Chapter 8

After searching the immediate area for any other dangers, Pedro helped Anna make breakfast. I got the drone working again, and sent it up high. I saw the walls really were gone. Far in the distance, I saw a red light blink briefly, then a green one. I estimated the distance as five or six kilometers. I thought Pedro and I could easily make it there by noon, if we didn’t run into any more snake monsters. If all of us went, the kid and old lady would slow us down a lot.

As we ate breakfast, I filled in the rest of our little tribe. “I saw blinking lights in that direction, and it doesn’t look like there’s anything dangerous on the way there. I don’t know if we should split up, but if we do, Pedro and I should be able to make it there and back well before dark. What do you think?”

The little girl sat up and held her nose. “I think you should wash! You stink!”

I laughed. “I think you’re right!”

Pedro said, “There’s a lake over that way, it’s not far.”

“I saw it with the drone before. Anna, here’s a radio. I’ll set it to channel ten. If anything happens, push the talk button and give us a yell.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

Pedro and I walked the few hundred meters to the lake. We put the radio and our weapons down, took our boots off, then jumped in the water with our clothes on. It was a little chilly, but being clean was more than worth it. I pulled my pants off under the water to empty them, then put them on. I took off my jacket too, and washed alien parts out of my bra.

Pedro stared at the way my t-shirt clung to my bra and chest as I stood up in the shallow water. I smiled and asked, “Do you have a wife? Anybody back at home?”

“No. Do you?”

I felt myself start to blush as I said, “No. Maybe when we find a real shower, I could wash your back?”

“Uh ... sure.” He was grinning from ear to ear.

We put our boots back on, then picked up our weapons. I caught him glancing at my chest and butt a few times on the way back to camp. By the time we got there, Anna had made herself a crutch from an old tree branch. We decided that it would be safer to travel together instead of splitting up. Pedro and I took turns helping Anna, and Sam helped his granddaughter.

The terrain we encountered on the way was surprisingly varied. We went from a desert to a rocky valley, a forested hilltop, a muddy hillside, a shallow swamp, and then a flat rocky plain; all in within three or four miles.

As we got closer, we could see the blinking lights were above a triangular piece of metal sticking out of a smooth wall of granite. The triangle was two meters high and nearly two meters wide at the bottom. Bolts with oddly shaped heads protruded from each corner. One was a triangle, another was a pentagon, and the third was seven-sided.