General Lee's Revenge--Knightmares

Chapter Five: The Way the Cookie Crumbles

(⚠TRIGGER WARNING⚠)

General rumbled wearily, turning to the corner of the room where Tank sat. What was once an air filled with witty comebacks was now replaced by the silence of anger.

"I've been meanin' to ask you, Tank, you pulled some pretty fancy moves on Rig there. Almost like you had Thunder's powers," General said.

Tank was quiet for a moment before he replied, "Acid figured out how to knock out Defects with a taser, then mounted it on me. As of right now, though, it's only good for one shot before it has to be recharged. You see, it packs just enough voltage to kill a man, yet enough to knock a Defect on his ass."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you need somethin' like that?"

"Acid recycles spare parts from dumped vehicles to manufacture new technology. Sometimes a Defect or two gets added to the batch."

"So you kill them?"

"We strip them of any valuable parts, then we sell them."

General paused, looking at him in disbelief. The storage shed grew quiet, neither of them speaking. Tank's headlights flickered as he turned towards the door.

"They're lookin' for you," he rumbled.

"Oh yeah, and who's that?" General asked snarkily.

Tank turned back to look at him. "Your friends."

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"You guys have any luck?" Cooter asked.

The warm, morning sun peeked over the horizon, casting long shadows across the ground. A light breeze caused the branches of trees to sway, rustling their leaves ever so slightly. The distant cawing of a crow echoed over the lot, along with the skitter of plastic and the crumple of a newspaper.

Bo lay on the hood of Cooter's truck, one arm draped over his face. Luke stood leaning against the rusted payphone, the one with at least three different flavors of gum stuck to the bottom of the coin tray. Grime coated it in a thin layer, however--to his surprise--the phone still worked.

After giving whatever spare change he'd had to Autumn, he and Bo had had to root through the glovebox and pull back the seat of the truck to come up with some thirty-eight cents.

"We talked to Autumn, figured out what little we could about Acid. Turns out they've got warehouses all over Savannah, but I think we've got it narrowed down to the port," Luke explained, rubbing off some of the dust on the payphone with his thumb.

"Sounds about right, that's what KITT's people said. They headed out about ten minutes ago. Where y'all at right now?"

"We're at a truckstop just south of the fairgrounds, I reckon we still got roughly a two-hour drive to Savannah."

"More like three in that ol' beater. Look, y'all just wait there, I'mma send Rosco up with KITT cause I know damn well Jesse'd tan my hide if y'all went in without backup."

"And he'd tan ours too if we made it back alive. Appreciate it, Cooter."

"Keep 'er 'tween the ditches."

That said, Luke hung up the phone and started walking back towards the truck. As he did, Bo sat up and climbed down off the hood.

"Just got off the phone with Cooter, KITT and Rosco are gonna meet us here in roughly half an hour, should give us some time."