“I’ll make certain. Just aim out the window and watch out for me.”
“Like a hawk,” he continued, “damned hawk on vigil like the night and mercy, none at all. And Soph?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t smoke. Clean the windows.”
She tittered a little, hysterically.
He’s trying to keep me from screaming.
“Can I carry my own gun, Silas?”
“While you fueling, engine on? Hell no, Soph. You got to trust me, I cover you.”
“Okay.”
“Right, then. Go.”
She edged the H4 around a pile of formless tires. There were the fuel bays, looming up as merged silhouettes of dark from out of the twilit streamers, the dust devils of the darkening storm. Conjoined, the damaged hollows of the cavernous fuel bays formed the mockery of a sturdy and steadfast building, tall and somehow askew.
The bays themselves looked like immense drive-in car washes, greased brick hollows framed by scorched aluminum and crumbled brick. They were huge, big enough to drive any size of truck through. Precarious dunes of garbage were piled in the first and nearest bay, but the other four seemed unobstructed. Some of the hoses had been crushed or severed, some were on the ground, their metal snouts jammed under a single manhole cover held down by an anvil. An anvil? The other hoses, still racked and intact, did not seem to be made of rubber. They looked like weathered leather, almost scintillant like snakeskin, like old-fashioned fire hoses which had been looped out from the steam carriages parked in some turn-of-the-century museum.
These somehow sinister hoses looked coiled, waiting in infinite patience for their prey. They almost seemed alive.
Each bay had an aluminum side door, ribbed rectangles of armor. The trash bay was half-open. Two were down, padlocked. One was wide open. Above this last, a burnt and shredded remnant of an American flag whipped on the wind, dangling from a fused girder and tire chain instead of from a flagpole.
Sophie killed the lights. She pulled the H4 into the open hollow, this last bay in the line. Once she was certain the wind was mostly becalmed there in the Eye, she opened the driver’s door and got out.
She almost fell out of her open suit. She zipped up, slowly, knowing Silas was watching over her. No friction, her mind was chanting to itself. Engine has to stay on. Get grounded. No static electricity. She wished she had secured her helmet, but it was too late for that. She breathed into her moistened rag.
She shifted her booted feet, and an aching tingle snaked up her adductor muscles, further in up her thighs. She stretched, arced back. And then like an idiot, she almost slammed her door shut out of habit.
You fool, this isn’t some shopping mall. She looked over her shoulder, left to right, listened. Smelled the garbage and the rot of human beings. That generator sound, the pulse of a beast beneath the wind, still echoed from what seemed very far away.
Wind, stench, and darkness. The feel of the suit, she was slick, a sweat of fear. There was the only absence of people. The aluminum rack of gassing hoses was overhead, and warning signage. There was nothing else.
She turned and opened the passenger door, so that Silas could look out with his guns. He was lodged in an awkward position, but he had maneuvered himself onto his side, so that he could lean up on his elbow and fire out behind Sophie if he had to. Indeed, the ARM assault rifle was near at hand and the pistol was already in his grip, its barrel wavering in the air.
The mouth of the pistol was very nearly pointing at Sophie’s face.
“Good God, Silas,” she breathed. She stepped back.
“Could have warned me you were opening my door,” he offered.
“You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry, captain.” Of all things, he grinned. He was doing a fine job, keeping the razor edge of terror from his voice. “Thought we were just rolling my window down. Just doing the best I can. You’re improvising.”
“Tell me about it, captain.” She kissed him on the forehead. The gun barrel lowered, he smiled a little longer.
She thought about taking off her gloves. She began to, but Silas shook his head. She was not about to debate the relative risks of gloved and gloveless static electricity buildup. But she did reach in and pull out the submachine gun by its grip, never touching the barrel.
“No. Don’t you hold that.” Silas’ eyes were wide.
“What if I need it?”
“Cord it. Pocket it.”
She re-corded the gun and slotted it into her suit’s catchall pocket, as carefully as she could. Her hands were free. She touched the H4’s frame with all fingers, hoping to ground herself, not having any idea if it did any good.
Can’t believe we’ve no choice but to keep the engine running. Turn it off regardless? No, not unless he says so. What if we never get it running again? What if… Her mind was a wrecking ground of conflicting thoughts, arguments and calculations. But you saw, you saw all the signs. There might still be people alive out here. And what if you need to fight soon, Sophie? What if you need to get out of here right away?
She sighed. Enough of that. Focus. Do what you have to do, and quickly.
Looking down into Silas’ eyes for reassurance, finding precious little there but fear, concern, fragility, Sophie nodded.
“Let’s do this now.”
She surveyed the immense and girdered rack of seven hoses, their stout tubes coiling up toward the bay’s arcing ceiling and lost to shadow. Some were blood scarlet, others brown. Each had a different fuel grade and some of these meant nothing to Sophie at all. The largest hoses were so bulky that each had a double-fisted grip clasp clamped onto its throat by steely bolts.
All the way past Loveland, since the untouched gas station where she had filled the duffel bags with supplies, she and Silas had talked about the dangers of fueling at a pump with the engine running, many times. And before, ever since we lost the barrels.
“Do this right,” she whispered to herself. “Do what you’re told.”
She felt a surge of girlish guilt, remembering her long-ago father hollering at her out the window the first time she had foolishly pulled the Volkswagen up to a gas pump (How long ago did he teach you to drive, Sophie? How many worlds ago?) and she had almost gotten out without turning the engine off. Are you insane? He had given her holy Hell.
Enough of this. It’s dangerous. Do it anyways.
Spreading out her fingers, moving quickly so that she could not outthink herself any longer, Sophie grabbed one of the red hoses.
“Naw.” Silas was watching over her from behind. “Think that’s diesel-two.”
And it was. The next was Ethanol, the third was something-S15, the fourth another grade she had not even heard of. The last hose in the rack had been hand-painted “SUB-RV” in letters of hasty white. Normal unleaded gasoline? Would it fit in the H4’s filler neck?
Here goes nothing.
Clink. The nozzle slotted in. She primed the pump. She heard the surge of air, the gurgle of pressurized liquid tumbling down and in. A normal fueling had just begun. It worked.
It worked!
“Oh, thank you oh Lord’s mercy,” Silas was whispering. She looked over to him, careful not to touch the fueling hose. He was blinking, struggling to reposition himself so that he could both see her and watch the opening of the bay.