CHAPTER 5

It took me longer than necessary to find the correct control, but I’d been wise enough to set Tank 1 to autopilot, heading southeast, before shutting my eyes for a few seconds. A few seconds became a few hours until the blare of early daylight jolted me awake.

I was disappointed to see I was still in the tank and that I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing.

Through the view screen, the sky ahead was clear. All sunshine and blue sprawl. Spring was around the corner and that usually meant good things were coming; my whole mood changed around March. Not anymore. Spring now meant more dragons would burrow out of the ground, making more wraiths and more scalies. Besides that, the thought of spring at that moment didn’t do much for me.

I’d murdered my future with the New United States Army, betrayed the one person who seemed to give any kind of shit about me, and I had no supplies. I’d left with only the clothes on my back, but all I had was a cold, damp robe.

Peoria, Illinois was the only place I’d ever called home, so that’s where I was heading. Calhoun, or somebody closer he could radio, would probably look for me there first. I figured I could stop in and leave before any of them showed up. A short window of time, but I had to see my parents, get some clothes and food for the road. It wouldn’t take me long, not in the tank, though I’d eventually have to ditch it for something less conspicuous. My Uncle Pedro could get me a ride. All the more reason to head for home. I just had to find out where the hell I was.

My holoreader was back in Waukesha. Otherwise I would have pulled up a map. The dragons had destroyed most everything, but satellites were still circling the earth and GPS would outlast us all. But you had to be able to use the technology for it to be any good. I was sure the tank had that capability but I’d already made a bad headache worse by searching the controls.

I checked the position of the sun before realizing that wasn’t going to do shit for me.

My abuelo once told me there used to be gas stations back in the day, and if your mobile device ever ran out of battery, you could pull over and grab a soda and chips while asking for directions. My abuela chimed in and said that it didn’t matter because anytime that would happen my abuelo refused to stop and get help. Male pride.

After E-day, when the dragons “Emerged” from beneath the earth, I asked him if he missed roadtrips, if he would have stopped and asked for directions if he’d known they’d be a thing of the past. He just shook his head, said, “Nah!” and chugged the rest of his beer.

Well, this Contreras wasn’t too proud. I rotated the viewer slowly, counterclockwise. There had to be something out here that would give me a sense of where I was. So far all I’d seen was snow and cracked asphalt. There weren’t even trees to look at.

A warning signal sounded. Something was blocking the road ahead. I began turning the viewer back to the front to see what it was. The tank took measures to avoid it, veering sharply to the right before thrusting back to the center of the road. Whatever had been in the way was no longer a problem, but the maneuver threw me from my seat. I hit the cold floor and was suddenly struck with the urge to pee, and nowhere safe to do so.

My wrists ached as I picked myself up, my knees ached when I sat back down.

Autopilot is a wonderful thing. You can avoid all sorts of obstructions in the road without having to do the steering yourself. But when you have the vehicle flying at a hundred miles per hour, you’d better buckle up.

This time I did. I also slowed the speed of the tank a little.

The view screen was in the same position from when my finger left the controls. I was about to start turning to search the horizon again, when off in the distance I noticed some kind of settlement.

Well, it wasn’t a cluster of buildings. It was a wall. A long gray thing that didn’t look like it belonged out in the wilds of Wisconsin. There had to be a settlement on the other side. People don’t build walls like that for no reason. I decided it was the best I was going to get. A Drake in the hand is worth two in the ash or however the saying went. If the wall turned out to be nothing, I wouldn’t be that far off the road.

I cancelled the tank’s autopilot and turned toward the ominous wall. The field I crossed through might have been farmland at one point. Then again, you could have said that about anywhere.

As I got closer I saw it wasn’t just a wall. The majority of the gray bricks had been built around another structure made of off-pink stone. This original building was made to look like a castle. It had one of those tower things that looked like a dragon’s claw scraping at the sky. I never knew the exact name for it, but it looked like the rook on a chess board.

It was a castle.

I stopped the tank a few feet from it. Sitting there, staring at it, I thought, Sure. Why the hell not?

If dragons were roaming America, why not have a castle in the middle of nowhere?

Something hit the tank. Then again. One ding after another. It sounded like hail on a metal roof, but it was sunny outside and the strikes were too infrequent. I raised the viewer toward the tower. People stood all along the wall and they were throwing rocks. An older man stood on the rook tower and he was mouthing something angrily as he pelted a big chunk of concrete. It struck right beside the viewer, wobbled the screen.

Great. I’d found a settlement all right. A town full of nutjobs.

Remembering I’d turned off the speakers when I left Waukesha, I opened the feed to hear what had the old man so riled up.

“… ’cause I’ve got rocks for days. Stones and pebbles, too. If you don’t answer me, we’ll bring out the big fucking guns and make you sorry you ever came near. You hear me in there you slimy sonsabitches?”

He sure had a mouth on him.

I opened the PA. “Sorry. I had my speakers turned off.”

The old man turned to the others with his eyebrows squished together. I don’t know if he was confused that someone had actually responded or that I was being polite.

He turned back to me and began yelling again before I had a chance to explain myself. “I told you to turn off that tank and exit out of the top hatch slowly. We’ve got rifles trained on you and some worse things you wouldn’t like. I know exactly how those spider tanks work. If we hear that turret warming up, we’ll blow your ass to Chicago. If you don’t do as we say within the next ten seconds, we’ll blow your ass to Cincinnati.”

Any sane person would rather be blown to anywhere but Cincinnati. I had the worst urge to tell him I was better off warming up the turret. Instead, I said, “Sir, I don’t mean any of you any harm or trouble. I’m just on my way home and wondered if you could help me find my way. Also, maybe some food and clothes I might barter for?”

I didn’t know what I’d barter. A robe and a story was all I had.

The old man made another confused face at his cohorts, then spit off the tower. “Ten!”

The rest of them bent down and brought up rifles and aimed them at me. They were obviously not playing around.

I turned the tank back toward the road. Whatever they’d throw at me, I could outrun. I was just about to press the acceleration button when a wave of energy hit the tank and everything went dark.

Yelping, I patted my chest and sides. Still here. Still breathing. I hadn’t been blown to godawful Cincinnati. The tank had simply shut down. I unbuckled and fiddled around in the dark, finding the power button and slapping it with the palm of my hand. Nothing happened. Poking at the controls didn’t do anything either.

Shit.

With a heavy sigh, I found the ladder leading to the top hatch and threw it open. “Don’t shoot!”

“We might and we might not,” the old man called. “That’s up to you. You going to try something funny?”

“No,” I shouted. “I’m just glad you didn’t blow me up.”

The man laughed. “Well, I think any Nusie who’d rather run than shoot deserves a little compassion. But you better come out if you want more good grace. How many of you are in there?”

“It’s just me. One guy.”

“Bullshit!”

“I’m telling the truth!” I said.

“We’ll see. Put both of your hands out first. When we see they’re empty, the rest of you can come out.”

I did as he said. It was difficult raising my hands out into the open while balancing on the ladder. I had to lean on the lip of the hatch.

“Okay,” the old man called. “Now you can crawl out of your hole.”

I did my best to keep my hands visible while I shuffled upward. But it got too difficult and I had to grab onto the top rung to pull myself up. Standing on the spider, I turned to face my attackers. I held my hands up and tried not to shiver against the wind blowing my robe open.

“Shit,” the old man said, lowering a big bazooka-like weapon. “You’re just a kid.”

“I’m twenty,” I said. I shifted my legs together. The urge to urinate hadn’t left me; it had only gotten worse.

“Why are you wearing that?” the man said. “Where’s your uniform?”

“I had to leave the house in a hurry.”

He made a hmph. I don’t know what gave him any right to judge my attire. He was wearing an old t-shirt and jeans held up by suspenders that sparkled with either glitter or fake gemstones. I couldn’t tell which from where I stood.

“Your tank is ours now.” He patted the side of his bazooka. “It’s no good to you any more. We hit it with an EMP dart. Good thing you came along. We needed the parts.”

“Hey!” I hadn’t gone so little a distance, after giving up so much, just to let my only way to Peoria be taken by these mongrels. “Are you serious?”

“Do we look not serious?”

I didn’t know how to respond. Everyone standing on the wall looked like cocktails of suburbanites and road warriors. They wore turtlenecks and war paint, spiked armbands and Milwaukee Brewers ball caps. They were the most ridiculously serious looking bunch I’d ever laid eyes on.

The old man in the rook tower flashed his teeth as if he wanted to scorch me with his smile. “It’s a bad day to be in the Army.”

“I quit the Army. I’m going home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Peoria.” He moved his jaw but said nothing. The silence was getting me nervous so I added, “Illinois.”

“I know where Peoira is. And I like liars even less than Nusies.”

I don’t know how they synchronized it, but everyone on the wall, who were already aiming their rifles at me, moved their arms enough to cause their weapons to make slight clicking noises. I think they were reaffirming I could be filled with holes in half the time it took to exhale. I didn’t need reminding, but the urge to piss had most of my attention.

“Look,” I said. “You have me at your mercy. Just… do you have somewhere I can…”

“Can what?” the man said.

“You know.” I twirled a hand at waist level. But that didn’t seem to help him understand. “Take a leak?”

The old man lowered his bazooka to the ground then hummed to himself. “Lower the gate. Let him in.”

A younger woman turned to him and began arguing in sharp whispers.

The man turned back to shout at someone on the ground level behind the wall. “Get the tractor and pull that tank inside, quick as you can. They’ll be looking for it.” Back to me he said, “What’s your name, kid?”

“Guillermo Contreras.”

“Okay, Gilly,” he said.

My eyes nearly popped from their sockets. Who the hell did this guy think he was? “Only my family calls me Gilly.”

“You get a bathroom pass into our little kingdom, then we’ll turn you loose. You don’t talk to anyone but me and I’ll be stuck to you like stink on shit. You break that rule, you can piss in your robe all the way to Peoria,” then, under his breath, “Fucking Illinois.”

The center of the wall came down like an old castle drawbridge. It was a hidden gate and it had done a damn good job. I hadn’t spotted it. The gate’s exterior was made of the same brick, lowered by concealed hinges and wires.

“Wait,” I called up to the man.

A woman on a tractor puttered her way out toward the tank.

“If I’m only allowed to talk to you,” I said, “shouldn’t I know your name?”

The old man looked over his shoulder as he made his way off the tower. “You can call me Seabee.”