Elsewhere on the salt pan, a striking-looking woman is imprisoned behind the same laser fence.
She stands alone next to one of the steel towers, her quad bike parked nearby—its engine idles. Her blue prison uniform is identified by the European flag and the number seventy-eight.
Locked around her neck is the same lethal steel collar, but on her it looks like expensive contemporary jewelry.
Her uniform has been fashionably torn off at her upper thighs and shoulders, exposing a lot of tanned and toned flesh. Her blonde ponytail drifts down her athletic, muscular back.
A magazine cartridge belt wraps tightly around her small waist. Two pistols are strapped to her outer thighs. Slung across her back, she carries an M16. Her army chic style would not look out of place on the catwalks of Milan.
She examines the complex Q-Switch's electronics within the transformer's metal box. The transformer is identical to the one the Americans have just discovered.
She closes the box's cover, then using her fingertip, she writes something onto its dusty surface.
Finished, she steps back and admires her handiwork, then reads it back to herself. "Lola will win."
Lola jumps onto her quad and speeds away, leaving the laser fence behind her.
***
At the European container, the nine remaining team members stand in a rough semicircle.
One of the group, an Englishman, busies himself by scrunching up a small blanket into a ball shape.
"Not long to go, boys," the Englishman says. He wraps some duct tape around the bundle.
"Shouldn't we be doing something more constructive?" the Irishman asks.
"I'm constructing, so I am doing! Unlike you, who is merely watching and not constructing—you are stagnant."
"Don't you mean static?"
"I know what I mean."
"And I meant constructive, not constructing—I feel we should maybe be doing something more positive?"
"Listen here, Irish." The Englishman holds up the makeshift soccer ball he has just created. "What's this?"
"It's a ball—I think."
"Wrong. It's morale, that's what it is—a morale booster." The Englishman flips the ball up into the air and boots it along the ground. It bounces off a blue Humvee and lands near the Europeans' cash-laden blue case.
"What if you don't like football?" the Irishman asks.
"Then you're probably gay."
"I see."
"Rightio." The Englishman retrieves the ball. "I'll obviously be England, and Herman the German here"—he points to a tall, thin man—"will captain the mighty Deutschland."
The German man holds up his hand.
"What?" the Englishman asks.
"My name is not Herman. It is Engelbrecht."
"Of course it is, Herman. So we play four aside. The Finn here"—he points to a rotund Finnish woman—"can be ref."
"I can be referee. I am good referee. Why you make her referee?" the Italian asks.
"She woman from Finlando—perfecto refereeo geezeo. Comprehendo?" the Englishman explains.
The Irishman looks at the ball. "It's not exactly FIFA World Cup standard, is it?"
