The team was away by a little after noon, when the sun was just past its highest point and the air was hot and arid. The sand strewn winds sucked the moisture from their very breaths as they trudged towards the hidden encampment where the vehicles were kept; the assortment of all terrain cars and motorcycles and quads were the Colony's only modes of long range transportation, but due to their size they had to be garaged at a different location. Great pains had been taken to made the vehicles as inconspicuous as possible: shielded engines, radar reflective paint, dull colorings, whatever worked. They all were older models, too, with little or no dependence upon computer chips or excessive electrical systems that would enable robots to over-ride or detect them. A typical mission involved the team hiking out to "The Pit" (as their mechanics lovingly called it), driving out in their various vehicles and then dropping off any finds back at the caves before returning the transports and hiking back again.

The trip out to the target location was taken in silence. It was traditional. The party members rarely spoke or bantered as they made their way, their thoughts too heavily set on what failure or success would mean for their families and friends. Other than orders and warnings, no one usually spoke at all. Should they find salvage and food, then they would celebrate with raucous laughter and bawdy singing on their return but not until then. 

Lucien was no exception to the custom; he sat in the back of the extensively modified van and bounced with the terrain as he brooded over his hopeful return to Cassie and how best to deal with Pony's terms. Cassie had declared her love for him, but there had been no discussion yet as to how they might proceed from that starting point. Pony was willing to let him go guilt free... if he fathered a child on her, which was something that Lucien could not see Cassie agreeing to no matter how scrambled her memory might be. Yet he could not deny that he [i]owed[/i] her! Pony had kept him alive and if not sane than at least closer to sanity than he otherwise would have been! When everyone else had turned their back on him, it had been Pony who succored him, comforted him and then loved him. It was a debt of friendship he could not in good conscience ignore, but her solution was unreasonable. It was born of the logic of a simple woman who did not, could not, comprehend what it was she was asking of him. All the ride out, Lucien pondered how best to handle this latest upset in his life.

The target site was a small town located off a branch of what must have been a major highway. It was for the most part unremarkable, only it had served a very specific function: truck stop. Massive vehicles had hauled cargo through there, their drivers stopping to rest, eat and sleep before continuing on their journey. The Colonists were after not just whatever stores and shops the town might have had, but the assorted products and (hopefully) canned and dried food products that should be piled in those trucks' trailers. There were a good twenty or so of the huge vehicles. Even though it was understood that only a quarter of what they might contain would be useful, that among of salvage raised their hopes as they approached. Upon arrival, the team spread out and began to scour the area while two of them clambered up on top of buildings to keep watch for any robot or bandit activity. Other humans could still be just as dangerous as their mechanical foes.

Lucien grabbed his backpack as he clambered out of the van's rear doors and looked about, the bright evening sun near blinding him. Life in the darkness of the caves made seeing upon the surface world difficult, at least by day, and his eyes watered. A careful sip from his canteen, and he then began casting his eyes about for the highest location he could see within the town. It was easy to find actually. A good mile from the truck's rest stop, he could spy a massive tower made of a skeletal steel framework. Lucien remembered seeing more of them in his childhood, great structures that allowed people to communicate with one another using portable phones and to exchange incredible amounts of information via computers. It made him wonder - what would future generations, ones who would never know of such devices, think of these strange towers that piled high into the sky without any apparent explanation?

He shook himself from the pointless musings with a frown. Welding his crowbar, he joined his fellows in prying open the long rusted locks and bolts that protected the treasures. When the last door was wrenched open, Lucien fixed his eye again upon the tower and began to hike towards it with Uncle's invention in his pack.