“Once-Other, for the sake of pretense we will continue this tour of ours. Sublime of me?”
I try to speak but cannot.
“It will give you time to figure this out. Check over my questions...they are actually answers.”
I dig deeper, gather my Here-Born Foundation together and call upon all my training but to no avail—weakness pervades.
Wernt examines me as the bully inspects the skinny guy with glasses attempting to brave danger and says, “Damn fine challenge...eh Once-Other?”
Again I call for help. Again no one responds. Jiplee’s face flashes before me—I turn from it and concentrate on my predicament. For what assails me has got to be impossible—no Earth-Born can control us without sophisticated technical equipment. Could it be that both technology and Desert Drivers are at work here? Or worse!
Has Earth-Born reverse-engineered our Fraggers into a weapon that controls people? Or even worse than that, is this actually Peter only—an Earth-Born? But they don’t possess such abilities and that everyone knows.
Stepping out onto sand, I stumble, regain my balance and continue towards the Mall. A faint headwind picks up making forward progress twice as difficult. At every step that whisper of a breeze blows my foot back to sand but I keep trying.
If I make any progress or not, I cannot tell.
Needle storms and sting-flies assault my mind.
Red and black pain blinds me.
I stop and feel around.
A finger touches Hellbent II.
I lean against her front wheel.
So some progress I’ve made...good!
A few deep breaths later and my vision clears a little.
No one is close by.
Near the Mall and about the Fair a few tourists mingle.
No one looks our way.
Hope appears.
Maureen enters her store, pauses, and waves to me but if she communicated nothing arrived. I try to wave back, but my arms will not move. I send her a message to receive none in return. Wernt’s footsteps approach and stop behind me.
I turn and face him to find his eyes aglow with the flames of hell, his smile thin and tight, his fingers flexing and his eyelids twitch and a low growl emanates from his throat.
I hold myself tall and ask, “Who are you Peter Wernt?”
And the no good damn tourist shoves at my chest. I land upon sand and look up just in time to see his hand move. But all to see is a flash-n-blur. Where did such speed come from? His reactions were so sluggish.
Yet with Here-Born speed Peter’s hand reaches the bulge I’d been ignoring. And my mistakes are worse than anyone could imagine. It’s an underarm holster, not something that is blocking his thoughts from me.
“Why are you pointing that handgun at me?” I ask.
“Get up,” he says.
I struggle up and brush sand off my clothes with leaden arms. He points to the crowd with his free hand keeping the gun hidden from view.
“What’d you mean?” I ask.
“Move,” he orders and points.
“Why?”
“Move. Don’t plan to be back.”
“What do you damn think will happen to my pre-owneds?” I demand.
He glances at the crowd and checks the two Poip standing at the edge still searching for the Desert Driver, and it hits me.
Moments ago I had seen no crowd. Damn! I’m in greater peril than I realized. Peter, and perhaps another someone is running control on me. Shutting down my perception, turning on-n-off my senses, inputting thoughts and emotions into me...against my will.
I swallow real hard, take a deep breath, glance at Peter and ask with a tremulous voice, “What you want you damn criminal tourist? What Justice? For what revenge? Are you quite mad? Do you want my money? No! You a pervert wanting to do bad things to me? No! Okay. What do you want then?”
“We’re headed for the Rocklands...Highlands. Northwards.”
“The Rocklands? Why the Highlands? Why?”
“I’ll provide enlightenment when I want to,” he declares as though he is a god or something.
“A gun can’t kill me. You know? Preservatives-n-all.”
But he’s not stupid. A gunshot does cause damned enormous quantities of pain and death comes as part of that equation. As if to confirm he stabs the muzzle into my kidneys and I stumble forward gasping in pain.
“Okay. Okay, I’m walking but...your money’s used up. Also, I’ll be charging double once again. That’s for my time and those parts which will go dry—if I’m gone too long.”
He caresses my kidneys with the muzzle and hisses a dry throaty chuckle at my ear. “So you charged me double. Neatness eh? Sure….now yeah. When I’m good and ready I’ll explain why that won’t happen and why I don’t give a damn. We have a long journey ahead. Do what I say and nothing else. Yeah. So now. Move it!”
I take a deep breath and note Peter’s deodorant is stronger this morning. It hails from EB...Mild & Manly it’s called. He makes to jab his handgun into my kidneys and I move it working my way through a crowd who apparently remain unaware of our presence, and say “I charge as I like. You pay or you don’t.” He nods, smiles coldly.
After a few paces, Peter points straight ahead and I almost fall over backward. “What?” I gasp. “Follow him?”
“Get going,” he growls.
“The Desert Driver? You’re in cahoots with him?”
Wernt points and sneers.
The Desert Driver melts into the crowd.
The Poip continue searching for him.
I consider Peter as though I had gotten his thoughts and much adds up but too late. His attitude towards me was present from the moment we first met, so he had an issue with me from before our meeting each other. Damn! Why did I not realize that?
Yet we’ve never met. I don’t recognize him nor any relative of the same name. What is his issue? He has no visible scars around his neck so that is still the original. “Why are you doing this, Peter? I am innocent of all crimes which may have been committed in an accidental fashion.”
“Keep your one-on-one tour up,” he growls and scans the crowd. I search it as well, but no one pays us any attention.
Shoppers mill, head for destinations both in and outdoors scuffing sand with each stride they take. I reach out to nearby ones, but no one responds.
Peter steps closer to me. “I said keep talking!” he hisses and slams the muzzle into me again.
“Argh! Damn! Okay! What? Whoa! Let me consider. Okay. During the Great Population Redistribution some three to three-hundred-n-eighty years ago when our ancestors first arrived...argh. I don’t feel like talking. Okay, get it out my face.”
He pulls the revolver back glances about and spots the Desert Driver. The Desert Driver points beyond the crowd and heads off keeping an eye on the Poip. But they spot him and set off in pursuit.
Curiosity, the kind that so loves to cling to one, rears its questions. “What did I do to make you so mad, Peter? Did you want a pre-owned I didn’t offer? No. Okay. A male or perhaps female head so you can be a major talking point back home? No. Have we met before? No. Relative buy the wrong part? Too expensive? No.”
He double-takes on something I’d said, examines me and says, “Do the tour Once-Other. Keep your actions natural, or die here now.”
“How would that be possible? Remember? Preservatives.”
But I’m faking it again—bullets kill. In the same instant, I realize that in continuing this Talking Tour it’s harder to reach out to others mind-to-mind.
He nudges my elbow. I glance down. With a subtle fanfare, he pulls a poison-filled injector vial from a pocket and waves it under my nose. “Direct from Earth exclusively for you. A deadly one. You won’t be worth a bent nickel as used parts.”
“Pre-owned...and you’re threatening murder.”
“Yeah,” he says in a long slow growl. “And I don’t give a damn! You’ll find out why soon enough. Now get moving! The faster we make the open d
esert the sooner you get answers.”
“What’s that mean?” I ask to cover any visible evidence of a sudden realization. He waggles the handgun as though he is a super-human, nods ahead and I set off.
But deep inside where no Here-Born has ever been, I’m thinking. That poison has particular shortcomings that few beyond our world are aware of. Knowing this gives me hope of surviving this...ah...this whatever Peter has in mind.
Scant hope indeed.
His handgun slams into my kidneys and knives of pain once again pirouette from kidneys to liver and back again.
“I’m walking, I’m talking,” I manage to gasp.
CHAPTER 47
Of Once-Other’s Personal Baggage
Sand crunches beneath our boots as we follow the appearing and disappearing Desert Driver. Pain grips my senses inviting me to lie down and accept unconsciousness. I keep walking though, hoping there will come an opportunity by which to escape.
Each time the Desert Driver appears he glances over his shoulder then vanishes and finally does not reappear. Wernt pulls me to a halt and anxiously scrutinizes the bustling crowd.
Citizens stroll by, Shoppers-to-be hustle urgently; some greet me and nod to Wernt. There is understanding in their eyes. Crier poison can make one look like something half-chewed-n-half-dead that the cat dragged in.
Desperate to communicate circumstances I reflect predicament in my eyes and the gun muzzle rams into me. My legs give, but Peter grabs my arm and holds me up. I bite my lip and suck air as sheets of pain serve up another helping of sliced kidney. Passersby smile sympathetically again assuming Crier poison is the culprit.
The pain ebbs, dissolves and like a black storm cloud the Desert Driver appears before us. He and Wernt nod in agreement. The Desert Driver about-faces and heads back into the crowd. His new pre-owned arm still wrapped and carefully tucked under the remaining one. Wernt nudges me with his elbow and we follow.
The crowd thins. A SandRider cruises by. Wernt sneezes in the dust stirred. The driver, a stranger, ignores us. Ahead, though almost hidden behind a tent with its nose barely visible, is the Desert Driver’s destination.
“Just don’t ask me to get into his SandMaster,” I say. “They are wild and mad trucks. Half alive and half mechanical.”
Wernt’s gun nozzle threatens at my kidneys. I gulp air in anticipation of greater pain, reconsider and manage to gasp, “Unless of course you need me to.”
I head briskly in its direction. With his gun nibbling at me I beg of him, “Please be more respectful of my kidneys.”
“Seems like you know some about SandMaster—yeah?” he says sounding amazed.
I offer no response.
“Keep talking. Tell me what you know. Now.” He motions with the handgun.
“Okay. Okay! Here’s what. I spent much of my career choice while in high school at the SandMaster factory, the aft section manufacturer. My father worked at the assembly plant and often took me to work with him.”
The Desert Driver materializes alongside Peter—we halt—they huddle. “He’s lying,” the Desert Driver says.
“He is?” Wernt hisses.
The Desert Driver grins cruelly and says, “He also worked at the factory after he graduated. He lied by omission but,” and he turns to me, “how many...two...three?”
“Three,” I enlighten him.
“Yeah. Three years in, he errored-out...to become a teacher. Imagine that!”
“Pray tell Once-Other,” Wernt says with faked politeness.
“Go on!” the Desert Driver says, a knowing light in his eyes.
And it appears he knows about that which I don’t think on and don’t speak of. I pass on troubling my inner self with needless questions of how he knows. But! It is still my all-consuming embarrassment from way back altogether when I first worked on SandMasters—long before prison and working for Hunduranda.
To many others, such occurrences may seem trivial and no-good a reason for a lifelong burden of emotional pain. It is that to me. I’ll reveal what he knows just to keep that gun barrel at bay and those rounds within it sleeping. But I do so with great reluctance and under duress and threat of pain alone, might I add. For he is Earth-Born and they are now enemies and any information imparted is valuable information.
“Well okay Wernt,” I say. “When one test drives a SandMaster exact procedures must be followed.”
“Exact procedures being key all the way down,” the Desert Driver adds and rewards me with a dry chuckle.
“So what happened?” Wernt asks his impatience threatening to explode upon my kidneys. They both shuffle closer creating the impression we three are huddled in conversation.
With a heavy heart and for the first time ever I outline how I’d been influenced by the need for a woman’s warmth in my bed and the consequences thereof. “Consumed with emotional distress and upset with Deidre, my then future wife but now ex-wife, I blew the rear engine of a SandMaster while testing it.”
“What’s so bad?” Wernt asks genuinely amazed at a seeming triviality.
“No one ever did before, no one has done so since,” the Desert Driver says and laughter fills his eyes with nasty. “But that’s not all. Tell him the rest of it.”
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Go on.”
I grind my teeth in protest and consider not doing so.
Wernt raises an eyebrow and waggles his handgun.
As ground kidneys do not augur well for a grand escape, I say, “With testing over and while on the way back I blew the second engine. I called for help, but no one cared to pick me up after I reported what happened.
“I arrived soaked in death-defying sweat, tongue thick with thirst, covered in sand and was errored-out so fast my mouth was still hanging open as I left—severance check in hand.
“Compounding insult upon damn insult I had to pay twenty percent of the costs to repair the engines and never completed my apprenticeship one-two-three altogether.
“Needless to damn say—said payment came out my check. Which check’s value was a fraction more than the digital bits used to send it to my Nomadi.” And as happened back then I once again die a little inside and fall silent lost in yesteryear and its unfortunate events.
The Desert Driver yanks me back to the here-n-now. “Tell him how come and all,” he says.
I hesitate. This Desert Drivers definitely knows more than he should. How? No answers persist. Wernt waves his handgun again and shows me the vial of poison as an exclamation point.
Speaking slowly, I say, “Okay. The night before Deidre and I had argued long-n-hard. Tempers flared when she told me she was pregnant. Damn. Okay. Still rocks me sideways now as then.”
I sigh and continue. “Well anyway, altogether. We were in no financial state to support a child. She screamed, cried, howled and sobbed. Desperate for sleep I agreed. She kissed my cheek rolled over and went to sleep. I lay awake most all night ruing that surrender.”
“And,” the Desert Driver says and laughs as though he’d just thought of the funniest of jokes.
I add what he is referring to. “The next morning she dragged me to the chaplain, and we were married. A glint in her eye she kissed me once and I went off to test a SandMaster in enough turmoil to make errors inevitable.”
“And?” the Desert Driver insists.
“Some weeks later she found out she wasn’t pregnant after all.”
“Oh yeah?” Peter exclaims. “So you weren’t and still aren’t particularly bright Once-Other. I figure it’s just as well we chose you?”
“What you mean Peter?” I ask my voice thick with trepidation.
“All will be revealed. At journey’s end—all will be revealed...yeah ah...what you mean—you worked on the aft section?” He shudders his eyes darting to those about as though assassins surround us.
I check the crowd but find no threats present. How does he go from such virulent anger and disdain to shuddering fear in so small an instant? Where-oh-where are his thoughts hidden?
How does he block his mind so effectively from me?
Obviously, I’d read Wernt wrong. He is a threat to our campaign. Why else would he be in cahoots with a Desert Driver?
I retreat from internal questions afraid they will open a path to what I am hiding—my only hope. Hope for a life continued beyond this travail despite that there’s little chance of it now.
Nevertheless, I am carefully plotting an escape with success hinged upon immaculate timing. Wernt has threatened to inform me altogether—at our northern destination in the Highlands.
I must get that information from him and with as much detail as possible. As important, I must endeavor to live long enough to convey what he reveals to those tasked with monitoring aggression against us and with our defense.
I swallow hard-n-dry and even at my Foundation’s protests, I know I cannot trust this Desert Driver despite telling Karrell we must. This one has chosen the path of treason. This Desert Driver’s actions are treason—treason compounded by inaction.
If he’s been bought it will be the end of his freedom—should I live to tell my tale. So he wants to see me dead as well!
Peter is a different but similar story.
He needs something from me and that he wants to be away from populated areas spells out clearly that I am embarked upon life’s final journey. For now, all I can hope for is a moment to communicate the information Wernt will reveal.
I wait until he threatens me again.
He does and I get down to what he demanded. “Well. And ignorance is about here. Okay, Peter. Easy. Two separate vendors build our SandMasters. One for the forward and one for the aft section.
“Here’s the joke. If something goes wrong with your SandMaster, you have to dismantle the chassis. It’s designed to do that. Now. Once that’s completed you send the malfunctioning section to the proper vendor—fore or aft.”
Peter nods looking bored, which makes me glance anxiously about only to find many shoppers scurrying to enter the moist cool of the Mall.
A faint breeze stirs and Peter licks at the sweat on his upper lip. The Desert Driver kicks up sand and grins as Peter twists away and covers his nose.
I raise an eyebrow in question. Peter waves any questioning on my part aside, indicates for me to continue and crosses his arms the handgun pointed in my direction.
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