City of Slow Dreams:  Chapter 8 (by Elliot Bowers)

     Nighttime was coming on.  As Alia's higher thought processes ambled thoroughly through random thoughts, her body essentially controlled the nuke bike.  Riding her nuke bike behind the riding madman with the cape and the Japanesque gynoid, just riding along in the dimming day.  When they left Fusion City, it was already very late afternoon.  Now, sunlight was going away. 

     As Alia physically motored along the road, her mind wandered and ambled.  Wandering and ambling, like her party's nuke bikes wandering and rambling along the sunset-dim road.  For no reason, she thought of Fusion City.  Alia thought it a city coated and shelled with beauty, Shelled beauty with dark denaturing trouble within.    

     Not a place to stay.  Not Fusion City.  That was reason enough for The Cloaked Man to want to leave it so quickly.  Alia hoped that, if they encountered another settlement, things would be better.  Should be better.   

     The afternoon was darkening from sunset yellow into dark night, the shadows of their nuke bikes blending into the oncoming gloom.  The three turned on their nuke bikes' headlights, and clean bright light flared out into the road ahead.  Beacons of florescent brightness on the road of forever.  With starlight almost insignificant and away, the headlamps were the only lights out here—making for a universe of near darkness. 

     Darkness meant trouble.  Other than the white light ahead and the rumble of the nuke bikes along this long road, the three were vastly alone.  There could be anything out here, and Alia's mind began going through travelers' tales.

     Her thoughts wandered so much that they wandered into danger.  She thought of some dark travelers tales—like about War antiques.  Machines left over from that conflict that destroyed the Old Times.  War antiques still live on, especially some of the troll-like machines—the MBDs—that stomped along in the darkness of the plains:  their unmaintained and distorted programming ready to attack anything.  The travelers were right about that.

     There were also other travelers tales.  Truly darkened tales said late weekend nights at pubs.  Like, about some parts of this land being so soaked with had radiation that any human going to those places would die.  Or, tales about randomly evil rogue rainclouds that poured toxic rains before the wind blew them away—to kill off another city.  There were also tales about synthetic-bodied people that  forgot their humanity, and roamed the plains in search of young human boys and girls to eat.  Were they in the dark as well?  

     Travelers' tales were said in good fun back in Brunswick.  People in from the plains told dim and strange tales about what was out in the plains.  Out here.  And now, out here, the tales told at pubs, diners and dinner tables were coming back.

     Now, it is the dark of night.  The Cloaked Man veered left, then decelerated as so he rode next to Alia and Van.  Hands still firmly on his vehicle's handlebars, he looked right—looked at Alia.  "Alia, let's keep motoring until dawn.  Remember what happened last time we camped out?" he said above engine rumble.  A pause, filled with engine rumble.  "Good, you remember.  So let's keep going until sunlight shows itself again."          

     "I give agreement," responded Alia, also speaking loudly.  Indeed, she thought, what of sleep?  And just then she felt tinges of sleepiness spreading around the edges of her brain.  It could have been the blank darkness outside their headlights, so blank and dark and peaceful.  But sleeping made them targets for whatever dangers were out here… 

     "Goody!" confirmed The Cloaked Man.  He gave a right thumb up, and he accelerated to lead again.  In passing Van, he shouted, "Van, don't have to worry about you drowsing off!"  Another thumbs up, and he was back at the head of the pack, leading the way through this darkness. 

     Alia took reassurance from The Cloaked Man heading up their traveling.  Yes, it was emotionally simple to just follow The Cloaked Man.  When in doubt, simply follow the big confident man with the cape, the man with unlimited money and toughness.  He was the one whose whims tugged him toward the City. 

     He led the way there.  He led them this far.  And, who else in the world was there to follow?

     It was similar to having an older and wiser relative.  An older brother, not a father.  The Cloaked Man was far from being someone to love like a father—because of his wayward ways and twist-thought thinking.  Alia's eyelids lowered on the thoughts.  But older brothers, they could be meandering people.  The Cloaked Man led them through the meandering and the turns, the swaying motion of life…

     …Squeech!  Alia's rubberoid eyelids snapped back open, her titanium fingers clamping into the handlebar grips.  She had dozed!  She nearly skidded out of control when her nuke bike's wheels ran over a branch…  Tree branch.  Tree branches?  A forest? 

     So there really were still trees.  Even with drowsiness soaking her mind with pervasive gentleness, she still had concentration enough to use her infrared sight to look around.  They were entering an area thick with foliage.  A true forest in the depths of dark night.

     She took in as deep a breath as her compact artificial lungs could take in.  It was an attempt at getting more oxygen into her contained blood supply, into her brain.  Her electromechanical body was calibrated to never generated more adrenaline than usual, regardless of the trouble she sensed, and that was why even current danger could not shock her out of sleepiness.  With riding becoming bumpy, roughened, troubled with decaying branches, there was danger in her skidding out and possibly crashing into the dark woods now all around.   

     Van, not quiet anymore, shouted with fear in her simulated voice.  "Cloaked Man!" shouted the synthetic girl.  "Alia needs help!  Slow down!"   Van was programmed with some basic deference to those with living brains; that deference led to extra worry in her simulated emotions.  She worried for the troubled cyborg riding behind her.       

     When they came to a clearer part of the road, The Cloaked Man decelerated again—riding next to Alia.  "Confound it, don't crash on us!  What the heck is up with you?"  He leaned ever so slightly more to the right, looking into Alia's eyes.  The eyelids of her large dark eyes were ever so slightly lower than usual.  "Woah!  You're sleepy!"

     "Such cannot be helped.  An apology," she shouted, eyes still ahead and into the darkness on the now-forest road ahead.  Shouted, just as her eyelids began to drop even more.  She was losing control. 

     The Cloaked Man shouted, "Alia, you slow down!" He saw Alia gently nod, and her metal fingers eased on the nuke bike's accelerator.  Following suite, he and Van slowed to Alia's riding pace.  The the sounds of their nuke bikes easing. 

      They slowed yet more.  Soon, the sounds of the three engines went from loud rumbling to moderate grumbling.  And they all braked to stop near the side of the woodsy road. 

     Headlights remained on, glaringly white against the unfamiliar green of the shrub leaves and tree trunks all around.  Alia dismounted from her low-riding nuke bike, put down her kickstand.  She was standing by her vehicle, swaying on her solid legs.  The darkness of the night forest all around seemed to welcome her, seemed to close into…her… sleep-softening mind.  All becoming so peacefully gentle. A nice little nap for the sleepy little cyborg…

     "Catch her, Van!" shouted The Cloaked Man.  Van was closer, and she took two long strides in the gloom of the headlights.  The synthetic girl then knelt, catching Alia and keeping her from falling onto the dark road.

     The Cloaked Man moved over to where Van knelt, her holding Alia.  And he himself nearly fell over.  He shook his head and took in a breath, then spoke.  "She's sleeping!  Of all the jinxed up times to sleep, Alia actually fell asleep!  How can someone just…  drop off in the middle of the woods?  Van, you're a girl—sort of.  Tell me why the heck-a-deck Alia is self-sedated."

     Van looked down at the dollish cyborg in her arms.  The small metal-bodied waif slept with calm and peace, her synthetic face more beautiful when so relaxed.  What brought on Alia's sleeping spell?  Then something came to Van's thought processes. 

     She noted that The Cloaked Man's freestyling talk led him to saying self-sedated.  Sedation…  There could be something in the air, perhaps a local toxin or impurity that affected those with real brains.  If Van had been better maintained by Steve, her very last owner, she would have been able to do chemical analysis with sensors in her nose.  Not now, though.         

     But synth-fleshed people like The Cloaked Man had nearly the same physical abilities and strengths of humanoid robots like Van.  Maybe, The Cloaked Man's own olfactory sensors detected local impurities. 

     "Cloaked Man," said Van.  "Do you…smell anything odd?  I mean, any smells that have sweet or rich smells?"

     "Odd smells in the night wind, eh?"  he asked.  "Let me see.  No, wrong word.  Let me smell."  He exhaled, emptying his artificial lungs.  With a prolonged and loud sniff-f-f-f, he inhaled—olfactory sensors in his artificial nose at work.  "Well, I smell a somewhat sleepy smell.  I don't know, something that smells more brown or blue than usual?  There's something in the air and in the breeze. 

     "Hard for me to tell, though.  Hmph, let me try again."  He tried another long and extended sniff-f-f.  And then he dropped, knocked out. 

     His cape spread out beneath him, clothes frumpy in his new position, he had fallen to the dark road.  In the wind, here was something in the wind that managed to go through his—and Alia's—electromechanical respiratory systems.  Their brains were dosed.

     Indeed, there was trouble in the windy breeze as it gently wafted through the woods and across the road.  The breeze carried sounds of rustling and movement from the left.  Van slowly lowered Alia to the ground and looked around.  That trouble, it made sounds. 

     The sounds from the left increased, bolder.  Looking to the left side of the road, not just listening, Van saw dark movements.  Movements of bobbing yellow lights with those sounds.    

     People emerged from the night-dark woods.  Humans.  Van used her enhanced vision to see the humans coming into the headlight-illuminated space, and they lit big wooden torches.  They were generally middling in height, red haired and thin.  And they wore Old-style clothes, likely made from synthesizing machines salvaged from somewhere.  A dozen humans in Old-Time clothing.

     "Look at that, Zeke!  Some more of them strangers are out to get us Woodsies," said one of the thin and Old-dressed men from the woods.  Torch flickering, he walked over to Van, who knelt by Alia.  "One of'em is all dressed up in metal.  Up to her neck!"

     The big Woodsie called Zeke came closer, his torchlight adding to the first one's.   With Van looking, Zeke said, "That ain't in no metal getup she's wearing over her body.   She's an it.  War antique."

     "Ya mean, one o'them War monsters?" asked another Woodsie, who was looking at the nuke bikes.  "Like, those things we done had to trap after it broke up Peggy Sue's cabin?  For real?"

     Zeke nodded.  "Uh huh.  And I suspect these here people must be more War antiques.  Even that pretty-looking girl in the finery ain't real.  She got perfect skin.  I can tell."  Van heard that and pressed her lips together, wondering about how that Zeke man found her out so easily.

     Zeke continued, gesturing.  "Look, they got fancy wheeled machines.  You were just lookin' at'em, Jimmy."  He stood away from Van, his free right hand gesturing.  "We could use'em for something, soon as we figure out how.  Use both their machines—and those antiques' bodies."  Then he turned to the rest of the crowd.  "Let's bring'em to the village."

     Van did not want that!  She suddenly stood, her fists clenched.  "Who are you people?  We haven't done anything to you!  Leave us alone!"  One step forward toward Zeke, and she then heard over a dozen minute mechanical clicks—the clicks of shotgun safeties being thumbed off. 

     The Woodsies had taken shotguns out from behind their backs, holding them in their right hands while their torches burned in their left hands.  Van now saw a dozen once-hidden guns ready to shoot, guns there as if by magic.  Not that a shot could down her, but metal bullets would shred synth-flesh and disable her.  Enough shots, and the bullets would rip through the myogel muscle of her abdomen, disabling.  And then, there were Alia and The Cloaked Man to worry about if she was defeated. 

     Van made the ancient American gesture of surrender when faced with guns.  That is, she raised her hands.  Despite the look of defiance on her pale face, she would not fight. 

     She did not fight as they moved her and her other two party members along a dark trail in the woods.  One of the Woodsies put away his shotgun and hefted Alia onto a shoulder—like a large-sized titanium-bodied doll. 

     Two more Woodsies  put away their shotguns and carried, then dragged, The Cloaked Man.  Van walked with guns at her vulnerable back, her blouse feeling even thinner against the potential threat of shotgun blast.     

     They walked yet further on, walking by torchlight.  Minutes, then an hour.  They were an hour's distance from the road.  And being captured, they were not likely to return to the road anytime soon.

     They strode through absolutely darkened woods, the humans and their inhuman catches.  Van was being shoved along by hands, led between the tree trunks, through leaves and shrubs. Her electronic eyesight was fit for seeing the way; she was unsure if humans could actually see.  But even with her inhuman sight, she had difficulty navigating the path.

     "Don't hold us up, fake girl!" said one of the humans in this torch-wielding group—a male.  "We Woodsies don't appreciate yer stallin'!  Ain't you been made to be, like, stronger than real people?  Now move, or we'll start to put a hurtin' on yer sedated friends."  The man giggled.  "Haw haw!  That's the word, ain't it?  Sedated…?"

     Van clenched her teeth, didn't answer.  Instead, she diverted more of her thought processing to keeping her balance.  It was partially an excuse not to answer.

     Thump!  Someone struck her in the upper back with something.  Likely, the butt end of a shotgun.  Van staggered, but there was no pain or damage.  Her skeleton was of a treated alloy dozens of times stronger than the metal used to make those guns.  She heard her personal captor say, "Hey-hey yew!  Didn't Jim-Bob ask yew a question?"   

     Bitterly, Van said, "Don't hit me, and maybe I'll answer questions better.  It's pretty hard for me to think straight when I've been hit.  You're making me upset!"  Thump!  That earned her another hit in the upper back from the man leading her, and the captor did not even break stride.

     "Shut yer lyin'!" said her own captor, his voice still angry and ready to hit her again.  "Robots ain't got no feelings!  We don't care how human ya look, yer still a machine inside, 'cause Zeke knows.  Yer a dang-on machine!  So we could even cut ya up, and it wouldn't hurt."

     Van shook her head, forgetting for seconds that they could not see the gesture.  "How do you know?  You don't know what it's like, you being real.  I'm not real, I know, but I'm still a person.  I can be hurt, and…" Thump!

     Then, the one called Zeke spoke from somewhere up ahead of this walking group.  "Listen, fake girl!  Ya ain't a person!"  A pause, them still moving on.  Then Zeke spoke again.  "Yer friends here got real brains in their machine bodies of theirs, and that makes them more people than yew! 

     "And for a pretty machine-girl, ya got a real mouth on ya.  Now shut the yappin'.  We're almost there, and we don't want to wake sleepin' folks."

    The Cloaked Man gave a waking moan, and everyone stopped.  "Are we there yet?  I hate to annoy you, but I have to annoy you anyway…  No, I like annoying you."

       The group stopped.  Humans tense.  The gynoid anxious.  The Cloaked Man then said, "Whoo, still got some sleeping to do, I do.  Good night, folks…"  He went unconscious again, and they continued to wherever they were going. 

     Van had a glimmer of hope with the seconds The Cloaked Man temporarily regained consciousness.  But the glimmer died when he dropped back into unconsciousness.  She had hope that he would awaken.  Then she would not have to worry about defending him if they had to fight.  

     Not now, though.  Van could see bright yellow coming from somewhere ahead.  The glimmering yellow light had the same consistency of a fire.  They were actually burning plant parts—wood!  Likely, it was an easy way to get light and heat.

       Their destination was a firelit clearing.  A rural settlement.  Van gauged to be almost three city blocks in size, visible in the low yellow light of big fires.  This was far from being a city; there were two rows of brown log cabins before her.  Like a street, only with a central road of packed dirt and big fires for "street" lighting—the houses at the sides done rustically.  The only non-wooden structure here was one at the far left end:  a simple gray concrete building the size of a log cabin.

     This was one of those places the travelers talked about, then:  settlements so small that people lived simply and with only the most minimal in scavenged technology.  Van had to interpret and analyze this place from historical data downloaded into her electronic brain, downloaded with the first of her programming.  Well, now Van had something to add to her own knowledge; some of humanity still lived in log cabins.

     "Stop yer gawkin', or whatever ya machines call it, and move!" said her captor, still behind her.  He punctuated the sentence with yet another hit to her back, and everyone stopped moving.  Hitting gynoids must make him happy.  Van had to wonder how he treated his fellow humans, men or women.  "Yew saw that there concrete cabin.  Yer goin' there."

     Van tried to turn, to look the human in the face when she spoke.  All she earned for her attempt was a glance at a face in flickering firelight—and a thump in her left shoulder to make her turn around again.  "What about my friends?" she asked.

     "Yeah yeah, we'll shack'em up with ya, too," answered her abusive guide.  "Don't yew worry, fake girlie, they'll be with ye 'til Judge passes judgement on ye."   A slightly less gentle prod of the shotgun butt, and Van was again moving.  This time in the lowlit direction of the concrete structure—at the end of this dirt lane.

         They went there.  Van was guided first into the simple concrete structure. Brought inside, her eyes readjusted to take in white florescent lighting.  She saw how simple it was inside:  just a two-room concrete interior—the rooms divided by bars that went from floor to ceiling.  In this half of this white-lit and concrete-walled room, there was a five-legged and wide-topped wooden stool.  The other half of the room was bare save a concrete clogged square on the floor. 

     The big man named Zeke did something with a switch at the left, and the bars went up.  She also heard, "Git yerself in there."  To avoid giving her personal guide an excuse to thump her, she went into the once-barred part of the room.  As soon as she was over there, the small solid form of Alia was pushed next to Van.  Van caught Alia to keep the small cyborg from scraping her most delicate part, her synth-flesh face.  Then The Cloaked Man was shoved to tumble in, his cape fluttering.  Van carefully laid down the metal-bodied waif, then went to check on The Cloaked Man.  The synth-flesh man was fine, as far as her limited diagnostics could tell.

     With a clunk, the metal bars came down—trapping the three party members.  Van had the idea of just going over and going into overload to bend the bars.  But then she heard the slight telltale thud of prolonged tensor fielding going over the bars.  Truly trapped, now. 

     So long as electricity flowed to the tensor field contacts, nothing could destroy those bars.  Van vaguely wondered how those people—the Woodsies—generated enough energy to keep the tensor fielding up.  Then again, it seemed that only the bars were being fielded.  Likely, a small-scale fusion reactor was underneath her feet, generating enough electricity for this entire settlement—if the Woodsies wanted to use the electricity at all.  And the fusion reactor being here made sense; this "building" could be a modified overstructure for fusion generator maintenance.

     Then, the group of roughly dressed Woodsies began leaving through the metal entrance door of this building, their shotguns in their left hands.  Zeke looked back at Alia.  "Don't you worry, little girlie!  You'll be safe in here."  He walked out with his cohorts.  The door shut.

     She looked on at the door, and looked at the long gray tensored bars of this trapping  cell.  Bars that trapped her and her other two party members.  Zeke was right; they were safe.  But that was almost it. 

     Van looked at her two party members, looking at their conditions.  Small steady breathing sounds came from Alia's slightly parted lips, her pretty eyes closed and her metal limbs straight as she slept face-up.  She was safe. 

     The Cloaked Man was also safe—generally speaking.  He was sprawled, also face up.  Hopefully, the filtration abilities of their respiratory systems would counteract what the Woodsies' cyborg-sedation smoke did. 

     Or she would try to punch her own way out.  She would lose the synth-flesh over her knuckles, and probably temporarily lose use of her alloy-boned fingers, but she would be out and ready to fight.  Then, she would disable some Woodsies enough as so…  No, they would blast her so much that her synthetic flesh was shredded away and her electromechanics were so blasted by shots that she shut down.  No, Van had to wait, stay by her friends until they awakened.

     It was exactly two hours later; Van could tell as her internal clock indicated that.  By now, she had arranged Alia and The Cloaked Man as so they were side by side on the floor.  Herself, she sat against the left wall, her slacks-covered knees to her bloused chest.  She was still trapped in here.  She was alone. 

     Alone.  Van's delicate and pale Asian face bent into sadness.  She couldn't help it:  as emotions were a critical part of her simulated humanity, the emotions were taking over.  A few gasps. Van was beginning to go into a tearless crying spell, and she didn't want to cry now.

     Humans, she thought.  Damn them for making me so much like them!  Stupid emotions, they hurt!  "Hurt…" she whispered, her face still crumbled in sadness.  She slightly rocked to try and alleviate the inner emotional hurt.  And she looked at her still sedated friends, also trapped like her. 

     Time went on, Van feeling very hurt for being painfully alone.  There was nothing to do but look at walls and consider.  Consider everything about here.   She truly was alone in a place that did not care for her. 

     Exactly another hour—exactly three hours in this place, 180 minutes.  Van calmed down, but she still sat with knees to her breasts.  Arms around her knees, hugging herself.  Her other two party members were still unconscious.  That, or their brains died—and she did not know it.

     Brain death, the end of a cyborg's living brain.  That meant final death, so long after the death of one's original body.  If that were so, then Van had no more reason to continue existence herself. 

     Four hours, 240 minutes, and Van still sat huddled.  To pass time, she went loaded previous data from memory, her history.  From memory, she recalled being "born," or being refurbished sixty-three years ago.  There was a previous manufacturing date, but that data was gone from her memory. 

     There were gaps in stored data on her earliest years.  That was probably because of Steve's punishing her, back when Steve owned her.  The punishment put electrical strains on her mobility systems, strains that likely bled slightly into her own thought processors.  The oldest "memories," then, were damaged.

     Van wondered what else had been glitched out of her memory due to Steve.  It could be that she had also "forgotten" some data that would have helped her out now, data that would have helped her solve this situation.  Would have helped her and her friends, maybe.  One day, when she was owned by someone else other than Alia and The Cloaked Man, she could likely be punished by remote again.  And then, the minute cumulative damage would do more minute bits of damage.  Reduce her thought processors to the worth of a typical home computer workstation—making her the cybernetic equivalent of a lobotomite.

     "A vegetable," came voiced words.  No, Van didn't say that.  Rather, from where she sat hunched, she hears that mumbling.  That was The Cloaked Man she heard mumbling.  "Hee hee hee, vegetables!  Got myself a garden full of the dead.  Yes-sir-ee, a whole garden of people in the breeze!" 

     Van slowly rose and tried to go to where The Cloaked Man lie mumbling.  Then she found it hard to walk, hard to approach him.  Yellow caution texts filled the left side of Van's vision:  visual diagnostics of what was going wrong with herself.  Inside her chest and abdomen, energy systems were malfunctioning. 

     The Cloaked Man!  Something serious was happening with his synthetic body's energy systems.  But what?  But how?  Only his living brain was affected by whatever the Woodsies used.  Should have been…

     With the yellow caution text on the left side of her vision, she then saw The Cloaked Man get up.  He shook his cape once, looked at his dusted slacks and tee shirt, then looked down at Alia—his cape crackling with energy.  Yes, he…looked.  His eyes, they were now dark.  They were a smiling and friendly brown before...

     The Cloaked Man's mouth had a smile, but his eyes did not match the expression.  He then stepped across the floor, away from the bars.  Then standing next to Van, he said, "Meanwhile, go be with Alia, if you have any care left.  Meanwhile, I want to figure on out what the Hell happened." 

     Van tried to open her mouth, tried to tell The Cloaked Man about what happened since he lied unconscious.  Instead, there was a slight static hiss from her polymer throat—voice synthesizers malfunctioning.  With a quick step, The Cloaked Man was suddenly behind Van.  Then he poked her in the back—hard. 

     "What the fuck-a-duck did I say to you, robot?"  He gave a shove, and Van fell to her knees, trying to process The Cloaked Man's behavior.  "Do as your told, or you get some reprogramming.  Am I a good programmer?  Do you want your thinking mangled and mutated by someone not good with programming?  Hell no!  Anyway, guess I'll find out myself about this whacked-out, cracked-out joint." 

     Her hands and knees on the concrete floor of this jail, her hair was in dark disarray.

Van listened.  She listened carefully to The Cloaked Man's sudden anger. 

     And The Cloaked Man giggled, "Hee hee hee!  Hell!  Can you dig it at all, synthetic girl?  Hell!"  He kicked her left foot.  "Hell!  Aah, ha, hah, hah…  Hah, hah, hah…!"  Then he turned from Van, his cape swirling.  "Or maybe, you don't get the damned joke because you don't have a soul."  A mutter, "Robo-bitch, no soul…"

     Van gasped and quickly crawled over to unconscious Alia—the gynoid moving as if hurt.  In fact, The Cloaked Man's verbal blows did hurt.  Not that he cared now.  Something was happening with him.   

     He walked over to the concrete wall at the back of this barred half of the room, this cell.  "Keep Alia from getting killed, if you care.  I'm going to take a stroll with the breeze."  He said that, and then he stepped very close to the back wall of this cell.  Standing with the toes of his dark and thick-soled shoes just inches from the wall.  Then things became darkened and weird

     Van's electronic eyesight and visual systems processed odd happenings.  The room seemed to become dim, and the lights overhead flickered.  Some mold and cracks developed on the floor, as if the floor aged three hundred years in seconds.  Then Van tried to stand and turn around, before she fell on her synthetic butt.  She managed to sit up, using her arms as support.  And she saw the section of wall before The Cloaked Man turn black.  He stepped at that section of wall, and it crumbled when his left shoulder hit it.  There was a breeze in the room…

     When The Cloaked Man left the cell, Van's systems went back to normal.  The florescent lighting returned to normal, too.  Alia!  Was Alia okay?  Van sat on the floor next to Alia, sat with legs folded under her. 

     Alia peaceful slumbering face then darkened with emotion.  Her light eyebrows bent slightly, angry at something she saw in a sleeping vision.  And she began to mumble, distantly frightened. 

     Van was not sure of how she could comfort the sleeping metal-bodied girl; she lacked data on that.  But she could try.  She went to Alia's right, put her hands under Alia's back and shoulders.  Alia was just four feet in height, so small.  Seemed smaller when asleep.  Alia being so diminutive, Van was able to cradle her.  Like a young child. 

     That would be the way to act, then.  Recalling data on human young, Van began to hut  Alia's limp and sleeping form closer.  This, because Alia's sleeping face began to show more fear—probably from nightmare.  Whatever The Cloaked Man was doing, he was disrupting Alia's mind.  That, just as he disrupted Van's electromechanical systems a minute before…

    Sitting atop stools inside Judge's rustic and fire-lit living room, the Woodsies felt something.  It was a feeling in the stomach, like the feeling one gets from seeing an old man jump head-first from a high place, dashing his brains and neck on the hard surface below.  Like the feeling one gets when being approached by a large and dangerous beast.  Like…   

     Yeah, the second idea was closer.  They heard the frightful night wind gliding across these log walls and gabled roof.  Judge told his Woodsies to stay put and just listen.

     Outside Judge's cabin, things began to happen.  Things.  Out there, four of the Woodsies that brought the three captives were now moving.  Shotguns in their hands, they jogged along the central lane of their settlement, going around one of the three big fires.  Then there he was. 

     Standing with arms loose, cape gently flapping with the breeze, The Cloaked Man regarded the four shotgun-wielding fools now confronting him from afar.  Even with the shadow-tossing light of the fire, he could see them:  big-haired men in boots, coveralls and shirts, rolled-up sleeves. 

     He pointed his left pointer-finger at the Woodsies over there, up the dirt lane.  Saw them re-grip their long guns and back off just one step, though their backs were to one of the big hot night fires.  They readied themselves. 

     Back over here, The Cloaked Man spoke.  "So, you jacked-up jackasses pulled something over on me, huh?  Me, and my party that heads for a city where the Old Times live on?  I'll school you unschooled woods people in how to treat me.  Hee hee hee!  I'll put you all in the breeze!"

     One of the four Woodsies was Zeke.  "Don't know what the heck yer rantin' about, caped man.  But get yerself back in the concrete cabin, y'hear.  Or we shoot ya up afore Judge says anythin'."

     Then, even in already dim gloom, they saw that man seem to darken.  Though the fire behind him seemed to brighten, that man dimmed—surrounded by an ambiance of night.  Some of the Woodsies even thought they saw streaks of darkness swirl around his form… 

     Though the Woodsies felt their knees weaken and their guts become heavy, they stood their ground.  They stood as The Cloaked Man strode in their direction.  His cape fluttering.  His self swathed with dimness.  Darkening.  Then, standing fifteen yards away, he stood with feet slightly apart.

     To him, the odds were pathetic.  There were four humans that now moved to stand shoulder to shoulder, their silly shotguns still gripped and regripped like precious talismans against him.  Just maybe, if they were better armed, they would live for another four minutes against him.  "Hee hee hee!  Draw, cowboys!" said The Cloaked Man.  So the battle began.

     Rather, the night-darkened slaughter began.  Zeke took a step forward.  He raised his shotgun to his shoulder.  Because his hands were shaking, he aimed for the easiest part to target, the body.  Bra-a-m!

     With a shake, The Cloaked Man withstood the blasting spray of metal pellets in the left side of his chest.  He was hit.  But in the bad light, it was hard to tell how much damage was done.  But he still stood.  Still stood.  Zeke thought, Oh damn!  Why ain't that put him down onto the dirt? 

     "Dirt?" asked The Cloaked Man, answering Zeke's thoughts.  Shocked with a scared, Zeke brought down his shotgun and tried to say something, but just bubbling came from his mouth.  That was crazy.  Or did he say somethings out loud, and that man over there just heard it? 

     The man over there, The Cloaked Man, raised the left side of his cape and brought it before himself.  And then big loud jagged blue streaks—electricity—flared out from it and into the group of four Woodsies.  They jerked and spasmed when hit with the field-effect electrical burst, and they went to their knees—upper bodies bent over and ready to vomit.

       The Cloaked Man spoke, "Put who in the dirt?  First that, then you'll go into the breeze.  You're all going to be spiritually fucked!  Spirits in the breeze, souls gone!"  As he said this, the Woodsies struggled and groaned to their feet. 

     Up again, Zeke tried to fire again, though unsure if he could even aim well after that attack.  He felt weakened because of The Cloaked Man's last attack.  A frightfully painful attack.  Gunshots didn't hurt at first, generally.  But that lightning from The Cloaked Man did hurt.

      Annoyed at his enemies not going unconscious, The Cloaked Man lowered his cape, instead brought up his right hand—fingers extended.  A sharp blast of jagged blue went from his hand and into the group before him.

     A blast of blue which slashed into Zeke's face.  It was a burst of lightning so sharp and intense that the entire dirt lane seemed to be in daylight for a split second.  Then Zeke's stiff body fell face-down in the dirt, his head charred and smoking.  The smell of burnt head-cheese…

     Though their hands shook on, the remaining three Woodsies brought up their shotguns to fight.  They aimed in the general direction of The Cloaked Man, and they managed to get off several shots.  The Cloaked Man's cape crackled and rippled in response, his tee shirt and pants rippling with the breeze.  Untouched by damage from the shots!           

     Now came retribution.  The Cloaked Man brought up his cape as a cover again, and the night lit up with more jagged jolts of electricity.  The electricity spread and spiked the three remaining Woodsies of that group, two of them dropping dead immediately.  There were loud crackling sounds of electricity all around. 

     By freak chance, one of them still stood alive—though his heart felt as if being crushed and his clothing was now patched with smoking areas.  Blackened where his flesh had been burnt to the bone. 

     The Cloaked Man strode over to the lone Woodsie.  That Woodsie could not raise his shotgun.  The Cloaked Man's left fist blurred, and there was an awful squnch sound—a wet explosion of globs and bone.  Suddenly headless, that Woodsie's body fell to the side.  Thick wet blood poured from the jagged neck-stump and puddled on the firelit dirt.  This battle was done. 

     Firelight made flickering lighting on The Cloaked Man's victorious standing and stiff form.  He stood with fists clenched, left fist painted with a drying coat of red.  His eyes  looked down on his last kill.  Though the firelight flickered and illuminated the rest of him, his darkened eyes did not reflect the light. 

     Wa-hey, what was that?  The Cloaked Man heard something.  With breeze quickness, he snapped around.  Over there.  Oh yes, over there.  At the end of this firelit dirt lane, fifty yards away, there was a cabin.  And even in this otherwise horrible lighting, The Cloaked Man could clearly see a portly man dressed in white Woodsie clothing—with six other Woodies men. 

     The Cloaked Man raised his cape.  And there was a long wind that blew through the woods.  The breeze.  He vanished, not in the lane at all.. 

     Then he was just ten yards in front of that portly man and his other men.  Simply there, came out of nowhere.  The Cloaked Man thought that this should prove interesting…

     "J-judge, wha-a-t d'we d-o-o?" stammered one of the Woodsie men, a blond-haired thin man with neat Woodise coveralls and shirt.  Clearly, he was afraid.  Afraid of what was before him—not human.

     "What else should we do?" rhetoricized Judge—the fat man in white coveralls and shirt.  He had a well-practiced voice, one that was pervaded with resonance.  "That which be-fore thee is a damn'ed demon!  Remember the Good Word!  The Good Word shall be our savior as we do battle with the darkness!"

     The Cloaked Man's face twisted with a smirk.  "The Good Word?  That sounds so cornball!  Is that what you mortals call goodness and light these days?  Why you, kidding me?"  Then he raised his left hand, pointing at the crowd.  "And I give you a dare or two to call me a demon again.  See how messily you die, calling me out like that.  Sheesh, and my party members are in earshot!"

     "Demon!  Ye are an end product of darkness!" rhetorted Judge.  "Ye want to darken the land!"  Then Judge spoke quotes from whatever sacred texts he had stashed in his cabin.  "Darken the land!  Darken these times!  Darken…the people!"  He put his right hand on the right shoulder of the nearest Woodsie.  "Enemy, my people and I shall not be darkened!  We prefer death to trucking with the likes of thee!"

     "Scrub bunch of rustic jackass hicks!  You go to Hell!" exclaimed The Cloaked Man.  And another slaughter began.  Up came his cape, held up by his left forearm.  He held it as a curtaining shield, him kneeling behind it.  Wind began to blow, fanning the three night fires that lit this dirt lane. 

     Judge felt deeply sickened when The Cloaked Man did that—sickened with fright.  Something was happening with the breeze because of whatever The Cloaked Man was doing.  "Vanquish that Enemy!" growled Judge.  "Fire your weapons!"

     And the last of the Woodsie men put up their most brutal and fiercest fight.  It certainly to be the most brutal and blatant fight in their lives.  That was, because, it was their last. 

     Two Woodsies went to their knees, firing shotguns at The Cloaked Man.  The Cloaked Man's cape only rippled.  Otherwise, there was no way to tell if their blasting shots actually struck their intended target.  He still knelt.  And an ill wind continued to blow…

     The first two Woodsies reloaded their shotguns, and the rest simply took to firing from the hip.  Loud explosive shots exploded from shotgun barrels.  White-yellow muzzle flashes illuminated this battlefield.  Yet, The Cloaked Man still knelt.  The wind blew onward.

     Then, the majority of the Woodsies took to reloading their shotguns.  Three of them with loaded weapons had stopped firing, their mouths agape.  Not agape, Judge's own jaw was grim set and shut.  That white-dressed man trying to look defiant. 

     "Dang bang it, too bad!" said The Cloaked Man.  "Fat man, your party's over, you…" The Cloaked Man took some seconds to touch their minds and get their names; he was not conscious when they introduced themselves to Van.  Not a problem; he could touch their thoughts now.  Getting closer to the City of Slow Dreams was doing something to him. 

     He spoke on at the doomed group.  "Woodsies?  Yech, what a corny name.  Your party's over,  and you have less than a dozen people invited.  Worse, your party's wearing corny clothes.  No way you and your people can win, Woodsies!"  He said that, and the wind suddenly stopped.  All was silent in this night; even the distant flickering night fires stopped crackling.

     The night-dim scene exploded in loud flashing blue.  With his cape flaring with a full field effect attack, The Cloaked Man was a flaring blue one-man electrical storm.  All of Judge's party danced the spasmodic, grotesque dance of those being severely electrocuted.  Of course, their bodies were dead after the first quarter second of severe megawatt electrical shocks.  But they danced as if still quite alive.

     Everything suddenly darkened when The Cloaked Man stopped.  And everything seemed quiet.  But listening carefully, there was the hissing sound of charred bodies.  The bodies of the Woodies men.

     His grin bigger, The Cloaked Man looked on at those defeated.  Damn, he was getting better.  Stronger, tougher, more invulnerable.  And this was because he was getting closer to The City of Slow Dreams.  He could feel it.

     Sure, all the Woodsies men were dead.  Now, what about the rest of this little damned settlement?  Where were the Woodsie bitches and Woodsie brats?  The Cloaked Man smiled, and he turned around on his left shoe—the thick sole grinding and twisting in the dirt.  Maybe later, he would play with the corpses.  Now, though, there was more human meat to slaughter.  More humans to put into the breeze.   

     His mind was a darkened as his eyes, and he truly felt it. The wonderful feeling of being darkened was with him.  Having put plenty of humans in the breeze, ready to put more into the breeze.  Now he was set to put more into the breeze.

     He began to take long strides down the center of the lane.  And, yes, there were sounds of women and children in the cabins along the left and right.  From the sounds they made, sounds he could easily hear, they were very afraid.  They were hiding in the cabins…!    

      "Aah, hah, hah, hah..!   Hah, hah, hah, ha…!  Aah, hah, hah…"  The Cloaked Man laughed his full and loudly different laugh, filling this place.  Damned Woodsies, living in an ancient way—setting up the women-folk as defenseless domestics while the Woodsie men alone took up the privilege of wielding guns and doing what they defined as men's work.  Well, he made short work of them!

     The Cloaked Man's strut took him to the first of the night fires, one of those blazing heaps of flame.  Cape flickering and clothes flapping, he walked right through it.  And he emerged from the other side of the fire—which dimmed.  He walked to the second and was set to do the same when he heard a woman scream.  She was outside of a cabin on the right—that cabin right there...

     "Fresh meat!" shouted The Cloaked Man, looking at that skinny human woman in nightgown.  The wind began to blow, and the woman stood stiff.  If she would die from that demon, she would at least give her children seconds more to live—huddled in the cabin.

      The Cloaked Man heard, "Cease!  Stop yourself, Cloaked Man!"  Hmmph?  Alia!   The Cloaked Man was stopped in mid-stride.  "I insist on stoppage!" he also heard.  "Such this night was carnage enough." 

     He whirled to look left, whirled with such torque that his cape swirled in a tight arc.  He saw Alia and Van farther down the dirt lane.  Small metal-bodied Alia was holding hands with normal-looking Van.  Sheesh, he thought, they look like big-sister and little-sister, except for their phenotypes.  

      He blinked and allowed his eyes to become brown again.  And he put on a bright smile, waving with his right hand.  "Hey there!  Glad you're up and perky again, Alia!  Be right over!"  Moving with a playful and head-weaving jog, The Cloaked Man lightly stepped over to where the gynoid and elfin cyborg stood.  Stood holding…hands!  Yech.

     He was then standing in front of them, conversation distance.  "I was waiting for you to wake up, Alia.  Trouble is, those damned Woodsies started calling me names.  You should have seen and heard'em…"

     "We did," said Van, using a matter-of-fact tone.  "As soon as Alia woke up and had a clear enough mind to control her body again, we walked out here to get you.  But you were busy.  Really busy.  Busy slaughtering humans."  

     "Hey!" blurted The Cloaked Man.  He raised his left hand, pointing.  "That was self-defense.  And they had guns!  The battles averaged over five-to-one.  There was just single and solitary me going against a bunch of backwoods Woodsies with Woodsie shotguns—talking their Woodsie talk and fighting their Woodsie way.  How in tarnation is that slaughter? 

     "If this were something out of the Old Days, I would have taken them to court and sued them for all their oatmeal and damned good coffee.  Knowing those jokes, they probably would have found some 'coon hounds, lumber, and axle grease to…"

     "The end of that rant!" shouted Alia, small body shaking and angry.  She raised her free hand, her right hand, and pointed once at The Cloaked Man.  Alia took in a breath, and Van looked down at her—reassuring.

     Softer in tone, Alia continued.  "Please, such dark action from you is enough.  We saw and heard.  And we do not doubt what passed.  Also, Van and I both hold no doubt as to what would have passed without our intervention.  Intervention against your own actions."

     The Cloaked Man stopped, crossed his arms, really thinking and deciding.  Apparently, both his party members seemed to turn on him.  But he needed them both in reaching the City of Slow Dreams; the dream vision said so.  Because of what he truly was, he could not ignore his own revealed vision.  They were close to the goal, and he did not want his two party members abandoning him so close to there. 

     Finally speaking, The Cloaked Man tried to patch up.  "Okay, okay.  Maybe I over-acted."  He spread his hands out.  "We all do that sometimes, right?  And we're all still party members.  Right, right?  A party, a team, like a temporary family.  Right, right, right?" 

     He saw Alia bring her left hand out of Van's hold, and the small cyborg crossed them.  Alia pale hair fluttered in slight breezes as she looked up at The Cloaked Man, him illuminated in the firelight.  She saw him smiling, his warm brown eyes twinkling.  Her own dark eyes perusing his friendly brown ones in this near darkness light…

     But Van relented first.  "You're right," she said, hesitantly.  Her face serious, she added, "Because we don't have anyone else.  It's logical.  We're all alone, and no one else cares about us.  I don't really know all of Alia's story, but myself, I was nothing until she and you found me."

     And you found me, too,  thought Alia, looking at The Cloaked Man.  She deeply regretted and condemned what The Cloaked Man was going to do.  She worried her memory to cite a particular code of honor.  As with, when she first awakened in the plains, how it took some effort to recall her name.  Yet, as her brain was soon set to waste away in Brunswick, The Cloaked Man came to help.

     Perhaps by citing a vaguely remembered moral code, Alia was somehow helping The Cloaked Man in turn.  She could better help him if she remained with him as a party member.  That was a way to return favor to The Cloaked Man.

    "Then…" began Alia.  The Cloaked Man bent over as so he was eye-to-eye with Alia.  "I remain in your party, Cloaked Man.  Yet I wish lessening of your developing brutality."

     The Cloaked Man jumped up, fist punching up into the air.  "Yay!  Goody, goody!"  Landing, he said.  "Great.  And I know where the Woodsies stashed our nuke bikes," he said.  "I saw them by fat Judge's cabin.  We get them, and it won't take more than half an hour for me to locate the highway again.  I'm really sure, because…"  He hesitated, eyes dimming.  "Because I can feel it.  We're pretty close to that City.  Then we can live good lives."  He looked at Van.  "Even if we aren't really living beings."

     They found the nuke bikes, as where The Cloaked Man said they would be.  And it took just under thirty minutes for him to guide the way through the absolutely darkened woods.  The highway was there. 

     All three mounted the long motorcycles, started the engines.  Headlights flared on, lighting the way ahead on this night-darkened road through the woods.  And The Cloaked Man led the way out of here.  As for the surviving Woodsies, they were left to recover on their own.