Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10.5: Carnie's Tale

by Randolph Lalonde

  I checked it, found a charging port and was astonished. “What a pack of idiots.” I looked for anti-tamper devices as best as I could then used one of my spare power cells to recharge the incendiary grenade. It beeped cheerily, the switch on the top blinking green, indicating that the safety was on and it was ready to activate on a five second timer. “Well, it’s a crap trade; a hover truck for a grenade, but I’ll take just about anything.”

  I realized that I’d taken the main processor board out of the truck before I left and smiled. It would be much easier to repair another hover vehicle with that in hand. I returned to the garage beneath the residence building and started looking for the right car. I ended up checking five subterranean parking areas and ten hover cars before I found the right one. It was a hover vehicle with high altitude gliding systems. I wouldn’t use the extendable wings, the controllers for those were fried and I didn’t want to put the time in to fix a feature that would only make me even more visible to the Order. The rest of the systems were in all right shape, and it used a lot of standard parts. I looked at it, juggling a meal bar, my new grenade and the Slagger, for a few minutes.

  “Replace the main processor board, check if auto-driving systems work, bypass if they don’t, and check the main controllers,” I muttered to myself. “Two days if I’m lucky, more trouble than its worth if I’m not.”

  With that, I loaded everything I had into the back seat and got under the dash. It was more cramped than the truck’s, I ended up permanently removing the console cover, and most of the instrumentation was still fried when I was done, but it started up after only a few hours. The essentials were all in pretty good shape, I suspect because it was hardened against lightning strikes since the thing was made to glide. It was no shuttlecraft though, there was no way it would get me into orbit. I was able to steal the navigation software from the console and install it on one of the small computers I’d taken from the Complex, and I taped that along with a flexible screen onto the windshield. I slept in the car that night, dreaming that I was being chased by Order Soldiers, then by a version of Theo that had claws and glowing yellow-red eyes. I was up early. “Time to get on the road,” I said to myself, or what was left of Theo in the passenger seat. I looked at that bag often. “Let’s go find a ship.”

  The hover car started with a high pitched whine, smoothly, swiftly cruising through the large parking garage then surging out onto the cluttered street. I didn’t care if the Order spotted me, that was almost the point. This car, the Wind Rider Model Five, was many more times more agile than the truck. I could tell that the controller systems for the eight pads underneath needed alignment, it pulled to the left and the nose was tilted down a little on the right, but it was good enough. The lights didn’t work inside or out, the wings were stuck closed under the cab, only the steering and power were running, and the controller for the environment controls were still fried, but the machine moved fast. The height adjustment was tied into the steering system, so it would move up or down, over and under obstacles as I used the control wheel, which looked like an eternity symbol.

  I couldn’t tell exactly how fast I was going, but it was faster than I’d moved since I landed on Iora, and I was able to get on top of a two storey building, then a three storey one, and finally up onto one of the landing pads of a mini-port from there. I drove all the way up, weaving between burned out and stripped ships until I was fifteen storeys up, looking across a bay, a part of Logan City and farmland beyond. I shut the car down and opened my last burrito. It rehydrated and cooked in my hand, ready to eat in three seconds, hot enough to seem fresh but not so hot that it burned your mouth. “We’ll stay here for a bit. If we don’t see any ships, we’ll find another perch. Maybe go to Larness or New Detroit. Might attract some attention on our way there though, so I’ve gotta figure that out. I’ve gotta have a plan just in case Order soldiers take an interest in this heap.”

  I settled in and watched the sky for any sign of a drop ship, or anything else that could take me up off Iora. “We’ll get there, man. We’ll get back to the black and away from here.”

  Part Thirty-One

  I woke up to the sound of a sonic boom somewhere way above, my condenser bottle rolling off my chest, onto the passenger seat and to the floor. I looked up in time to see three lights in the night sky. They split and I refused to blink as I tracked each descending ship. “There, to the east, the nearest ship.”

  I started the car and aimed it between two buildings, the street below was littered with dead hover cars, but I was sure my rig was light enough to survive the fall. I marked my destination on the navigation system and hit the accelerator. The car dropped off the edge of the top of the mini-port building and I turned the glide power all the way up. I cringed as one of my hoverpads scraped the roof of a car on the street, but there was no significant damage, just a hell of a lot of forward momentum. I struggled to keep up with the turns as I sped through the streets over and between cars that were silent and still.

  Before I knew it, I was on the freeway, turning everything but the controls and the most basic hovering systems off. Moving forward at great speed doesn’t take much power if you only have to make minor course adjustments, so I thought I would reduce my energy signature. Now I’m sure it didn’t matter, since I was probably the fastest moving, most energetic thing on Iora that didn’t belong to the Order of Eden. I must have stuck out like a sore thumb.

  I was half way to my destination when I saw the ship take off. I could make out the shape – it was another drop ship with a long, downturned cockpit nose and a curved hull used to grapple shipping containers – and I wasn’t fast enough to get to it. I looked to my right, to the western most ship just in time to see its light ascend. “God dammit!”

  The one in the middle was just taking off, rising above the horizon, but I was still nine kilometres out. I slowed the car and drove more casually. “I either need more luck, more speed, or to plan this better.”

  For two days it was the same thing. Three ships come down, I rush for the nearest one, and three ships get away. I was ready to start pulling my hair out on the third day. The chase had led me a quarter way across the continent. Then I reached Larness. I hadn’t been there yet, but there was a security complex building there, domed and armoured like the Complex I landed in, and it had been cracked open on one side. A huge part of the city around it had been blasted to rubble. I’m talking kilometres of fallen buildings, city blocks that were just as flat as parking lots and craters from broken down artillery that was scattered across the landscape. I’d missed the fight though, but the aftermath was right there for me to see. People were ducking in and out of the circular building, not looting it, but using it for a shelter. There was enough room for several hundred people in the one I spent my first few months in, so I could imagine how many people might have crammed in there.

  I drove down off the freeway and headed straight for a small crowd of people. Most of them scattered as I slowed to a stop, but there was this really dark guy who was tall, broad chested, but a bit heavy in the middle. He waved to me, dropped his gun into his holster and smiled. “He looks friendly,” I said, drawing Needler and hiding it between my legs. I pulled up beside him and stopped, taking a package of raspberry-cherry pie from my jacket pocket. I opened my window and offered the treat. “Hey, man. Looking for some info,” I called out.

  The dark skinned stranger took the pie and activated it. He was surprised when it heated and hydrated. “Holy hell, this one still works! I’ve been eating convenience packs that are cracker dry and so hard you have to dip ‘em in water. Yeah, what do you need?” He sniffed it deeply. “Anything I know, I’ll tell.”

  “Just wondering how long it’s been since you guys got a delivery of food from the Order?”

  “Delivery? What, you expecting Shawarma Hut to drop something off for you?” he laughed.

  “Okay, how long since this dust up finished?”

  “We got through the economic buildin
g wall about a week and a half ago. No food left there now though, just people who moved in.”

  I looked at the side of the building with the melted, jagged crack in it and saw tarp patches here and there. There were people moving about inside as well, but I didn’t see much evidence of power. Then I remembered: it was one of the buildings that had a generator that could create an electromagnetic pulse, one of the buildings that I most likely triggered remotely after I arrived. “How long since the Order dropped people off here?”

  “They dropped a whole bunch of containers off,” he took a bite, hiding what he was doing as best as he could from the people several metres behind him. I waited for him to finish chewing. “Bunch of containers were dropped off about a week ago. Why are you asking?” he stuffed the rest of the slice of pie into his mouth, a feat that was actually a little impressive.

  “I’m tracking the drop ships,” I told him. “I’m going to steal one.”

  “That’s crazy,” he laughed, his mouth still half full. “Take me with you.” Then he waved his hands, finished chewing and shook his head. “Just kidding, that’s too crazy. You’ll get slagged when they see you coming in this,” he patted the hood of my car. “Good luck, though. Hope you do it somewhere I can see; it’ll be fun to watch. Speaking of watching, you’re about to draw a crowd.” He pointed at a group starting to get together fifty metres in front of my car, coming out of half-fallen buildings and whatever holes they were hiding in. “You’d better get going unless you have enough food for everyone.”

  “Right, thanks for the info,” I said, pushing my window up.

  “Thanks for the pie! Good luck,” he said, distancing himself from me.

  As soon as my side window was back up, I drove away. I didn’t drive far, just out of sight then down a street. There was an overpass with a bunch of old crates piled around, so I found I spot where I could still see the sky but I was mostly hidden and hovered in. With everything turned off, I got out to stretch, and started my watch.

  Another three days passed. During that time I fixed the balance issues in my hover car so it drove straighter, repaired the locks on the doors and made a remote fob for myself using my last computer and watched the sky. I was so bored by the beginning of day three that I started knotting my hair in little braids while I sat on the roof of my car. I was starting to worry about food. I had five meal bars and three lime turnovers, the worst of the dehydrated vending machine foods. It was enough for a week and a half if I conserved.

  “Hey, you still expecting a delivery, driver-man?” asked a woman who was dressed in some kind of rough brown containment suit with a fine ball gown over top. It looked like she’d been digging through the sewers on her hands and knees, and her hair was a vertical plume of brown and black. I’m not usually one to judge on appearance, but I recoiled a little. The accent she had reminded me of that idiot I’d knocked out a year ago who spoke really bad Pigeon. “Hey, driver-man, you have pie for me? You give me pie, I don’t sing about your car to all the empty bellies.”

  I drew Needler and waved it in her direction. “I’ve got some bang for you,” I replied.

  She recoiled, eyes wide, ducking with her hands up, and I regretted drawing on her. This lady was probably as bored as I was but much hungrier. It really looked like she came round to tease me a bit and maybe get something to eat. I shoved Needler back into its holster. “Sorry, just been under a few people’s boots, you know? I’m a little jumpy.”

  “No worry, no care,” she replied, easing a little but starting to move on. “Just movin’ on, gettin’ on,” she said.

  I tossed her one of my lime pies and she snatched it out of the air. “Keep my spot secret, yeah? Sorry about the scare.”

  “Yeah, can’t talk while eating, fly-man,” she said, running off.

  I had a feeling everyone would know exactly where I was by nightfall. With a quiet curse, I got in the driver’s seat, started the car up and headed for a mall I remembered seeing on the outskirts of town. It had turned into another settlement, with so many people that some of them slept in makeshift tents on the roof. I momentarily imagined a brood ship touching down, the eggs hatching. The hatchlings would have no problem feeding on the hundreds there. I moved on, pushing those thoughts away. I hit a few convenience stores, not finding much until I blasted the bars on the last one open with Slagger. There were people only a couple blocks over, the sound of my car and the flash of light would definitely draw them closer, so I stuffed my backpacks with the meal bars, then grabbed armfuls of unopened boxes from the medical and snack shelves.

  I looked at my haul after a few trips between the car and the store and shook my head. There was enough food there for two months if I rationed, probably three. There were medications, emergency recovery systems, burn kits and more medical stuff than I’d ever need. “Well, New Years is coming early, I guess.”

  I drove off as I spotted a crowd running towards either my car or the store. Pulling my window down, I shouted; “Store’s open, guys! There’s a year’s worth of food and other crap in there. Sharing is caring!”

  My old spot was out of the question, so I found another one under a fallen sensor tower not far from the clearing. “All right, everything’s gotta fit in one backpack,” I said. In the back seat I carefully chose medical supplies for burns and vacuum exposure, enough meal bars to get me through a month, and a few choice treats. With Theo’s remains in the bottom of the bag not everything fit, so I ended up loading the remainder in my pockets. It wasn’t so bad that it hindered my movement, but if I lost a piece of clothing, I would be saying goodbye to some of my food and supplies. I tried powering on a hoverboard I snagged for fun, and wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work. “Damn, always wanted one of those. I’d probably break my neck anyway.”

  I could imagine Theo cautioning me, asking why humans liked the thrill of speed without protection so much, and I laughed. “I don’t know, but I can’t stop chasing the rush.”

  “You find someone new?” asked the dark fellow I met when I drifted into the area days before.

  “Nah, just talking to myself,” I told him. “Here.” I tossed him a meal bar. “I just hit a store a few blocks away.

  “I heard,” he said. “Thanks. I’m Andy. Any idea when that food delivery you talked about is coming?”

  “Man, I wish I knew. I’ve only seen one, and it was hundreds of klicks away. Why?” I looked at what remained in my back seat. There was a backpack and the rest of the supplies I’d stolen, enough to feed someone for over a month at least, and enough medical supplies to open a small clinic.

  “I made the mistake of telling a few people about that when you first came. I wasn’t serious, of course; told them I thought you were crazy. They’re clinging to it like it was universal truth anyway: food is coming, the stranger in the hovercar said so.”

  “I’m sorry, man, I don’t know much more than anyone. I’m stuck here like you guys.”

  “Not really like us,” he said, holding up the meal bar for a moment before stuffing it into his pocket. I was a little surprised he wasn’t going to eat it right away. “Especially with a working car.”

  “Barely working,” I said. “Had to scavenge and work for it.” I reached into the back seat and grabbed a few more meal bars for myself, enough for a week, and then I backed up and smiled at him crookedly. “People are starving, yeah?”

  “They’re trying to ration what they’ve got in the building I’m holed up in. I’m with a few friends who came late and didn’t get a spot in the Commerce Complex. So, yeah, my people are empty.”

  “That’s who you’re saving that bar for?” I asked.

  “I’ll drop it in the pot later. We melt and mix everything together in a soup we make every day. Something an old guy started in the building. Tastes like random chemicals and garbage, but it keeps us alive,” he said. “Just barely better than starving.”

  I crooked my finger at him and gestured to the back seat of the car. “Think this’ll help
?” I asked.

  He came over slowly, like he didn’t know what to expect. “You’re teasing me, man, that’s just wrong all over,” he said, surprised at the corner store bounty.

  “Listen, I’ve got a spare backpack. Fill it up and get this stuff to your people. Any chance they’d want to come with me when I steal a ship?”

  “Naw, they all think you’re crazy like I do, but I’ll take what you’re offering. You should hide your ride and come back with me, get a proper thanks. They’re good people. So you want to give me all this, no strings?”

  “No strings. I took too much for myself,” I said, grinning.

  “I’m gonna start calling you Robin Hood,” he said, grabbing the empty backpack and getting into the back seat. My backpack with Theo and my supplies was already hanging off my shoulder.

  I couldn’t stand there, watching him load up without trying to warn him. “Listen, there’s something coming, you’d never believe me if I told you what, but everyone here is going to die,” I told him. “The Order is going to wipe everything out.”

  “But you say they’ll be delivering food,” he replied, stuffing handfuls of snacks and meal bars into the bag. “Which is it? Forced resettlement, or murder?”

  “I said I saw food delivered once, not that it’s going to happen regularly or for everyone. Besides, it’s not really the Order who are going to kill everyone here, but who they’re trying to protect themselves from. It’s a bug race that’s threatening the galaxy, and the Order put the virus out there to make the Milky Way seem less appealing for hatching broods, but they saw through the Order’s plan. Now they’re making brood worlds with lots of humans who are disarmed for the broods to feed on. I don’t know how many people you’re helping now, but if they’ll fit on the ship I steal, they’ve gotta get on board and get out of here.”