He couldn’t pry his eyes away from Flora’s tent.
He stood up, wiped his face on his sleeve, and with the hint of a smile, went to join her.
WE DO RIGHT BY THE MULES
Chester shifted the gears on the old, refurbished truck as he drove down Water Street. It was a particularly gray and cold morning for autumn, with frost in places on the ground. The vehicle coughed out a large plume of smoke down the bumpy avenue. The clouds of exhaust were something many had smelled but few people had ever seen. It was just one more novelty for the city of Seeville.
It was only weeks ago that he was pulling platforms across the city, but it seemed like forever.
“You ready?” he asked Garrett.
“Yeah,” Garrett said. Garrett was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. He didn’t look ready. Sweat beaded on his brow. His color had gone pale. His hand twitched on his knee nervously.
“Just keep it between the ditches, if you know what I mean,” Chester said.
Garrett didn’t seem to hear him.
Garrett was a loyal mule, one of the most loyal Chester had met, and Chester had met hundreds. When Garrett was calm and collected, he was a good asset on any run, incredibly strong and athletic. One of the fastest mules they had, in fact. But he was also an anxious man, and he had little experience with the more dangerous railroad forays Chester had been on.
There was little sense in stopping to give him another pep talk now, though. He either lost his shit or he didn’t.
They passed a stream of twenty-odd enforcers running past them with purpose, brandishing rifles and batons. A guardian trailed behind them.
Garrett watched anxiously. “Where do you think they’re going?” he asked.
“There’s an Adherent demonstration on the mall,” Chester answered.
“How do you know?”
Chester looked at Garrett with a dour face. Garrett got the hint. Don’t ask a question when you don’t want to know the answer.
The newly minted walls of the Barnyard rose above them. Three manned towers were directly visible from their location.
Just outside of the Barnyard, a large enforcer barracks had been built. Dozens of armed men milled about the area.
Chester pulled the truck into the main entrance and stopped at the gatehouse.
The gate guard strolled up to Chester’s window. He was unusually tall and looked halfway familiar, but Chester couldn’t remember his name. “Sam, is it?” Chester asked.
“No, Scott. Chester right? Where’s Decker today?”
“Sick.”
“He sure picked a day to be sick.” Scott shook his head reprovingly. “With the SLS breathing down our neck and all.” Scott shuffled through some sort of chart on a clipboard. “Delivery isn’t due until this afternoon.”
“Yeah, well, we wanted to get here earlier. We’ve got another one this afternoon, for Thorpe and them. Besides, we don’t know what the afternoon will bring, if you know what I mean.”
Scott squinted at Chester. “Next time just bring it in on time. The machines, you know, they don’t like things late, but they don’t like things early neither.”
“Got it.”
“We’ll let you through after inspection,” Scott said. Scott waved to the gatehouse, and another guard came out, walking toward the truck.
The guard opened the back gate of the truck and looked inside. A spider bot also crawled in and began checking labels and peeling open boxes. They were carrying pretty standard stuff in the back of the truck—foodstuffs, water, some foraged scrap metal—nothing that could be considered dangerous or off-limits for the Barnyard.
Garrett looked nervously toward the back of the cab. Chester shot him a look of warning. Now was not the time to get antsy.
“Can you get out?” Scott said. “Gotta check the cab too. New rules.”
Chester stepped out on one side, and Garrett on the other. Chester reached into his pocket to find the controller. His hand found his set of Allen keys first. He hadn’t used it in weeks, and yet he always brought it with him. Maybe it was force of habit, maybe something else. He liked the feel of it in his hand.
He found the controller deeper in his pocket.
The spider bot had finished in the back. It scurried into the cab. “Wait until it’s right on top of the box, or it won’t work,” Owen had said. The spider hovered on the seats and dash, doing some kind of probing, and then crawled into the back of the cab where there were three large boxes.
“Creepy looking things aren’t they?” Scott said beside him.
“You said it,” Chester responded.
Chester pretended to sneeze. He looked at his hands, one of which was obscuring the controller. The yellow button was first, the orange second, and the red button third. He put the controller back into his pocket. No one seemed to notice.
The spider bot moved to the middle box and Chester firmly pressed the first button on the controller.
When Owen told him the short-range EMP wouldn’t cause a stir, Chester found it hard to believe. But he was right. There was no noise, no explosion, nothing. The spider bot simply stopped moving.
It took a moment for Scott to notice it. Then he crawled in the cab and pushed at the machine. “Will you look at that? I’ve never seen one of these break down. First time for everything.” He lifted it out of the cab.
“We have to get going,” Chester said with some urgency. “Like I said, I have another load to do today, for the bosses. Can we finish this up so we can move on?”
Scott was staring at the underside of the spider bot in puzzlement. “You sit tight here. Let me check to see if that’s enough inspection for you to go through.”
“Sure,” Chester said, and Scott clipped off to the guardhouse.
Chester stepped back into the cab. Garrett did as well. Chester turned on the ignition.
“What… what’s going to happen?” Garrett asked nervously.
Chester looked over at Garrett. There were no creases in his eyes, no loose skin. He was young. Chester probably would have been just as nervous at his age.
“You know, Garrett, I’ve done lots in my life. I’ve done hundreds of century rides. I’ve been as far north as Kingston and as far south as Charleston. I’ve skirted half a dozen fever lands, seen thousands of bandits, and now I’ve even seen these machines that move. Whatever happens next doesn’t really matter, because I know what they’re doing in the Barnyard is wrong. Dozens of good, honest mules have died, and thousands more will if they continue like this.”
Garrett didn’t look in any way reassured by his speech.
Chester sighed. “When it’s your time, it’s your time. It’s as simple as that. I’ve seen mules eat it from the smallest bit of kitty litter on the road. I’ve seen mules eat it from an infected scratch on their leg, from riding into run-down cars, or from forgetting to drink enough water. When I really think about it, I could’ve been killed a hundred times. I’ve been lucky to make it this far, and I’d rather die doing something worth a lick.”
“Are you saying… you think we’re going to die?” Garrett’s eyes were wide.
“The point is, you don’t need to worry about that. We’re just a bunch of mules. Fate isn’t going to bend over backward for you. Worrying about it isn’t going to change things. No matter what happens next, we do right by the mules today—nothing more, nothing less.”
Garrett nodded his head, but he didn’t seem at all comforted by what Chester said. He maintained his tight grip on the windowsill while watching Scott return from the gatehouse.
Scott meandered around to Chester’s side of the truck. “We’re getting another spider bot from the bunkers. Shouldn’t be long now.”