The Dark Ages: Convergence (Prequel to the P.O.E. Chronicles)

Chapter 26

"Can we keep driving?" I ask and Katerina presses several buttons on the dashboard. A red light and beeping sound returned and whatever it was, that couldn't be good. The car is still going forward but at a much slower speed. For now, we are still ahead of our pursuers, but if we stop, we'll be surrounded.

"Honestly, I'm not sure," Katerina replies. She presses some different buttons and the beeping sound subsided. "I think all we need to do is to change the damaged tire. But we've only got one spare and we need to stop to change it."

My body relax marginally at the confirmation of a spare, but we aren't exactly in a position where stopping and changing tires is a possible option. Not unless we want to get axed to death.

My heart is in my throat as Katerina pushes the car forward. We're moving at twenty miles per hour, and that seems to do the trick for now. I stop a few more arrows and axes that are being thrown and chuck them into the forest either side; good luck to getting their weapons back.

After what feel like an eternity, we emerge from the rest stop and onto the main road. To our relieve, no one is outside waiting to ambush us and we quickly got back on the main route. The degraded sign post on top points us towards the correct path and Katerina tries to speed up, but the car made a screeching sound that caused her to reduce the speed.

"Let's go as far as we can before we stop," I suggest. Katerina taps a few more buttons, checking the systematics of the car before nodding. I don't want to car to die, but I would rather it than us.

After another fifteen minutes and some more awful burning smell and screeching, we slid into a stop on the road shoulder. The car lets out a weird kind of sputtering and I cringe. I have no idea how to fix a car, but let's hope Katerina does.

Both of us got out of the car and Katerina locks it in reflex. We hobble over to the left rear side of the car to face the source of all the problem.

The tire looks like it's been through hell and back. It's the remnant of an arrow can still be seen, having been ran over and shattered a million times by now. There's no air left in the tire and the black, rubber and tar service is wrinkly and sagged. Whatever that arrow is made of, it sure caused one heck of a damage because we find a finger-sized gash. This tire isn't the original that comes with the car but one we got from a junk yard. Should have known that the quality is sub-par.

I retrieve the spare from the trunk as well as a toolkit, leaving Katerina to ponder on the finer details of how to execute a tire change. I've never had to do one so I won't know where to start. Maybe if I have an instruction menu, I can do it.

"We should have brought a second tire along," Katerina says with a sigh. I set the tire down and inspect the bolts on the wheel with her. This looks straight-forward enough to unscrew.

"There's no space," I answer and she sighs again. Not only that, finding intact, durable wheels in Paris was actually harder than we thought. It's a miracle that we found a working solar vehicle and found enough wheels to replace the dead one plus one to spare.

"There goes our backup," Katerina say ruefully as we finally manage to exchange the wheel. I pop the damaged one back in the boot. We'll chuck it further away from this place in case they track us. Speaking of, we've loitered long enough and should get back on the road. We are way behind our schedule and I fear that the more time we lose, the more likely something unexpected will happen.

Katerina double checks the tire is screw back in place properly before both of us got back into the car. I grab a few rations from under the backseat as Katerina restarts the car. It rears to life and there's no beeping sound, no red light. I slump against the chair after chugging some dried meats to Katerina.