All The Colors of Yesterday
by Elliot Bowers
Chapter 2
…
_____Some sympathetic farmers "escorted" the twins and the boy back to the garage building--this group walking along this night-darkened main road between farm buildings. The streetlamps only made for pools of light in the smoke-misted air and leaving more darkness than illumination. Indeed, fires of unrest still burned in some buildings. "You traitors!" shouted some people from the dark and shadowy roadsides. "Can't trust anybody anymore, not even the twins!" Farther along, someone flung a half-full metal bottle of dirty motor oil--hitting Ritchie in the shoulder and making him gasp in pain while the slick liquid dribbled onto the ground. "Heh, how's that for an import, Zalem boy!" shouted the attacker.
_____Kyrie and Harrah looked ready to run out and hit someone. But one of the escorting farmers shook his head. There was already enough trouble for one night, too many people dead. And Barabbas was probably looking for an excuse--any excuse--to have Ritchie killed by the mob after all. So the sisters went on, anger with them every step.
_____They were almost there when one of the farmers spoke up. "I've gotta know, girls…" he said as they moved along. "Everything is going to change around here, and the world belongs to the people. Why're you gonna protect the son of somebody who used to rule us like animals?"
_____A few more steps passed before one of the twins answered the farmer's question. Looking at Ritchie, she said, "I made a promise to his father. I wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world before I became a cyborg… But this is me trying to do right for a change."
_____"And it's not like he has anybody else," added the other twin. "Where else is he gonna go, huh? His mom died in the city, and some of you guys killed his dad…" Her tone steeled with anger. "It's not like any of you care what happens to him, anyway!
_____"Aw, don't y'all be that way!" said another farmer. "You weren't there when it all got started, but some of us really done tried to keep 'em from killin' Mr. Lionel. Honest! But people kept on yellin' an' gettin' all pissed-off. When everybody's got a hot-head, you know how they can get! Ain't no sense in talkin' to people when they're all riled up. 'Specially when they've got them metal bodies. Don't exactly know what it is, but havin' a metal body makes some people a little more violent than us fleshies. You know what I mean!"
_____The twins frowned on hearing this. It was true, and they knew it. There were certain aspects of being a cyborg that led to…frustrations. This was especially true as miscalibrated hormone synthesizers in used bodies sometimes lead to intense mood-swings. Some cyborgs sometimes couldn't help doing some of the things they did, especially when surrounded by emotionally charged people doing everything else.
_____They came to the garage-building. "Now, don't you worry about things," said that farmer. "Most everyone's done with all their craziness an' carryin' on. I don't think anybody else's gonna be strung up tonight. Y'all pack some stuff and try to get some sleep, y'hear?"
_____Harrah opened the door and let Ritchie in while Kyrie nodded. They went inside their garage building and closed the door behind them. They couldn't lock the ground-floor workshop, never had to lock it before. Putting things in front of the door was useless, because the door swung outward. All they could do was leave the door closed. Their apartment on the second floor, though, did have a lock.
…
_____Inside the apartment, things were largely as Kyrie and Harrah had left them. The light was still on above the kitchen table, the books they'd been reading left open to pages had they stopped at. The cassette player on the kitchen table had stopped playing, the cassette having run out of tape. Those two chairs were pulled away as if in waiting for their occupants who'd left in such a hurry.
_____"Oh… I'll go get another chair," said Kyrie, going towards the part of the apartment where they slept. She came back with a third chair to set at this table while Harrah stood there with Ritchie, his tear-streaked face rigid with misery. "Here you go… Why don't you just sit down? We can talk about this."
_____The boy slowly and stiffly sat, as if his legs were metal and were badly in need of oil. The way the kitchen light shone down on his face, at that angle, it made his saddened features seem even more darkened with misery. His lower lip quivered, and another tear came down from an eye.
_____"Hey, don't cry!" cheered Kyrie. "Everything's gonna be alright tomorrow. Just you wait and see!" She looked across the table to her twin. "Listen… They let us take the train. The train! We're going to move to the city, get ourselves good jobs, and make a new life for ourselves. It'll be great! This farm was getting a little boring anyway."
_____Despite the bright enthusiasm and cheerful words, Harrah heard the quivering undertone of sadness in her sister's voice. Harrah knew Kyrie as well as she knew herself, and she knew when her twin wasn't exactly being honest with someone.
_____But she went along with it. After all, Ritchie needed more support than they did. "Yeah! There's all kinds of stuff in the city. They've got gladiator matches and motorball games… Motorball! And books! They make them right in the city. The food will be a little boring, not as good as it is out here, but think of all the other stuff we can enjoy! If you couldn't stay around here, your father would've wanted you to go to the city."
______"Father…" muttered Ritchie. And that was when he broke. He clutched his face in his hands and felt as if everything had collapsed down on him. To him, everything was gone now. All the bountiful, sun-colored happy days of life around the farm, all the care of his father, all the comfort of home was dead tonight. Everything was done. His world was broken. He put his head down on the table and began to shake with sobs.
_____Harrah and Kyrie felt their own tears coming as the boy cried himself to sleep at their table--him wearing clothes similar to his father's style--his dead father. Gently and carefully, Harrah carried him over to their bed while Kyrie double-folded the blanket. The mattress wasn't too soft as it was designed to handle the weight of more dense cyborg bodies, but the blanket would make it comfortable.
_____With Ritchie going to sleep, they set to packing--putting some of their more prized possessions in a chest-sized satchel. It was just so hard for them to decide what to take, and they only had so much room in the cloth bag. They had an entire bookshelf of books they'd collected over the years, and then there were all the notebooks of technical ideas they'd had. The cassette player was on the table, and there were more cassettes carefully arranged in a drawer. And what about all their favorite outfits they sometimes like to wear to celebrations and events.
_____It took several hours for them to pack their most valued things in the satchel--their notebooks and books, the cassette player, and two outfits. (Who knows? Maybe they would have to look extra-pretty for job interviews? Their metal bodies were pleasing to the eye, but bare metal was only appealing to an extent. Besides, some of the outfits bolstered their confidence.) When they were done packing, they pushed the table and chairs in front of the door just in case and slept on a spare blanket.
…
_____The next morning was a low-key affair. When sunrise broke over the Eastern skyline, there was a loud bang-bang-bang at the door. "Y'all wake up! Time to get up an' go-o-o-o!" Harrah and Kyrie sat up in a hurry and awoke Ritchie. It was a little hard to do that, though: He wanted to sleep. And he had little to say before they did some quick washing up. The twins then pushed aside the kitchen table and chairs out of the way , no longer needing to block the door anymore.
_____Oddly enough, there were few signs of things having really changed here on the farm. Farmers were still heading for the fields to handle chores, tending the crops. And the occasional truck still rumbled by. There were some broken windows, and two storage buildings had been pillaged--burned. But life was still going on as usual. Well, why not? People still had to eat, and whoever was running the city now--in the absence of Zalem control--was willing to keep doing business with this farm.
_____When they came to the train depot at the far end of the farm's administrative compound, they found that Barabbas was true to his word: The massive, nuclear-powered train was prepared and ready for a trip towards the city. This behemoth of alloyed steel and massive wheels was almost as tall as a one-story house--the storage cars forming a group half as long as the farm itself. Though the engine-man was going to stay here on the farm for a while, he said he had set the thing to automatic. It was just going to be a day's ride. And if anything went wrong, they had but go to the engine car and operate the countermeasures.
_____They boarded the car behind the engine, which was makeshift temporary living quarters. Small windows set in the sides would give views of the scenery they would pass through. A pull of a lever and a turn of a valve, and the huge train began to grind its way away from the depot. Then Kyrie found a blue cassette tape next to the Full Stop button on the control console. Funny, she thought, I thought we packed all of our tapes. She put it in the satchel…
…
2.
…
_____Barabbas sat on a red-painted steel chair, set front of his customized truck--his jeans and shirt freshly washed, boots scrubbed, armor polished. The large knobby wheels and metal surface of his truck had been recently washed after having undergone maintenance. The brothers Scotch and Duct were really good at what they did and put quality into their vehicular work. Looking at those two, this wild-haired bandit-leader leaned back and crossed his thick meaty arms across the shiny chest-plate he still wore…despite the heat. Cyborg or not, he looked as if he could easily hold out against any metal-bodied opponent in a fight--which he had again proven last night.
_____He looked past his two former bandit-comrades in work-clothes, looked beyond them and at their garage--a large blocky building with a fenced-in paved lot. Behind and beyond that were the farm-fields, which the farmers and workers still kept running. But this time, they were running it by themselves and for themselves. For how long, who knew? Barabbas was just satisfied that he'd gotten rid of another bastion of Zalemite power.
_____"You know… You two could do better for yourselves elsewhere, other than here," said the big bandit leader. "I grant you that this rather rural setting has a degree of bucolic charm. However, charm has its limitations. The time eventually comes when one must seek out wider venues of higher potential. I'm referring to the open land, friends! Think of it… The land is vast and wide, and there is much work to be done. Much work! You can do important things! Travel to new places!"
_____Scotch suddenly leaned forward in his chair, grinning as mad as usual with his hands clutching his denim-covered skinny knees. "Hee-hee-hee…! But it's so darned boring out there sometimes, Barabbas. Yeah, yeah, I know…! Going really fast is fun, yeah! And raiding farms was really, really fun. Oh yeah…! But going from place to place just takes…so…long!"
_____"My little brother's right…for once," went Duct. "We just keep goin' place to place…to place… All the darned time. Sometimes we get would what we need, an' sometimes some dang-on cyborgs would put up a darned good fight--even if we used guns! I got tired of that. So fer now, least, I just wanna lean back and enjoy life a little." When big-bellied Duct leaned back in his seat, the metal creaked under his weight. "All of that runnin' around, carryin' on like that, got to me."
_____"Hmmph. So… You have come to a rut in the path of life," countered Barabbas. "You would prefer a life of simple and prolonged labor to the wide-open and thrilling vistas of the new world? The world we must make over? Also, about the raiding… You two are quite wrong about our gang's actions nowadays. We no longer conduct raids for necessities. 'Bandits' is a misnomer. You see, what we do these days is what we have done here. We travel to places and spread the word of Zalem's demise. Oh, but I am not the only one. We, the people, are setting things right and undoing the unjust oppression imposed by that tyrannical city above. Think of it… Freedom, justice, and progress! Don't you want to be a part of the Revolution?"
_____"Pshaw!" went Duct. "'Revolution,' haw-haw… I ain't some kinda rabble-rouser. Like I said, my trouble-making days are done. My brother an' me like to work on vehicles an' build machines…. Help people out… Know what I mean? We don't care who's in charge so long as they let us do what we wanna do." He lowered his voice. "Besides, I don't like killin' people an' makin' people cry."
_____"You mean…" Barabbas thought back to last night. "Oh, that! Well my friend, one must break a few eggs to make a breakfast at times. To make way for the new, we must eliminate some of the old. Think of all of those who had lost their heads to bounty hunters for building flying machines…which were outlawed by the likes of your Mr. Lionel up in Zalem and that infernal Melchezedek! I am being cruel to be kind, much as becoming a cyborg involves an uncomfortable period of adjustment."
_____"Hee-hee-hee… It's being good to be nasty…to a nasty world!" giggled Scotch. "So it's nasty-good! Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee…!" Anything else the thin mechanic would have contributed to this discussion was lost in a mad fit of spasmodic giggling.
_____"Point is, though, I ain't goin' anywhere," said Duct. "Barabbas… Anytime you need yer vehicles tuned up or RTG packs replaced, you know you can count on me. Still, I gotta say 'no' this time. Besides, there ain't too many workers 'round here good with machinery--'specially since Kyrie and Harrah done left. Zalem control or no, we still gotta help keep this place runnin'."
_____Smiling, Barabbas again looked over at that large repair place run by the brothers. "If that's your final answer, then I suppose this is goodbye." He nodded to them, folded up his chair and took it around to the back of his truck. Then he opened up the driver-side door of the huge vehicle and climbed in. The powerful dual-electrical motor roared to life when he started it up--a deeper and steadier sound since the brothers had worked on it. He gave a wave of goodbye with one hand while the other hand put the gearshift into reverse.
_____ For the few hours remaining of that morning, Barabbas went around the rest of the farm compound to check on the members of his gang. He was glad to see that some of them were socializing with the workers and farmers, asking about the work they did. And, would you look at that! Some were even helping out. Half of his gang was spending their time in the only drinking place on this farm. It was easy to find: a two-story structure near the (former) administrations building with a sign that said "Beer" over the door. He parked his truck next to the building and went in.
…
_____Inside, the drinking place was much like every other bar, restaurant, and café he'd seen before. Barabbas noticed a sort of commonality among all the places of this sort. They all had tables arranged throughout the main area, with a drinking bar set in one corner of the indoor space--high stools set in front of the counter. And sometimes, there would be stages where musicians would sing. There weren't too many locals here; most of those at the tables and at the bars were his people.
_____There was no one on stage right now, though--though he suspected someone did the singing around here nights, after the work days were done. Too bad. Speaking of work… Barabbas saw Penumbra sitting at a table alone and drinking wine. He supposed she was a pretty female cyborg in most ways: a slim body (of metal), a smooth-skinned face and dark green ceramic eyes that matched her head of dark green hair--done up in a large ponytail. She looked up at him as he walked over to her table.
_____Barabbas had himself a seat. "So… Everything's done for our next excursion, I take it?" he said above the din of the place. She nodded once. "We have food loaded, water tanks filled, and our vehicles checked then?" She nodded again. "Good! I'm glad I can still trust my trusty crew!"
_____She tilted her head to the side and smirked. It was the sort of look that meant, Don't be stupid. "All of the tasks were long completed within the first few hours of daylight," said the cyborg. "From the look on your face and the tone of your voice, it seems that you have been disappointed recently. And I am guessing…that our two former associates will not be joining us in our continued journeys. Likely, they prefer the stable and more steady lifestyle."
_____"Hmm… Ha! You never cease to amaze, Penumbra," said Barabbas. Like many other female cyborgs, Penumbra's (synthetic) good looks were designed to resemble someone young--late teens or early adulthood. It was easy to forget that she--her brain--was two hundred years old. A person could learn a lot about people in that amount of time, enough to surprise those who didn't have a hundred years or so of life experience. "I'm glad I have you along," he commented.
…
_____Barabbas and his bandits lined up their various vehicles at the south-western part of the farm, next to some of the fields. The farmers and workers waved and shouted while some of the bandits did some of the same, expressing the same feelings. Heck, bandits? They had been the nicest, most helpful and well-behaved "bandits" the farmers had ever seen. Any time they needed food and water, they were always welcome back--especially if they bring more news about the things happening in the world! They were sad to see Barabbas and his gang leave, going in those big heavy vehicles of theirs--speeding across the big flat desert to new places out there…
_____Amidst all the cheering and happiness, one tall worker looked seriously at his blonde wife. "You know what I wanna do now, right?" She nodded. Barabbas and his people had told them of the wonderful things that the Revolution was doing now in the world. They knew that there was something locked away on this farm that could add to the greatness of what Barabbas and his bandits were doing.
…
3.
…
_____Back at the farm, during the afternoon break-time, there was a sudden silence in the drinking place. A breeze blew across the road, carrying dust. Then… Kablam! The doors seemed to explode, suddenly swinging outward.
_____An angry-faced farmer had flung open the door, followed by a group of workers. They made their way down the roadside--all of them heading for one place in particular. The close-fisted swagger in their stride and the steely look in their eyes indicated that they were going to do something. Other people at the roadside were sure to stay out of the way as they went about their own business.
_____Their minds were filled with anger and years of it. Generations of it! Barabbas' gang had spread the word about the world as it was now--and who made it so hard in the first place. It was those soft-handed lazy fools in the floating city: the Zalemites! If it weren't for them, generations of farmers and workers wouldn't have had to work so darned hard all the time. Now, some of those Zalemites had escaped to the ground before something had gone wrong up there.
_____They couldn't start hunting down the children of Zalem just yet… They were just farmers and workers, and most of them didn't know how to fight. But if one had the right kinds of guns, they didn't need to learn how to use blades or staffs. And there was one place in particular, right here on this farm, that probably had the best guns and weapons in the world! Besides, guns weren't illegal anymore! Zalem made guns illegal, and Zalem…was…dead!
_____Why they didn't go with Barabbas, they weren't sure themselves. But they had been thinking about what Barabbas' group said. And maybe after too many drinks, they'd gathered up courage enough to begin to start doing something. Soon enough, they came to the building that was Harrah and Kyrie's machine-workshop. At the side of the building was an outside door, sealed with heavy chains and locks across the door.
_____"Aw, shoot!" shouted Dan. "Somebody help me with these danged locks!" Several of the workers in his mob were hefty cyborgs. With a little effort, they snapped the metal attachments between the locked chains and the door. The way in was easy after that. Everyone rushed in, and someone found a light-switch and clicked it on.
…
_____Inside, it was apparent that this was an entirely separate partition to the two-story building--plenty of room for the arsenal: a very tall and very long room. Oh yes, it was an arsenal! There were plenty enough odd-shaped pistols, rifles, body armor and even small vehicles to equip an ancient platoon of warriors…if one didn't mind that none of the weapons were standard and all of them were of different shape. There were the works on the tables as well, with dusty computer consoles and machine-tools. In the center of the space was a metal cabinet that must hold yet even more weaponry. Someone gave a low whistle of admiration. We-e-e-e-o-o-ow…
_____Everyone did a very slow look up, down and all around. The walls were festooned with all kinds of projectile weaponry--all of them concocted by a machinery genius who had a very serious and very secret gun-fetish. All the workers knew about Dr. Sera's "secret" hobby, how she would sometimes spend entire nights in here and come out with her long red hair looking wild and her lab coat wet with perspiration. She went away one day, and all that she left behind were those twin cyborg-girls of hers--who locked this secret place up.
_____"Go-o-o-lly!" went Dan. "Oh heck yeah! We can make sure them Zalemites never get back to Zalem! Them freaks, makin' us people on the ground work so darned hard all the time. Make me wanna kill people…. Boys, get yerself some weaponry!" And that was all they needed to hear!
_____With all the frenzy of a mob, they began to raid this place. These farmers and workers went to the walls and to the tables, grabbing those rifles and pistols and other guns. No one had ever seen these kinds of weapons before, all of them custom-made, but they all looked easy enough to use: just take aim and squeeze the trigger!
_____In all the crazy grabbing madness, Dan's attention was drawn to that large blue cabinet in the center of the room. It was first a whim that made him want to open it up and peek inside, a whim pushed along by curiosity. Then the curiosity grew into a stronger feeling…. He now felt compelled him to walk towards it.
_____For him, all the noise and frenzy seemed to disappear. There seemed to be just him…and the big cabinet. He really wanted to know what was in that big blue thing. Almost without thinking, he found himself pushing aside the now-empty tables and walking towards that blue cabinet. What could be so precious that it had to be closed away in what was already a locked-up workshop?
_____It wasn't locked, and the cabinet door creaked open. Inside was a mad spaghetti-string mass of multi-colored wires that connected things to other things--computer circuit-boards here and there with switches put in. There were some metal joints and rivets visible beyond the wires, as if all of this hand-made computer hardware was placed over something else.
_____"What the heck…?" Dan didn't know what all this was. Shoot, he was expecting something special! He randomly flicked a few switches. It made some red lights come on, then some blue lights followed. Each switch made something light up. Then he found one particularly heavy switch and flicked it to the ON position.
_____This made for a deep whirring sound from within the cabinet--a deep thrumming. Was that a growl? Dan had seen a great deal of machinery before, from water filtration devices to electromechanical attachments for cyborgs, but he didn't think he'd ever seen anything like this. And he especially didn't know what he was doing! For example, he didn't know that he'd activated the fail-safe single-command lockout.
_____One of the circuit boards had an LED display attached, which suddenly blinked into life. The words STATE TARGET…STATE TARGET…scrolled across, shown in letters made of small red lights. "'State Target?' he muttered. Then the idea of one particular person came to mind--a descendant of Zalem. "Ritchie…!" he muttered.
_____STATE TARGET…CONFIRMED, went the scrolling LED text display. A massive roar then sounded from within the cabinet. Dan backed away as there were whirring and grinding sounds from within it, the huge cabinet shaking as something was happening in there. He was knocked unconscious when the thing inside burst its way out--a chunk of out-flung circuit board hit him in the head. He died soon after, the blow making for brain hemorrhaging. Oddly enough, the lyrics to some old song echoed through his head, his mind passing into the breeze. You try to hide, but I'm by your side… You run from me, run from me, run from me…
…
_____A half-hour later, the massive metal beast--awakened from its electric prison--was midway through a systematic rampage of destruction, fire and death. The thing was twice the height of an average male cyborg and three times as wide and thick. It had huge construction-machine arms and pillar-like legs, with a massive three-tined claw-hand on one arm and a head-sized plasma-cannon on the other. Its mechanical claw-hand broke walls as easily as it broke metal bodies, and the arm-cannon fired Hellish blasts of nuclear-heated air.
_____Farmers and workers saw what it was doing and tried to stop it. They put up a noble fight, trying to shoot it with secretly stashed weapons and throw things at it. Some even tried to use dynamite. But there was no stopping this thing. When someone finally tried ramming a truck into the robotic beast as it stomped along the street, it simply pivoted around on its circular-jointed metal waist and let loose with a plasma blast.
_____The truck slowed to a stop, a flaming wreck with the front melted in. Smoke billowed up to the blue sky above as the sounds of the fire crackled in the passing breeze. Whi-r-r-r…CLANK! That beast, that war-machine, had turned itself back around. Then came a booming baritone voice. "I ASK AGAIN! WHERE IS RITCHIE?"
_____"He's gone, you monster!" shouted a kneeling woman next to a building, clutching her dead husband. "Why don't you go somewhere else and find him! They took the train… Going towards the city! You've done enough killing around here! You… You demon!"
_____"INCORRECT IDENTIFICATION," boomed the deep voice. "I am the ADVanced VERSAtile independent weapons platform unit: ADVERSARY version 3.6. If my target is not located here, then I will move to the next area. HAVE A GOOD DAY." As the woman buried her face in her husband's still chest, the gigantic metal monster--the Adversary--stomped its way towards the train depot as the dark smoke of more recent destruction billowed up towards the sky like burned dark clouds.
…
_____The Adversary pondered the heavy twin rails that stretched off into the desert distance for a moment, growling to itself. Then it whirled around and directed its optical sensors along the rails--noting the lack of a train. Its thick simple electronic mind contemplated the situation, calculated variables, then chose a course of action. First it had to get to the rails.
_____ Whirr-CLANK! It set one big blocky metal hoof on the left rail. Whirr-CLANK! Then it set down the other metal hoof on the right-side rail. Whir-r-r-r… It aimed its massive arm-cannon backward and somewhat downward. This place was hot, but things became a great deal hotter when the cannon began firing a wide blast of bright blue super-heated air--like a rocket.
_____In this way, it began to pick up speed. Its thick metal hooves were on the rails and spraying sparks while its arm-cannon made for blasting head backward. The Adversary's electronic brain allocated much of its processing power to maintaining the mobility and energy--also calculating its rate of acceleration against the distance to the nearest city region and the average speed of a train. The Adversary was on its way, its sole purpose now to destroy the target simply identified as Ritchie…
…
4.
…
_____Their custom-made dune buggy was moving very fast--and very loudly--along some of the more sandier parts of the flat wasteland field. This vehicle's body was a solid framework of titanium alloy tubing: equipped with big knobby synthetic-rubber wheels in the back and smaller steering tires up front. The engine was a semi-enclosed electromechanical rotary engine, powered by several micro-fusion packs--with dual radio-thermic generators for backups in the casing itself. To keep things simple, the vehicle's transmission was simply one big gear attached to a gear around the rear axle. It was a vehicle that was reliable, maneuverable, and extremely feisty. Better yet was how it needed no chemical fuel no matter how fast or how far they drove this thing. Technically, the combined power supply could last several hundred years: So long as the radio-thermic generator batteries were radioactive, the thing would continue working.
_____"Hee-hee-hee…!" giggled Scotch above the screaming engine-whine as he swerved the car into a fierce drifting turn--just before he stomped down on the accelerator. It made for a mad spray of sharp brown grit as the tires spun out--a spray as mad as his wild-looking eyes hidden behind driving goggles. When the tires found enough purchase, the vehicle jetted forward again. "We've got some real fun now! Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee…!"
_____Of course, Duct was strapped and buckled in on the passenger side--his goggles and clothes just as dusty. Yes, he made sure that there would be plenty of room for both himself and his crazy little brother. He shook his head at the brash maneuvering…and wincing whenever Scotch turned or braked a little too hard. Heck, this vehicle was tougher than most construction vehicles: a head-on impact at full speed would kill the drivers before it damaged this dune buggy. He cared about this vehicle. Still, it had to be tested every so often.
_____Wait a minute… Shaking his head, he reached up to wipe some grit away from his goggles. Was he seeing things right? He leaned forward a little, which was as far as the safety belts would let him. There was smoke in the distance. Duct muttered something obscene, but it was lost in the speedy engine noise and the passing breeze. Then he spoke up, yelling, telling his brother to steer on back to the farm.
_____Wh-what? Scotch looked once, then looked twice. He saw what was happening too. Smoke was never a good sign! A turn of the steering wheel, and he has this buggy going straight back towards the farm. The engine in back took on a slight red glow, becoming even louder as Scotch floored the accelerator. They were soon going well over two hundred kilometers per hour and going faster still. It didn't seem fast enough. This was taking far too long.
_____As they sped across the hot flatness, there seemed to be too much time for all the worst thoughts to come to mind. What, did one of the fusion power plants blow up? Aw Hell, those things were too old! They should've better-maintained the turbines and cooling systems! Or there could have been a blow-up at the food-processing plant: all of that in-processed food material would've made for a nasty fire that would be ridiculously hard to put out… Then there would be hard times for a while, as in there not being much food to eat for a while.
_____They went faster still. Even the slightest and longest depressions in the hardpan surface felt like a solid hump. And the knobby tires weren't making things feel any better. Scotch and Duct were soon somewhat aware of the heat at their backs as the engine's red glow deepened. They didn't care. What mattered was getting back to the farm to see what was up!
…
_____Scotch began to slow this buggy well before getting too close to the edge of the compound area, where most of the smoke seemed to be coming from. He still had to put the thing in a controlled skid to stop. The irrigated plots of food-crops were fine; it was the buildings--and the people-- that seemed to be in trouble. "Get me outta this thing, will ya?" grunted Duct as he fumbled with the seatbelts. Both he and Scotch were out of the vehicle before long--Duct hobbling along as fast as he could while his brother moved in a light jog.
_____A disaster had happened here…. More than one disaster, from the looks of things. Most of the buildings were intact and untouched by whatever accident had happened. Yet the damaged ones were holed through, as if gigantic rods of fire blasted them through. "Hey guys, help us fix this thing!" shouted somebody over by a burning, half-ruined building.
_____A group of workers were shaking parts of a long water-hose and trying to get more water going. The problem was that something was keeping water from getting from the water pump station. Duct and Scotch moved as fast as they could along the hot, smoky street and over to the pump. Somebody didn't turn up the tolerance on the pump's servomechanisms.
_____Soon, the water hose was going again and spraying water into burning, damaged buildings. The brothers helped out when and where they could while people were screaming for help and screaming in pain over here and over there. The only people not helping out were either injured or dead. Everyone and everything was just hot and dirty, covered with soot and grime while the sun burned overhead and the flames seemed to burn everywhere. The farmers were all on their own out here to deal with this. Unlike far-back and almost forgotten ancient times, there was no emergency service: no fire department or public rescue.
_____It was all the more reason to work harder to save the farm. At one point, Duct was beginning to feel a little…woozy. He was helping to shovel still-smoking debris away from a building when a feeling of light-headedness began to overcome him. His shovel dug into some rubble, but then he found that he didn't have the strength to lift it up again. Dang it, he couldn't believe that he couldn't lift this tiny little bit of crap! Angry at himself, he tried to bend over and everything…was washed in a white glow…before fading into black…
…
_____…And then he was somewhere else. Or was he? This was still the farm. He was sitting on a lumpy mound of plastic at the roadside, next to the door to the drinking place. Comfortable and shaded by the big sign, he was sipping cherry-flavored lemonade out of a polished dog's skull. (The skull had come from a big dog with black fur. Duct didn't know how he knew this; he just knew it.) The reddish sky was high overhead, carrying winds that smelled like burning wood, and everyone else was walking backwards--dressed in candy-colored pajamas.
_____To anyone else, under any other circumstances, this would all be a little abnormal. Duct didn't mind it, though. He didn't even mind the reddish powdery texture of the road--how it looked like powdered rust. He just accepted all of this as the normal course of things.
_____Because when a person is in a dream, everything can seem normal. But what seemed a little abnormal was the burning bus that slowly drove along this road. There it was, all filled with a big raging flame. The tires had melted too. But the driver didn't seem to mind…even if he was…
_____Who, or what, was the driver? Duct couldn't be sure just yet. He stared harder. Seen through the flames, the driver seemed to be a bare-chested muscular man with skin the color of blood. His eyes were glaring straight ahead as his clawed hands gripped the hot metal steering wheel. No, that wasn't a man at the wheel. That, my friend, is a monster!
_____Duct sipped the last of the cherry-flavored lemonade from his polished dog-skull cup and stood up from the plastic mound--which turned out to be a half-molten, chopped-up mannequin. As he approached the slowly moving burning bus, he could feel the heat from the flames. Then someone began grunting and laughing as everything became covered over with a brighter golden glow as warm and comfortable as the setting sun…
…
_____When Duct began to wake up, the laughter seemed to become the giggling of his crazy brother. "Hee-hee-hee…! See, Duct's tough! It's probably because he's mean all the time, even to himself!" Someone was dabbing his forehead with a watered cloth, and he a layer of felt cool wetness against his back… He had been stripped down to underwear and had been put in a bathtub bottomed with water, indoors. Eyes open, he saw that his brother and one of the farm-women were now tending him.
_____Sure, as if he was some kind of invalid! "Dang-nabbit, I ain't helpless!" he said, suddenly easing himself up in the tub. He was able to see around even though his head was full of headache and making a Hell of a lot of pain. This was the basement of the farmer's barracks, cool and low-lit. There were beds around as others were being tended for burns, smoke inhalation and heat-related conditions--just as Duct was. The farm was pulling themselves together even without apparent leadership, because there was no one there to try and provide it.
…
5.
…
_____This train was going along for some time now, and the three were sitting around in the driver's lounge behind the engine car. Thank goodness the noise-reducing insulation was decent and the air conditioning was working. Nobody wanted to put up with the immense mechanical racket of a nuclear train's engine churning and clanking at high speed. They could still hear some of the noise through the walls, but it was tolerable. Other than the noise, this was a decent little apartment-space…going along at nearly a hundred miles per hour.
_____Ritchie was lying on the bed opposite the sofa, looking around and listening to the tinny music coming of the of the cassette player. The satchel was next to the sofa, open and exposing some of the contents. The songs were familiar but sounded a little weird to him… Harrah and Kyrie had set up their cassette player on the table a while ago, still had it turned way up while they sat next to each other on the sofa, both reading paperback books that looked a little worn out. Their big dark eyes reflected the white pages covered with typed writing.
_____The twins… They were very pretty--faces with such smooth, creamy skin and beautifully shaped cheeks. And there was something about their eyes, big and glossy as their silken dark hair. Their bodies were just as beautifully shaped, long and lithe with gentle curves in all the right places--their crossed legs being of nice shapes. He found himself staring.
_____Before Kyrie and Harrah would take notice, he diverted his focus to other features of this train car. The ceiling was painted with a thin sort of powdery metal paint, and there was an odd and sturdy light fixture up there. That light was always on, though plenty of light came in from the windows. Nothing was happening out there, nothing but the rolling and flat scenery of the desert wasteland interrupted by the occasional view of some ruined unknown vehicles or bombed-out settlements. But generally, there was nothing out there just desert and more desert with low brown hills in the distance and the blue sky overhead. Even from inside this air-conditioned space, the outside looked hot and boring.
_____He then flopped around on the bed to look at the cracked video screen set next to the front door--the door that connected this cabin to the inside of the engine car itself. As far as he could tell, the video screen was some kind of security device that gave random rear-views of the train. The cameras were placed high up and back on the rearmost cars--probably installed to warn against pursuing bandits and other potential dangers.
_____Like a glimpse of something big and strong behind this train, also riding the rails. He sat up on the bed and slowly walked over to the cracked video screen to get a better look. Flick… No, he didn't want that view, but he didn't see which button to push to switch views. So he waited. Flick… No, that was the wrong view too! Hurry up, hurry up! Flick… There it was: an armored beast twice the size of a construction cyborg with one arm back and blasting flames. The other arm had a nasty, gigantic, metal, three-fingered claw-hand, stained with dried…
_____Flick… He sat down hard, or fell down from shock. The twins looked up from their reading. "Hmm? What's wrong, Ritchie?" asked one of them. "Have to use the bathroom or…something…?" Their eye-focus followed the direction Ritchie was staring in, at the monitor. Flick… Then they saw it. Both felt a sudden and sickeningly sinking feeling inside when they saw it--recognizing it instantly.
_____The feeling was replaced with sudden anger. "Those fools! What did they do!" shouted the twins simultaneously. They put their books on the table and went over to the video screen. Flick… One of them found the embedded button in the wall that manually changed the view back to the one of the far rear. And they saw the Adversary.
_____Seeing that war-machine brought back memories common to both of the girls--distant ones. They remember the secret weapons workshop, the sealed-off partition to their garage. Guns… Rifles… They built the most wonderful, awesome weapons. Building them and looking at them, touching and holding them made them feel…so…go-o-od. But their darkest and most rapturous time was when they built that thing.
_____Now that they were more sober and clear-headed cyborgs, the twins could only look at the thing and feel disgusted at what they had wrought so long ago. It was from their dark flesh-bodied past, becoming cyborgs. Now they saw their gun-fetish as something obscene and grotesque, hoped to forget it. But the Adversary could not be forgotten now as it was pursuing them.
_____Ritchie somehow found his voice. "We… We've gotta get away from the monster! Maybe… Maybe this train can go faster! Yeah, yeah!" He tried to get to his feet but was too panicky to do that. The boy was too scared and nervous to move. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was still getting used to the fact that his father was gone and some bandit-leader turned the farmers and workers against him. Now this was a fresh shock to the nightmare that was becoming his life: something else coming after him.
_____One of the twins helped shaky Ritchie over to the bed while the other opened up the train cabin's front door--bringing in the loud clattering of the train's engine room. They had worked on this train before: once before. But they understood the upgraded hybrid control configuration, because they designed it and installed it with assistance from other farm mechanics.
_____Inside the noisy and small engine room was a low stool bolted to the floor, in a small space wide enough for one wide person--like the chubby old man who ordinarily ran this thing--or two thinner people. There were pipes and turn-valves on one side and simple sturdy electronic control-switches on the other side. Each switch was clearly labeled in several languages.
_____ Harrah sat on the left side of the stool and Kyrie sat on the right--both of them facing opposite ends of this small room of pipes and switches. One twin was facing the analog regulator valves while the other faced the electronic switches. "The steam's open at sixty-three percent!" shouted Harrah. "We should open up valves three through six."
_____"We'll need more steam pressure, at least twenty percent more PSI! Let's turn up the flash converter!" shouted Kyrie. She then flicked several heavy switches and turned up a rheostat. This increased the steam pressure by making the burningly hot electric heating coils in the engine burn even hotter--spinning the turbines ever faster. It was easily within the capabilities of the train's engine to do that, since the source of the heat was nuclear.
_____Trouble was, they could crank it up too much. Some of the original technology that built this train was long-gone; some of the parts and repairs weren't according to the specifications its original designers. There was always the risk of a turbine blade shaking loose and hitting the engine's casing while clanking around and smacking all the other turbine blades--turning the inside of the hot casing into a shrapnel-filled Hell. Then the great big turbine would explode in a blast of nuclear-heated steam and bullet-fast shards of hot metal.
_____So, it was either they face the Adversary or they risk blowing up the front of this car. Maybe, maybe they would survive an explosion. But Ritchie… No. The twins tweaked up the RPMs of the engine's output as high as they dared, hearing the engine noise get noisier still and feeling the engine car shake and shimmy. This was a great big freight train, not a fighting and speeding motorball cyborg built for racing! Hmm… Fighting? Then they remembered something they should have from the start, something to deal with bandits… It probably wouldn't stop the Adversary. They knew this since they had the knowledge of how it was built. But the countermeasures were worth trying.
…
_____The Adversary continued blasting along the rails, metal hooves squealing along the rails. The mechanical beast had the idea of tearing apart that train to find the Ritchie target. It did not have data on what this "Ritchie" looked like, but the Ritchie must have humans close to it--to identify it. It would then destroy the Ritchie.
_____Something emerged from the top of the rearmost train car, followed by a very loud put-put-puttering sound… Simultaneously, matching the rhythm of the sound, something began thumping the Adversary's frontal armor. It took half a second for the metal monster's electronic brain to identify the threat: twin-mounted fifty-caliber guns were firing in this direction. However, the rounds were not at all strong enough to penetrate its crystal carbon and polymer-reinforced exoskeletal shell.
_____Clank… Cl-cl-cla-a-ank…! A small door on the rear car flopped open, dropping all sorts of plastic scrap onto the rails. Bent tools, jagged steel blocks, all kinds of solid metal debris came down. Some of it caught in the rail ties. It wouldn't be enough to stop the train on the return trip, but it was designed to stop smaller bandit vehicles.
_____Small was not an adjective to describe the Adversary at all, but it was definitely smaller than the train. The debris was interfering with its balance on the rails. Between the dual chatter of the two mounted automatic guns and the debris cluttering up the track, the Adversary was rapidly losing its balance.
_____That is, until its electronic brain recalculated inertial values and increased speed…. The guns overheated and stopped firing, and the scrap metal was all gone. Nothing was stopping the Adversary from its target now.
