Without Law 18 Eric Vall (reading well TXT) 📖

commissary,” Bailey reminded us.

“Right.” I agreed. “That’s usually somewhere toward the middle of the base. Paige, does your map show you the roads inside the base?”

“Only the main ones,” the brunette said.

“Shit,” Anna breathed, and she turned to me. “Should we split up?”

I thought about her question. Splitting up wasn’t a bad idea when we needed to locate something quickly, however, one of the groups wouldn’t have a vehicle, and we only had one walkie on us as well. That meant that whenever someone did find the weapons, they’d have no way of reaching the other team.

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s better to stay together. That way we don’t have to worry about finding each other.”

“Right,” the redhead said, and she let out a low breath, rolled down the window, and looked around.

“I’m going to head down this main road,” I said. “Everybody keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything you think might be what we’re looking for.”

“I’m sure we’ll find these skyscrapers quickly,” Tara said as she peered out the window seriously.

“Skysweeper,” Paige corrected.

“Sky something,” Tara said with an eye roll. “Whatever. The big gun things, I’m sure we can find them. I mean, they’re huge, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re not bigger than the buildings,” Anna chuckled. “We still have to find them, wherever they’re at.”

“How much longer do we have now?” Bailey asked.

“I’d say about four hours,” Paige said, and she bit her lip. “Maybe four hours and fifteen minutes?”

“Shit,” Tara sighed.

“That seems like barely anything.” Bailey frowned.

“It is.” Anna nodded. “At least it’s barely anything when you consider we still need to blow the bridge by the attack point, make sure all the other roads are blocked off, and help set up some barricades for our group to hide behind during the attack.”

“Yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds like we won’t even make it,” Bailey said.

“We got this,” Paige said confidently. “We’ve managed to do a lot in just a few hours before. We can do this, too.”

“What have we done in four hours that would’ve taken days?” Anna asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I--” Paige held up a finger, then stopped, bit her lip, and thought for a second before lifting her finger again with a smile. “I don’t know.”

“That’s your response?” the redhead laughed.

“Right?” Tara chuckled. “I thought she had something at least.”

“Nope, couldn’t think of anything,” Paige said. “But I still have confidence in us.”

“Paige is right.” Bailey smiled. “We’re capable of whatever we put our minds to.”

“Right now our minds need to be looking for gigantic 1800’s weapons,” Tara said dryly.

“Right.” Bailey bit her lip and focused out the window.

“1950’s,” Paige muttered under her breath.

“Whatev,” Tara said with an eye roll.

The girls were quiet as I drove as quickly around the base as I possibly could without going so fast that we wouldn’t be able to look around. I felt like we were crawling after how fast I’d gone the entire way there, but when I looked at the speedometer I saw we were still going almost thirty. Granted, that wasn’t fast, but we were on residential and arterial roads for the most part, and with all the random curves and roundabouts, I couldn’t go much faster.

“Where the fuck is this commissary?” Anna asked.

“What is a commissary?” Bailey asked. “It might help if I knew what I was looking for.”

“It’s like a warehouse kind of thing,” Tara explained.

“How do you know that?” Anna asked.

“I told you, my dad had military friends.” The platinum-blonde shrugged. “I’ve been on base a couple of times.”

“How is this the first time we’ve heard this?” Paige asked with a laugh.

“I don’t know,” Tara said. “I guess it never came up.”

“Hey!” Bailey called. “Is that it over there?”

I followed Bailey’s finger to the right and saw the sign for the commissary. I didn’t see the weapons, but I figured if we had found the commissary, we were getting closer.

I pulled into the parking lot of the commissary and drove around slowly. There were a few vehicles parked out front, and like the rest of Norfolk, the parking lot was covered in garbage and debris, but after a moment I spotted something.

There was a field to the right of the commissary, and as I drove toward it I saw the two Skysweepers inside of a large gazebo.

“Fuck, yeah.” Anna turned and grinned at me.

“Those are them?” Tara asked. “They’re not as big as I was expecting.”

“That’s probably good for us,” Paige said. “It’ll make them easier to haul.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“Now we just need to see if they work,” Tara said.

Tara was right, if the Skysweepers didn’t function properly, then we’d just wasted an hour of precious time we could have used for something else. They needed to work. They had to.

I pulled the jeep up next to the field with the gazebo, parked it, and hopped out.

“How are we going to get them hooked up?” Anna asked. “They look heavy as hell.”

“We need to make sure they’re working first,” I said.

“Good point,” the redhead replied.

I led the girls across the grass, and I was surprised with how green it was considering all the garbage and debris around.

The gazebo was concrete painted a beige color, and it was more functional than it was pretty. The piece looked like it was built just to keep the rain off of the old machinery.

It looked like it had done a pretty good job, though. I didn’t see any major rust spots as we approached the Skysweepers.

The guns were huge, at least ten feet long, not including the barrels, and the base part was five feet tall. They sat on top of a trailer