“SORD! SORD! ARE YOU okay?” Robbie was frantically assessing his friend’s predicament as he stooped down to peer beneath the overturned moto.

“Sord! Jesus H, dude!”

Both had taken the small hill at high speed, one after the other, but they misjudged the angle of the lip outcropping at the top, and their motos somersaulted over in sequence. Robbie was thrown aside as his moto slid upside down along the thirty foot incline of loose slate, finally righting itself at the bottom of the ravine.

Robbie was not unlike Sord in many respects. Both were the only sons of single mothers. His mother and father had split months ago and were finalizing their divorce. Robbie’s dad had recently moved to Madera, the southernmost outpost of Prosperity in what was once Northern Mexico, then later Bolivar.

Despite rarely being exposed to direct sunlight due to the damage it might cause, Robbie’s skin was genetically dark. His father was descended from a line of Latinos who resided in the former state of New Mexico before it was absorbed in the 2040s into Vista, one of three large states in what was once the nation-state oligarchy of Westrich, before the GDII global purging event of 2075.

Robbie was tall and lanky for his age, with brown eyes and wavy black hair. His eyes were too close to his nose, making it appear as if he was somewhat cross-eyed. This minor facial anomaly was correctable but such genetic imperfections were rarely modified in the slowly expanding, post-GDII commonwealth of Prosperity.

Sord, too, had brown eyes and thick eyebrows. His forehead jutted out a bit too much for his liking, so he grew bangs to cover it up. All it took was one comment from a girl years before – ‘Hey, Mount Rushmore’ – to force him to change his hairstyle.

He longed to have Robbie’s height but knew he was destined to always be looking up to his male friends. His mother and grandmother were in the lower quartile for height, and even his father was sensitive about his own stature, often using boots to make him appear taller.

Like Robbie, Sord was thin as were most of his peers. Typical indulgences from prior decades, such as sugary sodas and excessive sweets and starches, were never within reach, it seemed. Not that they weren’t available, they just were no longer inherently a part of the pleasure-centric cultures of the past.

Various sets of barbell weights were scattered around his bedroom. At sixteen, he wanted to look more muscular, but it was constant work to retain any additional muscle he could muster.

His freckles were beginning to diminish – a good thing. The constant comments from his mother’s friends about his cuteness, how they loved his freckles and wished they had his dimples, bothered him immensely. That childhood mass of freckles had finally begun to converge together, making him appear more like a patchy-skinned teen than a freckle-faced pre-teen. He was losing his childhood cuteness and beginning to feel more like a man.

Of the few modifications allowed for children, he was most thankful for the genetic code that gave him straight teeth. Recently, he had seen too many recent newcomers into Prosperity without access to such tech in the sordid conditions from which they previously emerged.

His code was applied in childhood, in addition to a variety of other genetic modifications such as the ability to optimize oxygen utilization in the otherwise oxygen-depleted outdoors, as well as the requisite health-related code changes. Those included enhanced resistance to various manmade genetic maladies, a necessary requirement of their post-apocalyptic world that still had its fair share of enemies and invaders.

Sord was in serious trouble, wedged beneath his overturned moto, a three-hundred pound, battery powered, four-wheeler. It was not so heavy that in any other terrain, Robbie could have readily lifted it to allow Sord to exit. But this was not normal terrain.

Rain was a sparse but welcome rarity in the post-GDII world. This lack of rain in the Durango area, coupled with the more intense ultraviolet rays from the sun, caused the red shale, slate, and sandstone rocks of the Durango area to splinter and fracture more easily. The ravine wall they tried to scale on their motos was layered with such shards. Worse yet, solid limestone sat beneath the loose rock, making it a difficult challenge to retain a good foothold anywhere on the incline.

Robbie snapped the dusty goggles from his brow and rested them atop his head, exposing his eyes to the direct, damaging rays of the sun. He squinted, unable to ascertain Sord’s condition.

Sord was motionless.

Lifting his oxymask slightly, Robbie whispered, “Buddy, are you conscious?”

No movement.

He removed his glove and reached at Sord’s neck for a sign of life. “Shit, dude, I hope you’re just knocked out for a minute.”

There it was. A pulse. Perched on the ground and staring at his incapacitated friend, he recalled a critical mistake. “Fuck! I forgot my radio!”

In response to his expletive, Sord slowly began to stir, then groaned loudly.

“Okay,” Robbie cried aloud. “You’re not dead. That’s good. Good.” He placed the goggles back over his eyes and surveyed the immediate landscape.

The small hill they crashed on was like every other one in the dusty terrain around Durango. But the grade was a problem. In trying to lift the moto off him, Robbie knew he might slip on the loose rock and risk slamming the moto back down on Sord. And he didn’t know if the internal gyros that normally controlled the roll, pitch, and yaw might kick in suddenly, causing it to right itself atop Sord’s body and create a worse problem than they already faced.

They had both flipped their motos in previous outings, but not within the same few seconds. Robbie knew they had broken the unspoken rule of four-wheeling: “Take the hill, one at a time.” Had they done that, things would have gone differently.

“Stupid!” he murmured, attempting to locate acceptable footholds on the incline. “Hey, dude. I’ve got to get this off you, but I can’t tell how the moto will react.”

Robbie grasped at its edge and pushed upward.

“Shit!” Sord screamed. “Shit! That’s killing me! Ow, Jesus. Pain!”

The moto barely budged. Robbie dropped to the ground again and noticed the moto seat was pressing hard against Sord’s head and cheek. “Your face, brother? That’s what hurts?”

Sord paused, and Robbie noticed his eyes close.

“Right arm,” he eked out through his clenched jaw.

“Your arm hurts? Sure that’s all? Look I have to move this thing. You can’t stay under this.”

“Radio help?” Sord whispered.

“Not mine. I left it back at the pod. We’ll use yours, but I first have to get this fucking moto turned over to find it. You need to stay with me on this. Just think of the chicks, dude. Think how they’ll be all over you after this accident. Imagine that day.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

While he was talking, Robbie stumbled his way to the other side of the moto. Peering beneath, he saw blood slowly squirting onto the ground.

“Fuck!” he blurted.

“What?” Sord replied.

“Nothing. Nothing. You’re fine. But I have to get this off before we do anything else. I can’t see your radio from here, so I have to move this. Again, just think of the chicks. Think of that one chick, the girl who took a liking to you in Hesperus.”

“What are you saying? She doesn’t like me,” he groaned.

“Yes, she does!” he exclaimed, lifting the moto up a few inches and off Sord’s body. He held it in the air, its other side wedged on a rock.

“Fucking ay!” Robbie cried in pain. “I can’t hold it here, so get out of there. Can you crawl out?”

He heard nothing.

Breathless, he tried again. “Look, I have ten more seconds at best to hold this up. Can you get the fuck out from underneath? I can’t see what you’re doing under there. My head and shoulders are propping this up, but the pressure’s too much to bear and I’m slipping on this fucking shale. It won’t upright itself. Get the fuck out!”

Sord groaned again, inching his body out slowly from beneath the moto.

“Are you fucking still under it?”

“I’m out!”

“Are you sure? I’m dropping this thing.”

The moto banged hard against the ground and slid down the hill a few more meters before uprighting itself.

Robbie scurried over to it, searching for the radio.

“My arm!” Sord cried. “Look at my fucking arm!”

Robbie glanced back at Sord who was now sitting up on his butt a few meters above Robbie, his body wavering back and forth in a daze.

A blood-soaked white shard protruded from his suit.

“Jesus, dude. Is that your bone?”

“Bleeding.”

Sord was staring in awe at his arm, and blood was beginning to cover his silver envirosuit. Robbie could tell from Sord’s oxymask that he was beginning to hyperventilate and likely in shock.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! Where’s the fucking radio?”

Sord was covered in the red and gray dust of the hill. His suit was torn in multiple places, and Robbie suspected he had multiple contusions elsewhere. But the arm was the urgent matter.

“Stay there!” Robbie demanded. “Don’t move a fucking inch. Don’t stand up. Sit there. I’ll find the radio. Where is the fucking thing?”

At that moment, he realized the shattered pieces of bioplas strewn on the hill were the remains of Sord’s radio.

“Fucking ay!” he yelled. “Fucking ay! Okay, stay calm, dude. Stay calm.”

“Calm?”

“Yeah, and don’t move. The radio. It’s not. It’s not,” he stuttered. “Not here. Broken. It’s this shit all over the ground. See that? That’s your radio, and I fucking forgot mine.”

Despite the dust covering Sord’s oxymask, Robbie could see his eyes close. Slowly, Sord laid back on the hillside, carefully avoiding any movement of his arm.

“Stop the bleeding. Pressure,” Sord pleaded.

Robbie remembered he was wearing his bandana atop his head, so he stripped it off and scrambled up the hillside.

“Close your eyes,” he commanded, staring at his friend as if he might die.

Robbie knew this was a bad situation. The worst he’d ever been in. Maybe the worst he’d ever heard of. He couldn’t help but think of his friends at school, and how they’d wonder in horror as he told them the tale of their accident, of how Sord died despite their brave trek back to Durango’s perimeter.

Sord’s bleeding forearm was elevated above his chest, and although the blood was still spurting, Robbie thought the volume had diminished from what he’d seen minutes before when Sord was trapped beneath the moto. “Fucking gene repair shit better start working, or he’ll bleed out,” he whispered unconsciously.

“Bleed out? What do you mean?” Sord asked, still not opening his eyes.

“Bleeding out. Outside your suit,” he lied, carefully wrapping his makeshift tourniquet around Sord’s upper forearm.

Once finished, he washed the blood from his hands in the dirt from the hillside. Robbie closed his eyes for a moment. “Use what you’ve learned, brother. Center yourself. Let your fear run over and beyond you. Think clearly, despite the adrenalin surges and hyperactive mind. These are physical things, to be expected. They will not rule you. Envision what you must do to resolve your challenges.”

He stared at his friend. Sord’s breath seemed shallow now, maybe preferable to hyperventilating. Then he glanced at the puddle of blood and dirt where Sord was crushed.

“Not that much lost,” he said to himself, wanting some glimmer of hope. “I think he’s movable. But I’ve got to get him out of this sun. His face is exposed directly, given how he’s resting there. I’ve got to get us back on the moto and drive us the hell out of here.”

Robbie slid down the hill on his butt a few more meters to his moto. Although it had overturned and righted itself as it reached the bottom of the hill, he noticed a menacing shadow underneath: a head-sized boulder outcropping. Peering below, he saw the boulder was lodged against the moto’s transmission.

“Got to lift this sucker,” he panted.

He tried a single tug, but the rock prevented any movement. He tried again at front and back, but to no avail.

Given that grim outcome, he rocked the moto from side to side, hearing the disquieting grind of machine, bioplas, and rock. After a minute of trying, the moto broke free from its captor and slid further down the incline a few feet.

“Yes!” he screamed with delight. “We’re in business.”

Scampering up the incline the thirty feet to Sord, he started to lift him up by the head and left shoulder.

“Ah, fuck. What are you doing?” Sord groaned.

“Moving you, dude. Or can you stand up?”

Robbie knew that was probably not a good idea, and Sord confirmed it. “No. Dizzy. Slide.”

With his fractured arm raised in the air, Sord painfully descended down the hill by sliding on his butt, shards of gravel ripping at his bottom.

“Great job! We got this, brother. We’re good. Trust me. Now, we just need to get you up on the back seat here, then we’ll be home in fifteen.”

Sord grunted as Robbie lifted him from behind, pushing at his back and pulling up under his left shoulder. Sord managed to straddle his legs across the back seat, then slowly began leaning forward.

“No, no, no, dude. Don’t lean against me, but stay with me. You need to be awake. We’re on my moto, understand? Know where you are? We’re fifteen minutes outside town. You are not allowed to fall asleep on this. If you faint, you’ll fall on that broken arm, something you do not want!”

At that comment, Sord lifted his head up at attention as if jolted by a cattle prod. “Okay, I get it. Just, let’s go.”

Robbie hopped onto the driver’s seat and started the engine. “No problems,” he said, calmed by its comforting whine.

Sord was again leaning onto his back. “Dude!” Robbie screamed. “You cannot fall asleep. I can’t drive this if you’re not conscious. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”

“Then sing a fucking song or something. Find a way to stay awake,” he commanded. “And grab around my stomach with your left arm. You have to hold on.”

“Michael, row . . .”

“Double shit!” Robbie yelled. “Something’s wrong. I’m in gear, but I can’t go forward.”

He levered his toes against the ground and tried pushing the moto forward.

“Maybe reverse?” he wondered. Immediately the moto began to move. “Fucking gearing is stuck. Fucking boulder screwed the gearing.”

He tried forward again. Same result.

Robbie dismounted from the moto and surveyed the situation. “Sord, dude, I hate to tell you this, but this fucking moto will only go backward. Understand? And your moto’s frame is cracked in half. I can tell from here. It wouldn’t even carry one of us. We’ll take mine, but you’ll need to direct me. You will be my navigator. I’ll drive, but I need you to tell me when to turn left or right or go straight. There’s no fucking way I can do this without you. I can’t drive backwards with my body turned sideways and risk that I’ll not see some big rut on the other side of where my head’s turned. We’d just get flipped again, especially with two of us on here and the extra weight. And we don’t want to get flipped again. Got me?”

The bleeding had substantially subsided, and Sord’s head was beginning to clear slightly. “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “Like, how do we do this?”

“Here. You sit facing backwards on the seat, like a tail-gunner on a World War II B-17. Different situation, though, since you’re also my navigator.”

“Yeah, those were cool aircraft,” Sord added as Robbie helped him turn around on the back seat.

He pointed to Sord’s feet. “It will be a bit uncomfortable because your foot pedals are back slightly farther than if you were facing frontward. But hey, we can do this. You just tell me when to go right or left. Call it as you see it. If you say ‘go right,’ I’ll turn gently left, and vice versa, which will take us to your right. Make sense? And I’ll check you a bit from here as well. I won’t go too fast, because they geared reverse to go so fucking slow. You know that.”

Sord’s fractured arm was cradled on his lap. “Makes sense. Just, watch the bumps, right? I’m not having fun here. Pain’s unbelievable.”

Sord peered at his arm. The more substantial bleeding had stopped, but he still felt lightheaded. “Gonna be sick to my stomach.”

“Don’t look at your fucking arm, dude! Jesus H. Keep your eyes forward and think of that chick in Hesperus.”

“She doesn’t like me.”

“What’s not to like? I mean, you’ll be a fucking rugged, outdoors-type hero to her and can brag all about this little adventure when you get back. She’ll soak it up. Davy Crockett. Mountain explorer.”

“Robbie, I think you hit your head,” he retorted.

“There’s my guy. Coming back with his one-liners. Just stick with me. Keep telling me when to turn, and keep thinking of that girl. What was her name?”

“Veronica. Valerie. Started with a V.”

“No, get your bearings. I’m pretty sure it was Daisy, like the flower."