Tag: Science

Three Day Quote Challenge: Day 1

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

So, here’s the deal, RaxtusDragon (a most excellent young writer you should all read!) has nominated me for a quote challenge. I have to say I’m humbled. Truly. I tend to think of myself as a rambling fool checked only by successive revisions that…

Hmm, moving along.

For three (nonconsecutive) days I’m to think up a quote then some people to nominate to continue the trend. I won’t hold any of the nominees to the fire to do this, but nominations are a sign that I enjoy your words. So without further padding for time, I present Day 1:

“The Universe is our home. It just so happens our point of origin’s a spheroid we call Earth.” -SMN

 

Thank you again to RaxtusDragon for the nomination.

My nominees (Day 1):

1. PoetGirlEm

2. OnTheHeath

3. EverythingINeverToldYou

For the nominees wondering about more direct rules:

1.Three quotes for three days (From you.)
2.Three nominees each day (no repeats).
3.Thank the person who nominated you. (I use a lotta’ these don’t I?)
4.Inform the nominees. (This is the last one, I promise.)

(Okay, I lied.)

Short Story: Then What?

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Sounds and smells of hammered and welded steel emanated incessantly from the garage. Edwin Malcolm’s neighbors had long since resorted to ear-plugs, letting come what may. Even in the middle of the night– or rather, especially in the middle of the night, Edwin found need to be working on something. The middle-aged inventor was a spitting image of a mad-scientist: his hair wild, white, and clothing appropriately frumpled. He fell short at evil genius, thus was left merely a lonely, sad man pitied by even the local police.

That had not always been the state of things. Edwin was once a prominent, high-school science teacher. He inspired even the laziest students to sit up, take notice. His enthusiasm and unparalleled respect garnered him more than one “Teacher of the Year” award. The transition to reclusive hermit obsessively working nights had come about tragically. Indeed, his first night that rolled over into day– and set his diurnal hibernation in motion– had been the same his wife was hit by a drunk driver. She lasted all of twelve hours. By noon the next day she was dead, along with any hope for Edwin’s sanity.

He took indefinite sabbatical, hadn’t returned since. No-one had the heart to cut off his benefits– not even the state-people that managed to rouse him from sleep during the day. He was less than half a man now. Even when others came for condolences, they found a slowly disintegrating husk of a man. The clean-shaven, well-groomed man was now a scruffy, stinking, Gollum-like creature with little to say, let alone teach.

His tragic demise spread so far and wide most of his former students came to console him. Always he was awoken from sleep, looking paradoxically as if he’d not had any in weeks, and stinking of sweat and day-old whiskey. Contrary to revulsion, both host and guest settled in for short, tired conversations. Such moments made Edwin’s change most obvious. He was not the razor-honed, one-track mind his students had known. Rather, he was scatter-brained, anxious, always accommodating but to a point where nothing deep could ever be broached. Guests invariably left dejected, and Edwin lapsed back into exhaustion until night when work began again.

One, former-student sought to change things. It had taken ages for news of his state to reach her, but she found it best to seek him in his natural habitat. Over a decade had passed since he’d impacted her life, but to discredit it over that missed the enormous contribution he’d made to her life. Denise had been a student whose school-life was an escape from her hellish home-life. Instead of using that time wisely, she made trouble, fought, failed classes, and everything else such kids did at her age. Years later, she’d become the first to agree she’d been one.

Edwin’s house appeared as night set. Winter’s early darkness hung heavy overhead. Denise was used to the cold. Her most recent job had been in a harsher clime, but somehow this cold felt excessive. Negative temperatures in the midwest? Who’d ever heard such nonsense? Still, she wouldn’t leave without seeing him.

She thunked a triplet on the door. The sound should’ve been lost in the garage’s clatter. Somehow, Edwin heard it. Or perhaps, he sensed her shivering presence, rushed to its aid. The door cracked. Edwin’s wild eyes peered out beneath wilder hair. He squinted, surveyed her up and down.

“Mr. Malcolm?” Denise said solemnly.

Edwin always had a good memory for faces, but he was admittedly lost until he heard that voice. It contained a perforated, angelic quality that had only ripened with age. True she was taller, leaner, better dressed and groomed, and more pale, but Edwin knew Denise’s voice. It was difficult to forget: he and most of her peers had become experts at manufacturing excuses for her speak. Its gentleness had been so rarely employed then that its innocence was superbly comforting. It always lulled him into a trance– he and everyone else that heard it.

“D-Denise Collins?” Edwin said, easing the door open. She gave a small nod. “C-Come in. It’s freezing out there!”

Denise thanked him, completely oblivious this was the most lively Edwin had been in years. His changes were soon evident as he rushed back and forth preparing coffee, mindlessly preening the house, and inviting her to sit on a couch. With a cup of coffee before each of them, he set down to speak as lightly as possible. Denise allowed it, for now.

“Tell me everything,” he said, hoping her voice might lull away his pains.

She began with her most recent field of study; the arctic. She and her team had been researching global warming effects on polar ice via extracted core samples. By deducing CO2 content over the various eons, she said, they hoped to better understand just how great an impact humans had made. Edwin was enthralled, both by her discipline and ever-lulling voice. She reached present day and gave a short explanation of what had led her to him.

“I spoke with Melody Parsons. She was in your class with me. I’d heard a new driller was transferred out to help nearby, and that she’d come from my hometown. I met with her and saw it was her. That’s when I heard about your wife.”

Reality smacked Edwin in the face. He was suddenly up, refilling the coffee cups, wiping down the coffee-table, straightening things that didn’t need it. Denise saw the acts for what they were, allowed them until they passed their logical conclusion. It was then that she stood beside him at a kitchen counter. The situation was delicate, required a transference of his madness from one subject to another. She engaged him with a simple question that tempted his natural exposition.

“I heard you working in the garage,” she said carefully. “What is it you’re doing?”

“Hmm?” Then, more dismissively, “Oh that. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just a fever-dream.”

“Really? May I see it?” She asked, knowing she had him by the extensive whiskers.

Denise had never been stupid. In fact, once she’d applied herself and her home-life faded into the background of strife adulthood brought, she’d become an honor-student, a Dean’s-Lister, and an Honor Graduate. She’d been accepted into MENSA, spent time as a researcher at MIT, then formed her own team to study the Arctic Ice. Needless to say, she knew exactly how Edwin would react. Edwin likewise, saw exactly how he’d been manipulated, but for wishing to hear her speak further, allowed it. They stood just inside his garage, Denise stared at a concoction of piping and bits of steel intermingled with gauges and a myriad of other instruments. A sort of cage enclosed a van’s rear-bench seats half-crowded by pipes running around them.

Denise was breath-taken, “What is it?”

“Take a seat,” Edwin said calmly.

They twisted and turned, slipped through the pipes. With a thrown switch, a loud hum grew to a deep grumble. The device thrummed. Something sparked. Light descended in a dome. Denise reached out to touch the field of blue, her hand repelled by a power anti-magnetism.

“A force-field?”

“To protect us… and them.”

He threw another switch: bright light flashed. The pair were suddenly sitting before an open garage door in bright daylight. Denise’s brow furrowed. A car rolled into the drive-way, oblivious to their presence. Its door opened. A duplicate Edwin appeared from one side. He looked as he’d been when Denise knew him. He jogged to the car door and a beautiful young woman there. The Edwin beside Denise teared up, sniffled quietly. His duplicate embraced his wife for a moment before thgey walked, hand-in-hand, out of view.

A second flash replaced the closed door. The blue force-field sank away. All went quiet, still– including the two travelers. When noise finally returned, it was Denise building to amazement.

“Woah.” She swallowed hard, “You built a time machine?”

Edwin sighed, his body deflating with a sad nods. “Every night, for years, I’ve come here to watch them– us– to see her again. Each time the trip’s a little longer, but I can only maintain the connection for short bursts. It’s why I am always working, trying to squeeze even a second longer from the machine to see her come down the road… or anything else.”

Denise’s heart ached, but reality was painful. “Mr. Malcolm, I know it’s harsh, but this isn’t real. It was, but it isn’t now. You can’t effect it. You can’t change what happened. All you’re doing’s lingering, wallowing. These things happened, sure, but they’re supposed to remain inside you, to remind you life is worth living. Not to be the focus of its dwindling time.”

Edwin was quiet for a long time. The look on his face said he’d taken her words to heart. She knew she’d had at least a partial impact. She needed to make it stick though. There was only one avenue she saw to do so.

“You’ve inspired so many lives in your time. You could inspire infinitely more. You’ve done something no-one else can do, and there’s fodder in that to hide the truth if you need, but you have to ask yourself: is this really what she’d want for you?”

His eyes were teary. They rose to meet hers, “I know you’re right.” He hesitated a long time, then, “But I’ve become numb. I don’t know how to go back to what I was.”

She frowned, “You don’t. You change, grow, incorporate it into you. Adapt and evolve.”

“How?”

She managed a small smile, “I owe you a lot. I’ll help. Whatever you need.”

He gave a desperate laugh that mingled with a sob. It incised both of their hearts. “I need sleep.”

“Then go and get it,” Denise insisted. “I’ll be back in the morning to wake you, I promise.”

They climbed from the time machine. Edwin headed into the house. Denise followed. He glanced back at her, “So you’ll be here? Then what?”

She shook her head, “One thing at a time.”

He felt weight lift from his shoulders. Simultaneously, Denise felt some settle on hers. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. After all, she owed him. He’d put her life on track. That friendship was worth the weight and more. Now, she’d just have to show him as much. Then what? Who knows? Maybe life.

Short Story: Never Greener

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

His eyes had long ago drooped. Deep black and purple accented their sockets. His face was emaciated, as much from lack of nutrition as sleepless nights. More than he cared to remember. The world outside was dead to him, him to it. The two had mutually agreed: he no longer needed sunlight, no matter how paste-white his complexion.

Billy Renard was pushing thirty. He’d long ago given up hope for anything more from life– sometime in his mid-twenties, really, but he couldn’t recall the details. All he knew was the utter contempt he’d developed for the world. It felt no different for him. His extensive, repetitive failures were to blame. Then again, such failures would send even most optimistic into furtive sobs.

Currently, Billy’s pasty skin was illuminated by a soul-sucking programming application he’d opened. His hands rebounded along mechanical keys. The rhythm was as sluggish as his brain had become. He’d largely checked-out, was working off sheer adrenaline and intuition– that, and an unending compulsion to turn thoughts into commands. His desk was from an obsessive-compulsive’s nightmare. Paper cups. Old plates. Moldy food. Beer and soda cans. Ashtrays piled into stinking mountains. Miscellaneous clutter so dense as to be indistinguishable to tired, watery eyes. Billy certainly had those, along with a hefty BO and the wretch-inducing appearance of one who’s neither bathed nor re-dressed in over a week.

Strung-out was an understatement. He barely felt human anymore. He hadn’t spoken to in anyone in weeks. Had lost track of the last time he’d dated. Even then, it was a few minutes of fumbling about for conversation before inevitably giving up. As usual he went home, settled into his place at his computer.

His hands came to a halt and his eyes made slow, incongruous blinks. His brain attempted ridiculing them for their misrepresentations. This time, they were honest. Billy was finally finished. It was only a matter of moments before he’d know for certain if all his work and self-exile was worth it. He rose from his chair on rubber legs. They’d become accustomed to the rough-seas of this life. His involuntary swagger compensated for the tilting room. He swayed for a cylindrical capsule nearby that something from an old space-travel film– the sort of makeshift aircraft built from imaginations unaware of things like G-Forces.

He angled his shoulders in, faced away from the door. The cylinder was just wide enough to fit in, but too narrow for any hope of angling in it. A door sealed shut behind him. A hiss sounded. His stomach lurched. Vile acid burned his tongue. A bright flash disoriented him into a slump. The door of the cylinder wrenched open. A burst of smoke and sparks ejected Billy. He soared through the air, landed in a heap against a wall. His exhausted brain took in a few, unfocused blinks, and he fell unconscious.

Billy awoke utterly refreshed. He couldn’t recall having slept so well in his entire life. His eyes took a moment to focus against a blinding, white light. He blinked away water, put a hand up to shield his eyes. His newly invigorated brain knew it made sense: he’d been sitting in the dark staring at a screen from a month.

He was about to question why his room was suddenly bright when it focused. It was no longer his room– or any room he’d ever visited. The walls were stainless steel, the floor too. Everything shined like freshly-polished chrome, including the bed-frame he’d somehow found his way into.

A voice suddenly sounded beside him, “Billy!?”

His head whipped at it so fast he nearly broke his own neck. “Jenna?”

The petite, freckled blonde girl fell from a chair to her knees. She instantly burst into tears. Her head fell into Billy’s lap. He froze. His mind ran wind-sprints, plowed through hurdles with lumbering clumsiness. He aimed for a finish-line he hoped might form any logical conclusion. All he found was himself eating pavement, more perplexed than ever.

“Jenna?” He repeated aloud.

“I thought you were dead!” She sobbed. “You were in a coma for weeks.”

“I was?”

“And I couldn’t bear losing you–”

“You couldn’t?”

She withdrew to pull her chair over, “Of course not. Not on our anniversary of all things!”

His eyes might’ve crossed from confusion. He and Jenna had dated approximately two months five years ago. They’d been madly in love the entire time, but one bout of drunken stupidity ended it all: Billy slept with Jenna’s sister. Worse, she caught them in bed together. Despite Billy forgetting almost the entire night, there was no defense for what he’d done. Jenna left and hadn’t spoken to him since.

Now, she was kissing him, deep and long, with that same love she’d had when they were together. His body reacted on instinct, but his mind lagged behind. When she finally pulled away, she looked him over with a curious sadness.

“What? What is it?”

He sat up in the bed, hands out, flat and low, to stay any further progression of things. “Jenna, we broke up five years ago.”

“What?” She recoiled with disgust. “Is this some kind of sick joke? I think you’ve died on our Anniversary. I sit here for weeks, waiting for you to wake up. Then, when you finally do, you start … acting like this? What the hell’s wrong with you, Billy?”

His mind reeled: Anniversary. His stomach to plummeted. He and Jenna had never made it past that two-month mark. The incident with the cylinder rushed back. But no, it couldn’t have worked. It was impossible. Even all that work, he never expected it to perform. And even if it had, how was this possible? The odds were so astronomically improbable, it was absurd. But then, here he was here. Evidently, whoever he was supposed to be was with Jenna. Judging by the massive diamond on her hand, they were married. How?

He deflated with a long, exhaustive sigh. “Jenna, what happened before I was brought here?”

“You don’t remember?” She asked, teary-eyed.

He was careful not to give too much away, “Were you there?” She nodded. “Walk me through it, step-by-step.”

“You finished the coding in your lab. Then, when you were ready, you hugged and kissed me, and stepped into the device. A second later the thing went nuts and threw you back across the room.”

“Unreal.” She squinted. “You knew what I was doing?” Again, she nodded.

He eased himself to the bed’s edge, sat before her and prepared to lie his way from the room. Her baby-blue eyes stopped him. They glistened with such admiration and love that he was lost in them. His mind threatened to whisk him away, but he wouldn’t allow it. He needed to be honest with her, for his own sake. To say she hadn’t been the best thing in his life would’ve been a lie. She didn’t deserve further disrespect, especially not after what he’d done before, elsewhere.

“Jenna,” he said with a pained look. “I’m not… me.” She was visibly taken-aback. It made him wince. “You know what I was working on, so you must know the theory I was working with.”

She nodded along, “Inter-dimensional travel. You confirmed the multiverse theory a decade ago, Billy. Everyone knows that.”

He swallowed hard: a decade. Had it been that long? He was 19 at the time, so it must’ve been, if his mind wasn’t failing him now. The fame it afforded made him a celebrity. He got rich off books and public appearances, then pissed most of the money away testing his theories. Amid that pissing away, he’d met Jenna, fallen in love, screwed her sister, then himself for life. Since then, he’d been living off royalties, as much a recluse as a burn-out.

“Jenna, the Billy you knew… he’s gone.”

Her eyes widened, instantly leaking water. “What?”

He winced, “There are only two possible variations according to my theory. One states an inter-dimensional traveler will arrive to find himself in an alternate timeline, meeting himself in the process.” Her face wavered, trembled with sorrow, “The other states–”

“That the traveler will replace himself, eradicating one of the two…”

“I’m sorry, Jenna,” he said with genuine sorrow.

She burst into sobs. Whatever his alter-self had with her was gone. Both of them knew it. Billy’s stomach plummeted to his feet. It should’ve been him. He’d only kept working to spite the world. He was a wretched creature of contempt. His alter-self wasn’t. Jenna’s grief said as much. Whatever the future held, he was stuck here. The only thing he could think to do was slink off the bed to coddle Jenna as she wept– a human thing, rather than an intimate one.

No matter what anyone said, Billy knew firsthand the grass wasn’t greener on the other side. Not for him, or his alter-self, or the woman they’d loved.

Hijack: Part 11 (Conclusion)

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

11.

Carl’s house was a little place on the edge of Oakton and Masseville. It was once a nice, quaint place to live. Following his divorce, Carl’d let the place go. The yard was a jungle of knee-high thistle and rough grasses. Even its expertly-maintained past couldn’t downplay its abandoned look. The beat-up Chevy rolled up to the house and came to a stop. It’s occupants look to Gail.

She glanced back at Marla, then to Nora beside her, “Are we covered here?”

“Yes and no,” Nora admitted. “But we know he’s ready to run. We can’t risk losing him.”

Gail needed clarity. “How d’we know that?”

“He was in the garage earlier. Darian and I were combing engine parts. He would have known we were going to find the chip. He’s anticipating something. He’ll be ready to flee.”

Gail nodded. “Marla, go around back. Make sure he doesn’t sneak out. Let’s do it.”

The car’s doors opened, shut with intent. Marla sneaked for the far-side of the gravel driveway and disappeared. Gail and Nora swished through thigh-high grasses, toward the front of the house. The door opened. Carl’s figure hustled into the night, oblivious to their presence. Gail could just make out the bag slung over his shoulder. He angled for the driveway.

“Stop right there!” Nora shouted, holding her badge up. “OPD. Lower your belongings slowly and put your hands behind your head.”

A bright light flared on. Carl swiveled at them. The motion-activated flood-lights blinded the women. Gail’s sight returned: Carl’s bags were on the ground. His body leaned into a double-barrel shotgun.

“On your knees, both of you!” He shouted, finger poised. Nora didn’t carry a weapon. Her face said as much. Carl barked, clacked the double-hammers, “Do it!”

They knelt in the long grass. Its stalks stabbed their chests and necks. Gail shouted, “Put the gun down, Carl. You don’t want to do this.”

“Hell I don’t!” He sneered. “Twenty years of driving! Now they’re phasing us out. ‘N all you want’s to go down fighting. You’re a cunt, Gail. You always been a stubborn, hot-headed cunt. You don’t know shit about driving.”

“This isn’t about me, Carl.”

Nora added, “You’re looking at time. We have evidence. We’re building a case. Killing us doesn’t change that. Don’t make this harder on yourself.”

“The fuck would you know about it?” Carl blurted, turning the gun on Nora. “Your fancy-ass college education doesn’t know spit about bleeding or sweating for a living. How would you feel, huh? How’d you feel if all your life came crashing down? Then– then– you find out you’re being replaced by machines?”

“That’s not what’s happening, Carl,” Gail insisted. “I’m not selling the company.”

The shotgun trembled in his raging hands. He growled, “Don’t you get it, Gail? You can’t stop it. All you can do’s hope to hold out long enough. Hope to walk away saying you fought the good fight. And who takes the hit? You? No!” He spit at the ground in front of her. His tongue was acidic. Venomous spite misted the air, “No. It’s us that takes the hit. All that time between those offers. Waiting. Hoping. Thinking you’ll find a way to hold on. Keep the world from changing. And all the time those offers keep getting smaller. The noose gets a little tighter. The company’s a little less profitable. Whose gonna’ lose their paycheck, their benefits, when the garage goes under? When the machines take over? It won’t be the owners, it’ll be the drivers. The Union boys. ME!”

“Is that why you killed Buddy, Carl? Why you tried to kill me?” Gail asked. A shadow flitted behind him. Gail caught it, did her best to keep him distracted. “You made a deal with M-T, didn’t you? Plant the chips, they write you a check. That’s it, isn’t it? How much, Carl? How much did they give you to murder your friends? Did they promise you’d get away with it, too? Answer me!”

“You think you’re my friend, Gail?” He threw his head back with a laugh. “The only person you’re friends with is yourself. And only because you don’t realize how god-damned unbearable you are.” He re-shouldered the shotgun, “I’ll be doin’ the world a favor takin’ you out.”

His finger touched the trigger. A heavy rock slammed down against his head. He crumpled like a rag doll, unconscious. Marla tossed the rock aside, grabbed up the shotgun.

“Son of a bitch!” She spit with adrenaline.

Nora hurried over to slap hand-cuffs on Carl. Gail took the shotgun from her, “Nice job. Took long enough though.”

She heaved a sigh to calm herself, “I needed to hear him say it. We know the truth now.”

“I need to call this in,” Nora said. “We’ll have to book him, but the charges will stick ‘til we get the rest of the evidence. He’ll never see daylight again.”

Gail helped her to lift and carry Carl to the car. Marla rushed over, opened a door. They stuffed him inside, dispersed for different doors. They climbed in to head for the police station. Nora dialed her cell-phone.

The beater rocketed along, fueled as much by Gail’s fury as the need to exact revenge. Nora’s voice was a steady stream flowing into a phone to reveal everything. Having a gun pointed at her fueled her as much as it had Gail. Nora’s usually silken voice was grating from fury. She relayed everything, ending with a request to have a cell ready.

Gail wasn’t sure what would happen to Carl, but the Union wasn’t about to get near his defense. If the evidence held up, he’d be defended by lawyers bought with M-T’s money. Then again, if they wanted deniability, they might throw him to the wolves just for getting caught red-handed and pants-down.

Gail’s fury was only invigorated as they passed one of M-T’s A-I rigs. That the bastards had the gall to run them past her now was the ultimate slight. Auto-guided by software or not, it made her jaw clench. She grit her teeth, accelerated along the empty, rural road. Flashing hazards glowed ahead. Yellow emergency lights splayed across the roads and trees. A jack-knifed rig blocked both lanes just past an intersection and stop-sign. Gail rolled to a stop, hesitated. Nora eyed her carefully.

“Gail? Just go around.”

She glanced back at Marla and Carl; the latter was still unconscious, slumped against the left window. Marla was poised forward, squinting at the rig.

“One of yours?” Nora asked.

Gail was focused on the tow-rig in the oncoming lane. It was a new model Kenworth, based around the T680 body style. Its massive tow crane was still flat across its rear-end. Its lights spun with alternating splatters on the rig-body behind it– a similar T680 type. Her gut wrenched into a knot.

She choked out words, “Oh shit.”

Nora’s heart leapt into her throat, “What?”

Marla craned her neck around the side of the seat. Her eyes widened. Nora caught it, about to repeat herself. She saw it too: no driver. None for the tow-truck. None for the rig itself. The road was completely deserted. Nora squinted harder. Little bars were spaced along the trucks at bumper-level. More were doubled there and near the roof of the trailer. A-I sensors. Nora looked to Gail, her eyes focused on the rear-view mirror. Blinding headlights charged at them. A flash in the side-mirror caught the others’ attention.

Shouts went through the car to run or drive. Gail stared. Waited. It was obvious now. Far from being caught off-guard, Gail was going to use it to her advantage. Screaming apexed in her ears, rebounded off windows and doors. The face of the A-I rig sharpened as it bore down. Its lights blinded Nora and Marla, left imprints of high-beams and sensor strips.

Gail breathed. “Checkmate.”

Her foot hit the gas. The Chevy lurched, spun left through the intersection. It took a few yards of road before its brakes clamped down in a skidding stop. Exhaust and air brakes screamed and growled through the night. Gail wrenched around. The A-I rig was attempting the turn. It could never make it at such a speed. It jack-knifed, slid in an L toward the intersection.

Its software tried to compensate, lost equilibrium. It teetered at the intersection, overturned, rolled. A gut-splitting gnarl of metal and shattered glass echoed from the intersection. The charging rig rolled, smashed the other two at top speed. The tow-rig was demolished, along with the trailer of the second M-T rig. The twisted steel flipped and crashed. It ricocheted along the rural road, rebounded off trees and aged asphalt.

The trio stared at the wreck, frozen.

Then, the jack-knifed rig winked. It’s lights flickered on and off. Gail swallowed, dropped her boot on the gas. The M-T rig lurched to life, freed from its offending trailer. It revved after them like a locomotive rising to full-power. Gail’s beater struggled for higher gears. Her arms locked in front of her, knuckles white on the wheel.

“Jesus, Gail. Faster!” Marla cried.

Nora was kneeling in her seat, looking back dumbfounded. The rig’s high-beams lit, forced her back around. Her hands trembled to affix her seat-belt. “W-what do we do?”

“Get the fuck out of here!” Gail shouted, one eye on the rear-view.

She threw the car around a corner, lost traction on two wheels. The other two squealed to compensate. Old suspension groaned with a wheezing engine that sprinted for top speed. Air brakes sounded as the A-I rig rounded the corner nearby, fought to regain its pursuit.

“Shit,” Gail breathed.

She repeated the word over and over. Needles stabbed her foot from her pressure on the accelerator. They shot up her leg, into her torso, settled in her chest. It heaved with panting terror. However it was happening, the A-I was pursuing them. There was no escape.

Headlights flashed in the distance ahead. Another M-T rig manifested from the darkness. It barreled from beneath a canopied intersection, weaved into Gail’s lane. She was dimly aware of instructions and frightful cries. Her mind was hammer-down, fighting to slalom its way past certain death. Coupled with a complete loss as to escape, she almost froze.

The rigs charged them from both sides. One nudged the Chevy’s rear. It fishtailed with a burst of speed. The rig dropped back to compensate. It roared back up to her bumper. The one ahead stared them down, grew larger. It readied to sandwich them into the other. Gail tasted diesel fuel and blood on the air. The rigs would stop at nothing to end them. Whatever was controlling them wouldn’t rest until the witnesses to M-T’s crime were lost.

She felt the rumble of engines, sensed them ready to sandwich her. At the last possible second, she jerked the wheel left. The rear-right fender clipped a rig’s fairing. Marla and Nora screamed. Gail tensed up. The Chevy three-sixtied into the left lane. Wheels spun along grass at the top of a ditch. Grass and mud splattered the air. The two rigs collided head-on.

In the split second before steel was engulfed in flame, she saw the thwack of antennas. Heat of ignited fuel and oil tainted the car’s innards. Gail fought to regain control. Their spin arced toward the trailer of the wrecked rig. It missed by a hair’s breadth, came to a stop on the far-side of the road.

“GPS,” she said quickly. “They’re tracking us. Shut your phones off.”

“Gail!” Marla shouted, fumbling for her pocket.

More headlights were closing from three sides. The sat at the edge of an intersection. Gail’s eyes widened. She slammed on the gas. The Chevy’s tires spun, tearing away dirt and sprinting through and away.

“Shut them off! Now!” Gail ordered, fishing out her cell-phone.

The headlights closed, merged into a line of three-wide rigs. They expertly avoided spilling into ditches. She thumbed her phone’s off-switch, watched the wall of steel and fuel. It gained ground, closed. She expected to see it drop away. Instead, it continued gaining. Her stomach and heart were in her throat.

“It’s not working!” Marla squealed.

Nora craned to watch the rigs. “A-anymore id-deas?”

It didn’t make sense. There was no other way to track them except…

“Carl!” she said suddenly. “It isn’t about us.” Marla was already fishing through his pockets. “They want Carl dead. M-T does. They’re sending the rigs after him. We’re caught in the middle. They don’t want him telling anyone.”

“Shit,” Marla said, fumbling to pry apart the phone’s case. “It’s locked I can’t–”

The steel wall slammed their rear-end. The phone fell, slid under Nora’s seat. A din of various cries and demands rose. Marla ducked down, clawed for the phone. Her fingers caught its edge. The wall rammed them again: the phone jerked away.

“I… can’t–”

Metal crunched. The Chevy lurched again. The phone slid further under the seat. Marla’s hands struggled with her seat-belt. It gave way. Another ram threw her into the seat-back.

“Marla!?” Gail said, terrified. “Are you-”

“I got it!” She slammed it against the door to crack open the case, tore the back off the phone. She pried out the battery. “Shit, they’re still–”

“The sensors,” Nora cut in. “Break line-of-sight.”

Gail rubber-necked the area; they were in rural Masseville. The place was mostly forests and open fields. She spied a break in the trees. Dense wood and canopy gave way for a hundred yards to a wire-fenced field. It was worth a shot.

The Chevy’s engine topped out, screaming. The right rig lurched, slammed the bumpers together. The center rig made an attempt to get alongside her. She wouldn’t let it. The car swerved back and forth, kept the wall in check. Their software compensated. With a final jerk of the wheel, the Chevy ramped off the road, caught air. A back wheel tore down the wire fence, drug it along behind them. The car plowed through the empty field into the obscurity of the trees.

One of the rigs tried to follow. It caught air. Its gravity shifted. The trailer went up, over. The fifth-wheel was wrenched clean off. The rig landed wheels-up. The trailer splayed across what was left of the open ground. All at once, the remaining rigs skidded to a screaming stop, their lights and engines shut down. Gail’s terror finally bled in. She drove on, dragging the fence.

Her heart managed to slow itself enough for logic to take over again. They needed to stop, get the fence free, get Carl to the police. She slowed to a stop and the trio of women staggered out on rubber legs, awestruck by fires that glowed randomly in the distance. Marla vomited. Nora tended to her.

Gail stared, stilling her trembling limbs. So much destruction. All for money, power.

“M-T’s got a lot to answer for,” Nora said finally, returning to her side.

Gail nodded, eased into motion. Together, she and Nora pulled the bit of stuck fence from the bumper, then took a moment to breathe. Whatever would come of it, one thing was certain; M-T’s so-called accident-free rigs could now be linked to this. Only time would tell if the charges stuck.

Epilogue

After seeing Carl to the local lock-up, Nora and Marla returned to the garage while Gail gave a statement to a Detective. Though it had yet to be proven, rumors of foul-play against M-T soon came to light. They spread like wild-fire through the net and media journals that saw them as a great way to catch views and strengthen readership. The knife of publicity cut both ways.

Almost immediately after returning to the garage, Darian confirmed to Gail a connection to M-T. The chips he and Nora had removed had been hacked, and after a preliminary examination, contained identical code written for use in A-I rigs– the same code both patented and owned by M-T. Subsequent investigation confirmed the source: the chips were manufactured and distributed by the same subsidiary, and were identical, to those used in the damaged rigs found on the roads.

The media ate up the stories. M-T’s spin-doctors declined all comment. Their silence proved their already obvious guilt. The Federal Grand Jury scheduled to meet. Also scheduled, for expert and witness testimonies, were Gail, Darian, Marla, and Nora. They would do their best to damn M-T. Carl too: He’d been persuaded to testify once it was clear M-T would not rescue him.

Unfortunately, none of those facts changed what Gail recognized as true: Bud Ferrero’s death was an omen of things to come– for Lone-Wolfe, for the industry. She was standing over Bud’s freshly-marked grave, Marla beside her, when the epiphany hit. The funeral had months before, and the media-circus had long forgotten him. It still raged elsewhere, but the reason for the initial tent-pitching was no more a thought than Bud himself. Nothing had been concluded. Nothing would. That was the point of the circus. It merely went on.

Likewise, progress would not stop. Gail knew it now. She stood, hands in her jean jacket, feeling more sentimental than ever in her life– either from depression, or Marla’s daughter-like presence.

“Carl was right about one thing…”

She stared at Bud’s epitaph: “He delivered love to our hearts.”

Marla sniffled, eyes teary. “What do you mean?”

For once, Gail didn’t mind the tears. She’d have added to them if it weren’t for the stiff upper-lip she’d cultivated. She knelt before the head-stone, “We can’t change the future. We can’t avoid it. Everything has its time. Its season.”

Marla’s face showed hints of confusion, sorrow. “I don’t understand.”

Gail winced, “One day the drivers will be gone. The culture with them. All of it will just be another footnote to history, like milkmen and carrier-pigeons. The most we can do’s try to make up for it ‘til then. When it happens, we’ll do our best to avoid hardship.”

Marla was quiet, thinking about it. Gail sensed it, kept her mind on the same frequency. It was an eternal story of society, the making way for the new by discarding the old. Lamp-lighters or milkmen, cobblers or drivers, it didn’t matter. Some things faded. Where the people went, she wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling she’d find out soon.

She pulled her hand from her pocket, set a small, toy-rig at the base of Bud’s grave. The T680 was the same color as Bud’s. For the first time since the accident, Gail’s stiff-lip trembled. A tear formed in her eye, slipped down her cheek. She rose solemnly with Marla at her side, and turned away.