[ IP ] Bounty Hunters

“ C'mon, C'mon! We're almost there! ” 
 
 “ Mumbling to yourself again Kaiden? ” 
 
 “ I'm nervous, and why are n't you? Almost a thousand clicks, the city in sight and not one attack by anything yet? ” 
 
 “ Which are you worried about? ” 
 
 “ Ca n't I be worried about both? ” 
 
 “ Maybe they decided to take the day off? ” 
 
 “ So a bunch of heavily armed desperate men in the desert decided to go into the city and drink themselves to sleep? And we have n't seen anything out in the desert either, so what? They just decided to burrow under the ground and sleep for a while? ” 
 
 “ I could believe that, they've done pretty well for themselves lately, and those are just dumb beasts that occasionally attack things. ” 
 
 We were hired by some traders from the mines to cross back across the giant desert back to literally the only city on the entire planet. A series of trains cross the entire world to transport dysprosium and Lanthanum, and we were the pour souls that rode in the vanguard of the train, scouting out on Gunner ATV searching for bandits, and the local cattle. 
 
 The cattle were n't cows, they were these giant beetles that charged everything in sight, including other cattle. They probably did more damage to the trains then all the bandits combined. They have no fear, rationality, or even thinking, so they charge the trains head first, knocking them off the tracks. When we would go back to the wreckage we would see the beetles without heads in the twisted metal. They hit them so hard their exoskeletons burst open and nothing was left. They had burrows all over the world, and sometimes they would just pop out of the ground beneath you, and then you were cattle food. 
 
 When it comes to bandits, mostly the train outruns them, and we take the long way around. All of the guns circling the train helped deter them, but they were for the cattle. Not a trip goes by across the thousand mile desert that we do n't see a single cattle or bandit somewhere on the horizon. This trip has been so peaceful that Grenn and I took turns napping on the ATV while we were supposed to be on the gun. I was getting nervous because it had never been this quiet before, and it did n't sit well with me. Something bad was going to happen. I could just feel it. 
 
 The train was on an elevated track, a few dozen feet above our heads because of the dunes. Every time we went back out with the supply trains the dunes changed from when we came in with the mining trains. Since it had been so quiet we decided to go joy riding over the dunes. We were so close to the city that we could practically smell all of the grease coming of it, so we thought the train was safe enough. 
 
 We went over a mountainous dune and when we landed on the other side we could see the entire outcity around the central monolith. It looked like it had been absorbed back into the desert. Sand rippled like waves through the streets, making it look like an ocean of sand. Usually the smoke that came off the city was light grey, or white. The smoke looked darker grey, and it was coming up all over the city. As we got closer we realized that it was n't sand. It was cattle rampaging through the city. The smoke was covering from the city was burning. As far as I could see to either horizon there were cattle holes coming out of the sand. It was like the entire population of the planet was there, attacking the city. 
 
 

