivors. Captain Mesquida gave them a speech telling them who and what we were but they all decided to come along anyways, the fools. The flyers were now riding on top of the C500’s trailer, ready to take flight if needed and to give the new people more room inside. That trailer was packed tight now and soon we would be filling this smaller truck.

I explained as much to Captain Long and I told her that was one of the reasons why we wanted her trucks. So we could convert them into armored buses and use them to transport survivors in situations like this.

At our next stop we picked up a family of four survivors. We had room in the T800 so they joined us. They were all very wide eyed and their eyes got even larger, when they heard me addressed as “Your Majesty.” I gave each of their two children a Twizzler rope. The mother who was a little frantic actually tried to curtsey before me, I had to catch her before she fell over which made things even worse for her, so I gave her a Twizzler rope too. Star seemed to approve of the woman’s behavior.

Another ten minutes down the road and we picked up six more people. They had a baby in their little group; she was too young for a Twizzler. The T800 was getting crowded; it would soon be time for some of us to climb up on top.

We were being lucky in terms of monster encounters. A few miles down the road we picked up another pretty good size group of humans. The delegation was now crammed into the driver’s compartment and the rest of us had climbed up on top of the truck.

Five miles down the road and I was ready to kick myself. I must have jinxed us; it had just had to be. Eight Sky Krakens were approaching and coming in fast.

The flyers took off trying to gain altitude. Our vehicles quickly stopped and formed a square in order to mutually defend one another. The roofs of all of our trucks and armored trailers had been fitted with threaded holes into which pipes could be screwed; the pipes supported mounts for our 20mm rifles.

The flyers didn’t have enough altitude yet for them to dive safely. Counting their attendants, the three fire teams and the tank commanders with rifles mounted by their hatches, we had twenty-five gunners, not all of them were up to sharpshooter standards. The krakens were coming in at us from three sides.

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Captain Mesquida watched the flyers climb up into the sky. The battle would be upon the convoy too soon for them to do any good instead they would attack when the krakens retreated or if the convoy was in extreme danger of being defeating. The weather was cloudy and the krakens had barely been above tree height allowing them to get too close before they were seen.

Maybe he should have had a flyer on over watch but it was a very dangerous thing for them to do when they were far from the Stronghold. He just hoped that his stubborn King didn’t do anything stupid again. But Vince’s Hulk impersonation had been new and rather entertaining. George thought “Hermit Smash” and snickered into the scarf which was wrapped protectively around his lower face. His wives didn’t like it when his face got chapped and they gave him grief when it happened too often.

His standing orders were for the sharpshooters to engage any Sky Krakens when they were no more than five hundred yards away and no less than three hundred. The krakens were coming in two waves that were closely following one another; each wave consisted of four krakens. The northern and southern ends of the box that the convoy had formed; each had two krakens flying towards them. The western side had four coming at them in two waves of two.

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Captain Long was trembling either from excitement or from fear, perhaps it was both. The Hermit had told her about the Sky Krakens and some of her observers had reported seeing large flying squid like creatures in the past but she had never truly believed that such creatures actually existed. Just like, she hadn’t wanted to believe in the giant mechanical spiders which had passed so close to the Armory and those she had seen with her own eyes. It was a good thing that those silvery arachnids were gone because she thought that even the Sherman tank would be nothing but a toy when compared to them.

Her face was pressed up against the window as she watched the battle unfold before her.

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I was now standing on the C500’s trailer which was on our western side, mainly because it was the most difficult to maneuver and it had already been in this location when we spotted the squids.

The gunners started to fire. It looked like at least four 20mm bullets hit two of the lead krakens on the west side. One was a hit to a creature’s mantle but the other shots only hit legs or tentacles. However, two of those bullets did massive amounts of damage to the legs that they hit. The krakens started to scream. The two in the following wave surged past their wounded kin.

It looks like all but one of our northern gunners missed the two coming towards them and that single bullet only slightly wounded the creature it struck. The same thing happened at our southern side, which is going to piss off Captain Mesquida since he’s one of the gunners there and he is an expert marksman.

I called the wind to me, just in case I was needed. The western side fired again, the range had been greatly reduced but fear can cause even the best sharpshooter to miss. Four or more shots hit the unharmed pair of krakens and drastically changed their status. Each squid was hit on the mantle and they both had legs and tentacles blown off. They were still over two hundred yards away and they were going down. The western side looked to be safe now.

Things weren’t looking so good at the northern end; they had scored multiple hits but none to the lead kraken’s mantle. Because of its injuries it was being passed by the one following closely behind it.

The southern side did much better. They got a hit on their lead kraken’s mantle and two devastating blows to its legs and tentacles. That creature was also passed by the one trailing it.

On the western side the kraken with no wounds to its mantle was withdrawing the other three were sinking to the ground. I could see a pair of flyers diving down towards the retreating squid.

The gunners on the C500’s trailer now turned their rifles towards the southern and northern sides, which were almost in range of the krakens’ natural air cannons. Because of the angle those located nearby me, could shoot at all four krakens.

The guns roared and those krakens on the southern side were blown apart as hit after hit, struck their mantles. As for the northern side the krakens were likewise defeated if not so spectacularly. I could see the lone western kraken falling to the ground after being absolutely shattered by the flyers’ IROD shells.

It was now time to clean the rifles and for several weeks now we’ve been doing it magically. Or rather those of us with both Water and Earth Magic have been doing the cleaning. Our alchemist made black powder left less residue but it was still a pain to clean the normal way. People like me or Boris, were very popular when it was time to wash our firearms. We could clean a weapon in only two to five minutes. I started washing those on the C500.

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The cheers inside the T800 were nearly deafening to Captain Long. Even before leaving the Armory, she knew that pissing off the Hermit’s Guard wouldn’t be a smart thing to do; now she felt it in her very bones. She also vowed to treat the Hermit much more respectively in the future. The way he dealt with the squirrels had been very impressive, but what had happened minutes ago had been a battle against Titans! She could definitely understand now, why Captain Mesquida had insisted that they be paid cab fare for transporting her delegation. She now considered the price that she had paid to be cheap.

After a pause of nearly a half an hour the convoy resumed its journey home.

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Our next stop happened just a few miles down the road and it was another good size group. We were now forced to start putting people inside the two armored utility trailers that the T800 and the 590 were pulling. I didn’t like those things, especially considering the way we had one hooked to the 590, but it was the only option that we had.

After three more miles we halted again to pick up two very ragged but happy survivors.

For the last twelve miles we had no more friendly or even unfriendly encounters. From my vantage point on top of the trailer, I could now see some of the spiders that we still had to clean up.

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Captain Long was wedged into the cab of the T800 so she could easily see the destroyed mechanical spiders as they drove up, upon them. To say she was stunned was putting it mildly.

“What happened here?” She gasped out.

The driver replied. “Oh, don’t worry about them; we put twenty-eight of those mechanical monstrosities down almost a month ago. Without electricity, all of their high tech gizmos no longer worked and they were easy meat for us. Right now, we’re still salvaging materials off of them. The King Mandrills that we battled just a day before we fought the snails, that’s who built the spider machines, were much worse but those monkeys seem to be gone for now, knock on wood.”

As they drove past the destroyed machines, Captain Long’s lofty opinion of the Guard rose even higher. The truck took a right turn down a gravel road. Beyond the trees, she was just able to see an immense wall, the wall grew in size.

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When Vince kicks at the ramp in this chapter and bounds towards the squirrels, he is subconsciously (or is that unconsciously?) using his own Telekinetic ability in addition to his own temporarily increased physical strength. That is why he could do what he did and the truck’s ramp was indeed kicked out of alignment by him and now needs to be repaired.