2
Briggs finished making himself a simple cold-cut sandwich. He had used the last little bit of fresh vegetables for the toppings. He had put some of his homemade mayonnaise as well as coarse ground mustard, it made for a filling meal that was portable. He walked up towards the open shuttered windows, staring out at the dockyard. It was a flurry of activity after he had unloaded his cargo, he could see the crates stacked up over at another pitted area. People of all races swarmed over them like ants. Opening, checking, counting, and reloading them onto different cargo cars to distribute them around the city. His pay should be coming in soon, he knew that deep down the first day in a new city was usually this way. Unload, rest, get paid, then you could venture out to see what there was to see. He wrote a mental checklist in his mind of what he still needed to do.
1. Talk to the market planner, I must see what they have in surplus.
2. Unload the rest of my wares that I can’t sell to the public.
3. Go to Wayne’s to see about getting some replacement parts.
4. Restock my fridge, along with all my other consumables. I can’t cut it so close this time.
5. Figure out the wiring issues in the Rig, I can’t have my poor girl coming apart at the seams.
Briggs, with a sandwich in hand, moved towards the first car. He needed to check on a few small things. One of which was the local economy and see if he could dredge up a few key items. Plus, it was always good to check in with a friend now and again.
He reached the main control room in no time flat, his feet taking stairs and ladder rungs as smoothly as he would walking on a flat surface. He took another healthy bite of his sandwich, the taste of roasted beef, cheese, cabbage, and condiments bringing a slight smile to his face. He loved this calm, eating, and checking on his Rig. He walked over to the far side of the driving compartment, towards the passenger-side observation door. To the right of that door, situated on the wall was a door labeled ‘Comms Room’. With an easy tug on the handle, the door opened on well-oiled hinges. After he had stepped into the room, the door slid to a close behind him, locking it back into place.
The room was dimly lit, it was a sea of small LED lights in most of the basic colors of the rainbow. There were green, blue, red, orange, violet, and a few small blinking colors of pink. He flicked on the light switch next to the door, the recessed lighting coming on after a breath. Other than the glow of the machinery in here, there was no other natural light. This was the brain of the Rig, he could see all the major components’ readouts of various screens, and a few cameras were still working on the exterior. The biggest piece of equipment sat on the wall towards the center of the room. It stood eight feet tall, bolted to both the ceiling and the floor. It seemed to be made of black obsidian, but after he had polished it to a mirror-like sheen, it was just a trick of the limited light on glass. He walked over to it, sitting down in a refurbished chair he had pulled from the wreck of a Ford truck. He set down his sandwich, he opened a small file drawer just to the left of the chair.
Briggs pulled out a thick leather-bound ledger, the title of ‘Goods and Services’ writ large on the well-maintained cover. He placed it on the desk in front of the obelisk machine, opening the book to a bookmarked page towards the middle. He opened a cabinet in the center of the tall machine, a computer system extracted itself, and stopped in the middle of the desk. A few presses on the keyboard came with it, and the machine started to whirl to life. The once silent room became a wash of activity. Beeping, clicking, and trilling filled the space, then all was silent yet again. He pulled a clam shell headset off the side of the monitor, placing it on his head. There was no sound in the one headpiece, but that would soon change. The main computer screen lit up with a limited color display. It was rudimentary at best, but after years of tinkering with ‘fore technology, he found that simple machines meant fewer breakdowns over the long run. He clicked on the icon for a connection to the data network. All he was greeted with was a spinning hourglass icon. He sighed heavily, running the palms of his hands over his tired eyes. Time seemed to fly by on the unloading days, which always seemed to bug him. Other days’ time just dragged on, but oh well, another small problem he had to deal with.
He walked over to the entryway to the comms room, opened a panel in the wall, he pulled out a short, cabled walky-talky. Pressing the button in a small series of clicks, he emanated the classic tapping of Morse code. He continued the small string of a request, making sure to leave a pause in the middle to represent the resuming of the message. It wasn’t long before the radio in his hand crackled to life.
“Dockyard command, this is David. How can I help you Long Haul? Over.” the gruff male voice all but shouted from the small speaker next to the receiver.
“Yeah, sorry about being a bother Yard command, I am trying to access your data net. It’s not going through. I know you are busy out there from the storm and all, but I could really use the access, I have calls to make. Over.”
There was a slight delay, but he heard the slight ruffling of papers, followed by the clicking of a mechanical keyboard. “Ah, yeah, I see what the issue is.” More frantic typing followed, “It looks like when you called that trauma team, it messed with some of the procedures we had in place. It was completely in your rights as a runner to ask for that team. However, we just had to work around the disruption to normal operations.” A muffled voice could be heard, it must have been someone else in the room with David. “Ok, looks like we are having a dockhand extending the connection box to your Rig. Is the connection port behind the properly marked panel? Over.”
“Yeah, it is Control, it’s on the side facing the main depo yard, first car. It’s got a red stripe with the initials, CB. Just pull on the handle and the magnetic seal should release the door. Over.”
More silence followed, only broken by the hiss of static. “Ok Long Haul got a hand running it out now, I can see him from the observation window. Looks like he will have it up in a jiffy.” There was an abrupt pause, followed by peeling laughter, “Ah that poor kid just fell flat on his ass, I guess he did not get a good enough grip on that handle. Well, I guess he will learn to test the locking potential of that box of yours.” A few key lights lit up on the side of the communication computer, signaling that the connection port was plugged in. “Ok Long Haul looks like you are all set up. Keep the chatter on the network to a minimum, lots of traffic after that pirate attack, you know the drill. Over”. With that statement, the line went dead. Briggs closed the wall panel, making sure everything was back in its place.
He sat back down at his comm’s computer, taking a bite of his dwindling sandwich, he set the small amount down next to the ledger. He put the clamshell headset back on, then with no other delays logged into the city’s data network.
The menu options alone could have confused lesser men when it came to navigating the mess that was the Horizon Visions data networks. He was not a newbie though, and after a few quick keystrokes he found the connection request for ‘Howards Marketing Systems’. He looked at his wristwatch, noting the time was already seventeen hundred hours. Perfect timing means that his favorite person would be taking on her duties for the night shift. He pressed the call command input, and the headset started to ring with a standard dial tone. The connection rang for at least a few repetitions until a soft soothing voice picked up.
“Hello, this is Howards Marketing Systems, Brandy speaking,”
“Hey there Brandy, long time no talk. This is Briggs reporting on another successful run, just thought I would give you a jingle.” He said coyly.
There was a slight pause as the facts registered to Brandy, then followed by a happy gasp and a yip. It was always nice to talk to a sweet Hund girl, it was almost impossible for them to lie, due to her body language as well as her wagging tail.
“Well bless my soul, Briggs is that really you?”
“Yes, it is darlin’, I just got in. Was a nasty bit of roadside distress when I was dealing with not only a storm but raiders as well. I was just calling to see how you are holding up.”
“I’m doing good actually,” she giggled, “It’s not every day I get to hear from you, the savior of Thundering Wells.”
Briggs waved his hand at no one, his mannerisms translating to communications requests. Even if he was not seeing them face to face, it was hard to shake those habits.
“Look Brandy, I am no one’s hero. I just got the supplies to the town when they needed them most. It was just a job. You know, those things we Runners do out there. To earn money and all.” He chuckled at the end, trying to play off his heroics.
“Well on the City-State comm requests, you are still loved and adored all around the western coastlands. It’s always good to hear from a repeat customer.”
Briggs took a sip from his canteen, “You flatter me, my dear, you really do. Look I know we could easily spend all day on the line talking about this and that. However, I don’t want to cause too much fuss. So, could I have the newest shipping numbers? If you aren’t too busy that is.”
“You know that the boss says that I am not supposed to give out information without the data cost. I think sometimes you always call when I am on shift just so you can get around that little bit of taxation.” She sounded almost sly, but both she and he knew the game by now.
“Hey how is your older brother doing? Did that medicine I brought a while back finally take care of that nasty infection he had?”
Another pause, followed by a flirty sigh, “You know that we Hund’s treasure family, it’s the one thing that holds together this broken world. So yes, he is doing much better, his wife is about to give birth any day now. That would not have been possible if you had not saved him those many seasons ago. I can’t keep giving out this information for free though Briggs, no matter how much I like ya.”
He pressed a few keys, and a small chime came from the computer. He tapped a few more buttons, then after he hit the Y key, pulled his ledger in front of him. There was a gasp on the other end of the line, followed by what sounded like sobbing.
“Look Brandy,” he said in a soothing tone, “I do appreciate everything you have done for me and my little Rig. So that sum of credits I sent you was not a typo. I have been keeping track of all the favors you did for me. Now that I have a bit of extra capital, I can finally pay you back. I know times have been hard, but it’s the least I can do.”
The sniffling on the line died down, and Brandy finally composed herself.
“That means a lot coming from you Mr. Briggs. Thank you for the extra compensation, with that, my family and I can finally move closer to the cooling stacks. It might be a bit expensive to live there, but it can’t be any worse than the outer stacks.” She took another deep breath, steadying herself. “Ok then Briggs, what can I do for you this fine evening?”
“We could start with the main commercial numbers for the goods I’ve just brought in. I want the info, so Skinny Jimmy won’t try to pull a fast one over on me. You know how that Gobbo likes to pinch credits.” He grimaced as Jimmy’s sneering face crossed his mind, the little goblin man was a snake and a thief. But he would be miffed to admit that he ran a tight ship at the dockside trading market.
Brandy let out a low growl, “Skinny Jimmy has always been an issue dockside. So far even though you call him a thief and a liar, no one has been able to prove otherwise. Everything about the short man is squeaky clean. Even his employees love him. I swear...sometimes I think he just…I know he must bribe someone out here.”
Briggs pulled out a pen and put it on paper. He knew he was getting sidetracked with Jimmy, nothing could be done about it now. It was a problem for later.
“Ok my dear, I need a few numbers from you. Has Horizon Visions been keeping in touch with any of the other CS?”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
He heard the telltale clicking of a keyboard and the shuffling of papers. It was amazing to think that the world fell out of using all digital records and must keep paper backups. The times had changed.
“I have some good news and some bad news Briggs,” Brandy chimed in. “Due to issues out east, we have had some breakdowns in communications. So far, we have only lost contact with Southern-ward, Harris Town, and End of the Line. We have a few crews from Elohim that are planning on moving out to the South to fix the downed lines. To this day we won’t know what could be knocking out the com lines.”
“It could be a multitude of things in all honesty,” Briggs retorted while scratching his chin. I need to shave soon, need to look less like a homeless bum. “If it’s pirates, raiders, or anything else under the sun that loves to take pleasure in heinous acts. I could easily see them working out a way of disrupting communications. It could be the creatures of the waste as well. Do you know how some of those subterranean creatures don’t like the vibrations that are given off by those lines? Or it could just be the weather. I know that people tend to over-engineer those lines for all sorts of inclement weather. There must be a point where mother nature just says ‘No’, and that’s that.”
“What…what…is mother nature? Is that some sort of goddess that Rig Runners follow?”
Briggs came up short in his mind, he let a past idiom slip without him even realizing. He tried to think of a clever way to dance around that issue.
“I pick up all sorts of odds and ends while I am out on the road. I think I have a box of old books that I want to sell to the Information Library. I must have picked it up from one of those dusty old tomes. Yeah, that must be it.”
“You must see so many interesting things out there, past these gray and mottled walls,” Brandy said almost wistfully. “To be free to go from town to town, learning everything you can, supply people with goods. It almost sounds like one of those romance novels I have read. Like sailing the seas of old.”
“You…you are not wrong,” he grunted, “However there is more to it than just riding, living, and trading.” He mulled over her romantic notion, “Out there is chaos Brandy, nothing but murders, rapists, thieves, dying machines of an old world, and death.” He paused, “Oh hell, I don’t mean to make it sound all doom and gloom. As it is, the CS initiative is doing wonders, I know that deep down in my heart there will be a day where you all won’t need men or women like me. It’s not going to be tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. It will happen though; I can see it.”
“Yeah…yeah, you know,” she sounded almost chipper again. “You are right, sorry about pressing you about an odd phrase, I didn’t mean to get you all down in the dumps. What did you want to know about the numbers? Did you bring us anything good?”
“That all depends,” he chuckled again, “Do you like food, medicine, fuel rods, and the occasional piece of ‘fore tech? I brought all of those in spades darlin’. A man by the name of Hammond took a full count of all the goods. I am just waiting to see if anything was damaged.”
A furious typing erupted from the other side; he knew that she was excited to hear what he was hauling. Most of the time it was a surprise unless you took a contract from the job listings. He knew that most of the time he must have been like Santa Claus to the people of the Wastes. Not that they knew who that jolly red fat man was of course.
“Well according to the records, Mr. Hammond just submitted a full report of the manifested goods that you brought in. So far, he says that only 1.3% of the medicine was damaged due to external trauma. Looks like you lost 4.5% of the seeds you brought for our hydroponic farms, shame that. Looks like the ‘extra munitions’ you brought for the town are all in one piece.”
Yeah, or else they would have exploded, and I would not be talking to you right now. He thought grimly.
“Ok,” she continued, “Looks like I have run your overall goods through the system. You took…three contracts from Mile Town and one from Shattered Veil. Those are being paid in full. The money will be delivered to you when you go to the purser’s office.” She paused, then let out a low pant as well as a whistle, “That is quite the contractual haul you pulled off Briggs. Did you manage to find pumping equipment out there?”
“Yes, I did, it was a hell of a mess trying to get all the pieces together to make it all work. In the end, I hoped that the contract was still good for Horizon Visions, looks like I lucked out.” He checked off a few of the contracts he had listed beside him. It’s going to be a good payday, nothing to retire on, but it would keep him afloat for months.
Brandy coughed again, “Sorry about that, the dust is always bad after a storm.”
“Oh, don’t I know it,” Briggs said, faking a cough. Brandy chuckled happily on the other end.
“My dear, let's talk through all of those numbers.”
******
It took the rest of the evening to parse out all the total value he had just unloaded. It turned out that he would have a small fortune on his hands when this was all said and done. He knew though, that he was not going to take City script, which meant the payout was going to dwindle a little bit. Oh well, that was the nature of the beast.
He got up from his chair, dusting his sandwich crumbs into his open palm. I need to throw these outside, I don't need little pests getting into my Rig.
A short walk, a few button presses later, and Briggs was outside of his Rig, looking over the docks from his passenger observation platform. The platform itself was nothing special. Just heavy-duty grating that was welded and bolted into the side of the driving compartment. It had a small swivel chair that overlooked the railing, along with a small spotlight equipped with a shutter system for long-distance signaling. The entire deck section ran about 1/3 of the way down the side of Car One.
The breeze from the yard picked up, ruffling the scarf around his neck, it made his trench coat billowing out from his body. He always thought that he felt like a gunslinger, every time that happened. A small chuckle and a cough escaped his dry lips. The sun was already setting behind the towering security walls, and twilight was approaching. He looked over the city beyond the yard walls, He could see the multiple squat buildings dotting the landscape, knowing full well that most of the city was buried underground to avoid the oppressive heat. One building did stand out above all of them though. The towering megalith structure is the dead center of it all.
Its black and silver exterior towered well above the security walls, able to see to the horizon in every direction. Each CS did things differently, Horizon Visions chose to put all its most valuable assets in the dead center. The ‘Mayor’s Spire’ is what it was called, he would have to go there eventually, but that was for another day.
He re-entered his Rig, letting the dry dusty air separate from him. It was always a little cooler inside his Rig, all those years of sealing, packing, and working on a cooling system did pay off. He walked down the ramp towards the center of Car One, it was already 2100 hours. He needed to start to get ready for bed, maybe he could write in his logbook, or read one of the various books he picked up on the road. Either way, he had nothing more to do. His hand was outstretched for the release latch to his room when he felt it.
There was a small clang that echoed from his feet, into the air, then bounced around the walls. He paused, hand outstretched, he closed his eyes, letting the pure darkness behind his eyes take him. He tried to extend his senses, trying to figure out where there was an issue. The noise came again, fainter this time, but still resonating in his boots. His eyes shot open, and he turned a sharp one-eighty, heading towards the armory.
In record time he had procured his sidearm, his shotgun, and his knives. He pulled on the gun sling, placing it over his right shoulder, his bandolier of shotgun shells slapped on his chest as he jogged down to the back of Car One. He took corner after corner in a steady trot, he was sure-footed in his home, making sure not to trip on semi-uneven decking. Then before he knew it, he was at the bottom access hatch between Car One and Car Two. He depressed the locking bolts, a thud echoed in the panel, it rose a half an inch. He then pulled it fully off the floor, resting it against the wall. Below him stood the dimly lit darkness of the undercarriage, he could see a few power lines and fuel conduits running just under the lip of the hatch. He lowered himself down to the stifling heat of the cooling machinery, his feet touching down on a gantry that he installed that ran the length of Car One. He installed similar gantries for the two other Cars, which made it easier to inspect and repair things, he shuddered to think how other runners did their own maintenance.
He pulled his shotgun out from its sling, pressing the on button for the attached flashlight to the side of the barrel. This tactical semi-auto shotgun really had been with him through thick and thin. Some days he worried about talking to the thing for comfort, however, he shook off the notion, getting his head back in the game. He followed the flooring to an intersection that ran off to his right and left. He figured the noise had to have come in from the center of the Car, so he took the right. In a few paces, he saw the enormous bulk of the central drive train. It was a series of interlocking large metal cylinders that ran the entire span of the Long Haul, providing torque to all the independent axel systems. He could not see any damage or anything that could indicate the noise, so he took the short ladder at the base of the drivetrain, heading deeper.
He was now under the service level of his Rig, there was nothing lower than this, except for empty air, and then the ground. Which was more than fifteen feet from here, he crab-walked down the access trench, not seeing anything that could be causing that blasted noise. He took a moment to wipe his sweaty face, the heat down here wasn’t unbearable. It was dang close though. He rounded another corner, then one last small step down. This was as far as he could go, he could see the well-lit dockyard below the grate he stood upon.
Ok, where in the nine hells is that noise coming from? I must be down at this level; I know it must be. He wondered as he continued toward the front of Car One.
He hopped over a protruding armored pipe, then it saw it.
It was a twisted wreck of a bandit armored car, it must have somehow launched itself upwards during the storm, or during its run on the blockade. It was a solid-looking vehicle, or at least it used to be, now it was just a torn-up mess of metal and steel. Briggs stared at it, well more like gaped at it, it was beyond insane that it was even here. Then the clang came again, causing him to raise the shotgun back to his shoulder. He climbed over the side of the wreck, focusing on the noise. To his utter shock, it was a person, battered, bleeding, and impaled inside of the wreck. The corpse of a man swung a batter-looking wrench, hitting the frame of the destroyed vehicle. His tired eyes locked on Briggs, his strength leaving him as he dropped the wrench. It clanged violently on the floor, then slid free of the gantry, plummeting to the yard floor below. The man’s mouth tried to move, but no words came out, he licked his lips and dry swallowed, then attempted again.
“You piece of shit,” the bandit said in a whisper, “You ran down my brothers and sisters. For what? Letting this stain of humanoid life linger on just a bit longer. You have no idea that you are all just dead men and women, living on borrowed time.” A small trickle of blood started at the corner of his mouth, terminating in a congealed pool just under his chin.
“Look, friend-o. I don’t know what to tell you, you lost that fight, and you and your kind will keep losing. When did fighting and killing people for their hard-earned goods ever work out in the end? Throughout history, your kind rises and falls, then eventually gets snuffed out altogether. There will be nothing left eventually, civilized culture always runs you over…no pun intended there.” Briggs all but chuckled.
The man spat up a small amount of blood, then smiled a grizzly smile.
“You know that’s what I thought as well. Our leader, the great one, the redeemer, is going to bring the City-States to its knees. He will usher in a new legacy, one filled with the desires of all ‘Humankind. We will cleanse the world of all the subspecies. We will cure them back to the forms that were intended.”
Oh great, a religious nutjob, on top of a bandit. Could this day get any more interesting? He thought.
Briggs looked around the wreckage noticing where it was pressed into the bottom of his Rig. He hopped down out of view of the dying man, his feet touching down on his trusted gantry again.
“Look, I know you must think this ‘Great Leader’ will lead you into a utopian society, but you must know that he doesn’t care about you. You are just a means to an end, and in that end, there will be nothing left by wanton destruction. People fighting over the scraps of a dying world. As long as my body draws breath, I am going to keep fighting to keep this lifeline of sentient races rolling. Ya hear?”
The bandit laughed from his metal coffin, it turned into a cough then a groan. He took a wheezing breath.
“You know, I thought that too, but Mordred, he found something, something grand. Something that will put his legacy on the map. The ancients buried it, he found it. It…spoke to him, told him such wonderful things. Forbidden things.” Another wracking cough rippled through the dying man. “I wonder if you will see it like I did. Instead of it saving you though, it will be your doom and damnation.”
Briggs moved a bit of metal, wrenching the bumper free of the vehicle, he then wedged it right under the catalytic converter, or at least what was left of it. The wreck shuttered, and metal groaned, sending pinpricks of ear pain lancing through Briggs. He always hated the sound of distressing metal; it always made him break out in goosebumps. He heaved on the improvised prybar; the wreck started to slide out of the hole it made upon entry. He looked towards the cab as gravity started to pull the wreck towards the dockyard floor. He saw the dead man’s crazed eyes. They were alight with intelligence, with anger, with the last vestiges of death. His cracked lips grew into a rictus grin, showing pink, bloody teeth.
“You will know the end; it will be by his name. He will bring the power of Osiris down upon you all…and with its power, he will…” The rest of what the man was about to say was cut off, as the wreck exited the underside of the Long Haul. In just a second the mass of metal smashed into the concrete floor of the yard, pulping the man inside. The yard floor slowly became a mixture of blood, oil, gas, and spent shell casings. Briggs sighed to the night air.
“That was a cool story bro, not that I think that any of that meant a damned thing.” He said, tracing the pattern of the cross on his body. Hoping that the dying man found peace somewhere beyond this life.
He looked at the now gaping hole, adding that to his mental list of things he needed to fix.
No sense in worrying about that now, it’s been a long day. An interesting night, and I just need to go to bed. He mused.
It took him a few minutes to navigate back towards the hatch, then another few moments to seal it again. He went through the usual routine, from storing the guns back in his armory to getting clean before bed. In just under thirty minutes from the last time he tried to go to bed, this time he finally succeeded.
Guess I will have to write in my Drivers Log another night, oh well. I need sleep. Was the last thing that passed his conscious mind before sleep took him.