OUT OF THE ASHES
Their pilots would keep the jet in a hover position high in the sky, ready to extract them when contacted.
Barren land surrounded the processing plant, the fields long since packed down by tens of thousands of cattle in the past, the built-up acid from the cow manure run off having killed the soil in this area. Trees were non-existent, as they were in many areas in this part of the country, with only roads linking hard fought-for communities on the horizon. Gone was the background white noise of a megacity, and in its place was a quiet that only came from an absence of life. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, both species long since disappeared from the prairie here due to the oppressive heat