Curses Do Exist

When morning came, or "When the black turned good" Grev tapped me awake and said, "Brahmin aint gonna feed themselves, and I gotta get me a new fission battery for that junkbot."

He was wearing hiking gear with a small backpack and a large bundle of rope across his body. I assumed we were going into the mountains/foothills/Pache warrior's cuckoo nest. Without saying anything, I got dressed into my normal gear and headed out the door with him. I walked through the town following the old man as he bid good morning to every resident of Gold Canyon we passed.

The two of us emerged into the desert east of town with Gold Canyon getting smaller and smaller and the mountain getting closer. As we walked through the desert, Old Man Grevsky still remained quiet, and I kept my eyes on the trail in front of us. Eventually, we reached the base of the towering mountain and hiked up the narrow pathways snaking the wall.

As we got higher and higher, the rugged trail got steeper and Old Man Grevsky began to speak, "I assume you got the gist of what I was saying last night?"

Huffing and puffing, and struggling to keep up with the elderly man, I said, "So you can talk like a... normal person after all?... Haha."

He looked back and let out a chuckle as we continued up the rocks, "Yep, the entire town is being closely monitored by a group of creeps."

I reached over a sun-bleached rock, hurled myself over, and replied, "I think I got that much. Who are these 'ghosts' or whatever? What do they want?"

He said, "Not really sure who they are, but if we drew too much attention to ourselves in my shack, they would've killed us in the night. I guess my gibberish helped, Haha! Anyway, that little black box you noticed in the shack is one of the things they're using to monitor the town and record everything that's being said."

I asked, "But who are they? Why are they monitoring the town?"

He began a short story about the situation, "About a year back, a group of our townies went searching for the Lost Dutchman's Mine that I'm sure you're familiar with. It's kind of a tradition in this area. Once a year for decades, Gold Canyon prospectors head out for a week long hike up the mountains in search of the thing. Anyway, last year's party encountered a group of power armored creeps with big guns and five of the townies got captured. 'Peralta Maps' didn't say nothing about them, Haha! Anyhows, two of them got away, but before they could reach the town; the armored creeps already locked down the place and vaporized the local caravan traffic. The guys said they were the remnants of the US Army, but I didn't believe them. I'd seen the US Army when I did some business over at Luke AFB a few years back… Anyway, they told all of us to resume business as usual and that they were conducting business at a base in the mountains. They just said to turn away traffic and they would leave us alone.

I windedly asked, "So what happened next?"

The experienced old prospector continued his story without any shortness of breath as we scaled tall rocks. "So, things went well and relatively uneventful for a while, until they didn't. We Gold Canyon folks didn't want no trouble until word slipped, and some people got antsy. A month and some change ago, the creeps in the mountains caught wind that some of the townies were trying to hire a gang of mercs to track em and wipe em out. So, the creeps appeared outta nowhere again, liquified the conspirators, planted cameras and voice recorders all over town, and said no one was allowed to leave town again..."

He looked back, saw my concerned expression, and added, "Not really sure why they didn't mind you coming into town, Haha!"

I asked, "So, what are we doing out here on this rock then?"

He laughed, "We're gonna ask 'em to leave! Hahaha! I got Mr. Swilling's message, but we can't do nothing for the people of Phoenix until we get rid of those creeps in these mountains. As long as they're here, the town is on lockdown. Since they installed the cameras, some people have tried to run away and ended up as piles of ash or plasma goo. Luckily, I had a ham radio and got Mr. Swilling's message in time. Shortly after I coordinated with Mr. S. the creeps musta found where the signal traffic was coming from because I showed up at my shack one day to find the radio busted, Haha! Can't say for sure why they didn't kill me for that, Haha! Them folks certainly are a peculiar bunch."

Stopping in my tracks, I said, "So we're just going to waltz into their base and get ourselves vaporized? But before that, we're going to politely ask them to leave!?"

He immediately retorted, "Hopefully no on the vaporize part, but you and I are going to see what it would take to get them to leave. Now quit your bitchin and man up. We'll be fine."

Walking on, I said, "You couldn't possibly know that."

He said, "Nobody's ever walked towards them since the townies 'stumble-found' the creeps. If they wanted us dead, they would've liquidated us as soon as we stepped foot outside of town."

Worried, confused, and short of breath, I said, "You better be right about that, Old Man… For your sake."

He laughed at my tough talk and said, "For both of our sakes, Boyo. Now keep up. I've got at least 40 years on you and I aint huffin and puffin."

We hiked on and I had no idea who we were up against. From the sounds of things, an old prospector and a drifter with a rusty shotgun were not going to be a match against these "power armored and big gun carrying creeps."

We stopped only for water on the seemingly endless mountainsides. Even Grev didn't really know where he was going, and we were basically hiking the mountain hoping to be stopped by these well to do crazy guys he was talking about. We made decent use of the rope when needed, scaled the grand walls, and took short breaks on protruding rocks. Eventually, we came upon a great ridge looking out over the entire valley. Past the craters and sea of ruined metropolis or suburbs, I could just barely see the edge of post war Phoenix in the distance. We sat down by the ridge, and I looked out over the scrap town only a few miles away. I wasn't expecting a hike up a giant mountain when I was told to go to Gold Canyon, but Grev was loaded up like a pack mule with supplies. He shared some of his water, then Grev slung his canteen over his shoulder and began walking towards the next ridge we were going to scale. I got up and shuffled forward to catch up. He clearly had more experience at mountain climbing than me despite his aged physique.

I was several feet from him as the next little ridge got closer when a hand sized silver ball shot straight up out of the bush between us. Grev whipped around at the noise. The ball hovered in midair for two seconds while giving a rapid beeping sound before detonating in a bluish-purple explosion of sparks. I was in the blast radius and felt the shockwave wash over me. The nerves in my body shut off one by one, and I went into complete paralysis. There, I fell to the ground stiff as a board and unable to even control my eyelids that were locked in a wide-open state. Grev laid there in the sands looking at me with his body locked in a mid-walking position. We both laid there in total paralysis when I saw four humans encased in giant suits of black power armor that I've never seen before. The men carried big guns and approach us from the corner of my gaze.

Through a static voice, one of the giant tin men said, "Look, boys! Its Ol Grevsky! We know all about you, Grandpa. And what's this? You brought your grandson?"

Looking at the others, the same armored creep ordered, "Load'em up, Major said he actually wants to speak with them."

My vision suddenly started to rapidly blur, and I blacked out just as I saw one of them throw the stiffened old timer over a giant steel shoulder and proceed towards the mountainside.