Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Three
Verse One: Don't Fight an Agent
The Goblin rattled
along the highway until, as the sun began to hit it's noon day high,
Harley spotted a sign for a town named "Admiral's Warning"
with a listed population of two hundred and forty one people. The
town was tiny. If Marion closed his eyes for a brief rest he might
literally blink and miss it as they passed through. A tiny commercial
core of buildings around which a few small suburbs clustered and out
from which a series of dirt roads radiated out leading to rural
properties at the outskirts. Cattle grazed like a slow eyed watch
dogs and the smell of manure became rapidly overpowering as they
approached.
"That seems
sleepy enough to be safe." Marion observed.
Harley agreed, "It
sounds safe enough. I'll grab the exit and we'll gas up and food up
there. To be safe, keep your distance from the locals though, but
don't act like your trying to keep your distance."
"How do I do
that?"
"I don't know,
act natural."
The rock gradually
faded from a ruddy ochre to a bleached bone white as Harley and
Marion drove the Goblin into the town, although calling this empty
desiccated collection of stores and dilapidated buildings a town
would be generous. The town seemed like a corpse, drained by some
architectural vampire and left to bleach in the white hot glare of
the sun. As the Goblin clunkered through town, a few stray humans
looked up from creaking porches and peered from over dusty blinds.
The visible expressions were cut with lines and furrows that spoke of
fear and mistrust.
"I can almost
hear the banjoes playing." Harley said as he steered the Goblin
down what passed for a main street, "Does the map have anything
to say about where we can find a gas station. We need supplies. Food
and gas to start and then probably some decent camping and road side
maintenance gear."
"Why all the
stuff? Is something wrong with the Goblin?" Marion asked, "I
thought he was lumbering pretty well today? I mean, he is the Goblin,
but still I thought he was doing well."
"We're wanted
for questioning. Perhaps wanted as suspects now. I turned off my cell
phone completely so I can't check. You turned yours off too right?"
Marion nodded and
Harley continued.
"We're being
framed. The less contact we need to have with people who could turn
us in, the better. There is nothing wrong with the Goblin, but the
Goblin isn't know for it's longevity on the highway, and I don't want
to be in a position of asking for help from passerbys and hoping they
don't recognize us from the nightly news more time than necessary.
I'd like to avoid hearing a police siren behind me if possible, and
so we need supplies to minimize our need to interact with strangers."
There was a strange
popping noise from the Goblin's engine and the van bounded a little
in response, as though the ancient machine were either agreeing with
or objecting to the boy's assessment of it's performance.
"It's okay
boy," Marion said with a grin, "We trust you, you've been a
good beast of burden and we're just talking about how to take care of
you so you can keep going another thirty years."
"I don't think
anything could give the Goblin another thirty years. I just want it
to last long enough to get us as far as possible as quickly as we can
manage."
"He doesn't
mean that." Marion said, patting a torn green seat cover, "He
loves you too."
"The Goblin
has been a great tough old vehicle, but I will not anthropomorphize
it."
Marion stuck his
tongue out, "Either way, let's also minimize our interactions
with the bad guys by turning left right now. Right Now! Turn Left!"
Marion said, his voice rising as he pointed our a white van with two
men in dark glasses and dark suits speaking into ear pieces beside
the white van.
Harley cranked the
wheel and turned, sharply, but smoothly onto the side street. The
dominant colour for exterior walls in the town seemed to be taupe
with a generous coating of white rock dust.
"Did they see
us?" Marion acted.
"I don't think
so. But this complicates matters. We have to go into silent running
mode now and sneak around getting things done without any of them
raising the alarm. Fantastic." Harley said, "How did they
get here before us?"
"I don't know.
I'm not even sure that they're real people, maybe they just possess
people like in the Matrix?"
"I hope not. I
like my villains to be a little more original than that."
"And here I
was hoping that actually listening to the story would help improve my
luck."
"Maybe this is
an improvement." Harley said.
"Or maybe
we're not doing the right thing yet."
"Okay, I want
to hear what the map says about gas stations in this little town.
Every time I think I've got the feel of the new music, things go all
free jazz on me. " Harley said.
"What have you
got against free jazz? The spirit of Pharaoh Sanders will rise from
the grave to kick your butt if you keep doing that."
"Pharaoh
Sanders isn't dead you know."
"Your
blasphemies would kill him and he would rise from the grave in
indignation.
"Pharaoh
Sanders is a genius. He isn't the problem, the problem is people who
think that they can be Pharaoh Sanders, and me having to listen to
them."
"Weak excuses,
to little and too late to stop the vengeance of the Pharaoh."
"That sounds
like an old Hammer Film."
Marion grinned in
spite of himself and scanned the map. Admiral's Warning was not a big
settlement, but at least the place seemed to have built for people
who owned vehicles. Roads spun out in all directions, like spider
webs spinning out from a hypothetical town centre
"There's only
one gas station," Marion said, "And we have to go past the
suits over there to reach it. But there are plenty of side streets,
so we may be able to sneak around them. If we're lucky, which we
aren't, then we can reach the gas station undetected and the gas
station and the grocery store are attached, so it would be a one stop
shop and then we can return to running like scared children."
"Listen to
yourself. We aren't running like scared children," Harley said,
"We just don't have any leads right now. Everything spins on
those kids, and the number they called from was blocked. I can't dial
them back. So we have to listen and hope that they call again. Until
then, we have to stay free."
"That makes us
seem so much better than how I was thinking about our situation."
Marion said.
"That's my
job. I'm the stable one."
"I thought I
was the stable one."
"No, you're
the adorably befuddled one, that I keep out of trouble."
"So what are
saying exactly?"
"That I'm
really bad at my job apparently. No sense stalling. You direct me,
and we'll try to sneak around them."
"That way."
Marion pointed ahead at a smaller side road named Lowe Street, and
Harley directed the Goblin down the street. The two tried to get to
the gas station, but every turn led them to a white unmarked van
parked between them and the gas station. After nearly an hour of
frustrated circling, they gave up.
"Our gas isn't
bad just yet," Marion offered, "We could just keep going
and try again later."
"I want
supplies before I need them." Harley countered, "Not after
I need them. We can go on foot, sneak through yards and get to the
grocery store. At least then we have some of what we need."
They parked the
Goblin on a quiet residential side street and began making their way
through weed filled lanes between the homes, slowly working their way
towards the grocery store. When they finally got within sight of the
building, they could clearly see five men in dark glasses and dark
suits standing spread out across the parking lot.
Harley shook his
head, "They know what we would need if we stopped here. There
are probably more inside. We should just go. I should have listened
to you. I made a bad choice here."
Marion didn't
argue, and the two slipped back towards the Goblin. However, upon
getting within sight of the Goblin they immediately spotted two
agents with fingers pressed to ear pieces standing beside the van
talking to the open air.
"Harley,"
Marion said quietly, "I am definitely still not lucky, and it
appears to be contagious."
Harley and Marion
crouched in the wild grasses growing between two yards at the edge of
the road where the Goblin was parked. The two agents quickly were
joined by nearly a dozen other agents. The agents quickly used a pry
bar to open the back doors to aging cricket Van and agents swarmed in
as the air hummed with radio crackle and conversation.
"Now what?"
Marion asked.
"The longer
they have access to the Goblin, the worse things are for us. We can't
hear what they're saying, but I assume that none of it is good."
"We could
leave the Goblin, and steal a car." Marion offered.
"I can't pick
a lock and I can't hot wire a car, can you?"
"No. I can't"
"So we need
the Goblin back and fast. We need a distraction to draw them off, so
we can get back and make a run for it."
Marion raised his
eyebrows, "This seems like a reasonable plan to you? I thought
you were the stable one."
"This seems
like the most reasonable plan given our resources and abilities and
the limitations of our situation. I don't hear either of us voicing
anything better. This isn't a good option, but I don't think we've
got another option that has a better shot at success."
"We could
hitch hike?"
"I don't want
to be reliant on the kindness of strangers and upon strangers not
recognizing us from the nightly news. Based on how things are going,
I want to involve fate as little as possible. I want to keep control
of what's happening in our hands."
"I understand
that you don't want to rely on people who could turn you in. I don't
want to get shot at by what may or may not be federal agents."
"I don't think
we're going to be able to avoid that one for long given our current
and growing list of problems"
"Fine, why
not? We're probably going to die horribly anyway."
They crouched,
motionless, watching the agents mill about, trying to gauge the least
suicidal moment to act. The wind slowly waved the grasses into their
faces gently scratching and tickling them in the least enjoyable
manner Marion could imagine. The sun beat down on them and Marion
could feel sweat pooling at the base of his spine. The sound of
grasshoppers chirping rose around them as they remained still. Marion
began to pass the time by watching their shadows move across the dry
gravel strewn earth.
"How are we
going to distract them?" Marion asked finally after they had
been motionless for nearly fifteen minutes and his legs were
beginning to cramp.
"I have
absolutely no idea." Harley answered in a frustrated deadpan.
"Well we
could-" Harley began to say, only to be cut off by a startled
warbling female voice.
"Hey! What are
you two doing there? " Marion and Harley turned to see an old
woman looking across her white picket fence, metal rake paused mid
stroke as she stared at the two of them.
"Crouching
suspiciously in the bushes apparently." Marion said.
The agents besides
their van turned to look. Harley closed his eyes tightly for a moment
and shook his head, "Time to run now."
"I think the
world might end if I got lucky." Marion said bitterly.
