The garage was gone. In its place was the desert.
Cracked earth spread in every direction, flat and pale beneath a sky with no sun in it, only ambient light, sourceless.
Far off, the horizon shimmered in a way that suggested heat without actually giving him any. Proxy considered the contradiction, shrugged, and moved on, because not every lie deserved a second look.
He was in the truck. The truck was at a starting line.
To his left and right, the line ran farther than he could see from the cab. Twenty-four vehicles in a single row.
The one immediately to his left had side plating welded on after the original frame, the work uneven and obvious, with a winch mounted at the front and the chain already extended for reasons that were clearly going to become somebody's problem.
The one two positions to his right sat higher than the rest, a narrow truck on an elevated frame, chrome finish catching the flat light in every direction except a useful one.
