4.

It took a couple of tries, but the two girls managed to get the sacks up the ladder. Then they managed to get them down the mountainside. No one broke their neck, so Miloh considered it a victory. The cave systems in the Watering-Hole were all located in the mountain, and therefore, not the ideal spot to drag heavy materials to and from, but safety came before convenience.

Miloh was grateful that they had left the steel behind in the car. Ordinarily, they would have hauled it up the mountain to barter it for supplies, but circumstances had changed for them when Al had claimed the steel for her newest fortifications of the Mustang. The steel would be useful. Miloh would try to help, but considering her less than abundant knowledge on cars and their various functioning parts, it was safe to say that she wouldn’t be doing any of the more intricate work.

The sun was starting to kiss the flat plains of the horizon by the time they arrived home.

For a long time after the night when everything had gone to hell five years ago, there had been nothing for either girl to call her own. Nothing permanent enough, or worth holding on to. Al and Miloh only met after the world already went to hell, but they had had that in common at the very least.

In their early days, when every interaction was still a gamble forced by undue circumstance and the need to survive, Miloh had found a junkyard. In an era when machines were the enemy, this had turned out to be their saving grace for the next half a decade. Other people’s garbage were the treasures that Al spun into the Mustang.

It started with the husk of what once was an older Ford. By the time they had found it, little was salvageable beyond the basic framework, though that hadn’t mattered to Al. That sort of thing never did. As long as there was something, anything, to work with, she was all good. She claimed to like the challenge, and the junkyard soon became their place of residence as Al worked on her project. Miloh ended up doing most of the scavenging for parts while she rebuilt the car from the ground up.

It was not hard to hide from unfriendly machinery, the killer kind, among all of the piled up junk in the yard. They tended to avoid the area anyways. Other, non-semi-sentient machinery made them nervous, mostly because it provided an opportunity for survivors to actually pose a threat when they inevitably repurposed the machinery.

The risk had been worth it. The girls knew that they needed a vehicle in order to survive, to move fast across the country when the need inevitably arose, and that posed the perfect opportunity.

Two months had gone by before Al completed the final touches on the car. Even if Miloh knew little about mechanics, she admitted that she would always be impressed by the end result of Al’s efforts. It had the lingering silhouette of a Mustang but was so patched together with other machine components that it was hard to tell. Honestly, Miloh was unable to explain the bare bones of what Al had done to the car in order to make it not only function but do it well. An explanation was given to her in snippets as progress advanced, but the jargon and technical explanation went hurtling over her head. It never helped that Al spoke rapidly when enthusiastic about the topic.

Miloh tried to understand and failed miserably, but that was alright with her. As long as one of them understood, that was all it took.

“Besides,” she thought at the time, “maybe understanding would rub off on me the more I come in contact with the creation and the creator.”

And to an extent, it had. Miloh could do quick repairs and the minor oil change, but more complicated procedures were out of her skill range still.

The Mustang was built with this first in mind: the need for speed. The second item on Al’s agenda of creation was durability. After that, it had been a toss-up between supply space and changes to the vehicle's fuel consumption. Attack capability had been dead last.

It was never Al’s intention to create something that could go toe to toe with bad tech gone wild. The yard didn’t have the resources for a big-scale project like that. Al had installed a larger EMP device that could scramble some robotic brains when needed though.

It had seats in the front and a plethora of space in the back. It was more than enough for their meager possessions, and then to later store the supplies, the girls picked up as time went on. Living out of the car wasn’t unpleasant after Miloh fixed the interior up with some cloth and leather they were lucky to find in the next town over from the yard. That car was the closest thing to home they could build for themselves and grew to love it dearly.

That solid and unyielding body of metal saved their lives time and time again, and she had Al to thank for it. 

“Oh thank god. I think I’m going to pass out.” Miloh was utterly exhausted, and her relief was mirrored by Al when they arrived. The car was hidden in a copse of trees that settled along the cliffside of the mountain, shielding the entrance to a small cave. In order to hide the exact whereabouts of the Ant Farm (as the underground series of tunnels had been named), any and all third-party campsites were to remain outside a certain radius to the main entrance. Not long after first arriving, the area of trees became the usual campsite for the Mustang. It was a sheltered area where machines would be hard-pressed to go, and, more importantly, Al and Miloh could not get flanked by an incoming ambush. When making their way into the Farm, all Miloh and Al needed to do was secure their faded tarp over its bulk, and lo and behold, it was virtually unnoticeable from afar.

The cave was another advantage. It was naturally formed, from what they could tell. A while had passed before the two of them had managed to clear out all the loose rocks and clean away the lingering grunge of forest life.

The first night there, an unsuspecting deer had leaped through the undergrowth located around the entrance, right in front of them. The moon’s glow illuminated his curious eyes and soft fur with an almost ethereal beauty.

Miloh’s clean shot with her crossbow brought it down, and that night they had had a fresh meal for a fresh start.

Dropping their individual loads, Al and Miloh uncovered the car.

“We just need to put this stuff away, and then we can rest,” Al said. If it was up to Miloh, they would’ve just dragged the parts into the cave and been done with it. Like she mentioned before, it wasn’t unpleasant living out of the Mustang, but having the extra room to sprawl out was much-appreciated after a long day of scavenging. Al, ever the voice of reason never liked to keep anything too weighty or valuable in their hidey-hole. After cleaning out the cave, they had hung a grey tarp in front of the entrance as an extra precaution. Still, it was important that they always keep on their toes, ready grab their stuff and pack it into the car at the first sign of trouble. It was logical, but Miloh was too tired to care about reason too much at this point.

“C’mon, Al! Let’s just dump it at the entrance and sleep.” Drawing out the last word, the suggestion wasn’t made with much seriousness and was more aimed towards the purpose of Miloh wanting to voice her complaints in a therapeutic fashion. Al, well-aware of that fact, didn’t bother replying before dumping the contents of the sack on the ground. She sat down and started sorting through the parts Miloh had picked up. The other girl sat down on the other side of the metal pile and started doing the same, but not before voicing her displeasure with a couple of sighs and groans.

As they sorted, Miloh’s heart sank. A lot of the stuff she shoved into the sack was nearly useless, with only a couple of parts looking usable.

Al was less than amused with their haul. “Okay, enlighten me. Why the hell did you pick up a headlight?” She held up the offending piece of scrap, and Miloh shrugged, “...It looked useful?”

“You mean, you recognized what it was.”

“It’s not my fault that car parts are all so complicated!”

Al rolled her eyes and leaned back, tossing the headlight into the trunk.

“Looks like it’s still in one piece just about at least. I’ll see if the bulb is still salvageable. Our flashlights are bound to die any day now, so it’d be nice to have a backup.”

At her reply, Miloh grinned and teased, “So, you mean that it actually was useful-” Al flicked her on her forehead before the rest of the sentence could be finished.

“The fact remains that most of this stuff is scrap metal at best!”

“... Well, I mean, we could have done worse?”

“Is that a question?”

“Only if that is also a question.”

Al huffed and gathered the scrap metal back into the sack. Miloh hefted herself up and slid a sturdy cardboard box out of the back of the Chariot. Setting it on the ground, she opened it and dropped in the headlight and other usable parts. This particular box held the various car pieces Al was planning on using later. She then put the box back in its place in the trunk.

Miloh held out her hand to Al and said, “Now that that’s over with, how ‘bout I get dinner going?” Al gratefully accepted the proffered hand and got to her feet.

“Sounds like a plan. I’m going to take stock of what supplies we have.” She picked up her duffle bag and dusted it off. It made little difference. Though the material had once been a soft gray color, but Al was a mechanic who used the bag often. This meant that by then it was not only scuffed and ragged, but the bag was also stained with enough grease and motor oil to have turned the majority of it dark. Miloh’s was forest green and she was proud that even if it was worn down, the color was still blatantly discernible.

After dusting the bag off, Al tossed Miloh her own and continued, “Holler when you’re done, will you?” Without waiting for a reply, she stepped back and around to the driver’s side door and crawled into the front seat. It never ceased to amaze Miloh how much of a one-track mind she possessed. Al never half-assed things. She got stuff done but also had the tendency to burn herself out without realizing it.

Miloh bent down and slung the two jugs of water back over her shoulders and went to the cave. Reaching up, she brushed aside the tarp and stepped inside. She was plunged into darkness as the tarp fell back into place. It was a small cave with few possessions inside so it took only a little fumbling around before Miloh was able to locate the electric lantern and flip it on. Warm, but artificial, light filled the cave, and she let the water and bag slip to the floor. Miloh breathed in the earthy scent of the cave and allowed her body to relax and lose some of the tension it had been carrying. She’d miss this place when they finally left.

Miloh moved the water jugs next to the food supply they kept stashed in a plastic bin near the sidewall and tossed her bag onto the pile of sheepskins close by. They didn’t keep much in the den, just the essentials and then-- more recently-- some maps she had picked up out of fascination that they were still fully intact. They were located in what was once called Oregon, in one of the mountains that made up the Cascade Range. Their exact location was unknown, but from what Miloh and Al had been able to figure, they were no more than 20 miles North of Crater Lake. Al didn’t see why it mattered exactly where in Oregon they were, but Miloh like knowing all the same.

She knelt and popped open the top of the bin where they kept food and began to prepare dinner for the night.