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Zebediah:
Next chapter, which contains about half the answers I'd promised. But it was a good place to break, and hopefully I'll have more written in a few days.


There is no way to keep a working bakery secret. I could smell the fresh bread half a block away. It was the most obvious sign of continued life in the entire town.

A bell on the door jingled as I entered. A woman's voice called from the back, "Be right with you!" I smiled, because I knew who she was even before she came out front.

She had long brown hair streaked with gray. She wasn't much over thirty, but looked a great deal older.  Skinny, of course – nearly everyone was these days. Thick dark glasses hid her eyes, and she used a long stick to feel her way to the shop's counter.

"If you're here for the bread, we have a couple of loaves left from this morning's batch," she announced. "I've got corn muffins going now..."

"I'm not here for the bread," I said.

She gasped. "Marten? Is that you?" she asked. "Is that really..." She felt her way out from behind the counter and came towards me.

"Hi, little sister," I said. "Sorry I was gone for so long."

Sam stumbled on an uneven floor tile and I caught her before she fell. She brought her hands up to my face, feeling my forehead and nose. "It is you," she sighed. "I thought... After all these years, I figured something must have happened to you."

"Lots of things happened to me," I told her.

There was a small table by one of the windows, and I walked her over to it. We both sat down.

"So, you're back," Sam said. I got the impression that she would have been crying if she'd still had eyes to cry with.

"Yeah," I said.

"Did you ever..."

"No. I haven't found her yet."

"Oh." Sam gripped my hands tightly.

"What about you?" I asked. "Surely you aren't running this place all by yourself?"

Sam shrugged. "Hannelore helps out on her more lucid days. Today isn't one of those. She forgot a couple of days ago, and tried to go back to work at the old coffee shop... She does that every now and then..."

"Huh. I thought that place looked suspiciously clean." I hesitated, and then asked, "What about Elliot?"

"Gone six years now," Sam said. "Some kind of cancer."

"Damn, I'm sorry, Sam," I said. "If I'd known..."

But then the doorbell jangled again, and Franklin strode into the bakery. And he'd brought someone else with him. "There he is, mom," Franklin said, pointing straight at me.

"You," she said, her tone full of accusation. "I thought I told you never to show your face in this town again."

She was a small woman, wearing a khaki uniform and a silver star-shaped badge. Her right hand rested on a holstered semi-automatic handgun. Her hair and skin were both blue, and made of plastic.

"Well, May, technically you told me not to come back as long as there was a price on my head," I countered. "I got that settled a while back."

"Huh." May didn't look any happier. "Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning that the people who put the price on my head are no longer in a position to pay it."

"Right," May said, a sour expression on her face. "Well. Don't expect me to welcome you back, Reed. The best friend I ever had died because he took a bullet that was meant for you. It may have been twelve years ago, but I'm still pissed about that. And it left his son an orphan. I've been raising ol' Fighter Jet here as best I can, but I'm no substitute."

I shrugged. "What happened, happened. And when the hell did you become sheriff? What happened to..."

"Hah!" May actually cracked a smile. "Deputy sheriff, thank you very much, which is more than enough fuckin' irony for my tastes." Then her smile grew darker. "And as deputy sheriff, I have all the authority I need to run your sorry ass out of town before anyone else gets killed on your account. You've got one hour..."

"Don't you think you should check that with me first?" challenged a voice from the doorway.

The sheriff had arrived.

Pilchard123:

--- Quote ---I got the impression that she would have been crying if she'd still had eyes to cry with.
--- End quote ---

 :cry:


--- Quote ---silver star-shaped badge. [...] Her hair and skin were both blue, and made of plastic.
--- End quote ---

Wondered about that.


--- Quote ---I've been raising ol' Fighter Jet here as best I can, but I'm no substitute.
--- End quote ---

Did not think of that.


--- Quote from: Zebediah on 30 Mar 2015, 08:02 ---bakery secret

--- End quote ---

...not sure if gusta.

Loki:
I sure hope the sheriff is Lin Bei Fong.

Zebediah:
Look, more story! With an actual plot starting to develop!


She looked, at first glance, like a twelve-year-old girl who had found a bottle of pink hair dye. Then you saw her eyes, and realized this was no twelve-year-old. No little girl ever had eyes that scary, even if they were pink. Her skin was a high-quality polymer that looked almost human.

"Hello, Marten," she said quietly.

"Hi Momo," I answered. "Long time."

May gave Momo a cold stare. "You're going to let him stay."

"He has a right to be here," Momo said.

May didn't look convinced. "What right?"

"He's my brother," Sam said. "He stays."

May made a rude noise, but Momo nodded her head as she pulled a chair up to the table where Sam and I were sitting. "As long as he likes. Which is not going to be very long, is it?"

I shook my head. "I'm just... looking for news, that's all. If there is any."

"About Claire."

"About Claire," I repeated.

Momo leaned back in her chair and looked thoughtful. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. "I have a feeling I am going to regret telling you this, but – I may have some."

I sat up straight in my chair. "You do? What? When?"

Momo shook her head sadly. "I do not have news about Claire's whereabouts exactly, but I may have information about someone who might possibly know where she is."

"Tell me," I demanded.

"Two years ago," Momo began, "I received a very peculiar e-mail."

"Wait – you still get e-mail?"

May laughed. "The internet was designed to survive a fuckin' nuclear holocaust, dude. Yeah, it's pretty fragmented, but every once in a while something connects to something else and some messages get through."

Momo nodded. "Based on an analysis of the headers, the message bounced around various subnets for over a year before it finally reached me. Its only content was an executable file that I did not run, for reasons I hope are obvious. The sender claimed to be Clinton Augustus."

"Clinton," I mused. "Yeah, if anyone knows where Claire is, it would be her brother. So where was he?"

Momo looked very sad. "I am so sorry, Marten," she said in a soft voice. "But the message originated from a server at Massachusetts General Hospital."

"In Boston," I said, as my heart sank. "Shit."

"Marten," Sam said, grabbing my hands and holding them tightly, "No. You are not going into Boston. Not for any reason."

"If there's any chance of finding Claire there..." I began.

"No way, dude," May said. "Boston's a friggin' death trap. Everybody knows that."

"I know people who have gone in and gotten back out alive," I said. "It can be done."

"Alone?" Sam objected. "You won't have a chance."

"Agreed," Momo said. "Which is why I am going with him."

"What?" May exclaimed, while Franklin shouted "Mama, no, you can't!"

"Claire was my friend as well," Momo insisted. "I owe it to her, and to Marten."

"Fuck that," May said. "You are not going, Momo, no way."

"I cannot in good conscience send Marten in to Boston alone," Momo countered.

May sighed. "I know, I know," she said. "Which is why I'll be the one going with him."

Momo looked taken aback. "I do not think..."

"This town needs you, Momo," May said. "You're the sheriff of Northampton."

"You will act as sheriff in my absence."

"No fuckin' way. You're the glue that holds this whole frickin' place together. Not me. You. So I'm going with Reed."

"Don't I get a say in this?" I asked.

"No," May and Momo said in unison, and they went back to staring at each other.

"Mom, no," Franklin said, grabbing on to May's arms. "What – what if you get hurt?"

May smiled up at him. "Oh, my little Fighter Jet," she said. "I promised your father I'd look out for you. And that means making sure there's a place where you can live in safety. Mama Momo is the one who keeps this town safe. I help out as much as I can, but it's really all her." She turned to look at me, and her expression hardened. "And I am not going to let any more of the people I love get killed because of this guy. So I'm going with him, and Momo is staying here."

"But Franklin has a valid point," Momo said. "What if you are damaged?"

May shrugged. "Spare parts for me are a dime a dozen. That's the advantage of having a cheap mass-produced body. We have enough parts to rebuild me completely three times if we have to. And you know damned well how hard it is to find spare parts for you, Miss Fancy High-End Japanese Chassis."

Momo closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "I was right," she said. "I am regretting this already." She opened her eyes and turned to look at May. "All right. You win."

"Damned straight I do," May said with a grin. "So, asshole, when do we leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, first light," I said, surrendering to the inevitable. "I'll meet you here."

Zebediah:
My dreams that night were the kind that you can't quite remember after you wake up screaming from them. After the fourth time, I gave up on trying to get back to sleep. It was nearly dawn anyway, so I packed my things and followed the smell of baking bread downstairs.

Sam was already up, of course – she was used to baker's hours, and didn't need light to work. But I was surprised to see someone else working behind the counter.

She was tall, and while she had always been thin, she was now little more than skin and bones. Her hair had been platinum blonde once but was now pure white. And the expression in her eyes was enough to warn anyone that she wasn't quite sane even by modern standards. She hadn't been entirely in her right mind even before the world ended.

"Hello, Marten!" she called in a cheery voice. "Coffee?"

The liquid in the coffee pot she held was foamy and green, and smelled unspeakably foul. Which would have been worth it if it had contained any amount of caffeine, but I knew better than that. "Hi, Hanners," I said quietly. "I, uh, think I'll pass."

"Okay then! Just your usual?"

I hadn't seen Hannelore in twelve years, but she seemed oblivious to that. Knowing her, she probably didn't remember that I was no longer a regular customer. "Sure," I said, wondering what my "usual" was.

It turned out to be a slice of warm cornbread with actual butter on it, along with clover tea. I wolfed down the bread and was just finishing the tea when Momo and May arrived.

"Hi Momo!" Hannelore called. "Coffee?"

"No thank you," Momo said, looking a bit sad.

"We don't drink," May muttered under her breath, in a tone that said she'd had this conversation before.

"Are you prepared?" Momo asked me.

"Ready as I'll ever be," I said. "Are you still coming?" I asked May.

"Can't believe I talked myself into this suicide mission," May said. "Okay, what's the plan? Please tell me we're not taking the Mass Pike."

"Now that would be a suicide mission. No." I pulled an old, tattered Massachusetts highway map out of my pack and spread it out on the table. "We cross the river at Holyoke, then east along old route 202 and pick up route 9 at Belchertown," I said. "Once we're past the Quabbin we cut northeast cross-country, avoiding Worcester."

"Damn straight," May said. "I hear Worcester is a crazy place."

"We'll pick up route 2 just east of Leominster, and follow that east. We'll stay north of the Charles River all the way into Cambridge, and then cross at the Longfellow Bridge."

Momo nodded. "Yes. That will keep you out of Boston until the last possible moment."

"If all goes according to plan we should be there in four days," I said. "Then we see what's what."

"The roads are clear as far as Belchertown, so I could give you a lift," Momo said. "We still have several functioning cars."

"Thanks," I said. "That will save us half a day."

"Starting to get light out," May said. "We ought to get moving."

Sam came out from the back then, and felt her way around the counter to where I was standing. She hugged me tightly, but couldn't get any words out.

"Hey, I'll come back," I said. "And maybe next time I'll be able to stay a little longer."

Sam nodded then, and let me go.

"Bye Marten!" Hannelore called as I headed for the door. "Say hi to Faye for me!"

I stopped in my tracks then, just for a moment. But saying goodbye to a girl I used to know, who couldn't remember that most of our mutual friends were long gone, was just too much to take. I fled the bakery without saying another word.

Momo's car was a battered old Tesla SUV. May and I piled our gear in the back and climbed in. We were all silent as Momo drove us east, navigating her way around enormous potholes and the occasional decaying frames of abandoned vehicles. An hour later we were at the deserted town common of Belchertown.

"This is as far as I can take you," Momo said. "The road is completely washed out beyond here."

"Thanks for the lift," I said.

Momo nodded, and then turned to May. They stared at each other wordlessly for a long moment, and then embraced tightly. "Come back to me," Momo whispered.

"You know it," May said. And I stared in stunned disbelief as they locked lips in a passionate kiss.

A minute later they separated, and Momo climbed into the SUV and drove off.

"Well," I said, shouldering my pack.

"Yeah," May answered with a ridiculous grin on her face.

"Didn't see that coming."

"Ha! Me neither, the first time." May's eyes twinkled. "Turns out raising a kid together can make people close, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess I can see that."

"Knocked me for a loop when I realized that I had feelings for her. Totally gobsmacked me when it turned out she loved me too."

"Yeah," I said. "I've been there."

"Guess so," May said. "Momo downloaded everything she knew about you and your girlfriend to me last night. Turns out she saw the two of you getting together way before it actually happened."

"Momo always was the smartest person I know," I said. "So you know all about Claire, huh?"

"Oh yeah. Geeky librarian girl with glasses. Curly red hair that is practically an eldritch horror from beyond time and space. Truly atrocious puns. And a nasty hardware-software conflict that for some reason you meatheads thought was a secret."

"Yeah, that's Claire, all right," I said.

"So, let me get my pack set, and we'll be off." She pulled a piece of black fabric from a side pocket and pinned it to the top of her pack.

"Solar cloth?" I asked.

"Yeah," May said, as she plugged a cable from the cloth into a port behind her ear. "Power management is going to be a bitch on this trip. The old batteries don't hold a charge the way they did when they were new."

"That's not going to be enough to keep you charged, though, is it?"

"Not hardly," May said. "But it'll help. With this, I ought to have enough power to get to Boston and back."

"And if you don't?"

"I've got more cloth in the pack. About a hundred square meters. Lay the whole thing out on a sunny day and let me sit still for ten hours, it should recharge me."

"Okay then. Let's get moving."

It was slow going that day. The old highway was in pretty bad shape, and most of the bridges were out, victims of the chaos that followed the collapse of the government. A pack of coyotes started tailing us at one point in the early afternoon, but they were smart enough to understand what a pointed rifle meant, and decided to find easier prey.

As the sun sank towards the western horizon we were passing through the town of Barre. All was silent, but May looked nervous. "This place isn't deserted," she whispered to me.

"Nope," I said. "But they're not interested in us. They fly a flag on the town common if they want to talk to anyone from the outside. I've done work for them before."

"What kind of 'work'?" May asked, sounding skeptical.

"They're survivors of the vampire plague," I said.

"Shit! And you're not running scared?"

"They got a mutated version of it," I explained. "They got the extreme photosensitivity, so they don't come out during the day. And they got the iron deficiency, so they keep a herd of cattle and eat a lot of red meat. But they didn't get the compulsion to attack other people and drink their blood."

"Fucker who engineered that virus ought to be burned at the stake, if he's even still alive," May muttered.

"The problem is," I continued, "is that every now and then one of them does go off the deep end and develop hemocannibalism. That's when they put up the flag. All the mercs who pass through here know about it. I've had to hunt down and eliminate a couple of vampires for them."

"Fuck," May snarled. "As if there aren't enough dead people in the world." She clammed up then, and didn't talk as we headed out of town.

We made camp that night in an abandoned house a few miles outside of Barre. The chimney was intact, so we brought wood in to make a fire. May tossed a small black brick into the fire, and plugged a cable from it into her power socket.

"Neat," I said.

May shrugged. "It's not the most efficient way to charge up, but it'll work."

"You okay?" I asked.

"I don't know," May answered. "I mean... Living in Northampton, with Momo and Fighter Jet, sometimes I can forget how shitty the world is, you know? I mean, it's still nothing like it was before. To think that people used to go into space..."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I got to go to space once."

"Marigold told me about it once. You got to go to the ECTech station. You got to meet John Ellicott-Chatham. You motherfucker. Fuck fuck fuck." May closed her eyes, and I got the impression that she would have been crying if she'd been capable of it. "I remember the night the ECTech station de-orbited. Made a trail of fire all across the sky. It was like... I don't know. Like watching God die."

"Yeah, I remember that too," I said. "Hannelore... was never the same after that."

"Fuck!" May shouted. "I could hate you meatheaded assholes for killing the world, except I know fucking well that AIs were just as responsible for it. And so instead of flying to the stars we're all stuck down here in a world of shit. And I'm not going to space today, or ever. Shit fuck goddamn."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"Leave me alone," May whispered. So I rolled over and went to sleep, while she stared into the fire, lost in thought.

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