Ain't Talkin'

“Why send a prototype-mutant-ethereal being to guard your skinny ass?”

“To make sure I didn’t fall into the Res.”

“Shooting you would have just been easier.”

“Excuse me!?” Markus tried to stand quickly and flopped all-tipsy back onto his ass.

Roche smoked and wished he had some chew to soften the sting of the vodka. “Just saying. If the Corporate boys didn’t want you to talk, shooting you would have done a more permanent and assured job of that than dragging you across a fifth of the continent bound and gagged.”

Alex Markus chewed on the idea. Swallowed it. Resigned himself to it and held out a hand for the vodka.

Roche passed Alex the bottle and watched the fire dance. “So why didn’t they just kill you.”

“Sounds like you’re asking yourself that and not me.”

“I am. If you knew you’d have spilled it by now. You’re drunk enough at this point.”

“Was that your plan? Get me drunk and then let me spill my guts? Bet you do that to all the girls.”

“Not a chance, kiddo. Just thought you could use a drink. Didn’t realize you’d polish most of that bottle.”

Alex replied by taking another sip, though a marketedly smaller one than before.

“Can you kill those things?”

“The constructs? I don’t know. That’s why the Res wanted my help. That’s why I reached out to them. I didn’t like the idea of a conquering force of constructs under the control of the Corporation with no one knowing how to fight back.”

“You’re a true hero, kid.” Roche chucked under his breath but Alex didn’t hear the sarcasm in it. “How’re you gonna help the Res if you don’t even know how to kill the things?”

“I don’t even know. But I can try. If they hadn’t reached out to me I might still be helping the Corp.”

“Thought you said you reached out to them.” Roche turned his eyes from the fire to the young man with the glasses and the button-shirt and the wispy hair. Markus was lost in the flames himself, well beyond tipsy and approaching the point of being too tired to make sense.

“I did. I- I think I’m drunk.”

“I know you’re drunk, shithead. Get some sleep. Plenty of time to talk on the way back to Polkun County and I got more I wanna know.”

“I got stuff I want to know of you, too. . .” The kid trailed off, barely finishing the sentence.

“Good luck, shithead.” Roche picked the bottle and swigged once more from it and lit another rolled smoke.

Alex Markus was asleep within a minute, curled in the dust with his arms tight against his chest and his shoes near the fire. He fitted all night and made a whimpering noise once or twice. He wasn’t drunk enough to wet, and somewhere past midnight he stood quietly, walked some paces away and pissed before coming back to the fire and laying back down without saying a word.

Roche didn’t sleep a wink. When the embers died down to nothing somewhere around the time the moon had fallen behind the mountains to the west, Roche had oiled and cleaned all of his weapons and loaded every chamber and clip twice over to be sure. Between weapons he would smoke and watch the world, waiting for a thing made of nothing and everything all at once to scream the noises of mice while it ripped itself out of the hills and came for them with meaty arms and stone knuckles.

But it didn’t come that night. And when Alex Markus woke dazed and dehydrated Roche gave him the water skin and they continued back up the 50 to the east.