Wasteland Blues (23 page)

Mr. Tines slowly raised one mechanical arm. The palm of his hand glowed with a dangerous red energy.

Leggy saw it, but saw it too late. “Teddy,” he screamed. “Teddy! His hand….”

The robot pressed his glowing palm to Teddy’s temple. The giant screamed in pain and went limp. The robot slipped from his grip. Teddy slumped to the floor, his arms and legs flailing in violent convulsions.

Mr. Tines wobbled on his feet. “Such behavior…is not tolerated…in this museum,” he croaked. His one good eye located the syringe at John’s feet. The robot reached down, shuffling toward it. “Let us…proceed…with the installation.”

Samuel stepped forward. He hoped the panic and desperation he felt wasn’t evident in his eyes or voice. “Mr. Tines,” the boy began, “it’s just occurred to me that something very important is missing. You’ve left a key display out of your timeline.”

The robot stopped. His good eye flickered, grew dim, and then brightened. “Surely, you are in error, young man. Our display is the best, most accurate depiction of the war and the…” his eye briefly dimmed, “and the events leading up to the present day that exists. Anywhere. Period. In the Wasteland or anywhere else. Nothing…is missing.”

“Why yes, Mr. Tines, there is. I’m sorry, sir, I don’t mean to be critical, but I have studied your display and there most certainly
is
something missing....”

The robot turned and took a step toward Samuel. “You are in error.” His voice took on a meaner, impatient edge.

“But the
Dogs of War
—” Samuel started, only to be cut off by Mr. Tines.

“We have three displays depicting the dogs of war, and another
devoted
to them,” Tines seemed annoyed. “You really must…pay closer attention.”

“Yes, but their power armor and weaponry,” Samuel said.

“What of it?” queried the robot.

“Well, where did it come from?”

“What do you mean, where…did it come from? It came from a factory... From…Boeing Industrio-Complex C, to be specific. A subsidiary of the
Axel-Fax Corporation
.”

“Yes,” Samuel said. “But who made it? I mean, not who
designed
it, but who specifically mass-produced all the armor and gear for the animals? Who actually
made
it?”

“Well…” the robot stumbled, “factory workers, I suppose. I really don’t…have time…for this….” Mr. Tines reached for the syringe.

“Oh,” said Samuel. “There were
people
working in the factories? I didn’t realize that.”

“
Not people!
” snapped Mr. Tines. “Machines. Robots…. Metal workers and automatons at the lower levels…and managerial models and maintenance engineers at the higher levels.”

“Like yourself?” asked Samuel.

“No, not like myself. I am…the cutting edge…of robotic AI integration! I…I represent…I rep—” Mr. Tines suddenly stopped speaking. His one blue eye flared impossibly bright—for a moment it seemed as if it would set fire to the inner working of his mechanical head. And then it fluttered, and went dark.

***

Leggy’s eyes were fixed on
his reflection in the nano-crystal plate glass window. The scruff of white beard that covered the lower half of his face did little to hide the deep lines that the Wasteland had burrowed in his skin.

The Wasteland
, he scoffed. Hell, they’d barely even entered the Wasteland. This strange museum was likely to be the last place even halfway civilized that they’d see for a long, long time.
Civilized
, he thought bitterly. It was that. If nothing else, for all of the robot’s flaws, Mr. Tines had, at the very least, conducted himself civilly, with a sense of duty and a respectful, albeit delusional, devotion to his cause.

The robot had had a purpose. The machine had only been trying to do its best under difficult circumstances. That was more than Leggy could say for a lot of the souls he’d encountered in his travels. More than he could say for his own weary band of travelers, if he was to be honest.

The dark memories of needles and pain still lingered in his mind, stirred by the metal curator. Leggy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to force those memories back into the deep well he’d sunk for them all those years ago.

He swallowed and took a deep breath, using his diaphragm, and tried once again with mental palms to push those memories down into calm, unthinking stillness. He felt his body begin to relax as he slowly let the air from his lungs. The bad memories—just balloons floating in his mind, easy to pop or send drifting away on the current of the wind. It was an old trick, something he’d picked up from the Bedouins.

He knew what lay ahead, or at least he had a sense of the vast, growing danger of the deep wastes. And more importantly, he knew that the others did not. Sure, they realized that their road—Ha! Soon enough, there’d be precious few
roads
—was a dangerous one. But did any of them truly understand just how dangerous?

How could they when this had all been their idea, hatched in the paranoid, tormented mind of Derek. It wasn’t anymore about
going
, so much as it was about
running away
. And the entire fantastical adventure was really only old Leggy’s mission. His
final
mission. His
suicide
mission. They were just along for the ride.

Leggy knew that they would soon see the true madness of post-nuke America—not the bugs and the radiation poisoning and the muties and starving throw-down grovels and shit-towns, but true evil. Only in the deep Wasteland had the mind of man been so utterly corrupted, so maddened by isolation, the sun, and the nuclear fire, that it had actually turned in on itself. Much like the tattoo on the belly of a whore that he’d once seen in Santa Cruz. A serpent swallowing its own tail, eating itself. To Leggy, that image, more than anything else he’d ever laid eyes upon, truly captured the stark, inhuman reality of the Wasteland.

Jesus H. Christ!
Leggy shook himself from his morbid thoughts.
That metal fucknut really did a number on me.

***

“We done looking?” Derek demanded. “I’ve had about enough of this crackpot museum.”

For once, everyone agreed.

Leggy gazed one last time through his own reflection in the glass. A factory diorama had been constructed in the display case. The rear wall had been painted with the logo of the
Axel-Fax Corporation,
an unclosed circle with an arrow tip bridging the gap.

Kinda like a snake eating itself
, thought Leggy.

Inside the circle was the corporate slogan: EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTION!

In the foreground ran a conveyor belt, fed by the museum’s enormous supply of spare parts. The parts were attended to by Mr. Tines, who hunched with purpose over the conveyor belt.

The robot’s hands moved in a blur of motion, grabbing parts as they came, binding them together with strange, electronic tools. Twisting and screwing, soldering and wiring. The robot, with great attention to detail and authenticity, assembled faux gasmasks and rebreathers, guns, flame-throwers, ammunition. He would do this until the end of time—or until his arms rusted and fell from his body.

Or until his master returned to save him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

As they passed through the motor pool to the elevator, Samuel pointed to the massive sand crawler. Leggy and Derek looked at the machine, and then at each other.

The two men strode over to investigate. Derek boosted Leggy into the passenger seat then walked around to the driver’s side. He climbed in and tentatively put his hands on the steering wheel.

“You ever drive somethin’ like this?” asked Derek, eying the control panel.

“Sure,” said Leggy. “I mean, not this kind of vehicle exactly, but I think we can figure it out.”

“Assuming it still runs,” said Derek.

“Right,” said Leggy. “Now then. See them pedals at your feet? The right one’s probably for go, and the left one’s probably for stop.”

Derek tentatively pushed down the right pedal. Nothing happened. He looked up at Leggy.

“Well, we got to start her up first.” The old man pointed to a green button that stuck out slightly from the steering column. “Try that one.”

Derek held down the button. The engine whirred and squealed, a long high note that made his companions clap their hands over their ears. Then it stopped. Derek moved to push the button again but Leggy stayed his hand.

“Hold on,” said the old man with a grin. “Feel that?”

Derek sat still. His seat was vibrating almost imperceptibly, as was the steering wheel in his hand.

“What happened?”

Leggy laughed. “It works, that’s what. We got juice, boy!”

Samuel started to climb into the back of the sand crawler, but Leggy waved him off. “You all stand back. Let Derek here get a feel for the wheel.”

The group moved away from the vehicle, giving Derek a wide berth. He looked at Leggy, who pointed to a lever that stuck up from a panel down by Derek’s right leg.

“I’ll wager this way is reverse, and this way is probably forward,” said Leggy, gesturing to the shifter. “Give it a try.”

Derek moved the lever. The sand crawler started to roll forward. Derek, meaning to press the brake, touched the wrong pedal with his foot. The sand crawler lurched forward then jerked to a halt as Derek found the brake. He looked sheepishly at Leggy, who had braced his arms on the dashboard. Derek expected the old man to taunt him.

Leggy just chuckled. “Don’t worry, son, you’ll get it. Just take it easy for now.”

The others watched as Derek grew more confident. Soon the crawler was sweeping through the motor pool, Derek steering with easy grace.

“That’ll do,” said Leggy as Derek rolled up to their waiting companions. “Hop aboard everybody. Ted, get them donkeys in the back and tie their halters, would ya?”

***

The bed of the crawler was metal and smooth, with a sand-colored canvas canopy over it to provide shade. Behind the cab was a bench seat that doubled as a storage locker. As Teddy and John struggled to get Minna and Afha into the flatbed, Samuel poked through the locker. It was neatly compartmentalized, and it held a tool set, a first aid kit, rope, a pair of flashlights similar to the battery-less one they’d left at Youslus’s cave, a dozen foil-wrapped packages of rations, a ten-liter water jug, and a funny-looking pistol. He hauled out the jug and passed it to John.

“I think there’s a spigot over there,” said Samuel, pointing to the far wall of the motor pool.

John carried the jug away to fill it up.

Then Samuel picked up the gun and tapped on the back window of the cab.

Leggy turned around.

“What’s this, Mr. Nicodemus?” asked Samuel, shouting to be heard through the glass.

“I believe that there is a flare pistol,” shouted Leggy. “Shoots a rocket in the sky that makes a big light, so’s people can find you if you ever get lost.”

Samuel nodded and placed it carefully back in the locker—he wasn’t sure who would come to find them, no matter how lost they were.

Derek stuck his head out of the driver’s window. “You all loaded up yet?”

“Okee-dokee, Der Der,” shouted Teddy, who was simultaneously tying Afha’s halter to the rail and giving his brothers a thumbs up.

John returned with the water, which they stowed under the seat.

Derek steered over to the elevator. Teddy hopped down to press the button and then hopped back in.

The group ascended in the miraculous elevator, rising out of the dark hole in the ground and into the bright, glaring sun of the great wastes. They set out on their road again, leaving the Folly of Man behind them.

***

Through trial and error Derek found that thirty was the top speed he could push from the crawler and still keep it on the road. The old asphalt was cracked and pitted with holes. The first time he’d hit a hole of substantial size, he’d nearly spilled his passengers from the cab. The speedometer had markings up to 100. His foot itched to push the go pedal down to the floor. He contented himself with the twin delights of forward motion and absolute control. Maybe later he’d let John drive—maybe.

The desert sped past, a hard-packed scrubland of pale brown. To his left, he saw the shoulders of a mountain range at the edge of the horizon and to his right a wide-open infinity of hot, dry emptiness. Leggy, fiddling with some controls on the dashboard, figured out a way to make cold air blow on them. It was a magnificent sensation.

His entire upbringing had taught Derek to respect the desert, because otherwise it would kill him. But something about the crawler, about the speed, about the sense of having such a powerful machine at his command infected him with a giddy hubris. He could outrun the Wasteland, outrun the heat and the dryness and the death. Derek flipped the bird at the scrubland outside the window.

For the first time in many, many days, he actually believed that they could make it to New York. Though he would rarely admit it to himself, he’d figured it for a fool’s errand from the very beginning—better to try and die in the attempt than to rot away in San Muyamo. But now, with his hands on the controls of this magnificent vehicle, he allowed himself a measure of hope.

He looked over at Leggy. The old man was asleep, his head tipped sideways against the passenger window, his mouth slack and drooling.

Derek turned his attention back to the road, savoring the sensation of movement in silence.

***

They stopped at dusk. Derek steered the crawler behind a trio of boulders that sat off the shoulder of the road. His passengers were happy to dismount, their bodies cramped and sore from the jarring ride. Sheba ran in circles around the camp, sniffing out a perimeter and barking happily. Minna and Afha nosed around the sagebrush that cropped up around the boulders.

“Goddam, that’s what I call travelin’!” said Derek. “If we tried to walk half that far in a day, we’d end up looking like Leggy.”

Teddy and John snorted, and even Leggy had to grin at the jibe. “It’s true,” he said, “ain’t no better way to get around.”

They set about making camp. John, Teddy, and Magdalena examined a nearby mesquite thicket for brushwood. Derek set out snares. Samuel scrambled up a boulder and surveyed the landscape. Leggy hoisted himself into the bed of the crawler to rummage through the supply trunk.

By nightfall they had a good fire going. After some debate, they decided to eat from the store of supplies they’d brought from Moses Springs and save the strange, foil-wrapped food in the crawler’s trunk for later.

“What about them snares?” asked Derek.

“We’ll see what’s in ’em in the morning,” said Leggy. “Wouldn’t mind a little skinned hare for breakfast.”

After eating, they stayed around the fire. No one spoke—they were weary from the travel and from the ordeal under the ground. Samuel was the first to succumb to sleep, followed quickly by Teddy, then Derek soon after.

Only Leggy was awake to notice when John and Magdalena quietly moved their bedrolls to the crawler’s flatbed.

“Good,” he thought, laying on his back, watching the magnificent night sky. “Let them have their time. Let’s all have an interlude—a bit of rest from our worries.” Then he took his own advice, and sank into sleep.

***

In the morning they checked the snares. Leggy would have to wait for a taste of hare—all they found in the wires was a trio of desert gophers. “Sand rats,” said Leggy, rolling his eyes. The old man skinned and cooked them anyway and then shared them out. Samuel took one bite—the flesh was gritty and gamey, little better than a mouthful of sand. He tossed the remainder to Sheba and then rooted around in one of the panniers for a better option.

Derek watched the boy and shook his head. “Goddam, kid. If my dad ever saw me throw meat to a dog and then go look for somethin’ better, I wouldn’t have teeth to eat with.”

Samuel looked up from the supply chest, a hard roll and a dried apple in hand. “It tastes bad,” he said.

Derek laughed. John, who was watching carefully, winced at the sound.

“Sure it tastes bad,” said Derek. He took a bite off the bone and swallowed it. “It tastes like shit. But you don’t ever waste food. Ever. You understand me?”

Samuel looked at Derek for a long moment. The others held their breath. Then Samuel dropped his head. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I understand.”

“What do you understand?” said Derek.

Samuel glanced at the others, but no one moved to intervene. Then he looked at the ground. “I understand not to waste food.”

“Even if it tastes bad?” said Derek, mimicking Samuel’s high-pitched voice.

“Yes,” said Samuel. He dumped his breakfast back in the panniers and then walked away.

“Fuckin’ mutie,” muttered Derek. He tossed the bones on the cookfire and stood up. “Well, what’re we waitin’ for? Let’s get this goddam party rolling.”

***

As the crawler rolled on down the road, John moved next to Samuel. They, along with Magdalena, Teddy and the animals, shared the flatbed of the crawler.

The little boy kicked sullenly at the storage locker. The flatbed had a canvas cover to keep off the sun, and Samuel had removed his makeshift turban. John stared at the smooth, veiny skin stretched over the boy’s oddly shaped skull.

“Hey, Sam. Maggie said I should come and talk to you.” John had to raise his voice to be heard over the noise of their rough passage.

Samuel didn’t look up. He continued kicking the locker.

“I mean, in case you were feelin’ bad or something.”

Samuel turned his head away.

John sighed. He waited a minute and then said, “You grew up in that bunker, right?”

Samuel looked up. That wasn’t a question he’d expected. “It wasn’t a bunker. It was an underground research center with built-in living facilities.”

“But you lived there your whole life?”

“Yes,” said Samuel.

“You ever spend any time above ground?”

“A few times. Karen…my caretaker brought me up for a geology lesson. Once, before the war, we camped out for a night.”

Before the war? How old was this kid?
John wondered. By all accounts, the War proper had been a little more or a little less than a century ago. And Samuel looked like a child—sounded and acted like a child, but…before the bombs fell? Christ! “Did you ever go hungry? Ever miss a meal?”

Samuel looked back down at his feet. “No.”

“Ever had to fight someone for your food?”

Samuel shook his head.

John sighed. “Well that’s my point. You had it easy back in the…the research center. But nothing’s easy out here. If Derek’s harsh on you it’s because he’s right. He’s tryin’ to teach you.”

Now Samuel looked up at John. “But why does he hate me?”

“He don’t hate you,” said John, though he wasn’t sure it was true. “You got things to learn, and he’s teachin’ you the only way he knows how.”

“Bullshit,” shouted Samuel, and the expletive surprised them both. “I can feel his hate,” said the boy. “If I fell off this crawler he wouldn’t even slow down if you and Mr. Nicodemus weren’t around.”

John pursed his lips. “Listen, Sam. I don’t know what you can feel, but I know Derek. I grew up with him. This is just his way with people.”

“It’s not his way with you. Or Maggie. Or Mr. Nicodemus.”

John laughed. “Sam, you think Leggy volunteered for this trip? No sir. Derek up and kidnapped that old man.”

“Kidnapped?” said Samuel.

“Put a knife to his throat, tied him up, and pushed him right out of San Muyamo.”

“But why?”

“Well, that’s a good question,” said John. “Sometimes he does stuff just because he gets so angry it makes him crazy. But other times there’s a good reason behind the craziness. Like takin’ Leggy. It took me a while to figure out, but now I understand. It was for me and Teddy.”

Samuel shook his head. “What do you mean?”

John pushed his hair back from his face. “That anger in Derek, it’s like this machine. It’s powerful. And it drives him. It will drive him from here to New York, even if it means going for days and days without food or shelter. Even if it means crawling a thousand miles on his hands and knees.”

“But me and Teddy, we ain’t like him. We’re baggage. We’re draggin’ along behind him, lettin’ his engine pull us.”

“So he wants to get rid of you too?” asked Samuel.

“Nah, nothin’ like that,” said John. “He wants us to make it. The difference is that if it came down to it, Derek could get to New York by himself. He could do it alone. But not me, and not Teddy. If we were alone out here, we’d be vulture food in about three days. So that’s why he took Leggy. The old man knows stuff, stuff that gives me and Teddy a chance, a slim chance, to survive. The old man’s here to carry the baggage.”

Samuel was quiet for a long while. John let him be. The boy was smart enough to figure out how he fit into the picture.

“And I’m baggage, too,” said Samuel. “Another person dragging along behind him.”

John nodded. “Derek don’t hate you. Hate’s too personal. You got to put a lot of thought, a lot of feeling, into hatin’ someone.”

Samuel thought that, on this point, John was wrong—he was quite certain that Derek hated him, that hating was easy for him.

“But I saved him,” whimpered Samuel. “I saved you all.... If it wasn’t for me, you’d be museum exhibits.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t wait around for him to send a thank-you card,” said John.

“Maybe next time I’ll save everybody
but
him,” said the boy.

John laughed, but inside the idea bothered him. He feared that Sam was serious.