Zed and Psy drive through the wastelands until the ruins of their hometown disappear from the horizon. Zed chuckles nervously. “Well no turning back now”, said Zed. Psy looks at Zed from the passenger seat of the hover car and grunts in response. Zed chuckles again at his quiet brother as they continue to drive through the hot and dry wastelands.

Hours go by as the intense desert sun beat down on the two inexperienced adventurers who are not even sure where they are going. Zed’s tongue hangs from his mouth from lack of hydration, while a barely sweating Psy shows no concern for the heat. After what feels like a dry, waterless eternity an image begins to appear from the horizon ahead. The image blurs and waves in the heated air. Zed peers over the steering wheel through the front window of the junky hover car. The image began to come into focus, showing large buildings protruding from the live less landscape.

“Finally!” shouted Zed. “A sign of civilization!” Through the sounds of an excited Zed’s shouts the hover car begins making loud clanging noises. Zed quickly stops his excitement and his face froze into a poker-faced type smile. The hover car begins to vibrate and shake, leaving a trail of parts behind it. Psy looks up toward his poker faced brother with a shaky eye brow raised. Zed sweats a sweat not entirely just from the heat as he turns toward the not so shocked Psy. “Sh-e’ll m-m-m-ake it n-n-n-o-o p-p-pro-bl-” but before Zed could even finish his overconfident sentence the hood of the hover car blows off and flies into the air, followed by a plume of smoke. Zed’s and Psy’s eyes follow as the hood lands behind them. The hover car’s bottom thrusters shut down and it drops to the ground, the momentum causes the vehicle to skid until it completely stops.

Zed and Psy step out of their busted vehicle and meet each other at the front of it, smoke still flowing out from where the hood once was. Psy crosses his arm as he looks at his brother sternly.

“What?” said Zed. “Look our old man built one of these bad boys and guess what? It used to fall apart all the time too! And he fixed her right up every time. He always said I’m a chip off the ol’ block! I’ll have her running again in no time!” Zed said confidently. He closes his eyes, proudly raises his robotic hand into the air and gives the broken hover car a proud, metallic pat. A vibration shakes from the front of the car to back before the two doors of car fall flat to the ground, then the rest of the car completely falls apart. Psy’s face scrunches up, arms still crossed and still looking at his brother. Zed’s robotic hand grabs for his hand-made vehicle to find nothing there. He slowly opens his eyes to look at his disappointed brother. “Ha… ha… ha…?”

Psy sighs and unfolds his arms. He looks over toward the direction of the unknown city. “Looks like we’re walking”, said Psy. Zed’s mouth opens wide and his face turns to despair. Zed falls to his knees and then face first into the dirt.

“It’s too hot! And I’m too thirsty for all that”, Zed mumbles into the ground. “Can’t you bring the city closer to us?” Psy looks down at Zed, his eyes squinting and judging him. Suddenly Psy’s attention is grabbed by something coming toward them rather quickly from the direction of the city.

“You just might have gotten your wish”, Psy said. Zed pulls his face up from the ground to see a jeep fast approaching to them. He brings himself up to his knees as he can make out two figures in the vehicle. As soon as Zed is able to discern this, the jeep is nearly on top of them and slams on the brakes; circling him, Psy and their broke down vehicle. A giant dust cloud is whipped up covering the surrounding area. Zed covers his eyes from the dirt and as it settles he finds the barrel of a hand gun staring him down. The jeep has stopped right in front of him and the passenger holding the gun had one foot outside the door.

It was a male figure wearing camouflage pants secured by a black belt, a dark green sleeveless shirt, and combat boots. His face was covered by large goggles and black a scarf. A severely dehydrated Zed squints at the stranger, not sure what’s going on. Psy reacts by kneeling and spreading his arms out as if to prepare an attack. The goggled stranger looks straight at Zed, then to Psy, and then to the broke down mess of a vehicle. He lowers is gun as well as his scarf revealing his mouth and 5’o clock shadow.

“All clear Mac. Just some strange hatted kid and pasty banged weirdo” the goggled man says to the driver.

“OK” responded the driver. The driver picks up a walkie-talkie and speaks into it. “No signs of Tech. Just a couple of broke down kids.”

“Roger”, a voice statically responds through the walkie. “Come back to Big Shot. Over.”

“Big Shot?” Zed asks quietly. The goggled stranger ignores Zed as he gets back into his jeep. The jeep’s gears shifts as the combat ready men are about to leave. “Wait!” exclaims Zed through dried out lips. The strangers turn their heads toward the boys. “Are you really going to just leave two young boys out in the middle of nowhere as the sun bakes them to crispy hash browns!?” a desperate Zed pleaded. The two strangers look at each other, shrug, and look back at the boys. The goggled one lifts up his thumb and gestures them to hop in the back seat. “Oh thank god”. Zed quickly gets off the ground, grabs his brother, and jumps into the back seat of the jeep. The jeep speeds away from the smoking debris toward the city in the distance.

The jeep arrives at the city within minutes. Zed and Psy stare up at the skyscrapers, their eyes wander down the buildings and observe the twenty foot high wall that encircled the city. The jeep stops in front of a mechanical gate which opened for them. Inside the curious brothers are met by a second wall and gate. The space between the walls had a few average sized windowless buildings that appeared to be made of the same metal as the walls. Every here and there muscular men dressed as though ready for war wandered the area, some carrying guns of all sorts.

The jeep stopped in front of the second gate. “This is where we part ways ya weird kids,” the goggled stranger said. Zed and Psy look at each other and all four of them leave the jeep. The goggled stranger walks up to the metallic gate and knocks on it five times. The gate vibrates and slowly begins to slide open. “Hope you guys last long enough to get yourselves put together”. Zed looks at the goggled stranger with a puzzled look on his face.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Zed as he and Psy begin walking into the city. The two strangers stayed behind the gate.

“Oh, you’ll see,” The goggled stranger said as the gate begins to close separating the brothers from their unknown saviors.