Conductor Chadwick Pozun, last of his organic kind had made a choice that both Chad and Benny could make common cause with in his shared soul.
‘No,’ he thought, as he looked to her there, bundled up in her goose down winter coat at the height of a frosty summer, ‘I made no choice—the choice was made for me by Fate, with a wink from Enio, a thumbs up from Old Ben, and a nod from Brian,’ the Doctor, the bum, and the Post Officer having assured him that there was no other choice to make.
‘I had always thought that the Final Collapse of Civilization would feature hordes of hungry humans scouring the land for food, fighting wars, conducting epic migrations. No, we knealt, hung our heads, rolled over and made for dead.’
‘Except for her, here, pouring coffee, the only kindess at hand to dispense. She fits the difinition of an Empath summarized in The Refuge Order.’
There was a mere quarter mile, six city blocks, to get to The Station, and six hours to do it. The entire morning had been spent making new friends, three to be lost forever and he to them. Martitta had a chance. The Galactic Wave was to hit in three days. He would fry under an ultarviolet sky as she was taken down to Refuge in Denver. God Forbid we have blizzards to contend with.
She walked next to him, tentatively, it obvious that she had not strayed more than a few doors from her precious cafe, her fort, her home for this past month. How keyed in he was to others, since the Net Crash, how he could tell by their stride, posture, shiver and gaze how the state of their mind went. He adopted the fatherly tone of a guide, pointing over the horizon:
“I used to walk this way, from the book store, a new find in hand, hoping to see a plane take off over the train station—trains having lost my interest and planes having captured my wonder. I was never even an engineer. Yet, when I saw a plane take flight I imagined myself, not as my counterpart the Steward, but as the pilot.”
He shivered inside as he recalled failing to stop the African tide in LA.
“Chad,” [He had to name himself Chad in her presence upon introduction, not Conductor, not Chadwick.] “what is it they want me for, Amtrak—the Government…” [she stopped to read his badge and his leg stamps] “...U.S. Public Sector?”
He swallowed hard, recalling his failure to save his daughter from her university duty, his wife from her job description—his stepson Gerald from opiate addiction, “Denver Refuge has recquested that the last conductors to all points of the compass return with an Empath, the most sympathetic, dutiful person remaining after the Net Crash. My specific orders was for you to view a Pacific Sunset before departure.”
She was balking, shaking, looking about, up at the cloud shrouded sky, which moved him to assure her, “I know no more, and was selected out of medical retirement to conduct you to Refuge.”
“You?” she asked.
He kept walking, and began scanning for danger, as the bat drones and dog bot were agitated of a sudden.
“Chad,” she asked, anger growing in her voice, “and you, what of you?”
He stopped and looked down at her, feeling so strong with the testosterone from the battle prostetics surging through him, awakening him. He placed his gauntleted hands on her slight shoulders, wishing his hands and her shoulders were bare, but going on with business.
“Martitta, I have been fitted with a battle prosthesis kit that is designed to enable lunar mobility, as well as to permit wounded soldiers to return to duty before—”
She hissed, “And the fucking glasses, so you can watch the flash, and if there is anything left of you, be debriefed while you die, or be dissected after you fry, right? Am I right, Chad!”
He could not help himself, and touched her wonderful, wavy dark hair, “Yes, Martitta, it is an honor. Only fourteen of us have been chosen. Only six answered the call.”
“This sick Satanic world—Mamma...”
Her voice drifted away, as heir gaze turned right past the looted convienence store, “Oh My God, they’re back!” she sobbed.
Conductor Chadwick Benjamin Pozon, lit on fire, from his toes to his enahanced eyes, his brain sending a cascade of warming rage down his frame. He stepped between HER and THEM, lifted the palm of his left gautlet just below eye level. SHE was held safely in his right gauntlet, which glowed warmly as the rather heavy cuffs acivated in some way he did not understand. She sighed in a kind of comfort he could not place, not drugged, more like his wife when she had nursed, contentedly on the loveseat he had purchased for that purpose.
Before him, fifty yards off, stood three big, wire-framed men, young men in sleeveless denim and carpenter’s pants, holding one a fireman’s ax, one an aluminum bat and the other a shotgun. At there knees were two large pitbulls, heeling ominously.
The man with the shotgun looked about for any signs of arieal drones, grinned and racked that 12-gauge pump. The pitbulls whined and licked their lips, each of them obedient to the other two men.
The man with the shotgun, standing center, the obvious leader, a head taller than the others, rugged-jawed and blond, drew a seething anger out of Chad. He could have sworn it came up from his old and suddenly full balls. This man was younger, stronger, better looking than him and he demanded of Chad the unforgivable, “The woman, Government Man… the woman.”
Chad separated his fingers to form a V-sight, and answered, not to that man, but to the terrible, quivering drones on his shoulders, no bigger than an actual vampire bat, he had been told, “SUSPECT GUNMAN.”
And so they flew, quick as arrows, and true, one at the shotgun, which did discharge and shatter that drone like a clay skeet puck. Chad was momentarily sad that he could not recall the name of that drone—Bat something…
Then its twin latched onto the throat of the gunaman, who began to hideously gurgle as his fellows shrunk back. That rugged man, racked his weapon and put it below his chin, blowing away the drone and his head as well.
“Pupper One!” demanded a stentorion voice, as if the Chief Conductor of a planetary train spoke above the blare of the great horns.
With those words the purple poddle at his boots retracted its hair to reveal a steel and titanium frame, let loose a snarl that sounded like something that might dine on concrete for breakfast and steel for lunch, and leaped forward.
The two pitbulls yelped and tore off into the distance.
The men looked at each other, dropped their weapons and turned to run, one north and one south.
Pupper One made a mighty bound to the south, pushing that running man between the shoulder blades with all four paws. The result was that man sprawling in the gutter and the canine bot bounding through the air to alight on a neck-rending fury upon the shoulders of the other tweaker.
He did not wish HER to see the rest. SHE had, in fact, seen nothing, HER face couched in the crook of the arm below the turned shoulder.
Conduct HER he did, with a tender dignity, behind him, a feast of living machine upon dying flesh providing their processional tune.
He looked upon her with admiration, and spoke with some pride into his Command Mike, “Conductor Pozun, inbound with Empath, Martitta.”
The station conductors, those two feminine consciosunesses emboided in sound and wheeled disc, sang in his earbuds, “Conductor Chad, Meat Dad!”
And yes, he smiled.
