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Asad watched with his binoculars, waiting and bracing himself for the blindingly bright explosion to arrive.

And it did, but it was not on target. It instead landed far afield, obliterating a dune in the distance.

Targeting errors were perfectly common, and the two young ones were already trying to make adjustments, but Asad had enough experience to know that something else was the problem. That was too much of an error. These boys here would've had to be complete amateurs to screw it up that badly, and they wouldn't be out here if they were.

Qorvass corroborated his thinking. 'Someone deflected it.'

"No adjustment," said Asad aloud. "Just reload."

The bunker scouts both answered in the affirmative.

The illuminated sign in the middle of the vending machines crumbled to pieces, and a new one rose up from the sand to take its place.

This one read: "HEY! I SAID DON'T SHOOT! CAN'T YOU READ?!"

And suddenly, Asad found himself rethinking everything.

The first sign, he could chalk up to being an elaborate and ridiculous practical joke by one or more of Abolish's many lunatics. They could've rigged it up somehow, found a way to secretly bury it out here--sure, fine.

But this second sign... it had responsive text on it--as if it had just been made after its creator witnessed what happened.

And how many people were there who could do something like that in so short a time?

Of course, that could be the point of their ploy here. Perhaps they predicted the response and prepared the second sign for this exact reason. Psychological warfare, of a sort. Abolish had plenty of--

The second sign broke itself apart, and a third sign arose from the sand, reading: "PLAY NICE, KIDDOS, OR YOU'LL BE REMOVED FROM THE GAME EARLY."