“You know, that’s something I ask myself. Could I have escaped if the right books and people hadn’t been there to help me? I like to think so, but I don’t really know. Maybe in the end we’re all nothing more than the products of our environment.
“My uncle’s helped a lot — Uncle Xavier. He gave me my first non-parable book. At the time, reading wasn’t forbidden, but it wasn’t exactly encouraged either, you know what I mean? Uncle Xavier didn’t care, though. I always thought he was funny growing up. He was always cheerful, but my parents and lots of the other adults didn’t like him. When I was young I thought it was because he wasn’t serious enough for them, the way an adult is supposed to be, but looking back at it now it was because he didn’t really believe in the superstition. Not that he broke from it, like I did, he just didn’t worry that much — and he wouldn’t let it stop him from collecting his own library.
“The man really loved books. He mostly collected fiction, and that’s what I got most of my education from. He even gave me my first copy of that book I bought you — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — I was probably too young at the time, I didn’t take care of it and it fell apart, but I’ve got it all down in my head, more or less.”
“I’ve almost finished it.”
“Oh yeah? What do you think?”
Wentworth chewed his lip. “You know, when you picked it up I thought it was a joke — a joke about how we met. But now… I’ve got a few thoughts, but they’re not sorted out yet. Ask me again when I’ve finished.”
“Okay. Anyway, thanks to my Uncle I started asking a lot of questions. At first my parents and the pastor were happy about it. I tried to help by figuring out better tools for harvesting the grain, or a better pulley for the well, all that stuff, but that only seemed to make it worse. They were concerned with my ‘materialism,’ they said. You know, it’s ironic, really. What they saw as my ‘materialism’ was really me trying to understand how the world works — what the underlying rules are, the theoretical; asking ‘Why?’ It was anything but materialistic. But they didn’t see it that way.”
“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.”
Chapter 29
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.