A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 13

He didn't know if Hank would come back after shooting himself through the heart and blowing his brains out, but he knew that Monnie already had.

And he knew that she knew where they had gone. He didn't want to be anywhere near the island by sundown. He didn't know what would happen then, but he knew that much.

After a trip to rip open a box of phosphorous grenades that they'd taken along as an afterthought from the Materiel lockup which they'd stumbled across four months previously, he took two and walked to the restaurant again to grab something else that Hank had insisted that they take one day. Billy hadn't wanted anything to do with it then and had suffered through Hank's lectures on its care and feeding.

He was thankful to his brother once more, because he really wanted it now. He laid the old rifle into the bird with a bag full of magazines. After a moment's thought, he stood and took a piss out in the dirt right next to the helicopter.

He was still crying as he urinated.

He cranked and he thanked Hank for the way that the old bird lit off right away. After running down the checklist, he fed in some throttle and took off, snagging the fuel bladder on the third try and then turning eastward and a little north. He was so upset over the obvious, but he'd always had such trouble flying the Hind, preferring the Sea King by a wide margin. Today, he'd never flown a helicopter so well in his life.

The words were already out of his mouth to Hank that he ought to see him now, but then Billy lost it again to his grief, cursing that he couldn't even set down to weep as he wanted to.

The ancient helicopter was meant to have a weapons officer in the front seat, but there were a few things which could be controlled by the pilot in the event that the weapons officer had been wounded or killed. The two pods of unguided rockets that he'd almost busted his bag loading under the stubby wings were one of them.

When he got back there, Hanks body was still in the street, but the dogs were at it now. Billy held it to a hover and waited for the bladder underneath him to stop swaying. When he felt that it was as stable as it was likely going to get, he looked at the building where Monnie had been trying to crawl into. He let over two dozen rockets go into it and the rest of the gas station, turning in his hover as he went. He demolished every building nearby. Whatever was in the underground tanks was no longer gasoline, but it was still flammable, and he turned away leaving nothing standing but a tall pillar of flame and smoke behind him and he headed south cursing.

He was crying again.

He made one pass by the docks and he saw the Colonel's launch. He grinned to himself as he saw the human who assisted Elkington most often come out on deck to see what the noise was all about. Billy turned away out to sea and then came back.

He sighted a little carefully, and he let six rockets go in three pairs. The first two pairs hit the launch squarely and he just caught sight of the man as he was blown away by the blasts. The other two went farther on and hit the remains of a ruined warehouse. It was the only time that Billy had smiled all day.

He punched the drop buttons on his small weapons panel and the old helicopter lurched upward a little as the shackles opened and the rocket pods fell away. He didn't need them anymore, but he really needed the extra range that he'd get without them and their weight. He'd been careful to guess that the pods would clear the bladder when they dropped and he was relieved when they did.

Not all that long afterward, he could see what was left of Sandeego far up ahead as he turned a little northward to give Lozenjellis and everything north of there a wide berth. He didn't really know where he was headed, but the relatively short linger time that the ancient Russian helicopter had precluded going in most any other direction. And that was on a good day.

His day had turned into something unimaginable and he was hauling a big bag of fuel, so he wasn't exactly beating feet as he went.

His first stop to refuel was near what had once been Blythe, California, though Billy didn't know that. He didn't care much either, still fighting back his tears. To his amazement and thanks, Hank's invention to hold the neck of the bladder up as he landed held together.

It had never been tried before, but it worked like a charm and allowed him to set it down and release so that he could pick it up by himself after transferring fuel to his tanks.

It took him over an hour to pump the fuel by hand and then he was off again after snagging the bladder on his first try. As dusk began to come on, he let down for an approach not far from a place called Flagstaff, by his map, and he set down on the crumbled asphalt in what had once been the visitor parking lot of a state park a long time ago. Billy didn't know that either and he didn't give a shit.

He pumped fuel again, finishing after dark and trying to sleep inside the helicopter. He still wept and every time that he thought that he had it under control, he'd see his brother die again behind his closed eyelids and he'd cry a little more. More than once, he looked over at the CAR-15 carbine, thinking that it held the way out of this wasted life of his. But every time that he decided that he had the courage to do it, he knew what Hank would have said.

He was up in the cold light of dawn and just long enough after that to eat a little, he cranked and was gone again. Three more times he stopped to refuel, and the last time, he left the empty fuel bladder behind.

He got as far as the outskirts of what had once been Cortez, Colorado and he knew that he didn't have what it would take to get through much more of the mountains. He was already at a fairly high altitude as it was. Getting through the passes that he could find was just taxing everything, himself most of all. On top of that, he knew that he'd have to set down sometime and wanted open level ground for that. The farther into the mountains he flew, the less of that he'd find. He turned south.

When he got to one-quarter tank, he looked for a place to set it down and caught a quick glimpse of something interesting to him. He flew on southward a little away from the mountains and finding a gravel bed some miles away, he landed there and spent another night in the machine that had been resurrected by Billy and Hank together.

It had taken a long time and a lot of work, but they'd done it. It was supposed to be their ticket out, away from the Colonel and their bleak life around the old base at Edwurs. It was supposed to be their workhorse to get them to Catlina Island where they'd thought to live a little better and happier.

But Monnie had changed all of that.

The next morning, Billy spent a while trying to figure out what he needed and what he didn't and set his things a fair distance from the old helicopter.

He took the two phosphorous grenades and wrapped some old duct tape around the spoons to hold them in place. He drained a little fuel from one tank into the dishpan that he'd brought for this, and allowed some fuel to run onto the ground out of both tanks before shutting it off and leaving the caps on the tanks open.

He set the dishpan under the helicopter, and carefully pulled the pins on the two grenades, easing them into the fuel. With that done, he ran to the pile of his things, shouldered his backpacks and clutching his rifle in one hand and one of the rolled sleeping bags in the other, he walked toward the mesa that he could just see in the distance.

Half an hour later, the fuel had dissolved enough of the old tape's adhesive to allow one of the spoons to fly free and the grenade ignited a hot fire seven seconds after.

He was nearly a mile away when he turned, wondering if something had gone wrong, but he smiled when he saw the smoke of the fire.

He knew that it would get cold here in the winter, and so he needed a place to survive it while at the same time wanting to stay out of sight, mostly to feel a little better. He thought that he'd flown over such a place.

Billy the lost demon shifted the straps of his packs and walked away, headed north.

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China

Over twenty years had passed, and the two humans had gone the way of all earthly things, the harshness of the life there leading them to their graves not long after each other by the time that they'd reached their early seventies. Yuan mourned their passing, because she'd known the richness of their love and teaching.

Her time as the daughter of the old one was coming to a close as well. Her mother was weak and Yuan now had difficulty remembering how long it had been since she'd seen her mother fly. It had certainly been at least two years since they'd flown together. She looked down as the old one rested, her hand on the great head.

"You must seek someone," the old one said when she woke, "Living here hides some things from my view, but I know that there is something changing. I have felt this in the wind for a long time now."

Yuan smiled, "All of my life you have said this to me Mother. I still know little of what it all means." She moved to turn and reach for the pot of tea for her mother to drink from.

The beast nodded her thanks, "It is past time for you to know everything," she said with a smile, and given what we are, you should seek comfort as you hear it."

Yuan had always loved to hear her mother's tales and she sat on a cushion and looked expectantly.

"I believe that I am the last of us, what was once a nation of dragons," she began, "After wars which did little good to either side, we came to live in peace with the humans. I was only very young then, but I remember that evil spirits came to cause much strife and trouble for everyone. We had our challenges and we faced them, but the humans suffered more. It was decided at a council of the elders that we would help, and so the alliances were forged and the agreements made. Together, we vanquished the evil things and lived in peace.

But there are two things about humans which one must remember," she said, "They war with each other almost always, and they have very short memories compared to us. We took no part in their wars with each other. But I awoke some years ago, and felt that there was a new evil on the way, just as I knew that I am surely the last, and least ready to help.

At the same time long ago, the humans whose task it was to fight beside us in their defense had forgotten everything and wished only to leave here, forgetting even that there was one still here to be served and who was prepared to help them.

What I did was to ask for a child from one of the families who were to raise the riders. When we went to war as allies, long ago, each of us carried a rider. But that day is so long past now. You were the child that I was given for a bag of gold and jewels. To them, you were afflicted with a weak mind, but I knew that it was not so. Your mind only lay ready to be filled.

The day of large ones such as me is long ended. I saw this, but I also saw that there is still a need, so I did my best. In your breast, beside your heart, there lies what is left of the smallest of my living eggs. The essence within it has joined with your own. What you became that day is what you are. You are a dragon, and yet you are smaller, lighter, faster, and still you have all of my ability. The couple who raised you with me taught you what they knew of how to fight, and I taught you everything else.

But we come to the end soon, at least for me, and it is still an inauspicious time for this. You are but twenty-three. Old enough for a human girl, and still so young for a dragon girl. I would have wanted for another eighty years or so before this time, but it is not to be. More and more of the new evil comes. There are others who gather in places, learning of the peril themselves and one day, it is my hope that they all band together against what comes. Your place will be with them, daughter."

She reached for ancient scrolls and unrolling the first of them carefully, the old dragon showed Yuan the way that she must go. "It is east," she said, "always to the east, you must go, high to catch the wind as I taught you."

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Her mother had fallen asleep not long after and Yuan drifted to the gallery to look down. This place was all that she knew, other than when she'd flown with her mother. Besides the concern that she'd seen, she really didn't know why she had to go anywhere at all. Well, there was the business of having to find food, since they'd just slaughtered the last of their herd of cattle.

She went to the training chambers and ran through several repetition sequences just to move her blood around a little before she walked to where the human couple who'd raised her were buried. She still missed them terribly, she thought as she spent a little time tending to their graves. Whatever her mother had told her about, these humans had seemed to think that it was important as well.

The evening had begun when she'd finished her meal and carried the soup up to her mother's chamber. Balancing the tray a little awkwardly, she opened the door and carried it in. A moment later, she knew that it wouldn't be eaten. Her mother was dead.

Yuan spent the next few hours weeping. She was all alone now. Before the early light of the dawn, she took whatever she thought that she'd need and walked out, closing the old doors behind her. She went to the room where she slept and crawled into the bed. Sometime after the sun had risen she awoke and began to prepare.

Three days later, she stood at one end of the gallery saying goodbye to everything that she knew. As she walked to the large opening, the birds made way for her and uncharacteristically for her, Yuan found herself annoyed with them. She stopped and her neck began to elongate as the rest of her other side made its appearance until she stood a lot taller and looked nothing like the quiet young woman who was faced with more unknowns than anything else. Whenever she questioned what she was doing, she heard her mother's voice in her mind, over and over.

"There are others who gather in places, ..."

"Your place will be with them, daughter."

Yuan bent her neck a little and opened her mouth.

The roar sent all of the birds out through the opening at the end in their terror of her. She knew that they'd be back. They always returned as they always had.

She doubted that she ever would come back here as she stood at the end of the hall and looked out. She didn't know where she was going in this journey of hers, but every journey has a beginning and an end.

She stepped off the edge and fell forward.

As her speed increased, she spread her gracefully long wings thirty-five feet to either side of her and began to climb. She made one large circle, still climbing for a last look, and then she turned to the north and east seeking the coast to follow it to where she knew that she had to turn eastward to begin the crossing.