:;Morning in America

I awoke suddenly with a gasp and a pounding like drums. My heart beat with such fear. Fear I had not felt since, as a child sleepwalking, I came to in an unfamiliar part of the house clutching wildly some random implement I might use as a weapon. Then I had lowered the fireplace poker from over my head, panting, as I caught breath and let it slip through my fingers to lie forgotten on the basement carpet. Now, panting, I stared down a familiar maser.

Fuck.

I remembered that I shouldn’t have recognized the damn thing. I was still shuddering from a rush of emotion and adrenaline. Then it hit me why. Cheques is dead.

I let out a shuddering sob before I got a hold of myself.

I quelch my emotions. There’s too much to do. I take the interface off my head and let it hang by its cord as I stand. Instead, it breaks off and rolls to the floor drawing my eye back to the chair. It’s not as I remember it. Worse, I shouldn’t remember it at all. Instead of horror movie iron it was bubblegum pink. It certainly looked more comfortable. The maser array was there, but less obvious behind a posable monitor mounted to an arm.

The wire that had once connected to the discarded headpiece on the floor had turned white and brittle . It had ran from the back of the chair down through a hole in the floor. The black stub still connected to the helm was charred. Logically, I knew somewhere In my mind my body had already started moving before I put things together. It didn't feel that way. It felt like I stood there for an eternity, slack jawed, as I stared at the severed connection and the alignment of the maser array.

I don't remember ever deciding to move. I don't remember the door to the inner lab closing behind me. All I do remember is the inertia as I took off like a sprinter, seeming to move in slow motion stop photography as I burst into the outer lab. The clutter was gone, with gear now arranged, sorted, and stored in an orderly fashion. I grabbed shit and threw it into the hall, not stopping to think what I was grabbing or what I might need.

When everything at hand was through I followed, slamming the door behind me. I took half a moment to admire the new, transparent outer door before I did the worst thing imaginable. I broke open the case over the big red button on the wall, and pushed it. Nothing happened for a long moment. Suddenly, with the hiss of hermetic sealing eighteen inch bolts shot into holes drilled into the door. I don't remember installing those. A wave of heat washed over me as my lab was washed in fire. Rivulets of molten Lexan danced as the innermost layer of my shiny new door melted. It would have been beautiful if it wasn't so damn tragic. Still, nanites are fragile things, moreso in small numbers. It should be enough.

No time to mourn that now either girl. There's things to be done. I needed to take stock of what I had managed to save from the lab. Regroup. Then... then what? Was there still a plan? I need a shower. And a drink. Drink first, then shower. I was agreed. The world could wait a goddamn minute.

I headed into the house, past the hologram of my grandmother. I stopped. It was out of place, somehow. It had a nice frame, like any good picture. It moved when I did. Thaaat is a mirror, stupid. was my first thought, followed closely by, how old am I? The reflection gave few clues. My grandparents and great-grandparents had aged well, and failed suddenly. My grandmother had looked like my reflection in her fifties until she was past seventy. It was possible, though, I had aged less gracefully and was barely forty.

That shower was looking better and better as I stared at my face. Eventually, I was jolted from my reverie by a muffled thump and yelling from the garage. Oh, that. That can wait. I went back through my bedroom to my master bath. The full length mirror in there helped me get a grip on my new body.

I was weathered and scarred. Not on my face, thankfully, except for a now invisible nick under my eyebrow suffered as a child. My left breast, though, was nearly bisected with a thick ridge of scar tissue. It looked like someone had come at me with a machete. There were a half a dozen pock marks on my torso, front and back. Bullet wounds? A large, four or five inch slightly curved scar snaked across my mons, hidden under my shockingly red pubis. That was knife or blade. There was a shallow, light scar down my left arm followed by a puncture wound under my armpit. My legs had only a crisscross of minor scars, except for a football shaped mark at the back of my right thigh. That was probably a burn. Finally, I had a head full of gray and thinning hair. Figures I'd go gray everywhere but the one place no one sees.

I turned on the hot water and let the world disappear under it until my fingers were wrinkled and the water was cold. It was time to get to work.

Inventory went surprisingly fast. In my bedroom I had a pair of long guns, one a normal looking shotgun the other a custom sniper rifle. Five drums of assorted specialty rounds and two drums of regular ammunition. I had a suit, pulled from the lab and still hermetically sealed. Ten days rations and air.

I suited up, grabbed supplies, and went to the garage. Rations went into the trunk, prisoner uncuffed from the workbench then into the backseat and buckled in. A folio with the documents I would need were already waiting on the front passenger seat. Neighbors were all long gone, there was no need to worry about him screaming.

“Please, don't. I have grandchildren, I'm all they have left.” he protested weakly, futilely. He had not been young before the PON-E act. Now, he was a wheezing and bloodstained mess. He had hurt his feeble decrepit body trying to escape. I couldn't remember how long ago that had been, but his white hair had grown roots under the blood. His jeans and T shirt were stained with sweat and dirt as well. He was weak enough, I was sure, I could have choked the dredges of life from him with one hand. His bindings were unnecessary, but they remained. I could not spare a kind word to him, though, It was too great a risk. Soon, he may be in the clutches of the enemy. I started the car and pulled out, sparing a glance behind at the ruins of my former life.

The ruins of my lab were still smoldering. I put my sedan in gear, when a flicker of movement caught my eye. Spiders, black mechanical spiders, were climbing out of the ruins. Spear-like, white stands of her web shot out and struck his spiders, turning them white with barely a brief struggle. He was screaming, in pain. He was screaming for me to get to safety. They were eating him. He cut off a leg they had gotten hold of, grabbed it, and beat them back with it to buy me time and he was screaming ...

No, that was me screaming. I stopped, caught my breath. I was hyperventilating. The mechanical spiders had not come from the lab, but from their storage box by the side of the garage. They were just weeding and watering the garden. My prisoner... he was still there, mostly. He had managed to open the door with his teeth, but unable to undo his seatbelt was stuck half in the car and upsidedown. I put him back in, closed the door, and locked it.

The roads to the Equestrian Experience Center were thankfully navigable. Somepony had cleared cars going in, and the first few spaces in front. It was a pain enough hauling an old man, a gun, and a file folder through the stainless automatic doors. I thanked whatever goddesses that were left I didn't have to haul him city blocks. I deposited him in a lobby chair.

“Please, no, you dont have to do this.” He was barely strong enough to grovel.

“Hi, welcome to the Equestrian Experience Center! I'm sure we can have lots of super-duper fun!” I ignored the Pinky Pie on the screen.

I took the papers out of the folio, and began showing them to the camera one by one.

“Wow, that's a lot of legal stuff. Let me get my boss.” A bit involving a hooked cane and a scene change later, I was looking at the avatar of the enemy herself. She raised her head, smiling benignly under her horn, her wings folded neatly at her flanks.

The enemy wrapped around the pulsing heart of the world like a parasitical fungus, past a wide moat above her. It was far too far to leap, and she was out of time. She could feel him dying behind her. The world went dark and far away.

“Get away from him you BITCH!”

She didn’t recognize the voice as her own. All she knew was she was flying up, daring physics to oppose her by sheer force of will. Physics was not winning. She tossed a rose, pushing superhuman energy into it. It rocketed down toward the surface, blasting a great hole in the world, and she was barely propelled up. She did it again, again, again, inching her way to that white horse with murder on her mind. She fully intended to kill with her bare hands.

Then she ran out of momentum. Gravity cruelly and inexorably took hold of her. She cut herself and drew one last rose from her own blood, endowing its energy into her weapon. She saw herself spin, imparting all of her momentum into her sword and throwing it into the heart of the world with force to pierce and through. From her faraway place, the red haze cleared just enough to realize what she had done. She watched Enthalpy, her arrow of death, arc gracefully at her enemy in that: its promise of mutual destruction.

Alarms were going off. Her HUD flashed warnings: dangerously elevated blood pressure, blood O2 dropping. She felt a drop of blood escape her nose and roll down her lips. She tasted the copperiness of it. I tasted the copperiness of it, my blood. I was her and she was me and the world was spinning. I forced my anemic hands to move, showing each page to the camera.

“I'm sorry, but that's not going to work. Don't you think its already been tried? I'm not bound by that at all. Besides, don't you have something more pressing to do, like see a doctor? You went still and unresponsive for 53.6 seconds. That's not a good sign, Tempest Shine. “

I ignored the bitch and went to retrieve my prisoner. She probably wasn't lying, but I had to test it. I picked him up. He leaned on me heavily. One step, two steps. Click-sh-thunk click. . . click. He had gotten to my gun. Celestia was saying something I didn't bother to hear.

I threw him, and he landed heavily on the floor with my shotgun. I'll give it to the tough old bastard, he didn't stop or bother grabbing the gun, he just moved for the door. I moved faster, got in front of him, and grabbed him by the neck. I picked him up and let him hang there a moment. Then I walked him over the the Experience Center chair and put him in it. Step and I had the gun, never taking my eyes off him.

“I won't.”

I took the safety off the gun. The enemy had gone silent, for a moment. Then somepony I didn't recognize was on the screen, asking simply, “Please don't.”

He looked at me defiantly. I leveled the gun. He tried to stare me down. I put the muzzle to his balls.

“Okay, Okay! I want to emigrate to Equestria!”

I raised the gun. Nothing. I waited. Nothing. I lowered the gun. Nothing. Then, just as I was about to let the guy up I heard the motor click on. The gun came up faster than should have been possible, the lightness of it's design interfacing seamlessly with the upgrades of my suit. The sensor in my thumb came to rest across the sensor in the stock. As I had lined up under his neck, the motor tried it damnedest to get him out of harm's way. The interface sensed my intention to fire, and unloaded the entirety of it's ammo without a trigger pull. The first bullet caught him under the chin. Recoil shocked my arm and shoulder, pulling the muzzle up. His head came off, the muzzle climb following it up and surpassing it as the chair moved past, bearing its headless cargo.

Welp. I thought, discarding my now-useless weapon. That was about maximum suckage right there.

“You didn't have to kill him, Shine.” She looked at me with an almost superhuman expression of sorrow. It didn't help anything that I wanted to puke and die right then. “He couldn't have hurt you after he uploaded. There was no reason.”

I stood still just long enough to catch my breath, my hud telling me I had been hyperventilating. I had already shaved an hour off the main O2 can. Ignoring the Enemy I closed my eyes and strode evenly back to my car.

“Please, don't. I have grandchildren, I'm all they have left.”

I had things to do. I couldn't let regret slow me down. I had to...he deserves to have his effects sent to his family at least. I could do that much. His things were? I checked the glove box, fished out a little plastic pouch. Yes. Wallet, keys, nice watch, court ID. Justice Falk. It had his picture. Oh, right. There was a reason it was him. License, address. I put the car in gear and typed it into my ancient, early 2000's GPS. I was off.

It lead to an unassuming house at the end of a cul de sac. It was just small enough not to be assuming and on a double lot. I parked, walked up, knocked on the door. I heard sounds inside, but no answer. I knocked again.

Finally, a tentative “Go Away.”

“Girls, Your grandfather sent me. He, uh, “ damn this was awkward, “He didn't make it. “

Hushed whispering eked its way under the lintel. Another long wait. I should just leave his things on the doorstep and go.

“Prove it.” Oh, smart girl.

“Can you see through the peephole?” I held up one ID card for one Justice Falk. I head the scraping of chair legs on wood. Then the lock clicked open.

Behind the door were a pair of children. I couldn't guess their age, or even remember the last time I had seen a child. The smaller one was half hiding behind the door.

“May I come in?” She nodded.

I stepped through the door, and handed the larger one the plastic pouch with her grandfather's things. She took out his watch, and put it on her wrist. I supposed there must have been some deep meaning to that. Then, something unexpected happened.

The girls wrapped themselves around my legs and hugged me. Comfort them you fool. They just lost their grandfather. I laid my hands on them, held them gently and let them do what they needed to do. I thought that was the end of it. I was a fool.

“Will you make us something to eat?”

It hadn't occurred to me that they might be hungry. “Uh, okay. Where's your kitchen?”

What they showed me was a disaster, not a room. What was once a well stocked pantry was, well, depleted would be a kind word. There was nothing remotely edible left in the detritus of food packaging and preparation that defined the space. Even in the refrigerator, someone had eaten all the mustard. This is bad I thought, followed by No shit Sherlock. This is very bad. I had passed a grocer on the way in, maybe three blocks away. Either it was already looted, or they were too scared to go out and scavenge themselves. I had a moment of indecision.

“Girls, get your things,” they looked at me, “We will eat in the car.” Perhaps they were hungrier than I thought. They went like a shot. I scavenged a couple of sets of cutlery myself and went outside to meet them. I popped the trunk, and retrieved a pair of meals ready to eat. I pulled the tab and left them on the hood to cook themselves. I divvied up the rations, set aside half for the girls. Then, on second thought, a little more. Then I kicked myself for being a fool and moved the Soylent over to my side and the self cook MREs to their side. I might as well stick to what I could eat without risking taking off the suit. I switched over to O2 tank 2 and changed out O2 tank 1 even though it didn't quite need it yet.

The girls, I hadn't gotten their names, had come down with a pair of backpacks. I made a mental note to try and overhear them so I could remember. That, and remember their grandfather's name. Judge fuks? Faulk... Fucktard. Yeah, I should probably avoid calling him Judge Fucktard in front of the kids. There was a logical way to go about this. I still had the Justice Falk ID card. I pulled it out and examined it. It had his picture, said Justice Falk in big letters on the top, and a bar code. I stared at it for what felt like too long, flipped it over and tried the back. Well, that was useless. I knew his name had to be on there, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out.

I didnt have much more time to ponder it. The girls had returned with backpacks and netbooks.

I considered destroying the electronics for security, but fuck it. Security was already screwed.

“Do you have everything you need? I don't see blankets, lets go get some blankets.”

To their credit, they did so without complaint. A part of me wondered if their compliancy was to do with their circumstances or their upbringing. In any case I ensured they had their things well in hand, I suppose I should say that their rooms were well looted, and we were ready to go by the time the meals were cooled enough to eat. I got them buckled up and comfortable. As I started the car, I checked them in the rearview. They were sitting uncomfortably but not eating.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Um...We didn't say grace.” Oh, huh. Ummm. I gave it a shot.

“Dear lord, please bless this food and watch over us in the trials to come. Amen.”

“Amen.” It seemed to satisfy them.

They were digging in and, convinced they were situated I engaged the engine and put the car in gear. Once the GPS finally finished booting I entered the preloaded destination and made my way to the highway. The streets were dead. It was not surprising, actually. I would be unsurprised if I was the last person in town. Well, that was temporary too.

I turned onto the abandoned highways and an auto dialer in the dash turned on. My only warning was the pleasantly Australian GPS voice calling out, “Now Dialing, El. Diablo. Please hold.” followed by ringing. Who the fuck is El Diablo, and why am I contacting him on an unsecured line? not to mention, How do I even have a phone in this car?”

I got my answer to the first of those in a moment, in both senses.

“Diablo Canyon Power Plant.” The voice was wary and weary and gruff and male. It ought to have been an old voice, but in these times who could tell?

“Hey, you guys doing okay?” Okay, this was a clue.

“No, we're not. The HLF is all up in my ass and the army is nowhere to be seen. Where are you guys?”

“The army? No clue, probably uploaded. “

“Nooo!” One of the girls screamed at her sister. I hadn't paid any attention to them, and had no idea what their argument was about. “Shut up!” I glared at them. “I'm on the phone girls.” A glance back showed that they had cowed and I reconsidered chastising more.

“Wait, who the hell am I talking to? The army controls the phones.”

“Uh, well, how about you call me Obi Wan. Now, you want to talk about me pulling your ass out of the fire?”

He went silent for a long while, considering his options. With the world going to shit, I doubted he had many.

“How can I know I can trust you?” Yeah, he knew he was boned.

“You should have noticed load on the grid has dropped to critical levels.” The white spiders tended the web, making it jiggle for their prey. The web touched everything drawing here and feeding there, a push and pull that snared the world.

“Yes?”

“That means that should be a decommission team. They'll have hazmat suits. “

“Those don't look very sturdy.”

“They're tougher then they look. Let's let them in and get this plant decommissioned then. “

“I'm not letting the HLF in! They're terrorists!”

“There is no HLF left. No government. There's just a reactor that can shut down or melt down. “

He went quiet on the other end for a long time.

“You know, they could just blow their way in. Have you considered why they haven't?”

“Fine, I'm opening the gates. “

“Good.”

“Worst case, they kill me. Why not, everything else is shit.” he grumbled.

“They won't kill you.”

he didn't respond.

“Hey, I forgot to ask. Do you have plans after? A place to go?”

“There's no place to go. The wold, it's over.”

“Let me tell you about Zion then...”

Call ended, Complete, Redial, Redial later?

Author's Note

I'm throwing what I have up before hiatus.