VIII. The Metal Factor
Crossing Seas of Sand in the Name of Mysteries & Metal!
“It’s settled then. I leave at sunrise tomorrow.”
With those words, Captain Tomás César Herrera had sealed his fate, at least for now. He had mulled it over, as one does with any great decision sat at their feet. The black-furred officer called his beloved, talked through it, and she, like any wife of war, met it all with a brave face. And he was met with a request that even surprised him.
“When you leave, just go right to the edge of the world. Don’t stop for us.”
His calm “¿Por qué?” was met with that sage wisdom of hers.
“You’re off to serve,” Soledad replied. “Whatever happens, the sting of deployment should only strike once. And hers happened after the swear-in. I don’t need her thinking about a second time she could’ve stopped you leaving her side.”
“She still up?” he asked. “I can still chat over the phone, right?”
His wife chuckled in that soft, sweet way of hers. “Of course.”
He did just that, savoring every laugh, every tall tale she could spin over the phone, quizzing her in English and Español. When they wished each other “Buenas Noches,” and the Missus tucked their tot into bed, Soledad only had a few more words left in her.
“I trust you Tomás,” she sighed. “Do what you must. Do it well and we shall meet again. Por la libertad.”
“Por la libertad, querida” were his last words before hanging up.
Gone were his quarters, now he sat there, in the General’s office, intently reading form after form. It was all the scientific and geographic information the Force had on everything east of the Wastelands. And yet, as his mind crunched the numbers, and the odds, that phone call wrapped itself tight around his mind. It let go long enough to get the words out.
“It’s settled then.” he said, latching the leather case shut. “I leave at sunrise tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” General Knox nodded. “But not alone.” Beckoning the guards with his silver hand, the office door opened, and in walked a bronze-furred stranger. He didn’t seem out of place, with his sleeveless denim vest and shirt, the ratty jeans, and his dusted harness boots. The leather arm braces, with alternating triangular patterns, were an odd touch though. He also carried with him a sort of musk, that of a hound who had lived his whole life beneath the stars.
“Captain, meet Jack Wellman. He will be with you for the duration of the mission.”
With a cock of his eyebrow, the Grim officer shook hands with the newcomer.
“Glad he didn’t say ‘accompanied’ or ‘aid,’” he chuckled. “We don’t exactly do guided tours.”
Soon, Grim had pieced it all together. “So you know the land well enough, Señor.”
“Yessir,” Wellman nodded. “Been as far down as Texas and as north as the bottom of Kansas. I reviewed that dossier before they finalized it. Lotta myths they like to spread about the East. Some think it’s a land of milk and honey, and that’ll get ya killed. Others think the back half of the continent just don’t exist. That’s what keeps ‘em here.”
Grim nodded. “And yours?”
“My favorite’s about boars.” the tan-furred adventurer chuckled. “Big huge wildebeest-sized boars, said to have flattened every mountain range past the Rockies. It’s bullshit of course. They’re out there, they just ain’t that big and there ain’t that many, least when I safari.”
Once more, the black wolf’s eyebrow was raised.
“All the same, you got me for the night if you want a civvie’s brief.” Wellman added. “Grill me as long as you must.”
Grim shook his head. “We’ll need all the rest we can get.” he replied, picking up the briefcase from the desk. “We can talk during load-out and the drive.”
And that was that for the night.
When the dawn arrived, the Captain was greeted by a strange caravan contraption being hitched to his jacked-up pickup. “¿Qué es esto?” he muttered.
“Supervivencia,” Wellman answered exuberantly, his twang drowning the well-meaning Spanish. “Don’t worry, we ain’t honeymooning in the damn thing; two separate cots to bunk in. She's got a fully functional synthesizer, no resampling needed. Means food, water, gas, all squared away. She’s solar powered, and fully charged too.”
At last, the newbie had impressed him. Herrera offered a quiet nod of approval before continuing with pre-departure. When the load-out was finished, the weaponry, repair kits and so on tucked behind the cargun’s ammo bunker, Wellman hopped in shotgun-side.
“Reminds me of my old lady,” he sighed fondly. “Right down to her riding topless!”
That one earned him a dry scoff.
“Alright,” the black-clad cowboy began, dropping his Harvester Scout into gear. “Tell me everything you know that isn’t on the record.”
“Anything particular?” asked the tan wolf.
When the Captain hit the gas, he gave his answer. “Start with the peculiar and work back from there. Any phenomena you only have eyewitness accounts for. I know the boys in the lab, anything preposterous that they don’t have a record of’ll get left out, even if the probability exists.”
“You got it Boss,” Wellman nodded, fixing his cowboy hat. “Hope you got an elephant’s memory.”
“And if I forget,” Herrera replied coolly, flicking a switch on the center radio console, “she won’t.”
Settled in for the long haul, the adventurer took a deep breath, and told Herrera the whole story. The ride would prove most informative before they even reached the end of the inhabited Wastelands. And fortunately for Grim, his knowledgeable partner was doing him a favor all the while, the verbal history drowning out the sound still ringing across his mind; the stinging click of the telephone receiver.
“Depot 582, officially cleared HQ. Grand Total is 15,689 pounds of pure heavy metal. The 40-yard dumpster from Am Base is here and the boys are loading ‘er up. Will radio when we reach the next stop on the shopping list. C.C., over and out.”
The biker thumbed his cross as he watched the big-rig back down on the tall pile of scrap, a mobile crane complete with claw lining up to load it. So lost in thought that he didn’t hear the call of “Lieutenant Blanc” from his troop, the man sent on the errand being 17-year-old James Madigan. The tall dark gray teen, suede bomber jacket billowing in the breeze, had to break out his last resort.
“YO TEACH!” he hollered. And on a dime, Gibson’s head snapped towards the group. They were all ready, all in formation. All they needed was their man to say jump.
“You get away with it this time, Madigan,” he shot back. “Only ‘cause ya got me with my pants down.” The young soldiers chuckled while the Lieutenant fired up his ride. He popped the leather jacket over his shoulders and gave Exciter a firm kick, the black bike humming as good as ever. He pulled up to the troop, but before he could bark all the usual orders, Madigan pulled him aside.
“You think we’ll ever have enough?” the young hound asked.
Gibson thumbed Exciter’s handlebars, groping for the right words. “We’re doing this the same way we did it before: get everything you can, and put it to use where you can. General wants himself a proper U1, we’re too good at killin’ ‘em, and you can’t print out every single thing you need. We just gotta keep scrounging the old-fashioned way while the labs are jig-sawing that latest crop back together. Check the couch cushions next time you’re on leave, all of you!”
The company reassured, he gave the orders to mount and move out. The Moto Corp unit revved up and thundered across the sun-soaked plains, the dust cloud behind them one breathless stream of dead earth. Next stop: Depot 762, an Old World military surplus station about 30 or so miles away, taken over by the local settlement of Kentonville as a scrap depot.
Pulling up to the head of the pack alongside the Lieutenant was Madigan, his chopped machine as long and loud as ever.
“Permission to speak freely, sir!?” he hollered over the noise.
“Make ‘em worthwhile!” Gibson shot back cheekily. “Ain’t nothing worth saying that’ll get ya skeeter to the back of the throat.”
“Y’know anything about scavengers ‘round here?” he asked.
The tan wolf cocked an eyebrow from behind his silver shades. “Just that a few pass through the area, as they all do.”
“What happens if we meet some?” the young gray asked. “What happens if they want in on the haul?”
“We let ‘em take what they need,” he replied, a smile sweeping across his muzzle. “Locals need scrap too, so do vagabonds. We only got access to a third of this next stop’s resources anyhow. Besides, most scavengers ain’t out for blood. I know Exciter’s old man wasn’t before he left her to me. It’s raiders you gotta worry about, and that’s why we stay strapped. Can’t keep the peace withoutta peacemaker.”
Madigan simply nodded. “Understood. Thank you, sir.”
“No prob!” he hollered back. “We can rap about this more at the site.”
It wasn't long before they were there: an old cinder block foundation, half-demolished, which neatly housed the piles of rusting metal. A stout, coveralled black wolf stood by it. With a kick of his bike’s stand, Gibson leapt off to shake hands.
“Must be our inside man,” he grinned. “Lieutenant Blanc, Moto Corp.”
“Sean Broussard, Kentonville Council,” the hound answered, his accent Cajun in origin. “Here to keep an eye on ya.”
The tan officer nodded. “Much obliged. Still got pick of the litter?”
“You betcha, son.” Broussard nodded.
Off they went, scanners at the ready to get a good gauge on the quality of the materials, the strength of a single layer of U1 plating being the baseline. While everyone took to the grunt work, Gibson had taken quite a shine to this Broussard.
“Yes, we’s been takin’ good cares to keepa stockpile full-up.” he nodded. “If y’all can do a solid for me, keep an eye out for a coupla hunksa rebar about yay big. Got some work back in town that could do for it.”
The Moto Corpman gave a playful salute. “We’ll do our best. Nice to be out on this campaign toura sorts.”
“Nice to have ya.” Sean chuckled. “Dat plane-a yours got all us folks giddy as the dickens. Pretty sonofa I’s never thought we’s see out in the wild again. I remember that fella, Yanko-boffo-some’in-vich, was having a bad time with one of them ol’ antiques a ways back.”
“Oh yeah, Lonnie Y.” replied Gibson. “Well, I didn’t work on her, but I know Ridgefield did get in touch with Lonnie about that Tiger Moth. Hopefully everything we’ve learned can help get that classic up in the air too.”
The water-cooler talk and the combing of the reserve went on for an hour, before enough scrap was found to make up their ration. When Gibson started to radio for the Am Base dump-truck and crane, a shrieking roar fired off in the distance.
Storming into view was an enclave of cars and bikes, the whoops and screams of mania echoing for miles. When the laser fire started to fly, Gibson got his hounds on guard. Every wolf, locked and loaded, returned fire, including Broussard, a quick hand with a shotgun. The Force’s soldiers stood their ground against whatever the hell it was heading their way.
At the front was a certified lunatic. A gray, marked by thick painted-on stripes of white, one down the length of his head and snout, the other crossing his eyes. He drove an old Cadillac convertible with Space Age fins and thick, barbarous tires. He managed to cleave above the noise with the blunt battle-cry of “THRASH ‘EM!”
In the heat of the firefight, a few shots to the wheels and one to the head of a biker set off a five-alarm pileup. Trucks bowled over bikers’ heads, hogs slid to get out of the way as rides slammed into one another. One exploding motorcycle later, and the Caddy was sent spinning through the air, its owner flung several yards out. The carnage stopped where the Caddy landed, but its demented driver was determined to get to the reserve. Bleeding like hell and limping with a broken leg, he ran as fast he could before the bone finally snapped and he dropped to the ground.
Gibson and a few of the soldiers mounted their rides and booked it for the broken up beast, and were met with a sight all too familiar.
“For fuck’s sake, cat’s hopped up on radium,” the Lieutenant growled. “Stay back! All of ya!”
“Deston rides again,” the grizzled, gross gray chuckled. “He’s coming for it all.”
“Who’s Deston!?” barked Gibson. He was met with cold, callous laughter, which died in a feeble gasp, and a violent crack of coughing. Green glowing discharge trickled down the side of his mouth, mixing with the blood from his crash. Everyone recoiled at the sight.
“What should we do, sir?” one of the soldiers asked.
Gibson looked to the reserve base, and then to the self-immolating band of raiders whose leader lay dead at his weathered boots. “We call the boys in to take our scrap, and we book it for the nearest Infantry outpost. If we’re lucky, this is all just some coked-up fluke. If we’re lucky.”
“It’s like steppin’ off-world. If we’d ever made it past the moon, this is what it’d look like. Color might be a little different, the flora and fauna’d be from a whole different domain, phylum, whatnot. But they made us a proper citizen of the cosmos when they dropped the bomb way back when. A proper citizen if ever there was.”
Grim could only stare. With gloved hands clutching the wheel, the soil beneath his deep blue beast’s wheels was no longer the dry, comfortable dust of the Wastelands. They were in the East now, the sand wet from a recent storm, of which there had been so many.
With just three states under his belt, the bronze-furred adventurer seemed bottomless in his untapped knowledge of the East. Though grateful for the information, his tangent-style had given him plenty of chances to bust out the trademarked glower and silence the overeager civilian. But ultimately, he appreciated Wellman’s recollections. The explorer had a great charisma about him, telling his tales with great zest, relaying various hunts and expeditions, the dangers, and the exotic heads mounted on the walls of his homestead. Some of these hunts were shared with his doting, hell-raising wife, one who awaited his return just as Soledad awaited Grim’s.
The Captain flicked the switch on his Scout’s audio recorder, ending the session. “Gracias, Señor. You’ve made for a valuable resource.”
“Thanks for letting me tell it nice and sober.” Wellman chuckled. “They always laugh at me in bars when I start getting into it. Think it’s all tall-tales just cause I used to be a toastmaster at Doc’s and tell the outlandish shit while I’m five whiskeys deep. I got a journal in my bag in the caravan. I’ll let ya read it over so you can get as full a picture as you can.”
“Much obliged.” the black vaquero nodded, tipping his hat with a tug of the brim. Just as his eyes shifted back to the horizon, gray heavy clouds rolled up from the distant dunes and hills. “Looks like one of your storms is back in the cards.”
Wellman nodded. “Not surprised. Blasts that big and radioactive half-lives that long’ll sure shakeup anyone’s meteorology. Can only imagine what Moscow and Hong Kong must look like, ‘specially if this is what we got.”
It was then that a deep rumbling followed, but not from ahead. From behind. A long, slow, growling rumble. And though flattened by the brims of their hats, the wolves’ ears cocked towards the sound.
“Keep that shotgun on hand.” Herrera ordered. “Your beasts may be majestic, but I can’t afford to get hammered by the wildlife this early on.” Wellman clutched it tight, eyes locked on his passenger-side rearview, ready for anything.
That anything happened to be the bounding gallop of a wildebeest, with thick curved horns, a long face, and a sloping back. Its eyes were a piercing yellow, and it was up to their trailer hitch in a few effortless strides. “Well I’ll be!” the bronzed wolf gasped. “The hell it doing this far by the Wastes?”
“It isn’t aggressive, is it?” Grim asked.
“No, she just seems to be getting her steps in.” he chuckled. “They ain’t native to the continent, so my guess is a land bridge. That or two of ‘em escaped from a sanctuary a long time ago and did what animals do.”
And as soon as it had appeared, the strange magnificent creature bounded away past the truck, followed by the true source of the rumbling. They came as a black wave of skittering, metallic insects, rushing over the ground like sand caught on the wind.
“Nanobytes.” Wellman growled. “Them’s I’m happy to kill for you, if ya—”
The civilian felt the ice-cold grip of the Captain’s hand on his shoulder. The black wolf spoke sternly, eyes glued to the nonexistent road. “Unless they attack, we don’t. Use your eyes.”
Sure enough, the metallic insects passed the entourage by. As the swarming sea of cybernetic detritus hurtled towards the wildebeest, Wellman steadied his aim. “If you lay an antenna on her, I’ll–”
He breathed a sigh of relief and sat the shotgun down. They had passed the mammal by, the wave charging onward still. The poor thing, startled, trotted sideways out of their path, but beyond that, was unharmed. The hunter felt at ease.
When Wellman looked to the soldier behind the wheel, he remained perfectly unmoved by it all, safe for a telling phrase: “Wonder where machines like those are heading in a desert like this.”
Wellman looked towards the herd of nanobytes, and threw up his hands. “Anything you set your mind to, Cap. I’ll just tell ya what cacti you can’t step on.”
At long last, a proper smile graced the Gothic wolf beside him. “It’s an admirable compassion, Señor,” he reassured. “It just needs a hair more discipline.”
With a shift of gears, and a throttle flat on the floor, the duo followed their new-found tour guides deeper into the Eastern desert, and deeper into parts unknown.
The calls to Base were all peer-to-peer now, the main channel clogged with reports of this bizarre assault conducted on the various stockpiles of metals and materials across the Wastelands, as far out as territories within Sector 300. Gibson had only just managed to secure a line straight to Knox from Outpost 242.
“Absolutely enemy action,” the General ordered. “Ace, Black Country, doesn’t matter. They’re attacking civilian facilities we’ve been allowed access to, and the only possible reason under those circumstances is interference with the war effort. We must find this Deston, interrogate him, and if I find anyone within the Force has leaked the details of our solicitations, they’ll be personally and appropriately court martialed. Godspeed Gibson, I’ll keep you apprised of the others’ efforts.”
When he hung up, the Lieutenant looked over his troop through the window. Flashing across his mind were their ages, most of them recent recruits. He let the sentiment dissipate as soon as it arrived. A wilting violet can’t withstand any attack, let alone a mass raid.
“Nearest resource depot from the Operation: Proditor plans?” he asked the radio-man next to him.
“Settlement of Runciter.” the white wolf answered. “25 miles due west. Was one of the informal outlets, no townies to rendezvous with.”
Gibson nodded. “Anyone else from the Force in the area?”
“No one’s touched base yet. Most of the action is concentrated in the North region, with a few blips from the south. Whoever the hell the bastard is, he’s got connections.”
The tan-furred officer patted the operator on the shoulder and hurried out the door. “COMPANY, MOUNT!”
The drive over was a mad blur of dust and exhaust, the cavalcade hurtling towards the site as fast as their v-twin engines could carry them. By the time they reached the depot, the raiders were already racing away with truckloads of metal, but plenty had stuck around to tango.
Madigan was riding alongside Gibson the whole way, the dark gray teen’s Garand slung over his back. “What do we do about ‘em?”
The Lieutenant looked to the escaping trucks, and back to the steely-eyed mongrels fixing for a fight. The decision was his.
“COMPANY! Light ‘em the fuck up!”
One blinding blast of chaos came raining down upon the scene, the Infantrymen blasting every hound in sight, the green glow-in-the-dark pus slopping from the bodies as they rocked and spun to the tune of 20 guns rattling with electric lead. A stray bullet hit a raider’s hot rod, and set the machine into screaming ball of fire, another chain reaction of unkempt rides going up in flames. The Runciter Depot was cleared, now with a fresh scrap donation left at their doorstep. Those who weren’t mowed down in all the chaos were on those dump trucks.
“ROLL ON!” the Lieutenant barked. “After ‘em!”
Just like that, back on the warpath. The pawns in Deston’s game were well-played however, the dump trucks having gained plenty of ground, roaring northward. Undaunted, Gibson rode Exciter with a one-wolf furore. There was still a thrill-seeker in him, a passionate fuel for this impromptu crusade, and the rush of the engine roaring beneath him made for a hell of a high. His mind then turned towards his fellow soldiers across the desert. He could only imagine the chaos and confusion elsewhere, and even if they couldn’t catch these thieves, he hoped to put a face to that most wanted name, Deston.
But through the adrenaline and dopamine, a paranoid thought stung; they hadn’t been engaged yet. They had clocked ten or so miles already, and yet the truckers and their personnel didn’t fire on them. No swerve-and-curve to shake the pack off, no brake checks, nothing. There was no one coming to box the unit in either. He checked his left, his right, his rearview mirrors, and still, there was nothing.
“What you thinking!?” hollered Madigan over the noise.
It took him a moment to gather his thoughts, but soon he had them.
“TWO THINGS!” the Lieutenant replied. “Be ready for anything, and a line as old as the Earth itself: who dares WINS!”
Throttling up, the slender black bike bolted ahead of the formation. Madigan waved the troop on as everyone took to the chase with their leader’s gusto.
When they caught up, the raider rigs didn’t let up for love nor money, the tall Mack and Peterbilt beasts light on their wheels. Whether the chase had gone on for five seconds, five minutes, or five hours, no one could say. Time had become the desert, a great sandy blur as the bikers charged on their prey.
When the trucks slowed, Gibson and his crew showed neither relief nor surprise, only an intense focus on the where; where was this leading to? It wasn’t long before the reason for the raiders’ slackening their lead became apparent.
This was it. A massive, concrete compound with large, rusting gates. It was the raiders’ base, and within it, a palace of metal. Like a well organized junkyard, mountains and mountains of scrap formed miniature city blocks in a bizarre labyrinthine maze, crushed steel and cragged iron standing tall above all. They followed the trucks in, and just as the vehicles parted ways to offload their haul, the iron doors slammed shut with an echoing bang. Once the dust settled, a wolf the color of white sand stood before the unit.
He was bare-chested, dressed only in black leather slacks, wallet and watch chains hanging out his pockets, dusty silver boots, and a pair of wraparound shades. He wasn’t uniquely well-built, and when the wind whipped and stirred in the unit’s direction, they discovered what could only be described as a “gentleman’s fragrance,” the polished aroma of pine often found in cologne, earthy enough to have not come out of a synthesizer.
Where he got it was the last question on anyone’s mind.
“Oh excellent, onetwothreefour—a hell, who needs to count ‘em, they’ll all wind up with the rest.”
They had seen insane raiders, unkempt raiders, vaguely philosophical, supposedly “intelligent” raiders wrapped in degeneracy, but never had they seen a bean-counter masquerading as a raider.
“Deston I take it!?” hollered Gibson.
“One and only,” he smoothly replied. “And you?”
“Lieutenant Gibson Blanc, Moto Corpman for the 365th Infantry. Gotta good reason for interfering with our affairs and those of every town you’ve attacked?”
The beige hound chuckled. “Just another day building paradise.”
“Who sent you!?”
“Me, myself and I.” came the snide answer again.
“To what end?”
Deston paused, dropping his shades to the edge of his snout. “You’re looking at it.” He kept them down long enough for those crystal blue eyes to burn into the soldiers’ minds. There wasn’t anything special about them beyond their piercing gaze. No discernible cybernetics, not a flutter of voice like a withered tape on playback. He was real, in control of everything around him, and quite content to let his plans play out, regardless of who they threatened.
“Where you get the radium all your goons are running on?” Gibson growled, nerves steeled as best he could. “An idiot’s army like that doesn’t run sober.”
“What, you want some?” he innocently intoned. “Makes you feel good for the five seconds it lets you live.”
The Lieutenant drew his twin Colts. No remorse, no regard, and no answers; Deston wasn’t worth negotiating, and so the questions ceased. Down went the triggers, the shuddering hammers unleashing the red-hot power of his .45s.
Unleashing them into the shattering glass of a mirror.
“Let the fun begin!” Deston taunted, the hurrying of footsteps tipping off the general direction.
The unit’s trepidation lasted a microsecond before Gibson let out a nonchalant cry of “in we go, men,” snapping Exciter’s handlebars back and sending the vintage Black Shadow rushing into the maze. Sure enough, the other 19 followed, and the absurdity of the predicament escalated.
Through roofless corridors of cubed cars and withered girders they raced, after the mysterious ringleader. Anytime the Lieutenant’s reflection reared its head, he simply barked “HEADS DOWN!” before barreling through the plate. Every wolf followed suit, shades pressed tight to shield their eyes. Whatever scratches could be wrapped up later.
When the towering maze began to rumble and shake, the grinding bellow of a bulldozer or front-loader on either side, or the tipping rear of a dump truck, “SINGLE FILE” was the command, keeping each hound from getting skewered by traps as the walls literally closed in. One hound at the rear clothes-lined himself on a pole of rebar, but there was no going back for him.
Deston’s pernicious laugh seemed to echo all over as the Lieutenant led his brute-force charge, and in the end, that almost blind barbarism of Gibson’s method bore fruit. Just not as expected.
The maze’s end was where it all was going. The scrap, the steel, all of it, dumped into a proper molten vat, and the vat poured into a mold. It was a mold of ingots. Plain, rectangular prisms, shimmering with silver splendor, stacked into the shape of a soon-to-be sprawling palatial home.
The bastard really was building himself a paradise.
“Madigan!” ordered Gibson. “Take ‘em back thru the way we came. Pick up Holman if he ain’t too badly broken up.”
“Sir yes sir!” the young gray answered. “ABOUT FACE!”
The awkward shuffle and spin of 18 bikes was made up for with the haste of their departure, the tan-furred officer left to make something of this private warlord’s salute to himself.
“Like it?”
The sandy menace stood atop the wall before coming in with a flying kick. Gibson fell back off the bike and into the coarse scrap at his back.
“Oh she’ll make for a beautiful keystone.” he remarked with an almost sensual pleasure. He picked Exciter up by her handlebars, and began to push her, slowly but surely, towards the boiling metallic brew. Gibson hadn’t words before he leapt up and over his ride, only a feral roar as he slammed Deston’s head against the opposite wall.
Though the muscle didn’t show, the beige desert lord wasn’t a slouch in combat. With manic glee, he socked Gibson in the jaw, and, wrapping both hands around the soldier’s throat, squeezed. He wrung and wrung, grip tightening with the strength of a vice. Veins bulging, Gibson pried the bastard off him, and taking his head in one hand, slammed Deston against the wall. Over and over, until the hound’s blood stained the steel, and his eyes rolled back. Deston dropped to the ground in a slump.
Catching his breath from the fit of mania, he looked to the cauldron of liquefied metal, and then back to its former master. It was a tempting thought, especially after putting his beloved metal queen in harm’s way. But in the end, he decided not to.
“Would spoil the lot.” he muttered to himself. Quick on the draw, he pulled up his radio and called for backup. He had to estimate his coordinates, but they were correct enough for HQ. When the other soldiers’ arrived, the war for Deston’s Palace was hard-fought, but short-lived, even the lone injury among Gibson’s team managed to plink a few shots with his one good arm. Like all the other unhinged raiders, the lackey’s rotted brains made them cannon-fodder, and by eventide, the base was secured, and the radium stockpile hauled away to be safely disposed of.
Back at Base, the conference in Knox’s oak-paneled office was calm, though the atmosphere remained tense.
“I gave orders to capture and interrogate.” the General sternly remarked. Gibson, for the first time, in a long-time, felt himself shrinking inside. “However, given circumstances, his apparent attitude, and the mercifully small body count we suffered today, we’ll consider this Deston little more than a rogue. An insatiably mad rogue who managed a great deal of chaos for one day.”
Gibson nodded calmly.
“In your defense,” Knox added. “It was also your initiative that uncovered this particular lead. Initiative and just enough luck.”
He turned towards Chief Nic Ridgefield, the black engineer donning his readers, ready to go over his own summary.
“I’d estimate at least 25 to 30 percent of the required amount of raw materials can be sourced from his base,” he began. “And with proper facility conversions, I’d call her a full-on foundry. I’ll put Lance Whittaker in charge of rationing the stolen scrap back out to the towns. Anything we’ve already solicited will get processed at Am Base, and the affected townships will have their intended contribution redistributed from the stockpile up north. Already sent over one of the Godred Detoxers, so all that radium is as good as chalk.”
“Well then,” Knox dryly remarked. “Nice to have things work out for a change. We’ll start tomorrow. Last order of the night: send up more mobile housing while we marshal some more workers. May God bless you and this Force. Dismissed.”
And with that, the meeting was adjourned.
Beneath the light of a crescent moon and the warmth of a heat-circ sat in the sands, a tranquil, radiant noise filled the air. The sounds of an old guitar, tuned a quarter-tone down, spinning a tender melody over a hypnotic rhythm. They had chased their lead deep into the desert before the flitterling electric bugs vanished from sight, scattered by the desert winds. They had needed the break anyhow.
“S’called ‘Ricordi nel Bosco,’” Grim said, his claws working their simple magic over the strings. “Italian for ‘Memories in the Woods.’ En Español, ‘Memorias en el bosque.’ Least that’s how my father taught me.”
Wellman drank in the sound like an ice cold glass of water. “Perfect for a candle-lit dinner,” he chuckled. “Makes you feel like the world’ll be sane again.”
By now Herrera was perfectly warmed to his companion’s humor, answering with a gentle “Sí, señor.” As the chords swayed and swelled at the Captain’s command, Wellman began to feel a strange vibration. At first, it seemed to come from within.
“Huh,” the tan adventurer scoffed. “And to think I just ate.”
“La fuerza de la música,” Grim chuckled. “Simply the tune’s…”
He trailed off, the chord left to linger, unresolved. He felt the vibration too. Only it wasn’t from within. It was from under. It was the earth shivering under the weight of a terrible something. Wellman leapt up, rummaging through his bag for his binoculars.
“Night vision oughta show what’s up,” he said, crouched like a caveman and feverishly looking in all directions. From the West, nothing. From the North, nothing. From the South, nothing. But then, to the East his gaze fell, and his jaw dropped.
“Pack it all up.” he ordered. “Trouble’s dead ahead.”