Fourth Interlude - Along the Rabbit Trail
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The plastic clouds usually cluttering Mimas’ orbit scattered over the brown expanses west of Nouvelle Patrie, and Saturn’s ghostly halo flooded the vast, withered Bayou stretching towards the curved horizon.
Abandoned drilling rigs often dotted the foul-smelling and oozing wasteland. Those still operating far from the urban periphery noisily dug the thin crust; their high-spec steel bits in constant search of black gold gigantic pipelines carried to the Victorian refineries and Plantations bordering the Herschel Sea.
On her single-seater CanaryBike, the rabbit-Freak Clover Watercress rode along one of those thirty-foot-high metal pipes, anchored in the slush by monstrous steel hoops. The circular shackles appeared to be so corroded by acid rain that the conduits sometimes wavered, following the gravitational fluctuations caused by the close gas giant. The old pioneers said the oil-eating iron worms were stretching to free themselves from their chains. For one day, they would find no more food. For one day, the ravaged moon and Plasticland would die.
A visual alert on Clover’s radar—shaped like a carrot—warned the Pinkerton agent of an unexpected drop. The red light reflected on her round goggles, and she took her eyes off the horizon for a moment. The monochrome control screen kept asking for her consent to override the automated braking system of her flying machine.
With a quick glance at the speedometer, the young mutant accepted the request and her machine accelerated even further. The Mustang engine roared, before her ride crested the gully recently formed by a storm. Holding her breath, the Freak leaned back, then jumped over the gorge in a dangerous yet spectacular loop.
Her bike skidded to a halt on the other side of the rift, and kicked up a wave of sludge. Runny mud covered the forgotten distance indicator the Freak had been looking for since she left Red Stick, the last burg before the oil meadows. Droplets of soiled water trickled down the silver monolith metallic, and a holographic marking revealed itself. The luminescent letters and numbers flickered in the pipe’s shadow.
Lifting her glasses and readjusting her airbag jacket, Clover approached the milestone. CanaryBikes didn’t like to stand still; the turbine sputtered, drying the earth beneath and raising a cloud with a strong chemical smell. Carbonaceous residues stained most of the entire disfigured plains.
“15W? I must have missed the fourteenth…” the Freak coughed as she lifted her red scarf over her nose and mouth. She glanced back before displaying a three-dimensional map over her beeping onboard computer.
The low-quality picture of the satellite wavered because of radioactive particles. Clover had come too close to the areas still highly contaminated by the faulty warheads that had once helped terraforming Saturn I. She had to immediately head south, avoiding as much as possible the deadly dust storms rising from the austral desert.
Although disrupted around the equator as the plastic skies recovered, orbital beacons helped Clover to find her path towards SO1870—an abandoned oil rig lost in foothills that were never named.
But what was supposed to be a straight line through the southern hemisphere turned out to be more hazardous than expected. Despite the fortunate lack of deadly storms, more annoying obstacles crossed her way; such as clouds of mutagenic mosquitoes, sulfur chimneys waiting to ignite as her turbine passed by, and tricky mirages revealing rock formations at the last second. They transformed her two days-long ride into a long week of constant suffering.
The zealous Pinkerton agent finally arrived in sight of SO1870 on a damp first day of summer. A recent landslide had crushed the station’s surroundings beneath tons of red pebbles and dust, miraculously sparing the main camp and its barracks. The capricious mother nature, that humankind was eager to tame, sometimes knew how to show mercy.
Between two twisted antennas stuck on the windy hilltop, Clover unfolded her long scope—also shaped like a carrot and stored inside her Canarybike’s fork just below the dashboard.
As she watched, a burning smell tickled her nose. It came from an extinguished fire which swept through the eastern half of the camp. The huge black iron tower that once formed the main derrick had collapsed in the shifting sand that washed away half the rusty pumpjacks and an old round-based electric control house. However, the latter had been done up, as evidenced by the camouflage netting hiding a glinting Uranian-made satellite dish on the roof. Someone had moved here after the last workers left the remote oil rig.
“What the heck is going on here?” Clover muttered as she scanned the nearby fuel tanks with her smart lens. An infrared filter analyzed the slightest traces of recent passage. “Are you still around, Poncho? Is this your lair? So far from civilization?”
Alas, nothing moved.
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Disappointed, the Freak was about to rule that the station had been deserted by its last inhabitants, or at least by Miguel Francisco Moreno, the robotic killer she had been tracking since the beginning of the civil war.
But at the moment she decided to put away her long sight, an automatic zoom focused her attention at the surroundings of a latrine built away from the control room. There, slipping off the water well, a hooded figure had just collapsed into the brown mire.
“Tarnation!” Clover cried, already back on her ride. With a flick of her wrist, she loosened the brakes and silently slid her CanaryBike down the unstable slope. The turbine blades screeched on the gravel, before sliding down to the softer ground.
Her vehicle abandoned at the bottom of the collapsed hill, Clover walked along the shade of a recycling dump, cocking her Smith & Wesson. Struggling to keep from sinking waist deep into the mire, she moved cautiously towards the well.
There, a shoulders-tattooed woman lay her face buried in the mud. Only scarlet bubbles rising to the surface testimony as a sign of life. The mutant slowly turned the unknown survivor over, and cleaned the dirt from her mouth and bloody nose with her paw. Conscious of being in the open, she then dragged the comatose sentry by the boots, and set her down next to an old nutrigel barrel below the crumbling water tower.
“Poncho. Have you seen a guy named Poncho?” Clover whispered, inspecting the victim from top to bottom. The woman wore a keffiyeh, and a long coat with a rifle holster strapped to her back. She looked more like a Kuiper desperado than an oil smuggler.
“Moreno…” the woman coughed loudly. Covered with dust, her eye implants flickered. She brought a trembling hand to the gaping wound on her abdomen.
“That’s his name, yes.”
“Cabrón…”
“That’s also a statement I can agree with…” Clover went on after sticking her hand over the woman’s mouth as she was starting to cry. “Hush, will you!” The next moment, she was dead.
Clover swore, taking off her hat. Her rabbit ears unfolded. Shooing away the few mosquitoes that smelled fresh blood, the Pinkerton agent stood up. She then walked silently to the abandoned electric station. Pushing the round hatch off her shoulder, she peeked inside.
Sitting in front of a makeshift fireplace, a broad-shouldered robot was contemplating the few embers still burning. Beside him, a man was curled up in his bunk, his felt hat over his face. Gulping, the Freak was about to burst in, her gun drawn and badge seen when a rancid smell made her gag.
“Hands up…” she said without much conviction.
A breeze caused the robot sitting backwards to fall down, and lifted the second man’s poncho. Pumping mosquitoes as big as hornets covered his severed throat. Both were dead.
“The weapons are still in their holsters…” Clover noted as she picked up the human’s Colt, hanging from the belt wrapped around his feet.
The group probably knew their killer. And the Freak could quickly confirm the identity of the latter as she made her way towards the third body collapsed on the desk of the former rig supervisor. Under her boots crackled a Jovian red shotgun shell. Trickling blood and brain gobs coated the back wall and window frame facing him.
Sitting down next to the scalpless corpse featuring an ominous Smiley tattoo on his throat, the Freak stretched out towards the Xerox gathering dust in the escritoire’s corner. After studying the last missives, it turned out that the group was waiting for Poncho to show up. But they certainly were unaware of their fate.
“Come to clean up a backwater mercenary base lost on the edge of the desert, Poncho? Corpo job?” she wondered, raising her head to inspect the stacks of floppy disks framing the window. “Data Guild, maybe? No. They don’t deal with savages like you.”
Clover glanced out the broken glass. On the soft ground, tire tracks led north-east, towards Nouvelle Patrie. His task accomplished, Poncho had proceeded straight back to the city, through the radioactive wastes that the Freak had chosen to avoid at all costs. Whatever the new mission he had been given, it had to be of the utmost importance to take such a direct and deadly route.
“Gone…” Clover eventually breathed, just before both the computer and the Xerox shut down and their noisy fans stopped blowing.
She stood up, knocking the disemboweled corpse. She noticed a crumpled paper in his left hand while stepping over him. Crouching down, she opened it with the barrel of her gun and pulled out what looked like a death warrant. But the frugal document hasn’t been issued by the Alliance of Auxiliaries of Justice, the Judges or any governmental body. Such straightforwardness betrayed the involvement of a Martian corporation.
“A corpo job it is…” Clover grumbled as she unraveled the wanted notice. “Martian or n—Tarnation!”
The Pinkerton agent turned solid, but her rabbit heart started up again almost immediately. Throwing the paper over her shoulder, she leaped to the exit. Quick as a flash, she was already on her CanaryBike. The Mustang turbine roared back to life, spewing a cloud of dust that dug a furrow in the damp earth. The coordinates entered in the control computer, Clover soared towards Nouvelle Patrie through the radioactive expanses.
The warrant flew over the drowned shale shaker before falling back into the pool of scaled blood forming around the corpse of the woman from the well. Two names appeared on it, along with two photos. The first one showed what seemed to be a scientist in a white lab coat. The second featured a local legend, wearing a Separatist officer’s uniform.
His name was Miles “Red Swan” Villanueva.