Earthbound (37 page)

“In here?” Shādo Shay cries. He looks scared.
Pace and I laugh. Yeah, that building’s gonna come down anytime,
but that’s why we chose it. Shādo Shay nods at his Bion and the
thing lock his Persuader onto us.

“That’s not in our deal,” Pace protests.

“It’s just insurance that you aren’t trying
to trick me,” Shādo Shay replies. “I’m not reneging on our deal.
I’m simply ensuring that you don’t either.”

I don’t much care. Gun or no gun. We are
leading him to our gold. It’s time for him to get it back.

Shādo Shay and his Bion follow us inside.
Pace and I lead them up one of those un-working electric
staircases. When we get to the second floor, we’re outside our
hiding place. Remember I said we had a good hiding place for our
gold? Well here it is. A movie theater. Who’d wanna go in there
anymore? The place is all boarded up and looks like there’s no way
in, but that’s only cause we boarded it up. Pace and I pry off a
wood board and show them where to crawl in. We go first. They
follow. Shādo Shay seems like he’s petrified to touch anything.
Cracks me up.

We’re inside what used to be the lobby to the
movie theater. It gave me and Pace a thrill to find this place.
Still has a popcorn machine and everything, although it doesn’t
work of course. There’s some old movie posters up on the walls.
Yellowed but still kinda cool. Mostly movies we’d never heard of,
never seen. It’d be cool to watch them though. Believe me, when we
found this place, Pace and I sat inside the theater – the chairs
are still in decent shape if you don’t mind rats crawling under
your feet – and we pretended like we were watching a good movie
with lots of sex and violence in it. It was fun.

Anyway, we aren’t here to watch a movie.
Instead we lead Shādo Shay and his Bion up a staircase, through a
door into what’s called a projection booth. Back in Great Falls
they just run a projector from the back of the room, but this place
is much more fancy. Electronic panels and gadgets and things like
that. Not much to see, but you can stick your eye up to the lens
that shoots the image out onto the big screen.

“Where is it?” Shādo Shay demands. “I don’t
want to stay in this decrepit building any longer than I need
to.”

“It’s here,” Pace says. “We found a safe
right here against the back wall. You just need to push away those
boards.” We’d left some wood boards lying haphazardly around the
safe just so if anyone was crazy enough to explore around there
like we did they might miss it behind the camouflage. Shādo Shay
indicates for his Bion to move away the boards, which it does.

“It’s all in there,” Pace says with a
reassuring tone. He wasn’t lying. That’s Pace. He doesn’t lie.

Shādo Shay studies our faces for a moment,
probably trying to figure out if we’re telling the truth or not.
Then he nods. “I’m going to have the Bion open the safe, just to be
certain.”

We nod. Then the moment Shādo Shay turns his
back on us, we back out of that projection booth fast. Hope he’s
not gonna notice us. He’s probably too preoccupied with all that
shiny gold. It’s in there. All of it. Exactly like we said. As we
bolt down the staircase, I imagine that Bion opening the safe door.
Then when nothing bad happens, Shādo Shay will shove him out of the
way. As we run through the lobby, I imagine Shādo Shay reaching in
and grabbing for the gold. As we leap down the electric staircase,
I imagine Shādo Shay picking up the stack of gold coins – attached
to a small line of wire. That wire leads directly to an ignition
switch shoved inside every last remaining ounce of C4 that we
had.

I don’t have to imagine the explosion. The
floor above us explodes with fury. The blast sends us flying off of
the electric staircase and down to the lobby floor. We can’t rest
though. We get up and run as fast as we can out the front entrance
and into the street. The explosions rumble throughout the
skyscraper. We scramble backwards away from the building as the
second floor snaps like a twig and the weight of the rest of the
structure stomps down on top of it. I think the whole thing’s
comin’ down. Which is what we figured. If anyone but us got to that
gold, that’s exactly what we wanted to happen. For sure the
explosion took out both Shādo Shay and his Bion. Or if not the
explosion, then the collapse. Either way, dead is dead. But we did
keep up our end of the bargain. He got his gold.

“That gold never really bought us anything
anyway,” I say.

I feel bad for the Bion. But what are you
gonna do.

It’s kinda fun watching gravity take down
that manmade relic, but we have to go. If only cause dust and smoke
are starting to flow from the broken windows of the building. We
turn and run back toward the horses. I keep hearing the skyscraper
falling though. And its dust cloud is traveling faster than we
are.

We protect our eyes as best we can while the
dust cloud passes through us. Then, finally, all is quiet.

Pace slumps down on the ground and just
starts laughing.

“What’s so effing funny?” I ask.

“We’re alive, that’s all. Despite our best
efforts.”

That kinda cracks me up too.

“So what now?” I ask.

“It’s time to go.” I nod, agreeing. “So let’s
pack up what we can. Maybe scavenge around and see if any of the
gold coins didn’t melt down in the blast.”

“No,” I say. “There’s something more valuable
we need to collect.”

Pace looks at me. “She made her choice.”

“I don’t care,” I say. “We get her and we
go.”

Pace looks at me and he smiles again. He
reaches out an arm and I help him to his feet.

I wish we had Charon and Flashbound right
about now. I hope they’re okay.

I see Pace kinda eyeing the Bion
transport.

“Any idea how to drive this thing?” I
ask.

“If it was an airplane, maybe. I think you
should give it a shot.

Works for me. We climb inside the front
cab.

“Say goodbye once and for all to our
hideout,” Pace says.

Yeah, I’ll kinda miss it.

Wasn’t sure how to start the thing, but I
didn’t need to figure it out. It starts up all by itself. The
engine is so quiet though it’s hard to tell it’s on, but the
instrument panel lights up.

“How do you think this thing works?” I ask. I
put my hands on the wheel and move it left and right but nothing is
happening.

“Is there a hand brake or something?” Pace
asks. We looks around but don’t find anything resembling a hand
brake. No knobs or handles or anything to mess around with. So I
just start pressing lights on the instrument panel. “Foot pedals,”
Pace suggests. I slam my foot down on the righthand foot pedal –
and the transport just takes off. The dashboard says we’re going
thirty miles per hour, then forty, then fifty, sixty, seventy. I
have to learn quick how to steer the effing thing, but the
transport is so secure I’m not too fearful of crashing into
anything. I test out the steering to get a feel for it. Wasn’t too
hard. “Feeling good?” Pace asks.

“Yeah but how do I stop this thing?”

“Another foot pedal?” Pace asks. He’s not
sure. Neither am I. But there is another foot pedal so I stomp on
it. The car stops within seconds – throwing us both forward in the
process. I knock my head into the wheel. Pace nearly slams his face
into a wood panel. “Okay, so that’s how we stop.”

Words are flashing on the instrument panel.
“What’s that say?”

Pace reads it out for me. “Fasten
Seatbelts.”

“What’s a seatbelt?”

We fumble around until we figure out that
there’s a strap that’s supposed to drape over our body and fasten
by our sides. It clicks in place and then the flashing words on the
instrument panel switch off.

“I guess we’re ready.”

I slam on the righthand pedal again and we’re
off. I’m so glad the car is quiet, even more quiet than hoofbeats.
I’m still getting the hang of the steering, so there are moments
where I come way too close to rubble on the side of the road, but I
get better as the minutes tick away. I turns the wheel sharply to
the right to turn onto 6
^th
Street. Almost skid out of
control, as it turned out, but I turn the wheel sharply in the
other direction and right us.

I hit a bunch of buttons and figure out how
to lower the blades in front of the transport, so we can mow down
anything in our path. Makes it easier to get where we need to go.
Except I realize getting across the Missouri is gonna be a problem.
This transport weighs a ton. Not sure one of the bridges is gonna
hold. But we have to chance it. I drive to the railway bridge on
the west side of the city. Seems like it’s always been the
sturdiest route across the Missouri. I drive onto the bridge and
just floor it. I have no idea if we’re gonna make it across or not
and I’m not gonna think twice about it. Halfway across and it feels
like the bridge is buckling. We make it across though. I can’t see
behind us but I bet that was the last time anyone’s crossing that
old bridge.

I know the way from here.

I’m driving to Great Falls. I know, I know.
Won’t take long for those stupid robots to figure out who
double-crossed their boss and they’re gonna know where to look.
Plus we’re headin’ right toward the Nuggets. We could play it safe
and just head for Billings or Canada or wherever. But that’s not
the plan. If we’re leaving the Great Plains, Pace and I each
deserve one last shot with Becca. And if she turns us down now,
well, she knows the stakes.

I rumble right through the entrance to the
settlement. No reason to be subtle now. No time to be outlaws on
the run. Just gotta hope that no one wants to mess with outlaws
with a bad ass Bion transport vehicle. Yeah, I’m seein’ some of the
townsfolk’s faces as we pass by. Their jaws are dropping. It’s
priceless. I do pull up the blades on the transport though. I don’t
wanna destroy the whole town.

We’re at the end of Main Street and I turn
left. Pace is giving me directions, but I know where we’re headed.
This is the way to the Nuggets’ hangout. Gonna need to get the drop
on them. I’m thinking about putting down those blades again and
driving right through their front door. But no, that’s way too
dangerous. Instead I hit the other foot pedal and stop the
transport far enough away from the Nuggets’ place so they won’t
hear us coming.

Pace and I nod at each other. We don’t need
to say anything. No weapons. No options. We know how this goes.

We sneak up and get a peek in the window.
There’s Boze, Birkin and Lister. And they’re packing. Throwing
stuff into boxes and crates. I get it, they lost one of their own
to those Bions. They’re effing scared. They’re gonna run. But
where’s Becca. We creep around the side of the house. She’s in the
kitchen, packing up supplies. She’s wearing her favorite sun dress.
She looks radiant. The opposite of how filthy Pace and I look. We
don’t deserve her. Never did.

The smart play is to get her attention and
quietly get her to sneak out the back door. But I suspect it won’t
be that easy. Don’t even know how she’ll feel when she sees us. I
rap on the window gently. Our eyes meet. She’s instantly all teary.
Happy to see us I suppose. But now she’s looking down. She’s
shaking her head. Then she keeps on packing.

“Doesn’t look like she wants to see us,” Pace
whispers.

“That’d be right.” We turn. It’s Birkin, with
a shotgun pointed at our brains. “Get up.”

He’s got the drop on us. Nothing to do but
follow his orders, keep our hands where he can see ‘em. For
now.

“Our truce is over,” Birkin says, “case you
haven’t noticed.”

Birkin leads us inside.

“Look who I found,” he crows.

Boze looks up from his packing. Never quite
seem him like this before. His eyes are kinda puffy. He looks real
scared. He rushes right up to Pace. “What were those things?”
There’s a tremor in his voice.

“They’re called Bions,” Pace explains. “Some
kind of robot. But there’s something human inside there. Or at
least it used to be human.”

“Sorry about Priestly,” I say. Not sure I
mean it but I say it anyway.

Boze glances at me. He’s gonna say something,
but it looks like he doesn’t have any words. So he just kinda
nods.

“Where’re you headed?” Pace asks.

At first Boze doesn’t seem to want to answer.
He doesn’t seem too proud of himself. Then he kinda breaks down,
his voice quivering and his hands kinda trembling. “One good man
gone. It’s just a matter of time before the rest of us get cut
down. We can’t compete with those stupid robots.”

“So you’re leaving town?”

“I am. And I advised what’s left of my
Nuggets to do the same. We can’t explain away Priestly’s dead body.
Someone’s gonna figure it out. They’ll be coming after us.”

“Where’re you headed?”

“Don’t tell ‘em,” Lister says. A voice of
reason.

“It’s okay,” Boze says. “We’re gonna try to
get to Missoula. Hoping those robots won’t follow us there.”

“They’re not looking for you,” Pace explains.
“They’re looking for me and Ash.”

“Don’t matter. They’ll come for us all
eventually.”

Pace nods. Seems like he’s in agreement with
that. “Won’t make much difference to Great Falls. You’re not much
of a lawman anyway.”

Boze freezes for a second. Not sure how he’s
gonna react to that. Then he sighs.

“No,” he says, “not really.”

“What’re you two buzzards doin’ here anyway?”
Birkin says, ever with that shotgun.

“We just want to talk to Rebecca,” Pace says.
“No need for the shotgun. We’re not armed.”

“These guys are trouble,” Birkin says. “I
should cut ‘em down, leave ‘em for those robots.”

But Boze seems to be taking our side. He has
Birkin lower the shotgun, which he does reluctantly.

“I reckon you won’t say anything to change
her mind,” Boze says, “but you can talk to her if you want.”