The Truck Stop

This was a pretty lousy place to spend a shift. The nearest gas station was dozens of miles away, so keeping the air conditioning running the entire time was not really an option. Her khaki uniform with the blue and gold stripe down the hem of the trousers was stiff and scratchy with dried sweat. The Kevlar vest under the short-sleeved uniform shirt seemed to be slowly roasting her torso like an oven. She had a few gallon jugs of water, frozen solid at the start of her shift, though now each was lukewarm with a fist sized hunk of ice floating inside it. It was ostensibly there in case she stumbled across somebody stranded in the desert or the odd illegal immigrant, though she ended up drinking at least one of them herself most of the time. It got extremely hot in the desert, after all.

A glance at the clock on the cruiser's dashboard made her groan internally. It was almost two o'clock in the afternoon, which made it about halfway through her shift. Thankfully, it had been relatively uneventful so far. Her particular patrol route today was pretty out of the way, so there wasn't much to keep an eye out for beside the odd tourist out camping or hiking. Seeing as it was early summer, it wasn't quite tourist season yet. In fact, she had seen about four other vehicles out here all day. She cocked her head slightly when movement on the far side of the highway caught her eye, and she quizzically studied the spot for a moment or two. /=Oh...=/ Diane thought, resting her chin on her palm as she watched a herd of pronghorn antelope amble through the scrub about a half mile away.

Her eyes went wide when the semi came barreling around the bend in the highway, sending the pronghorns bounding away over the hill. Apparently, the driver saw the police car sitting on the side of the highway and downshifted, his vehicle making a strange farting noise as it slowed. The radar gun beeped loudly as the semi passed, and Diane lifted it slightly, spying the red '78' flashing on the readout. She frowned as she watched the semi pass for a few moments, then pulled out onto the highway. The truck driver apparently spotted her in his rearview mirror because the brake lights on the trailer flashed when she swung the cruiser out onto the roadway. Diane chuckled to herself as the driver was apparently trying his damnedest to get the massive vehicle under the speed limit.

Diane frowned slightly as she groped for the dashboard radio's hand mic. This particular stretch of highway was fairly out of the way, so what was this guy doing out here? /=Maybe he's just lost or trying to make up time or something... =/she thought as she retrieved the hand mic from its little hanger on the dash. The interstate wasn't far away, though it shouldn't be that busy this time of day...so why /=was=/ the semi out here? The semi was slowing and now was under the 65 mph speed limit, and then started to speed up again. Diane felt her brow furrow with that feeling that there was something hinky going on, but not knowing what exactly it might be. Maybe the driver was high on meth or something? It happened, especially if they were behind schedule and needed to drive a long way without rest. She paused, studying the back of the semi's trailer. It had an Arizona plate, but that didn't mean much as she understood it. The trailer and the rig pulling it could be from entirely different states, depending on where the company was from and where the driver picked up the load.

Diane considered hitting the lights and pulling the truck over. She had caught the driver dead to rights for speeding. If nothing else, it would scratch that itch in the back of her mind. She licked her lips and leaned toward the driver's side window, trying to get a look at the side of the semi, then frowned slightly...