Peace in an Age of Metal and Men

by Anthony Eichenlaub

  “That death trap?” Josephine stood up and brushed past me on her way out the door. The girl and I followed. “Well, look at that. The rockets finally crapped out?”

  “That they did.”

  “Antigrav?”

  “Still not bad.”

  “Well, that’s not a surprise. These puppies ought to last a good long while. It’s the regulators and rockets that’ll probably kill you.”

  I nodded like I had some idea what she was saying.

  “‘Suppose you need this fixed up?”

  “Right quick too,” I said. “Got some business to attend to.”

  Josephine clicked her tongue, circling my broken skidder. The sad-looking thing was upside-down and dented in at least five new places. The blue flames painted along the sides were worn down to metal so badly that the faded paint was hardly recognizable. The sharp chemical smell of solid fuel tickled my nose. The girl must have smelled it too, because she took a step back and stubbed out her cigar.

  “Abi,” Jo said to the younger woman, “why don’t you head down and get my arms for me?”

  Abi stared, wide-eyed, at the skidder. She didn’t look like she was going to move at first, but then she dashed away behind the shack. Josephine continued to prod at the upended skidder.

  “Yep,” she said. “Leak’s right here. Looks like you cracked it open on your landing.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “Why you in such a hurry, J.D.?”

  I turned and squinted at the sunrise. Why was I in such a hurry? Anger tasted like acid in the back of my throat. The boy’s death had affected me. Zane must have known how I’d react. Even knowing that he was manipulating me didn’t affect the feeling of urgency.

  “There’s a need,” I said.

  Jo must have read the anger in my face. “Thought you didn’t do this kind of thing anymore, Sheriff.”

  I nodded.

  “The new sheriff’s not bad, you know. She does a fine job.”

  “True.”

  “So what is it that’s happening that she can’t take care of? You into something illegal?”

  “I aim to stay on the right side of the law.”

  Abi returned, struggling to drag a backpack made of dull metal and scuffed plastic. She dumped the thing at Josephine’s feet, panting from the effort. Josephine looked at it with one eyebrow raised. She tapped her foot.

  “Well,” said Josephine. “You going to put it on or what?”

  “Me?” Abi’s eyes got wide.

  “Yes, you. You think I trust J.D. with any kind of tech? That boy breaks every damn thing he touches.”

  Abi squatted down and fit her arms into the straps of the backpack. The pack whirred, clicked, and fastened itself to her, effectively pinning her to the ground. A collar emerged from the top of the pack, clamping around her neck. Her eyes flashed an unnatural green, and a wisp of a smile crossed her face. She stood up, lifting the pack with ease.

  A dozen slender, articulated arms supported the pack and nearly lifted the girl off the ground. Her toes barely scraped the dust. Larger arms emerged from the top of the pack, thick as a cigar and long enough to reach around the skidder twice. She slid a few steps forward. With three of her articulated arms, she grasped the skidder and gently righted it. She held it aloft with seemingly no effort.

  Josephine peered at the skidder, prodding at damaged parts and fiddling with the controls. She frowned as she did so, her brow furrowing in concentration. She located the crack in a fuel cell, gently extracted the cylinder, and replaced it with one that appeared to be in much, much worse shape. The new one didn’t stink, though, so appearances might not be everything.

  After half an hour, she stood back and shook her head. “Rockets are busted. Regulator’s two spits from shot. Fuel cells are all good now, but without rockets you’re not going anywhere soon.”

  I swore and kicked at the dirt.

  Abi set down the skidder. “Needs a paint job too,” she said, and then flinched at my scowl. “It does.”

  “Talk to Trish,” Josephine said. “She’ll help. She still talks about you sometimes, you know. She respects you.”

  I shook my head. “No. There’s no reason to involve her.”

  “She’s sheriff. That’s reason enough.”

  “No.”

  Josephine made a disgusted noise and went back into her shack. Abi followed.

  I followed. “It’s the corporations, Jo,” I said. “Goodwin sent a man to talk to me. There’s something bad happening out around a town called Swallow Hill.” Zane had given me the location, but almost no other details.

  Abi seemed to shrink back into herself.

  Jo’s expression got dark. “You stay away from Swallow Hill.”

  “People are dying.”

  She shook her head. “Just stay away.” My expression must have been enough, because her shoulders sagged. “There’s more about that place than you need to know.”

  “I expect there is.”

  We looked at each other for a long moment, neither of us backing down.

  Abi had backed all the way against the wall and knocked a cascading series of saw blades off their hooks. She winced at each one that fell, but Jo didn’t flinch.

  “I’ll bring the sheriff in when I know the story,” I said. “Until then, I don’t want her involved. She might cover something up.”

  Josephine locked eyes with me. “You don’t trust her.”

  “I don’t trust anyone.”

  She nodded. She bit a lip and peered at the sun, now sitting fat in the sky. “That’s a good policy if you’re headed to Swallow Hill. What about that man from Goodwin? Are you trusting him more than you trust Trish?”

  I shook my head. “I trust what I see with my own eyes.”

  Josephine sighed. “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “You remember back when you were sheriff and a big fella rolled into town and started hitting ladies and robbing stores?”

  “Sure.” She’d just described about a dozen instances from my time as sheriff.

  “This was maybe ten years ago. Fella was tall, really big. Really ugly. Had a tattoo of a snake across his face.”

  This was starting to ring bells. The man wouldn’t leave town and he wouldn’t settle down. Every time I locked him up he’d promise to never cause trouble. One day I’d had enough.

  “I shot the man,” I said. “Right in the eye.”

  “That’s right. He was mean, but he was slow on the draw.”

  “What’s that have to do with this?”

  “He was my husband.”

  She peered at me for a minute, her face all kinds of serious. I didn’t give an inch. There was no doubt at the time that shooting that man was the right thing and there was no point in saying otherwise.

  Was there? It seemed that maybe the conviction of my younger days was too strict. The man might have lived if things had been handled differently. He might have been turned around or even sent off to prison. Was a bullet the right answer for that man, or was a bullet just the simplest answer?

  The grin crept back onto Jo’s face. “Sheriff,” she said, “you did me a favor back then, so I’m doing you a favor now. I’ll let you ride my Bessie there and back.” She whistled and somewhere in the junkyard the subsonic hum of power started up. “If you so much as scuff the fender, though…”

  A crack like thunder rolled through the yard. A mass of metal and plastic floated over to where we stood, hovering with a rumbling roar that I could feel in my chest. The mass didn’t even look like a vehicle, with jagged shreds of metal sticking out in all directions. Rockets flared in sequence, helping to stabilize what was presumably a mess of antigrav.

  Josephine spoke in barely a whisper, but I could hear it clearly over the rumbling roar. “If you so much as scuff her, you’ll be paying for it from your hide.”

  I believed her. “How do I drive it?”

  She looked at me like I was stupid.

  “I suppose you think you’re coming
with?”

  Josephine’s eyes widened for a flicker of a second, but she shook her head. “Abi will take you where you need to go.”

  “No.”

  “She’ll be taking you where you need to go or you ain’t going there.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. I’ve been teaching Abi everything I know and she’s been learning it. She’ll get you there. If you’re not dead, she’ll get you back.” Josephine turned on her heel and disappeared into the shack.

  Abi disengaged her articulated arms, rubbing her neck where it must have attached directly to her spine. She gave me a sheepish grin and gestured for me to step into the vehicle.

  I took a closer look at it. The thing was actually mostly shaped like a car, but plates of armor jutted at odd angles from the sides and bottom. A dozen rockets flared in various places on the bottom and sides. Some even seemed to be pointed upward. The thing made little sense, but it was clear that there was room for several people right in the center of it all. One thing was not clear.

  “How in the hell do I get up there?”

  She whistled—long, slow, and low. Two slabs of armor slid to the side and a slip-thin ladder lowered itself to the ground. Abi, with a flourish, gestured again for me to step inside.

  I climbed into the car, shuffling sideways on one of two utilitarian benches. It wasn’t comfortable, but it sure as hell felt safe. Armored panels jutted up, nearly closing off above our heads. Abi climbed in, belching out a whiskey-scented cloud as she sat down. Panels slid closed and a series of screens flickered to life around us. Abi put a hand on the center console and with a jolt sent us spinning into the air. Within minutes, we were cruising in relative comfort over the baked desert.

  “You always drive people around for Jo?” I asked.

  Abi squinted at me. “You always a nosey gossip?” She hiccupped. Smiled sheepishly.

  “Not certain I’ve ever been described as such.”

  She seemed to consider me for a while. “Aunt Jo keeps me safe.” There was a bitter taste of resentment in her voice.

  Abi reeked of whiskey. It wasn’t that she was drunk so much. Her body clearly had enough tech in it to handle the alcohol; Nanomachines would process toxins without much trouble. Still, that alcohol had to go somewhere, and by the smell of it she was either belching it out in a gaseous form or sweating it out. There was a slick look to her skin. Truth was, she was hard to place in my head. She seemed like a kid to my old eyes, but really, she was a grown adult. Maybe it was her oversized overalls that made me think she was younger.

  “I appreciate the ride,” I said.

  She looked like she had something else to say but chose not to say it. Instead, she silently ignored me and concentrated on the many screens around us. On them, the desert slid by. We weren’t going fast, but that was all right with me. We didn’t have a huge distance to go, in the relative-to-Texas sense. A couple dozen kilometers weren’t much in the grand scheme of the Republic of Texas.

  “You’re buzzing,” Abi said after a long stretch of silence.

  “What now?”

  She pointed at my pants. “Buzzing. In there.”

  I felt the ammo pouch and realized that she was right. My glow cube was humming pleasantly. When I brought it out, it stopped buzzing and flickered to life. A distorted hologram appeared above it, but I couldn’t make out the image.

  “Hello?” I said.

  The answer was a distorted string of noise. Abi shook her head and grabbed the cube from me. She opened the center console, revealing a square hole.

  “The shielding interferes with it, but it’s all Quintech,” she said. “It’s all compatible. It’s what they used to be known for, Auntie says.” Before I could protest, she jammed the cube into the slot.

  Francis William Brown appeared as a sharp, bright hologram above the center console. He stood there blinking at me for a long minute. His white hair had grown long and unkempt. It was hard to remember that the boy was only twelve. His set jaw and emotionless eyes made him look so much older. Francis was the kind of kid who always had a hard time with life but whom nobody ever felt sorry for. The boy wore the same thin white shirt he always wore and his eyes flickered with a purple light.

  “Sheriff,” he said by way of a greeting, “where are you?”

  “I’m where I need to be, son,” I said. “Where are you? Your brother’s looking for you last I heard.”

  “It’s just…” He licked his cracked lips. “I’d like you to see something.”

  There was a long silence. Seeing the boy always brought up painful memories, but it sounded like he was showing interest in something. That was a rarity for Francis and it would be terrible to fail to encourage that. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll stop by the ranch soon as I can.”

  His mouth opened as if to say something, but then he seemed to reconsider. A smile tweaked the corners of his mouth but didn’t touch his eyes. His image flickered and disappeared.

  Abi said, “What was that all about?” She popped the cube out of the console again and tossed it to me.

  “Francis Brown,” I said. “I killed the boy’s mama a few years back, and now he has an odd view of our relationship.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “Is anyone not?”

  She nodded. The ride passed in silence. Abi, after a while, turned to me and said, “You really live out in the wild?”

  “Something like.”

  “What’s it like out there?”

  “Hard.” The image on the monitor slid by like it was nothing but a model landscape in an old museum. “Every day’s a struggle. We scrape for food and water. We fend off predators, both human and otherwise. Worst is getting noticed. When you’re the littlest guy around it pays to keep quiet.”

  “But you like it.”

  “It’s better than the alternative.”

  Abi chewed on her lip. “Auntie Jo thinks you’re crazy for living out there.”

  “Fair enough. I think she’s crazy enough for living in that junkyard.”

  “She doesn’t leave it. Hasn’t since she took me in.” Abi’s eyes met mine and I could see a shadow of a painful past lingering there. “She’s afraid someone’s going to take it from her. She’s afraid of men from the city coming to take everything. She won’t let so much as a field mouse sneak into her junkyard.”

  “I got in.”

  “And you’re lucky she likes you so much. I’ve seen how she deals with strangers.”

  There wasn’t much to say about that. Josephine’s paranoia might have been justified. Maybe someone would take the junkyard from her. Could be that they’d take it even if she stayed. The rule of law held a lot of folks in check, but not everyone followed the same rules. Jo’s floating tank started to make a little more sense.

  Abi maneuvered Bessie around to land on a dusty outcropping of rock. “We’re here,” she said.

  The vehicle unfolded to let us out onto the rocky soil. Abi had landed us in the middle of the remains of an old building. Wooden parts had long since decayed to nothing, but meter-tall stone walls still stood partially buried in fine dust. Clusters of cacti stretched tall from the surrounding landscape, providing a relatively secluded feeling. Not far from the building, the remains of an old road still clung to the idea of existing. The asphalt had long since crumbled, but the soil beneath was packed hard enough that nothing of any significance grew there.

  “There’s a zone just over there that’s giving weird signals.” She pointed down the road, where a crooked wrong way sign stuck out of the dry earth. The paint on the sign was still legible, despite having been worn down by years and bullets. “That’s where your friend was telling you to go.”

  “We can’t fly any closer?”

  “No, sir. It’s a few more kilometers at least, but if we get any closer our systems will fail and we’ll drop like a rock.”

  “I’ll walk, then.”

  “Yes, you will.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “Can
I come with?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Too dangerous.”

  She blew out a whiskey-scented sigh. “Danger’s fine by me.”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you know how boring life is, living in a junkyard?” She gave me a moment to answer, but I didn’t. “Pretty damn boring. I want to go somewhere. Do something.”

  It would be nice to have someone by my side again. The extra eyes would help me spot trouble. Her experience with tech would no doubt be valuable. I liked her. Something about her earnestness was charming. It would be safer to have her with. It would be better.

  “No,” I said.

  I walked.

  Chapter 8

  Swallow Hill wasn’t hardly big enough to spit at.

  The town was Main Street and a few outlying structures nestled comfortably into the cleavage of two rounded hills. The hills protected this little town, making it a beaten-down version of what might have passed for quaint a hundred years prior. Brick façades faced the main thoroughfare. A tavern, a bank, and a general store all lined up nicely across from a clock tower attached to what must have long ago been a church. Farther up the street sat squat residential buildings—some apartments and some single-family dwellings. Beyond that were more hills: cracked, broken mounds that made jagged edges of an otherwise pleasant horizon.

  The sun had climbed up the sky, baked the life out of the land, and now, having ravaged another perfectly good day, was lazily drifting back down. Stark, gray towers, about a kilometer out of town, hadn’t bothered me one bit. Cracked earth and punctured armor told of a battle long ago, but still these towers stood, sentinels against the sky.

  A man stood at the edge of town. His white hair fell in wisps down his back, and his filthy overalls looked like they barely held together. He had a rifle, clutched in his knobby hands. His eyes seemed to stare off into space.

  “Howdy,” I said by way of greeting.

  He didn’t respond. I waved a hand in front of his face and touched him on the shoulder. Nothing. He was alive and breathing. His eyes flashed a bright blue—light visible even in the sun. Still, he didn’t move to acknowledge me.