I.
When Hogarth looked up from the dissipating, dusty air, he saw everything in tact. Gasping at the sight of buildings not reduced to rumble, the teen flail-kicked to his feet. Though there was nothing but emptied city; the windows weren't broken out, the stores weren't littered with debris of their inventory, everything was back to...
Normal?! Hogarth's head screamed. No, giant spider robots were normal.
THIS was not normal.
A hand found his arm. "Excuse me, young man, are you with the clean-up crew?"
It took Hogarth longer than usual to look down and even more so to process the elderly lady was joking. He stammered. "No... uh, I mean, how did... how did this?"
"Oh my, are you disturbed?" She removed her hand. "Didn't escape an asylum, did you?" The woman chortled. Citizens started returning and Hogarth was speechless.
Robots that wanted to attack and capture him, time travel, and this was what left the seventeen-year-old cotton-mouthed. When the elderly woman asked the teen to help her home, he nodded slowly and the two travelled down several blocks to an apartment complex. As she entered, she thanked him and asked if he was okay.
"Huh?" He came to. "Yeah, yeah. Uh... I just, um, I just got a little turned around."
"Well," The lady gave his cheek a pat. "You take care of yourself and let your mama know where you are." She offered him a small wad of cash and Hogarth backed up.
"No, it's okay." He showed his hands, suddenly recalling Mom's aversion to charity.
As the woman left he thought he could hear a faint yapping noise in her pocket and this suddenly reminded Hogarth to check his...surely, since he'd been bunking with a man from two-hundred years in the future, Hogarth was still bound to have cash.
He looked inside.
Black.
Hogarth squinted just to be sure... nothing but a big, gaping hole of black. He dug inside and recalled that he was never bad with money or anything, it was just that circumstances beyond his control usually deprived him of money back when he was still a kid... particularly around lunch time. He breathed deeply through his nose. It would appear he would need to find employment... and a home, if he could recount where Inx lived... and a mode of transportation, if his Flathead wasn't metal ashes.
He could always appropriate.
But, he looked around at all the people streaming past him, it would be from those who was still using the things he needed to survive. Hogarth's worry became acute.
He turned around and realized he'd just passed up on what was essentially the only way he had to obtain any kind of meal today. Slowly, Hogarth weighed his options. But for some, strange reason his mind wasn't working well. What had the lady said?
Look for his mother? He hadn't found any trace of a residence under "Hughes" or "Curtis" in the library archives and City Hall had been useless. Inx was gone, there was no sign of any other familiar face and Hogarth came to the same conclusion he always had... that on that day in Rockwell, October 8th, everyone was destroyed...
Everyone, except a nine-year-old boy who wasn't even worth the effort to kill.
...
A fist slammed down on the computer console and for once it wasn't Sergey. Kent winced and shook his hand; clearly, hitting your hand on solid metal when angered wasn't the smartest... Kent moaned and clenched the hand that didn't smart as a very much battered Android Marketer sluggishly pulled itself along the countryside.
He looked down at his red fist pressed hard against the long keyboard...
His knuckles were turning white now.
The boy... he'd been revealed! Right. there. in plain sight at long last. And Mansley, he'd been so. DAMN. CLOSE. to ending Dimelo's sole requirement of him: That he capture the Hughes boy in order to remain in power, and to-, Kent gripped the top of his chair and threw it across the room. How, in this great nation, did a boy do all this?! They'd known for years Hogarth was alive and, for some bizarre reason, the Russian had wanted him. Why? For his unusual propensity for attracting the weird?
Even his gold-darned name was an anomaly.
But Kent and his men were indeed behind most of the strangeness in Hogarth's life.
The boy had finally even managed to find himself in Kent's city with a Giant replica!
It had worked in bringing Hogarth out, even if the lure to capture and bring him here had changed to the boy hitching a ride on the giant instead of what been a planned out-and-out kidnapping. And now, shielded by that DAMN bolt as it turned out was why he had eluded capture for eight years, and wise to his own "powers"...
Kent tore through his entire monitoring room upturning and throwing chairs.
No! There had to be a way around this...
The man suddenly remembered a hidden trump card; short of the actual Iron Giant showing up and having a lovey-dovey reunion with his best little buddy. Kent went over to a steel drawer, unlocked it and pulled out manila file with a labelled name:
Robert Eric Robinson.
A slow, evil smile spread across Kent's face.
Oh, damn you, Dimelo. He thought cunningly of Rob's decade-old reassignment to New Robocity, pulling out pictures of his accompanying family. You sly old bastard.
...
Hogarth moved without purpose through the city, whereas two days earlier he had been full of life and renewed spirit. He pushed through bodies, lower then low, not hearing the muffled, impatient voices directed at him. The weary young man finally found himself on an unfamiliar street somewhere above the center of the huge city.
His stomach growled and his throat was parched when suddenly he saw a sign:
The Lighthouse Inn.
Right under it in the same black placard, silver-stylized writing was another sign:
The Nuts and Bolts Café and Diner.
Vaguely intrigued, knowing he was going to end up flat on his butt or in the back washing dishes once the bill came, Hogarth pushed open the door to hear the sounds of actual nuts and bolts clanking together in a sort of wind chime greeting.
He dragged himself over to the counter and climbed up on his knees onto a bright, red stool. There, his head collapsed into his arms and his shoulders drooped tiredly. The teen sensed someone bustling in from the back, but had no energy to look up.
"Heeeeey... my first customer of the day." A man said with an easy cheeriness.
"Mmm-hmph," Hogarth murmured, his voice muffled inside of his arms.
The shopkeeper came a little closer. "What can I start you out with? A coffee?"
His young patron barely moved his tired head.
"Uh... kid?"
He heard a sigh. "Y'know what?" What turned out to be a teenager lifted his head a bit. "I'd really just like some milk," Hogarth said, barely remembering milk's taste.
Did milk have a taste?
The man chuckled good-naturedly. "Okay, chocolate or vanilla?"
Hogarth touched his forehead to his wrist. "Vanilla," he murmured.
There was a pause that followed as the shopkeeper went over to retrieve a spotless goblet and fill it half-way, he then reached over to swipe up a gelatin-filled aerosol bottle for a shake feature. The man debated something a moment and then fixed it.
"So..." He made small-talk. "First day in town?"
"Yep," His customer replied briefly.
"Heh-heh. Not from the big city, huh?"
"No," Hogarth raised his head and stared over at a disproportioned glass shelf full of pastries, feeling his stomach churn. "I'm not from around here." he kept staring.
"Really? Me neither. Not originally, anyways."
The man's eyes were on him for a moment, and then he went back to his business.
Ten seconds passed.
"Yeah, I came from a small town, too." He tried to sympathize.
Hogarth returned his face to his arms, a nagging feeling eating at his insides.
"Pretty earth-shaking, huh?" The man put the glass down, saying aloud.
"This whole place is."
"No, this whole life is, kid."
They both laughed a little.
"Bendy or swirly?"
Hogarth's eyes widened and his head cleared. "What?" He looked up at the man.
The light brown eyes inside the circle of black hair were calm. "Your straw?" In his hands he held up the two options. Hogarth blinked blankly and made his selection.
With a polite smile, the shopkeeper held out the bended plastic to him.
It seemed to Hogarth that recognition had flashed briefly in the man's beige eyes, and he had just as quickly hidden it. Now that he had his drink Hogarth focused on it to hide his own preoccupation, but when the man turned he looked right back up.
He took a long drink of his shake and ran his hand across his mouth.
"So... uh, how long did you say you've lived here?"
"I didn't," the man paused patiently, then went back to his work. "But eight years."
"Today?" Hogarth found himself asking softly.
There was a more deliberate pause.
"Yes," He answered exactly. "Today."
Hogarth returned his eyes to his shake, not quite feeling shut out but instead with such dissatisfaction right now. His drink didn't quench anything. As the shopkeeper kept bustling here and there, Hogarth's roaming gaze darted around at posters of brass players, Swing Era paraphernalia, and odd pieces of metal that looked like...
Like some kind of weird, tiny sculptures.
His breathing was getting heavier as his heart began to race.
"Look at the counter," the shopkeeper suggested softly, "It's got the city's history."
Hogarth did just that. He saw clips of old newspaper from New Robocity's past:
Lost Boy, Year 2, Man of Iron's rallier intensifies efforts to fully skip town...
Last citizen of Rockwell, entering Year 3 in local eccentric's attempts to find him.
It was getting warmer, harder to breathe for Hogarth, as he leaned over the glass top, his eyes moving in rapid procession from one earth-shattering headline to the next. Year 4, Teen of Rockwell now believed deceased, all efforts to leave stymied.
The pounding in his ears was like drums, sweat pouring down his creased brow.
Six Years to the day, newly licensed proprietor will still not relent in his search...
Hogarth was aware that the diner owner had spoken, but his heart was exploding in his chest like the discharge of a tank, like the blast from a robot's cannon. He was aware also that the man was close by as if he were afraid Hogarth might pass out.
Suddenly, the teen spotted something that made his heart stop altogether.
It was a picture, one that had been printed on a headline with 1st Anniversary on it and the rest of which Hogarth barely saw. For his focus now lay on that of himself from years past; his nine-year-old self, grinning. He felt some tension leave and, in that next moment, his blue eyes beheld the Giant. Hogarth felt a cold streak, like a ghost of some half-forgotten period of time, rise in his chest. He touched the metal face on the picture and felt something soft melt the chill away, something warming.
The image blurred and Hogarth felt great joy enter his heart.
He ran his fingers down his old friend's face and almost covered his mouth, smiling in a bittersweet half-disbelief. But there he was. He had existed. Maybe he still did.
Hogarth's yearning was so strong he almost kissed the picture, then laughed a bit.
The Giant was here! He knew it now. Hogarth FELT it. He-,
A familiar presence near him sent the cold chill right back into his chest.
"I never stopped looking," He heard the man say in a hushed tone, turning to see the shopkeeper gazing sadly down at the huge collage under glass. It was almost like he was talking about someone he had lost, someone who had died. "At first, I had the whole town trying to break down this place, trying to break out, but... well, y'know, everyone got settled. Didn't wanna move. Was complacent." He was bitter.
Hogarth listened dumbly to this, only half-understanding it seemed.
The man continued to rail. "But I didn't give up," his brows lowered, and his voice was grave, but he didn't sound crazed. Only determined. "I never gave up the idea that you..." He turned away and Hogarth still wasn't fully realizing this was for real.
But his instinct was kicking in. "I-I better go now..." he started to get up.
His bill.
"Um... I-I don't-,"
The man's head lowered.
"It's on the house," He was nearly inaudible.
But something stopped Hogarth from leaving, something stronger than his fear.
"Do-do you know where everyone is?" He asked this keeper of lost ghosts.
A stiff laugh. "Yeah," the man said. "All mixed in with the surrounding towns here."
Hogarth waited in a silent, nerve-wracking anticipation.
The man sighed in a raspy voice and gave him what he wanted; he turned around.
They looked into each other's eyes for a span of three seconds.
"How do you know all this?" Hogarth's voice cracked, he sounded so young.
Something broke in the man's eyes, "How do you think I know all this?" he replied.
Fear and shock was on Hogarth's face. "No," he backed up off his seat.
"Yeah," Dean said plainly, quietly, "Hey, kid."
The teen was backing away quickly. "Dean?! No... no, you're-,"
"Like some bad movie, huh?" His old friend's sadness was barely hidden.
"No, no... it can't be."
The man didn't overact, he merely rubbed the back of his neck. "It can be, cause it is." When Hogarth started hyperventilating again is when he started to grow more alert. "Now, Hogarth, wait. Don't freak out, there. It's okay." He held up his hands.
Like when Hogarth had refused the lady's money.
Everything began to shake, the earth was no longer stable under his feet.
"Don't go anything crazy," For his added girth, Dean sprung and slid over the top of the counter with relative ease. "Now look, I didn't mean to spook you. Let's just..."
Hogarth started backing out of the diner.
"Hogarth, don't even think about it. Don't run, kid. It's gonna be... Hogarth, wait."
Like a frightened animal, the teen made a hasty dash out of the restaurant and was hurtling through the crowds even as Dean yelled for him at the top of his lungs. In running, there was no compare. Hogarth had been the fastest sprinter in his school.
And for good reason.
Especially now, as the half-crazed-appearing young man pushed and shouldered his way through the mostly-wise crowds who parted to let him pass. As he ran Hogarth felt his mind run with him: Dean was alive, the townsfolk were alive... and, so close he could almost taste it like a shot of high-energy espresso, the Iron Giant was too.
To be continued...