The Saffron Malformation (31 page)

             
Sticklan took a long breath.  “Knowledge can be dangerous my friend.  The right amount might give you peace of mind, too much and you might start to form ideas about what you think you know.”  He thought for a moment then decided, “But I think you’ve been true to your word and so I’ll give you something.  I will tell you that she was involved in the kidnapping of a boy, the son of someone very important, and most likely the death of his daughter.”

             
“Most likely?”

             
“Things were blurry then,” Sticklan said, his eyes drifting.  “Either way, it doesn’t matter to you,” he finished then turned and walked casually to the door.  The two Angels of the Brood waited until the bell marking Sticklan Stone’s departure diminished completely before heading out themselves.

             
The grimy one marched out into the fading afternoon but the other stopped and looked over at Quey.  “Hey,” he called and Quey glanced over at him.  “Trevor,” he said.

             
Quey smiled slightly and nodded before the man followed his fellow Broodling back to the pack.

             
Quey and Dusty let out long sighs of relief, but Arnie collapsed into a booth and sat heaving on the bench, letting his rifle clatter to the tile floor.  Dusty sat across from him and spoke softly, “You did good kid, real good.”

             
“That you did,” Quey added.

             
“I don’t care,” Arnie said, then added, “I have to pee,” and ran off to the back of the diner, banging through a door marked ‘Men’s.’  Quey and Dusty looked at each other and laughed quietly.

             
Quey snatched Arnie's device from the table and connected to Reggie.  The big man answered and Quey asked, “What’s it look like out there?”

             
“Looks like the Broods getting paid and prepping to turn heels.”

             
Quey and Dusty looked at each other again and smiled.  “You come down as soon as they’re clear.”

             
“Right,” Reggie answered and the feed cut.

             
Reggie watched Sticklan Stone open the trunk of the car and remove a black case.  He handed it to the leader of the Angels of the Brood.  Render opened the case and looked over the contents, nodding slowly.  Sticklan said something to him—“Remember the girl’s worth five times that and more”—and then got into the car and drove away.  The Brood mounted their bikes and climbed into their vehicles and a moment later there was a thunderous roar of old, mal-maintenanced engines.  A few ticks clicked by and they were leaving, first the bikes, then the cars, and finally Render in his rig.  Off to hunt again, for the girl they call Rain.

             
“So what do you know about this girl?” Dusty asked.

             
Quey shook his head, “Just what I told him.”

             
Dusty smirked, “Come on, you didn’t hold anything back?”

             
Quey stared off at nothing in particular.  Every part of his mind was lost in a thought of one kind or another.  Part of him was conversing with Dusty, part was trying to think what came next, and another was lingering on Rain and the man that had just walked out of the diner.  “I wish I could’ve helped her,” he said softly.

             
“What?” Dusty asked.  Quey snapped out of his trance and looked at his friend.  “What do you mean?” Dusty probed further.

             
“I mean whatever she’s gotten herself into it isn’t going to end well.  I mean that kind of man is the worst kind.  Worse even than Once Men, because he knows what he is, has a sense of it, and enjoys it.”

             
The door opened and Danny and Herold stepped inside, guns in hand but not aimed.

             
“Told you I’d quell this ruckus,” Quey said as the two men stopped beside the table and looked down at him.

             
Herold nodded, “And you were true to your word but now I want you gone, got me?  Kind of trouble you bring, I can’t have and don’t want.”

             
Quey nodded, “Can I get an hour or two?”

             
Danny was about to chime in, probably with a string of curses, but Herold stopped him.  “Storm seems to be calm for now, so you take your hours.  I’m going home, going to see my wife and kids and try not to think how close I came to not doing so ever again.  I’m going to try not to think about you for the rest of the night, hell for the rest of my life.  In the morning I’m going to make the rounds and if I never see you again I’ll be successful in my forgetting.  If I do see you however, I won’t be pleased by the reminder.”

             
Quey nodded.  “You’re a fair man.”

             
“A bit too fair,” Danny muttered.

             
Herold looked at the younger man and said, “Go home to Tracy.  Let her face wash your memory.”

             
The Sherriff and his deputy walked out as Reggie stepped in.

             
When the door finished closing the big man was standing beside the table and he asked, “What’d they want?”

             
Dusty looked up at him and asked, sarcastically, “What do you think they wanted, to buy us a drink and offer up their virgin daughters for our whims.”

             
“They want us gone,” Quey answered, deadpan.

             
Reggie nodded.  “Where’s Arnie?”

             
“Bathroom,” Quey said.

             
“Probably losing his lunch,” Dusty added.

             
“So what do we do?”

             
Quey looked up at Reggie, saw the soldier in him functioning and admired it.  He wished he had that, a switch that made facts relevant and put emotion on hold.  He still saw Rain’s smile, as she sat on the back of his truck that night and laughed at something he’d said.  He remembered the feel of her against him and the passion she’d writhed with atop him in the sleeper of his rig.  He remembered the necklace she’d suggested for his special someone and the look in her eyes when he’d teased her into having dinner with him.  He almost heard her laugh, clear and pure in its joy and then he had to speak.

             
“I go back to the car lot and buy the truck.  We go back to my rig and find that robot.  We make the rounds.”

             
Dusty peered at him quizzically and Reggie almost laughed.

             
“The rounds?” the big man asked.  “You know you ain’t got no shine left.”

             
Quey nodded.  “Doesn’t matter.  Rounds aren’t for the shine this go.”

             
Now it was time for Dusty and Reggie to share a look.

             
“Listen, brother,” Dusty began.  “You’ve gotten yourself into quite a shit pile here, and we’re with you but we have to know what the fuck is going on.  I mean, what’s so important about this robot?”

             
Quey looked from one of them to the other and nodded.

             
Arnie walked slowly from the back of the diner and joined them.  He didn’t look good, pale and clammy, as he sat at the table across from Dusty while Reggie took his place across from Quey.

             
“You alright?” Reggie asked and Arnie nodded.

             
“Good,” Dusty said, “Because Quey here was about to fill in the landscape.”

             
Quey sighed and looked at Reggie, “You remember that stuff I was saying last night, about the world dying?”  Reggie nodded.  “It’s going to happen.  In a little more than five years, little less than ten.”

             
Only Reggie reacted and it was with a light laugh but when he looked at Quey he stopped.  “You can’t know that.  How can you know that?”

             
“You ever hear of a girl called Ryla?”

             
Dusty nodded, “Yeah, crazy robot bitch.” The eyes at the table shifted to him and he went on.  “Saw her once out near Rivel.  She had this robot rolling around with her warning people, ‘for your own safety please keep away,’” he mimicked a mechanical voice and complimented it with arm movements.  “Some drunk stumbled up and poked her.  ‘Touch,’ he said, as he did it.  Her robot lit him up.  She just stood there,” the memory shimmered on Dusty’s eyes.  “Starin’ at him as he died,” he finished.  “Looked like she was watching someone step on a cockroach.”

             
Quey nodded.  That sounded about right.  “Well when I was in the wastes, trapped by Once Men,” he continued, “She took me in.  She fixed my truck, and she told me she’d been running studies on the planet for some time, and asked me to take her robot around with me as payment for patching my hurt.  The robot’s doing some sort of study on the planet, to see just how fast it’s dying.”

             
Reggie sighed, “This is ridiculous.”

             
“Yeah,” Dusty chimed in.  “That bitch is crazy-”

             
“No,” Quey interrupted.  “You haven’t been in her compound.  You haven’t seen,” he trailed off.  “The things she can do.  She’s brilliant.  Weird, but brilliant.”

             
After a quiet moment Reggie finally said, “I just don’t believe it man.”

             
“Why?” Quey snapped.  “Think about it, the wastes expand every year.  The air gets worse.  Plants get harder to grow, less crops ripen like they should.  And the water,” he looked at each of them before continuing.  “For decades scientists have been warning us that the planet isn’t doing well, that it’s only a matter of time and everyone ignores it.  I’ve been ignoring it my entire life that’s how long they’ve been saying it.  So why not five years?  Because it’s too soon?” he snapped.  “Because it doesn’t happen all at once we can ignore it and tell ourselves it’s no big deal.  A comfort we allow so we can carry on in our triviality.”

             
“They got those towers going up all over,” Reggie said.  “They got the shit covered.”

             
Quey shook his head.  “The same way they had it covered on the south continent?”

             
Reggie looked up at him with a raw glare.  “You don’t know shit about that.”

             
“I know what you’ve told me.  Families just trying to survive, trying to get off this rock, trying to get the word out on the universal network.  So they shut it down, red flag us and invent a story about Anti-corps trying to destroy the planet.  It’s the universal justifier; we did it because of terrorism.  They give the people tasks to fill their days and keep them entertained in their off time because they know a busy person is a blind person and an entertained person is a complacent person.  They might see what’s going on but who cares, this or that is on tonight.  Oh and another video game is coming out, this one looks better than the last.  So lives are sacrificed for the bottom lines and no one cares.  So the world dies and no one cares.”  Quey took a sip of coffee.

             
The four men sat in silence for a while.  None of them could tell you how long, but in the end it was Reggie who broke it.  “So what’s the robot do?”

             
Quey shrugged, “Studies.  She wants to find out exactly what’s going on and what Blue Moon is doing to stop or reverse the effects.  At this point, my money is on nothing.”

             
“You trust her?” Dusty asked.

             
Quey looked over at his friend and nodded.

             
“Then get the truck, we’ll handle the car and Rachel and-”

             
“No,” Arnie spoke firmly, his face tight and his head shaking.  “This is it for me.  I can’t go with you anymore,” his voice trembled.

             
Reggie turned to the young man, “Look, Arnie-”

             
“No,” he barked, almost shouting.  Almost crying.  “I can’t do it.  I don’t want to,” he trailed off.  “I want to help you guys, but I can’t.”

             
“It’s going to be smooth sailing from here out,” Quey assured him.  “No more Brood, no more,” Quey stopped.  Arnie was shaking his head.

             
“It’s always going to be something.  Bandits or… Once Men, as you say.  Girls like this Rain.  Murder and kidnapping?” he was looking at Quey, watching his eyes.  “That’s who you roll with.  That and soldiers and streetwise roaders and crazy robot chicks.  That’s not me.  All I am is a kid who did well on his exams.  A pilot in a world without planes.”  Tears fell from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.  “I was happy.  In Fen Quada, I was happy.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t want to drift like this.  I want to find a place.  Settle in, a bar or restaurant or something.  Maybe meet a girl.  I don’t want whatever is going to happen whenever you get wherever you’re going.”