Guns and Dust Ch. 05

Adina sat in the passenger seat of the bearcat, enjoying the breeze coming through the open armored window as they rolled across the blank plain, heading westward into what, according to Asher's maps, was emptiness. There were hummocks of tough grass that created mounds that small animals that lived out here found shelter in. But other than that, it was a barren plain, scorched by the sun to a forty-five-degree celsius flatiron of dirt, scoured by dancing dust devils and grit-laden winds.

Caravans, and 'normal' folks avoided these areas. There just wasn't anything in them that warranted anyone's time to explore. Except apparently the longhunters. She drifted, dozing in the thirty-mile-an-hour wind created as the bearcat rolled over the open ground, glad to be out of the stifling heat of the urban landscape where they'd spent the last few days.

Asher was still as friendly and kind to her as he'd been in the rift, and the sex continued to be great, but the crease had reappeared between his eyebrows as soon as they'd left the rift. The hardness she'd all but forgotten that had scared her when they first met was back. It had slid effortlessly into place like him pulling on his armored long coat. He was once again as armored internally and externally as the bearcat they were riding in.

He'd led them to another cityruin in the quarantine zone. It was bigger than the one the rift had torn the heart out. Being in the quarantine zones still made her nervous, but Asher's confidence was infectious.

He'd said, "Besides, you're immune now to most things now. Any of the biological agents that might still be viable after this long don't stand a chance against what's running around in your bloodstream."

"What about 'survivors'?" Images of the deranged, terrifying hordes of radiation or toxin-twisted cannibals sent shivers up her back.

He smiled at her. It was playful, but felt half-hearted, held in check by the crease between his eyebrows, his returned armor. "If there are any," he gestured to the towering ruins around them, "there aren't many. They still need food and water to survive. Have you seen any rats? Rats are usually a good warning sign that people might be around. Dogs are even better, but rats are a stable source of protein. If rats can live there, that means there's some kind of water. No rats - no people." He grinned. "Usually. I've been surprised once or twice though."

She'd sat up straighter, looking for indications of rats and any other telltale signs there might be human inhabitants.

"Don't worry about it. I've been through here numerous times. There's no one home."

They'd climbed up into groaning towers of rotting metal wandering through ancient rooms. He led her through some without even stopping to look for useful salvage, others he systematically searched, marking the locations with arcane-looking glyphs.

"What are you looking for?"

He checked a sign on a door and moved on. "Data nodes. Places where they used to store information on computers."'

She'd heard of computers - machines that stored information. She'd even seen pictures of the sleek devices.

"Data?"

"Data is sort of the ingredients that make up useful information. If you find a history, say of a place or time, the individual people it talks about and individual events that were going on would be the data that make up the history." He looked back over his shoulder. "Does that make sense?"

She nodded, warily scanning the environment. Buildings like the one they were in were deathtraps. Entire floors would collapse from the lightest step and there was always the concern that there might be something or someone living inside, no matter what Asher said.

They'd been quietly searching a giant room filled with dusty, partially collapsed desks and rows of file and storage cabinets when she finally came back around to the subject.

"What kind of 'information' are you looking for?" She knew what the word meant in the most general sense, but she'd learned that assuming she understood what he was saying was usually the wrong thing to do. Everything in her chest warmed at the way he explained things to her. He never treated her like she was stupid for asking questions.

He'd shrugged. It was a resigned sort of gesture that spoke of a lot of searching with little to show for it. "Sometimes, I don't know; information about the world before. Things that might help us fix what's broken. Science, technical information, even farming tips that can help the city states."

"Not just Cosanti? But I thought you said the city states fight each other. If you fight, why do you help each other?"

He nodded, sorting through stacks of the shiny silver disks that she only knew as common decorations.

"We do fight sometimes. But it's not like it is out here in the wastes with raiders and tribes just going after each other like packs of dogs." As he looked at disks, he sent them soaring out the open side of the building one after another with a playful flick of his wrist. They floated, spinning and glittering for a moment before turning and falling away toward the ground several hundred feet below. "There's an understanding all the city states share. It isn't something that's written down or talked about in so many words. Everyone understands that we're all that's left. We don't have to like each other or agree. Sure, sometimes disagreements boil over into fighting, we even go to war. But everyone knows there's a bigger picture. We - the city states, exist to help humanity thrive again. That understanding changes things. We share what we know with each other whenever we can because we've seen what happens when information or skills are horded. It only takes one plague or catastrophe for those things to be lost, potentially forever. Disagreements or not, all the city states know that we need each other." He gestured out the open side of the building at the cityruin. It seemed to shift and dance, the heat waves coming off the oven-hot buildings bending the air between them into shimmering curtains. "There are a lot of people out there in the world." He pointed as if beyond the cityruin. "Or people that will be out there; that need us to work together. 'Wise is the man who plants a tree knowing he will never sit in its shade.'"

Adina screwed up her face trying to figure out the analogy. "What's that mean?"

Asher smiled and looked up from the disks. "You know the old saying about not putting all your eggs in one basket?"

"Yes."

"It's kind of like that. What we do now will have lasting effects that we may never live see, but they can change the world." Shifting topics, he held up a disk. "These store information if you have a machine that can read them." He handed it to her. "That one played music."

"How? It's just a piece of plastic." She read the barely legible label. D...eche M...de - Antholo... She'd cut up or broken disks like this to make shiny, reflective decorations her whole life. They were common around gardens, used to scare away birds.

"The shiny surface is covered with little indentations that the player reads as it spins. Disks like this survive much better than magnetic tape or disks. The bombs destroyed most magnetic storage."

"By blowing them up?"

Asher dropped the stack he was looking at, letting them clatter to the debris covered floor and looked around. "Nothing here." He turned to her. "When a bomb like those that wiped out the world goes off, it puts out a pulse of energy. It's like when you feel heat from the sun or a fire, but it's a different kind of energy. It disrupts the magnetic alignment or destroys it, depending on what the data is stored on."

She narrowed her eyes. "Like the way magnets attract and repel."

He nodded, still scanning around. "Yeah. That's probably an easier way to think of it." He stepped close, watching her eyes and gave her a kiss. "You're so smart."

He'd done that a lot since her breakdown in the open hatch of the bearcat, telling her she was smart, complimenting her on her intelligence, and helping her navigate through so many things she didn't understand. Where he'd found them still intact, he'd picked up books. Most of them crumbled to powder as soon as they were disturbed. The filing cabinets in this office were full of thick dust that had once been paper.

She could read, but it was only enough to read a ledger or the label on a crate, not pages on pages of words strung together. She'd heard about books and had seen a few which were always delicate and jealously guarded. Some were supposed to be nothing but stories, filled with descriptions and 'painting with words' as the man who'd owned some called it.

Asher was teaching her about physics. He'd shown her how it was spelled and some other pertinent details and told her they were on the lookout for something called a textbook. "Physics affects everything from how a gun works, to how to punch a man, to how the sun in the sky and the weather operate." He'd taught her about reciprocal force, which was why a gun pushed back when it was fired even if the bullet was going the opposite direction. And every night he had her read from whatever they had. Mostly equipment manuals, but they had found some fragments of books. Some they found were useless for the purpose of improving her reading, filled with numbers and inscrutable lines of symbols Asher told her were called formulas. "Some formulas will be useful. Chemistry and physical science formulas, even accounting." He tossed the book aside. "This is some kind of computer language. It's useless unless you have a machine running that language."

Later when they were back in the bearcat he'd reiterated, "It doesn't matter what you read. You just need to read. That's how I learned everything I know."

To her surprise on the first night in the gigantic cityruin, he'd asked her to teach him what she knew. "You were a shoe maker, right? Show me how you make shoes."

She knew what he was doing, but still appreciated it anyway. He took time to let her teach him things. He paid attention, got frustrated, laughed and made it clear that what she knew was as important to him as what he did. His willingness to let her lead made her heart ache - as well as other parts of her body. Their sessions of her teaching him invariably ended with them naked, reveling in each other's bodies again. She liked being on top and riding him after these sessions. She liked the feeling of control.

"I like you like this," he'd told her as she slid up and down on his hard cock, sweating in the back the bearcat. She pushed her breasts forward squeezing them between her arms, her hands together on his scarred, tattooed chest as she rolled her hips, to work every inch of his cock inside her.

"Like that?"

He smiled and leaned up, kissing her nipples, sending a thrill through her as he pulled her ass cheeks wide and pushed her down onto him again. "Just like that." She squeezed his cock with her muscles, gripping it. She'd been practicing working her sex muscles. Her belly still ached from it, but it was worth is as she watched his face. "Mmm... I like you inside me..." She took a shivering breath as he sucked her nipple. "...like this." She arched her back, feeling the first tightening of her orgasm. He smiled up at her from her breast, his hand running up the back of her neck and gripping her hair, pulling her down onto his thrusting pelvis.

"Me too."

The night before they'd left the cityruin, they'd been in the midst of lovemaking in their open camp. She was on top again, lost in the feeling of him inside her, grinding her clit hard against him, pumping her hips fast, when there had been a noise. Before she'd recovered from the ecstatic feeling, she was sitting on the tarp and he was on his feet, pistol in hand, naked in the contending firelight and moonlight. That image seared itself into her mind. So erotic and... It was a snapshot she wasn't sure how to describe. So fierce, ready to face down anything, so protective, his spread hand held out to ensure he knew where she was. So loving.

A bump woke Adina from the sensual memory dream. She blinked and looked outside from her seat in the bearcat. They were slowly thumping over hummocks, the whole vehicle pitching side to side. The flat ground had turned rocky in places, parts of the landscape now littered with giant boulder-like hills divided by small canyons and washes.

"You'd better hold on," Asher warned from the driver's seat.

She wiped her mouth in case she'd been drooling and sat up. But her eyes were pulled back to him as he looked out, picking a path for the bearcat. The image from the last night in the cityruin filled her mind.

"I love you, you know," she said loudly.

He only glanced at her, then turned his attention to the ground outside. "I know that." He smiled.

She waited and when he didn't go on, she did. "Well, that usually means there's supposed to be an answer." She grabbed the canteen from its safe storage spot and lifted it to her lips. They hit a bump hard and she spilled water all over herself. She turned and narrowed her eyes, glaring at him.

"You did that on purpose," she hissed.

"Don't look at me, I'm just over here driving." But she could see the barest smirk on his face.

She watched the ground and then took a drink carefully, so he couldn't make her spill, then stowed the canteen again. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

She clambered over the console between them and squeezed in between him and the steering wheel.

"Adina! I..." He tried to look around her. "I can't see."

She settled down onto his lap straddling him, her knees off the sides of the driver's seat. "Well, I think I'm a lot more interesting to look at than what's outside. Don't you?"

He looked past her and stopped the bearcat, then turned his attention to her as he shifted it out of gear and set the brake. "That's a certainty."

"Well?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're all wet."

She sandwiched his white-bearded face between her hands, watching his lapis blue eyes and squeezed his cheeks together, forcing him to make pursed lips face. "Do-you-love-me?"

He watched her eyes for a long time, then his eyes shifted off past her shoulder. The crease between his eyebrows deepened and his eyes narrowed, his look intensifying.

"Well?" She bent to kiss him, but he stopped her, still watching past her. The stony expression he'd held when they first met slammed down on his face like a visor he'd suddenly pulled down. She turned, following his gaze. "What is..."

In the distance she could see a line of dust rising in the sky. Vehicles, moving fast. Moving in their direction.

"You said there wasn't anyone out here."

"There isn't supposed to be." He lifted her hips. "Move."

She did and he put the bearcat back in motion again. As she clambered back into her seat, he was maneuvering them into the canyons. She grabbed the binoculars from the cubby between them. "Who is it?"

His tone was deadpan cold. "I don't know."

He pulled them up behind rocks that hid most of the bearcat's silhouette. He turned out of his seat, took the binoculars and climbed up into the cupola, pushing the hatch open and stepped up just enough that his head and shoulders were outside.

"What are we doing?"

He didn't answer. Adina peered up into the cupola. He was very still, scanning the dust cloud that was now obscured to her by the rocks.

"It's an attack, but it doesn't concern us," he finally answered. "We'll let them pass and then keep moving."

Adina just stared at him from below in the cab. "What do you mean it's an attack?" She climbed up the step, squeezing into the cupola with him and grabbed the binoculars. Through the red amber lenses, she could see a small group of vehicles in the thick dust clouds racing at what looked like top speed. And three other vehicles chasing them - raiders.

"Two scouts and an assault truck." Asher's tone was cold. "It's already over, they just don't know it yet."

Watching the scene, Adina's heart fluttered like a terrified bird trying to escape the cage of her chest. Even at this distance she could almost feel the terror of the people in the vehicles as they pushed them to the breaking point trying to escape. The awful helpless feeling that had torn through her when the raiders attacked her town was there again. The terrifying understanding of what was going to happen to her... She heard their panicked calls to one another in her mind. The same as they had been before Asher had saved her. One of the fleeing vehicles suddenly careened sideways, flipped and rolled, shedding parts, equipment and to Adina's horror, at least one passenger. Her chest felt like a metal band tightened around it. She couldn't take a full breath. "We have to help them."

"This isn't our fight." The finality in Asher's voice was almost more damning than his utterly cold pronouncement of their fate a moment before.

She turned and punched him in the chest. "You have to help them! We can't just stand here and watch while the raiders..." Her words fell off abruptly. "We have to help them!"

Asher was looking her hard in the eye. The lapis of his eyes had never felt so cold. She could tell her hit had surprised him, but his hard expression hadn't changed.

"We can't save them, Adina. We have limited resources, that are now being shared by two people. Anything we expend we can't recover. This isn't our mission. Those people aren't our problem."

She punched him again. "BASTARD! Do something! Those people are going to die!"

"People die out here, Adina. That's the wasteland."

The horror of what was happening and her remembered terror tore through her like a fire, destroying everything in its path.

"Is this what the people in the city states do?! Just let people be taken as slaves, raped and killed?" She punched him again. "What's the matter with you!"

He just watched her eyes. Everything that she loved about him seemed to have vanished, locked away behind the cold curtain in his eyes.

She lifted the binoculars again and her horror turned to tears as she watched helplessly. She lowered the binoculars and turned to him again.

"We don't have to save everyone," she choked, tears rolling down her cheeks as she grabbed his jacket, sobbing. "Just these people. Asher - Please. I... can't just watch and do nothing. Please."

He watched her eyes for a long moment as she listened to the distant sound of roaring motors and echoed shrieks from the raiders.

He suddenly climbed down out of the cupola. She followed him down, but he didn't move for the driver's seat.

"What are you doing? Aren't you going to help them?!"

He opened a compartment on the top left of the bay and withdrew the largest rifle she'd ever seen from it along with a small, squarish instrument.

She gawked at the huge weapon. "What is that?"

Again, he didn't answer. He pushed past her and climbed back up into the cupola. He disappeared out and onto the top of the bearcat. She climbed up after him.

He threw a side of his coat out of the way and dropped to his knees on the bearcat's sloping top and popped the bipod out on the front of the big gun, then laid down behind it. He set the little device next to it and open the protective cover. There was a spindle with little cups, that immediately began to spin in the breeze.

"What are you going to do?"

He watched the read out on the little instrument making adjustments on the scope without answering. She raised the binoculars and watched.

"Cover your ear."

"What?"

"Your ear closest to me, cover it."

He was blowing out a long, slow breath. She covered her ear like he said, and as soon as she had, there was a boom that was as much concussion as sound. Dust on top of the bearcat leapt up around them as the shock wave from the big rifle firing hit her in the side. She jumped and yelped in surprise. Even her uncovered ear was now ringing painfully.