The desert wind at night was deafening. Accompanied by twinkling stars overhead, an off-road vehicle pressed two deep tracks into the dunes as it made its way south toward its destination.
Whirlwinds kicked up across the nighttime desert, lifting the yellow sand high, like great plumes of smoke erupting from flat ground, battering against the car body and their faces alike.
Tuba, with his features tightly wrapped in a gauze scarf, coughed, spat out some sand from his mouth, and turned to look at the clown beside him.
"Hey, you sure it's okay for us to just drive in like this? Aren't we just rolling right into someone's ambush?"
"What? You're saying we're not in the outer ring yet, so it's not dangerous? You better not remember wrong—I don't want to end up a lab rat. I might still be a kid, remember."
"Shut up!" Anna, constantly on guard and observing their surroundings, snapped in a low voice.
After Tuba stuck out his tongue, the SUV fell quiet. That silence didn't last long.
