Ain't Talkin'

The library was a lifetime ago and then another. Roche could no longer remember the name of the old woman who’d ran it. Yet he remembered every crack and rub and ding in his Ruger revolvers. Did it matter?

It had been forty years in the white after Mollie. When Roche had returned for the three, there had been nothing left of the library but a dried shell. The books had made up several nights worth of bonfire fuel, and the rest was ash.

“Why’d you get all quiet?”

“Hoping you’d take a lesson from me, shithead.”

“Fuck you very much too, walker.” Markus kicked the dust along the 50.

“I might as well put a bullet in your skull too.”

“Then you wouldn’t get paid.”

“Nope but the silence would be priceless.” Roche lit a smoke, sloping along in the saddle.

“Is that all you care about then? Money?”

“Just about.”

“What about the brewing conflict? If Ethercorp succeeds in making weaponized ether constructs available to militaries or organizations it’ll change the face of conflict. The Res aims to stop that and you. . .a man of the ether have no qualms with letting them sort it out all on their own without batting an eye?”

“And why shouldn’t I?” Roche looked to the road ahead and wondered how long the talking would keep going on.

Alex Markus spread his arms wide. “Because this will affect everything! wars will be fought across planes of existence by soldiers that technically don’t even exist in any conjecture with us but can affect the world on a grand scale. They can destroy, they can impair and they can kill because they’re made of the particles that make up the particles that fabricate the nothing that is everything.”

Roche felt it bubble in his throat first before the laugh roared out of him train-like from the tunnel of his throat.

“And you’ll be the one to lead the charge into infinity!? Fuck yourself, Alex Markus. Fuck yourself and your righteous indignation. The world’s have been warring within each other for thousands of years and mankind finally fucked everything up enough that we broke the universe. And you’re worried that you won’t get your heroic last minute. and you’re not sure which side you’re even on are you?”

For a glorious minute the kid went silent.

Roche added. “If there was anything left worth fighting for in this world, shithead, I ain’t found it. I saw the pit of mankind one night and I took the white and the solace over these worlds. When I came back I saw this-

-a lifetime had gone by and nothing had changed. People were still fighting one another, fucking and raping one another and when they got scared or bored they were inventing phenomenal new ways to torture and murder each other. Time’s changed and people stayed the fucking same.

I went where the money was and kept myself off the line between humanity and animals. Ain’t much but a dark smudge anyhow. Gotta find that niche in this world, even if it is just surviving, and I’ve been doing that since before your granddaddy was born, shithead.”

Roche spurred Lucky into a canter and rode a mile ahead.

The dust kicked up by the mare’s hooves settled away and mingled with the dust of a dozen civilizations and the world didn’t miss a beat. Along the peripherals of existence the other variations of that same universe went along just as they had for millennia, and Roche watched calmly while Markus caught up, one scuffing, angry step at a time.

Roche smoked and polished his Ruger revolver with an oilcloth, remembering all the little dings and rubs and nicks.

Markus didn’t say a word when he caught up, but just kept on walking down the 50. Roche followed while the burnt sun slipped down behind them.