Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

“Oh, excellent .” He rolled forward. “You should see this, Driver.”

“Is it going to be like back there with Pinto?”

Ciera stopped what she was doing and sighed. “Oh, Daddy! I wanted to show him Pinto.”

“My apologies, dear, but it couldn’t be helped. We were in the area and it seemed a pity to waste the opportunity.” He moved closer to her. “All right— how angry are you?”

“I’m not angry,” she said, pouting. “Just…disappointed.”

“Well, this will not do, will not do at all. I can’t have my favorite girl feeling this way, so here is what I propose: if the Road decrees as I think it will, then you , my dear, will be given the honor of starting the festivities.”

Ciera’s eyes grew wide, and then she squealed in joy and threw her arms around Daddy Bliss’s neck. “Oh, Daddy, I love you so much! ”

“As I do you, dear Ciera. As I do you.”

This was the first time I got a clear look at what had been done to her arms, how the elbows had been replaced with hood hinges, her veins and remaining cartilage woven around and through the metal. No wonder they hadn’t looked right earlier, even though she’d been wearing a sweater; they were each roughly six inches longer than a normal human arm was supposed to be.

She saw me staring at her, then—giving Daddy Bliss a quick and affectionate kiss on the cheek—stood up, stretching out her arms, then crossing her legs and tilting her head to the side in an imitation of the Crucifixion of Jesus. “Be honest—do these make me look fat?”

Both she and Daddy Bliss exploded with laughter.

I was still busy replaying Daddy Bliss’s promise about her “…starting the festivities”, so it took a moment for me to realize that, once they stopped laughing, both of them were staring at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I drifted off for a moment.”

“You’re cute ,” said Ciera. “I kinda hope you get stuck here.”

“Now, now,” said Daddy Bliss. “No flirting—at least, not right now. I, too, think the pair of you would make a handsome couple, but that’s neither here nor there.” He looked up at one of the wall clocks; there were several of them, covering different time zones. “I believe that Lexington beckons us, does it not?”

Ciera blew me a little kiss, ran her tongue quickly over her upper lip, then sat back down in her chair and rolled over to one of the computers with a 40-inch monitor. “About one minute.”

“I still get goosebumps” said Daddy Bliss. “Imagine that. After all this time, and I still tingle when this happens.” He looked at me. “You need to see this, Driver.”

“I’d rather not.”

“But I insist, really I do.”

Not wanting to find out what happens to someone who refused his insistence, I moved over, the three of us clustering around the monitor.

“Can you split the screen?” asked Daddy Bliss. “I don’t know that Driver will be able to follow otherwise.” He looked at me. “No offense intended.”

I said nothing. It seemed the smart thing to do.

Ciera typed in a single command, hit the returnkey, and the image on the screen split in two; on the left side, a schematic of a section of highway (presumably somewhere in Lexington, Kentucky); on the right was a live feed from a camera mounted atop what I assumed was a light somewhere along the same highway shown on the schematic.

“Okay,” said Ciera, turning a smaller desk-top monitor toward us. Its screen showed a middle-aged man sitting in his living room, running two HO-scale cars around a large track that was an exact replica of the schematic. Beneath this image was a series of changing numbers and the words Bloomington, Indiana.

The man onscreen stopped for a moment, looked at the clock, then carefully placed two more cars onto the track at different locations; after that, he picked up a second control handset and squeezed the triggers on both. The cars on the track began moving, and at the same time four blinking lights appeared on the schematic, each one following the same path as its counterpart on this man’s track.

“You might want to step back a little bit,” said Ciera. “The idea is to take all this in at a glance. It’ll be easier for you to see everything if you move back a foot or two.”

I did as she said, and watched as Bloomington, Indianaincreased the speed of the HO-scale cars.

As he increased the speed, the blinking lights on the highway schematic began moving faster.

As the blinking lights on the schematic moved faster, two cars became visible in the distance from the live-feed camera.

Daddy Bliss wasn’t looking at the screen any longer; he was watching me. “I do believe that our Driver has figured something out.”

“Oh, God …” was all I could get out.

When it happened, it happened quickly.

Two cars approached the camera, a Ford Explorer and a Chevy Corvette. They were one lane apart, both going at roughly the same speed. As they drove closer to the camera, two cars traveling in the opposite direction on the other side of the concrete divider zoomed into view; a Pontiac Bonneville and a Saturn Ion Sedan. The Pontiac and Saturn were going well over the speed limit. The Pontiac veered into the lane directly behind the Saturn and flashed its brights. The Saturn increased its speed, as did the Pontiac. I wondered what the hell the Pontiac driver was thinking, what he (or she, I couldn’t tell) thought was going to be accomplished by this. Maybe the Saturn had done something to piss him off, and the Pontiac driver was just acting on impulsive anger. Or maybe the Pontiac was trying to get in the Exit lane and the Saturn driver was just fucking with him.

A few moments later, it didn’t much matter.

The Saturn suddenly hit its brakes (or had its brakes hit for it). The Pontiac slammed into the back of the Saturn, crumpling its own front end and upending the Saturn, which flipped over the divider just as the Explorer came up from the other side. The Saturn landed on the hood of the Explorer, crumpling it and forcing the Explorer to slant-skid right and side-swipe the Corvette, causing the driver to lose control and spin out, the rear of the car smashing into the divider and sending the thing spinning even harder, coming to a screeching halt a second before the Explorer slammed into its side and the Saturn came off its hood to smash squarely onto the Corvette’s roof. It couldn’t have taken six seconds. The man on the smaller monitor dropped his handsets and walked over to his HO tracks, examining the four smashed, piled-up cars. The schematic showed a single blinking light now, this one bigger than the others, and flashing a bright red.

The live feed showed only a mass of smoking, twisted, smashed, bloody metal and glass. The Saturn had run halfway up the divider after rear ending the Pontiac, and looked like a sick beast trying to climb over a rock.

After a moment, one of the Saturn’s doors opened and a woman who was nothing but blood from head to heel fell out onto the highway. A moment later, several bulky shadows dislodged themselves from the night and swam toward the wreckage. I couldn’t watch any more. I turned away, closing my eyes. A few moments later, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay now,” said Ciera. “It’s over.” I opened my eyes and saw Daddy Bliss moving toward me. “So,” he said, “you’ve some idea now?” I could barely find my voice, but somehow managed to do so. “One question.” “Of course.” I pointed toward the screens. “Is this…do you…” “Take your time, Driver. Take a deep breath. There you are. Now, once more?”