Resident Evil_ Extinction - Keith R. A. DeCandido [61]
“This is the last of it, and that includes what I scavenged here, which can be found on the empty shelf back there.”
“There wasn’t anything?”
Otto shook his head. “The cupboard was, as they say, bare. Come Wednesday, we’re fucked.”
Claire frowned. “I thought today was Wednesday.”
“I thought it was Monday.” Otto shrugged. “It’s one of the ones that ends in a Y.”
“Hardy har har.” Claire sighed and held up the open can. “Thanks for this.”
“No problemo, boss.”
Peering around, Claire saw that one of the cooking fires was next to the news truck. Mikey was probably in there with the radio. A can was sitting on the cooking fire, smoke rising at a great rate. Claire took it off—it was Spam, and it was starting to burn—and put her own can of soup there.
Climbing into the news truck—which Lyndon had repurposed to be a communications center before he died—she saw Michael Faerber, wearing his usual white button-down shirt and thick plastic glasses. He held a headphone earpiece to one ear and spoke into a small microphone. “This is Claire Redfield’s convoy, present location the Desert Trail Motel. Latitude 35, longitude 115. Calling any survivors. Repeat, this is Claire Redfield’s convoy. Our present location is the Desert—”
At Claire’s approach, he whirled around, scared at first, then breaking into a goofy grin at the sight of Claire. “Oh, uh, hi.”
She handed him his Spam. “You almost burned this.”
“Fuck, I forgot.” He blushed. “Pardon my French.”
Claire tried not to roll her eyes. “I really don’t give a fuck how you talk, Mikey. The perimeter up yet?”
Mikey nodded. “Almost done.”
“Who’s out there?”
“Olivera.”
She pictured Carlos on the quad bike that they’d liberated from Irwin, along with the sentinels. Cobbled together by Carlos, Mikey, and the now-deceased Lyndon and Emma from equipment both in this truck and taken from Irwin, the sentinels were four-foot metal poles with a bundle of electronics on top, including motion sensors, infrared video, and a battery pack that enabled each sentinel to survive for three days. The batteries were recharged each morning by the 8x8’s battery, a method that was useful only as long as they had fuel.
“Give me that.” Claire held out her hand, and Mikey handed her the radio mic and the headset. “Hey, Carlos.”
Carlos replied a second later, the motor of the quad bike purring in the background. “Claire.”
“All that smoking’s been slowing you down. Get your ass in gear, old man. I want my perimeter up.”
“Always a pleasure, Claire.” Carlos’s wry smile was clearly audible.
Chuckling, Claire handed the mic and headset back to Mikey.
“So you were a motivational speaker before?” Mikey asked. “If not, you should’ve been. Mighta gotten me out of my shit job. Pardon my French.”
Before Claire could, for the nine-hundredth time, tell Mikey that she didn’t give a shit about language, the screens in front of Mikey lit up with the green-tinged images from the infrared cameras on the sentinels. Mostly they just showed images of the desert. A few showed what few buildings hadn’t been covered over in sand.
Mikey checked over everything. “Last sentinel in place. Perimeter up and running. All motion sensors online. Cameras one hundred percent.” He looked up at Claire. “We’re secure.”
“Good. Enjoy your Spam.”
Claire went back outside the truck and liberated her can of soup from the cooking fire just as Carlos pulled up on the quad bike.
As he shut the ignition off, he indicated the truck with a nod of his head. “Any luck?”
Mikey’s voice could be heard from inside, once again giving their coordinates and hoping someone would answer.
“No,” Claire replied with a shake of her head. “And this place is dead. No food, no gas, nothing.”
“How much farther can we go?”
She shrugged. “Maybe two more days. I don’t know what to do.”
Carlos put a hand on her shoulder. “We keep fighting. No matter what happens, we do not give up. That’s what we do.”
Claire looked up into