Eventually they hit the Highway 95 Interchange. A large, red-lettered sign marked the way south: Danger—to Richmond Fever Lands. And another the way north: Danger—to Washington Fever Lands. The signs had the characteristic three notches, a common marking Spoke people adopted as a form of branding for their signs.
The old, many-laned north-south highway was overgrown, but there were clearly used pathways to the north and south, with fresh bike treads and horse tracks on them.
Of what he’d seen so far, the bike treads and hoofprints made him the most nervous. There were people out here. Bandits. Desperate people. People that didn’t like Spokes.
Thankfully they had strength in numbers. Bandits hadn’t attacked bike expeditions to the towers in years, according to their platform wrench, a man named Chester.
Chester was positioned across from Owen. He was the one Owen had been trying to keep in sync with unsuccessfully. Chester was older than most, probably in his mid forties, but you could only tell his age from the few gray hairs that crept out from under his helmet. His body was lean and powerful, like the other mules on the platform. His deep-set brown eyes came together as he squinted out across the expanse, alert and aware. His hands were knobby, a result of spending most of his time working with ratchets and Allen keys.
“How much further, boss?” Owen asked.
Chester glanced across at him, but then returned his focus to the environs, keeping his eyes active. “It’s about five miles from the interchange, due east,” he said. “How you holding up, kid?”
“Fine,” Owen said, although in reality his legs felt heavy and weak.
“You’ve never been out this way, have you?” Chester asked.
“No, sir.”
“We’ve done this run hundreds of times. As long as you all follow directions we should be fine.”
“Yes, sir,” Owen said. Owen suspected the reference to you all included Bartz’s people. There were ten of the railroad folks, including Preston and Owen. They had been included at the last minute at Bartz’s request. The new additions made an already large expedition one of the largest ever.
“And besides,” Chester said, “I think everyone should see the towers at least once in their lives.”
It was on the crest of a hill a few miles later that Owen first made out the towers. Ten clusters of the black spindly cylinders, each cylinder fifty stories tall, defied the featureless plains around them. The huge buildings dominated more and more of the horizon as they rode closer.
Owen had heard descriptions of the towers, but it was another thing to see them with his own eyes. These skyscrapers housed any sort of bicycle you could possibly want, all neatly packed and stored—road bikes, racing bikes, mountain bikes, hybrids, tricycles and even tandem bikes. For decades the Spoke people had raided the towers and taken what they needed. According to Chester, in all that time they had only emptied a handful of the closest buildings.
The peloton eventually turned off the main highway, making its way down a local road that led more directly to the array of towers. The road ended at a large, two-story wall that barred passage. It appeared that at one time there had been a massive door here, but the whole area was overgrown. For all Owen could tell, the door had never been opened since the Detonation.
The lead scouts turned off to the right on a well-groomed, Spoke-made path that ran parallel to the wall. A few hundred feet later the road veered to the left.
Here a large, round hole was evident in the exterior wall. Its diameter was twice the height of Owen, and it was cut into the wall with such precision that a sheen glistened on the surface of it. This must be the bullet hole, as he’d heard it described. It was as if a cylinder of material had been perfectly sliced out of the five-foot thick metal wall. The path of the “bullet” continued, cutting holes in a straight line through the array of buildings into the horizon. In some places, it cut arced sections off some of the bases of the tall cylindrical buildings, and for one building it cut a hole right through the center.
After the scouts had gone through and given the all clear, the peloton navigated through the bullet hole one platform at a time.
“Do you know what could have caused the bullet hole?” Owen asked as they pedaled the platform slowly through the wall.
“The boy asks a lot of questions, don’t you think, Chester?” A mule ahead of Chester remarked.
“Yes, he does,” Chester said, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“What is it?” Owen asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Chester said, smirking at something left unsaid.
“Lighter loads make for louder trips,” another mule on their platform said. It was a common saying among mules and wrenches, owing to the fact that conversation was harder when the mules were pushing a full platform.
“About the bullet hole,” Chester said. “I’ve heard that some of the local people, the bandits closer to the fever lands, say it’s the result of some spiritual energy from their god, some divine intervention to give us access to the bikes. More likely, it was a random blast from the Detonation. It could be the one time a stray bullet from the Old World did something good for us instead of sicken us or swoop down and puke acid.”
Owen was still gazing in wonder at the walls of the cylindrical hole and the immensity of the towers that lay beyond. “It’s so strange,” was all he could offer in response.
A voice came from behind Owen. “Of course, we know as much about the bullet hole as we do about why the bike towers are here in the first place.” It was Jeroun, another of the railroad men who had been assigned to his platform. Jeroun was a surly sort who had kept quiet on the ride so far, save the occasional expletive on steeper inclines.
“Now, now,” Chester said, shaking his head and casting a dark look at Jeroun.
The mules didn’t like to talk about the origins of the bike towers. It was an extremely important resource for Spoke society and the mules in particular. Yet trying to explain their existence was like poking a sleeping bear. People had passionate views, most of them hard to reconcile, so it often resulted in disagreements—sometimes violent ones.
The peloton stopped next to one of the towers in the cluster closest to the bullet hole entrance. Unlike the skyscrapers and other big buildings Owen had seen from picture books, there were no windows, and no other architectural features other than some kind of bridge that connected the cluster at the top. The only breaks in the exterior surface were minor indentations every fifth of the way up, which made it look like cylindrical cross-sections had been stacked on top of each other like five big Lego pieces. Otherwise, the towers were just huge black cylindrical monoliths.
Owen stretched his legs and sat down on the ground with his canteen. No sooner had he taken a big gulp of water into his mouth than he was hit in the chest with a large bundle of rope. He lost half of the mouthful on his shirt.
Chester was standing next to the platform, grinning at him. “Don’t get too comfy. We like to give the curious ones the first chance to see the view.”
Owen suspected this wasn’t something he should be looking forward to.
It just so happened there were no stairs in the towers. The interior of the tower was just a stack of five cylindrical sections, each one a warehouse full of bikes, without access points between them. In each warehouse section, thirty thick metal poles reached up ten stories, and on each pole bikes of numerous varieties were neatly stacked in a helical formation climbing up to the ceiling. It didn’t allow easy access to the bikes, but it was perhaps the most efficient use of space. According to Chester, each sectional warehouse could house about twenty thousand bicycles, and the choicest bikes were always in the top sections of the tower.