Of Salt and Sand

by Barnes, Michael

  It was true that Jimmy had changed over the years, and not for the good. All of them had noticed his disdainful nature. He and his father’s relationship had been strained, to say the least—Jimmy, being more obstinate and stubborn, did not see eye-to-eye on several crucial aspects involving the project, nor the family business. But all-in-all—and with Gracie’s gentle influence—the two of them always seemed to work things out in the end.

  Jimmy’s relationship with the remaining Four had also waned, that was no secret, particularly with Eli. But the most devastated relationship of all, was with Tom. Once viewed as a brother, Jimmy’s rift of jealousy grew like a cancer, unabated, until it eventually tore the two men apart, culminating in Tom’s decision to leave Sandcastle. Jimmy’s accusations—that his mother loved Tom more than he—were whispered to be the cause. They were absurd accusations, of course, but Tom left all the same, claiming it was time to live his own life. And perhaps it was. But when Zen died, Ruthanne had hoped that Tom would return, for Gracie’s sake. But he did not.

  Now, with Jimmy back at Sandcastle, and once again working alongside the rest of the group, things were certainly more difficult. He constantly pushed their patience to the limit, and seemed more bent on the success of Reitman Enterprises than HOPE, their focus supreme. He was brilliant, yes, but so completely obsessed with himself and his need to be in charge. Fortunately, he, like the rest of the team, answered to Gracie. Hers was the final word. And like a great firm pine, she would not be dissuaded in the slightest degree. So for now, Jimmy Reitman yielded to his mother’s wishes—a limitation to which the rest of the team was grateful. But as any structural engineer can attest: a force can only be bound for so long. In time, it will break its restraints, and turn again to its natural task.

  Chapter 19:

  It was an usually still night in the west salt flats of the Salt Lake valley. The stars, normally a brilliant display, were obscured by a grey mesh of dense clouds rolling slowly across the dusky blackness. The warm breeze from the south flowed heavy over the cooling sands, temping all nocturnal creatures to arise from their secluded cracks, holes, burrows and tunnels, and enter the domain of night. To the west, the spine of the Oquirrh Mountains cast a black outline against a burnt orange background, evidence of twilight’s recent submission. Across the valley to the east, the mighty Wasatch Mountains rose high and majestic against the pale glow of a rising moon, flashing inconspicuously between wisps of passing shadows. At their feet, a blanket of artificial lighting from suburbs, churches, businesses and schools blanketed the slopes, encroaching evermore up the steep swath with each new development. The elevated strip of affluent urban blended seamlessly from its lower benches and hills into the metropolis valley of the city. The expanding basin laid itself out in a giant illuminated dish of industry, metropolis, urban and rural rich farmlands. Only to the west, where the desert wasteland swallowed fertile valley soil, did the populace end, signifying not only a tangible barrier between the two extremities, but also an unwritten rule of nature: a separation of fertility and life from that of desiccation and death.

  At first glance, the shapeless darkness drew out like any other. But as the lights from Sandcastle casts their brilliant glow far beyond the walled perimeter and onto surrounding sands, the black landscape withdrew a portion of her veiled features. A large Horned Owl sat motionless on rock ledge nearby, watching and waiting for its meal to scurry out from the safety of a burrow. Its eyes—deep, black and glistening—revealed themselves in an ominous blaze of reflected lighting from the distant estate.

  Suddenly, the quiescence of the sleeping landscape shattered, as a deep rumble shook and rattled the ground. The owl jumped quickly into flight, his large wings cutting into the night air. Then, from right under where the bird had perched, dust began to curl and rise. Rocks and sand lurched and jumped, popping into the air like hot oil left on a searing pan.

  In the next instant, a gapping fissure tore open in the earth, engulfing the ground. A belch of cool air followed. And then in the aftermath, all fell strangely silent. But even before the air settled, a distant spot of illumination began to develop from deep within the newly-formed cavern. It grew in intensity until suddenly, a swift craft came darting out like a frightened bat. Upon breaking free of its darkened hole, the strange object immediately slowed, circled, and then hovered motionless at the entrance. Then, with a rumbling swoosh, the aperture began to closed. Rocks rolled eerily back into place; dust sucked inward from the expanding haze; sand spewed upward, like metal granules to a magnet . . . all back toward the healing split. And with a final grinding thud, the desert floor was just as it had been. The shiny transport—having cleaned up after itself—now switched quickly into stealth mode and vanished.

  The hovercraft hummed and whistled as it picked up speed, the air rushing past its sleek surface. Inside the unique transport were two passengers: a boy and a much larger, metal humanoid.

  “If Jimmy gets wind of this I’m going to be in big trouble,” said Jacob. “I just hope Ruthanne covers for me again.”

  The metal creature simply turned its wide blue-lit eyes on the boy and cocked its head to one side. “Big trouble,” it repeated in an expressionless tone.

  “We are way past due for a visit anyway.”

  “Past due,” the metal passenger echoed.

  “I just hope he’s not out gallivanting around again in that broken down old jeep of his.

  “Broken down jeep,” came the mimic.

  “One day that stubborn coyote is going to get himself in trouble out there on his own.”

  “Stubborn, Tom,” said the mechanical voice.

  “Yes!” Jacob burst. “You’ve recalled and referenced, Tom! Good job on your embryonic memory grid, Three-Of-Ten!” Jacob adjusted his seat and touched a small panel that burst into life with a soft backlit glow. The illumination revealed a section filled with buttons, switches and schematic readings.

  “Did you buckle up, Three-of-Ten?” he asked, tossing the android a glare.

  “Oops,” came a monotone reply.

  “Didn’t you learn from last time?”

  “Ouch,” it replied.

  “Yes. ‘Ouch’. Your right eye got smashed. Gracie wasn’t very happy about that. Now buckle up!”

  The droid quickly complied, adding, “keep Gracie happy.”

  Jacob chucked again. “You are getting wiser every day, Three-of-Ten.”

  Three-of-Ten was Jacob’s given guard. As a rule, each of the Five had been assigned their own artificial protector many years prior—this because of the vast expanse of the underground, much of which had not been explored at that time. Cave-ins, collapsing floors, walls . . . these were always an inherent danger in the undeveloped areas. But mostly the companion droids were created to be just that: companions, and over the years—thanks to Jacob’s technical improvements and Ruthanne’s algorithms—the synthetic humanoids had become infinitely more intelligent, and personal.

  These had been the first of Jacob’s prototypes; engineered and created in sub-lab nine shortly after the HOPE underground complex was completed. Even before Sandcastle appeared above ground, this small regiment of metal guard had been assembled, programmed and deemed ready for active duty by Tom and Jacob. Those first defense robots were not so much intelligent as they were useful, their conversational skills limited. But when they shined, they were none-the-less incredible to watch in action. But now, after so many years of improvements, these same elite protectors were equipped with an entire gamut of unique capabilities. The most advanced included synthetic onboard sensors that could read the bio-patterns of their assignments: their human counterparts, whom they marked and patterned for the rest of their mechanical lives. This bonding concept had been Zen’s idea, but Jacob had created the final, perfected interface. The androids had effectively become life-bonds to their human assignments, and as such were constantly monitoring, scrutinizing, and recording everything from emotional subtleties to biological incongruities. T
hrough a bioelectric field, these attendants had the ability to react and intervene to such events as a sudden rise in heart rate; an increase in respiration; adrenalin levels; pupil dilation; brain activity; all of which might trigger an immediate response. And if the response was deemed hostile, a defense protocol would be initiated. Power generators inside the metal companion would come online; visual and audible sensors would supersede onboard defense hardware, and the mechanical protector would brood after its human bond, carefully waiting for an audible voice command which would allow it to act.

  Yes, these were truly remarkable companions. But like any great achievement, many attempts were employed before getting it right. In fact, it had been nearly twenty-years since Jacob had introduced the very first prototype unit—and what a blunder it had been. He had never forgotten it.

  While at Los Alamos, Jacob had gotten his hands on several popular comic-books. Consequently, the boy had a slightly different idea of the type of defense weaponry he was to create and install on his first few prototypes. He and Tom had come up with some doozies, to say the least. Gracie had all but fainted when the two had demonstrated the first completed unit. She had left the test lab pale as a ghost, and made a beeline for Zen. Shortly afterwards, two things had happened: First, Jacob immediately began modifications for . . . a nonlethal, less violent solution, as Gracie had adamantly put it. And second, his collection of comic-books had mysteriously disappeared.

  The taming of Jacob’s metal beast as Gracie had tagged it, meant the removal of the boy’s favorite enhancements. Tom had warned him that some of their additions might get the chop; and chopped they had. It had pained Jacob clear to his toes to comply, but it was for Gracie, so he had done as Zen requested and removed his . . . well his improvements. Jacob smiled to himself as he recalled the extreme modifications; perhaps they had been a bit much? But at the time he had thought them to be the best part of the experimental unit. What were they now? he thought back. Oh yes. He shook his head in humorous nostalgia. There was the death ray—a high powered laser which was capable of cutting through nearly a half-meter of solid steel; the pulse gun—a simple beta particle, energized to a golf-ball size plasmatic sphere, and harboring enough energy to annihilate every atom in a modern battle tank; and—Jacob snorted, remembering that this one about caused Gracie to lose it! Her words had been something like, . . . get rid of that inhuman, unbearable howl the droid makes when in attack mode! Yeah. That was it. It was an awful sound, he had to admit, recalling the incident fondly.

  It had taken him multiple tries, and far too many disappointed looks from Gracie. But on that memorable day so long ago, when she had jumped up, applauding with excitement, and shouted, boys! The android is perfect! He and Tom had grinned happily at each other and thought: she’s right. It is perfect. Now, with so many incredible achievements under his belt, Jacob’s Three-Of-Ten was still his best accomplishment, and a well-loved companion.

  The hovering disk glided effortlessly over the ground and through the night air. Only the occasional swirl of dust spit up as the craft carefully maneuvered over rocky ledges, gullies and washed out ravines, hinted of something on the move. Traveling in stealth mode, only a seasoned denizen of this realm might suspect that perhaps some other creature was in flight besides the bat and owl.

  At the craft’s capable speeds, it would only have taken fifteen minutes for the transport to reach its destination. Having flown there many times before, the onboard computer could have taken the boy to Tom’s camp automatically, without a single human intervention. But Jacob was in a hurry, and had intentionally overridden the navigation system in order to push the transport to it maximum speed.

  The transport of choice this night was the Sandray, Jacob’s favorite transport. That wasn’t its real name of course, but Jacob had tagged odd names for all of the HOPE fleet, especially the ones deemed classified. On the Sandray’s maiden test flight, when Jacob and Tom had commissioned the saucer-shaped craft, it had reminded him of a Stingray, floating silently along the bottom of the ocean. The name Sandray had naturally come to him. She was sleek, fast and had full stealth mode, and this night, he needed to be unseen.

  Soon the Sandray began to decelerate. The edge of a large, steep ravine was dead ahead. Then, with a sudden plunge, the craft dropped off the shelf and shot downward in a great free-fall. Down, down it fell as if it would plummet headlong into the dark abyss. “Wew-hoo!” shouted Jacob, far too excited for the nervous Three-Of-Ten, who’s soft-lit eyes had doubled in intensity.

  “O-u-c-h”, the droid’s jarred voice blurted out, moving his mechanical arm to his eye. His memory banks recalled the last time they took this particular route. He hadn’t had his seatbelt belt attached properly. The result was a banged up right eye-casing. This free-fall thing that Jacob was so fond of always raised havoc with Three-Of-Ten’s sensors; he just couldn’t quite compensate for the G-forces quickly enough. Even when leveling out, the sudden, accelerated drop always left him somewhat dazed and unsteady.

  Finally, with impact seemingly inevitable, Jacob wrenched down on the controls. Instantly the craft responded with a sudden upward jolt of the nose. Like a flat rock skipping along the water, the shiny transport jumped and lurched as it momentarily fought to regain its parallel balance. “Whoopee!” came one last hoot from Jacob. Then with a final sigh, more from exhilaration than relief, they leveled out and slowed to a nominal hovering glide along the bottom of a great dark ravine.

  As before, the onboard navigation system flashed its desire to easily navigate them safely through the narrow canyon, but neither Jacob nor Three-Of-Ten were comfortable moving through what felt like black-ink soup. Visual confirmation was always a preference.

  “Let’s turn on some lights,” said the boy. He reached up and touched a backlit symbol on the panel. As he did, a bright light shot from the transport’s underbelly, cutting through the thick darkness like a knife through butter. Jacob rested a hand on a the controls. He nudged against it, just slightly. As he did, the light responded to his directional command. It swept here and there in great swaths of light.

  On either side of them, towering cliffs rose steeply into the air, jetting upward until their sharp edges seemingly sliced into the starless fabric above. In the center of the divide, a small stream cut into the sand, lazily bubbling just below them, its smooth sandy banks providing precious water—life-blood—to a sparse amount of desert flora which crowded in along the banks. Jacob continued moving the beam side to side. On the left, the light revealed two parallel grades in the sand, scarring the otherwise pristine landscape: tire marks, the hint that others had come this route.

  “There’s Tom’s tire-tracks,” Jacob mumbled, as if to himself.

  On the opposite side of the stream, large boulders and shattered fragments of the cliff-face, long since fallen from its stronghold above, covered the ground in an impassible barricade of natural debris. The Sandray moved quickly to take advantage of the stream’s smooth surface. It glided along in the darkness, occasionally skipping upward in a sudden lurch to avoid the odd boulder or broken log jetting up from the otherwise glassy face. Jacob considered increasing his altitude, but to do so would significantly degrade his view, and he wanted to see clearly, any anomalous details which he might come upon.

  All at once, the Sandray’s lights revealed a dogleg bend just ahead. They followed the stream and rounded the corner. The cliff walls drew somberly passed them as they made the turn. Then suddenly, there it was. The towering barriers on either side dropped away to reveal a large alcove tucked deep within the cliff’s base. Above its domed canopy, a spectacular sandstone overhang harbored a sandy bed of fern, moss, and wild yucca. Adjacent to the deep niche was a secluded cul-de-sac pond. Long since formed, the pastoral pool’s surface now danced softly in the silent air as droplet’s from canyon walls cascaded downward like gentle rain, ever feeding the elusive spring. They had arrived. This was Tom’s home hideaway, his secluded cove in the canyon’s back alley.


  “There it is,” Jacob spoke, indicating toward a faint light just up ahead of them. He switched off the powerful beam and slowed the Sandray’s approach. As they neared the small camp, the outline of a dilapidated old fifth-wheel trailer came into view from within the shadows. It sat parked right up in the belly of the alcove, tucked against an extension of vines, and so nearly hidden from view, it could have been part of the canyon’s own unique motif. Toward the rear of the old dwelling, long green vines slumped from a ledge above and onto a section of the roof. Several young cottonwoods grew in random clusters on one side of the trailer, obviously transplanted some time ago by Tom. Just off the front side of the old rig was a rock fire-pit. A tipped, half-opened folding-chair sat nearby, and a makeshift clothesline ran diagonally from the trailer’s awning to a tilted pole stuck in the sand. Opposite the fire-pit, a hoed spot of ground gave telltale signs of a fouled garden, now neglected and overrun with dried-out weeds. Under the awning, a single portable table stood empty in the dull wash of light which leaked out from inside the mobile-home’s tiny windows. Nearby, an array of solar panels lined one side of the camp, tilting upward as if anxiously awaiting the first rays of the morning sun on which to feed before losing their few precious daylight behind towering cliff walls.

  The entire camp oozed of disrepair, age and a gloomy submission to not only stagnation, but to life. How it hurt Jacob to see what the passing of time could take from those he had known and loved for a lifetime—vitality, health and inevitably . . . existence. It was in moments such as these that Jacob loathed being the only living soul immune to the plague of age.