I dashed over to him, turning him over onto his back. He whimpered, dribbling a little blood down his chin. He held out the bundle of cash he'd taken from Marty.
"Take it, just take it," he said.
With my left hand I took it from him, and with my right I gave him a slap across the face. Once again I made sure to limit my strength, as I was pretty sure I could kill a regular human with a full-strength slap. His eyes rolled up into his head and he went to sleep.
That done, I rushed over to Marty. He had curled up on his side, groaning weakly.
"You alright, man?" I asked him.
"I've been better," he wheezed.
I helped him sit up, looking him over. His face was scraped up and his lip had split.
"I'll be alright, I think. Help me to the truck? We've got to get out of here before the cops come."
I looked around. The parking lot was still sparsely populated, and there was no view of where we'd parked from the restaurant's main windows. He was right though, we needed to go.
Marty hooked his arm around my neck and I helped him to his feet and then into the truck's passenger seat.
"Did you kill those guys?" he asked as I got in and started the truck. It roared to life.
"I don't think so. I tried not to, anyway."
He nodded. "I wouldn't have been sad if you had. Fucking assholes. That guy that was sitting on me put the boots to me when I was down. I think he cracked some ribs."
"How are you still standing, anyway? That big guy swung at the back of your head like he was going for a home run."
"Transcendent Flesh for the win."
Marty chuckled and then winced as the laughing hurt him.
On the back of my head I could feel a bit of tacky blood in my hair. The bat had broken the skin and bounced my brain around but the bone of my skull had held out, and the damage had healed in seconds. Enough that I could fight, anyway.
My parka had protected me from the knife one of the thugs had tried to plunge into my back. If you're going to use Union tech to make a new parka, why would you make it vulnerable to knives? I certainly didn't. This material would even stop most bullets.
I put the truck in gear and drove out of the parking lot, making sure not to run over any of the unconscious thugs. With luck, we'd be gassed up and out of town before they woke up. Since they'd tried to rob us, I could only hope they wouldn't be too keen on setting the cops on us.
We left Carly's behind and got back on the highway, the roar of the truck's engine almost covering Marty's slight whimpering
Chapter Seventeen: North Saskatchewan Here we Come
WE LEFT LA RONGE BEHIND without any further trouble. Another massive truck stop filled our truck's tank with gasoline. The station attendant wasn't entirely sure if the gas stations up north were going to be open when we rolled through, or if they were even going to be open at all. In a fit of paranoia, I bought ten five-gallon red plastic jerry cans and strapped them all down in the bed of the truck after I filled them up.
For a couple of hours, every Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser we passed on the highway gave me a spike of fear. What would I do if they had the description of our truck? Or our plates? We didn't have an alternate set we could use. If they pulled us over, I couldn't let them arrest me.
Marty wasn't doing well. He tried to sleep, but the roads were rough up here, and every time we went over a bump he was in pain.
"Jake, you sure you can't just use your Nanites to fix this?" he asked after we'd been on the road an hour or so.
"One hundred percent. Sorry, Marty. I don't get any kind of prompt to fix you. I could probably salvage you, but that wouldn't be too helpful. If I had a Manufactory I could whip up something to fix you, I think, but I don't have anything like that."
"Yeah, I get it."
"If you want, I can turn around and drop you at that hospital we saw in La Ronge."
"No, let's keep going. I don't think they can do anything for cracked ribs, anyway."
I really hoped there was a Manufactory or something else I could use at Grandpa's outpost to fix up Marty. Even just an Induction kit would be enough. At the first level of Transcendent Flesh, his body would fix those injuries for him.
Marty finally fell asleep, leaving me to my thoughts and the road. It was empty and quiet up here in Northern Saskatchewan. The road was surrounded by trees, with occasional breaks for a lake, or a small group of houses.
The sun began to set just before 5 pm, and soon it was dark.
Marty woke up, smacking his lips and groaning. "Are we there yet?"
I unlocked my phone and passed it to him. My phone's Map app showed us on the lonely highway. Farther north in the midst of unbroken green was the map pin we were headed toward. Grandpa's outpost was getting closer. Soon we'd be at the point where we'd need to stop and hike into the woods.
Marty grunted and handed the phone back.
"Listen, Marty, I know you're hurting. If you want you can wait in the truck while I go find the outpost. I'll come back with something to fix you up."
"What? Fuck no, Jake. Yeah, it hurts. But there's no damn way I'm waiting in the truck while you explore the alien base. Besides, what if you need some backup?"
I couldn't fault his
