Illegal operation, p.8
Illegal Operation, page 8
“See, Tedd. You can fly when you believe in yourself,” says Autotruck.
The three of us smile.
We’re broken and battered. But we’re alive.
The hills flatten and fade around us as we approach the flatlands.
Plumes of faint-red dust billow away from us on either side.
We’re nearly there – the desolate home of the smelting depot.
I get it now.
The thing that Sarah is holding on to and protecting so fiercely.
The distant spark.
A flickering unseen flame beyond the horizon.
The promise of something unknown that could become real.
Hope.
We are alive. And we have hope.
Chapter 17
Clouds of dust swirl all around us as we come in to land with a gentle bump.
Kyle crosses his chest with his fingers and looks up at the sky.
“Perfect landing,” says Autotruck. “Even if I say so myself.”
“Not bad,” I say.
The fence around the smelting depot is just a couple of hundred meters away.
“Get out,” says Autotruck, “I’ve got places to be.”
“Thanks for the ride,” says Sarah.
“Yeah, thanks, man,” says Kyle.
Sarah bends down and lifts me up from the floor.
“Where are you flying off to next?” I ask.
“I figured I’d get some target practice in by firing missiles at Enforcer wagons on the freeway.”
“Sounds like a flan,” I say.
Kyle slides open the door, and we all clamber out onto the red dirt.
Sarah and Kyle hunch over, squinting their eyes against the dust and wind of the propellers.
Kyle slams the door.
Sarah walks us clear beyond the spinning blades and turns back.
Autotruck hovers for a second then pitches his nose upwards. He shoots up into the sky with a thunderous roar.
We watch on as he circles over the depot, then banks left and glides off into the distance.
“Get down!” says Kyle, dropping to his belly.
The dirty metal trash truck is heading toward the depot. And us.
We’re right next to the road.
Sarah half drops and tosses me at the base of a cactus, then lies in the dirt.
The trash truck rumbles closer. There’s no driver. But a clunker is in the passenger seat, its head turning this way and that.
The truck screeches to a halt in a cloud of dust.
“Stay still,” I whisper.
“No shit, Einstein,” says Sarah.
The clunker opens its door and climbs down from the truck. Its head scanning in our direction.
It plods toward us. Every clunking step fires up a small cloud of dust.
Closer now. One of its feet treads right onto a small cactus, squashing it instantly.
Sarah is holding her breath, and Kyle has his eyes closed.
The clunker comes to a stop. Its feet are just inches from my face.
“Unauthorized trash disposal. No trash permitted outside of the depot perimeter.”
Oh God.
The clunker bends down and scoops me up in its giant arms. I look down, and Sarah flinches as if she’s about to lunge. I look at her and shake my head.
The clunker carries me back to the truck. Despite its clodhopping gait, it doesn’t feel as if I’m moving at all.
It walks to the back of the truck and throws me in the back.
Balls.
I thought I’d at least be getting a ride up front.
But no, I’m here. With car wreckage, mangled cans of Litho, and assorted shards and torn sheets of metal.
And not an arm in sight.
The truck drives. The rusted entry arch to the smelting depot passes overhead.
The bed lifts at an angle, just like it always does. I slide out the back with all the other scrap.
The clunker plods over and bends down.
Don’t pick me. Don’t pick me. Don’t pick me.
It picks me.
Maybe the clunker will think I’m precious enough to go to the salvage shed.
It plonks me onto the conveyor belt.
Not so precious then.
My circuits try to tell me I’ve been here before. How I’ve gone full circle. How I’m going to die here. But I fight every signal and every electron.
An engine screams out.
Or is it a human?
Yes, it’s a human.
It’s Kyle, holding a football-sized rock above his head and sprinting toward the clunker. He’s making an ear-splitting screeching sound as he runs.
The conveyor belt is still moving.
I feel warmer.
Kyle flings the rock at the clunker. It pings against its metal stomach and bounces off to the ground. The clunker looks down at its belly, then back to Kyle.
Then the clunker picks up the rock and lifts it high above its head.
Kyle runs, screaming even louder.
Suddenly the sky is spinning. I’m off the conveyor.
Sarah’s scooped me up, and we’re running.
“Nobody’s smelting my Tedd,” she says.
She said ‘my.’
“Shit!” shouts Kyle, looking back over his shoulder.
The clunker launches the rock toward him. It loops high into the air and comes crashing down in front of him. He clatters into it and lands, face down, in the dirt.
Sarah places me down on the dirt and walks back toward the depot.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask.
“You need arms and legs,” she says.
She gives the clunker a wide berth, though it’s too focused on Kyle to bother with her.
It walks toward Kyle with pounding steps.
Kyle scrambles and stands up. He should run away. But he doesn’t.
He waves his arms like an inflatable tube man and screams like a boiling lobster.
Then he runs.
Not away, but toward the clunker. It tilts its large, bulbous head.
Kyle dodges at the last second and runs around it in circles, screaming.
He looks insane.
The clunker shuffles around on the spot in a slow circle, in time with Kyle’s demonic dance. The clunker faces me every few seconds but doesn’t see me. It’s mesmerized by Kyle.
A flash of movement in the background catches my eye.
Sarah.
She darts past the clunker toward the corrugated salvage shed. I hope there’s something good in there. And she’d better be quick.
I don’t know how long Kyle can keep the clunker entertained.
The dirt around me trembles.
Oh no.
Another truck drives through the entrance.
It reverses right past me and lifts its bed, dumping its load. A clunker climbs down from its cab and plods around the back, then stops dead at the sight of Kyle doing his thing.
“Unit 404, why are you not loading trash onto the conveyor?” it says.
“Hello, unit 405. I am watching the funny dancing human.”
“But that is against trash-loading protocol.”
“I know. But look at him. See how his arms move. Listen to the tuneful screaming.”
“I fail to understand. He is just moving around. And around and around and …”
Now Kyle has an audience of two.
Sarah emerges from the salvage shed with something that gives me the chills.
A wheelbarrow.
But it’s loaded with promising-looking chrome arms and legs. She wheels it past the Kyle show and toward me.
“I didn’t have time to check everything over, but there’s some options,” she says.
She sets it down.
Then, she lifts me up and places me on top of the pile of arms and legs.
Trash droid in a trash pile. Again.
Sarah puts two fingers in her mouth and blows a loud whistle to Kyle. He looks up and nods.
“Hey,” I say. “You’ll have to teach me that one day.”
She smiles.
Kyle stops dancing, takes a bow and sprints over to us.
The clunkers look at each other, then at Kyle.
“More!” they shout in unison, their arms outstretched.
They plod toward us, slowly at first. But then quickly speed up into a ground-pounding run.
“More! More!”
“I’ll take Tedd,” says Sarah. “You get the wheelbarrow.”
She lifts me up and into her arms.
Kyle grabs the wheelbarrow and runs to the trash truck. Sarah runs after him.
I bounce around, but I don’t care. The pounding of the clunkers is getting close.
“Any of the arms got a palm connector?” I say.
“Yes, a couple. Kyle, we need a palm connector!”
Kyle sprints right up the tipped bed of the truck with the wheelbarrow. He grabs hold of the side of the truck and sprawls over the barrow to stop its contents from falling out.
He rummages around and pulls an arm out.
“Here!” he shouts. “And flatten the truck bed, ASAP!”
Sarah runs along the side of the truck. The shiny chrome arm spins through the air.
She catches it.
But drops me.
I land in the dirt with a thud.
“Sorry, Tedd.”
The clunkers are at the back of the truck trying – and failing – to walk up the incline and get to Kyle.
“Hurry, guys!” he shouts. “My fan club is getting restless.”
Sarah opens the passenger door, puts the arm on the plastic seat and comes back for me.
She clambers over the center console and sits in the driver’s seat. I’m on her lap.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asks.
“Does anyone?”
“What? No, I mean with this truck – the palm connector?”
“Stick the arm in me and let’s find out!”
The clunkers are still pounding on the metal ramp behind us.
Kyle sounds like he’s complaining at how slow I’m being.
But it’s muffled, so I’m gonna pretend I can’t hear it.
Sarah grabs the arm and rams it into my shoulder joint with a clank.
I move its joints. All good.
Finger wiggle. Perfect.
I reach up and place my palm connector onto the truck’s manual ignition.
Nothing.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?” says Sarah.
“Wait.”
I scour my internal drives looking for the hack modules that autotruck gave me, way back when. I find a DroidHub repository, several seasons of Real Robowives of Richmond and, wait – found it!
I run the command. The truck starts.
“Well, look at that,” says Sarah. “You do know what you’re doing.”
“Oh, ye of little faith. Now press that.”
I point to an orange button on the dash. She pushes it.
The truck bed grinds its way to horizontal, and its rear wall closes.
The clunkers are still pounding their fists on the back of the truck.
I look up at Sarah.
“Put your foot down,” I say. “I haven’t got any!”
Chapter 18
Sarah rams her foot onto the accelerator.
I slide back on her lap as we drive off.
“How do we get to the HQ?” she asks.
“It’s easy enough, but I can’t navigate from down here.”
She lifts her thighs up to hold the steering wheel in place, then slides me over to the passenger seat.
I’m propped up on my torso using my one arm trying to keep my balance.
I open my window and shout back to Kyle.
“I could use a hand here. And two legs!”
“Give me a second to dig around!” he shouts back.
The scenery slides past my window. The rocky desert, cacti and the pale moon high in the late afternoon sky.
I can’t see the lunar settlements because of the daylight. But sometimes, if I get lonely at night on tour, I gaze up at their lights and wonder if someone is gazing down on me.
“Incoming!” shouts Kyle from the back.
I stretch out of the window and grab hold of another chrome arm.
“Thanks,” I say. “Any legs back there?”
“Yep, I’ll holler once I find ’em,” says Kyle.
I slam the arm into my spare shoulder socket. It comes online perfectly.
Ah, two arms.
I hold my hands together and interlace my fingers. It feels amazing.
Then, I join my palms together and tap my fingers against one another.
“Are you planning world domination?” asks Sarah.
“What? Oh, no. Just getting reacquainted with touch. I missed it.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like something a supervillain would say.”
I smile.
The white lines on the road zoom beneath us, brighter now that our headlights have turned on. Sarah seems lost in thought.
“Do you still believe?” I say.
“In what?”
“In Sammy. Do you think it’s possible he might still be alive?”
She tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear. “Yes. I have to believe. I can’t give up on him.”
“Teddy boy!” shouts Kyle. “One leg ready for ya!”
I grab the leg, a right one, and place it in front of the seat, its ball joint sticking upwards. Then, I press my hands against the ceiling and force my torso down onto it. It clicks satisfyingly into place.
I can feel the floor. I wiggle my toes and even kick the floor.
“What the hell are you doing over there?”
“Just making sure it works. And kicking shit feels good.”
“I’m not gonna argue with that.”
We pass small buildings and houses. Pylons spring up out of the desert dirt, like metal candles burning down as the sun dips down in the sky. The first few stars begin their pre-nighttime warm-up routine.
“What about Kyle?” I ask. “Is he still looking for the person he lost?”
“I think everyone would keep looking if their mother was taken in the night, don’t you?”
“Oh, man. That’s awful. Poor guy.”
“Yeah, he’s messed up, alright,” she says. “It doesn’t excuse some of the stuff he’s done. But you just don’t know how shit like that will affect you, you know?”
“Kinda. I’m gonna sound like a dick now. But I’m jealous you guys have lost someone you ever cared about so much. I know that’s wrong.”
“No, I get that. I do. You’ve never had a family.”
“I feel as if the three of us misfits are like some sort of family though, right?”
“We’re definitely screwed up enough to be family!” she laughs.
“The last part of your order is ready, sir!” shouts Kyle.
I grab the left leg by the foot and hoist it through the window.
“Thanks, man. Appreciate it.”
The leg has the same chrome finish as the other, but it’s different somehow. More slender. More shapely at the hip. My new leg has come from a female PleasureBot.
I hold it up in front of me, turning it around and inspecting it with disdain.
“Haha! You’ll have guys throwing money at you with that on!” says Sarah.
“Well, you fucking chose it! I thought you said I had options.”
“You do. You can hop. Or you can start a side hustle.”
She snickers.
“Did you know – only psychopathic narcissists laugh at their own jokes?”
“No, I didn’t know that. But I do know a store in the city where you can get a red high heel to go with your new leg.” She stifles a laugh.
I gaze out of the window then look at Sarah.
“What are you smiling at?” she says. “What is it?”
I look away.
Happy – I feel happy.
And not alone.
“Oh, nothing,” I say.
The city looms large up ahead.
The day is over, and the light has gone.
And this moment along with it.
I bend over to connect the leg to my torso. I creak a little.
It pops in and I turn to Sarah. My neck’s stiff too.
Need fluid.
“I need a Litho,” I say.
“We’ll have to stop then. I could definitely eat.”
“Yeah, and you look kinda tired,” I say.
“Gee, thanks!”
“No, I just mean you should refuel. You might have to sit outside HQ for a while, waiting for me.”
“If you’re not out in five minutes, I’m leaving,” she says.
I tilt my head.
“I’m joking, dummy!” she says.
“Oh, I knew that.”
“Ask Kyle what he wants. I’ll pull in here.”
A gas station light glows up ahead.
I open my window. The chilly night air rushes and streetlights whizz by.
“We’re doing a quick pit stop,” I shout. “What’s your order?”
“Cigarettes, beer, and a hot dog.”
I pull my head back into the cab.
“He says he wants—”
“I heard him. But I’m not getting him a beer,” says Sarah.
We pull off into the gas station.
It’s busy.
It’s brightly lit with neon flashing signs.
People enter and leave through its automatic doors. Several cars, trucks and auto bikes line up outside. Inside the store, a long line of people wait at the checkout, their heads bobbing between the many colorful rows of products.
“The usual for you?” Sarah asks.
“Please. Oh, and you might wanna clean up.”
I point to my face to show her where some blood has congealed from the cut on hers.
We come to a stop.
Sarah climbs out of the cab and goes into the store.
The flashing neon reflects off my chrome arms. I twist them in front of me. They’re shiny. I like them. They’ve definitely not seen any outdoor work or industrial tours, that’s for sure.
Two auto bikes drive off, passengers astride them.
I look in the wing mirror.
More cars pull into the gas station. A Nitro SportStar, a beat-up Ford and a …
Shit. An Enforcer wagon.
I open my window.
“Psst! Kyle! Keep low – Enforcers.”
