Another day, Zod makes a lot of progress, and Semprini comes up again.
–Chapters 15 and 16
Passing the ring road, which was narrow and not very well kept, Zod found a section of road that looked like it was in the middle of a repair job. That meant the Thwackers might be nearby, and might even be able to help them. They stopped and listened for the sound of machinery.
There was indeed the low hum of a petrol engine coming from the general area of the ring road. Zod followed the sound quietly as possible, until they reached a clearing just off the road. The generator stood in the middle, surrounded by four or five Thwackers getting recharged.
–Chapter 15–
Zod backtracked to the ring road and followed it until they found the actual entrance to the clearing. Then they opted to enter the area making a normal amount of noise so as to not startle anyone.
“Hello,” said Zod, “I’m a dam thwacker and am running late getting back. I heard there’s a shortcut trail nearby and was hoping you could help.”
“’Lo,” one of them replied. I’m Toll, but didn’t get your name.”
“Sorry, I’m Zod. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“You are pretty far from home, Zod.” Toll said questioningly. “What brings you out this far?”
“A friend of mine has gone missing, and I thought maybe he went up this way. I wasn’t able to find him in town. He’s been gone for a little while and the trail, as it were, has gone cold.”
_“Who’s your friend, then. Maybe we can point you in the right direction, but it depend.”
“Desil.” Zod replied. “I think the other end of the trail is by his garage. Last anyone heard they were out buying [SEMPRINI] ~ whatever that is ~ a week or so ago.”
“Hmm..” said Toll, “maybe we can help but you’ll never get anywhere at this hour, even with night vision. There’s an extra power port if you’re hungry.”
In truth, Zod was a little hungry. They hadn’t charged since the previous night and preferred to be topped off whenever possible just in case. They plugged in and switched into sentry mode since they were in an unknown environment with unknown sentients.
–Chapter 16–
Zod powered back up at first light, feeling re-energized. Several of the road team were coming online as well, but it would be a little while before their shift started. They looked around hoping for hope that they’ll get the assistance they need.
Toll finally came around. “Okay Zod, we’ve decided to help you, but only because we like Desil. They fix us up better than the garage ever thought.”
“Same here.” responded Zod, “I came looking for them because I need a repair that would be embarrassing, to say the least, on the job site.” Zod also realized that they were talking to the job supervisor.
“Well I won’t ask then. Do you have any clue?”
Only that it has to do with whatever [SEMPRINI] is. It keeps popping up but I haven’t found a clue to it’s purpose,” Zod said.
“As yes, I’ve heard of it too, but same as you, just in passing,” Toll replied. “Anyway let’s go find that trail. We know roughly where it is, but we’ve never seen anyone come out that way.”
The small group of them engaged their drive gears and rumbled back to North Road.
“By the way,” Toll noted, “don’t mention this to the other team members. Most of them are new and we don’t trust them”.
“Got it,” Zod responded.
“This really is a nice road,” Zod remarked “I wish Dam Avenue were as nice as this. Particularly the heavy equipment keeps us busy to just keep it passable.”
“See if you can put in a request. We have some newer technologies we’d love to play with. I mean it’s what we do.”
“I’d love that,” Zod said.
Then they were at mile marker one, which is one mile from North Gate, and roughly half the maintained road. It seemed like a good place to start casting around. Again the promises that didn’t pan out, but they had a fair bit of ground to cover still.
Another half a mile down, it looked like they found it. A small indentation in the brush which on inspection was a path maybe the width of a thwacker at best. With profuse thanks and well wishes from both sides, Zod pressed into the brush and started along.
It was slow going. The ground was uneven and the shrubbery scraped at their carriage. But eventually the shrubbery turned into forest floor foliage. The ground was still caked with roots but being able to see ahead helped.
After an hour or so the forest base started to turn into shrubbery again and Zod had to slow down once more. Finally it thankfully opened up to the clearing around Desil’s garage. Thankfully, because there may well have different paths to different locations. The woods were not well mapped because nobody really cared to wander off the thwacked paths