Trace closed up the doors on the trailer and pushed against the wind coming down the walls of the gulley as he headed to the cab. Now that the trailer had been reconnected, he wanted to run diagnostics again.

  There were still a few errors popping up. However, they were related to items that had taken damage from the sand during the time it was sitting there. Items that they either couldn’t fix while there or that it wouldn’t be worth it for them to spend the time doing.

  The most important thing he had noticed had actually been the battery indicator. There were now two of them, and the second one was reading as seventy percent full. The trailer batteries still had a significant amount of power in them. There had been some decay due to time. The damage to the connectors had prevented them from being drained due to any parasitic items.

  That meant they now officially had enough power to leave this place. Or at least they would once the rear cable let enough power through to equalize the semi battery more. The trickle charge went both ways when it was needed, as the trailer batteries simply provided a constant charge to the main one in the semi.

  Turning everything off, he hopped out and began gathering up all their tools and supplies.

  They were done. The only things left to do were rearrange everything in the trailer, somehow get Black Betty inside it, and maneuver the truck and trailer out of the gulley. Not necessarily in that order.

  Monroe had finished with his welding and was gathering up his own tools. The heavy blankets they had been using to enclose everything were now being wrapped around the equipment.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon rearranging the supplies in the trailer and strapping them back into their new positions. By the time they were finished, it was time to get some sleep, and neither had come any closer to figuring out how to get the van inside the trailer.

  Trace went through his enhanced teaching modules before going to sleep.

  ***

  The usual notifications appeared in the corner of his vision when he woke the next morning. There wasn’t too much of interest in them for the time being, and he closed them without much thought.

  They packed up the last of their items into the van and then set about inspecting the gulley. The original path that the driver had used to take the semi and trailer in would require them to back up half a mile. It wasn’t all straight, either. If they kept going straight, then there was another path they could take to get out.

  Of course, at that point, they would need to worry about making it back to the road without getting stuck or breaking anything.

  After looking everything over, the only idea they had come up with was to use a ledge to load the van into the trailer. It was simply a matter of finding one that was the right height, and that also had the needed access.

  Working together, they took things slow, exploring what the semi could do, and gradually working it out of the divots the wheels had created. Monroe knew what he was doing and had taken over the driving position. While he didn’t have enough confidence to back it up over long distances, he at least knew how to drive the thing. It helped that, where in the van the glass was merely hardened. Which had resulted in Black Betty’s windshield and windows being scratched into oblivion. On the semi, it was proper ballistic strength glass with a special coating. There was little chance of these scratching.

  Continuing to move slowly, the semi and its trailer wound its way through the gulley. The truck had plenty of power, as all the wheels had motors on them, along with the ones installed in the trailer. Eventually, they found a ledge that was the right height and let them load the van inside the trailer. It had a minimal drop of two inches, which was nothing the trailer or Black Betty couldn’t handle.

  With that last issue handled, Trace made sure the building for the rest stop was closed up and then climbed inside the passenger side of the semi. It was time to start heading back home.

  The job wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it also wasn’t as easy as it could have been either.

  He still needed to change the owner's information, first though came exploring the RV section of the cab. They had been so busy working on everything else for the last couple of days that they hadn’t even thought about looking through the place until now.

  It was disappointing. There was nothing of interest outside of a single depowered ink-sheet. There were no weapons, and obviously no food or drinks to be found that they hadn’t brought over from the van. All that was inside were some clothes in a small closet, some crusty, and rather nasty sheets and blankets, a toilet with a sani-spray setup above it, and then a tiny kitchen. It was all compact, very serviceable, and also rather empty.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  One thing was for sure, Trace wasn’t going to be sleeping, or even lying on that bed.

  With his brief exploration of the truck over, he headed back to his seat. Pulling out the cable that would connect the system breacher module to the semi’s internal control module, he plugged it in and waited for the information to come up.

  Running through the options, he was able to discover and infer a few things about the previous owner. The first of which was his name, ‘Brian Trapatza’. The second was the poor gonk had only owned the truck and trailer for seven months before taking his final trip. The unlucky sop must have spent all his savings to buy them, even used. They wouldn’t have been cheap. If he had been the one responsible for the RV conversion, that would have been expensive, or also added to the initial cost.

  Regardless, it all came down to the original owner being one unlucky fool. Whereas Monroe was making out like a straight-up raider on the deal.

  The owner’s information was locked. No surprise there. What did shock him was that there were several options he could actually change. If he wanted, he could change how much power was being delivered to or brought from the trailer. It was also possible to modify how often the trailer motors kicked in, and how much help they provided.

  It wasn’t the greatest list of options, but it was more than what he had seen in his own truck.

  Unfortunately, there was no doubt now that he would need to perform an ‘Upgrade Temporary Module’ if he wanted to change the owner's information. They hadn’t yet looked to see if the modified control modules they had taken from the raider van would fit. However, after looking through the menu, he had little hope of it working correctly, even if it did fit.

  The modified module still seemed like something that needed to be programmed in some way to fit the needs of each individual vehicle. There might be some generic settings that would work for most cars, but it wouldn’t work for something as complicated as the semi.

  With a sigh of annoyance, he pulled up the G.H.O.S.T. System menu and selected the ‘Nanite’ option. He remembered from before that it was the third sub-option he wanted. There it was, the name as clear as any he had ever seen before.

  Before he could change his mind, he clicked on it and felt the same rush as before. It was the sign that the multitude of special and regular nanites were surging toward the module.

  The system breaching module began to heat up, as its information was subsumed and overwritten. The displayed options on the menu flickered in and out, before finally settling on a series of new, more advanced options. In the corner, a countdown timer for two-minutes had appeared.

  Trace quickly changed the owner’s information to Monroe, along with the date on when he had purchased it. Then he locked the setting. Now only the manufacturer could change it. He spent the rest of the time he had available clearing error codes and changing a couple of minor settings.

  Before he knew it, the menu closed down, and the module was forcibly ejected from his neck as it began to disintegrate.

  Monroe caught sight of the module turning to dust and cursed. “You weren’t joking when you mentioned what would happen.” He turned his attention back to the road for a couple of seconds. “Is it done?”

  Trace nodded. “Yup, you are now registered as the owner of this thing. I also made it look as though you bought it two months ago, just in case anyone asks questions.”

  With the last of his tasks completed, he settled in for the drive back to Colorado and his waiting car. The longer he sat on the comfortable passenger seat, the less sure he was that he actually wanted to drive the car back. Sure, it was fast, and he liked it, but this semi had some of the most comfortable seats he had sat on.

  It hugged his body and just made him want to sleep.

  Even with Monroe driving somewhat cautiously, the miles flew by for Trace as he dozed in and out for the entire trip. Once the road began to clear up some more, and he could more reliably see the road, he began to pick up speed.

  The drive back to the border, and then to the barn hiding the car, went much faster in the semi than it had going the other direction in Black Betty.

  Once they were in Colorado, the wireless energy receiving unit began taking in power and charging all the batteries.

  “You take the lead,” Trace told Monroe with a yawn, still waking up from his nap. “I’ll follow you and take out any raiders behind us. If there are any in front, just give me a call.” He patted his railgun lovingly, eager to try it out again.

  Monroe nodded as Trace grabbed the last of his items and ran over to the barn. It took him a couple of minutes to tear all the tape off that they had put over the seams, and then throw his stuff into the passenger seat. The semi was taking the lead, as it would be deciding their course. Besides, if the linkage broke again, he didn’t want to be too far ahead when it happened.

  He didn’t want to be right behind it, either.

  Luckily for him, Monroe drove as fast as the roads would allow him to. If they were in decent condition, then they flew down it. As soon as it became a pothole-ridden nightmare, they slowed to a crawl. The off-road sections were actually better than those areas, as nature had a way of smoothing out the holes in its forests.

  Curiously enough, they didn’t encounter any raiders. The entire trip back to Fort Collins was almost suspiciously quiet.

  They were stopped at the border, their IDs and ownerships of both vehicles checked as they waited to be let through.

  “What happened to all the raiders?” Trace asked one of the officers working the border gate. “We came through here a few days ago and ran into a group of them. I was sure we would run into even more on our way back.”

  The officer snorted without looking up. “Something scared them all. Supposedly one of them tried to attack some corpo outfit. These corpos retaliated with some new-fangled weapon that turned their people and vehicles inside out and then compressed them. They were babbling on about insides, becoming outsides, and outsides becoming insides, and everything turning into compressed cubes.” The officer shook their head, finishing the check they were doing. “Utter nonsense, but it scared them all straight, for a few days at least. You’re good to head inside the city, be careful, and obey the laws and corporations.”

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