I live, I die, I live again (Mad Max: Fury Road fanfiction)

Chapter 5 - Under the raging storm

In the desert, distances are never what they seem. What looks close moves away – far away – when approached, and lengths can only be counted in time. They've reached the runway at last, after it had slipped away many times, and Volta sensed Nux's disappointment when he realized that it was not the Citadel's. He's no fool, and he was a Black Thumb before being a driver. He's understood that the Ural needed to cool down. He's also understood that she wanted to lighten up again and dump the rest of her copper under cover.

He didn't say anything about that. Because as for the rest, he seems constitutionally unable of keeping his mouth shut, exhausted or not. Sometimes Volta is sent to the Citadel because – without their strips and barely ragged – the immature Iskra make good spies. She has already witnessed the departure of the convoys, grotesquely ceremonial. She has seen the water of the Aquifer, meagrely delivered from the heights of the First Rock Tower of Immortan Joe, onto the bloated crowd of The Wretched. And she watched the War Boys come down. With their vehicles, on the platforms. The Fuk'ushima Kami-crazy War Boys, their half-lives gnawed to the bone, taking the Fury Road like one would go to a devout festival. This one has this enthusiastic fatalism, this absurdly mischievous adrenaline. A battle-thing, pertinently selected for his euphoria in the face of death. Now he's looking north. Is he really so greedy for what he'll find there?

— You're going back to the Storm, he suddenly notices as she complete a wide arc, but she doesn't reply because the answer is yes.

The entrances of the auxiliary Bunkers of the Burried City are always hidden this way: turned towards the tumult of the eternal Storms because nobody ever comes from that direction. Invisible in the meanders of the lands. They ride, ride, until lightnings strike behind their backs. The Storm. Filling the whole sky. And finally, they reach a metal porch between the rocks, facing the chaos. From beyond the gate worn out by the sandy winds, Volta brings back a kind of wheelbarrow where the copper, her battery and Nux are thrown. The Ural is slid into a shelter between the rocks, a narrow space carved to the exact shape of the sidecar. Now the vehicule is a stone among the stones.

— We'll only be here for a short time. Just what's necessary.

There may be eyes on this place, allies and enemies alike. Volta pushes the pitching wheelbarrow and Nux clings to the side as daylight dies in the tunnel.

— What an amazing ride, he says as they move along, and Volta wonders if he's capable of sarcasm.

She moves forward, for several minutes. Under her feet, the ground has been terraced by the weight of many narrow tanks. In the dark, only the strings of Moths larvae can be seen. Weakly bioluminescent garlands of fat worms. With one move, she snatches one off and sends it down into the wheelbarrow. This tastes better than mature Moths, he'll experience it as he eats them. The pupae burst, bitter, juicy. She sees him gloating. Finally, they go through another door, and the walls around are plated with Metall. Above them, the rocky ground shakes with a rumbling, louder than forty V8 engines. A sound like that of the Cataclysm, Volta always thought, even though she was born long afterwards.

— We're... underneath the storm, stammers the War Boy.

— Look.

In a shrill squeal of scrap metal, Voltra pulls a large telescopic tube down from the ceiling. The binocular of a gyroscope, in which she checks something. An automatism, accomplished before letting Nux reach for the eyelets as far as his cracked ribs will allow. What he sees and that cuts off his speech for a moment, Volta herself ended up finding it beautiful. Up there, the horizon no longer exists. There is only the raging storm, the revolt of the winds, the blurry orange light arched by blue electric arcs. Lethal. There, the Bunker roof seems to be the only stable thing. And – planted on top of it – swings the fragidly indestructible pole of one of the Iskra lightning rods.