It Flowed From Promethean Paws

Even If The Sands Are Dry, The Fuel Must Flow...

I knew it was somewhere, the key to making that sweet stuff. The derricks east had been dry for the past half-century, and all the gas we had left wouldn’t last more than a month now. All I had was in my tank, and all I wanted was one of their toys. Marshall wasn’t crazy about it, but the old blanched wolf just looked me in the eyes and said, “don’t kill anyone for it, Hank. Just get it.”

We shook on it. I never took J.B’s suggestions lightly, and I think he still felt bad negotiations between him and the city-builders broke down like they had.

They’d just begun the great reconstruction out west, and the miracle-filled rare devices that replicated everything under the sun had just been unearthed. I had heard they were reconstructing foodstuffs and plants based on the old codes in them synthesizers, plus some metals. The only thing they wasn’t was gas. They had no need because they had nowhere to go. They wanted everything electric, the city self-sustaining, and with the sun beating down on them, that made all the sense in the world.

Made sense for everyone except us.

We needed that gas to preserve a bit of history that was destined to die without it. In all the years, for all the advancements, the motor laws before the bombs still wanted these beasts dead. You could feel the statesmen’s ghosts everywhere, slashing them tires. They wanted the heritage rail-lines dead, the paddle steamers dead, and every hog and rod of the world dead. All for the crime of being out of step with the march of time. “Progress.” And they really had worked a number on ‘em before it all blew to hell. No more drilling, no more gas-guzzling, no more gas generators.

My old man never stood for it, even in the aftermath. He was determined to preserve them. Helped our friends on the road, kept our ‘40 In’jun in top-shape. Her red-and-white paint polished, her inline-four running hot, right up until the day he died. And here I was, running like hell to make sure she could go on with me as long as I lived. As long as we all could.

I had found a warehouse in one of the districts deeper in town. Unguarded, and hopefully loaded with these little devils. I cracked the door and saw them. They was huge. So huge I wasn’t even sure the sidecar could hold ‘em. They all looked a little like the vending machines Dad told me about. Plastic buttons, little chutes where the stuff was dispensed. These were a bit more polished, with a giant solar panel on the back.

Boy was I glad I was just in the old man’s leather vest, woulda shredded a shirt picking one of these suckers up. With bulging muscles and heavy breaths, I got that sonofabitch strapped down good and tight in the sidecar. Just in time too.

“HEY SOMEONE GOT IN!” echoed across the warehouse and I was already revving that In’jun Four up and boogieing out. She strained herself with the sidecar’s weight but I wouldn’t give up on her.

I heard the bullets flying, but I kept going. I felt something warm running down my back, I kept going. I triple-checked the fuel gauge every minute to make sure she could keep going too, but that weight and that speed were ripping at her. I just kept hauling, praying, hauling, praying. Prayed to God. To Dad. “Just get us outta here.”

The needle ran low, but I kept her hot. I heard the sidecar’s body creak and groan, but I didn’t let it freak me. Every pad on every paw was sweating an ocean. My suede boots felt sloshed, and those handlebars musta been drenched. The wind bat at me and the cart, the rattle and shake growing louder and louder as the fuel gauge plunged deeper and deeper near the red. But he were flying like eagles then. I knew the settlement wasn’t that far, but Christ it felt like a lifetime away. Until I saw that great big tent of Old Man Marshall.

I eased her down off the speed trip. Her needle was kissing that big ol’ E and I was a nervous wreck. I hadn’t even had time to figure out if this SOB was functional. At first it wasn’t, but everyone helped me cool off, patching up the one slug they hit me with.

“Give it time,” they said, “Leave her in the sun.”

There was plenty of it to go around, but I watched over her. Took the red bandanna tied around my head and polished her just as I had my In’jun. Marshall and his 50-something pal, wiz “kid” Sam Newton, came to look our new synth over.

“I had hoped some of these would survive the EMPs,” Sam chuckled. “Let’s see if we can get her cooking, Hank.”

He drew a vial of gas from the In’jun’s tank and worked his gray digits over the screen. I wasn’t the brightest, but the whole thing looked pretty easy to follow. Ol’ Newt dropped the vial in and set her a-working. It took five minutes.

Five. Long. Minutes.

But after those five were up, there came a green light even a boy like me could get.

“Gentlemen,” Marshall smiled, patting our backs, “I think the fire of a great knowledge is back here at camp.” He turned to my ol’ man’s bike, the In’jun bathing there in the sun. “How ‘bout I do something I promised Pete?” he said to me. “Make her that little chrome emblem he always wanted. She sure is the prettiest Prometheus I ever done see.”

I couldn’t say no ‘cause I knew just how much Dad would love it. Love to have seen it and felt it there on her side as he rode. Hope you can still see her, Pop.