Machine-Gun Girls

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  Wren drew a Colt Terminator. “Okay, Cavvy, let’s get this train a-truckin’.”

  (iv)

  Micaiah and I stayed on top while Wren leaned over to check the engine room. “All clear. Wind River warriors already killed ’em all.” She noticed the torment on my face. “You hurt your ankle, Cavvy?”

  “Don’t matter,” I said back. “I can sit to do what needs to be done. We need to get out of here before that Vixx finds us.”

  Between Micaiah and Wren, they helped me down into the cab of the train engine through the left side door.

  Inside lay the bodies of Regios, dead fingers on cold triggers. Micaiah snagged a coat and shouldered it on.

  The back of the engine had sliding doors for access to the tender car. Cables and pulleys were rigged to carry fifty-pound blocks of Old Growth from the tender to the firebox. The driver’s seat rose up high and to the right. To the left sat the Eterna battery and electronics. Everything else was steam engine. I took a second to familiarize myself with the technology—the firebox at the back, the boiler on the right, at the front, the gauges, breaks, pressure release, whistles. Panels of levers to switch the engine from electric to steam power.

  I limped to the control seat which had its own set of gauges. I glanced through the window; the tracks ahead were clear. For now. I had to get us going. Couldn’t wait for Pilate to show up.

  The instruments showed our temperature and pressure were too low. “Micaiah, load the firebox with the Old Growth.”

  In seconds, he’d deciphered the mechanics of loading the firebox. He pulled cables until a big brick of Old Growth coal tumbled into the flames while I tried to remember the schematics of the trains I’d pored over back at Jenny Bell’s ranch. Yeah, I could do this. Still, worry attacked me. What if the Moby crashed and killed Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz? What if Aunt Bea and Crete were being held captive? What if the Madelines had murdered Pilate and were right then torturing Petal? What if I never saw Sharlotte ever again?

  “Quit your ‘what iffin’,” I hissed at myself. Mama’s voice whispered down from heaven. Cavatica Weller, given half a chance you’d kill yourself with questions. Live, baby, just live.

  Sweating rivers, I watched the temperature increase, which increased the pressure as well. I wanted the engine fit to burst, so once we released the brakes we’d hit it hard.

  “Company is coming,” Wren hissed. “They get any closer, I’ll open up on ’em.” She gripped an AZ3. Extra clips were tucked in her belt.

  “Cavvy, let’s go,” Micaiah said.

  I released the brake, grabbed the throttle, and hammered that engine down. In train terms, we’d have to wait until the cars stretched out, meaning the slack in the couplers would have to pull tight. We inched forward, and then? The train abruptly slammed to a stop, like a fifty tonne dog on a hundred tonne chain. Hardly moved a meter.

  “I bet the brakes are still on in the other engine,” I growled. We’d have to go back and unlock it at the very back. Or maybe there was a brake car mid-way. My belly filled with knives.

  Micaiah seized Wren. “You get me to the rear engine, and I’ll release the brakes.” He’d seen me unlock the brakes a minute before, and Micaiah only needed to see things once. He kissed his fingers and touched my check, then dashed out with Wren into the gunfire and explosions.

  The howl of the steam whistle made me jump. The train engine had gotten too hot. The automatic release valve must’ve let loose.

  Every soldier within a kilometer would come to investigate. Including Edger, somehow resurrected, and the nearly unstoppable Vixx we’d seen.

  I was alone, but I wouldn’t be for long.

  Dozens of Regios charged across the derelict train yard, heading right toward me.

  I didn’t even bother with a gun. I was caught.

  (v)

  Not a second later, one of the worst horrors in the Juniper saved us all.

  The Madelines, at least a hundred of them, thundered in on horseback, dressed in prom dresses, bridesmaid’s dresses, all kinds of colorful gowns blurring against the drab landscape. Scarves, veils, and boas flapped in the wind. Sparkling costume jewelry winked in the failing sunlight from the wrists and throats of those battle-broken, serial-killer witches.

  The completely demented cavalry hit those Regios coming for me, going through them like a fist through a window—a fist sparkly with Walmart diamonds.

  I didn’t see Pilate or Petal, but I knew they’d led the Madelines to the train. So far, my plan was working.

  Something flashed across the sky in front of me. At first, I thought the Moby Dick had returned. But no, this was smaller. I checked one of the mirrors, and yeah, behind me, more slender fliers darted through the sky. Took a minute, but then I realized what they were—single-rider zeppelins, Wind River by the look of them. Deerskin covered air cells, prolly filled with thelium gas, held silvery Neofiber frames, painted with symbols. Smoke drifted from the ultra-light steam engines near the back, spinning propellers. Strings of feathers, bones, and other totems dangled. Underneath the frame, mounted machine guns sparked, spitting lead.

  The Wind River people had air support, but like nothing I’d ever seen before. Never even heard rumors of such zeppelins. Lucky us. One more weapon for the Regios to face.

  Wren, alone, rode up on some Wind River pony, the saddle decorated like the fliers. My sister leapt off the horse and climbed into the cab. “Brakes are off, Cavvy. We have to go, now!”

  “Where’s Micaiah?” I screeched.

  Wren dropped her eyes. “He got shot off the back of my horse. He went down. If I’d gone back for him, they’d have got me too. I’m sorry, Cavvy, but he’s dead.”

  I found myself yelling at my sister, “How come you didn’t go back for him, Wren? What about the reward? I thought you never let your heart get in the way of a paycheck!”

  The hurt showed on her face for a quick second before she snarled back at me, “We got the train. We’ll get our headcount to Wendover, and then you can be done with me. Okay? I’m sorry, I can’t always save everyone. Don’t you think I would’ve tried if I could?”

  “I’m going back for him!” I took a step off from the seat and crumbled down on my ankle, the pain seizing me.

  Wren came over, put out a hand, but then she was shoved down on top of me.

  A square-faced woman stood over us, her fist clenched around a Desert Messiah. The name Rachel was embroidered on her uniform.

  Once again I was staring down the barrel of a Desert Messiah in the hands of a Vixx.

  Only for a moment. Wren kicked out Rachel’s legs just as she shot. The bullet screamed off the floor next to my ear to smack around the room like a high-caliber pinball.

  The Vixx didn’t have time to squeeze off another shot. Wren, back on her feet, grabbed her by the arm, wrestled the big pistol away, and flung her against the firebox, glowing hot. I could smell the fabric of her uniform smoke and burn through to fry her flesh.

  The soldier clone hardly flinched. Silent, she smacked the Desert Messiah out of Wren’s hand and out the door. She lunged for Wren, who had her Betty knife out, and the two went at each other, Kung-Fu, martial arts, full on.

  Rachel Vixx was better trained, but Wren was sneakier and looking to die, taking chances no sane person would take, taking blows on the crown of her head instead of her face.

  “Dammit, Cavvy, get the train going. I’ll deal with this kutia.”

  I struggled into the driver’s seat and tripped the throttle. I’d get us away and then go back for Micaiah. This time when the train lurched forward, we didn’t stop. We were moving, gaining speed, then roaring. With the train finally going, I turned to watch as the two warrior women pummeled each other.

  Rachel Vixx roundhoused a kick, and Wren went low, punched her right in the groin, and swung a leg around that should’ve leveled the Vixx, but she leapt over it and, still in the air, drove a foot into Wren’s forehead, knocking her back.

  “Dirty skank!” W
ren was back on Rachel, punching at her face. The Vixx got her arms up to block it and threw a knee. Wren dodged it, only to take a punch on the jaw. That stunned Wren.

  The soldier clone didn’t seem to care. No smile, no sense of victory, just a machine-like determination to kill us both. She snatched a subcompact pistol out of an ankle holster and stuck it into my sister’s face. Wren was quicker. She jammed her palm into the soldier girl’s nose, kicked her legs out from under her, and they both went down, but Wren was on top. She stuck her Betty knife into the Vixx’s belly, then her chest, again and again.

  “Skank! Skank! Skank!” At every stab, Wren spit that word into her face.

  “Wren!” I yelled. “The head! Get her head!”

  My sister tried to adjust her aim, but before she could, the Vixx chopped Wren in the throat. The soldier clone stood while Wren gagged. Stood right up. Like being gutted and knifed in the heart was nothing.

  Wren flashed to her feet and leapt, planted both of her feet into Rachel Vixx’s chest and kicked her off the train through the side door. The Vixx hit the ground in a cloud of dust and disappeared behind us. In the distance, the Wind River fliers strafed the remaining ARK soldiers. And the Psycho Madelines as well. It was complete chaos, but we were building up speed, leaving the battle behind.

  Other Regios, though, crawled toward the cab, clinging to the sides of the train cars.

  “Wren, more are coming.”

  Wren shook so much she dropped her Betty knife. She huffed in deep breaths, eyes wide. In a gaspy, fearful voice, she asked, “How can I fight them Vixxes if they don’t die? How can I do it, Cavvy?”

  “Rachel is gone,” I said. “But the Regios are coming. You gotta blow ’em away. You gotta.” And I had to go back for Micaiah. To see if he was really dead. To save him again if he wasn’t. No matter what.

  Wren nodded and picked up an AZ3. “Yeah, yeah, I will. I won’t chicken out. It’s just ...”

  A soldier jumped down into the back of the engine room from the tender car and Wren machine-gunned her out the door. Then, no time to talk, Wren got set up by the rear door, and she machine gunned more, like a dog ridding itself of fleas.

  I limped over to feed her clips from the other AZ3s on the floor. Her shooting, me reloading her, it felt like I was with Mama again. I was so thirsty, so wrung out, and my ankle was licking pain up my leg. Even my shoulder and arm were hurting again.

  Deep down I knew Micaiah was still alive, and I would save him. Denial can be a good thing. It allowed me to help my sister wipe out the last of the Regios still aboard the train.

  I watched as she shot them, her face focused, and in some ways, serene.

  Us Weller girls had demons, bad demons. Wren drank them away when she couldn’t use violence to ease the pain.

  Mama and Sharlotte had worked them away.

  And me?

  I had Pilate’s love and luck and the Lord Jesus Christ to help me with mine.

  So while Wren fought, I prayed. Prayed for the Moby to be okay and find Sharlotte and bring her back to us. Prayed for our people, our headcount, to find their way.

  I didn’t pray to see Micaiah again ’cause I knew I’d find him, with or without God’s help. Even if I had to go down to hell and wrestle him away from Satan himself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Patience in science is critical. Often, scientific advances create a hell first, then a heaven.

  —Dr. Ravan Singh, PhD

  Executive Director of Research and Development of the American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative

  July 2, 2043

  (i)

  WREN CLIMBED ONTO THE blocks of Old Growth coal in the tender to see if any more Regios were coming for us. She smiled.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is it our people?”

  “Damn, but your boy is good,” Wren said. “Not only is he alive, but he made it on the train.”

  Minutes later, she helped Micaiah off the Old Growth and into the cab of the engine. I kissed his lips, clutched him to me, and breathed in his smell. No one had ever smelled as sweet as he did right then. I didn’t care if Wren was there.

  “I knew you weren’t dead,” I said into his ear. “I knew it. But how did you make it through? They shot you up.”

  He pulled back. “Me? No, I fell off Wren’s horse, but I wasn’t shot. I’m okay. I learned how to be tough from you Weller girls. Is there anything you can’t do?”

  I felt Wren’s eyes on us, hard, judging. “Yeah, Johnson, there is. We can’t get along, if you hadn’t noticed.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. You were behind me on the horse, I heard gunfire, then I felt you fall off. I’d have gone back if I hadn’t been so certain.”

  He turned to show us the back of his ARK soldier’s coat. “Look, no bullet holes. Sorry to disappoint you, Wren, but I wasn’t shot.”

  My sister still looked troubled. “Yeah, well, then I’m sorry for leaving you. It was crazy, trying to fight our way through them Wind River women and those Regio skanks. I guess I must’ve lost my head.” She smiled. “Now, I better go and see if I can’t kill me another Regio or two. They die. Your Vixx aunties on the other hand, well, they sure are engineered well. I stabbed that Rachel a dozen times, and she asked me out for a drink. Besharam skank.”

  Wren slammed a fresh clip into her AZ3 and took off.

  I fell back into Micaiah’s arms for a few more luscious kisses. He then told me how he’d run for the train, got on the rear engine, and run across the top to get to the forward engine. He counted the cattle cars as he ran, sixty-seven in all. If we could cram forty-four beefsteaks in each car, we’d have enough for all of our headcount.

  As an added benefit, we’d stranded the ARK’s reinforcements in the middle of the Wyoming desert surrounded by angry Wind River warriors and the Psycho Madelines. Ha. If only Tibbs Hoyt had been aboard. No such luck.

  Still, he and the Vixxes had the four Johnny zeppelins full of soldier girls searching for us. We weren’t out of the woods just yet.

  We rumbled across the Wyoming plains toward the setting sun. I sat in the engineer’s seat with a commanding view of the tracks and the ground flashing by. We were going incredibly fast compared to the slog of moving cattle by foot and horseback.

  Micaiah stood next to me. “Cavvy, I don’t think we should run the train at night. I’m not sure if the tracks are all repaired. If we drive blindly, we might derail.”

  “Yeah, I know it,” I said. “But before that, we need to get to the rendezvous point, the Little America west of Laramie. Sketchy was going to fly back and tell the rest of our crew, but if she crashed, we might be in trouble. And there is Pilate and Petal, Bea and Crete, to consider. And Sharlotte.” I still felt uncomfortable saying my sister’s name around Micaiah.

  “The ARK soldiers might be ahead of us, too,” he said. “They’ll know you’re heading toward Wendover.”

  “Yeah, Reb and Ronnie knew all about us,” I whispered. It felt like there was a cave inside me, and my fear was a little lone voice calling out. But hope was in there, too, and it rang out loudly.

  “This is crazy,” Micaiah sighed. “We can’t run away on train tracks. It’s like trying to sneak around with three thousand cows. Impossible.”

  I laughed at that. “Thank you, oh voice of doom. I feel like I’m talking with Anju Rawat.”

  “Who?” His face was so cute when he was confused. Some girls liked dumb boys. I knew why.

  “She was my best friend in Cleveland. Anju was always saying that nothing would ever work out. Well, she was wrong as much as she was right. I think we’ll make it. Not sure how, but I have faith. From the beginning, this cattle drive was doomed to fail, but we only ever wanted halfway, but now that halfway is a whole lotta kilometers behind us. And if the Moby didn’t get blown up ...” I had to take a big breath to make the cave inside me smaller, to make the voice of hope louder. “... our plan might work. Maybe the Vixx sisters won’t catch up to us. The Juniper is a big place, and y
ou can’t just call ahead to warn people we’re coming. Heck, we might even make it to the SLC. I could find a nice Mormon man with fifty wives, and lucky me, I’d be fifty-one.” I paused there to add. “And you can get away from your father.”

  “If my father finds me, I’ll give you the chalkdrive, and I’ll give myself up. Then you can tell the world about the crimes of Tibbs Hoyt. What he did and didn’t do.”

  “Sins of omission and commission,” I said, letting my Catholic show. Then I just had to ask, “How did it feel growing up with Tibbs Hoyt as your daddy? The richest man in the world. You could buy anything, do anything, be anything. How did that feel? Or are you going to tell me more stories about wicked aunts or a mama in Vegas?”

  He sighed again, long and hard. “Part of what I said was true. The Vixx sisters really are like my aunts. But I don’t know where my mom is. I lost track of her a long time ago.”

  Even though he was feeling bad, I had to chuckle. “When I asked your name, you were all, muh, muh, muh Micaiah. You didn’t even know that was a bible name, did you?”

  “No,” he said, “but I’m Micaiah now. I don’t ever want to be Micah Hoyt again. A cage with bars of gold is still a cage.”

  I couldn’t take his pain seriously at all. “Maybe, but come on. How bad could it have been? I got up before sunrise every day of my life to shovel manure. Nobody in the Juniper is gonna show you much pity.”

  “You’re right about that.” He turned sheepish and embarrassed.

  I have to say, I liked him like that. I felt uppity, but I knew what he was talking about. A lot of times in elementary school, the poorer folks would avoid me just ’cause I came from the biggest ranch in central Colorado. They assumed I was stuck up when I wasn’t. Sometimes when you’re rich, you end up alone. Poor folks get to be poor together. There’s a joy in that.

  “Micaiah,” I said, carefully, “we can’t let Wren know who you really are. She’d sell you in a minute.”