The Flawed Test

Chapter 15

      Before we left, we took a small trip to a superstore in town. Leo had finally convinced us that we needed to buy a few things before infiltrating a high-security facility. And after thinking over that, I'd say he's right. 

      "We'll need twelve Etcha-Sketches, two packs of sparklers, some steel wool pads, and four pairs of binoculars. Oh! We'll also need two Super Soakers, two coat hangers, if they're sold here? A full tank of gasoline, and three Zippo lighters from the checkout line." Tyler said, scarily from memory.

      "What the heck do those items have to do with each other?" Eliana asked, raising an eyebrow.

      "Do you wanna know?" Tyler asked.

      "Yeah." Eliana said, flatly.

      "Do you really wanna know?" Tyler asked again.

      "Yes!" Eliana and I yelled.

      "Well the Etcha-Sketches and sparklers are for Thermite, in case there are any locked doors that we can't seem to pick. The rest.... maybe you don't wanna hear it..." Tyler listed off.

      "Just tell us already, Tyler!" I yelled.

     "The rest is for handheld flamethrowers. I figured since Jess can only mainly heal others and heal herself, she'd need a mode of attack. This way, she can double fist flamethrowers and be fine. That, or Eliana can get a ranged attack and Jess can have one.

     "Normally, I would get offended at that, but since I get to use flamethrowers, I don't care." Jess said bluntly. The superstore surprisingly had everything that Tyler requested. We paid for everything with the rest of the money we had kept for 'laying low' and then left.

     As soon as Tyler got out of the store and around the corner, he grabbed one of the Etcha-Sketches and just started bashing it repeatedly against the sidewalk.

     "What the heck are you doing?" Jess asked.

      "What does it look like I'm doing?" Tyler responded.

      "It looks like you're destroying all of my good childhood memories." I commented.

      "Well, that's not what I'm doing, purposefully. I'm actually trying to crack open the Etcha-Sketch to remove the aluminium from it. Once the aluminum is out of the Etcha-Sketch and we need to unlock a door, boom! We can mix the steel wool pads with the powdered aluminum with just the right proportions, then light a sparkler with the spare Zippo I got, and before you know it, we're melting through a lock!" Tyler instructed, as he bashed open the poor Etcha-Sketch.

     "Aaaand how quick will you have the flamethrowers done in?" Jess asked, impatiently tapping her foot.

     "Well, since they're makeshifts, you'll need to manually turn on the lighter at the end of the coat hanger, which is a minor inconvenience, but they'll be done easily before we get to the Facility." Tyler explained.

     'Tyler, how did you about all of this? I thought you were...' Leo trailed off.

     "Not the sharpest tool in the shed?" Tyler finished. "Sorta. But this is my thing right here. Building illegal weapons and all."

...

 So there we were. Me, Leo, Eliana, and Tyler, riding in a stolen car, across the wilderness. We stole a buggy from the store so we could follow my phones GPS coordinates to the Secondary Facility. That's when we saw the edge of the dunes. You'd think it'd go from grassy, and then gradually go to sand, right? Wrong. It goes from grass, and then there is a distinct line between the grassy plant life and the desolate, dry sand. 

     "Great. We're in the dunes! Only about 1,000 or so miles to go." Eliana said sarcastically.

     'What is it they say these days? Oh yeah. Look ma! No hands!" Leo said, taking his hands off of the steering wheel, but driving it with his mind.

     "Leo, stop! I don't wanna crash!" I warned.

     "Kale, there's nothing to crash into." Tyler said, flatly. "Its the desert of all deserts. You know how 'Sahara' means desert, and people call it the Sahara Desert, which really just means 'Desert Desert'? Well this is the literal definition of Desert Desert."

     "Wow, Tyler, that sounded pretty complicated for your brain." Eliana said.

     "Aw, shut up. Leo, how fast are we going?" Tyler changed the subject.

     '70 miles an hour.' Leo reported.

     "How fast can we safely drive on this terrain?" Tyler asked.

      'About 85.' Leo responded.

     "Then why are we not going 85?" Tyler asked.

     'Because, one, if we hit a pot hole or a ditch at that speed, this buggy's flipping. Secondly, if we go 85 miles per hour, we'll reach the Facility in about... 11 ish hours, and going 70, it'll be about 14 ish, so it doesn't make that much of a difference.' Leo calculated. After they started arguing, I decided to pass the time by tuning them out and counting the number of cacti I saw pass the buggy. After this got boring, (not very long), I just decided to do what the rest of the car was doing, excluding Leo. Sleeping. I kicked back in the backseat of the buggy and relaxed. Even though the terrain was bumpy, I managed to drift off to sleep quickly.