[I think I may have fixed that continuity error, but if anything seems off, please let me know.]
12
I'm awakened by a grating mechanical voice outside the vehicle. It's loud enough that I can clearly hear it through the walls of the vehicle and the crate that I'm lying in.
"INITIATING SCAN. REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE."
Near panic brings me to full alert, I hold my breath and try to quiet my heartbeat. I can almost feel the barrels of the three-meter-tall Centurion's cannons sweep over me on the other side of the van's thin metal walls. If that thing decides to open fire, the thin steel of the van and this metal crate won't provide any kind of protection. The rounds from their side-mounted machine guns will rip holes through the vehicle, the crate and me with only the most minimal loss of kinetic energy as they blast little craters in what ever's on the other side of Koyomi's van. Considering how tall Centurions are, the downward angle of the trajectory means the roadway on the other side will catch most of it.
The air inside the crate begins feeling overly warm and stuffy. Though it starts getting a little difficult to breath, I put it down to my rising anxiety. This gets me thinking about the little oxygen bottle tucked away inside my jacket. Fearful that even touching it might expose something to the Centurion's scanners, I hug myself tighter. Better that I suffer a little shortness of breath than risk the lives of the others.
'Besides,' I reason to myself, 'it's probably just anxiety. It's really unlikely to be the breathable air running out. They did say the crate's not airtight.' Even so, the fear remains that I might be using up the oxygen faster than it's getting replenished by the air coming through whatever tiny openings there are in the crate. I hug my arm more tightly to myself.
After maybe an hour, there's the sound of the rear doors opening. A voice, human and a little gruff-sounding, announces loudly, "Alright, looks clear here."
The Centurion's mechanical voice loudly proclaims, "INSPECTION COMPLETE. VEHICLE CLEARED."
A second human voice, at a more normal volume, "Why don't we do a complete inspection anyway?"
First voice, "What? Why?"
"Well, it might be fun to watch 'em sit and boil while we rummage through their stuff. 'Sides, I'm bored."
"You're bored? Really?" says First voice with heavy sarcasm. "So am I, but I'm not going to bust my ass haulin' all of this stuff out just so you can fuck with someone."
Second voice comes back with, "Why not? It's well within our power to do, and what's the point of having a little power if you can't use it to fuck with someone?" The voice gets lower, "Besides, you seen who that is. These paladins are always struttin' around like they own the city just because they can chase a motorball around a track. I'd love to watch one of these Motorball 'superstars' sit and steam while one of us 'gutter slugs' does our job at their expense."
"Yeah, I know exactly who's in this van," First responds, voice tinged with anger and possibly a little fear. "I was there when she cut off Zapan's face. I also managed to sneak a look inside that Factory building after her little rampage. Yeah, don't make that face at me, I saw it." First lowers his voice, "She ain't stickin' to her Motorball body anymore, she's back in that same body she used to wreck all those Centurions, and kill Vector. You think one little Centurion's gonna save your dumb ass if she decides to liven up your 'boring' day with that blade of hers?" The voice hardens, "Centurion says they're clear, they're clear. Leave it at that." There's no further conversation, just the sound of the rear doors to the cargo area slamming shut.
The van starts moving again, but I don't start breathing easily until I've counted to one-hundred-twenty. Then I reach into my jacket, careful not to let it fall open even a little, and crack the valve on the oxygen bottle. We didn't want to risk equipping the bottle with a breather mask, since I'd have to take it out of hiding in order to use it. Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems to help, though it's still overly warm. Sweat starts forming in earnest, increasing my discomfort.
It's takes some effort to slow my breathing, more to try and relax rather than any attempt at conserving air. The mild sedative helps with that, but not as much as I expected it to. Several minutes later, the tension and anxiety begin to release, the adrenaline fades and I begin feeling drowsy again. I open the valve on the O2 bottle a hair's breadth more and let myself drift as exhaustion sets in, figuring we'll have to drive a ways away from the gate before they can safely let me out.
After losing track of time, but probably less than an hour, I feel the van slow to a stop. The sound of the rear doors opening, then closing reaches me in the hot darkness inside the crate. There's a scraping sound on the lid of my crate, as if the smaller boxes are being moved off. Then I'm blinded by the light on the ceiling of the cargo space as the lid is thrown open, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Blinking my eyes, I open them to see the blurred form of doctor Ido looking down at me. At first the air smells fresher, then I'm hit with what I can only describe as the scent of oily puke. It's like a combination of used motor oil, hydraulic fluid mixed with other chemicals and a dash of vomit on top. Fortunately, it's not particularly strong.
Reaching under my jacket, I shut off the bottle's valve.
"You alright?" he asks as he reaches in to help me up to a sitting position.
Taking a deep breath, I lean against the side of the crate as if sitting in a bathtub and let my head fall back to let it out again. "Yeah," I say simply. I don't really feel alright. I have to close my eyes to steady this feeling of the world spinning around me. "Just give me a minute."
The stark reality of my situation suddenly crashes in on me, bringing with it a tide of grief, loss and hopelessness. That sharp-edged awareness of the world around me that scrapes on raw nerves. Pain wells up inside me again and there's the threat of tears once more. Summoning up a measure of anger, I slowly shake my head from side to side as I push back at the pain. 'There's no time for this.'
In a soft, firm voice, doctor Ido calls my name, "Jason?" I feel his hand on my shoulder.
I still my movements. Quickly taking another deep breath, I let it out just as quickly and open my eyes to look over at him. This close, I can see the intensity in his eyes and the concern on his face, even without my glasses.
"Are you alright?" he asks again. "Honestly?"
A numbing emptiness comes over me and I stare up at the ceiling of the van. Vacantly, I answer, "Not really, no." In an attempt to reassure us both, I add, "But I think I will be." I try very hard to believe that.
"Alright, just relax for a moment," he says, bringing out an old-fashioned stethoscope. He gives me a quick going over, but finds nothing out of order. I take a moment to finally put my glasses back on.
The sound of a couple large vehicles going past us on the road towards the city disturbs the quiet. I finally notice the slight tilt in the vehicle towards the right, and figure we must be parked on the shoulder of the road. The sound of other vehicles passing by, heading away from the city, is accompanied by the sound of the rear doors to the cargo area opening.
Glancing towards the open door reveals Alita standing there. She offers me a faint smile and asks, "Holding up alright?"
Looking back up at the roof of the van, I nod while trying in vain to force this feeling to pass.
Out of the corner of my working eye, I see Ido give a faint shake of his head towards Alita. Aloud, he says, "I'll stay with him until we get further up the road, away from all this traffic." He folds up his stethoscope and tucks it away. "Then we can transfer him up to the cab."
Glancing at the traffic passing us by, Alita nods. "Right." Then she closes the door.
Shortly afterwards, we get under way again.
Taking a seat on a narrow bench running along one wall of the cargo space, Ido asks, "You alright with staying in there for now?"
With an answering nod, I say, "Yeah, I'm fine. It's comfortable enough." It is in fact rather comfortable, as well as being a secure place to sit, seeing as the crate has been strapped to the forward wall.
He nods and we sit in silence for a time. Ido busies himself with something on one of those little datapads while I sit and stare at the wall, listening to the sounds of the van's drive system and the occasional vehicle rumble past on it's way to the city. My mind finally settles, leaving only that emptiness behind, along with the echoing comments I'd overheard from that gate guard. Despite my attempts to push it out of my head, it begins to gnaw at me more and more, until finally...
"Did Alita ever have to deal with someone by the name of Zapan?" I ask him.
Ido's expression makes it clear that this isn't a pleasant subject, but he answers anyway, "She did, yes. Why do you ask?"
Feeling a bit embarrassed for bringing it up, I drop my gaze to avoid looking him in the eyes. Despite feeling that I shouldn't have even brought it up, I push on now that I have, "I overheard one of the gate guards. He said something about her cutting this Zapan's face off." I furrow my brow as I try to keep to my train of thought, "I was just curious if that was true."
"It is," he says. Returning his focus to the datapad, his voice turns grave, "Zapan… hurt people she cared about. She repaid his cruelty." His tone is matter-of-fact, and he keeps his eyes focused on the pad.
Nodding silently, I decide I'd best leave it at that, and go back to staring at the worn metal wall.
"Do you still think she's somehow a danger to you?"
Ido's question startles me out of my brooding. I take a moment to think about my answer. "Not really. At least, not on a rational level. Even after living with you for such a short time, I've learned that she doesn't seem to be someone who is just randomly violent."
The van lurches as if hitting a large pothole in the road, and we pause to brace ourselves until the vehicle steadies itself.
He nods, "She has never harmed someone without good reason. Rest assured, she has no reason to be violent towards you. I suppose you don't realize it, but she was rather impressed with you, when she found out why you'd been brought in."
I stare at him for a second or two, then throw my head back and laugh out loud. The laughter dies down to a chuckle and I can see by the look on his face that my reaction caught him off guard. A quote from an old TV show whips through my mind, 'Wait, you're serious? Hold on, let me laugh harder." I come very close to voicing that thought aloud. Instead I ask, "Seriously? She was impressed? By what, how much blood I could lose, and still survive?" He merely frowns in response.
"She was impressed by what you tried to do," he explains. "It's not often, almost never in fact, that we see someone put themselves in harm's way like you did to save someone in need. Despite how you feel about what happened, Koyomi was right, quite a few people do see you as something of a hero."
I'm hit with a feeling of nausea at the comment. I'm not sure why, really. I want to argue the point, to explain why he's wrong about me, but I can't seem to put the words together. So, I end up just sitting there, staring off into space being inexplicably angry.
"I know she makes you uncomfortable," Ido says after a moment, raising his voice a little to be heard over the noise of a large vehicle passing us as it heads the other direction, "but maybe if you tried to interact with her a little more, you might start to feel differently."
I look over at him, feeling the faint scowl on my face. Shrugging slightly, I ask, "What the hell would we talk about? Memories that you people think are delusions? We did a bit of that. We don't have anything in common. I have asked about what she remembers of Mars, but I'm not sure I should dig any more into that, considering the whole amnesia thing."
The corners of his mouth turn up in a reserved smile, "Actually, that might be a good subject to start with. She's not shy about most things, and certainly not about her past. In fact, I think she would like it if you expressed an interest in that." The smile fades, "Just don't mention Hugo, or Zapan, and you should be fine."
My tired mind considers his words. 'Well, I have been really itching to ask her more about what it was like, being a Martian, traveling on a starship, all that. Assuming she even remembers much of it.' Sighing quietly, I shrug, "Yeah, I suppose I could do that."
His smile returns, more broadly this time, "Excellent. We've all noticed your uneasiness around her, as well as some of the other cyborgs that come through the clinic. Getting to know her a little better might help with that."
I can only agree, having already come to a similar conclusion some time ago. I just haven't been sure how to approach it.
…
After a time, I'm awakened from an uneasy sleep to find Ido gently jostling my shoulder. I blink the sleep from my eyes and look over at him blearily.
"Time for a change of scenery," he says as he stands up.
The rear doors open to reveal Alita and Koyomi standing there. Behind them I can see that the badly paved road has given way to a narrower dirt road with some amount of wild vegetation along the sides of it. I recognize this road. We're out past the Sheffield's farm, the furthest flung settlement on this side of Zalem's territory. It's also the border of said territory that most closely approaches the city itself. Guess there's not much of value to Zalem to the south-east, so they never bothered spreading this way much.
Ido leans down while facing me and puts his left arm around me, under my arms. "Hold on to me," he instructs. I put my arm around his shoulders and he lifts me out of the crate, quickly putting me down next to it with a grunt of exertion. I wince inwardly at the metallic clatter of the implants on the ends of my thighs hitting the floor of the van. At least I seem to be getting accustomed to the jarring sensation of the metal implant hitting something.
Then I'm picked up by Alita, and she carries me to the extended cab of the van, setting me in the front passenger seat. Afterwards, she and Ido climb into the rear passenger seats.
Climbing into the driver's seat, Koyomi looks over at me, "Be sure to let me know when to stop, alright? It's not much farther, is it?"
I nod to her in answer to her first question. "It's a ways yet. The place I came out of the jungle is a brush-covered hillside with no trees and a rocky ravine down it."
"Okay." She puts the van into drive and gets us under way.
I spend the remainder of the trip listening to the others engage in occasional conversation. A few times I'm tempted to join in, but I have nothing worthwhile to add to the discussions. So, I just stare out at the passing scenery and submerge myself in my own thoughts, mulling over what Ido was saying earlier. Other than that, I keep focused on making sure we don't pass up our objective. Having only ever walked out this way, I badly miscalculate how fast we get to our goal in a vehicle, even on this rough dirt track. We come around a large, steep hill and I snap out of my reveries upon recognizing the terrain.
"That's it," I say to Koyomi, while pointing off towards her side through the windshield at a spot a hundred meters or so away.
Koyomi parks the van on the side of the road opposite the hill and everyone, except me, hops out. They head back and begin breaking out the backpacks with our supplies.
While they do so, I sit there looking up at the hillside where I first stumbled onto this little dirt road. It's not a particularly steep hillside, maybe a thirty degree or so incline. It's strewn with little boulders and brush, but no trees for dozens of meters along it's face, and hundreds of meters up it's slope and along it's crest. The tall rainforest trees on the surrounding, higher hills serve to block out the sight of Zalem and it's space elevator off in the distance, particularly when it's a fairly cloudy sky as there is today. I idly wonder if there's some kind of toxin left over from that old war that's preventing trees from re-taking the hill.
From what chatter I can hear, there's almost an air of excitement from the others, as if this were some sort of adventure. I just sit in my seat, listening to them as I lean my head back and feel sick. That faint buzzing starts to hit me again, accompanied by a shaky weakness that begins in what remains of my limbs. I close my eyes and wish it would just go away, for all the good that does.
"Jason?"
I look over at Alita, standing there holding that harness. "Oh," my shoulders sag in resignation, "yeah." Strangely, my oncoming panic attack dissipates.
I let her help me out of my jacket and we get the harness on me. After putting my jacket back on, she slips her arms through the shoulder straps and lifts me out of the van.
She shifts a little to better settle everything, and I quietly breath a resigned sigh. I can't help but feel absolutely stupid, being carried like this.
"If it makes you feel any better," Alita says to me over her shoulder, as if reading my mind, "I'm not exactly thrilled with this either."
"Yeah, didn't figure you would be," I answer back morosely. "It's just... I'm a grown man."
She responds with a mix of sympathy and impatience, "Yes, well, this is what we have to do for now. Hopefully, once Ido's able to get you fixed up, your life can start getting back to something more normal." Looking at me over her shoulder, she adds with more earnestness, "Just hold on. You can get through this."
Anger and sadness hit me all at once, but I keep my voice calm and steady, "I know. I really do appreciate everything you guys have done, really." I want to say more, but emotions cloud my thinking, preventing me from coming up with anything.
"Hey, maybe you could try to do some of the things you used to do for fun?" she suggests. "What did you like to do in your off time at the farm?"
"I didn't really do 'fun'," I say with a shrug. "I pretty much just worked." I don't bother adding that I didn't really see the point in anything else.
She looks off into the distance, seeming thoughtful. "Maybe you could try to pick up a new interest? Working at a new skill might help you feel back in control of your life."
Out of rising frustration, I think to myself, 'Says the woman with the regenerating cyborg body capable of kickin' the shit out of a small army of killer droids.' Despite knowing that she's not actually mocking me somehow, I still find myself getting irrationally angry.
Keeping my temper in check, I answer her calmly, if a little tensely, "Guess it couldn't hurt to consider it."
Ido approaches, carrying my backpack in hand, with his own slung over his shoulders. Koyomi follows with her pack and hands the other she carries to Alita. Then there's a moment of waiting while Koyomi secures her vehicle.
Ido gestures towards the jungle at large, "Alright then," he says rather cheerfully, "where to?"
I direct them towards the shallow, rocky ravine cut into the side of the tree-less hill with my residual arm, "That way, up the hill and keep going 'till we hit the tree line. There should be a little path there that we'll follow."
With one last adjustment of the shoulder straps, Alita begins easily bounding up the rock-strewn ravine. Somewhat unsettled by the speed and agility with which she carries me across the terrain, I try not to hold on too tightly. Once at the top, she is forced to slow down, so as not to outpace the others. As we approach the tree line, I point out the little animal trail that we'll be following.
We plunge into the jungle, and I am soon glad we brought my jacket, despite the heat. It helps to protect against the occasional thorn or sharp branch that comes my way. Alita tries to avoid them, but I'm fairly sure she's not used to having to account for carrying someone on her back like this. It's fortunate that I've got enough of a left arm remaining that I can shield my face when I need to. As we travel, conversation is minimal. After a while, I decide to take Ido's advice, and ask Alita more about what she does remember.
Stepping around something that looks like a meter-tall pineapple covered in dagger-like thorns she says, "There's still not a whole lot."
"So, nothing about life on a starship, or anything like that?"
"No, afraid not." Though she smiles over her shoulder at me, there's a hint of frustration in her voice. "There are fragments of things, but it's mostly a few snippets of fighting. Fighting on the moon, fighting here on Earth, that sort of thing."
Something about that sends up red flags in my mind. "Fighting against enemy soldiers."
"Yes."
"Hm. So, a lot of fighting and war, then waking up in Ido's clinic?"
"Pretty much."
That's something I hadn't really put together the last time she talked about her past. For everyone else here, the war was hundreds of years ago. But for the person that Alita used to be, the Martian Berserker, that war could have been yesterday. There's the distinct possibility that the young Martian soldier that Alita had once been, will come back in full force and take control. Amnesia can be strange like that.
Images dance through my head, of buildings burning, of blood and bodies splattered across the streets. The shattered remains of homes, and the destroyed remnants of the men, women and children that lived in them. And among it all, arms ablaze with brilliant blue plasma fire, is Alita. Destroying everything and everyone in her path without regard, wearing that intensely focused, killer expression I've seen her wear on the Motorball track. I have a feeling that, whatever kind of person Alita used to be, she would have no kindness in her and could very well see every inhabitant of Iron City as a potential enemy to be killed outright. I decide that's enough of asking about her past.
I give my head a furious shake and rub the side of it against the bicep of my residual arm, an attempt to physically force these thoughts out of my mind.
She gently puts a hand on my right forearm as she asks over her shoulder, "Hey, you alright?"
A remembered vision hits me, of her hand clamping down on my arm, my bones crumbling under her merciless grip and my flesh squeezing between her fingers like bloody clay. Feeling the faintest twitch of the skin on my back, I calmly answer, "Yeah. I'm... I'm just tired." I have no other reaction, and I count that as a victory of sorts. It's marred by the effort it takes to pull my mind away from fixating on the fact that the body I'm hugging is, in fact, a highly advanced war machine.
"We'll take a break after about an hour or so," Ido announces from behind us. "While Alita could no doubt continue without trouble, I'm afraid the rest of us could do with a bit of rest."
For the next little while, Alita tries to continue conversing with me. I make the attempt to remain involved, but eventually I just run out of things to say. Or things that seem worth saying.
After a seemingly uncomfortable stretch of silence, I say to her apologetically, "Sorry if I'm not being particularly good company right now."
"That's alright," she says with a quiet laugh. "I was mainly trying to keep you entertained. Figured you might be getting bored just hanging back there."
Managing a more cheerful attitude, I respond sincerely, "Well, I appreciate that."
Before long, our little group stops in a small clearing for a quick break. Slipping out of the shoulder straps, Alita lowers me to the ground at the base of a tree that I can lean back against. Opening up the packs, food is brought out. Ido hands me something that looks like a processed food bar. I notice the others have similar items. He then hands me a small thermos of cool water.
Not feeling particularly hungry, I sit and listen to the light chatter of the others. Leaning my head back against the smooth bark of the tree, I look up at what sky I can see through the few breaks in the leafy canopy. A dizzying sensation hits me and I close my eyes. My mind rushes with unwanted thoughts; wasn't I just working on a farm? Wasn't I only recently listening to Loretta and Natira talking over dinner? Where'd it all go? How did my life come to this? Time and memory seem to blur together. It feels like everything has happened so fast. I breath a tired sigh and doze off.
I'm awakened suddenly to find Ido kneeling next to me.
"We decided to let you sleep for a bit, but I'm afraid we should get going," he says apologetically.
With a quick nod I say agreeably , "Yes, right. Better get going." I hand him my uneaten food bar and unopened thermos.
He hands the thermos back, "You should really drink something. Won't help to let yourself get dehydrated out here."
Even knowing he's right, I still stifle a sigh of annoyance. I had intended to limit my fluid intake so as to keep bathroom breaks to a minimum. I already have to deal with the indignity of this harness, didn't want to deal with needing help just to take a piss out here. Taking the thermos from him, I gulp down a bit of water. This seems to satisfy his professional concern and I hand the thermos back.
Everything is packed up and once again Alita hoists me up onto her back. The next hour or so of travel passes in relative silence.
Suddenly, Alita stops and looks off to the right and ahead. "That looks odd," she says curiously.
I look in the direction of her gaze and see a darker shade of green, compared to the vibrant green of the jungle foliage around us. That area ahead is more darkly shadowed, and it stretches across our path and further south, to our right. A quick look up at the late mid-morning sun through gaps in the canopy tells me that I must have nearly gotten us off course. We hit the large circle of pine and fir trees on it's northern side. Fortunately, it's a little hard to miss. Ido and Koyomi catch up to us, and we stand there looking at the darker forest.
"That's it," I inform them. My heart is suddenly racing. I find myself anxious, and even a little fearful about how they'll react to what they're about to see.
With quick glances at each other, the group walks towards the shadowy line of trees. It's soon apparent to all, that they are indeed, fir trees with a mix of pine thrown in. An alien sight among this jungle. Everyone comes to a stop, and looks up and down the line of foreign trees, carefully studying them. Even the ground is abruptly different, as if a neatly drawn dividing line was made between the evergreen forest and the jungle. Along this dividing line, the evergreen trees and other forest vegetation appear to be slowly dying. On the other side of the line, the jungle seems likwise affected, as if both biomes are slowly poisoning each other. Northwestern American forest soil apparently doesn't get along, nor play well with South American jungle soil.
Koyomi breaks the thick silence, "It's not my imagination, right? These really shouldn't be here."
"No, they shouldn't," Ido confirms. He cranes his neck to look up at the tops of the pine trees.
Following his gaze up, I'm met with a familiar sight, for me anyway. The tops and upper parts of the evergreen trees, depending on the height of the tree, all along the border are cut at a steep angle. All of the trees, all the way around the almost two-hundred and fifty meter diameter circle, have their tops cut the same way. The angle of the cut goes inward towards the center of the circle, as if something dome-like had appeared over the area and removed the tops of the evergreens that were too tall to fit inside. A few of the evergreens at the borderline are very obviously dead, shorn in half or nearly so, bisected by this mysterious barrier. Only the half of them that were inside the line arrived here. A few of the jungle trees are likewise damaged. The exposed wood all up and down the trunk of each tree has a glossy, glass-like sheen. Whatever energy field (I'm assuming it was an energy field) had done this, has left a similar aftermath on everything that was cut through by the barrier. I suppose I was lucky that I wasn't one of the things cut in half when that anomaly appeared.
After a few moments of silently gazing at the unexpected grove of foreign trees, Ido approaches the borderline and gingerly reaches across it. Alita raises her hand and steps forwards, as if to stop him. He touches the branch of a nearby tree, cut short. The missing portion of the branch had been outside the barrier line, and so didn't arrive with the rest of the tree. When nothing happens, he begins looking more closely at the various plants, making comments on the obvious damage they've suffered. He comments on the likelihood of whatever having done this being dome-shaped.
"I think it may have been a sphere," I say from over Alita's shoulder. She glances at me sharply, as if she'd momentarily forgotten about me. The others turn to look at me, as if they'd also forgotten I existed. "If you look at that tree there," I gesture at one that is currently only a half tree, "the one that looks bisected, you'll see that the damage goes into the ground, cutting the roots as well. At least, from what little I was able to see."
Ido does so, going over to the indicated tree and crouching for a better look. He reaches down and touches at the damaged base of the pine, then digs down by hand a ways. "Yes," he says finally, "I suspect you're right. That would explain all the..." he stands up and staggers back a couple steps, craning his head back to look up at the line of trees. "My god," he mutters loudly, "it's real."
Koyomi looks at him, then over in my direction. Her expression is one of surprise and confusion. "So... you really are six-hundred years old?" She blinks and shakes her head, "I mean, from six-hundred years in the past?"
The anxiety and fear have quieted down, allowing me to answer a little blithely, "Well, more like five-hundred and forty, but I like to round up." I smile and shrug awkwardly, "I think six-hundred sounds more impressive." Something about the situation actually makes me feel more at ease. Maybe it's seeing them so confounded, I don't feel like I'm alone in being lost in the present situation, who knows.
Abruptly, Alita shrugs out of the harness. I barely manage to loosen my arm from around her neck as she sets me on the ground outside the barrer line, up against the base of an undamaged jungle tree. When I can finally see it, her expression is guarded and unsure.
Suddenly frightened of how she might react, I do the first thing that pops into my head. "Sorry," I say to her contritely.
Her expression becomes surprised, but more open, "Why?"
Shrugging awkwardly in the harness and jacket, I say, "I'm not a Martian. I'm just some guy who got caught in some weird anomaly." I smile uncertainly and shrug again, more lightly, "I'm not even supposed to be here."
Her gaze becomes searching as she crouches there, looking at me. It seems like she wants to say something, but remains silent. Then she turns her head and looks into the small, alien forest of evergreens. Looking back at me, she states, "So, it's true. It's all true."
Her statement of belief, as well as that of the others, hits me harder than I imagined it would. Relief washes over me, so strongly that I nearly break down in tears. I press my hand over my mouth, trying to hold it all back. 'They believe me!' I manage to hold all but a few stray tears back as I nod, "Yep." The emotional quaver is mostly absent from my voice, "I'm not delusional and I wasn't lyin'." I breath in sharply, and manage to get my emotions more fully under control. I still have no idea how this'll play out. We've only just started.
With a sideways look at me, Koyomi says lightly, almost teasingly, "We didn't think you were lying, at least. Just a little crazy."
Despite the percieved severity of the situation, that makes me laugh, which helps me get myself more under control. With a relieved sigh, I say, "Well, there is that, I suppose." Despite still thinking this could all go badly, I find myself smiling.
Shrugging, Koyomi smiles back, then turns to look over the evergreens again. "I've never seen trees like these. How 'bout you, doc? Ever seen anything like these up on Zalem?"
Ido glances over at her, looking vaguely surprised by her question, "Oh. Yes, there are some. They're mostly kept in botanical gardens." Then he turns and walks over to where Alita and I are sitting.
When he passes Koyomi, she falls into step beside him. Soon everyone's gathered around me, crouched down or sitting in Koyomi's case, all looking at me expectantly. Suddenly feeling like I'm under a spotlight, I look back at them and wonder, 'They're not expecting me to make some kind of grand reveal, are they? 'Cause this is all I got.' Everything seems surreal and strange.
"I'm guessing we should just go straight in?" Ido asks me. His expression is patient, and quizzical.
My brain is kick-started into motion, "Uh, well, not necessarily. If we continue on around the north side here, we'll come to the road."
Alita asks with a glance at forest, "That would be the road you were driving on when this," she gestures broadly at the circle of evergreens, "happened?"
I nod, "Yep. Traveling down that, might be easier instead of traipsing through the bushes."
"Let's get going, then," Ido states with noticable excitement.
We agree, then Alita hoists me onto her back and we set off northward, around the perimeter of the circle. As we travel, Koyomi asks Ido if he really thinks it's safe for them to enter it.
"I mean, with what's going on with Jason," she elaborates, "is this place going to have some unforseen effect on us? Like drain our life-force or something the moment we set foot in it?"
Alita takes on a lightly admonishing tone with her friend, "Ido has already determined that whatever's happening to Jason, it isn't dangerous. Not to him, and not to us."
I'm siezed by sudden nightmare scenarios. Among them, my companions falling unconcious when they fully cross the barrier line. And me, unable to do anything to help them. "She's right," I announce loudly.
"What?" Alita stops in her tracks and looks back at me over her shoulder.
"I am?" Koyomi asks uncertainly as she too, comes to a stop.
Ido also halts, walking back a few steps to join us.
As he does, I start to babble a little, "I hadn't even thought of that. I mean, what if this circle of trees that came through with me is generating the same effect? What if, when you guys step in there, it's strong enough to do something unexpected, like drain the bio-electricity out of your bodies or something?"
Ido holds up a hand and says in a calm voice, "I can run some tests with the equipment I brought." He sets his pack down and pulls out a hand-held scanner. "This shouldn't take too long."
He spends the next ten minutes or so taking measurements, then setting a small electronic device on the evergreen side of the line. Following that, he presses his hand onto the ground of the evergreen forest and moves his fingers while scanning it.
Finally, he turns off the scanner and stands up, pushing the front of his hat up as he wipes at his forehead. "Well, that didn't tell me much, but there was no change in my communicator's electrical readings, nor my hand's heat signiture or neural activity. No sign that I was being adversely affected by anything in there."
Alita chides him, "You should have told me you needed to have a live subject for testing. I'm a lot more resilient. Who knows what could have happened to you!"
He shrugs it off, "Your body's energy levels are a lot higher than what's in an organic body. What might not have affected you, might affect Koyomi and I. I needed to test something less resilient. In any event, I saw little reason to worry."
Alita accepts his answer, though she still seems upset with him. Personally, I'm not sure what to think. While it's true there's been no sign of danger, this does seem like a bit of a different situation. Regardless, doctor Ido seems to have assessed the situation correctly.
We continue around the northern side of the circle until we come to an opening in the trees. Stretching out before us is the length of paved road that I was driving on when the anomaly hit. Looking down the road, it curves it's way through the forest, disappearing into the trees. At eight-hundred feet, or just under two-hundred and fifty meteres, the road has a couple slow turns in it. As a result, the trees hide the other end of the road from here. The pavement that reaches the very edge of the circle near us, is cut neatly off. The exposed surface of the asphalt at the boundary line has a mirror-smooth shine to it.
They all stand there silently for a time, looking down the roadway that shouldn't be there. I remain silent, not having anything useful to say, and unsure that I should say anything at all.
Koyomi breaks the silence, "Okay, I thought this would be like some kind of cool little adventure. But this, this is getting a little surreal. I hate to admit it, but it's starting to freak me out a bit."
Unable to help myself, I nearly scowl at the young woman, "It's 'getting' surreal?" Reigning in the unexpected flare up of my temper, I'm still unable to hold back, "This whole past year, a whole year of my fucking life, has been really fucking surreal."
Gently putting her hand on my forearm, Alita says in a soft but stern voice, "Hey. We get it, alright?"
Casting my gaze downward, I let out a long breath. The outburst caught me off-guard and I find myself incredibly embarrassed. "Yeah. I'm- I'm sorry, Koyomi."
"It's alright," Koyomi says, returning her gaze towards the road through the forest. "I can't imagine what this must have been like. But I do know what it's like to be so angry you think you're going to explode." She shrugs faintly, "Sometimes you do."
Looking a little dazed, Ido says, "Hearing you talk about it was one thing. Seeing it here, in person..." His brows knit together and he looks over at me, "I just realized something. This place seems to be undisturbed."
"How do you mean?" Alita asks before I can.
Ido takes off his hat and runs a hand through his hair as he looks back in the direction of Iron City and Zalem. "Well, Jason, you said there was a flash of white light all around you, yes?"
My eyebrows go up as it dawns on me where he might be going with this, "Something like that, yeah. It was at night, too. A flash of white from something this big should have been easily seen from Zalem. You thinkin' there should be some sort of recon drones out here pokin' around?" I can't believe after all this time, I hadn't ever thought of that.
He puts his hat back on and returns his gaze to the roadway, "Something like that, yes. So, the question becomes-"
"Why isn't something from Zalem digging around out here?" Alita finishes for him. Ido nods in agreement.
After a very brief silence, Koyomi posits, "What if that flash of white light was only visible on the inside of the sphere or dome, or whatever it was?"
Ido asks her, "In what way, exactly?"
Koyomi shrugs off-handedly, "Well, in the past Alita described that stasis field storage device she got her body out of as having an opaque, mirrored surface. What if this anomaly was similar in some way?"
Ido frowns thoughtfully and nods, "That's entirely possible. An opaque surface, maybe reflective so as to mirror a dark sky, apearing at night. I suppose that could be enough to hide it even from Zalem." He stands there for a moment, one arm crossed loosely over his chest, his other hand rubbing his chin. "If it acted in a way similar to what's affecting Jason, then it wouldn't set off any sensors..."
"I'm going in," Alita says abruptly, taking two quick steps towards the boundary line. "You said it's safe, and we don't really have all day."
Exhaling sharply, Ido agrees, "Right, of course."
Shortly after Alita crosses the line, Ido and Koyomi follow, though Koyomi does so with noticeable trepidation. Very soon, our little group is walking southward down the road, following the dotted yellow line. Alita's head moves in a regular motion, as she keeps watch on her surroundings. Behind us, Koyomi and Ido are gawking like tourists on vacation, with Ido picking up an odd plant or two and putting them in tiny plastic baggies which he deposits in his pack.
Rounding a bend in the road, Koyomi does a slow pirouette as she follows along. "It's almost like being on another planet, it's so different," she says, eyes wide with wonder.
I can't help but grin at her amazement. "Welcome to a little piece of Washington," I proclaim, "the northwestern-most state of the Union. Which no longer exists." I end up depressing myself with that last statement.
"It's rather beautiful," Ido remarks.
Turning my upper body slightly to look back at him, while being careful not to cause Alita any problems, I say to him, "You should've seen the mountains in winter. All covered in snow. That was some breathtaking scenery. Not that they weren't also beautiful the rest of the time."
Koyomi stares at me slightly owl-eyed, "What's 'snow'?"
Ido stifles a laugh, earning him an indignant look from Koyomi.
We travel another hundred or so meters as I endeavor to explain snow to Koyomi. Ido and Koyomi both ask about various things, such as the types of trees or the purpose of the utility poles. Koyomi is actually surprised to learn that we had power grids and communication lines so long ago, to mine and Ido's mostly suppressed amusement. Though he's never talked about it, and I don't intend to ask unless he brings it up, I get the impression that Zalem provided Ido with a more extensive education in some aspects of history than Iron City did for Koyomi. Not that that's much of a surprise honestly, considering the other disparities between the two cities.
Alita chimes in occasionally, though she remains unexpectedly quiet, otherwise. We soon happen upon a plain white sign with black markings off to the side of the road.
Ido approaches it and looks it over. "Seems to have a reflective surface. There's also the number fifty, and three letters in english, M, P and H." He turns to me with an air of professional curiosity and asks, "What exactly was the purpose of this sign?"
I peer over Alita's shoulder at the object in question, no longer surprised to be asked about such a mundane item, "It's a speed limit sign. Fifty miles per hour." Feeling far better than I have in quite a while, I add flippantly, "Though, being the troublesome anarchist that I am, I was doing about fifty-eight. It's probably why my truck slid off the end of the road when I slammed on the brakes." It had been a clear day, not another car on the road, and I'd been in a bit of a hurry to get to Vanessa and our new house.
In a sudden fit of bitterness, I think to myself, 'If I'd been doing the speed limit, I might have stopped before crashing my truck and busting that axle.' But even if it were still drivable, so what? I couldn't have driven it out of this jungle. And even if I could have managed to, then what? Drop by the local gas station and ask for directions back to the twenty-first century? With some effort, I drop that line of thinking and push the bitterness aside.
Ido performs some scans on the sign and looks thoughtfully at his scanner's readouts, then looks around at the forest.
"Something wrong?" Alita asks him in a faintly perplexed voice.
Pulling himself out of whatever thoughts he was mulling over, Ido turns and says, "No, nothing's wrong, as such. It's just..." He does about a half circle, as he slowly turns in place, seeming to study the environment around him. "The sign, the trees, the plants, those utility poles, the road surface we're standing on, none of it shows up on my scans in any way."
"Just like Jason, then," Koyomi remarks.
"Didn't we already figure that'd be the case after seeing all this?" Alita asks.
Ido nods a bit absently, rubbing the fingers of one hand across his forehead, pushing his hat up a little higher on his head. "Yes. I'm just... I can't understand what's going on here. It's like everything here doesn't exist on some level. Or..." he shrugs helplessly, frustration visible on his features, "or something. I'd hoped we'd find some answers. Instead it's just more questions."
'That's me!' I almost blurt out loud, 'A mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in an old field jacket.'
Alita steps over to him and gently places a hand on his arm. "Let's keep going. Maybe Jason's truck will have some kind of clues."
My mood takes a bit of a nosedive, as I find myself sincerely doubting that. I just can't imagine a physician, even a cyber-surgeon, finding anything out here that would shed any light on what's happened to me.
Ido nods, flashing a fatherly smile at her, and we continue on. And I go along with them, once again feeling like a cyborg's accessory. Before long, we come around a gently curving bend and see the other end of the road. Sitting where I left it, about halfway over the south side of the boundary line, is my blue pickup truck. The back half on the road and the front end partly-buried in the small group of flexible bamboo-like trees that I'd crashed into.
What little chatter there was, ceases as we approach it. There's an air about the group now, as if everyone's expecting to find another incredible discovery when they get close enough. Ido picks up his pace and begins walking more quickly, quickly enough that Koyomi and Alita have to hurry a bit to keep up.
Ido reaches the tail-end of the Mazda pickup first. He comes to a stop and the others slow their approach. Reaching out his hand, he makes as if to touch the 'Z' in Mazda, but hesitates. Then he places his hand firmly on the painted metal surface, and brushes away some of the accumulated dust. Pulling his hand back, he rubs his fingers together and inspects the findings. He looks almost disappointed.
"Well, we're here," Alita announces quietly. She turns her head to ask over her shoulder, "You want to get down for a while?"
With almost no hesitation, I answer, "Oh, yes, please." I take my arm from around her neck and point to the passenger side rear wheel. "Set me down there, if you would."
She makes her way over to the indicated spot and, after a quick inspection to make sure I'm not going to sit on anything painful, gently sets me down. Lowering my pack to the ground, she gets down on one knee and undoes the zipper, then places it within easy reach. "I'm gonna go help the others look around, okay?"
Ido and Koyomi have already started poking around, and I can hear what I think is Koyomi climbing into the bed of the truck.
Closing my eyes, I nod, "Sure thing." I sit there, leaning against the tire of my old truck and am struck by an incredible wave of homesickness. In a strange way, I feel more relaxed and at ease than I ever have since I ended up here. I'm overcome with a sudden fit of laughter.
Koyomi seems a little unnerved by this. From above me, I hear her ask, "Is he okay?"
My response is to laugh just a little louder. I stop when it feels like it's about to turn into sobs. I release a quiet sigh and just... sit, feeling the sun on my face and smelling the scents of home mingling with those of the jungle less than a meter from me. The thought crosses my mind, that maybe I should try to get them to leave me here among the evergreens. Sort of a 'let me die on home soil' sort of thing.
I feel a gentle touch on my right shoulder and open my eyes to see Alita, still kneeling next to me, one hand on my shoulder. I'm a little surprised to find I have no real reaction to it. Behind her stands Ido. Both of them are wearing faintly worried expressions.
"Was that a good laugh, or one we should be concerned about?" Alita asks me, taking her hand away.
I can't help but smile as I look into those brilliant, large brown eyes, "I was just thinking, is it strange that coming back here after everything that's happened, feels like I'm coming home?"
"No," Alita says, that same sadness that I've seen before shadowing her eyes, "I don't think that's strange."
Ido concur's, "I wouldn't say so, considering the circumstances." His countenance remains a bit more cheerful.
"Maybe a little weird," Koyomi quips from above me where she's leaning over the side of the truck bed.
Ido looks at the young woman like she just farted at a formal dinner.
Alita shoots her a look of muted irritation, as if to say, 'Did you really have to say that?'.
Koyomi quickly adds, "But, like doctor Ido was saying, this is a weird situation."
Chuckling, I glance up at her, then nod. "Yeah, you can say that again." I find myself getting to like Koyomi a bit more.
My smile fades as a more sober frame of mind comes over me, and I look out at the road stretching off into the forest, "There were a couple of times over the last year that I'd manage to get a good day's worth of free time, for one reason or another. Not often, but a couple times. The other farmhands would usually go off to spend their free time in Iron City, try to have some kind of fun." I narrow my eyes and focus on the point where the road disappears as it curves, becoming hidden by the trees. "You know what I did? I came out here. I used to imagine that if I could somehow get this thing fixed, that maybe I could drive it back down the road the way I came. That maybe I could somehow reverse what happened, if I went in the other direction."
Everyone is silent, as if waiting for me to continue. Without taking my eyes off that distant point, I say in a voice drained of emotion, "You came out here to look for clues. I doubt you'll find anything useful. Sorry if you wasted your time." I feel old, and exhausted.
In my peripheral vision, Alita looks like she's about to say something, but Ido stops her with a hand on her shoulder.
"We should get to work," he says quietly.
With a nod, Alita stands up and the two of them go off to look over the truck.
As they do that, I close my eyes and lean my head back against my truck. For once, my mind is just empty. No rushing thoughts, no conflicting emotions fighting in my head. I'm just... here. I sit like that for a while as I listen to the others go over the truck and the ground around it, though they seem to give me some distance.
Eventually they try to get into the vehicle, and find it locked up.
"Jason?" Ido calls out from the driver's side. "You have the keys on you?"
"Hold on," I call back. After fishing around in my pockets, my eyes snap open and the empty feeling leaves me. "Shit," I mutter loudly. Louder still, "I forgot them back at the clinic!" 'Fucking moron!' I think to myself in disgust.
"Should I just break it open?" I hear Alita ask. Thinking she was asking Ido, I don't immediately answer, as I'm still mentally berating myself. She calls out, "Jason?"
Despite the fact that the truck is of no use to me at all, I feel a pained hesitation at the thought of giving permission for it to be damaged. However, I call back, "You're going to have to." I'm unable to keep some of that pain out of my voice.
There's a momentary silence, then a quick crunching sound and another sound like a steel bar snapping. Then the quiet groan of the driver's side door opening. Something metallic clinks softly onto the jungle ground, probably a piece of the door's workings. I can't help but wince.
They spend a good deal of time going over everything. After getting to the release latch inside, Ido has the hood propped up and gets to looking the engine over, once Alita clears out the little bamboo trees that the front end has plowed into. The next hour or so is spent explaining the various parts of the engine to Ido, due to his unfamiliarity with such primitive technology.
Once things get a little quiet, my head swims with a strange disconnected feeling when I happen to look down and to my left. There's the dividing line and the very end of the road. On this side, my side, is the only world I grew up in. On the other side is this new, dangerous, badly scarred world. Looking up towards the front of the truck, I can just make out movement, as Ido searches around the engine and front end. Leaning over the side, with her head under the hood, attempting to assist Ido, is Koyomi.
Koyomi is wondering what they're looking for on the engine. Ido tells her, "Anything useful." Koyomi complains rather sarcastically at the vagueness of that statement. I can hear Alita going through the cab.
It seems somehow appropriate. All three of them are on the jungle side of the barrier line, in their world, leaving me alone here on the forest side. 'Broken and abandoned.' I know that's not true, but I can't seem to stop it from feeling true.
On impulse, I call out dispassionately, "Hey, Ido. What would you say if I asked you to leave me here?"
Everyone stops what they're doing. Koyomi pulls her head out from under the hood and looks at me with a vaguely shocked expression. The passenger door swings open and Alita sticks her head out, a look on her face like she can't believe she heard that.
Remaining where he is under the hood, Ido calls back in a casual voice, "I'd say you weren't thinking straight, probably required some serious looking-after, and drag you back to the clinic." Off-handedly, he adds, "By force if necessary. Why do you ask?"
Alita punctuates his answer by narrowing her eyes at me, her expression changing to something of a 'don't you dare' sort of look. It's a surprisingly intimidating look.
Not entirely sure why, I smile and chuckle quietly at both of their responses. "Just curious," I call back to him. Hell, I'm not even sure why I asked him something like that in the first place, but the response from both Ido and Alita is somehow reassuring. Koyomi and Ido go back to what they were doing.
Before Alita can disappear back into the cab, I call out to her, "Hey, keep that door open."
Her expression immediately softens, and she nods.
Twisting myself over onto my right side, I begin crawling over towards the open door. As I approach, she quickly and gracefully pulls herself out of the cab and waits patiently as I make my way over. Once I'm at the door, I use the side of the truck to steady myself as I get up on the ends of my residual legs and start testing out various handholds, trying to see how I can pull myself up into the passenger seat. Alita, seeming to read my intent, stands by and watches.
A half-dozen attempts end with me smacking the back of my head against the door on the way down and landing on my back, knocking the wind out of myself. I let out a sigh and admit defeat. It is a grudging admission.
Staring up at the sky, I mention in a conversational tone, "Yeah, looks like I'll need some help."
With merely the quirk of an eyebrow, Alita reaches down, picks me up and places me squarely on the passenger seat.
"Thank you," I say to her with a certain stiff formality and an equally stiff nod.
"You're welcome," she responds with the same stiff formality, though there's the hint of a smirk.
The two of us go over the possessions I'd kept in my truck. A toolbox, official papers of various sorts, roadside emergency kit and first aid kit. When we come across my little wallet of music CDs, Koyomi joins us and peeks over Alita's shoulder.
"What sort of music is it?" Koyomi asks, her expression intensely curious.
Fiddling with the zipper in an attempt to open it, I eventually get around to pinching it between my side and my residual arm, pinning it so that I can open it. It just takes a little bit longer than I'm used to.
"A pretty eclectic collection," I say in response as I slowly flip through the single-CD pockets. "I listened to all kinds of stuff depending on the day, my mood, what ever."
Alita peers at the labels as I flip through them, looking almost transfixed, "What kinds are there?"
Shrugging at her, I continue to slowly flip through the plastic sleeves. "Heavy metal, various types of rock music, classical." I shrug again, "A lot of various stuff that I've collected over the years. Not that I can listen to any of it now." I cast a dispirited glance at the stereo in the dashboard. With the battery dead, and the electrical grid in Iron City inaccessible to anything that came through the anomaly with me, it seems unlikely that I'd ever get it to work.
I perk up a bit as a thought hits me. "Hey, Koyomi."
She looks up from peeking over Alita's shoulder, "Yes?"
With significantly more effort that I'd have liked, I twist around and reach behind me into the little passenger space in the extended cab, grabbing the canvas bag with my roadside emergency kit in it and wrestle it up to set it on my lap. "Dunno how much of this you can use, but it's yours if you want it."
Koyomi's face lights up as I hand her the impromptu gift. "Thanks!" she says enthusiastically. Opening the bag, she peeks in. "It all looks so new."
"Well, I never had to use any of it, so it stayed in pretty good shape."
With more excitement than I'd have thought the gift warranted, she digs through the bag and begins pulling out items, asking about each one. I give her a quick rundown on each thing she pulls out and, as it turns out, she seems to think she can make use of quite a bit of it.
Alita watches the interplay with a semi-amused expression, looking rather pleased at my gesture to her friend.
My good mood falls a few notches when I remember something. "Well, shit," I mutter loudly. When the two women look at me questioningly, I tell them, "I don't think any of the electrical stuff, like the emergency lights and that little air pump, are goin' to do you any good."
Koyomi looks a little less excited at that. "Oh, right. Because it's electrical, and..." Her expression becomes only a little less excited. With a quick shrug, she reasons, "Well, the flares and other stuff I can still do something with. Plus, free bag. And it's a nice canvas one, too."
I can't help but smile at her optimism.
Suddenly, Ido appears in the driver's side window. "Jason, I'd like to take some of your truck's engine and electrical components back with us. I'd like to run some experiments on them."
"Find something to get his cyberware working?" Alita asks hopefully.
Ido turns his hands up in an 'I'm not sure' gesture, "I don't want to say, but I'd like to study some of the truck's electrical system. It may tell me something."
I shrug at him ambiguously, "Take whatever you want. Hell, consider the whole thing yours. If you can get any use out of it, we could call it a partial repayment for what you've done."
Ido nods agreeably, if a bit absently, then comes over to cast about inside the cab. Locating my old toolbox, he grabs it up and asks Alita, "Could you give me a hand?"
Alita nods to him, then turns back to me with a hopeful look, "Maybe this could be it?"
Feeling quite a bit less than hopeful, I reply evenly, "We'll see."
"C'mon, there's gotta be an explanation for what's happening to you," Koyomi exhorts. "And if there's an explanation, Ido can find an answer."
I merely shrug non-committally.
Ido and Alita disappear under the front end, out of my view. For the next little while, Koyomi and I hear the sounds of tools in use from the underside of the engine, as well as muffled speech. Seeing as neither of us is of much help with whatever Ido's doing, we sit and talk. Mostly about the music of my time, in which Koyomi shows a surprising interest. While in the middle of discussing Alice Cooper, Disturbed and Beethoven, we hear Ido call out in alarm.
"Wait, careful there!" he exclaims. Immediately after that there's a metallic popping sound, then Ido utters an alarmed curse.
A sound of rushed movement and Alita appears on the left front of the truck, helping an oil-covered Ido to his feet. Dark engine oil has covered his face, chest and one shoulder, little rivulets of it running down the right sleeve and front of his jacket.
I immediately push my CD collection off my lap and onto the floor as I scramble to get into the back passenger space. Landing awkardly on the floor between the front and rear seats, I quickly search about and find an old roll of disposable blue shop towels that I'd kept on hand, wedged under the driver's seat. Swiftly grabbing up the roll, I squirm over onto my back, and realize there's no way I can quickly get myself back upright without a bit of work.
"Koyomi!" I call out. When she pops her head over the back of the seat I was in, I shove the roll of towels at her, "Give 'em this, quick!"
Koyomi wastes no time in taking them, then stands up in the doorway and calls out to Alita to "Catch!" before throwing the shop towels over the top of the truck to her cyborg friend, who easily catches the roll.
The sound of Alita apologizing to her adopted father reaches me, as does Ido's reassurances to her that he's alright. I struggle to get myself upright on the back seat, while everyone attends to Ido's mishap. Finally getting into a position where I can look past the front seats, I can see that Ido has cleaned his face off and doesn't appear to have gotten any in his eyes, much to my relief. Having never gotten engine oil in my own eyes, I'm not sure if water would sufficiently clean it out before the chemicals in it can cause any damage.
Koyomi, noticing my brief struggle, ducks her head into the cab, "Oh, Jason. You okay?"
I wave her off, "Yeah, I'm good." Calling out more loudly towards Ido and Alita I ask, "The hell happened? Did you puncture the oil pan?" Not something that should be easy to do, but with Alita's strength...
Pausing in her assisting of Ido, Alita turns to me and gestures with her left hand, "I was bracing myself to push that broken axle out of the way, and two of my fingers poked a hole in something."
Glancing over at Koyomi, I comment to her, "Yeah, that'd likely be the oil pan. It's made of aluminum, lightweight, and not quite as strong as steel."
After Ido is cleaned up, as much as possible anyway, he gives a final reassurance to his daughter that he's unharmed and finishes up with his work. In a little over an hour he and Alita have removed the starter, alternator, battery and some lengths of cable and wiring as well as some smaller components of the electrical system. While the two of them finish up, Koyomi and I continue conversing. As we do, I'm amazed to realize that my depression seems to have lifted for now. Not sure if it's due to these more familiar surroundings, this being out under the sun and away from the city, but whatever the case I'm glad to be free of that shadow for now.
