Part 2

The Guard was cutting at an angle toward Lewis, between him and the jeep. Beyond the Guard was a gaping hole in the fence and on the other side of that he could see the gigantic flickering nimbus of the Monster still walking toward the East.

Lewis kept running. Five feet away he brought up the stungun and shot the Guard in the face. Lewis jumped under the wheel of the jeep, slammed it into gear and they headed down the concrete strip and straight for the gap in the fence.

"What happened to Cardoza?" Lewis asked.

Brogarth said from the back seat, "He said he didn't want to be labeled a security risk and be executed for sabotage."

Nemerov was drunk and he kept mumbling incoherently, and sometimes giving out with bits and pieces of half remembered poetry.

* * * * *

About a mile out in the sand and next to a wall of sandstone, they waited for any signs of pursuit. There were none. They rested there until morning, only an hour and a half away, and when they looked back toward the location of the Project, they could see nothing that looked any different from sand, brush, rocks and red sandstone.

"Perfect camouflage," Nemerov said as the jeep started up again. "You could walk within fifty feet of that fence and never know there was any Project there."

Later a hot wind came up and they ran into the Monster lying dead on its face with dust devils dancing over it.

An old prospector leading a burro came around the wall of sandstone and looked at the Monster, then at the occupants of the jeep.

"Howdy, folks," he said.

"Hello," Lewis said. "We're lost. Where are we and which way do we go to get to civilization?"

"What's that thing?" the prospector asked, looking at the Monster.

"A scientific experiment that was never finished," Lewis said.

"What I figured," the prospector said. "You scientists out here always up to something." He pointed to the right. "Keep going that way and you'll find a narrow road. Follow it and you'll hit the middle of the valley and a highway right into the Chocolate Mountains."

Lewis knew where he was. The Chocolate Mountains walled off the rushing Colorado River from the Imperial Valley and Los Angeles farther on.

"Thanks," Lewis said.

"How's the war going these days?" Betty asked.

The prospector scratched his head and replaced his felt hat. He looked at them oddly.

"You must have been holed up in the hills a long time, Miss. There ain't been any war for two years. They started one, but the first couple of days scared everybody too much and they called the whole thing off. Where you folks been anyways, to the Moon?"

"Practically," Lewis said.

As the jeep moved away, Nemerov turned and looked back at the Monster and the old prospector who still stood there gazing at it.

"'My name,'" Nemerov said, "'is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.'"