by C. G Harris
One of the guards stepped forward, speed sputtering a language I did not understand. Spanish by the sounds of it, but it may as well have been ancient Hindu for all I knew. He wore a yellow plaid shirt and had a greasy baseball cap with the bill curled so tight it looked like a tube on the front of his forehead. I couldn’t help but think of a weird unicorn. The rest of the coyotes all seemed to have one sort of bad hat choice or another as well. One wore a hole riddled beach hat, another a fedora that looked like it had gone through a trash compactor. Still another fancied himself a cowboy, although his hat seemed far too pristine among the hard-ridden attire the others wore.
Unicorn Bill poked his gun in our direction and spouted something again. His posse laughed and that made the little anger hairs stand up on my neck.
“I said, we saved your lousy skin.” I raised my voice and annunciated each word as if that would bridge the language barrier somehow. “Why don’t you run that way? We’ll go this way, and everyone goes wee-wee-wee all the way home?”
Unicorn Bill tilted his head and showed us a grin full of gold and rot. I had never seen such a dental dichotomy in my entire life. Without saying a word, he pulled the trigger and shot me in the shoulder, spinning me around, and landing me on my knees.
I felt my body healing almost instantly, but the bullet still felt like molten iron shot out of a cannon. I waited a moment for the pain to subside, then stood back up behind Alex.
Unicorn Bill and his bad hat brigade stood back in shock. Their human cargo took notice as well. That was not a good thing. Guns or no guns, the bad guys were outnumbered at least twenty to one. If the captors were seen as weak, the people might rebel, and Unicorn Bill couldn’t have that. He would fill us full of holes and leave us for dead in the prairie before he allowed that to happen. I knew the type. I had been around them most of my life.
Of course, they didn’t know we were all but impossible to kill. Pulling those triggers would start a graphic horror show that would lead to questions ... and a lot of dead coyotes.
“I think now might be a great time for you to exercise your Topside power,” I whispered in Alex’s ear. “Don’t you?”
Unicorn Bill rounded up his hit brigade and raised his arm. Definitely a signal to get ready.
I waved both of my arms. “Wait, wait ... wait. Last request?”
I put my hand to my lips and made a smoking motion with my fingers then out of the side of my mouth to Alex I said, “I know you don’t remember, but I’ve seen you infuse your power into a gun. It was your gun, but I bet you can heat up their guns too.”
Unicorn Bill laughed and shook his head. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and threw them at my feet.
“I have no idea how to do that,” Alex snapped. “How am I supposed to do something I don’t remember?”
I bent over, picked up the pack, and popped a cigarette into my mouth. I laid one hand on Alex’s shoulder for support and made a lighter motion with my other hand.
“Just concentrate and imagine all your firepower being channeled into their guns. I’m here for you.” I poured every ounce of my own energy into her. It was all I could do. Other than that, it was up to her.
I felt Alex’s muscles draw tight under my hand as she drew her brow together in concentration. Her head dipped ever so slightly, and she began to quake as if the strain of her power were almost too much to control.
Unicorn Bill pulled out a lighter, still grinning with that rotten, gold smile. He flicked his Bic, and every firearm in the group burst into flame.
Not just a little flame, like flares off the surface of the sun. Bouts of molten heat consumed the stocks and melted the barrels. Lucky for the guards, the flames had also snapped every gun strap, allowing them to drop their bubbling hunks of slag before they turned into human candles as well.
My cigarette hung off my bottom lip, like a dried twig, as my jaw fell open in shock. The astonished expression on Alex’s face told me she was equally as surprised. Unicorn Bill and his Hat Brigade were too busy dancing around to notice as they patted and rolled on the dirt, fighting to put out clothing fires. When they stopped to look at us again, I snapped my jaw shut and gave them a knowing grin.
Alex still had her arms hanging halfway in the air, unable to recover from her shock as fast as I had. I pulled them down then made the flicking motion with my fingers again and winked. I motioned for them to put their hands up. Language barrier or not, they got the message.
“I think someone’s been holding out on me. A little overkill, but I don’t think these guys will be picking up a gun anytime soon.”
Alex’s expression grew from shock to a grin as I motioned for the passengers in the first boxcar to get out. They did, and our new captives got in to replace them. I slammed the door shut and pointed to the latching mechanism.
“Care to do the honors?”
Alex walked over to the car and used her power, this time through direct contact, to melt the mechanism into unusable goo. “The cops will have to cut those guys out when they find them.”
I looked over the bewildered looking crowd still standing near the train. “You’re free. Those guys won’t bother you anymore.” I made a shooing motion with my hand. “Get going before someone official shows up and has to do their job.”
The rest of the captives got out and began to migrate away from the tracks. They all had little to no belongings. I had seen it many times before. We hadn’t given them much of a head start, but at least they weren’t under the thumb of a lowlife trafficker. They had a chance to make it, and that was better than no chance at all.
Alex and I watched them go in silence, feeling a mix of triumph and sorrow. I didn’t know what would become of them, but I hoped they would do well.
A noise came out of the east, and I turned my head in that direction. A low boom. At first, I thought it was the train hitting the gorge, then I realized it was something much worse. Thunder. I peered up. The clouds I had noticed earlier had banded together, and the show was about to begin. With everything going on today, Alex and I hadn’t paid attention to the weather. Now that guns and bad guys were on the bottom of our worry list, meteorological concerns had snuck up to top the charts. I could even smell the rain. We would not outrun this one.
We both darted for the open box car and jumped inside just as the first drops started to fall.
“I sure hope this thing is watertight.” Alex peered up at the roof, looking for leaks.
I didn’t bother. We were stuck, and there was nothing we could do about it. We just had to pray the storm blew over before anyone thought to look for the missing boxcars at the end of the line. In the meantime, we sat down together to stare at a sight neither of us had seen in years. A deadly rain shower—this time as seen from the negligible safety of an old boxcar.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
We clinked glasses, and Dan filled us up one more time with a fresh spritz of Dr. Pepper. It was a celebration, after all. We rescued the people on the train, captured a bandit ring of human traffickers, and saved Bozeman, Montana from ruin. Of course, we were the ones who had planned to ruin it, but that point seemed moot. Everyone came out of the great, derailing disaster unscathed ... Well, almost everyone. That railway would be out a few dollars. Turned out my little rust job did the trick and then some. The entire train, and all its empty coal cars, wound up in the bottom of that ravine. I had to imagine eco-organizations all over the world were toasting to that little setback. That route would be out of service for quite a while. The power industry would make up for it though. They would double prices, and everyone would keep watching their cable TV and talking on their robot phones. I really needed to talk to Alex about getting one of those Android things. They sounded so cool.
"What did you do with the guys you locked in the rail car?" Dan was so enthralled with the whole story he had forgotten about all his other customers in order to listen to us.
"We left the authorities a very nice no
te." Alex clinked her glass to mine again. "We explained who the guys were and why they were there. We may have even insinuated that they had something to do with the runaway train."
Dan let out a hoot of laughter. "Serves them right. Bastards like that deserve an express ticket to the pools."
"I'm sure they'll find their way here before they know it. The hard part was cleaning up all the slag Alex left in her wake."
Dan's eyes went wide with wonder. "Yeah, tell me how you burned them again."
Alex laughed. "I have no idea how I did it." She glanced over at me. "I swear you supercharged me somehow. It was like I heard your voice then everything was effortless. Melting the locks was ten times harder, and I had my hands directly on them."
I shrugged. "I guess I'm just your lucky charm. Now you have to keep me around."
Alex smiled at me in a way that made me want to stop breathing. "You are the worst sort of lucky charm. At least as far as The Judas Agency goes." She put her hand on mine, electrifying my skin. "Nothing seems to go wrong around you. Catastrophes cross the street when they see you coming."
Now it was my turn to laugh. "Tell it to my insurance agent. I'm usually the trouble magnet in a Three Stooges film."
Alex shook her head. "You stopped the train, kept that virus from hitting the population a few months ago. We even stayed out of the rain and missed the firestorm raging outside right now. It's like you are a shield and nothing around you can get hurt."
"Speaking of trouble." I turned to Dan again. "Whatever happened with that painting drop? You never told us how it went."
"Gastrith never sent anyone to pick it up. Waited over an hour for nothing. Someone is supposed to meet me tonight. I'm going to head out as soon as this firestorm blows over."
"Seems like we've had a lot of them lately." Alex took another sip of her drink. "If they get any worse, I am going to have to start carrying a meteor umbrella as a shield.”
I laughed. "If someone invents something like that, let me know. I'll take a dozen ..."
I paused, suddenly hit by a realization I hadn't recognized until that moment. Alex saw it in my face as well because she stood up straight and started looking around the bar for trouble.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
I didn't answer. Instead, I rushed into Dan's storage room and came back out with the shield generator I had stashed the night before.
"I thought I told you to get rid of that thing," Alex hissed.
I held out a hand to stop her and turned to Dan. "Did you by any chance turn up any old car batteries when you inherited this place? I know it's a long shot, but I figured since it is made of cars—"
"Yeah. I have a whole bank of them out back. I use them for backup power when the place goes dark."
"Can I borrow one?"
That's all I had to say. He was out and back with a used car battery in less than a minute.
"I think I know what Zoe's up to."
Alex got that not this again face, but I shook my head. "This is different. Can we make this thing work?" I held up the generator.
She stared at me for a minute, then it dawned on her what I was asking her to do.
"You mean, you want to go out there right now? In the middle of a firestorm? Have you lost your mind?"
"Can we make it work or not?"
She held her hand up for a second then pulled some of the loose wires over to the battery terminals. It still had the old cable clamps attached, so it gave her something to tie the wires onto. When she was done, I felt a visceral hum that enveloped the area around us.
"I think that's it. Pretty simple really, but I still don't think—"
I grabbed the battery and the generator and headed for the door.
"Hold on a second. If you're going out there, I'm going with you."
Alex reached for her coat, but I kept moving. I hoped I had enough of a head start, but I couldn't be sure. So I sprinted for the door and prayed for the best.
I had to get out and away, so Alex was beyond my shield range. I didn't want her to come with me on this one. It was too much to ask, even of her. If anyone caught me, it would mean more than the end of my career in The Judas Agency. Not just for possession of the generator, but also because of my implied collusion in the crime I suspected Zoe was committing.
Alex cried out behind me. Her voice full of fury and unrestrained malice. I didn't turn around to face her. I couldn't. I set the generator and battery in the rear basket of my tricycle and got on, then I pedaled into the furious storm of fire and brimstone, leaving my partner to rage a whole different storm of her own.
Chapter Forty
Fire rained down around me. Long streams of liquid lava splashed on roof tops, pooled on the ground, and burned through just about everything in sight. Brimstone fell from the sky in all shapes and sizes. Small stone-sized pieces pierced sheet metal and flesh. Larger Volkswagen-sized chunks crushed buildings in a single blow. It all sounded like being on the wrong end of a shooting range full of machine gun maniacs and grenade launchers. None of it touched me, though. I rode through it all on my tricycle as it bounced off my impenetrable shield like burnt cheese off Teflon.
Buildings and Woebegone outside my shield fell alike. Almost nothing stood up to a firestorm. My shop was one of the only places that could withstand the onslaught, Dan's bar was another. Woebegone who got caught out in the open became toast—literally. The aftermath would result in the wreckage Scrapyard City was famous for.
This was The Nine, and it did not want its residents getting comfortable. Firestorms were a great way to keep everyone lamenting in the Gnashing Fields. When they got out, they would have just enough time to rebuild before another storm hit. Smashing hope was always far worse than having none at all, and The Nine was designed to smash hope. Sometimes I forgot how difficult most Woebegone had it here. Seeing this firestorm first-hand drove the point home like nothing else could—almost nothing.
The Wax Worx came into view over the rise—or at least what was left of it. It had stood for as long as I could remember. A symbol of all the horrors and atrocities The Nine had to offer. As I came over the hill, all that remained was a field of burning debris. I could just make out the sign, still half lit with bulbs. It tried to flash its manic pattern, but now it looked more like the shorted-out wreckage of a long-forgotten time.
Flames reached up almost as high as I could see, and I had to squint my eyes against the intense blaze. The impossible tent construction that made up the Wax Worx had gone up like black powder soaked in diesel fuel. If it weren't for my shield, the heat radiating off the incredible pyre would have driven me away. If ever there were a structure that was not meant to standup to a firestorm, it was this one. I had never even thought about the dichotomy. Just another spectacle of power to the Woebegone who suffered all around and especially inside places like this.
Not anymore.
The Skin Quarries had been much less glamorous in architecture—a gigantic warehouse attached to the rear of the tent structure. Even the steel and sheet metal couldn't stand up to the pounding of the storm. It had suffered the same catastrophic fate as the Wax Worx. The entire facility had been leveled to the ground as well. Brimstone and fire pummeled it into a heap of mangled iron. The two facilities represented a burning wreckage miles wide, and I could only imagine how many Woebegone had been inside when it happened. Both places had always been a safe haven from firestorms in the past. Woebegone would have flocked to their doors when they saw the devastation coming, only to find they were safe no more.
Movement caught my attention to the left. No one should be out in this, including me. But there was a figure watching both establishments burn to the ground. I turned my trike and rode a little closer.
"Zoe?" I yelled, "Is that you?"
The figure turned to look at me then hurried over in my direction. It was definitely Zoe. She wore her dirty, old poncho with the hood pulled up to conceal her face. It was her go-to disguise and seemed to work li
ke a charm. For whatever reason, I almost never noticed her when she was wearing it.
I swung my leg off my trike to stand on the ground, careful not to walk away from the protective confines of my shield. The second she got close, Zoe threw her arms around me and sobbed into my chest.
I held her tight, feeling the relief of seeing her safe in the midst of all that destruction. "Are you okay?"
She wore some sort of backpack under her poncho as well. I felt it when I hugged her close. It was full of a blocky cargo I had to assume was a generator of her own.
She pulled back, tears still running down her cheeks and smiled at me. "I am more than okay. Isn't this wonderful?"
"Wonderful? Zoe, what did you do?"
She looked surprised by my comment. "They're both gone—forever."
"I don't know about forever, but you sure put a dent in their operation. How did you do it?"
I knew the answer but wanted to hear it from her anyway.
Zoe eyed the generator I had wired up in the back of my tricycle. "Looks like you have been rummaging around in my stuff. I was surprised at how many generators were installed in that place. It wasn't easy to get them all out."
"My shop, remember? And I don't recall ever signing on to being part of a major terrorist organization."
Zoe snorted. "Have you read the mission statement for The Judas Agency lately?"
"Touché. But that's different."
"Different how? Because someone told you it is? Because you take your marching orders from some demon who says it's okay? I don't think so."
I stopped and took a deep breath. Then after a second, I asked, "What about all the Freshborns trapped in the cages?"
Zoe's eyes went down to the ground. She was silent for a long moment, then said with conviction, "No one will use them as Disposables again."
I shook my head. "And at what cost? They're all suffering in the Sulfur Pools right now. By their perception, they will be there for an eternity. You're no better than—"