bad luck to find themselves on the wrong side of one of his all too frequent bad moods. They could also fix things.
“What’s her name?” He struggled with the uncooperative device, but carefully. What he wanted to do was expose the radio’s guts without damaging any of the internal components that might still be intact and functional.
He saw Reese looking on as he manipulated the radio’s components.
“I call her Star. When I found her, she didn’t know her real name. She was all alone under the stars. I’d ask her, and she’d just turn off.” He shrugged. “She loved that hat of hers so much, I just....” His voice trailed away for a moment. “Maybe Star is her real name. I dunno. I just know that she responds to it. What else am I supposed to call her?”
Wright’s fingers slowed as he took a moment to once more regard the surrounding wasteland in which he now inexplicably found himself.
“How do you do it? How do you wake up every day to—this?”
Reese took a moment to consider the question—no doubt because he had never actually contemplated it before.
“Just know it’s important that I do.” His voice was devoid of ego or bravado, his expression even. “Beats the alternative.”
In his largely misbegotten life Wright had associated with men and women who considered themselves tough, even dangerous. None surpassed the resoluteness or conviction he sensed in this slim teen. It stood in stark contrast to his own youth.
He was still working with the radio’s insides when Star returned. The phone she offered him could have been newer and in better condition, but he was glad to have it nonetheless. Lining up his thoughts, he found that he was glad of something to do. Something to focus on besides his unrelievedly depressing environs and the unexplained process that had dumped him here.
“Thanks, Star. I could use another hand. Think you can help me out a little?”
She looked at Reese, who nodded approvingly. Eyes wide and attentive, she turned back to him.
“Here, hold this.” Wright handed her the back panel of the radio that, thanks to careful work, he had managed to remove in one piece. As he probed deeper into the electronic guts, he took no notice of the little girl’s increasingly worshipful stare.
“Where is everyone?” he murmured as he carefully removed the ends of several cords and began rewiring the radio’s interior.
“They’re gone,” Reese told him simply.
“Why are
“Star and me, we’re the Resistance.”
Wright forced himself not to smile as he regarded the boy and the girl.
“You and her are the Resistance?”
Reese nodded assertively. “L.A. branch.”
“Resisting what?”
The teen’s gaze narrowed while he studied the enigmatic stranger, as if wondering if perhaps he had escaped from the moon. Or more likely some half-destroyed mental hospital.
“It’s not funny. The machines. Skynet.”
“Just the two of you?”
“Yeah.”
Using his free hand Wright pointed to the red band that encircled his arm.
“Then why don’t you have one of these?”
“I haven’t earned it yet,” the youth shot back pointedly.
Wright nodded. “Your parents? Are they Resistance? Did they feed you that crap?”
“They’re dead.” Reese spoke coolly, as if discussing the obvious. “Death follows you very closely in this world. It sucks. But you get used to it. You get used to whatever you have to get used to in order to survive.” He glanced meaningfully at Star. “Some handle it better than others. Some just handle it differently.”
Wright understood completely.
“Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it. Along with whatever else is necessary. It’s better that way.”
Wright flipped the radio’s “on” switch and was rewarded with—nothing. He was disappointed but not surprised.
“Dammit. Okay....” He handed Star the opened device. Colorful wires trailed from its interior like the intestines of some ancient hard-shelled sea creature. “Hang onto this.”
Childlike curiosity prompted her to study the inside of the radio while he searched through the surrounding debris. Finding a microwave oven, he used the knife Star gave him to unscrew the back and began sorting through the components. Finding the parts he wanted and yanking them free, he strode back to where Star was holding the radio and took it from her. What he really needed was a soldering iron and a crimper. Though the circumstances were radically different, what he was doing was not so very different from similar exercises he had engaged in before.
Sitting down, he resumed working on the radio’s interior.
