Scott was shaking his head slowly. He had memorized every mecha-identification profile there was, arid he had never seen this one. It was twice the size of the others. "What could it be?"
But there were no answers.
Once again, Rand's Notes on the Run offers an enlightening commentary on the subtler forces affecting the team:
"Another two days' rafting brought us to a deserted city where, wonder of wonders, we found a pinch of Protoculture in an old Southern Cross underground shelter-just enough to keep us going. It should have made us rubber-kneed with relief, really; it was a lucky find. But we were all still a little depressed about Annie. I kept expecting her to start yapping and pestering me."
"Unloading the mecha from the rafts was a lot easier once they were under power, and the Beta lifted Lunk's APC off like it was a toy. We decided to hole up in the downtown hub of that empty burg for a few days, to see what else there might be that we could use. The Forager in me didn't trust the place-those windy streets, echoing concrete canyons-but I knew there would be few other places to resupply between there and the coast."
"Figuring a few rest stops, Scott told us he estimated another eleven days' travel to the Pacific coast of Panama, where we would get ready for that hop to what all the old maps call Baja California. Most of Central America was an Invid bailiwick, and the Gulf of Mexico was their bathtub; we didn't have much choice but to go around. Scott said we might manage to be in the region of Reflex Point in as little as a month or so."
"Yippee..."
"While Scott and Lancer went over the maps, and Marlene sort of huddled in Rook's old jacket, watching Scott. Rook and Lunk and I rode off to see what else we could forage. Our headlights only made the city seem spookier and more ominous. Rook was grousing, something about the foolishness of scavenging in the dark."
"I told her, 'We'd be sitting ducks during the day-not that I feel a whole lot safer now. I'm beginning to think the Invid see equally well, day or night.'"
"It wasn't much of a comment, I suppose. To tell the truth, I was still
thinking about Marlene, and the looks she was giving Scott. If we had been living some oldtime musical, I would have said the two of them were about to burst into a somber duet. As for me, that intimate connectedness I had felt with Marlene seemed to be fading. And my feelings toward Rook changed from second to second."
"Anyway, there we were riding among leaning and teetering buildings, toppled wreckage, cracked streets with weeds growing up through them-and the Invid jumped us. A flight of Pincer Ships were following either that giant one we had seen back in the valley or its twin."
"They took a novel approach, blasting the top floors of buildings to pieces, raining cinderblocks and cement and pieces of girder and glass down on us. We did some stunt driving you won't find in any books, with dust coating our goggles and sticking in our teeth. A granite splinter opened a groove in Lunk's cheek."
"It seemed like we fled forever. Then we zazzed around this turn and Scott and Lancer were there, running neck and neck, Marlene riding pillion behind Lancer. We had gotten lax, maybe, because Scott was the only one in armor. Wearing that tin can never seemed to bother him; I had seen him sleep in it often."
"At any rate, he told us to find cover while he ran interference. It made sense; without our armor, the rest of us were just bikers in a bull's-eye. Then we heard his fireworks, and we poured on everything we had because as good as Scott was-and he was the best among us-he couldn't hold 'em for long."
"I was in the lead, and I spotted a major subway entrance. We went down, giving our kidneys a nice little massage on the steps. Scott was right behind Lunk's truck, and the Invid rounds were already melting the entrance canopy. We ran to the end of the platform and then hit the rails."
"Ladies and gentlemen, it was dark down there! Our headlights scared up rats as big as small dogs, and other things that didn't fit in any Audubon book I ever saw-mutations, of course."
"I figured we could put up a pretty good fight down there, because the
Invid would have to bunch up and move slowly. But I made a note to slip on my helmet the second there was a chance; weapons make noise, and in the confinement of the tunnel a few shots would be plenty for a little short-term hearing loss."
"What I hadn't foreseen, though, was that the Invid would just shoot at us from the street above. They had tracked us by Protoculture emissions, I concluded. I bet that big bozo we had seen was the one doing the shooting; Pincer Ships simply didn't have that kind of raw power. Even Shock Troopers didn't pack such a wallop."
"Sure enough, the first one made me partially deaf and gave me the beginnings of a week-long headache. At every junction we looked for a way to go deeper."
"The Invid shots blew straight down through ceiling and floor behind us. The ceiling suddenly collapsed and Lunk's APC was nearly stuck, but somehow he churned free. I do believe that glorious old wreck listened when he talked to it."
"We shut down our Cycs so the Invid couldn't sense our Protoculture, but they must have gotten a final fix on Lunk's truck, because the last volley damn near nailed him. As it was, the whole tunnel began to break up."
"We all wriggled to shelter under some subway cars, except for Marlene, who had taken a spill, and Scott, who crouched over her, protecting her with his armor. I looked at the two of them and the way they looked at each other and I knew, in that bizarre instant flash you sometimes get, that they were what Vonnegut called a "Duprass"-a bonded pair. Something to do with fate, no doubt."
"It sounded like they were knocking whole buildings over up above; the tunnel was blocked by fallen debris and concrete back the way we had come. Lunk's beloved old jalopy was crumpled, too."
"Then it got quiet. We guessed that they had decided they had destroyed us. But there was no going back; our only chance, the way I saw it, was to look for another route out of the place-find a junction further down. And we had to do it fast, Lancer pointed out, because there might be Invid
looking for a way in."
"Scott was mechamorphosing back to cycle mode while he was reminding us how persistent the Invid were-as if we hadn't seen that for ourselves. If Scott had one weakness as a leader, it was stating the obvious. But as he stripped out of his armor and went to look for an exit, his light showed that the tunnel had been sort of squooshed together like a toothpaste tube in that direction."
"We were sealed in."
CHAPTER TWENTY
What is to become of men and women-males and females-and the way they cope with one another and the differences between them?
Doesn't this go to the heart of the reason the Robotech Wars started in the first place? The Regis and Zor? The soullessness of the Masters? The Shaping of the Protoculture itself?
Isn't it the question that must be answered before there's a love that's worthy of the name?
Altaira Heimel, Butterflies in Winter: Human Relations and the Robotech Wars
Rand continues:
"Scott hardly batted an eyelash. He just fell back to Plan W, or whatever letter he was up to by then. Can-do, that's the attitude they had drummed into him."
"But without any warning at all, Lunk suddenly lost it. The next thing we knew he was kneeling on Scott's chest, choking him, screaming about how Scott had gotten us into this, how it was his fault we were going to die. I think the first would be undeniable, but we had all had the chance to opt out, just like Annie, and so the second part just didn't stick. Maybe Lunk was regretting that he hadn't stayed behind to give Annie away at the wedding and settle down in a hammock someplace."
"When Lancer and I tried to peel him off, Lunk just flung us away with one sweep of his arm, growling and roaring like some berserk Neanderthal. Rook had no intention of letting it go on, but she was smarter than we were; I saw her edging her H90 out."
"Lancer saw, too, and so we made one more effort. Lunk was foaming at the mouth, but I guess by then he had said everything he was thinking-basically, that he was afraid he
was going to die. Lancer and I got armlocks on both sides, and this time we dragged him loose. Marlene
cradled Scott's head to her and tried to stop the bleeding of his split lip." "Lancer and I had our hands full, and Lunk was howling for us to leave
him alone. Lancer stepped back and wound up for a punch. He got a lot of power into the uppercut-I made a mental note not to poke fun at Yellow Dancer ever again-but it barely rocked Lunk. Still, the big guy sort of came out of his fit."
"Lancer was apologizing, although I noticed he was poised to give Lunk a second dosage if the diagnosis called for it. But Lunk's madness seemed to have left him as quickly as it had come. Lancer reminded him that Scott hadn't led us down there; I had."
"And there I was, nodding, kind of smug, in a sneaky way, about how honest and forthcoming I was being. It served me right for letting my ego take over; when I wasn't looking, Lunk hooked me. It was a little like being struck by lightning. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with loosened teeth."
"All I could think of to do was lie on the ground. I settled for giving Lunk my best mean look. 'Feel better?' I drooled."
"And it worked. Next thing I know, Lunk's down on his hands and knees begging my forgiveness and blubbering that he didn't know what got into him-he was scared, he didn't belong on the team, didn't have what it took and so on."
"I opted for the high road. Rubbing my jaw, I told him that it seemed to me that he had had what it took just a second before. I sorta sneaked a look at Rook, hoping she had noticed now mature and big-hearted I was being, but she just sniffed at me and turned her nose in the air, and said, 'I guess he proved that, didn't he?'"
"Sometimes I wish there was a third gender that would do nothing but referee."
"Marlene was looking around at us like we were crazy. And I suppose we were; Christ, we were all crazy, the Robotech Irregulars off on a lark to blow up Reflex Point! No wonder it had brought us to a dead end."
"We gradually pulled ourselves back together. Scott said his head felt
like somebody had been using it to crack walnuts."
"Lunk was worried about that same old thing, what else? Back in the war he had had to make tracks from a bad situation, and he saw himself as a coward. He was afraid he had cracked and let us down, too."
"Lunk had never asked me about this, but from what he admitted about that firelight, I don't think he could be blamed for what he did."
"I'm sure that it's a special kind of hell hearing your closest buddy scream for a pickup and having to stand pat. But when the transmission's coming from the middle of a walking-barrage of Invid cannonfire, and the rest of your unit's wiped out, and the man or woman shrieking at you is mortally wounded and beyond any possible rescue, I don't call it cowardice. It's part of the evil of war."
"Lancer had established himself as a sort of authority figure with that punch, I suppose you could say. But he tried to point out that Lunk was just Human. Lunk still didn't seem to know what to do and looked like he was about to burst into tears again. I gave Rook a little eye signal and said somebody should start hunting for a back door-that maybe there was something we had missed."
"She gave me a funny look, but didn't object. She and I got flashlights and started off. There was the very beginning of another platform at the far cave-in, and we got down to a lower level, but there was no exit. We walked amid handbills that had faded and gone to tatters, newsstands where the candy had been taken by the rats and the stacks of newspapers turned into cockroach settlements."
"The steady drip of water was everywhere and you could smell the stagnant pools of it, and the things rotting in them. There were constant skitters in the dark, distant squeaks and squeals. It wasn't terribly cold, but it was dank enough to make me shiver."
"I looked at the face of the woman on the last edition of Mademoiselle ever to be published and couldn't help wondering what I always wonder when I come across things like that."
"Did she survive the Invid holocaust? Had she lived through the
turf-wars and the plagues and famines and slave-roundups? Had she been disfigured; or lived long enough to discover that her beauty could be a terrible curse in this post-apocalyptic world, and simply ended it all one day?
"Rook was strangely quiet, and I didn't feel like talking much because my jaw ached. Finally we were sitting on a platform, swinging our legs, gazing down at the third rail that would never know its surge of current again. Out of nowhere, I was admitting that I wasn't so sure there was any way out this time.
"I expected the worst, but for once she wasn't busting my chops. 'Don't give up hope. I'm sure we'll come up with a way out of here eventually.' Her voice sounded so different all of a sudden; the world seemed to change."
"I was flummoxed, as the ancients would say. To cover up, I said that even if we did get out, the team would never be the same. Rook just lay back with her head pillowed on her hands, looking up at the ceiling. I wanted to stretch out next to her the same way-nothing funny, you understand, just lie there together like we were out on a hill someplace looking at clouds. But I thought she might take it the wrong way, so I didn't."
"'I should tell you something,' she said. 'I've been thinking of quitting the team.'"
"It was the last thing I expected her to say. But she insisted, 'It's been on my mind a long time, Rand.'"
"'But we're counting on you more than ever now that-'"
"'I'm tired of people counting on me! Or maybe I'm just tired of running for my life all the time.'"
"I didn't know how to respond to that, so my mouth said, 'C'mon, you're just like me. You thrive on danger!'"
"She was looking at me out of the corner of one eye, in a very strange way. 'Up to a point.' From her, it was a major concession, agreeing with anything I said like that."
"So I gave in a little, too. 'You're right. I'm not being straight with you when I say fighting is fun. Maybe I just keep repeating it to keep from facing
the fact that I'm scared sick a lot of the time.'"
"Now she was watching me with both eyes. 'What d'you know? I never thought I'd hear you admit a thing like that.'"
"I shrugged. 'It's all been working at me, Lunk and the Invid and all. Matter of fact, I wonder if this whole mission isn't just a hopeless effort. A half-dozen people just can't do it.'"
"Now she was up on one elbow, and I couldn't help noticing how she moved in that shiny, skintight biker's racing suit. 'Rand, I just had a bright idea. Let's quit the team together. Hear me out! We'd be saving everybody's life. Scott would have to postpone the mission while we all go looking for more recruits. There are Resistance units. We might be able to assemble a real strikeforce.'"
"I thought about that for a few seconds. An hour would not have been enough, but I didn't want her to think I was slow or indecisive now that she was just starting to be civil to me. 'I've got an even better idea: Why don't you and me just pull out and not come back?'"
"Those fair, fine brows of hers came together. 'What are you saying?'" "'We could hop on our bikes and hit the highway again! You and I
could get married, have us a coupla spare wheels-'"
"It will, by now, be obvious to the knowledgeable reader that in spite of all the boasting I had done, I really didn't know much about women. Rook was giving me a glare that made me wonder if I should go get myself fumigated."
"But all at once she turned and started twirling a wisp of her forelock around one finger looking at it kind of cross-eyed. 'You've completely missed my point, Rand. The point was to pull out together so we could find more people and bring them back. Get me?'"
"'I thought the point was to hit the road together because you feel the same way about me that I feel about you,' I opened up. 'We'd be perfect together. I'd follow you anywhere in the world. You know that.'"
"'Have you completely lost your mind?'"
"'Huh-uh. I've completely lost my heart.' God, what else did she want
me to say? And so, of course, because
(I'm pretty sure) I had made my point, she just-jumped to her feet! She just broke off the conversation! With that one move, she was calling the tune again."
"So I got up, too, and put my arm around her shoulders, not at all certain that she wouldn't flip me down over the third rail. But she stamped one foot and pushed my arm away and scolded me instead. 'The point of this deal is to save our friends' lives, not to establish a relationship. If, if you're willing to accept that, then I'm still game.'"
"'Since you put it that way, I can hardly refuse, can I?'"
"She chuckled softly, that throaty laugh that made me wish so muck that we could be together. 'Boy, will Scott be mad,' she added."
"She laughed some more and it made me laugh, but really I was thinking the whole time what it would be like to hold her in my arms and have her embrace me instead of pushing me away. It made my head swim and I kind of forgot what we were supposed to be laughing about."
"Scott didn't think our dropping out was so funny, of course. We kept citing burnout and the need for more troops, without touching on the Lunk matter, and poor Lunk just stood there looking hangdog and miserable. Scott was hampered by the fact that, after all, none of us had ever signed an enlistment paper or sworn an oath of loyalty."
"Marlene was just puzzled, but I think Lancer wasn't fooled for a moment. Still, he kept his peace, for the most part, especially when I told them I had thought of a way that we might get out of that sepulcher. They heard me out, disliked my brainstorm, but gave in to it anyway."
"It didn't take long and it wasn't too sophisticated. We fastened our last spare Protoculture cells behind a kind of wedge we put on a length of rail that we cut loose with H90's. Scott mounted the wedge on a derelict subway car using his Cyc armor's strength. The rest was pretty obvious."
"Scott had yanked Lunk's truck loose and even straightened out most of the damage, with his powered armor. Everybody understood that there was a chance that we would bring the whole place down on our heads, but the air was starting to get thin, or so it felt, and we had all had enough of
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