Clio and Cy: The Apocalypse (20 page)

“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of
age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep
down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers.”

― Dave Barry

“Are you tired yet Dr. Marcus?” Cy asked. Dr. Pressfield
knew what his cyborg really meant. “Not yet Cy. Don’t worry, you’ll get your
chance to drive.”

“Ok Dr. Marcus. I just think you should take a break soon…”
Cy suggested, smiling and fiddling his finger on the dashboard.

“I’m sure you do Cy,” Dr. Pressfield answered, looking out
the side window. They’d made it past Richmond having to off road it several
times along the way. So far nothing too rough prevented their progress, nothing
that the Hum-Z couldn’t handle anyway.

Green signs that once reflected brightly, now hung dirty
over the interstate. Some were barely attached as they twisted in the wind.
Nature was making an impressive comeback on this part of I-95. Sections of
road, as if it was being eaten for its delicious blacktop, were completely
covered over with plants and green things. Patient as the slowest quick sand,
foliage was climbing up cars, munching and swallowing them.

“Look at that Cy,” Marcus announced, pointing at the barely
legible sign on the side of the road.

“North Carolina Dr. Marcus. We’re making excellent progress
aren’t we?”

“We sure the hell are,” Marcus affirmed, thinking,
we sure the hell are…
hoping this trip
wasn’t too easy... Effortless things always seemed to have a way of jumping up
and biting you on the ass when you least expect it. As if to punish your easy
goings in the beginning, “chomp,” making you pay by turning the rest of your
journey into a painful endeavor.

“Ok Cy… can’t take much more of you eyeballing me.”

“I can drive now Dr. Marcus?”

“Yup… your turn.”

Dr. Pressfield pulled the vehicle over needing to stretch
his legs anyway. “Keep your eyes peeled,” he said getting out.

“Of course Dr. Marcus.”

Cy was already at the driver’s side door before Dr.
Pressfield made it to the front bumper, shaking his head, smiling, as the
cyborg climbed in. “You ready Dr. Marcus?”

“Let me go to the bathroom first. Relax will yah… geeze!”

“Ok Dr. Marcus. Relax mode engaged,” Cy answered with his
hands ready on the steering wheel.
Yeah
right
, Pressfield thought after looking at his young cyborg already
pretending to drive. Shaking his head, Marcus turned away and peed.

A feral cat wandered by Marcus as if it didn’t notice him
standing there, peeing. It slipped quietly as most felines do, without eye
contact. He shook his pecker a few times before zipping back up.

“Let’s go Cy,” the scientist ordered after climbing in. “You
know how to do this, right?”

“You know I do Dr. Marcus.”

“Well, knowing something in your head isn’t the same as,
really knowing it,” Dr. Pressfield stated. “You know what I mean?”

“Dr. Marcus, that doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Just because you read about something in a book doesn’t
mean you know how to do it, Cy.”

“It does for me Dr. Marcus.”

Dr. Pressfield knew the cyborg was correct. If Cy knew
something, well, he knew. His creation didn’t need repetition to perfect skills
that he learned in theory. He knew the proper amount of push, the right amount
of pull, the perfect amount of tug, and give. Cy knew it, and he knew how to
drive.

“This is fun Dr. Marcus,” Cy announced, staring through the
windshield, driving.

“Slow down now… come on. That’s a little too fast for me,”
Dr. Pressfield argued.

“I’m sorry Dr. Marcus.”

“All that we see or seem is but a dream
within a dream.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

Just outside RMB Jackson:

It was overcast but visibility was good in the fading hours
of the late morning. The base wasn’t in sight yet but they could smell it now.
The charred aroma that filled both their nostrils wasn’t from a burnt forest
fire. It was coming from the RMB. The distinct smell of chemicals and melted
materials filled the air just as the truck entered the start of a sharp bend.

“It kind of smells like a campfire,” Clio stated. “My dad
used to take me when I was little.”

“You like camping?” Russ asked.

“Yes. We’d go fishing and I caught the biggest fish my dad
said he ever saw… I liked sleeping inside a tent too. It was fun…”

The odor of dead bodies began mixing in the air. Russ knew
what the horrible stench was from; he knew it all too well. He hoped Clio
didn’t know what it was. Little girls shouldn’t know such things; hell, no one
should. Although, he knew young Clio was about to find out. He began
questioning more than ever, whether this trip was a good idea. The things that
she was about to see, what that awful smell was from, the possible discovery of
Clio’s dead mother adding to the horror of this whole thing. All the bad things
she was about to experience, in a way, were his fault. No turning back now
though, they were almost there.
Clio smelled the stench of rotting flesh but decided to keep quiet about her
observation. She didn’t want to know what could produce such a horrible odor;
it was evil and foreign. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, she was sure of
that.

The images of her mother began pounding at her door as she
sensed the RMB was close. Like a homing pigeon, somehow, she knew where it was.
It was as if she’d once dreamed about walking down these same tracks to meet
her mother in the middle of them, just outside the RMB, knowing its landmarks
the entire way. Maybe it was her guardian angel that planted the seeds of
knowledge into her head, as if, maybe, God was finally helping her.

Clio’s chest knocked with the thoughts of her mother in an
audible, very real thud. Strange visions hovered in front of her as if they
desired protection. The images were sentient beings, floating around her,
desperately wanting to take shelter inside the twelve-year-old’s soul, needing
to escape a terrible, outside evil.

Jesus
, Russ
thought. Look at that shit… The RMB and what was left of its war zone came into
focus. It was little more than a pile of ash and rubble. Clio’s heart sank as
she saw it, too.

Her dream was real… The base was right where she thought it
would be, but it looked quite different from the last time she’d seen her home
from the outside. The RMB was a smoldering junkyard. The twisted steel and
crushed buildings were now a reminder of a lopsided battle that ensued only
days before. The Resistance’s ground was a devil’s graveyard and a sobering
reminder of what humans are capable of doing to each other, via their
instruments of death.

Russ drove alongside the base, traversing a variety of
broken obstacles that covered the earth and grass. Clio’s eyes ran from one end
of the base to the other, as she began feeling the heat from things still burning
deep underground, permeating up. When the realization settled that her home was
gone, so too did her tears begin to settle, along her lower lids, falling
down... Her eyes welled and the drops fell out in fat crocodile tears as she
tried to locate her house.
Where is it?
She
wondered as her eyes darted.

Frantic, Clio couldn’t find it. There wasn’t one
identifiable marker to indicate the place where her home once sat.

“There,” she said, pointing off in the distance after seeing
something familiar.

It was an ancient oak tree that she knew well. Clio tried to
carve her initials in its bark when she was nine, giving up after producing
only chicken scratch, realizing that she didn’t have the strength, or a sharp
enough blade, to score her name legibly.

Russ traversed the side of the ruins, praying that there
were no Ker lurking about.
They finally
got this place
, he thought.

Russ was aware of the Ker but had yet to see one in person.
Fine by him… He only saw video images of them on the news, in the last few days
when
the news,
still aired.

Clio jumped out and walked over to the place where she
thought her house used to rest, not really sure if it was the right spot. Russ
got out and walked over to Clio, clueless about what to say. The
thirteen-year-old pushed her hands into her face and cried. She pictured her
mother crushed beneath the rubble, images of her burning to death, starving,
being killed by a Ker,
how did she die
?
The thoughts tormented the young girl.

Sometimes there are no words; Russ knew the best thing was
to remain silent. He reached for her, wrapping his arms around this beautiful
creature.

Russ felt Clio push away from him and look up in defiant
anger. With bloodshot eyes, she stared, holding on to his arms. Instantly, her
tears stopped and she scanned over the horizon. The old man noticed a look in
Clio’s eyes that he’d never seen from her before. Murderous gaze fired out of
them with laser beam focus. Russ waited for her to speak. Knowing words of
hatred would surely spring out from her mouth like a poison well any second.

She didn’t say a word and her expression suddenly cooled.
Clio’s eyes changed from vengeance to something different. She noticed a
familiar thing in the distance and took off in a mad dash.

“Where you going?” Russ asked just before he chased after
the girl.

Clio didn’t respond and Russ struggled to keep up, fearing
that she was running off for good. “Slow down!” he shouted.

Suddenly, she stopped. Clio bent down and picked up a
sweater that was resting next to a tree. Her eyes inspected the cloth before
burying her face into it, the smell of her mother drowned out the death around
her. No bodies were in sight, but Russ knew death was all around them, all
trapped under the rubble and hidden from young eyes, he hoped.

Eyes shut; Clio sniffed the sweater with her mouth open,
breathing, wanting to taste her mother’s skin. Feeling only bits of cloth on
her tongue as her tears soaked the undeniable garment. With a thousand
memories, she lowered it, inspecting the soft shape that lay across her hands.
The old man was beside her now, breathing hard.

Russ leaned in and rested his palm on the tree that towered
over them both, noticing the faint carvings in its bark that were evidently
scored by young hands. Watching and wondering about the piece of clothing, the
old man stood over her and his chest began to calm.

“We can’t stay here much longer,” Russ offered in a gentle
tone, looking around for signs of danger.

Clio knew it was true; they couldn’t stay there much longer.
She didn’t want to leave though. And now, after finding the sweater, she
searched for her mother in a daughter’s tender heart, harder than ever, now
filled with hope.

“Ok,” Clio answered, wanting to search the surrounding
woods.

Suddenly, a mirage appeared, walking like a dream.

Russ noticed it first and pointed his weapon, wondering if
it were a hallucination. A shape came out of the woods and crossed over the
tree line barrier in the distance. After the old man’s sudden movements jolted
her to look in the same direction, Clio saw it too. She aimed her pistol with
the sweater draped around her wrist. The shape came into focus as it moved
across the open field between them.

It was human. Staggering out of the woods, there was a
person walking toward them. Clio and Russ marched forward as Lady was already
halfway to the woman. She collapsed to the ground and Lady began sniffing her
as she reached up and felt the dog’s fur. Not wagging her tail as if she sensed
the delicate state of the fallen human, Lady looked back at Russ and Clio. The
mystery woman and dog waited for their arrival.

Russ and Clio kneeled down on either side of the elderly
woman. She was badly bruised and covered in dried blood. Clio noticed that the
woman’s left arm was broken. The bones weren’t coming through the skin but they
were giving it one hell of a try. Her hand was mangled worse than her arm,
fingers going in different directions, as if a safe full of alligators had
fallen on them.

“We’ve got you,” Russ said.

“Is there anyone else?” Clio asked, searching for signs of
life through the tree line.

“They took them,” the old woman responded.

Clio didn’t recognize her and she searched over the woman’s
blood stained face, desperately wanting to know about her mother.

“Who… Took who?” Russ asked cradling the woman’s head.

“The robots took them,” The woman responded in a whisper.

“What?” Clio asked. “Who did they take?”

Russ and Clio both leaned in closer, turning their ears
toward her wrinkled mouth, sensing the woman was drifting away.

“The robots… they took the others away with them…”

“How many?” Russ asked caressing the woman’s hair, seeing
the fear in her eyes.

“I don’t know… only a few…” she responded even softer,
weaker.

“Was my mother one of them?” Clio asked much louder than
necessary.

“There was a woman…” the battered lady responded, not
knowing Clio’s mother but understanding it was the best answer she could give.

“It’s ok, we’ve got you,” Russ said.

“No… I’m ready to go now,” the woman responded behind a
smile as her eyes gazed upward, reflecting the clouds off them like tiny
mirrors.

Clio got on her elbow and placed her hand on the woman’s
chest, feeling it gently rise and fall. “What did she look like?” Clio asked.

The women opened her mouth to respond. Clio realized the
woman’s hand wasn’t moving anymore. No more answers came after the life
evaporated from the glassy windows of her soul. She was gone.

“Hooooowwww!”

Russ and Clio heard the distance sounds of a creature and
realized the “Ssshhhhaaa,” hissing sound was getting closer.

After feeling the weapon of hope arming her every fiber,
Clio almost wanted them to come. With the possibility of her mother being
alive, she would kill every retched creature if that was what it took. She’d
wade through mountains of monster guts to find her mother.