Chapter 2 Part 3
They brought the arhan to a garage of old junk for an evaluation. There was sincere admiration in his voice.
“Wow… Just from one of the batteries from the laser, you can power a whole village with electricity. Not to mention the generator… It’s a real monster. But it’s new. Are you sure everything is alright with it?”
Dingo waved his hand slightly.
“It’s not stolen, don’t worry.Just because of a small “accident” it became unsuitable for use.”
“Accident?”
He looked at the bullet holes in the antenna.
“Well, ok. For the sake of such a beauty, I’ll do anything.”
The owner took out some money from a safe and gave them to Dingo.
“If you get anything else that’s useful, I will wait for you.”
“Sure.”
Recounting the money, Dingo left the store and returned to a hefty land rover, on which the arhan was standing. The car was converted into a house on wheels, in it there was enough s.p.a.ce to live, store buggies, and other equipment. Dingo sat in the driver’s seat. The man began to disa.s.semble the arhan. Angela sat in the pa.s.senger’s seat on the verge of tears.
“Oh my arhan… A support unit of cla.s.s A…. What can I do now?”
Dingo started up the engine and said.
“It’s ok. We were able to sell some sc.r.a.p metal and earn some money. Now we have money for spending, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“It’s not that!”
Dingo smiled started driving.
Moving away from the store of the junkeeper, they headed for the desert. There was nothing around them but sand. Gloomy, Angela asked.
“Where are we going?”
From under the dashboard, Dingo took out a thick brown journal. He opened up the sticking pages and gave it to Angela. There was an attacked copy of a detailed topographic map, many different coordinates and notes were written by hand. Frowning, Angela stared at the map.
“Is this a map?…”
“Never seen such a thing? Well yes, Deva doesn’t have anything hand-written. “
“The map itself is unusual. It would be enough for us to simply put in the desired coordinates and we would know where to go. And it’s also dirty.”
“Well sorry,” Dingo smiled sadly, “First we’ll look for clues in Jed. The route to there is written.”
Angela activated her display and chose a digital map. The message No Connection appeared in red. To determine the location, a communication channel and a connection with Deva was necessary. In offline mode it was useless to get such information. Sighing, she carefully put in the coordinates from Dingo’s journal. The map showed the closest position, checking the journal, she put a mark in it.
“And how far is Jed?”
“Lets me think… Approximately a thousand kilometres to the south.”
“A thousand kilometres. Hmm.”
In Deva, a thing like distance was not particularly used, so that she didn’t immediately understand how much this is. Angela looked at the speedometer and made the calculations and her face fell.
“A thousand kilometres? You said&nb
sp;a thousand kilometres? Right?”
“You’re funny, yes I said a thousand.”
“But you’re joking right? Why do we need to go to such a remote city?”
“Are you going to look for him under every rock? We can only find information in a city.”
“But why so far? Aren’t there closer cities?”
“Yeah. This was told in advance.”
“You exchange information in the range of the network. And new search zones will also be network. All of this will probably become known to Pioneer. If so, he certainly won’t stay in those places. As well as where you landed. He is very cautious. We will work by the process of elimination, and will first check the cities that the security system agents didn’t reach. It’s going to be difficult.”
Angela leaned on her elbows, she thought of how reasonable his arguments were. It was hard, however, for the execution of this plan, too much precious time was required. But she couldn’t think of a better plan so reluctantly, she accepted it.
“We must have patience. In a hunt, the loser is always the one who is in a rush. It doesn’t matter if you’re the prey or the hunter.”
The land rover was driving on a road that may have been better before. Angela admired the scenery through the car window. For the first time she was interested, but there was nothing around her, except for rocks and dried gra.s.s, the unchanging landscape drove her into anguish. The car stank of old oil and rubber, the chair was hard, and there was that dust everywhere. If she were in Deva she could have easily changed this tedious landscape, and could get rid of the feeling of discomfort by adjusting the texture sensitivity. But here all of this was impossible and there was no end to this inconvenience. She wanted to quickly finish this mission and return home.
The sun had set and darkness fell. Except for the part that was lighted by the headlights, the road wasn’t visible. Dingo turned the wheel and stopped at the side of the road.
“What are you doing?” Asked Angela surprised.
“It’s late, we’ll spend the time here.”
“Wait a minute!”
“Mm?”
“What will you do without sleep?”
“Well go to sleep, I will drive for now.”
Angela moved to the driver’s seat.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep?”
“There was nothing that I ever did, after which I needed rest.”
“I see. And can you steer? Do you need a manual?”
Angela scanned the whole panel.
“Do not hold me for an idiot. I can easily manage such a primitive machine. Just point out the direction.”
“Okay. Go strictly to the west. In about 40 kilometres there will be a dried up valley, go along it to the south. At dawn I’ll replace you. Even if you get lost, don’t use the navigator.”
“Clear. No connection with the satellite. Do as you say.”
“Well done, for understanding everything.”
From the windshield, Dingo saw several “falling stars” in the night sky. The security system agents were entering the atmosphere.
“And here are your colleagues. A little earlier than was expected.”
“They realized that I left early, and finally arrived.”
“Oh how difficult it is, to work in Deva.”
Angela wondered if Kristine was there. How she would be rushing in vexation. A smile almost blossomed on her face, but she was able to restrain herself. After such a delay, catching up. Even for Kristine this was difficult. Hastily, she started the engine, turned on the headlights and pressed on the gas pedal.