Survivors
By: SilvorMoon
The next morning was perfectly routine, almost too smooth. There had been no sudden storms or curious monsters to disrupt his sleep. His radio station hadn't been knocked to a new channel yet. The weather report predicted clear skies, and the most recent bandit activity report was far away from his chosen route. He began to think he might actually make good time. Momentum was a bigger colony than Domino, too - it would be a much more comfortable and interesting place for his requisite rest period to take place. Perhaps getting this job was a stroke of luck rather than a problem.
He had been driving for about three hours when he first noticed signs of trouble. Up until that point, the road had been smooth and he had been letting his mind wander. It wasn't until the navigation screen on his cycle began pinging urgently at him that he realized what he should have noticed sooner. There was a blip on his radar, and it was making a beeline towards him. Judging from the size of it, it had to be either a lone driver or a moderately small monster. He hoped for a monster. Those were less likely to have an agenda, and easier to convince to go away.
Luck wasn't with him. Within a few moments, he was able to see the shape of a man on a cycle pulling slowly but steadily up behind him. Jack swore. The last thing he needed was to have to deal with bandits.
Fortunately, his cycle was one of the best on the road, and he was confident he could give some rock-dwelling thief a run for his money. Jack put on some speed and rocketed forward, hoping to put the bandit out of sight and then change course to try to lose him. Jack didn't doubt himself if it came to a fight, but his first priority was to try to get the mail to safety.
I don't need this. I'm not even carrying anything valuable!
The bandit sped up too - not gaining on him, but pacing him, keeping him in sight. Jack weighed his options. He knew his machine was capable of going faster, but the ground here was rough and he didn't want to court an accident. He could maintain his present speed for a while, but not indefinitely, and he could never be sure from day to day whether or not there would be a ravine or rockfall in his path that hadn't been there the last time he'd gone by. He was willing to bet the bandit knew the area better than he did, and might even have friends waiting in ambush.
Then a stroke of luck presented itself. The ground flattened out; Jack could see that he had made it over the lip of a shallow valley, and the terrain he could see now was smooth and sloping slightly downwards, ideal conditions for picking up speed. He gunned the accelerator, intending to leave his unwanted companion in the dust.
As he rocketed forward, he felt a slight jolt beneath him. He had just enough time to notice that he had driven over a hump in the ground that looked too straight and even to be natural. Then a row of spikes flipped up out of the earth in front of him, pointing straight at his cycle's tires. He slammed on the breaks and tried to turn out of the way, but it was too late. He hit the barrier sideways and was dumped from his saddle, while his cycle crashed and skidded to a halt on the sandy ground. A moment later, the bandit pulled up and made a casual stop.
"I knew it was worth the effort of digging that," he said to himself, as he slipped off his helmet. "Okay, buddy, I got you fair and square. Hand over the goods."
Jack spat out a mouthful of dust. "That was a dirty trick. And I don't have any goods."
"Oh, please," said the bandit. He sauntered closer to have a look at Jack's cycle. "I saw you pass by the other day and couldn't catch you, so I know your rest period isn't up yet. You've got to be carrying something important."
"All I've got is a letter," said Jack. "They offered to pay me enough extra to leave early that I thought it was worth the risk, but it's not worth anything to you."
"Must be some letter, then," said the bandit. Jack could get a good look at him now - a small but tough-looking young man with flaming red hair and steel-gray eyes. The bandit gave a cry of victory and fished out the sealed container.
"If you break that..." Jack warned, climbing carefully to his feet. His knee ached; he must have landed badly when he fell. He was not exactly sure what he was going to threaten when he was currently unarmed and he could see the knife worn conspicuously at the bandit's side.
"Cool it," said the bandit.
Jack responded by tackling him. The two of them fell to the dusty earth, and Jack struggled to wrench the container out of the bandit's hand. The bandit snarled and struck the side of Jack's head with his free hand, but Jack was still wearing his helmet, and the blow did little to faze him. He managed to twist the thief's wrist and force him to drop the capsule, but the bandit was able to drive his knee into Jack's chest, momentarily knocking the wind out of him. Jack faltered, and the bandit was able to shove him away. While Jack lay on his back, watching the stars whirling in front of his eyes and trying to remember how to breathe, the thief got up and stomped on the letter capsule. It shattered.
There goes my perfect record, Jack thought. Reflexively, he made an effort to sit up, even though the damage was already done.
Casually, the thief picked up the letter and unrolled it. His expression went from casually curious to interested to stunned.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed. He threw the letter down and backed away from it as though it carried the plague.
"What's your problem?" Jack demanded.
The bandit pointed at the letter. "Read that!"
"I will not," said Jack. Bad enough he'd let it get broken. To actually, willfully read it would constitute a violation of his courier's code of honor.
"Then what did you ask me what it said for?" the thief snapped. Whatever he'd seen, he was still shaking from it.
"I didn't ask what it said, I asked what your problem is," Jack retorted. "What, am I delivering your death sentence or something?"
"Yeah, and yours too," the thief muttered. "Look, pal, I can't let you deliver that thing. I may be a bandit but I've got ethics. You might as well read it and find out why."
Jack weighed his options. He was in the middle of a hostile desert, his cycle had been damaged by the bandit's trap, and he was dealing with an angry and possibly irrational armed criminal. His first duty as he understood it was to get the mail to whoever it was destined for, but it looked like he was going to have to get rid of this thief first. He supposed he could at least pretend to read the missive without violating his oath...
Jack picked up the paper and glanced at it. He had only intended to skim the words without reading them, but without willing it, he picked up a few phrases, and what he saw was enough to make him start reading in spite of himself. He couldn't believe what he was reading. He started again at the top.
Dear Brother, I hope this message finds you well. My research continues steadily. I wish you had warned me you were going to send a spiritstorm so close to my colony - all of my instruments are going to need to be recalibrated now. You had better have a good explanation for that. In the meantime, once my machinery is working again, I am going to run a series of experimental storms along the edge of the Chevalier territory. I will let you know as soon as I have results.
Speaking of results, I have received a number of missives from Professor LeBlanc. He is asking far too many questions for my peace of mind - it is only a matter of time before he stops being reassured and starts bringing his findings to the public. I think it would be best for him to have an accident sometime in the near future. I hope I can count on you to arrange it.
This particular courier is currently in violation of delivery code 46-D. Feel free to detain him if he seems too curious about the urgency of this delivery.
Jack read the letter a second time, trying to process what he was seeing. That last item was easy to make sense of: the Goodwin brothers didn't want anyone they even suspected of suspecting what they were up to walking away freely. If he delivered this letter, he would be detained - jailed, in plainer terms - for failing to observe his mandatory three-day rest period, and he would probably never be seen again. His body would be dumped in the desert somewhere for the Death's Angels to find, and the mayors would issue a statement saying that he had tragically died in the field due to accidents resulting from lack of sleep. It happened all the time, with couriers rushing to finish a delivery. Nobody would ever suspect there was something suspicious when the job was already known to be one of the most dangerous on earth.
Except now that wasn't going to happen. The bandit had unwittingly done him a favor, but what was going to happen next? He couldn't deliver the message without putting his life in danger - not to mention the life of Professor LeBlanc, whoever he was. If he didn't deliver the letter, the Death's Angels would assume he was dead and come looking for him. He couldn't drive away on his damaged cycle, and if he stayed and waited to be collected, he'd probably be arrested and thrown in jail anyway.
Jack glared at the bandit.
"This is a fine mess you've gotten me into," he muttered.
"Me? What about the mess you've gotten me into?" the bandit retorted. "What the hell am I supposed to do now? I can't let you go. If you tell anyone I read that thing, I'm a dead man. They'll never stop looking for me." He was pacing agitatedly, stirring up dust with each footfall.
"I'm not telling anyone," said Jack. "They'll kill me before they kill you."
"Yeah, but you can't tell me you wouldn't try to put them off your case by pointing them at me!"
"I won't, because I'm not crazy enough to go back!" Jack insisted. He stuffed the letter under his jacket. "We're both in trouble now. I can't leave without help, and you can't afford to leave me here for the Death's Angels."
The bandit stopped walking. He stared very hard at Jack, apparently sizing him up. Then he deflated.
"Damn, forgot about that. They'll be here any minute, won't they?" he said. "When you're right, you're right. We both need to disappear, on the double. Looks like we're traveling together for a while."
"Except I can't go anywhere right now," Jack pointed out, "because you wrecked my cycle."
"Oh, yeah." The bandit rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, I guess I can help you with that."
"Can you fix it?" Jack asked.
"Nah," said the thief, "but I know a couple of maniacs."
Jack gave him a look. "I'm sure you do."
"Yeah, but these are mechanical maniacs," the thief replied. "I mean, they're nuts about machines and computers and things. They can get that thing running again and shut off the beacon so we won't have any Death's Angels on our tails. We've just got to get it from here to there."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" Jack demanded. He still wasn't used to thinking in terms of "we". "I can't drive it, and you can't haul it."
The thief grinned. "Want to bet? I've got more things stashed around here than traps. Just hang on a few minutes. I'll be back in a flash."
"You're just going to leave me here?" asked Jack.
"Not for long," the thief promised. "I'll be gone twenty minutes, tops. I've just got to go get my trailer. Don't worry, I'm not going to abandon you." He gave a weak grin. "There is honor among thieves, believe it or not. Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my name's Crow Hogan. You can report me to the authorities if I bail out on you."
It didn't make Jack feel much better - no point in reporting someone who probably didn't have anything as mundane as residence papers - but he accepted it as the olive branch it was.
"Jack Atlas," he said. "If it matters to you."
Crow whistled. "Man, did I pick the wrong guy to tail. I should have stayed home. Oh well, that's the way it goes."
He bounded aboard his cycle and raced off into the wilderness, aiming in the general direction of some rock hills Jack could see off on the horizon. Jack settled in to wait. Even if Crow decided not to return for him, one of the Death's Angels would eventually arrive. His cycle had started emitting a distress signal the moment it had sustained terminal damage. The Angel would keep him alive - for a little while, anyway. Maybe if he persuaded one of them to deliver him to one of the colonies not controlled by the Goodwin brothers, he would stand a chance...
But Crow did come back. Within fifteen minutes, Jack could see him trundling over the desert with a trailer hooked to the back of his cycle. With his help, Jack was able to shove his ride onto trailer and climb in after it. Once he was in as securely as he could be, Crow started driving again. Jack consulted his mental map and determined that they weren't heading toward any colony he knew of. Was there a bandit stronghold hidden out there somewhere?
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"You ever hear of Satellite?" Crow replied.
"Of course I've heard of it," said Jack. "I was born there."
"Ha, small world! So was I," said Crow, flashing a grin over his shoulder. "Well, now you're going to get to visit your hometown."
Jack stared at him. "But we can't. That's a ghost town."
Years ago, when Jack had been only a small child, Satellite had been a thriving colony. He had, in fact, been too young to remember much of what had happened, but that didn't make him unusual, because no one seemed to understand much of what had happened. All anyone could agree on was that somehow, one of the supports that held the city's main protective dome in place had been weakened, and a spiritstorm had caused the dome to crack and collapse down onto the city. Hundreds of people had died that night, and hundreds more were injured. The survivors had been carried off to whatever other colonies would take them in, and the once-thriving city had been left to rot. There had always been rumors, though, of survivors who had never been found, and who still clung to their home, eking out a living however they could...
"There are still a few people there," said Crow. "Not many. A few like me who survived the collapse and never left. A few who need to hide there for one reason or another. And these guys. I don't know why they're there, but they seem happy. We do business once in a while."
Jack nodded and said nothing. He was not sure how he felt about going back to his old home after all these years. He wondered if he would remember any of it. Sometimes he thought that his wandering existence was because his roots had been cut away so abruptly, and he had never been able to settle comfortably anywhere else.
With nothing better to do, he turned his radio back on. If nothing else, it might give him some advance warning if someone realized that he had gone off course. For now, though, the airwaves were fairly quiet. He skimmed through every channel he could pick up and heard nothing that sounded relevant. At last, he turned the channel back to a station that was playing music and let his mind drift. He wondered what he was going to do after he got his cycle repaired. Stay in Satellite and take up banditry? Go to one of the other colonies and demand that someone launch an investigation?
Crow kept a steady course, not even stopping to eat lunch. At last, somewhere around mid-afternoon, a lumpy shape could be discerned in the distance. Jack sat up straight to get a better look at it. It looked like a broken eggshell, abandoned and half-buried in the sand. He could still see the smooth curve of an undamaged section of the dome, but the rest of it was a confused scattering of rubble. Jack could hardly believe that anyone lived there. Where did they go when monsters attacked or a storm blew up?
He got his answer a short while later, when Crow drove up to a pair of double doors set into the ground. Crow pressed a button on his cycle's dashboard, and the doors slid smoothly open, revealing a well-lit sloping driveway. Once he had driven through them, the doors swished closed again. Then they were beneath the earth, driving through a long tunnel.
Jack had never seen anything quite like it before. It seemed to have been pieced together out of whatever was lying around - sheets of metal of various sizes, welded together in a patchwork and supplemented here and there by slabs of stone or even plastic. Here and there was an electric light or a ventilation grating, all of them equally mismatched but still functioning effectively. Crow was driving slowly enough that Jack could hear a faint hum, as of a fan or possibly a generator, and the air was cooler and fresher than he would have expected from a tunnel under the desert.
After they had gone some distance, they came to a place where the tunnel widened into an open space that seemed to be some sort of public square. He could see other cycles parked there, along with other odd machines that looked as pieced-together as the tunnel did, and more tunnels leading off in other directions. Crow found a vacant place to park and gestured for Jack to follow him down one of them. Their footsteps clanged and echoed on the metallic floor. Now that they were no longer moving, Jack could feel the faint rush of air circulating, and a vibration under his feet. He could hear other people moving around, the sound of their voices distorted and muffled by the echoing corridors.
The hallway Jack walked down was full of doors, each of them a different shape or color, marked with unique designs. Crow paused in front of a black door with a red squiggle on it and banged on it with his fist. It made a satisfying clang.
"Hey, fellas!" he shouted. "Anybody home? I brought you a present."
"Coming," called a muffled voice.
A moment later, the door was opened by a young man. He looked to be about Jack's age, though several inches shorter, with untidy dark hair accented by blond streaks. He had a coating of what appeared to be engine grease on his hands, from which Jack deduced that this was one of the "maniacs" he had come to see. He didn't look like a maniac to Jack. His face was solemn, his eyes dark and serious.
"Crow. You've brought a visitor," he said.
"Nice to see you too, Yusei," said Crow. "This is Jack. His cycle had a meltdown. I figured you could fix it if anyone could."
Yusei raised an eyebrow. "Might you have had something to do with his meltdown?"
"Coulda been," said Crow, unashamed. "Hey, you should be happy I brought you a new gizmo to play with."
"I do have my own work to do, you know," said Yusei, but there was a light of curiosity in his eyes. "But as long as you're here, you might as well bring it in."
Crow grinned. "Thanks! I knew I could count on you."
With Jack's help, he wheeled the broken cycle down the passage to Yusei's workshop. The room beyond the black and red door proved to be filled mainly with junk, though it seemed to be arranged in some orderly fashion, with devices piled together with others of a similar nature. Jack noted boxes of light bulbs, piles of gears, bundles of wire, heaps of pipes, and other oddities he couldn't put names to. Yusei shoved some crates out of the way to make room for Jack's cycle. Then he wandered over to a hole in the floor, from which a spiral staircase descended, and he leaned over the rail.
"Bruno, come on up," he called. "We have company."
A young man clambered into view. He was close to Jack's height and had eyes of nearly the same gray as Crow's, but where Crow's gaze was sharp and evaluating, this man's whole expression was gentle and faintly dreamy, as though he were working on something fascinating in the back of his mind and wasn't really paying attention to what was going on around him.
"Hello," he said. "I'm Bruno. Nice to meet you."
He offered a hand, and Jack shook it briefly. The man's expression might have been soft, but his grip was firm and calloused. He obviously spent as much time working as daydreaming.
"Jack Atlas," Jack replied.
Bruno's face took on a shade of interest. "The famous courier? What are you doing way out here?"
"His cycle took a spill," said Yusei. "Or maybe I should say Crow spilled it for him."
"Hey, I didn't know the guy was a celebrity!" Crow objected.
Nobody paid any attention to him. Yusei and Bruno had already moved over to inspect the broken cycle, kneeling on either side of it and murmuring to each other as they assessed the damage.
"This is going to be a bit of a challenge," said Yusei. "I haven't seen this exact model before. We might have to jury-rig some replacement parts."
"There is nowhere in particular I have to be," Jack replied. "Do me a favor, though - turn off the emergency beacon for me."
"No need," said Bruno.
"This place is insulated from outgoing transmissions," Yusei explained. "We like our privacy down here."
"I like my privacy, too," said Jack. "Turn it off."
Bruno gave Jack an appraising look. Jack found himself revising his opinion of the young man - there was a sharp mind under that dreamy façade.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?" he asked.
"It's none of your business if I am," said Jack.
"He's in trouble," said Crow at the same time.
Bruno nodded. "I thought so." The matter apparently being settled, he went back to the more interesting business of poking at the cycle.
Yusei was more sympathetic.
"There's food downstairs," he said, "and some books you can look at, if you want."
Jack wasn't interested in food or books, but with nothing better to do, he nodded and started down the stairs. Crow followed him. The downstairs area was apparently where all the actual living went on. Jack noted a bed in one corner, and a couple of oft-repaired chairs and an old swaybacked sofa arranged around a low table. There were also bookshelves made of boards stacked on large bricks, and the rudiments of a kitchen against the far wall. Crow made a beeline for the fridge, but Jack simply let himself drop onto the sofa and stared up at the ceiling.
"Told you they were maniacs," said Crow as he rattled dishes around. "It's hard to get them to pay attention to anything that hasn't got circuits or gears. Nice guys, though."
"Is everyone who lives here like them?" Jack asked.
"Nah, those two are the only ones I know. Most of the people here are either bandits or Survivors or both." He managed to pronounce the capital "S".
"Survivors?" Jack repeated.
"People who survived the collapse," said Crow. "The ones who didn't want to leave their home, or who were overlooked. We're still living here, trying to pull things together and make it all work." He shook his head. "There just aren't enough of us to put the domes back together, though, and we don't have the tools to put everything back the way it was before the storm hit."
The storm. It all came back to those storms. In the wake of the realization that he had come within an inch of dying, Jack hadn't allowed himself much time to think about the storms. The letter had made it clear, though: at least some of those storms, maybe all of them, were man-made, engineered by the Goodwin brothers or people like them. He had the proof now, a letter written in Rex Goodwin's own hand. He could take it to the mayor of one of the other colonies and have their scheme shut down.
And then what? Would the world go back to what it had been before, without any spiritstorms or monsters? He supposed that would mean an end to couriers as well, with no more spiritstorms to scramble people's reception. The people would no longer need the safety of colony domes. It would be safe to travel across the ocean, even resurrect the technology that had allowed them to fly through the air. Would it really be a good thing, to turn the world upside-down that way?
More to the point, did he want to do that for himself? If the storms ended, people could go back to using their old ways of communicating. There wouldn't be much need for couriers, and not much glory in being one when the risk of being swallowed up by a storm no longer existed. It would be the end of his career - of life as he knew it. It wasn't as though people weren't coping with the world as it was now. Maybe he should just leave well enough alone.
That was what he wanted to tell himself, but he knew he couldn't, and it rankled him. Half the reason he'd become a courier was that it gave him a lot of freedom to choose where he went and what he did. Being backed into a corner like this was maddening.
"I never should have taken this job," he said aloud. "I could have been back at the wayhouse relaxing now."
"Yeah, yeah, poor you," said Crow. "Want a sandwich? When was the last time you ate anything?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat something anyway," Crow advised. "You'll feel better."
"I'd feel better if I wasn't in this mess!" Jack snapped. "What am I supposed to do? None of this is my responsibility. I don't care about the Goodwins or the storms or Professor LeBlanc, whoever he is. I just want to go back to my job, and I can't, and it's making me crazy!"
Crow shrugged. "No use getting worked up over the stuff you can't change. I never asked for any of this either, you know. Maybe instead of sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, you can try thinking about how we're going to get out of this mess."
"You're so clever. You do it," said Jack.
"Not me," said Crow. "I'm going to finish my snack and go check on the kids."
Jack was momentarily distracted from his sulk. "Kids?"
"There are a few here," said Crow. "A lot of them have parents who are dead or gone most of the time, so I kinda try to help look after them when I can. I wasn't planning on coming back here until I had something to show for myself, but as long as I'm here anyway..."
"Huh," said Jack. "Fine. Don't be helpful, then."
"You need to get over yourself," said Crow. "Otherwise this trip isn't going to be much fun."
If there had been anything at hand Jack could have thrown at him, he would have. Since there wasn't, Crow took his half-eaten sandwich and ambled serenely back up the stairs. Jack glowered in his direction long after he'd gone, but it didn't make him feel any better. After a while, he got bored and wandered upstairs to see what Yusei and Bruno were doing.
Jack found his cycle in pieces and the two men kneeling in the midst of them, discussing how to reassemble them again.
"How is it coming?" Jack asked.
"It's getting there," said Bruno.
"Slowly but surely," Yusei agreed. "Don't worry. We won't keep you here any longer than necessary."
"It doesn't matter," said Jack, with more bitterness than he'd meant to show. "I have nowhere to go anyway."
Yusei gave him a keen look. "I thought couriers were always in a hurry."
"Not this one."
"Any reason why?" Yusei asked.
"Well, for one thing, Crow broke the capsule for the message I'm supposed to be delivering," said Jack.
"That's no problem," said Bruno. "We can make you a new one. They're not that difficult."
"That isn't going to help," said Jack.
"Why not?" Yusei asked.
Jack wavered. The last thing he wanted to do was explain his situation and get two more complete strangers involved in his predicament.
"Have you ever heard of a guy called Professor LeBlanc?" he asked.
"I've heard of him," said Bruno guardedly. Yusei gave him a concerned look.
"What have you heard?" Jack asked. "Do you know where he is?"
"No, I never worked with him directly before..." Bruno began, and then stopped short.
"You know something," said Jack. "Go on, spill!"
Yusei fixed a glare on Jack. "You know something, too. You go first."
"Why me?" Jack demanded.
"How do we know you're not one of them?" Yusei replied.
"I'm not one of them! Whoever they are," said Jack. "I want to know what's going on here. Am I the last person to find out? Is this something I wouldn't have missed if I wasn't on the road all the time? Give me some answers!"
"Calm down," said Yusei. "I'll tell you what - I'll tell you as much as I know if you'll tell me what you know."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Bruno asked.
"We can't afford to pass up a source of information," said Yusei. "He might be able to help us."
"Who says I want to help anyone?" Jack muttered.
"You ought to," Bruno pointed out. "We're fixing your cycle for free."
Jack glared at him, but Bruno just gave him a mild look as though he'd already forgotten what they were talking about. Jack didn't believe it for a minute.
"Tell us why you're asking about Professor LeBlanc," said Yusei. "We can answer your questions better if we know what you're trying to learn."
"I just want to know how to get out of this mess," said Jack, "and so far he's the only one I know of who probably wants out as much as I do."
Bruno gave a half smile. "If that's what you're looking for, you're in the right place. Satellite is where everyone comes when they want out. Even me."
This is getting me nowhere, Jack thought. He looked at the two men who were sitting and watching him so seriously. Hopefully, perhaps. If they were hiding from the same thing he was, he probably should tell them what was going on.
On the other hand, even if they weren't, he wasn't sure how he could be in more of a mess.
"It's like this," he said, and gave them a summation of everything that had happened since Goodwin had called him to his office. Yusei and Bruno listened with solemn expressions.
"I was afraid that would be it," said Bruno, shaking his head.
"All right, I told you everything I know," said Jack. "Now you guys owe me some answers. What's your deal?"
Bruno turned to Yusei. "You go first. It started more with you anyway."
"It started long before me," said Yusei. "You know, don't you, that this used to be an active colony until about twenty years ago?"
Jack nodded. "I was born here."
"So was I," said Yusei, with a ghost of a smile. "We're neighbors. Anyway, my father was an important scientist here. One day, he got a message offering him money to study the nature of the spiritstorms. All he had to do was collect the data his sponsor asked for - easy work that wouldn't take much time away from his real studies. He was interested, and the payment was good, so he took the job. But the more he worked, the more he began to wonder what these experiments were all about. He started to look more deeply into the nature of the storms, and that's when he started to suspect that they weren't a natural occurrence. He started asking questions, and said he wouldn't do any more work on the project until he got some explanations." Yusei's expression turned grim. "A few weeks later, the colony's protective dome cracked, and our whole neighborhood was crushed underneath it. Both my parents died."
"But not you, obviously," said Jack.
"No, I was with a sitter on the other side of town when it happened," said Yusei. "She was a good friend of my parents', and she knew something about what was happening. She explained all this to me when I was old enough to understand. That's why I came back here. I've been exploring what's left of the city, trying to find out if any of my father's research survived the collapse. I wanted to know who did this and why, and how they can be stopped."
"I see," said Jack. He turned to Bruno. "And I suppose you're going to tell the same sort of sob story?"
Bruno shook his head. "No. I was one of them."
"You were what?" Jack repeated.
"They recruited me," said Bruno. "To work on their machines. I've always been good at mechanical things, and I thought it would be fun. They said I'd be doing important work, and I believed them. Once I understood what I was doing, though..."
"What were you doing?" asked Jack. "For that matter, who is 'they'?"
"They call themselves the Yliasters," said Bruno. "It's sort of an organization. They've been around a long time. They're the ones who caused the storms to start coming in the first place."
"And they just keep doing it? Are they crazy?" asked Jack. "What do they get out of making the world unlivable on purpose?"
"The world isn't unlivable," said Yusei. "It's just that the livable parts are smaller now. Easier for a few people to control."
Jack digested this.
"So you're saying that these Yliasters want the storms to continue because they want the population to stay small enough that they can maintain complete control?" he asked.
"I'm not sure that's how they started out," said Bruno. "They may have even had good intentions, once. But since things fell out that way, it looks like some of them have decided they like it."
"So what are they trying to do?" Jack asked. "For that matter, what did you think they were trying to do?"
"Producing energy," said Bruno. "Think about it. There are power plants in all the colonies, but where does it come from? Nobody mines coal or drills for oil. You can't put up solar panels or wind turbines without the storms destroying them. So where does all that energy come from? It must come from somewhere."
"So where does it come from?" Jack asked.
Bruno shrugged. "I have no idea. I only know that the storms are somehow linked to the methods they're using to get power."
"So if the storms stop, the lights go out," said Jack thoughtfully.
"True," said Yusei, "but on the other hand, it would be safe to go out again and build solar panels and wind turbines and everything else. It would just take some time to get it all organized."
Jack gave a noncommittal grunt. "So what's this LeBlanc character got to do with all of this?"
"I'm guessing they got him to pick up where my father left off," said Yusei, "and if that letter of yours is to be believed, he's about to finish the same way my father did."
"So let me guess," said Jack. "You two probably want to stop that from happening, and you want me to help."
"That would be an accurate assessment," said Yusei. "Unfortunately, this is the first I've ever heard of Professor LeBlanc. I have no idea where to begin finding him, do you?"
"No idea," said Jack.
Bruno shrugged. "I'm in the same boat."
"We'll look for him," said Yusei. "Someone in this place must have heard of him." He gave Jack one of his serious looks. "We won't demand that you help us if you don't want to. We would prefer if you did, but even if you don't, we'll still fix your cycle for you, no charge, and you'll be free to leave. Or stay here. You'll be safe enough from anyone looking for you."
"It doesn't make much difference whether I want to help or not," Jack muttered, "since none of us know what we're supposed to be doing. But I'll think about it until one of us figures out something."
Bruno smiled. "I knew he'd go along with it."
Jack decided there was nothing to be said to that, and decided to change the subject.
"Do you have a radio?" he asked.
"Of course," said Yusei. "The reception's not so good here, but it's over there on the shelf if you want it."
Jack picked his way across the crowded room, dodging piles of junk, until he found the radio Yusei had mentioned, camouflaged by a variety of other odds and ends. He turned it on and fiddled with the stations until he found his favorite one. While the music played, he shoved things around until he'd cleared a place to sit, and he settled back to let his mind wander.
Eventually, the music stopped, and Carly's voice cut in.
"Good afternoon, listeners!" she chirped. "We're seeing clear skies throughout the region today, so keep your sun visors handy! Temperatures will be up in the eighties today, so make sure you have plenty of water. And now for today's debate, we'll hear experts discussing the merits of..."
Jack didn't bother to listen to what the experts would be discussing. He jumped to his feet and barged back over to Yusei and Bruno's workspace.
"I know who knows where to find the professor," he said.
"Who?" asked Bruno.
"How?" asked Yusei. "You didn't know a minute ago."
"I knew. I didn't know I knew," said Jack. "But I just remembered where I heard the name before. He was on Carly's talk show. She would know where the broadcast came from."
"You know, she probably would," said Yusei, looking thoughtful.
"It wouldn't be any trouble to find her," said Bruno. "And nobody is going to be watching a soundhouse. Why bother, when no one ever goes there?"
Yusei smiled at Jack. "It looks like you've helped us, after all."
"Great," said Jack. "So you're going to go see her now?"
"Well, it will take a little time to finish putting your cycle back together," said Yusei. "That is, if you're planning on coming with us. Of course, if you don't mind waiting for us to get back..."
Jack waved a hand. "Get on with it. I'll come with you. There's nowhere else for me to go."
"Thank you," said Yusei. "Glad to have you aboard. We'll take all the help we can get."
"Don't thank me," Jack muttered. "I just don't like these people messing with my life. If you're going to teach them a lesson, then count me in."
Yusei nodded as though that had been what he'd expected.
"We'll leave as soon as Crow gets back," he said.
"I'll be ready," Jack promised.
Bruno grinned. "I'll get the battleship ready."
Jack raised an eyebrow. His day, it seemed, had not yet reached the final depths of weirdness to which it could sink.
"Battleship?" he asked.
"Just wait and see," said Bruno.
To Be Continued…