Desert Treasure

[t0l]

A clang echoed throughout the relatively small enclosure as Tal dropped his gear, hastily packed into a blue duffle bag, whilst simultaneously basking in the glory of his shiny, new, albeit temporary home as he stood in the doorway of one of many containerized housing units that were scattered around the base. His in particular was a bit closer to the massive stacks and rows of barriers covered in barbed wire that separated him from the dangers of the desert than he'd liked for it to be, but he'd always preached that beggars couldn't be choosers when he was still back home in Liberty.

Home seemed a lot more distant to him than it really was, even if Manhattan was half a galaxy away, mitigated only by the fact that he didn't really have anybody to return home to in the first place. Still, the prospect of showers on the reg, consistently hot meals, and a comfortable bed would make even the coldest, most emotionless man homesick, and Tal was no exception to this rule.

A bed. That's what he was missing.

He dropped down to a neat, compressed squat, heels fully planted on the single sheet of thin steel plating that made up his container's flooring, and unzipped one of the many zippers lining the handy bag that had accompanied him on so many "adventures", reeling back slightly when a mountain of equipment nearly popped out at him. It was an honest miracle that he had managed to pack all of this equipment into such a small bag.

With one swift motion of the hand, he grabbed the topmost clutter of shirts, all heavily wrinkled from having been messily shoved into his bag, and tossed them aside, moving his other hand in to clear useless clutter away to look for anything resembling a sleeping bag. Finally, after sifting through what seemed to be an endless sea of drivel, he came upon the black, rolled-up slab of nylon that would be his bed for at least a week, if not longer, and he spent little time unraveling it.

Standing back up, he scanned his personal abode once more. A few shirts were scattered there, some empty water bottles stacked up over there, his weapon leaning on the wall, but something seemed to be out of place. "No matter," he thought, slipping his boots off and tossing them aside, hurriedly crawling wearily into the warm, inviting fluffy bag. Night had already begun in the desert, a place that spared no one with it's heat now sparing no one with it's jarringly cold temperature, and he was very eager to cross the line into sweet warmth to avoid freezing to death within a poorly insulated, glorified metal box with a single bulletproof window.

As he moved to rest his head, he was met with a surprisingly flat, stiff pillow as the fluff of his sleeping bag failed to provide any kind of cushion or elevation between him and cold, hard ground. "That's what I forgot," he thought, taking a deep breath, "A pillow."

He got back up out of his bag, thin black socks doing little to protect his feet from the cold-infused into the metal flooring, and duck-walked rapidly to the door, pushing it wide open to reveal a completely blank landscape, minimally lit only by improvised light sources set up on large poles by the Core's in-house engineering teams. Naturally, not wanting to stay out in the cold for very long in minimal clothing, his eyes very rapidly scanned the poorly illuminated desert floor until they finally locked onto a suitable target: a sizable brown rock.

"That'll do," he thought, sucking in air as a gust of wind hit him head-on.

Prior to this mercenary mission on Nauru, he never thought that he'd look at a rock with so much longing in his entire life, moving quickly under the pressure of several successively colder wind gusts and closing the ten feet gap between him and his new pillow. It was definitely heavier than he expected, rough edges and texture scraping up a good portion of his raw hands and arms as he scooped it into his arms and cradled it like the incredibly overweight baby it was before turning about and skittering back into his box.

Sand still covered much of it, as well as him now, but it was only a small problem compared to the harrowing one he faced before. With another incredible feat of strength, he lifted the rock up, and proceeded to lightly tap it against the floor, shaking off a considerable amount of sand that gathered within every crevice of his new pet rock and brushing it all into a corner of his room, and finished up his task by depositing the rock on a long end of his sleeping bag.

"Wonderful." His preparatory actions had successfully secured him a small, but easily workable, living space, allowing him to climb into bed victorious, resting his head firmly on perhaps the softest rock in existence.

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