Up above and touching the clouds, a highway built by an old kingdom cut through the night sky. It wrapped around the world like Jörmungandr. Four moons watched overhead like lethargic lords, attended to by gray and blue clouds. The light of the moons and stars were dimmed by the hundreds of headlights and streetlamps. The huffing of car and truck engines were the only things disturbing an otherwise tranquil place. The occasional raven or small wyvern might find rest on the rails or headlights, watching as thousands of travelers zoom past them without much fanfare.
Bernard "Bernie" Brooke, a humble driver, called the Enodian Highway his neighbor and his vintage 1983 Low Flow car his home. He'd been driving for twelve years now. That first time he got his license and felt that rush of air as he glided on the crusty roads of his home city, he knew he wanted to drive for a living. He didn't think he was smart or athletic, but he liked driving, and luckily for him, people needed to go places and were more than happy to pay people to get them to wherever they needed to go.
He'd been an independent Enodian Technologies driver for years. Hundreds of clients climb into the backseat: dwarven smiths, goblin tinkerers, elven poets, you name them. Names and faces come and go. When you're operating on a highway that stretches for hundreds of miles with a few pit stops like a fueling station or a diner, you tend to forget people, and Bernie was alright with that. He described himself as a lone nomad, wandering through roads and into far away lands he'd only see for a few days before venturing off elsewhere. He'd sleep in his car wrapped in a blanket his grandmother gave him in high school, and sustained himself off a steady supply of burgers, burritos and diet soda. He'd catch the latest news of some cyborg adventurer slaying a savage cyclops or listen to a playlist of synthwave tracks while his left arm rested on the window and lightly tapping against the outside door to the rhythm.
Today was no different. He dropped off an elven businesswoman who appeared too busy going through her suitcase and paperwork than to make small talk during the ride. That was alright with Bernie. As much as he enjoyed getting to know the stories and personalities behind each passenger, sometimes, letting the synthwave tracks be the main speaker was nice too.
After counting his dollars, Bernie stepped on the pedal, soon to be reunited with the Enodian Highway like an old friend. He played Wild Dreams by LeRock and bobbed his head and took a sip of his large diet soda he bought for lunch earlier. It was 6 PM, and it was time to head to a diner and get some good grub. Maybe a steak sandwich with grated taters and a beer. Come back to the car and watch some crime drama on the phone his grandfather gave him for his twentieth birthday. That was the plan.
As Bernie nodded along to Wild Dreams, he casually looked at the moon in front of him, as if it was guiding him to a path whose end Bernie didn't spend much time contemplating. He was twenty-eight, what was going to be ahead of him? Life, not the road. He knew the highway stretched for hundreds of miles. Would he continue going up and down and all around these roads for the rest of his life? He wasn't sure if that was a good future or not. All he knew was that it was the life he chose for now. So he looked at the moon with a sigh and a smile, before frowning and observing some gray dot in front of the moon getting larger and larger. A few seconds later, another dot approached it until the two became one, emitting a noise like thunder. Bernie felt a bit of pushback a few seconds later.
It wasn't a raven or a wyvern: it was an aircraft. It was struck by some type of missile, and it careened toward his direction. He looked to the drivers in front of him, to his side and back in quick succession. He didn't know what to do. What were they going to do? Panic swelled up inside his body and his arms began to shake on the steering wheel. The aircraft crashed onto the highway about a mile ahead, tossing cars and trucks around like a kid playing with their toys. Some vehicles were bludgeoned and flipped onto their sides, others weren't so lucky and fell off the highway, plummeting past the lower clouds. Bernie stomped on the brakes and jerked forward as the cars behind crashed into his own like a battering ram.
Gods save me, Bernie thought. What the hell is going on?
He breathed heavily and looked around him. He lowered the windows to let in the fresh air. The cars and trucks that were set aflame were like tiki torches, and the aircraft became an ivory altar. What was Bernie supposed to do in this situation? As far as he could tell, there weren't any highway patrolmen in the area. It could take up to half an hour for a group to arrive. There were too many people injured or dead. Incidents like this rarely happened. The sort of thing Bernie would hear about from diners or fuel stations, but he chalked them up as nothing more than urban legends.
Bernie stepped out of his car and let the wind cool him off. He didn't realize he was sweating so hard. He noticed other drivers and passengers standing around. It seemed everyone was unsure of what to do. The muffled barrage of questions from kids could be heard followed by hushed and frustrated answers from the parents and adults. Bernie couldn't afford to stand around and do nothing. Half an hour for a patrolman was a gracious estimate. It could take hours.
Others on the road walked past Bernie. An orc pulled a halfling family from an upside-down car while a minotaur carried an injured human man back. It was wrong to do nothing, so Bernie pushed himself forward. He helped carry an old dwarf woman back to her grandson, and smashed the front-shield window of a tipped-over car to free some kobolds with a metal baseball bat he stored in the trunk.
It went on like this for a while. It felt good to help people through this disaster; however, not everyone could be saved. For every sigh of relief and cheers of reuniting with friends and family was followed by the wailing and sobbing of the loss of one or several friends or family members. It didn't help matters that some vehicles were knocked off the highway. None of them could have survived. It would take a miracle to survive a plummet from this high up. Bernie redirected his focus toward positivity again. It was all he could do right now.
An elf child with a cut on her face approached him. Short blond hair and big green eyes. A pink shirt with jean overalls. She pointed to a cut on her left cheek. Bernie rushed back to his car and rummaged through his compartments before returning to the elf child with an adhesive bandage. He placed it gently on her.
“Hey kid, where are your parents?" Bernie said. "They with you?"
She nodded and pointed to an injured elven couple being attended to by a group of people. A doctor or nurse among them.
God save them, Bernie thought.
The child hugged him before running back to her parents and watching them with a mix of concern and uncertainty as the adults spoke feverishly about solutions to the injuries.
Bernie crossed his arms and looked around. It seemed everyone was attended to. The injured and the dead were being gathered. All that remained was the aircraft. It didn't open. No one came out. It seemed as though no one was inside or everyone died. Bernie couldn't decide which was worse. He took a few steps forward to look for a company logo or insignia. It didn't take long before he spotted it next to what was likely a door. A dark circle with a ring almost connecting with a gap at the bottom: Marathon Incorporated, famous for transportation, electronics and weapons manufacturing.
It makes sense now, Bernie thought. Whoever shot this down wanted whatever weapons and armor were inside it.
The whirring of machines and release of pressurized air startled Bernie, and the door of the aircraft slowly lowered and became a ramp. He took a few steps back with fear as the door revealed nothing but darkness initially, before a naked human man stumbled down the ramp, feet meeting cement. He was covered in some viscousy substance and he looked around like a lost child. Bernie could hear gasps and whispers behind him as the man gazed at the stars and moon above before turning his gaze upon him. Bernie looked behind him, hoping this nude man wasn't looking at him, but after a moment, the realization kicked in.
The man slowly approached and Bernie stepped back.
"You..." the man said, nearly tripping. "You're going to help me. We need to get out of here."
"Hold on a moment," Bernie said. "Who the hell are you and why aren't you wearing any clothes for God's sake? What happened to the aircraft? Where is the rest of your crew?"
"I..." the man trailed off and continued forward sluggishly. He wasn't bruised or injured as far as Bernie could tell, and yet it seemed he was out of breath and tired. "You're going to take us away from here. Far away. Right now."
"I ain't taking you anywhere but to the highway patrol, bud," Bernie said, nervously chuckling.
The man closed the gap. He was fast, faster than Bernie thought he'd be in the state he was in. He pulled Bernie up by the collar of his gold jacket. His legs kicked around helplessly and he tugged at the man's wrists.
"Hey hey hey, please," Bernie said. "Don't hurt me, man. Please."
"Then get us out of here," he said.
Bernie looked at him in the eyes and realized that this was more of a desperate plea than an act of intimidation. There was fear in his eyes, as if a great beast was on its way to their location, and the only sound strategy was to retreat.
"Okay, okay," Bernie said. "Let me take you to my car and we'll get the hell out of here." The man dropped the boggard, and Bernie adjusted his collar and jacket accordingly with frustration. "We'll need to get your sorry ass a set of clothes."
The man never replied.
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The two hurriedly made their way back to the 1983 Low Flow to the concerns, dismays and jeering of the people around them. Bernie prayed someone would step in to intervene, get this weird naked man away from him, but no one did. In their eyes, it seemed the driver was simply helping a vulnerable man, but Bernie knew this guy was up to no good. Everything about the situation signaled red flags; he had no choice but to help him out for now.
"Get in the back," Bernie said as he opened the trunk of his car and gathered a set of spare clothes before tossing them through the back windows at the mysterious man. "Put these on. Also, where the hell are we going?"
"Out of here," he said, and Bernie rolled his eyes.
“Yeah that much is for certain, smartass. Do you have a particular place in mind?"
"The city of Rainhold."
"Alright, then. Rainhold it is."
Bernie got in the driver's seat and slammed the door closed. Bewilderment and confusion filled his mind as he started up the car with the turn of his key. He shouted for people to make way as he slowly drifted along, passed the wrecked cars and soon the damaged aircraft. He realized now that he didn't ask the man if there was anyone else in there besides him, but he was too scared to do it now.
This was not part of Bernie's plan for the night. He wanted to eat a steak sandwich and drink some beer, not escort this asshole behind him to a far away city. Someone or something got the guy concerned and fearful. Nevermind that the viscousy substance he had was staining the backseats, Bernie had to accept the fact that he was forced in this situation and that this man could get him killed. He prayed to the Maker to get him out of it. This was not a road he wanted to drive on. The moons and stars gave no directions to where this led.
*****
The 1983 Low Flow was a vintage car. No longer sold on the market and highly sought after. It was painted black with a touch of blue flame designs. The engine rumbled like a sleeping tiger and it went as fast as a cheetah. Leatherbound seats with enough space for five people. Cup holders for extra large drinks. The back could be rearranged into a makeshift sleeping space. This was Bernie's home, but his home had a stranger in it now, and that stranger's eyes analyzed every inch of it like a predator in a prey's den.
In the backseat staining his beloved leatherbound seat was some human man covered in a slimy substance, shaking like he had walked a thousand miles in the biting cold. Bernie had driven for a fair share of weirdos and wackjobs, but this man was close to taking the top spot—nothing could beat the hermit who was cursed with a small stature by an Altissian witch and smelled like a pig farm. That being said, none of his passengers were survivors of airship crashes and possible test subjects to a megacorporation.
Bernie kept his eyes on the road but looked to the rearview mirror to check on his guest—as if the man would disappear at any moment. This wasn't at all how Bernie wanted to spend his night. He wanted to drop off this businesswoman, grab a sandwich and beer, find a nice parking lot to stop for the night and sleep in that blanket his grandmother gave him for highschool graduation, but it seemed the Maker had other plans.
The man suddenly reached for the blanket next to him, but Bernie shouted, "NO! Don't even think about touching that blanket. You've stained the backseat enough as it is. I don't want you staining my blanket."
The man stared back with what Bernie could surmise as annoyance and acceptance. It seemed a step too far for a man who threatened Bernie barely an hour ago.
"I'm trying to clean myself," he said. "Is that a problem?"
"Problem?! Yes, it's a problem. You're a problem," Bernie said. "When we reach Rainhold, I'm dropping you off. Got it? I don't want anything to do with you or Marathon Industries."
"A temporary stop. This car is a convenient way to both travel and stay off the radar," he said. "The backseat has sleeping arrangements that could comfortably fit two adult humans, but given how compressed one side is, I can assume you sleep by yourself."
"What?" Bernie said. "You're not staying in my car, and I'm certainly not sleeping alongside your slimey ass. You can find a nice barn out in the boonies to sleep in. Not my car."
"No, they'll find me there if I stay there too long," the stranger said. "You have a goblet with dwarvish runes from the Kingdom of Sarnath; a dagger of elvish design from Syrania; a bronze flame insignia from Lagash. Even items from one of the Terras. You're a wanderer. You don't stay in one place. Makes it harder for Marathon to track me. I'm better off staying with you. It's safer that way."
"No, you're not better off with me. I'm better off without you actually," Bernie said. "Also, how the hell did you know those things were from those places? Are you some kind of merc? What's up with the slime and Marathon?"
"I... don't know," he said in a way that couldn't have been faked to Bernie's ears. He's spoken to liars and charlatans during his years on the road. This man couldn't lie if he wanted to, and because of that, it made the driver more anxious.
"Listen," Bernie said, "I work alone and I operate alone. This is my sacred abode and you're coming in here, mucking it all up with that science-y goo—making stains that I know I'll have to scrub off thoroughly before I can let anyone step foot inside."
"I'll buy it off of you when I accrue the funds."
"Non-negotiable, bud," Bernie replied. "Told you: sacred abode."
"You don't have anywhere else to stay?"
Bernie opened his mouth to speak but he found no words exited. There was his parents' place with his younger siblings, but he swore not to come back to them. The 1983 Low Flow gave him more comfort than that apartment in Bree ever did. The first couple of nights were tough, but he grew to like it. It was always him and the car, and that's how he liked it.
"If you want a similar car model, I can give that to you," the stranger said.
"No thanks."
"Why? You staying in this car is going to endanger you."
"Oh, so you're being considerate now?" Bernie said. "Go fuck yourself, bud. I ain't budging."
"I can always take this car by force," he said.
"That's fine by me."
"Stop the car," the stranger said.
"What?"
"Stop the car, or I'll take the wheel from you while we're going 140 miles per hour."
Bernie gently stepped on the brake and brought the car to 100 miles, then 60 miles, then 20 before finally coming to a halt. The anxiety that filled his lungs started to cease. A sort of resolute sureness replaced it as Bernie unbuckled the seatbelt and exited out of the car. The road continued to stretch, but it felt like the end of it.
The stranger exited out and wore a gray shirt, cargo pants and a trench coat with fur trimming around the collar. Bernie remembered it belonged to a gunslinger from the frozen east of Vyzalin in Sarnath. Gave it to him as thanks because he was short on cash. It was a cool outfit, so Bernie accepted. He wore it once when he went back to Bree. He wore it when he thought about visiting his family for the first time in five years. He couldn't do it. He thought he could walk into that old apartment like a cool, confident gunslinger, but he didn't.
Bernie was no hero. He was a highway driver.
The clouds above seemed like they surrounded the two like ropes in a fighting arena. The stars were observers to a showdown on a highway in the sky. Bernie meagerly positioned his fists like the boxers he admired as a kid. He's fought twice in his life: he lost both of them.
"Why?" the stranger asked. "It's just a car—no different to thousands of others you've seen or drove in."
It seemed like his heart rate accelerated faster than his car could ever be. Was Bernie considering dying for this?
"Bernard Brooke," the stranger said. "I'm asking you one more time."
The driver shook his head no. The stranger stepped toward him and delivered a strike with such power, it felt more like a scorpion's sting than a regular man's punch. Bernie thought he died but he only felt the concrete on his back. He coughed and quickly got back up on his two feet.
Bernie repositioned his arms in a boxing stance. Bernie was ready this time.
A strike to his stomach forced Bernie onto his knees and his hands met the cold concrete. Spit fell from his mouth as the pain settled in. He got back up, legs shaking, and weakly repositioned his arms in a boxing stance again. A sting to the left side of his face flattened him out like one too many drinks at a bar. No spit: blood this time.
Bernie couldn't get up. He sluggishly moved his body to face the car with the stranger's back to him. He opened the driver's side door but he stood there for what seemed like centuries. As odd as it is to think otherwise given his situation, Bernie was sure the stranger had some ounce of goodness in him. If he really was a bad guy, surely he'd have killed Bernie or taken his car forcefully the first time. Would anyone have stopped him?
"I'm sorry," he said, and that's when Bernie fanned the last bit of fire inside him.
"The car is everything to me, man," he said finally with a gasp. "If you take it, I've got nothing left for me, do you understand?! Nothing! I worked so hard to get it, I can't let you drive away with it..." The memories he had in the Low Flow melded together. Passengers came and went. One-night dalliances with two separate women in his five years on the road, but the car never left him.
The stranger turned around carrying the same stoic, emotionless expression he wore since their first encounter an hour ago. It was so hard to read him. He might have been a psychopath locked up with his memories wiped. He could have been some corporate science experiment gone wrong. Bernie didn't know. All he wanted to do was eat a steak sandwich and sleep under his grandma's blanket tonight.
"I'm sorry it's come to this, Bernie," the stranger said. "My life is on the line. If I stay here, I could be killed or taken away."
"I'm not trying to get you killed, but you're putting me in danger too, man, and I'm scared shitless," Bernie said. "Who are you? Why were you in that airship? Why is Marathon after you?"
"I don't know. I woke up an hour ago for the first time in my life," he said.
Bernie didn't know what to say to that. Does anybody? The pain didn't cease, and so Bernie's response were muffled cries and coughing. His mind was so preoccupied by the thought of a militant megacorporation hunting both of them that he didn't notice the stranger helping him on his feet.
"I need your help, Bernie," he said. "Until I've got my bearings sorted out and plans for the future made, I need you to help me. Please."
Bernie shook his head in disbelief. His moral compass told him to help, but his gut told him he could die helping. He looked at the stranger and nodded before sluggishly entering the driver's seat.
The two continued down the highway to Bree. Bernie was in it now for better or for worse, but he chose this. The way the leather touched up against his skin. The faint cherry smell of the car air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror from a year ago. The oddities he's collected from different countries. He could never leave this behind.