by Travis Borne
“We’d just gotten out of the city, heading home with a full load when we saw it take out the zip train, the transport blocks were blowing end over end like dominoes in a tornado, coming right at us down the freeway. Like night, black winding swarms. Davíd was driving. He had the beadiest of eyes but they were like a hawk’s—he was a real visual guy. Well, we weren’t going to wait for whatever was coming to devour us. So, we turned onto a dirt road, floored it and didn’t look back.” Julio grunted a quick laugh. “I told him to punch it and he did—so much for the trailer. It came off, then the propane tanks blew—there must have been at least twenty or so. The explosion probably saved us. It made quite the diversion. Anyway, we drove like two madmen in the Baja—ripped that truck’s suspension to la chingada—and our backs. Right over the flooded Rio Grande and as deep into Méjico as we could go.”
“And right into Jewel City.”
“No, not exactly. We hid out for a while. I remember a bright light, like a UFO. Neither of us remember anything after that. When we awoke we were there. Robots, big and black like huge bowling balls, were constructing the immense walls—all hazy memories that seem to be returning now. We’d forgotten about the early days. It was when they tried these sleeping tests on us—said it was mandatory.” He paused, thinking. “Well, we lived there ever since.”
Jerry tilted his head, thinking about the details. “Your family, in El Paso, I am sorry, Julian. My condolences, Sir, Señor.” He raised an arm and put it on Julio’s thorny shoulder—in a spot between the off-white, toothy spines.
Julio put his head down. He turned to face Jerry and their eyes reverberated a life full of experience, and pain. Julio’s eyes were yellow like amethysts, very glassy, with cat-like irises. He said slowly, “It was a long time ago, Jerry. But I miss my daughters, and Maria. She was my first love.”
Jerry thought about Valerie, and they shared a mutual moment of silence, then ordered up. Bart lent an ear to the conversation as usual, but for these, real-world stories of life before the day, something relatively new in Midtown—he only and graciously said, “My condolences as well, Julio.”
“Like I said, it was another life. But I do miss them, every day, more now with this new mind. Besides Davíd, I had three daughters. Maria was a beautiful wife, inside and out. And she’d just given birth to my hijo a month prior. We named him Julio Junior. I still remember how she moved, with her long black hair. Dios, I miss her.” They shared another silence, longer this time, and more gator ale.
Jerry recalled his vision of Valerie, again, months back during the fight with Rex, as well the hallucination of the daughter he’d never be able to meet. “You have to let them go, Julian, and move on.
It was apparent, Julio wasn’t quite ready for that. He shook his head then changed the subject. “Ever been to El Paso, Jerry?”
“Oh yeah,” Jerry said, dragging out the words. “Just once. About an hour after—” He hesitated. He didn’t want to describe El Paso as he’d seen it, now knowing that Julio’s wife and daughters were inside the destruction. “You’re right, though, feels like another life.” Jerry held up a beer and Julio did his best to certify the toast.
They both drunkenly smiled. Then Julio burst. “Fuck, Jerry. Look at me. I got horns.” A few others drinking in the back rustled. Jerry turned to look him up and down, mockingly. They shared a detoxifying laugh, the best all night. Julio’s pale blue smooth skin had protruding cheek bones that were upright tusks—like a lotus flower—and the back of his head had one larger one. If he were to bull charge someone he’d look like a triceratops. The top of his head had crescendoing rows of sharp teeth that, from a distance, resembled the spiked hairdo of an Eighties punk. They both laughed.
“You are one, ugly, son of a bitch, Julian. That’s for damn sure.”
“It’s Julio.”
They laughed again, toasted again, and chugged another ale, again.
“But really, Jerry. Do you think we can get out of here? Do you think, we actually can get our bodies back?”
“Ha, not me, mine was burnt like a hot dog in a glass blower. I’m not sure about yours. From what Kim told us it’s probably been stripped and shaved, soaking in some pod somewhere. She said she saw them, jolting, and some were still, as if resting. Bart, another round if you would.” Bart shook his head, but he knew Jerry well enough and pulled on the tap. “But, I really don’t know, Julian.” Jerry looked at the clock, gesturing with his glass. “See that, we used to dread even looking at it. We made every minute count, up here in Midtown. The fucking officers, I’m glad they’re dead, even if we needed them after all. They were worse than the—well, you—the fucking beasts. When Monday morning came everyone stared at it, savoring every last minute, down to the last second, fearing each more and more. Like a plague, man, crawling into your toes and sucking the life out of you. Then, they’d toss us. We hit as if a city bus nailed us doing ninety. Then we’d begin the week. Those officers—they had some power ya know—and could force us down there. If we resisted, and we did, things got worse, both up here and below. A whole week of hell, usually more for me, and a few others. Andy had it pretty bad too, and they picked on Carmen, because of me. As the years went on the officers got more demented, so much so some of us actually preferred it down there. So, if we can’t get out, at least we’re happy now, and we’ll never have to go through that again. Most of us wanted to die—until you and your friends reenergized our hope.”
“I’m very sorry,” Julio said. “It must have been horrible.”
“It was, it was. Pure fucking hell. I really can’t even imagine anything worse, even with my newly repaired mind.”
Julio shook his head slowly and drank. His yellow pointy tongue made an appearance and licked his lips like a monkey’s prehensile tail. “We got here too late, I suppose.”
“What?”
“When we touched them, it happened. They changed—but it took a little while, as if they were waking up. I felt the craving too, slightly. For the pain, like it was a new instinct—but we squashed it and our power spread. After watching them, you know, wake up, I realized we were different. Then we all became the same. Something to do with that glowing purple light in the town, Jewel City. Hell, we didn’t even know what was going on, just ran into the ship like a herd of sheep. We thought for sure it was a rescue. Rico had even called it out. ‘We’re saved,’ the intercom blared. I remember it like it was yesterday. ‘Let’s go people,’ he said, ‘quickly, all aboard!’ And now, we’re here.”
“Wherever here really is. It is a sick system, Julian—this place. Even if we can get out, my body was blown to chunks. I remember the moment as if I was floating above. The drone charged into my encrusted shell and chunks rolled toward the lower back half of the cave, half cooked. Shit, it was gross, and that was me, somehow, watching my own body.” Jerry thought about it, visualizing the details. And he remembered his last glimpse of her, up there, peeking around the rock, holding back her cries. “Amy. Damn, I hope she made it. She was like a daughter to me. No, she was my daughter.”
“We had an Amy in Jewel City. A nice girl, really lively, more than anyone.”
Jerry thought—no. But, maybe… “What did she look like?” He took a drink but his eyes went to the right.
“Well, she came when she was young, about ten years old I’d say. She was the last addition to the town and no one else came after that. She has only one arm, it’s cut off above the el—”
“Oh my God!” Jerry exploded. His feet pressed on the bar’s floor. He was a tower, a tree taking a lightning strike. “Tan skin, curly brown hair, skinny face, eats a lot?”
“You know her? But how?”
“It—it can’t be—” As if he’d just blown a clog out of a trumpet, Jerry turned red and revolved like a planet with the gravity of Jupiter. By each of the one-foot-tall shoulder teeth he grabbed the beast, his new horned amigo. Jerry’s grip was strong, and he moved the big one. “She really made it!” He shook Julio sober
. Tears flooded Jerry’s eyes. A joyous blast of happiness, and a sunshine aura went around his boiled-like skin. He realized then, his job as protector was not finished, not failed. He had to find Amy. “She’s alive! She’s alive! Jewel City you say!”
“Yeah, man,” Julio said. Jerry’s outburst was so powerful, Julio felt smaller. “She recently turned eighteen, been working at our defense center. Only a few know what really goes on there, although everyone’s been talking now. Dreams, so they say, to empower the machines that protect us.”
“She’s a lender. Herald’s city!” Jerry put everything together. He remembered her as a kid, getting into the lending pod in Herald’s ship, and how the ship vibrantly came back to life within seconds. “And she did not board the ship that brought you here?”
“Only about half of the town boarded, the ramp door shut before the rest could enter. We don’t know much else. But I knew Amy, and yes, she loved to eat. Always came by my pizza stand, and lately with a fellow named Jim—he was a real grouch. But I think she grew on him. He started coming out of his shell, since she started working with him anyway.”
“Jim?” Jerry asked, taking his seat. His legs were on fire; zero sleep tonight.
“Yeah, he worked with Lion, a real duo those two, until Lion got fired. Jim changed, even worse than he had been, hardly spoke after that. And what a demotion for Lion, pulling weeds, mornings on Main. Huh. I don’t think Lion slept a single night since the day they fired him. Rumor has it, there’s some sort of chair—or something.”
“It can’t be,” Jerry said quietly, as if speaking to himself. He zoned out on the myriad bottles across the bar. “But if it is Herald’s city, and the lending, just like he’d shown us—then Amy is there!” He remembered his conversation with Herald the night before they left. Herald, please—save my brother. ‘It’s all I ask. Mom was sick and I still left him, went off with Alice to LA.’ Had Herald actually been able to pull it off?
“Describe Jim, Julian. Bart, another round please.” Bart had the rounds ready before Jerry spoke and he slid ’em and leaned in, interested. Usually he’d be off already, fake sleeping in the back. But since the newcomers had arrived, energy abound. Sleep was neglected, especially without having to go—down there.
“Well, Jim used to be a pretty cool dude. He had a hot girlfriend too. Amanda, man, she was something else, never wore underwear and—ah, let’s not go there right now. But she dumped him later. Then Jim got really depressed, stayed indoors—”
“His looks—what did he look like?”
Julio turned to face Jerry. He looked him up and down. “Ha. Like you, actually, but shorter, very strong, very fit, lighter hair though—bright blond, until he started losing it. Then it became more, normal, and his eyes like a salty ocean color. Oddly, he went bald soon after he started working with Amy. He’s a smart dude, too. I think he was ranked number one at the Jewel City Defense Center.”
Jerry took hold of the mug Bart slid him. Gripped it tight. He let Julio ramble on and on, but he knew. Holy amazing fuck, he thought. Jim! My brother is out there. He’s alive! As Julio’s words became indistinguishable in his mind, he played it out like a dream in his head: smart dude, smartest dude I know. Exactly what he’d told Herald. Fuck, Herald pulled it off. Jim, Amy, both made it, maybe even—
“Anyone named Jon in the town?”
Julio didn’t have to think hard to respond, he said, “Sure. John Fisher and his Gramps. Both are named John. We just call them Doc.”
Jerry shook his head, but let Julio describe him. “That the only Jon?”
“Yes.”
“Damn,” he said, then uttered, “Then Jon, didn’t make it? But he could be here with—or possibly he was a beast. Maybe he’d been scanned right after me?” But Jerry knew he wasn’t in the town. All of the beasts had been transformed; they were as docile as teddy bears, and as communicable as any human—unless, it was one of the hairy ones. But even then, everyone had met. Yes, surely Jon would’ve come forward. So where could Jon be? Maybe, he thought terribly, Jon perished and did not get scanned. Well, that would have been a blessing. He was going to find out, and get out!
And Julio decided. He didn’t want to hurt Jerry. He’d tell him later. Amy could still be okay. She might have recovered from her wounds, by now. It came to him like a punch to the gut, a shock absorber numbing the effects of the omnipotent alligator ale. Yes, he remembered the last time he’d seen Amy. Jim called out from the facility door and they’d rushed her over, across the bay, drones leaking in, right before the safe-room door had closed…BONG!
81. Kill Two Birds
Kim and those who’d logged in to serve Boron felt helpless. There was no way to complete the mission. Although they had disclosed information about the time difference, and likely could have months to hundreds of years left, Kim couldn’t help but wonder about those trapped in “dinosaur” land, and the fate of Boron’s underwater city. It was sick, unacceptable, though—to ask the citizens of Midtown to resume what they’d endured. Just completely unreasonable. Proceed again as a cult of sadistic masochists, go ahead, just do it, forever, again and again and henceforth. No way, even if their world was coming to an end.
But Kim knew, if pain didn’t continue the system couldn’t absorb The Special as needed. Boron and its every system would eventually die, and just like the outer perimeter ships protecting Jewel City, would shut down for good. The force field holding out the sea would become a boa constrictor—until there was nothing left. What could be done? Just wait to die?
They decided on a plan. Kill two birds with one stone: hunting—Marti needed raw animal parts for his spirits—and, a long-range expedition, exploring.
“I’ll be back in a week,” Jerry said on the rooftop, alone with her, gazing at the distant mountains. One peak in particular seemed to call them as of late and without words both knew.
“Always you, doing it all,” cried Carmen. “Stay, send out a team this time.”
“I made a vow, Carmen. And now that I know Amy is out there, and my brother—I must go.”
“To the end of the world?”
“If I have to.”
“To that peak, right?”
“I think so.” He lifted her chin gently. “We’ll travel for a week, then return with our catch.” Carmen pulled away and shook her head; her gaze fell onto the town below. “You know we can’t just sit here, babe. Tried that—” He paused, turning his whole body to face her, then pulled her close. “Carmen, no one is coming, no one. And you heard what Kim said. Time is running out.”
She squeezed him tight and they made love on the roof without a care in the world. Their passion was an aura of blues and pinks, oranges, yellows and reds, and after, they remained under a blanket, gazing upon the stars, talking about the good things, forgetting about their problems, their troubles and what might go wrong, until the sun came up. At first light Jerry kissed her cheek; she had finally fallen asleep. He left.
The crew. Jerry selected two beasts: Julian, his new, white-horned, blue friend, as well the orange and warty one, Baldarn, for his extreme strength. Clever smarty-pants, Kim Mills, and The Blaze, Jake Toll, were also enlisted. All four gladly accepted the challenge.
For his pragmatism, Jerry declared Patrick to be in charge of Midtown. Other close friends such as Andy, Luke, and Roger would assist, although with peace like no other time little effort would be needed. Peace. Because reconciliation was a tug-of-war’s winning side, and united, everyone tried to keep busy: some repaired damage caused by the earthquake—the earthquake that had trembled for a week while and until the beasts and Jerry’s crew had returned to the surface. And many enjoyed themselves, got to know the beastly apostates, or stayed home and made love. Books were read, could be read, hobbies were rich people without banks, the money unstuck, and activities of old took on whole new perspectives.
Rick Crisp remained in Midtown, fabricating; his mind was free to do what he loved—invent, tinker, build! The vehicle he and
his team had fabricated was a hodgepodge, a credit to his indispensable knowledge and expertise. And currently, its paddle wheels were swimming along on the gravel mountain road, and within minutes only dust could be seen. They were gone.
The five of them employed the fantastic new craft and it allowed the conquering of distance like never before. Humans and workers hadn’t been allowed to roam for more than a mile or so from Midtown because of the officers’ strict rules, and now, they crossed into the unknown. To the old officer station and beyond. Jerry driving, Kim in the middle, along with Baldarn up front; Jake and Julio had the elevated rear seat. Venturing into new territory elicited nervous smiles from the incongruent bunch, smiles also ablaze with hope, and curiosity.
Because it was the first vehicle they managed to travel farther, faster than ever. Along the way plentiful wildlife crossed their path. Gators slivered from streams and serpents hung on trees like vines cut short, twisting and retreating as the buggy of a monster truck came and went. And there were varmints resembling armadillos, yet larger; others had the semblance of elk, and some were cat-like, half fur, half scales—as well sizable bugs, flying or crawling like turtles, getting squashed by the big fat tires. The dense wilderness brimmed with countless animals and the farther they traveled the weirder the creatures became.
The changes were weird, too, like a drug kicking in. And life was overly plentiful, as if hunting was something from a dimension that had swallowed the very word hunting. So, hunting, thinning this shit out, was the easy part. With a vehicle and two beasts who could charge like Cerberus, hunting was baking cookies. Baldarn took a turn—leap and grab and crush—then Julio—launch, lunge, and stab with his horns—and occasionally Jerry would stop the craft and engage his own talent. In doing so, creeping up to mostly bizarre prey, he thought of the cave, trapping for rats and bugs, wishing there’d been choice animals to hunt. And he thought of this time’s contrast, the here and now, hunting with enough meat to feed ten planets brimming with gluttons.