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Vernon is regretting directing his boss to buy this hunk of junk ostensibly known as a vehicle. Not very much, but a little. Mostly because she then made him drive it, and this is a finicky and temperamental beast that keeps listing to the left, but in amounts that change a bit on every single bump. They are driving through what is colloquially called 'the wasteland,' which is a desert about half as hospitable and twice as rocky as it sounds. He is having to adjust often. It's annoying. Not very, and honestly, having a functioning vehicle that is not potentially going to explode is a bit of a novelty for him, but enough that he will think fondly of that other vehicle boss-lady had been eyeing before he steered her this way. That sure would have been nice to drive. It would have been painting a gigantic target on their backs, but still. He can dream.
Well much less peace now that there are bombs crawling around what the fuck!
"You, stay. Here's the safest place in town, it's already well defended. And meanwhile I should go be somewhere so that if I explode I won't... make too much of a mess."
"Promise to do my very best."
And then he can go back down the many fucking stairs and outside to see how the rest of the town is doing.
As Vernon is exiting the building he can feel more than hear the boom of an explosion going off. When he gets to the main town "plaza" most of the townies are there, looking terrified, with bombs attached to all of them, even Rosa's kid.
Zash is off the main group, staring a the place a ways off where the ground is charred and there are a couple of pieces of someone lying around. Not all pieces, though, and the surrounding area is remarkably intact; seems like these bombs are set up to be very localised and sufficiently thorough to properly vaporise their subjects.
When Zash notices Vernon he says, "Where'd you see these bombs before? How do we disarm them?" He seems to have adopted the same no time to waste, no nonsense expression he did the other day when he was saving the police officers.
"Uh -- southeast of here, near Terminal, one of the local gangs got a bunch of 'em up as a sort of minefield. Disarm, I don't know, I never got close enough to them to try. I do know they were kept in the shade, when one got caught in the sun for too long it exploded on its own. So, uh, heat or sunlight might set 'em off?" He shrugs a little helplessly. "Dunno. Coppertop's fine, by the way, she doesn't have a new temperamental friend."
This isn't like Nai... but it might be one of Nai's many "friends". Goddamnit, Nai, you need to figure out a better way to make friends.
"This—okay. Whoever's doing this is probably nearby—Rosa, did anyone new arrive here? Anyone at all?"
"Ours waited until we were distracted to grab us, is there somewhere someone could watch and tell the little blighters when to jump and hang on?"
"We're on the highest ground around, the only place anyone could watch from is..."
She looks up. Ah. Yes. The gigantic rock the town is named for.
The only reason Zash misses his shot, here, is that he wasn't trying to kill—whoever's there. He was just trying to call their attention and see what they'd do.
What he's doing, it seems, is skipping down the side of the rock like some sort of video game character who takes no structural damage from jumping down large distances nearly-vertically along some rock walls.
At least he's easy to find. Zash doesn't even wait a second before he starts to run, and not even a second later he suddenly swerves to the side and swirls midair to look at the townies and call, "There are mines!" Then back on the run after this guy.
Several townies have acquired their guns and charge off after Zash to shoot the fucker responsible, bombs be damned! .... They are not as fast as Zash, and they're also less aware of where the fuck the mines even are. They.... will watch for where Zash runs and follow the path he takes through the mines. They guess.
Vernon frowns. This.... seems like people are being led into a trap of some kind, if there are already mines there. Instead of following the bait, he turns around and heads back towards the factory, looking for a good ambush point for when whoever this madman is tries to show up to claim his prize. Whichever his prize might be, actually, woman or plant. Either way the creep could have snuck a bomb or two in there, and didn't.
"Don't kill him, we need him to disarm the bombs," Zash calls over his shoulder.
And now Zash is pointing his gun at him again where he's stopped bouncing down the rock and is now just standing in front of the town gate, grinning.
The bomber is a wirily built, tattoo'd man, wearing leather pants, spiked boots, bandages around his whole face, a thick metal visor, and no shirt. The bandages don't cover his lips, so he can talk freely and grin like a maniac. "No no no! If you kill me you explode!"
"Yeah?" yells a townsperson. "'Cause it's looking like we'll explode either way! Why shouldn't we make sure you die with us?!"
"You fucker--!"
"Hush, Carl, or you'll be next. What do you want?!"
He spreads his arms out to the side. "Guess!" he says, and several landmines go off in front of him, kicking up enough dust and sand that he's effectively impossible to see.
But what emerges from the dust isn't the bomber. It's a huge spiked metal wheel, seemingly propelled from the inside, going directly at the townies in a course that will absolutely smear them to paste if they don't dodge.
The bomber laughs maniacally from within it.