Beneath the waning afternoon sun, at the foot of the wooden steps leading to the three-story building that served as the heart of Meilijiezi, the crisp, metallic clang of hammer strikes echoed rhythmically. With each powerful swing, Michael brought the tool down upon the dark rocks laid before him, causing them to fracture instantly, their internal composition laid bare under the dusty, amber light. A scattering of similarly shattered stones lay at his feet, a testament to his prolonged and fruitless efforts.
A profound sense of frustration settled over him. Despite the numerous samples his men had diligently retrieved, the young man had discovered scarcely any of the vital resource he so desperately sought: genuine coal. Even the few promising fragments that had been found, according to the weary recollections of his scouts, originated from locations now rendered inaccessible—collapsed mine shafts flooded with eerily luminescent, radioactive water. These bits of coal gangue were merely scraps scavenged from the surface. The monumental effort required to reopen and secure such treacherous pits felt insurmountable, a task of Herculean proportions.
In a fit of pique, Michael kicked a nearby stone, sending it skittering across the hard-packed earth. "Damn it all," he muttered under his breath, the words laced with bitterness. "So much for the network's information boasting of Michigan's abundant coal reserves and Detroit being built upon a foundation of the stuff. Nothing but empty promises..."
This marked the fourth day of Michael's current sojourn in the Wasteland. Three pickup trucks, organized into separate scouting parties, had been crisscrossing the desolate expanses surrounding the settlement for three full days, consuming over a hundred liters of their crudely refined "black diesel" in the process. While their efforts were not entirely without reward—word of their intention to purchase all manner of scrap had spread among the local scavengers—the primary objective remained elusive. The settlement's entire stock of bicycles, all twenty-plus of them, had been leased out within a single day, a testament to the scavengers' eager response, yet this did little to alleviate the core crisis.
The burgeoning recycling operation, ironically, faced a fuel shortage of its own. The two constantly burning boilers in his small refinery devoured wood at an alarming rate. The barren Wasteland offered little in the way of timber, and the few remaining stands of forest were perilous zones of high radiation and lurking mutated threats, making logging an unthinkable risk. Dismantling the settlement's own makeshift shelters for fuel was a patently unsustainable solution.
Furthermore, the ambitious project of rebuilding the old town had ground to a halt almost as soon as it began. The production of red bricks, essential for construction, was a process Michael, with his rural upbringing, understood well. A team of two dozen strong men were already busy molding clay into bricks. But the crucial firing process, which required intense, sustained heat, was entirely dependent on coal. Staring at the multiple vital endeavors stalled by this single deficiency, the young man felt a wave of profound vexation.
Just as despair threatened to solidify, the growl of an engine announced the return of another patrol. A pickup truck, coated in the pale dust of the plains, drove straight through the main gate and came to a halt before him. Before the driver could even speak, Michael's eyes were drawn to the truck's bed, and his spirits soared. There, nestled amidst the grime, was a small pile of samples, roughly ten kilograms in weight, that displayed the deep, glossy black sheen of genuine coal.
The discovery sent a jolt of excitement through the settlement. Old Gimpy and others, who had also been agonizing over the fuel shortage, quickly gathered around the vehicle, their faces etched with newfound hope. A porcine-faced man with a prominent scar across his features—the team's leader—provided the report between greedy gulps of cool well-water, the interior of the non-air-conditioned cab having taken its toll.
"Sir, we found these to the northwest, about seventy kilometers out," the man reported, wiping his mouth. "It's just sitting there, right on the surface. Looked like what you described, so we brought some back straight away."
"The exposed area," Michael pressed, the critical question hanging in the air. A surface seam would mean relatively easy extraction, but its scale determined its value.
"Couldn't tell!" the scarred man replied bluntly.
Michael's heart sank for a fleeting moment, fearing the deposit was insignificant.
The scout quickly amended, "It just seemed to go on forever. We couldn't even guess how much there is."
The rollercoaster of emotion nearly compelled Michael to swat the man for his dramatic pause. Without a second thought, he decided on an immediate expedition. The urgency burning within him outweighed any prudence about traveling at night. With a convoy of four vehicles and a dozen armed guards, he felt secure enough to forgo the company of his champion, Zack—the large man's bulk would have unacceptably slowed a vehicle.
As the last rays of the sun bled from the sky, the refueled vehicles roared out of the settlement, heading northwest.
…
The odometer had ticked over approximately seventy-two kilometers when the convoy reached its destination. Old Gimpy, riding alongside Michael, noted that continuing another sixty or seventy kilometers would bring them to the territory of a settlement called Soru, a place rumored to be three times more powerful than the old Cinder Town.
Disregarding the oppressive darkness, Michael grabbed a flashlight and jumped out of the relative comfort of the lead truck. The moment his boots touched the ground, he felt something writhing powerfully beneath his sole. The beam of his flashlight revealed a rattlesnake, pinned and furious, its tail producing a frantic, chilling buzz. A cold sweat instantly broke out on Michael's back. The consequences of a bite here would be severe.
As the serpent struggled, its powerful body coiled tightly around his calf, the constricting pressure a deeply unsettling sensation. In one fluid motion, Michael drew the dagger from his belt and severed the creature's head with a swift, decisive strike. He kicked the still-gaping head away into the darkness, his muscles gradually unclenching, though a tremor of adrenaline remained. He made a mental note to take the rest of the snake's body back for steeping in alcohol—a potent, if unconventional, tonic for his rattled nerves.
Setting the encounter aside, the subsequent investigation proved highly successful. Just as the scout had claimed, the exposed coal seam stretched across an area the size of two or three football fields. Ordering a subordinate to dig a test pit, Michael watched as the shovel bit down, down, through two meters of solid, black coal without reaching the bottom. The visible reserves alone were sufficient to solve the settlement's fuel crisis for the foreseeable future.
By the time this assessment was complete, midnight had fallen. Under normal circumstances, Michael might have chosen to rough it in the vehicles until dawn. But the memory of the rattlesnake, a little too vivid and a little too close for comfort, changed his mind. He wanted the security of his own bed. Despite the poor visibility, he reasoned that a cautious, two-hour drive would see them home.
However, after about an hour on the return journey, John's voice, laced with chagrin, crackled over the radio from the lead vehicle.
"Sir," he reported, "a bank of clouds has rolled in, blotting out the stars and the moon. Without any points of reference… I'm afraid we've strayed from our path. We seem to be lost."