Chapter 236: Chained Shut From The Outside

Zeyu stopped before the road carried them any closer to the truck.

The man from the hotel was still pointing toward the mobile base, speaking quickly to the driver, but the driver had stopped listening. He held the rifle across his chest and looked up the slope at them.

There were two other men in the truck bed.

One rose from behind the cab while the other stayed seated, his arm hanging over the side. Zeyu could see sacks beneath their feet and a coil of rope caught around a broken board.

"Everyone stay back from the windshield," Hanchuan said. He moved toward the front while Jingwei checked the side window. "Zeyu, can you reverse out of sight?"

"The bend is just behind us," Zeyu replied, looking at the rear display. He put the vehicle into reverse, unwilling to wait for the man below to decide what he wanted. "I can get us behind the bank."

The driver raised his rifle before Zeyu finished speaking.

A shot struck the road near the front of the vehicle, throwing dust against the bumper.

Zeyu flinched but kept moving, watching the trailer follow the curve on the screen. He heard Hanchuan tell the others to stay low, followed by the scrape of Jingwei moving into position.

Another shot hit the front of the mobile base.

Zeyu felt the impact through the wheel. He wanted to look behind him, to check Zhiyi’s face and see whether everyone was still where they should be, but Shichen was already beside his seat.

"Keep coming back," Shichen told him, watching the opposite camera. "You have room on this side. I’ll tell you before you get close."

The bank slowly filled the windshield, hiding the truck and the men around it. Zeyu continued until Hanchuan told him to stop, then held his foot firmly on the brake. His mouth was dry, and he could feel his pulse in the fingers gripping the wheel.

Behind him, Zhiyi spoke before he could ask.

"We’re all right, Zeyu," Zhiyi told him. "You got us out of their view."

He glanced at her in the mirror. Qinghe was crouched beside her seat, and she had one hand resting against his shoulder.

Seeing her looking back at him helped him breathe, though he returned his attention to the cameras before he could linger.

Jingwei watched the stretch of road below the bend.

The shooting had stopped, leaving the engine and the steady rush of cool air much too loud inside the compartment. Zeyu wondered whether the men would wait beside the truck or come looking for them. He didn’t have to wonder for long.

A man appeared at the far edge of the camera view, walking uphill with his rifle raised. The hotel worker followed several paces behind him, keeping close to the bank.

"They’re coming up," Jingwei said. He moved away from the display and returned to the side window. "Two that I can see."

Hanchuan stood beside Zeyu, watching the same image. He gave no warning through the speaker this time, and Zeyu didn’t ask him to.

The men had seen a vehicle retreating and followed it with a gun. There was nothing left to explain to them.

The first man came around the bend and lifted the rifle toward the driving compartment.

Jingwei fired, and the man fell against the bank before sliding to the road. The hotel worker stumbled backward, reaching beneath his shirt as he turned.

Hanchuan fired before the weapon cleared his waistband.

Zeyu kept his eyes on the display.

The hotel worker lay partly across the road, one arm beneath him, while the handgun rested in the dust beyond his fingers.

At Luming, Zeyu had watched him run away and been relieved that one less person stood between them and leaving.

Now two more men waited somewhere below, and Zeyu could no longer assume they would let the mobile base pass.

Nobody moved for several moments. Jingwei checked the road while Hanchuan returned to the front display, looking toward the junction.

"The truck’s moving," Shichen said, leaning closer. "The man from the back has climbed into the cab."

Through the camera, Zeyu watched the truck lurch away from its position across the road. Its rear swung wide, throwing one of the sacks against the side, and the remaining passenger crouched behind the cab. They drove toward the city without waiting for the men on the slope.

Zeyu stayed where he was until the truck disappeared.

"I want to see the junction before we go down," Zeyu said. He adjusted the display, checking the empty road as far as the camera allowed. "They could stop just beyond it."

Hanchuan nodded and remained beside him while they waited. He didn’t hurry Zeyu or reach past him for the controls. After a while, Jingwei returned to his seat, bringing up the other views so they could watch the turn together.

They moved only when they were satisfied that nobody was coming back.

Zeyu drove around the fallen men without looking away from the road ahead. The truck had left deep marks in the dust at the junction, but there was no sign of it beyond the turn.

He took the road toward Xiling, listening as Shichen checked their clearance and Jingwei watched behind them.

For the rest of the journey, Zeyu kept expecting another vehicle to appear.

By the time they reached home, his shoulders hurt. He parked inside the garage and remained in his seat after the engine stopped, listening to the entrance close behind them.

Shichen took the keys only when Zeyu held them out, then went to check the damage with Jingwei.

Zhiyi waited in the aisle while Hanchuan brought her wheelchair closer. When Zeyu finally stood, she reached for his hand.

"Come inside with us," Zhiyi said. Her fingers closed around his, and he found himself looking at the faint pencil mark she had missed when washing that morning. "You can look at the vehicle after you’ve had something to eat."

Zeyu nodded and walked beside her chair through the inner door. He was still thinking about the truck when they reached the sitting room, but he sat where she asked him to and accepted the water Hanchuan brought.

Four months later, when the city broadcasts stopped halfway through an announcement and never returned, Zeyu remembered that drive home.

He was in the sitting room again, with Zhiyi beside him, when Jingwei came through the doorway carrying the radio. Zhiyi set down her book as he placed it on the table.

"The same message has been repeating on the emergency channel," Jingwei told them. He turned up the volume, and a tired voice filled the room.

The speaker was giving the location of a public cooling shelter. Then he asked anyone listening to bring tools.

The doors had been chained shut from the outside.