Free There Will Always Be a Max by Michael R. Underwood

 
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    In a world running on fumes, hope is priceless.
    King opened up the throttle, shifting into higher gear as the Force Runner tore across the broken remnants of what used to be a road. Overhead, the sun beat down on the Kalahari.
    Used to be, this region was Beta team’s beat. But you pick up a team member from a region, it ends up your problem from then on—it’s just how it is. Part of the payment, the back edge of recruiting from story worlds instead of Earth Prime.
    King never set out to recruit Roman, but in King’s world, when you came across a broken man at the end of his rope, a man who’d rather walk off into the eternal stretch of featureless sands than let people in, who chose death over community, you did something.
    Roman swore he’d never come back, not unless there were no other choice.
    And that put King behind the wheel, with a car full of guns and ammo, tanks of water and hardtack, wearing the beaten leather jacket.
    It fell to King to step into the legend, to find and address the breach. Since Roman’s departure, breaches broke harder there, the region deprived of a hero. So, instead of inserting himself as a helper, more often than not, King had to carry the story himself. Every mission, he danced the razor’s edge between failure and causing as much damage through gross action as he was addressing.
    Ahead, the road was bare, sun dropping toward sunset. He’d be able to cover another hundred, hundred fifty miles that day, zigzagging across the Wasteland, looking for signs of life.
    In this region, breaches didn’t advertise themselves well. You were lucky if you got a reading within a hundred square miles.
    But there were only so many stories in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Someone comes to town, someone leaves town (usually in a box). Someone takes what you have, you try to get it back (usually with force).
    Someone needs help, and only one person can help them.
    The Max.
    King had first come up with the theory ten years before, cross-training with Mendoza’s team to round out his territory knowledge. A team leader needed to know as many worlds, as many regions as possible. He couldn’t count on his procedural knowledge to cross over into every situation. Time on-world was essential to stay on top of the game.
    A dark shape moved against an ocean of yellow-orange brightness, popping with the glimmer of sunlight on metal.
    King pulled on the wheel and went off-road, the car roaring over the water-starved earth. Dust rolled up behind him, signaling his presence to anyone for miles around.
    Raiders would come soon enough. But good money said he’d find the breach first. That’s how it went. This region ached for stories like it ached for water.
    He saw the glint again, a mile away, something metallic tucked into rocks, sand dunes on either side. The place was half-buried. But only half.
    Dots and specks surrounded the building. Wreckage or ruins.
    The car rumbled over the rough ground. King leaned over and grabbed the shotgun out of its sheath on the passenger’s-side door, wishing for the fiftieth time that this region was anything resembling friendly to groups.
    But here, a lone rider could do three times as much as a full complement of Genrenauts.
    A group was competition, rivals for resources.
    But one man … one man could be a legend, a savior.
    Coming closer, King started to piece together the story. Smoky wreckage. Bodies. A trio sitting beneath a hastily made lean-to. A trailer half-loaded with machinery of some kind.
    But no tow truck, no car.
    They’d been stranded. Probably half-killed by raiders, maybe a few of them stolen away.
    He hadn’t pegged an enclave anywhere in the area, nothing on his map, so whoever they were, they were far from home, far from help.
    And that’s when he felt it at the back of his neck, beneath the sweat and the already caked-on dust. It had all the right makings—group down