The first thing the stranger did when she entered Mikaela's car was punch her in the shoulder.

The first thing Mikaela did in response was draw her handgun, and the girl immediately held up her hands. "Whoa, whoa, hey, don't shoot!" she said, leaning back a bit. "I just had to make sure you were real, okay?"

Mikaela held the pistol up long enough to make sure she'd made her point before putting it back in its unofficial holster (the cupholder behind the gear shift). Had she been in the girls' position, she'd probably have done the same thing. Actual attacks by the robots had died down outside of the few remaining active combat zones, but there were stories, here and there, of the sadists who wandered old highways with a hologram in their drivers' seat, prowling in disguise for stranded humans to terrorize, torture, and kill. Couldn't blame anyone for taking precautions.

Also she was out of ammo – had been for months. But the hitchhiker, currently pushing a lumpy duffle bag into the back seat, didn't need to know that.

"Think I'd hide in a car like this if I was one of them?" she said, putting the car back in gear and pulling back onto what was left of the road. When the robots had first appeared, they'd targeted the big cities first, focused on wiping out as much of the population in as little time as they could - by the time the time they'd moved into the Midwest the survivors had started to scatter and hide as much as they could. There were parts of Utah she'd driven through with houses left up, people still living in them.

But for no reason she was aware of, Nevada was a crater. No people. Barely any roads. She'd managed to pick up a little food from the more intact towns, but water was going to be a problem.

"That'd be how they'd get you, though, wouldn't it? Hide in an unassuming beat-up human façade, then BAM!" She punched her fist into her palm for emphasis, but as she did she collapsed backwards into the seat, and let out a short, sharp sigh. "Thanks, by the way. Sorry I punched you." Against the beige-brown landscape the traveler was astonishingly pink. Pink in her hair, pink stripes on her shirt, sunburn glowing on her face and arms that almost matched them both.

She didn't see much pink anymore.

"I'm headed northwest, up to Oregon," she said as she put the car back in gear and started down the road. It was as close to a destination as she had, or had for some time. "You drive at night, help me find food and siphon gas, you can ride along till then. Deal?"

"Deal," the stranger replied. She pulled a band out of her ponytail and shook out her hair, pulling tangles out between her fingers. "Dunno about gas, but food I can do. I was headed to Wadsworth before I got lost. If I was going the right way it'll be just past the ramp there."

"That home?"

"God no. Place was a dump. I used to go kick around the junked houses when I was bored. There's stores there, though. Might be something left."

It didn't look like there'd ever been much here in Wadsworth, before or after. Might have been lucky for them; this town wasn't stomped flat and burned to the ground the way some of the bigger cities had been - including home, she thought bitterly. She was almost jealous; all five people living here would have at least had a chance to get away.

She'd been thinking a lot about colors, as she pulled up to what looked like it had once been a store. Till her passenger came aboard she hadn't noticed how many were missing. Pink, for example, and purple, which she wore in abundance. Chrome blues and cherry reds like the bikes she used to tinker with back home, paint jobs as fast as their engines.

It used to keep her spirits up, that red. She could use it now. The lonely drive before offered no thoughtful solitude. She didn't have much time to think about anything besides food and water and gas and how best to get her hands on all three.

When her mind did wander it roamed hand in hand with anger. She fantasized about revenge, about being able to fight back at all, about making these things feel as small and scared as she did. She was better at anger than grief - had a little more practice at it.

But an actual happy memory? That she hadn't even tried for a while. It was - the girl was - refreshing.

"Bring back any food you can find," she told her, pulling up as close as possible to the door and cutting off the engine. "Water too." The other girl wouldn't know what she already had, but she wasn't about to leave a stranger alone in her car, with or without the keys. People'd gotten desperate, in the barest places.

She wondered if she'd have been driven to that, as the girl in pink and purple - Miko, she said her name was - got out of the car and pulled the market's inert sliding doors open.

There were still a couple of cars out in the parking lot, one of them smashed, the rest just rusted. She ought to check them for fuel. Maybe she'd get the other girl to do it, when she came back out; she'd driven through the night again last night, trying to get out of this hellhole state as fast as she could, and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up to her.

The other girl'd probably been walking for who knows how long, though. Kinda unfair to make her do all the work. Maybe it'd be be best if they bedded down here, provided she could find a way to secure the car in case she tried anything…

Out in the distance she heard a faint, mechanical thrum.

She snapped out of her exhaustion, pulse suddenly racing. Another car wouldn't make that noise - not so low, not so loud. It was one of them. It had to be.

She slumped in her seat, ducking out of sight but keeping one hand clamped tight around the key in the ignition. Maybe it hadn't seen her yet; maybe it'd think her car was empty and pass her by. She'd escaped that way before. But now there was Miko, oblivious inside the building, with no way to warn her to stay inside and no telling when she'd come back out…

She should leave. It was still far away, judging by the sound - this might be the last chance she had to slip away, before it got close enough to see or hear her. If it got closer there was no outrunning it, and why would she die for some stranger she'd found on the road?

She gripped the key even tighter, trying to turn it over and over again, willing herself to do what she had to.

But no matter how she struggled, she could not make it turn.

Cursing to herself, she left the key in the ignition, diving out the passenger's side door and ducking into the store before the robot could spot her. She couldn't see the girl; it'd take too long to look for her.

So she swallowed the instincts sitting heavy in her throat and yelled "Get back in the car!"

The girl appeared from behind a shelf, balancing boxes and cans. "What? Why?"

"There's one of them out there," she said, lowering her voice again. No avoiding it now. "Drop it; get in the car now. Drop it, we don't have time!" she snapped, as the girl held on stubbornly to her boxes.

She didn't bother hiding when they got back in the vehicle; the rumbling had risen, now, into a roar. In the second she dared to look back she could already see vapor blooming against the clouds.

The doors weren't even shut before she turned the key.

"Rock!" her passenger yelled, pointing frantically at the road in front of her.

"I see it!" She jerked hard to the right, missing the landscape by inches; the side mirror pinged as it cracked off against the stone.

The beast was nearly as loud as her engine now; she didn't look behind her to see how close it had come, or whether it followed them on wheels or in the air.

It was in the air - she didn't need to see it - she could hear its engines.

Clutching the back of her seat, Miko turned to stare out the back window, and shouted "It's got rockets! Hard left! Hard left!"

The tires thrashed clouds of dust into the air as Mikaela fishtailed. Seconds later the smoke of the missile impact swallowed them up, and the car groaned against the shockwave.

She stomped down hard on the gas as soon as the wheels touched back down. Too much open space up ahead, she managed to think. There'd be no way to lose the monster here. If she could keep them alive past this straightaway she might be able to find another town to hide in.

"Wait - I've got an idea!" Miko shouted over the grind of the engine. "Get us closer! Hit the brakes!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Mikaela turned to gape at her, but turned back with a start, turning the wheel hard to avoid a fallen rock. Miko was reaching into the back seat, pulling her duffle bag onto her lap. "What've you got, a bomb?"

"Better!" She unzipped one bulging pocket and pulled out something wrapped in cloth - something moving. "Get me closer or it won't work!"

Mikaela complied, hitting the brakes hard and swinging the car leftward, ducking out of the robot's immediate path. Miko lobbed the wrapped-up object, round and grey and heavy-looking, out the window - and before it hit the ground, it zipped off behind them.

"Now go! Hit the gas!" Miko shouted, checking behind her.

It was hard to hear at first over the wind and the engine, but the beast behind them's roar had sharpened, twisted into something closer to a scream. And the sound was fading faster than before. She chanced a glance at the rearview mirror - the plane dove - fell out of the sky like a swatted fly, releasing its arms and clutching at air.

"It's slowed down!" she said, looking to Miko. "What'd you do?"

"I'll show you!" she said. "Turn us around - I'll need to get the thing back!"

The hulk had gone silent, tiny channels carved into its vast metal skin. Above the person-sized lights set atop it like eyes a tiny round object, no bigger than a bowling ball, lay embedded in the metal. She could hear a sound coming from it, a gnawing.

"Kay, little guy," Miko held up a set of keys, shook them back and forth till they jingled. "Come get your dessert!"

The bowling ball turned, with an unoiled screech. On the front were two wide blue eyes, topping a crescent full of sharp, stained teeth.

It charged, zipping towards them, its mouth wide and chomping. "Okay, get the bag open," Miko said, reaching for the beat-up sweater.

The bowling ball flew in like a bullet, knocking the wind out of Miko when it collided with her. She shouted, but still managed to envelop the creature in the sweater.

"Get the gun!" She shouted, clinging to the wriggling creature, fingers clawing at the bunched-up fabric. White metal teeth stabbed through holes in the fabric and tore new ones, missing her skin by inches. Blood began to spot on the sand.

Mikaela grabbed the barrel of the gun, holding it up like a club. "Turn it over!"

"I'm trying!"

She swing, the hammer of the gun hitting the dirt as Miko wriggled away. She grabbed at the writhing mass, hit hair and skin before she found the creature and brought down the gun's grip again. There was a muffled clang.

The creature didn't stop. The lump under the sweater jerked towards her, teeth raking against the fabric in her direction. Miko dragged behind it, struggling to keep it in place. Mikaela lashed back with the gun, hitting fast as hard and she could anywhere she could reach.

She hit skin as often as metal, drawing yelps of pain from Miko. But the other girl held fast until blow after blow brought it still, and both of them lay panting in the dust.

"'s it dead?" Mikaela asked, when she caught her breath.

"Hope not." Miko propped herself up on her elbows, looking her way. "Comes in handy, don't you think?"

"Yeah." She pushed the duffle bag towards Miko, who pulled out a large plastic bag and sat up next to her. "What the hell is it?"

"Dunno. Hold this open for me?" Mikaela complied, and Miko pushed the bundle containing the creature into the bag. "Found it out in the desert. It was kind of cute, right? Thought I'd keep it, till it tried to eat my earrings," she added, turning her head to show off old cuts on her cheek. As she brushed her hair aside her hand passed over a bruise above her eye, and she winced.

"Oh my god," Mikaela said, finally looking at Miko and seeing the toll the fight had taken on her body. Scrapes from the dirt lined her arms and legs, punctuated by cuts from the bowling ball's teeth, and bruises that had already gone red. One of them had the hashmark pattern of her gun's grip. "Hang on, I think I've got stuff in the car for that."

"No, no, it's - I'll be fine! I've had worse," she said, following Mikaela to the car, hitching the bag onto her shoulder. "I mean I had to get this thing in the bag in the first place."

Mikaela popped the trunk, rummaged through the half-empty water bottles and all-empty gas cans, but of everything she'd taken with her, the one thing she hadn't thought to include was medical supplies. "Get in. Maybe that town back there will have something."

"I'm really fine," Miko insisted, even as she winced where she sat down.

"Would you get in? It'll stop you bleeding all over my seats." She shuffled off her jacket and laid it across the back of the passenger seat.

Miko was fast asleep by the time she got out of the store, mouth hanging open and shoulders slumped. She was seated atop her duffle bag, presumably to quiet the creature's twitching. One of her boots had come unlaced and loose. Beneath it was the top of a cherry-red sock.

She didn't wake when Mikaela opened the door, or even when she sat down in the driver's seat. She had to nudge her before she stirred.

"Got some bandages," she greeted her, holding up the box of cotton pads and bottle of antiseptic. "There's water back in there too. And check what I found." She tossed Miko the bottle of lime-green gel labelled "Aloe", which the girl regarded like the holy grail.

"Ohmygod thank you, you're a lifesaver." She emptied a handful of the gel into her palm and slapped her hands against her cheeks, sighing with relief as she rubbed at her face and neck. "Oooh, I feel better already - ouch!" She brushed past the scrapes again.

"Here. Let me get that." She tipped the antiseptic onto one of the cotton pads and wiped dirt and sand away from the cut. "You know how to siphon gas?"

"Nope. Never had to before."

"Well congrats. Starting tomorrow you're gonna learn." She soaked another cotton pad and started on the girl's shoulder; she pulled her shirt's collar aside to give her access.

"Tomorrow? We're not gonna keep going?"

"You got somewhere to be in a hurry?" There was a cut across Miko's stomach too, not too deep, and she was about to hand the cotton and bottle to her when Miko lifted up her arms to give her access. Mikaela hoped she wasn't expecting personal first aid the whole time, but for now - well, it was kind of her fault Miko was so beat up. Patching her up was the least she could do. "Never said where you were going."

"Home, I guess." Mikaela couldn't tell if Miko'd broken any bones, but she responded with only a ticklish huff to her touch, so her ribs, at least, were probably in one piece.

"Where's that?"

"Showa, couple miles from the harbor." She spotted Mikaela's blank look and gestured vaguely west.

"You mean like Japan."

"Yep."

"You were gonna just hike across the Pacific."

"I'd'a figured something out. Gotta be an airplane left somewhere."

"Know how to fly?"

"Know how to drive. How different can it be?"

She smiled, finishing up the last bandage. "You're crazy, you know that?"

"Yeah. Get that a lot."

Underneath her the bag roiled once, then settled again, as if the creature had shifted in its sleep to punctuate her point. Miko giggled.

"Y'know, I've heard rumors," Mikaela said, stowing the antiseptic and bandages in the back seat. "Last camp I went through. They say what's left of the military's hiding up in Oregon. That's where I was headed when I picked you up."

"You should've told me! I thought they got completely stomped after Chicago."

"They did. Nothing they had had the firepower to put up a fight. Still doesn't." She couldn't help but grin as she looked down at the duffle bag. "But your pet just might."

Miko's eyes were alight as she matched her smile; her rosy sunburns now made her glow. "Yes! Yes ! I love it! I can't tell you how bad I've wanted to kick all their butts! When do we head out?"

"Soon as we gas up tomorrow. Don't know about you but I'll need some sleep before I go to war." She brushed the mint-colored gel away from her cheek, and kissed her where the sun had made her warm. Miko started - and her grin softened again.

"What was that about?"

Mikaela opened the car door and winked. "Had to make sure you were real."