Time until next Challenge: 11 days, 7 hours, 5 minutes

  “What? You’re kidding. Why the sudden change?”

  Marie shrugged. “I wasn’t just talking to the Arsenal, I was using Clairvoyance and Clairaudience to listen in on the command room, so I’d heard a lot of talk from the people from the Hazardous Devices school. A lot of it was way over my head, but I did pick up on one thing: explosives are stored in the least dangerous way possible. Sometimes that just means keeping the detonators separate until the last possible minute, but some can be stored as two less dangerous substances and combined as needed. When I asked if any mining explosives were stored that way, it was like I’d thrown a bomb into the room myself.”

  Vince frowned. “So wait, there are viable explosives available in mining towns, and the Arsenal just forgot about them?”

  “Not viable explosives, not as-is. The solid components are mostly intact, but there’s a liquid component that’s basically diesel fuel, and that part is in terrible shape. Good news is, the liquid component is like, 5% of the explosive, and the Arsenal has been working on producing high-grade fuel as part of its continued focus on air travel. So, if they send a team ahead of us carrying a few big oil drums, they’ll be able to produce a massive quantity of explosives. Also, like… I didn’t follow the technical talk very well, but basically they expect that ANFO - the mining explosive - will hurt the legoliaths a lot more effectively than gunpowder.”

  “That’s great news,” I murmured. “I don’t love that they didn’t think of it until we asked.”

  “Oh, trust me, several people are getting asked very pointed questions about why they didn’t, and judging by Colonel Yoshiro’s face, there are going to be some promotions and demotions in the near future. I kind of get it, though. They’ve been all-in on getting the most out of all the Minor Matter Replicators and chemical experts in Huntsville, trying to sustainably produce high-grade explosives. Nowhere else has our manufacturing capability - not even close - and they just weren’t in the mindset to look for single-use civilian material stockpiles.”

  “So… they’ll be able to get more explosives to us in the future?” I asked.

  “They should. But… it’ll take time to produce them, and time to get them set up on our route of travel. Lasting another 14 hours will be tough, but it should help us catch a break much sooner than we would have been able to otherwise.”

  “Fourteen hours?” our driver asked, his voice betraying his origins as a New Yorker. “Do they need all that time to get set up? Or is that just how long they think it’ll take us to get there?”

  “Um… let me ask… No. They should be able to get the material over in four hours, and have things set up in eight. You think you can get there faster?”

  Our driver narrowed his eyes as he squinted down the darkened highway ahead. “Probably. Visibility is shit, but going faster is easy. We’ve kind of been dragging our heels.”

  “Because going faster just means fighting Titans more frequently,” Vince said.

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  “Right! Just need to go quick enough to stay ahead of the shit behind, maybe keep a little breathing room. The little monsters aren’t so dense here, and they’re the biggest thing slowing us down right now.” He turned to the backup driver in the passenger seat beside him. “Whaddya think, Jeff? Pedal to the metal, make it there in eight hours and then catch a little snooze?”

  The stocky man in the passenger seat grunted. “You’re on, Jim. I’d do worse than that for a chance to do more than powernap. Marie, see if the rest of the fleet is up for it?”

  “Will… do…” Marie said, swaying a little. She hadn’t made many Announcements, but she’d been using all her other abilities nearly nonstop. She had to be exhausted. “Yeah, they say they can do it.”

  Marie was swaying in her seat, but the rest of us were energized. Invigorated, despite the horrors of a far-too-long day. Having a plan will do that for you.

  I couldn’t help but frown as I thought, though. “We’re sure we’ll have enough? Some of the Threats have been following us from Fort Autumn. They’re growing, aren’t they?”

  Before Marie could inquire, our driver Jim interjected. “Ah, ah! Don’t forget. If we speed up, we’ll have a big old lead on them. They’re going pretty slow - just a few miles per hour. If we stay in Gordonsville for six, eight hours, no way they’ll get to us before we head out again.”

  I frowned. “Okay, that’s true. But Hamlet’s pulling Threats toward us from other directions, too. Some of those are probably getting pretty big…”

  “It’s not as bad as you might think,” Marie said. “They seem to gain about 50% of their current mass every 24 hours, as long as they don’t make any kills.”

  “And if they make kills?”

  “We don’t have data yet,” Marie said. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

  “If it does, I guess we use our Threat Fragmenters?” Vince said, holding up the arm where his Intensifier bracelet sat. “We’ve got five of us here with pretty high-power ones. They should be easier to blow up if we cut them down to size first. It’ll give them less mass to shield their cores.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “It’s an option. If we- Hey. What’s that?”

  I pointed ahead of us, to a speck of light that had just come into view as we’d rounded a bend.

  Everyone was quiet as we grew closer, and several more lights came into view, illuminating a wide stretch of road and a scattered crowd of people. I was nervous for a moment, but when they saw us, a man lowered his weapon and began waving wildly. Cheers broke out. I couldn’t make out every word, but I caught proud cries of “America” and some very vulgar statements about the aliens.

  We’d seen similar groups as we’d moved through cities, but this was the first time we’d encountered anything like this in the wilderness. Not only was the road clear of monsters, I could see several spots where crashed cars had been pushed to the sides of the road, eliminating possible slowdowns.

  I stared out the window. “How…?”

  “Flyer and communicator team,” Marie said. “Arsenal had mind-to-mind communications with the cities, but getting us allies along country roads required more specific attention. I knew they’d been sent out, but I hadn’t heard anything else back yet. They've been trying to purchase land along our route and turn off monster spawns too, but it's expensive to buy a broad enough area to keep monsters from wandering onto the road. Oh, plus turning off new monsters doesn't get rid of the ones already there. Still, they're doing a lot to try to give us a clearer route."

  “So we can expect more road like this?” Jim asked, accelerating . “Hot damn! Screw eight hours. I’ll have you there in three!”

  “They won’t be ready for you then!” Marie said. “You don’t want Titans and Threats to stomp them flat while they’re still getting set up. ”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” Jim slowed again. “Eight hours it is.”