Davis Aurini - As I Walk These Broken Roads

“That’s what drove me to start exploring. Playing with old tech lying around home just got me in trouble, so I’d walk and think. That’s how I managed to find this baby here,” he patted the dashboard.

“The problems started when my Uncle bought this book from one of the merchants that came through occasionally, a guy who worked all the smaller communities, without an established trade route. He sold knickknacks, not hard supplies. We had most of what we needed to survive.

“The book he sold him was called Origin of the Species , written by a guy called Darwin. I never got to read it, but my Uncle told me about some parts — that’s where I got those ideas that I was telling you about back in Blackstock. The way he described it… it was just elegant; exciting. But see, that was the problem — my Uncle got all excited, and started talking to everybody about it.”

Raxx paused for a second and looked down at the steering wheel, a bitterness in his eyes. “All he wanted anyone to do was read it. He wasn’t even trying to argue with them, he just wanted them to share his excitement. The damned thing’s so obvious once you understand the principles… have you ever heard of it?”

Wentworth nodded, “I never read Origin but I read some derivate works. The Regiment had a lot of stuff buried in its archives that wasn’t official curriculum. And you’re right, the theory is elegant.”

Raxx nodded, “I’m glad to see you know what I mean. That’s what makes it so tragic. He was just trying to share something beautiful with them… but they wouldn’t even listen. They just had to keep believing…. I don’t know, whatever their myths and magic were.”

He took a long puff on his cigarette, “My Uncle was put to death for heresy — a lot like what Slayer did to that kid, when we were watching. That was when I figured it was time to go. By then I didn’t even know who anyone was anymore. My world was growing, while they were in this tiny little box. I’d stopped believing years ago, but it was his — murder — that made me realize that.”

He took a deep breath and pulled out another cigarillo. “Excommunicated, man… everything that I was, everyone that I knew. I’d become the polar opposite. Not even the polar opposite, I was a book written in a different language. I guess that’s why tech is so important to me. If I can start to understand that maybe I’ll be able to understand myself. ‘Cause sometimes I worry I’m going insane.”

He lit the cigarillo and stared out at the scattering rain. Wentworth checked his cigarettes. They were damp, but lightable. He pulled one out, delicately.

“Parents?”

“Still alive, I think. They’d hand me over to the priests if they knew what I did with this truck — let alone the rest of it.”

Betrayer , that what Jenkins had called Raxx in the interview room. He realized, now, that the hurt on the man’s face had been real. The term could just as well be levelled at himself. Raxx wasn’t the only one who’d been ‘excommunicated.’ But that didn’t really matter a damn.

Raxx wasn’t looking for empathy or validation. He wasn’t a subordinate either, it wasn’t Wentworth’s place to help crystallise his thoughts, to act as a historian and interpret his own past to him. Shared experience didn’t really matter. There was a deeper reason they’d been acting as partners for this long. Past be damned, it was the present that mattered.

“You and I think differently. I’ve noticed that when you’re explaining things, your thought patterns are in some ways opposite to my own, as if you’re attacking the same problem from a completely different angle. But somehow we both arrive at the same conclusion.” He puffed his cigarette. “Raxx, I’m pretty sure you would have arrived at your present stance regardless of who was around you. Because I’m standing here too, with a completely different background. For a long time I wondered if I was crazy… but then I figured that if some Mechanic I just met agrees with me, and his reasoning’s different, but not contradictory, well…” He looked over at the man, and the reflected light glinting off of his piercings. “Raxx, I don’t think either of us are crazy. We’ve got the other one to prove it.”

Raxx drove as if the road were his enemy. A scowl creased his features while the transmission hummed low in fifth gear. He leaned back in his seat, staring out at the shimmer on the horizon.

The dashed yellow lines still remained in places, flashing beneath his truck’s tires as he drove with a ground eating pace. The asphalt was bleached a light grey, and over the years the water had got in, cracking it open during the winter. Some patches had reverted to loose gravel, demanding that Raxx downshift and put both hands on the wheel. Prewar tar patches were still visible, filling in ancient cracks. They’d given up less of their original colour to the rays of the sun. Over the years enough dirt and grit had embedded itself in places to support plant life. After last night’s storm, bands of green criss-crossed the road far into the distance.

He eased the vehicle left and right, trying to find the smoothest route and ever conscious of the trailer’s mass behind him; whenever a pothole caught him by surprise, shaking the cab, he’d gun the engine and try to shift the trailer’s wheels out of its path.

A hundred meters ahead drove Wentworth. Despite the cool air his jacket was undone and flapping in the wind in an attempt to dry out the waterlogged leather. Free of the vehicle’s cab, he was better able to scout out the surface. Raxx took his cues off him, preparing to make a similar manoeuvre whenever the man swerved to avoid an as-of-yet unseen rough patch on the blacktop.

All four of them were enjoying the sun’s return. The truck’s cabin was less cramped when they were moving.

The scenery had been changing ever since they’d found their way back onto a proper highway. The colours of scrub and fields were changing to the washed out browns and greys of the old civilisation. They passed by roadside truck-stops, still advertising fast food chains, fuel, cigarettes, and the coffee that had been the hallmark of the trucking industry. Now the signs were faded like the cheap, transient plastic which they were. The letters on the poster-boards announcing the fuel-prices were askew or missing, with many years’ worth of condensation leaving the sign’s outer layer covered in a white film, obscuring the message. Other ads, announcing deals-of-the-week, were fallen over and flaking tiny bits of paint and plastic everywhere.

More and more refuse lined the roads on their approach; the last generation’s garbage lived on. Earlier Raxx had noted a coffee cup which must have been lying on its side for decades before getting recently blown over. The sunward side was an unreadable, a mishmash of sky-blue and yellow. The downward side was a vivid brown and red, the sharp lines of a logo still discernible.

Along the horizon, off to the southwest, the jagged fingers of concrete towers could be seen. The rain had washed away the perpetual dusty haze, leaving the sky a vivid blue. One particular concrete finger stood up higher than the rest of them, thinner, its end jagged as if the top had snapped off.

A shudder ran down Raxx’s back. The ancient city looked like the ribs of a decayed animal.

As they got closer to their destination the buildings along the side of the road began to obscure the empty towers to the southwest. Stone walls three meters high lined the road, marred by the marks of ancient gunfire; behind them tracks of houses. They were entering what had one of the Golden Horseshoe’s many suburbs — the great crescent of civilization surrounding Lake Ontario had concentrated all of its industry and commerce towards the waterfront. Those rich enough had moved to the outskirts, encroaching upon the farmland and building gated communities during the anarchic years leading up to the War. Even now, their tenants gone, each block seemed to loom on the side of the road. The communities within hidden from those that journeyed past. The only buildings visible as the gates flashed past were those housing the minor businesses which served the people in those communities. Grocery stores, flower shops, and high-end clothing stores. All the accoutrements that might be needed, shipped to within a kilometre of those that desired them.