Idols (7 page)

“Look what I just found, wedged in the relay. Just as Fortis promised. Coordinates. It’s a data log. A map.”

She stops by the side of the road, and I can barely make out glowing, scrolling digi-lines in the moonlight.

“I think these lines are roads, all marked with numbers. And he even marked the town, here.”

“Hanksville?” Ro reads over her shoulder. “What, some guy just got to name a town after himself?”

“Guess so,” Tima says. “Some guy named Hank.”

Ro snorts. “Yeah? Well, when we finish kicking the Lords off this planet, I’m going to take the biggest Embassy I can find and name it Ro-town.”

“Is this really what you spend your time thinking about?” Lucas snorts.

“I bet you will, Ro.” I struggle not to smile.

Lucas shakes his head. “So if we can follow the roads, and if Doc is right, this line—here—should take us to the Idylls?”

Tima nods.

“Which means Fortis did know where it was,” Lucas says. “The Idylls. We’ve been heading there all along. Why didn’t he just tell us?”

Ro snorts again. “Merk melons. Who knows what goes on in that wacked-out brain of his?”

“You’re one to talk,” says Lucas.

I don’t want to think about Fortis and his melon. I don’t want to imagine what the Lords are doing to him now—or what they’ve done.

What they will do.

How quickly we abandoned him.

How naturally self-preservation, the will to keep our own selves alive, supersedes all else.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I have to get control.

It’s only been a few hours and already I’m going out of my mind.

“Transport?” I ask, forcing myself back to studying the map. “In this Hanksville place? That’s where we’re supposed to find it?”

“I imagine so. An operative vehicle. That’s what Doc said.” Tima folds the map, sliding it back into the metal case. “I wonder what sort of vehicle he means.”

“Jackpot. We scored this time, my compadres.”

Lucas glares at him. “We better have.”

Tima and I are too tired to speak; we’ve walked all night, and this is now the sixth abandoned wreck of a building we’ve tried this morning.

“Oh yeah,” Ro says. “This is the one. I can feel it.”

I roll my eyes. He pulls a dusty canvas cover off what looks like bales of hay hidden in a rotting wooden barn. It’s as dark and cool in here as it is warm and bright outside, but even so, I can see one thing.

It’s not hay.

It’s a vehicle, all right. I don’t know if it’s operative, but I recognize the basic shape beneath the dust.

“It’s a car?”

“Not just any car.” Ro rounds the side of the sleek black machine. “Chevro,” he reads, where a few ancient, rusting letters poke through the dust. “I bet somebody loved this old girl.”

“Will it work?” Tima looks impatient. I can’t blame her.

Lucas pries open a flat piece of metal that seems to be hiding the mechanical heart of the transport. “Simple petroleum engine,” he says. “Much more basic than a Chopper.”

“But doesn’t it need—”

“Petrol?” Ro holds up a dented red canister, covered with dust. He wiggles it, and I hear a splashing sound coming from inside.

“Even better,” I say, pulling a dusty box from the shelf. “Omega Chow.”

“Is that food?” Tima takes the box from my hand.

“Dog food,” I say.

“Food is food.” Ro rips open the box, shoveling a handful of the brown, desiccated lumps into his mouth.

Lucas shouts from the other side of the vehicle. “There’s a pump.”

I hear the squeaking of ancient joints, moving for the first time in who knows how long.

“Water. It’s brown as Porthole Bay, but it’s definitely water.”

Handfuls of dog food and liquid mud have never tasted so good. Brutus seems to agree.

Ro shoves open one door, Lucas the other. The metal hinges complain, groaning like Ro when he had to feed the pigs in the morning, back at the Mission. Lucas retreats to Tima, who hands him the red fuel canister.

“Doc,” calls out Ro, from inside the car. “I need Doc.”

“You want the Lords to come after us? You looking to take a ride on the No Face Express?” Lucas looks at Ro like he’s an idiot.

“No, I want to take a ride in this car. Let’s call it the Ro Face Express. But I don’t know how it works.”

Tima flips open the relay, switching it on. “Keep it short, and then be ready to go. We’ll have to get out of here as soon as we get offline.”

Ro starts digging underneath the wheel, pulling on wires. I slide in next to him. The seat smells like old boots.

“Doc, are you getting this? I need a little help here, with a combustion engine. Petroleum based. You got some sort of scanning capability?”

“Ignition wiring is simple, Furo. Downloading instructions to your local map, now.”

“What’s this?” I open a small door in the panel in front of me and pull out a white furry thing, with old metal keys dangling from the back.

“Disgusting.” The thing is a severed animal foot. The sight of it makes me ill. It has toenails. “Who were these people?” I shake my head.

“Severed rabbit’s foot. An offering to the gods of luck, by some,” Tima volunteers. “In ancient times.”

“Why would a foot be lucky?” I stare at the lump of fur in front of me.

Ro looks at me—and then starts to laugh. “Because of what’s attached to the other end, genius.” He looks back to the cuff, shaking his head. “Forget it, Doc. I just got a better idea.”

Keys. The rabbit foot is attached to a set of keys. Most likely, to a car.
More specifically, a Chevro. This one.

Doc’s voice echoes in the barn. “I object, Furo. Your logic is erroneous.”

“You know, I get that a lot.” Ro grins.

“One idea cannot be held to be empirically better or worse than another. More apt for a given context, certainly, but not intrinsically better, per se.”

“Yeah, this one is. She has the keys, Doc. To the car we’re trying to hand-wire.” Ro looks up at the ceiling, as if the voice came from above.

Silence.

“Yes. That is better. I stand corrected.”

“Don’t you forget, Doc, who the real brains are around here.” Ro grins and slides a key into the slit next to the big, round wheel. I’m surprised how quickly he is able to see where it goes.

Then he winks in my direction, smiling like he was meant to live in the time of Chevro transports and bloody animal feet offerings. “Wish me luck, Dol-face.”

“Good luck, Dol-face,” Doc intones.

I laugh. “Good luck, Doofus.”

And with that, Ro turns the key and the engine roars to life.

The road flows beneath us, streaming past our windows in the light. Ro drives in the exact center of the road, following a faded line of dried paint. “Why else would you put a line there?” he says.

“So you and Lucas can stand on opposite sides of it,” Tima says. “Now stop talking and watch where you’re going.”

“Was that a joke?” Ro looks astounded from the front seat. The Chevro swerves, almost barreling into the deep, grassy trench that parallels each side of the highway.

“You heard her. Watch the road, moron.” Lucas glares out the window.

Clouds of black smoke splutter out into the air behind us. “Do you think it’s supposed to do that?” Tima looks nervous.

“No,” says Lucas.

“Yes,” says Ro.

Tima sighs, wrinkling her nose. “Forget I said anything.” I notice she has belted herself to her seat like a Chopper pilot, tying the straps together above their useless, rusted buckles. I don’t know who is shaking more, Tima or Brutus, coiled at her feet.

This whole car thing is freaking both of them out.

Not me. After a Chopper crash and a hostile visit from the Lords, it would take a lot more than an old Chevro to freak me out.

So I don’t care where I am—not right now, anyway. I’m too exhausted. My legs are throbbing and my eyelids are as heavy as stone.

I lean my head back against the cracked seat, half asleep, staring out my window.

The highway runs along a ridge, and the top of the ridge is outlined against the sky.

The silhouette frames the rising slope of the tallest peak, and then my eye catches something else.

One small detail.

I sit up. A dark shape—tall, a jagged spike—rises in the distance, higher than any tree ever could.

“Is that an old comlink pole? All the way out here?” I tap my finger against the window.

“No,” says Tima, and when she answers, her voice sounds as cold as I feel.

“Didn’t think so,” I say.

Nobody speaks after that. We all know what it is—and we all want to get as far away from it as we can.

From them, all of them.

These new Icon roots.

Who can fight something that is everywhere? Who can win an unwinnable war like that?

I am too tired to think.

I am almost too tired to dream.

Almost.

Which is when I find myself losing consciousness.

“Doloria.”

I hear my name through the darkness of my dream. I can’t answer—I can’t find my voice. I don’t know which one is mine, there are so many in my head.