“Come on,” he prompted her, “let’s go.” She didn’t move, confused both by his words and his suddenly abrupt tone. He clarified his meaning for her. “Get out.”
Her eyes never left him as she slowly climbed over the far side of the jeep. At least, that was how he felt. He could not meet the wide-eyed girlish gaze.
Reese gaped at him, unwilling to countenance what he was hearing. Despite the doubts he had been feeling, the stranger’s words still left him in shock.
“You’re leaving?”
Ignoring the teen, Wright dropped the hood, made sure it latched shut.
“You’re just gonna leave?”
Reese continued as the stranger carefully collected the tools he had scavenged and put them in the back of the jeep. By this time he was crowding the older man. Wright tolerated this invasion of his space even as he ignored the increasingly accusatory teen.
“We saved your life.”
Reese wanted to grab Wright, to shake him and make him look into his eyes. It was a good thing he didn’t.
“You’re going to leave us here?”
Realization suddenly dawned and he stepped back.
“I get it. I understand. We’d just hold you back, right? Slow you down. You can move faster without us. It’ll be easier for you alone.” Somehow he kept in check the anger that had been building within him.
“You know one of the differences between us and the machines? We bury our dead. They don’t bother.” Taking the bewildered Star by the hand he started to back away from the now silent stranger, eyeing him as if he carried some incurable communicable disease.
“Go on—you go kill yourself. You’re not the first one to leave. But no one’s coming to bury you anyway.” He spat at the ground. “Star and me, we’ve got better things to do.”
Wright just nodded. In his life he had been insulted by experts and disrespected by masters. The teen’s feeble efforts had no effect on him.
What did have an effect was the expression on the girl’s face. It had shifted from hurt and confusion to one of sheer terror. Remembering what Reese had told him, Wright instantly began scanning the immediate vicinity. So did the teen. Their search was unnecessary, as a moment later the source of Star’s alarm dropped down on them from above.
Compact, utilitarian, and extremely advanced, the small flying machine buzzed rapidly past the jeep before rising back into the sky and preparing itself for a second pass.
“Aerostat!” Reese was yelling even as he ran toward the jeep. As he did so, the ruddy light of a scanning laser was taking the measure of him from head to toe. The light was harmless—except for what it implied. The Aerostat would be transmitting even as it was evaluating.
Wright didn’t wait for further explication. Picking up the girl, he vaulted the side of the idling jeep to land in the passenger seat. He did this only because the driver’s seat was already occupied by Reese. The teen fumbled with the shift, managed to get the vehicle in reverse and moving away from the steep slope that rimmed that section of the parking lot.
Wright had other ideas. Reaching over the seat, he threw the jeep into drive.
“Go!”
***
Reese wanted to argue but was already mature enough to realize this was neither the time nor the place. Gritting his teeth, he floored the accelerator. Responding with welcome agility, the jeep obediently shot forward, jumped the curb, crashed through the remnants of some decorative border brush gone wild, and plunged down the embankment on the other side.
Once committed, the teen kept his foot on the accelerator and both hands on the wheel. At any moment he expected the vehicle to slew sideways and crash, go airborne and crash, or hit something unyielding and crash. He was mentally prepared for almost anything except keeping the battered jeep going straight downhill.
“Aerostat must’ve heard the music!” he yelled back without shifting his attention from the hillside down which they were careening. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly they were beginning to turn white.
“What about your gun?” Wright shouted at him.
“You’ve still got the clip!” With a boulder the size of a bulldozer looming in their path, he swung the wheel to the left. By some miracle of gravity the jeep did not roll and continued banging its way down the mountainside.
Wright dealt with the confusion calmly. Among the innumerable emotions he was not heir to was mad panic. Searching the pile of tools he had dumped in back, he picked up an X-shaped tire lug wrench. While not exactly aerodynamic, it had the virtue of being as throwable as it was solid.
Opening the door on his side, he leaned out, took aim, and threw the tool. The speed and force with which it spun through the air aft of the jeep gave it the heft and appearance of some crazed ninja-throwing star as customized by a local auto repair shop. Amazingly, it smashed socket-on into the trailing Aerostat. Bits and pieces of the machine went flying.
Some of them must have been important, because seconds later the independently guided Skynet tracking device crashed into the ground. This resulted in an eruption of many more bits and pieces as well as a termination of the pursuit.
Leaning over the back seat, Star gawked in wide-eyed delight at the grounding of their pursuer. It had not been destroyed, but it was definitely grounded. Wright swallowed as he contemplated the unexpected efficacy of his throw. He remembered being adept at such destructive labors, but not quite this adept.
