Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Epilogue

When Ben woke up again, the first thought that popped into his head was, I bet this isn’t heaven.

The creature in front of him was his first clue. It took a while and a lot of blinking before it finally went from fuzzy, constantly moving triplets to just one...thing that strongly resembled a Cavefish, only uglier, but it was hideous no matter which way you looked at it.

He pushed himself up onto his elbows, ignoring the throbbing in his head, and took a quick--almost frantic--look around. He seemed to be in some sort of workshop, a mess of wires and tools and equipment. And toasters. All right, so maybe he wasn’t dead just yet. But that still left the thing standing at the edge of the bed, hovering over him.

“What are you?” he asked slowly.

The thing pulled off a painter’s mask to reveal a beautiful, sharply angular face. Ben blinked. The woman had short auburn hair, two earrings in her right ear, a striped blue worksuit, and a serious, almost scowling look on her face. “I’m a mechanic,” she said, her voice surprisingly deep and scratchy. “And apparently a pretty good doctor as well. My name’s Maureen.”

“My name’s Ben,” he answered, still fighting his way past the throbbing in his head. He still had no idea where he was or what was going on. “Why did you hit me over the head, Maureen?”

“You were in an accident,” she corrected. “A reporter found ya and brought you and your bike here--”

“My bike!” Ben jumped off the bed and to his feet, suddenly as good as new. “What have you done with my bike?”

She led him across the room to where his bike rested, suspended from the ceiling by a handful of ropes, a puddle of grease and oil underneath it. Ben began giving it a thorough inspection as Maureen announced, “I brought it back from the dead. Sorta like what I did with you.” She paused, then added, “I’ll need a little help getting it finished, though.”

Ben finished his inspection of the bike before he responded. Surprisingly, it didn’t look bad at all--a few touch-ups still needed, and the fact that the front forks were missing, but other than that it looked as if he’d never crashed it. He looked at Maureen again, then back at the bike. Must be one hell of a mechanic.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well,” she began, taking a breath, “I patched up your ruptured gas tank, but you’re out fuel and I don’t have any. And the front forks were wasted--definitely gonna have to get some new ones.”

Ben blinked at her for a second. She could patch his bike up almost as good as new, but she couldn’t get herself a can of gas? Yeah, sure, he thought, biting back a sarcastic reply. “Where am I supposed to find this stuff?”

“You can hack it, tough guy.” She smirked at him, shaking her head. Ben had a feeling that she wasn’t much impressed with him. And for some reason, that bugged him. She spotted a loose bolt on his bike and snatched up an oversized wrench, setting to work on it. Ben watched her work until she set the wrench down again and shrugged sheepishly at him.

“Sorry. Just trying to get her back into shape...you didn’t even want to see her when she came in.”

“I did see her,” Ben answered dryly. “She made a nice fireball.”

Maureen smirked as if holding back a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll bet you did, too.”

He just grimaced, shaking his head. The dull throbbing every time he moved kept reminding him about what had put him on the road in the first place. “Look, I gotta get out of this town, fast.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Trouble with the law?”

“Not in this county.” Yet.

“Then what’s the hurry?” she asked, throwing in a fake pout for good measure. He grimaced. Great. A mechanic with an attitude. He had to admit, though--to himself, that was--it suited her.

“My gang’s in trouble,” he mumbled.

“The Polecats?”

He stared at her for a second, caught just a little off-guard. “How’d you know that?” This girl might be a mechanical genius, but he had a hard time believing she was psychic.

She reached out and tapped him in the back. “Big emblem on the back of your jacket,” she said dryly.

Oh. Yeah. Frowning, Ben continued. “They’re headed for an ambush, so I gotta catch ‘em.”

“So we’d better get this bad boy back on the road then, eh?” She motioned to his bike with her wrench. “Look, I’ll tell you what--I was gonna head on over to the junkyard and pick up your forks when you decided to lurch back from the dead. I can probably still catch Todd before he closes up for the night. I’ll take care of that...and you can go get the gas.”

Ben thought about it for a few seconds. Then, “Okay. But where’s the gas?”

“Well, there’s a whole tower full of it at the edge of town.” Obviously; what sort of idiot are you? her tone of voice added. “I have this crazy, irrational intuition that tells me maybe it’s worth checking out. Gas can’s over by the door. I’ll just be a second.”

She set her wrench down and went about getting the grease off her hands while Ben picked up the gas can--or rather, something that might’ve been a gas can in a former life--and accompanying hose, both lying in a haphazard fashion on the floor. As he stood up, a black and white photograph, stuck in a frame and pinned to the wall, caught his eye. He picked it up.

A man and a young girl stood in the foreground, smiling and hugging for the camera. The man was wearing a mink coat, which made sense, given that a sign in the background said “Uncle Pete’s Mink Ranch.” The girl looked vaguely familiar.

“Who’s this?” he asked, motioning to the picture.

Maureen pulled her head out of a cabinet and squinted at the picture for a second. “Oh, that’s me and my Uncle Pete.” She sounded a little reluctant to answer the question, but she continued anyway. “He took care of me after Dad split, at this place he called the Mink Ranch. When he died, he left it to me.”

Ben blinked at her, slowly setting the picture back on the wall. Uncle Pete... Dad split...Mink Ranch? “You’re a mink farmer?”

“Nah,” she said, “that place went belly-up long before he died. But I still go back there whenever I need to get away for a while.” She shrugged and pulled a toaster out of the cabinet, wrapping its power cord around the smudged chrome.

“All right, that should do it,” she said cheerfully, tucking the toaster under her arm. Ben only looked at the toaster, then at her, then at the toaster again. Maybe she’s crazy, he thought, scratching the lump on his head. That’d explain it.

“What’s with the...uh...are you a toaster mechanic?”

Maureen looked at the toaster, rolling her eyes. “Well, that’d explain the toasters lyin’ around, wouldn’t it?”

“Then...where’d you learn bikes?”

She grinned. “I grew up working on ‘em with my dad,” she answered, her voice almost sickeningly nostalgic. “One summer we did nothing but restore this old hardtail together...I mean, we scrubbed every bolt until it shined...” She trailed off, frowning again. “But...he took off one day and he never came back. So I...switched to toasters.”

Figuring the subject was just a little touchy, Ben cleared his throat and motioned to the door. “Er...after you.”

Her mood brightened immediately. “Ooh, I think I might like you,” she teased, grinning at him as she walked by. She went out onto what could pass for a back porch and slid down a ladder, touching ground--or rather, soggy mud that was trying to pass for ground--with an undeniable spring in her step. Her shack was about six feet above the ground, and as soon as Ben sank ankle-deep into the mud, he figured out why. Whatever town they were in--if there was a town, given the definite lack of outside lighting--it didn’t have much in the way of solid ground.

They’d just gone around the corner when they found a dark-skinned woman in khakis and a t-shirt leaning against what looked to be the roof of an old building that had sunk into the mud, a camera around her neck. She looked right past Maureen at Ben and grinned.

“Oh, good,” she said, in a voice far too nasally and a tone much too enthusiastic for Ben’s ears right then, “you’re not dead yet! I might still get a quote!”

Maureen rolled her eyes. “Give it a rest, Miranda. And I thought I told you to scram.”

Miranda only shrugged. “You said get outta your house, you never said get off your...” She looked down at the mud, then finished, a little sheepishly, “...lawn.”

Ben, meanwhile, tried to figure out where he’d seen Miranda before. She didn’t look familiar, but she sure sounded familiar. “Maureen,” he said, “who’s she?”

“Miranda Wood. She’s the reporter who saved your life.” Ben grimaced, and she offered him a sympathetic look out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, but don’t worry,” Miranda chimed in. “I wasn’t tryin’ to. I was just looking for some nice roadside disaster photos, and you helped.” She grinned appreciatively.

Ben’s frown deepened. He knew there was a reason he’d never liked reporters. “Who’d want a picture of me bleeding?” Besides the bad excuse for law around here, he remembered, but that was beside the point.

“It’s not the blood, it’s the way you were...” She waved her arms around in the air as a vague demonstration of what he’d looked like. “All twisted up like a pretzel.”

“Right,” Maureen said, starting for the road just beyond. “C’mon, Ben.”

“Hold it,” Miranda jumped in, bringing Maureen to a halt. “I heard you guys talking about an ambush. Where?” Her eyes had lit up with a sort of over-eager gleam.

Ben looked at her for a long moment, then answered as carefully as he could. “I don’t know, exactly. Somewhere between here and Corville.”

That didn’t seem like nearly enough information to Ben, but to Miranda, it seemed as good as gold. “Thanks for the tip,” she said. “Drive safe now.” Something in her tone was distinctly insincere. She picked up a newspaper that had been resting on the old roof and began flipping through it. Ben glared at her as he walked by, following Maureen up to the road, where the ground was hopefully drier.

The second they were out of sight, Miranda dropped the paper and sprinted under Maureen’s shack. She jammed the keys in the ignition and started up her car, grinning. My editor’s gonna love these ambush pictures! Throwing the car into reverse, she took off down the road out of Melonweed at breakneck speed, headed in the general direction of Corville.

They watched the car take off, exchanging a glance. “Reporters,” Maureen sighed.

Ben nodded. “Yeah.” He took a step forward and winced as he stepped into a sinkhole of mud. Grumbling under his breath, he pulled his boot out and started shaking the mud from it.

“That happens,” Maureen said, deftly stepping around the sinkhole. “Gotta watch your step.”

Not like that was easy, since the town didn’t seem to believe in putting up streetlights. Then again, dingy, backwater holes like this one usually didn’t bother with streetlights anyway. “You live in this town?” Ben asked, hurrying to catch up with Maureen and not step in any more sinkholes.

“Eh,” she sighed, “Melonweed’s not much of a town...what’s left of it is sinking about a foot a year.” As if to prove her point, they walked past the town center--much of which consisted of houses and cars half-buried in mud. “People either learn to adjust, or they leave, which is fine with me.”

“Not a people-person?”

She shrugged. “I’m just better with toasters, that’s all.”

“Which is why you’re carrying one around.”

She tossed him a grin over her shoulder. “Sure, why not?”

They walked on for a ways in silence, picking their steps carefully. The “roads,” such as they were, were significantly drier than the surrounding ground--it looked as if they’d been paved a few years ago--but there was still the sinkholes to deal with.

Maureen’s shack was on the southeastern edge of town, and she was leading him along a road that curved north and west, around the center of town. They didn’t see anybody else, and most of the houses still above mud level were dark--it was quiet enough to hear every cricket in the county chirping away. It was enough to drive a person nuts after a while--Ben couldn’t understand why Maureen stayed here.

Then again, he thought, it’s not like I know her that well.

They walked in silence for a long time until Maureen slowed her pace down so that she was walking right beside him. “You know,” she said, “you’ve been asking all this stuff about me...and I don’t know anything about you. Except your name.” When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “Do you have a last name?”

“I prefer not to use it,” he answered immediately. Then he turned the tables on her. “What about you?”

“Same deal,” she said, chuckling as if she should’ve seen that coming. “Oh, by the way...” She offered him a rare, attitude-free smile. “You can call me Mo. It’s easier on somebody who’s got a couple of lumps on his head.”

He just nodded. She was probably right.

Finally, after passing by a rundown trailer that wasn’t sinking into the ground but didn’t have any lights on inside, they came to a large, hulking building at the northwestern edge of town. Here at least the road was paved, though not very well. The building’s walls were high--easily three times Ben’s height--and pitted and dented by age. A few lights were on inside, and as they approached, one of them switched off. There were no lights outside. A sign above the entrance said “Todd’s Junkyard.”

Mo turned to Ben. “All right,” she said, “I’ll go get your forks. The gas tower’s pretty much due east of here. Watch out for sinkholes.”

He nodded. “Right. I’ll...see you back at your place.”

She tossed him another grin over her shoulder as she headed inside the junkyard. “You betcha. And hey, let me know if you need any aspirin or anything.”

He turned to go, then stopped. “Mo...”

She turned back around, leaning against the junkyard’s wall. “Yeah?”

“I...you know, I don’t have any money to pay you with. For all this, I mean. You shouldn’t have to--“

She interrupted him with a raised hand and a smile. “Hey, this one’s free.” Ben blinked at her, confused. She was crazy. She had to be. She didn’t make any sense, otherwise. “I haven’t touched anything besides a toaster for so long...getting my hands on your hog has really been a pleasure.”

Yeah. She’s crazy. He shook his head at her. “I think I might need that aspirin.”

She cracked a smile, waltzing her way into the junkyard. “Yeah, whatever. See you later, Ben.”

Ben went his own way then, trying to find his way along the road in the dark. Mo, meanwhile, stepped through the entrance into Todd’s Junkyard. Todd was just closing up for the night, so the floor of the junkyard was only dimly lit by a handful of floodlights that gave the place an eerie blue tint.

“We’re closed,” a voice duly informed her. “And we probably don’t have what you’re lookin’ for anyway.”

Mo smirked as Todd Newlan wandered his way out from behind a pile of wrecks, his pitbull, Little Todd, close at his heels. Little Todd snarled when he saw Mo, and Big Todd didn’t look too happy to see her, either. “That’s no way to get customers, Todd,” she said, beginning a walking survey of the junkyard. It was mostly cars, cars, and more cars, but she held out hope that there might be a few bike parts mixed in somewhere.

Todd wiped his hands on a greasy rag and tossed it into the backseat of a wrecked LeMans convertible. “Well, I’m just sayin’, we don’t get many toaster parts around here.”

She continued her slow survey of the floor, sifting through piles of parts for anything that looked as if it might resemble a pair of forks. “Actually,” she said casually, keeping a close eye on Little Todd, who wasn’t taking kindly to her perusing, “I’m looking for a pair of forks.”

Todd raised a thinning eyebrow. “How’d you get your hands on a bike?”

“Some guy crashed outside of town,” she said, shrugging. “Look, you got the forks or not?”

He looked at her for a long time, then pointed at a pile of parts behind him. A pair of forks rested right on top. “Right there,” he grumbled. “They’re not new, but they’re gonna cost ya.”

Mo walked over and took a look at them, trying to ignore Little Todd as he sniffed at her heels. It was hard to tell what sort of shape they were in in the dim light, but they looked all right to her. A little spit and polish, and they’d be good as new, most likely. “All right,” she said, straightening, “I’ll take ‘em.”

Little Todd gave her boots one last snuff, spraying drool on her heels. Big Todd just frowned at her, wedging an unlit cigar in between his two front teeth. “Gonna pay me?”

Without even blinking, she held up the toaster she’d been carrying around all this time. “Guy dropped this off and then ended up skipping town. House sank. It’s fixed, but...” She shifted it in her hand, letting what little light there was glint off it. “Might look good in a sculpture or something.”

“How’d you--” he stopped, took the cigar out of his mouth and then stuck it back in again, eyeing the toaster. “Okay,” he grumbled, “it’s a deal.”

She smiled. “I knew it.” He took the toaster from her, and she picked up the forks, trying to balance their weight and convince Little Todd she wasn’t stealing the forks. He looked as if he’d take a chunk out of her leg at any second--and she didn’t doubt that he could. Everyone in Melonweed knew that Little Todd could chew through metal as easily as he could puppy chow.

“You want a receipt or anything?”

“Just call off your dog and we’ll call it even.” Behind her, Little Todd growled and pawed at the ground.

Todd sighed. “Yeah, yeah...down boy.” It was a half-hearted attempt at best, but Little Todd backed off anyway and took to growling at Mo from a distance. Big Todd glared at her. “Now get outta here...we’re closed.”

She was just starting for the exit, and Todd was just going back to closing up the junkyard, when a distant alarm sounded. They both stopped, looking at one another. A few seconds later, a hovercraft swung in from the south, headed towards the gas tower. It buzzed the junkyard as it went by but didn’t stop, though it did cast a searchlight their way.

Todd gnawed on his cigar for a few seconds, then said, “This guy you picked up...”

She frowned at him. “Yeah?”

“He wouldn’t be stupid enough to try breaking into the gas tower, would he?”

Mo seemed to consider that for a minute. “Nah,” she said. “Crazy enough, maybe. But not stupid.”

Todd snorted. “Whatever. Just clear out, would ya? I’m gonna go see what’s goin’ on down at the gas tower.” He started to leave, then stopped. “Don’t think about stealing anything...Little Todd’ll rip ya apart.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” she grumbled. She staggered out of there with the forks as quickly as she could. She started down the road to her place, but then turned and headed towards the gas tower after a few second thoughts.

Ben listened with only passing interest as the cop--the pilot of the hovercraft--finished up his short lecture. He should have expected this, really. Most government buildings had some sort of security force, especially gas towers. But he’d managed to pick the lock just fine and had waltzed right in through the front door, and so he’d figured he was free and clear.

Only the government would think to wire a ladder with an alarm system.

“You are trespassin’ on private property! Remain still and we will not shoot you.”

Automatic weapons fire immediately erupted from the other side of the hovercraft. “Yeeeee-haaaaw!” Some gunner was taking just a little too much pride in his work. Fortunately, his aim wasn’t all that great--Ben managed to dive out of the way easily enough. He found himself a nice spot behind a machine, hidden deep in the shadows. It was dark enough back there that the cops probably wouldn’t notice him if they didn’t bother turning a light his way.

The pilot sighed into the intercom as the hail of gunfire ended. “I get to say ‘FIRE’ before you do that, Floyd.”

“Sorry, boss. I got excited.”

“Now we’ve gotta go find his body and get it outta here before it starts stinking up the place. Nice going, Floyd.”

“But boss,” Floyd protested weakly, “we’re supposed to shoot trespassers! Says so in the manual!”

The pilot ripped the manual out of Floyd’s hands and tossed it overboard. “Screw the manual,” he grumbled. “Trainees.”

“Sorry, boss.”

He sighed again, slowly bringing the hovercraft down towards the ground. It wasn’t handling very well. “I don’t see the body from here...I’m goin’ to have to go down for a closer look.”

They landed right in front of the ladder, shutting off the engine and killing the searchlights. Ben peered out from behind the machine to keep an eye on them. They hopped out of the hovercraft, boots stomping against the metal plating. Both were wearing identical black suits and helmets.

“I don’t see no body,” Floyd announced after an inspection that lasted all of two seconds. He scratched the top of his helmet. “Maybe I missed him. He must’ve run away.”

The pilot shook his head, looking up towards the top of the gas tower. “Nah, we woulda seen him runnin’ from the air. He must be hidin’ up in the tower!”

Floyd practically bounced with excitement at the prospect. “We got ‘im treed!”

“Let’s go up and get him!”

They clamored up the ladder, eager to do some shooting. Ben shook his head. Cops’re stupid in this county, too. He could hear them up in the tower, muttering and cursing as they slammed into things in the dark.

The hovercraft’s radio clicked on for a second with some standard radio chatter. Ben eyed the craft. Didn’t those things have gas tanks...?

It took a few minutes to set up properly, but soon enough gas was pumping into the gas can. It was almost full when good ol’Floyd finally bothered to look down from the tower.

“Hey!” He grabbed the pilot by the arm and motioned down to where Ben was standing. “Who’s that down there in the yard?”

“It’s him! Get him!” The pilot jumped for the ladder, with Floyd following close behind. Ben grabbed the gas can and hightailed it back towards Mo’s, sticking to the darkest (and, unfortunately, muddiest) parts of the road, figuring they wouldn’t be smart enough to follow.

Floyd crashed down to earth first, having skipped about half the ladder in order to get down and do some shooting, quick. “Where is he?” he asked, standing up and shaking off the dizziness.

“Over there!” The pilot pointed towards the exit. “Quick, you go around the other side and we’ll have him cornered!”

But after a thorough inspection of both the inside and out of the complex, they found nothing more than an abandoned padlock and a lot of spilled gas.

“Where’d he go?” Floyd wondered aloud, leaning against the hovercraft. He looked over at his boss, who was peering into the gas tank and swearing profusely. “Let’s call it quits, huh boss?”

“No!” he snapped sarcastically, slamming the gas cap back on. “Let’s call in reinforcements!”

“You mean it?” Floyd asked, bewildered.

“No,” the pilot grumbled, climbing back onboard the hovercraft. “I don’t know if we’ve even got enough fuel to get home. I ain’t spendin’ half the night combing the desert for some stupid piece of trash.”

Floyd shrugged, climbing into his seat. “You’re the boss, boss.”

“Trainees,” he muttered again, starting the engine.

He was halfway back to Mo’s place when he ran into Mo herself. She was standing in the middle of the road, though still hidden in the shadow of a half-sunken trailer. She was also leaning against a pair of forks, casually, just watching him with that smirk on her face. Ben bit back a smile and stopped running, walking up to her slowly and trying to match her casual attitude.

“You get that from the tower?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at the gas can in his hand.

“Not exactly,” he said. He looked at the forks and smiled appreciatively, pointedly changing the subject. “Nice forks.”

“Yeah,” she answered, patting them. “Found ‘em right next to the knives and spoons.” Ben groaned at the pun, but she continued, ignoring him. “Ready to head back, or should we wait for your rent-a-cop buddies to catch up with us?”

He frowned at her. “Let’s go.” He started down the road, and she picked up the forks again and started after him, staggering a little. They would’ve been easy enough for him to carry, he supposed, but Mo was easily half his size. “You...uh, you want me to carry those?”

She looked at the forks, then looked at him, then staggered on ahead of him. “Nah, I got it. Besides, that gas can looks pretty heavy. Seems like you’ve got your hands full.” She tossed him another of what was fast becoming her trademark smirks over her shoulder. He thought about coming back with a sarcastic response, but thought better of it and let silence lapse, instead. They walked back the rest of the way in silence.

When they reached the ladder, Ben climbed up with no problem and then stood at the top, looking down at Mo. She was still trying to figure out the best way to climb up while still holding onto the forks.

“Need help?”

She scowled. “No...well, maybe.”

He set the gas can down and reached for the forks. “Here.” She handed the forks up to him, and he pulled them up, carrying them on into Mo’s shack. Mo followed him in a few seconds later, carrying the gas can.

“Just set ‘em down over by your bike,” she said. “I’ll just weld ‘em on, and we’ll be set.”

After he set the forks down, Ben picked a wall and leaned against it, watching as Mo started looking for her welding torch, grumbling the whole time. “I swear it was here...” She opened up a cabinet and started rifling through it, scattering toaster parts everywhere.

Finally, after a thorough search of the entire room, she turned to Ben with arms folded across her chest and an angry scowl on her face. “I can’t believe it! Someone stole my welding torch!”

Ben just blinked at her, unfazed. “That’s what you get for leaving your door unlocked.”

She glared at him. “It’s Melonweed, Ben. Who around here would do a thing like this?”

“Maybe somebody needed a welding torch.”

“Yeah, but I’m the only mechanic--unless...” She snapped her fingers, suddenly turning for the door. “Todd! When I get my hands on him...”

Ben intercepted her before she made it halfway to the door, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Hold on. Who’s Todd?”

Mo sighed. “He runs the junkyard. And he’s a sculptor...sort of. I bet he stole my welding torch! And I can’t finish without one!”

He thought for a minute, then said, “I’ll be right back.” He made it halfway down the ladder before she stopped him, standing out on the porch with her hands on her hips. She looked more like her usual, sarcastic self.

“Let me know if you need me to call the rent-a-cops,” she said dryly. Ben cracked a smile.

“Yeah, right.” She disappeared back into her shack, and he continued on his way back into Melonweed.

Ben took the road north and west out from her place, the same way they’d taken to the junkyard, and followed it until he came to a minor fork in the road which led down a narrow, muddy path to the trailer they’d seen earlier. Assuming that this was Todd’s trailer, Ben headed for it.

The trailer--like the rest of the town--was falling apart at the seams, held together only by scrap metal gathered from elsewhere. Lights were on inside however, tinted green by the tattered curtains. There was also a flickering light down beyond a grate in the ground that looked down into some sort of basement Todd had added on. Wires led to it from the trailer.

Ben peered over the edge of it, but couldn’t make out anything beyond the flickering light, which was accompanied by something which sounded suspiciously like welding and a radio playing the same country-western song over and over again.

“I thank the Looooord each day...for the Apocalypse...”

Ben frowned. He hated that song. But at least I know for sure where Mo’s welding torch went, he thought. Either that or we’re talking about some very sub-code wiring.

Observations thus finished, he walked straight to the trailer door and knocked on it twice.

He figured that there was no way Todd would be able to hear over all that noise and was prepared--and more than willing--to kick the door in, but somehow, Todd heard him. The welding stopped immediately and the light leaking from the grate shut off, though the radio kept playing. Lights then kicked on in what was an apparent add-on to the trailer, on Ben’s right. It sounded suspiciously like an illegal, home-built lift. Probably goes with the sub-code wiring. Heavy footsteps made their way to the door.

“Who’s out there?” a gruff, angry voice demanded. “Hey! I’m tryin’ ta do my art in here, buddy! I don’t got time to waste on bums like you!”

Ben frowned at the door and imagined kicking it in on Todd’s no doubt ugly head. “I’m a friend of Mo’s,” he began. “I need--”

Todd interrupted him the second he processed Ben’s connection to Mo, and he didn’t sound very happy about it. “Listen,” he snapped, “I didn’t take no weldin’ torch. You hear me? I’m no crook! So get off my back already!”

Ben didn’t even blink. “Okay,” he said.

Todd snorted. “Good.”

He was just about to walk away when Ben, without ceremony, leaned back and prepared to kick the door in. He’d had just about enough of this guy.

Todd had been watching Ben through the peephole, and so he saw the foot headed for the middle of the door--his eyes widened and he tried to take a step back to get out of the way, but too late. The door flew open, and Todd was sent flying backwards, smashing his head against a cabinet on the far wall and knocking himself unconscious. He collapsed onto a conveniently placed bed and didn’t move.

Ben stepped inside. Like the outside, the inside of the trailer was both pitiful and dirty. So was its owner. Todd was more ugly than Ben had imagined--he was wearing a green muscle shirt unfortunately about two sizes too small for his stomach, and his short brown hair was thinning, leaving behind a high, gorilla-esque forehead. An unlit but well-chewed cigar rolled around on the floor by Ben’s feet.

Though there wasn’t much to search, Ben still made a thorough inspection of the trailer. The only thing he could find of any interest was a nasty-looking T-bone steak in fridge. He left that well enough alone. But other than that, there wasn’t much to be found, except for some carnival-themed décor. But that still left Mo’s welding torch unfound.

He figured it would be in the basement, so that left finding the lift that would take him down there.

The carpet had been ripped up near the window, leaving a narrow rectangle of space barely large enough for one person to stand on at a time. Since this was the only thing in the entire trailer that suggested itself to be anything resembling a lift, Ben shrugged his shoulders and stepped onto it.

Immediately, the lift hydraulics kicked in, and Ben was taken down to the trailer’s “basement.”

“Folks are mostly disfigured or dead...but sugar, I won’t let it go to my head...”

Ben made a mental note to kill that radio the second he found it. Not like it would be easy, in the dimly lit mess of scrap metal and an assortment of things that might pass for art...if the person viewing it happened to be drunk. Most of it seemed to be modeled after dogs, particularly the main attraction, a tin dog in-progress on the table right in front of Ben. It had a funnel for a head and reminded Ben of a dog he’d had when he was a kid...except that that dog hadn’t been made out of tin.

What was of more interest to Ben, however, was the welding torch lying on the floor next to the table. Better hustle this back to Mo, he thought, picking it up and carrying it back to Mo’s shack.

When he returned, Mo was hard at work on his bike, fixing up a few minor things, and didn’t notice when he came in. So he cleared his throat and, when she turned around, held up the welding torch for her to see.

“That’s my welding torch!” she said, looking for a split second as if she wanted to hug him but then thought better of it. “Did Todd have it?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah.” He handed the torch over to her, and she immediately set about collecting her painter’s mask.

“And I didn’t even need to call the cops,” she said, tugging the mask on. “My hero.”

He didn’t miss a beat before answering. “Look less like a Cavefish when you say that, and I might believe you.”

Mo only laughed. “Wait outside for a minute and I’ll finish ‘er up.” She pulled the mask up and winked at him, then put it back on. “I’m workin’ on a surprise.”

Ben scowled at her. “I hate surprises,” he answered thinly. She only shooed him out the door, and he imagined that, if he could see her face, she’d be smiling.

He waited while she worked, listening to the sounds of welding. After a while, though, the welding torch went silent and an ominous sort of quiet, broken only by the occasional sound of metal on metal from inside the shack, settled down.

Finally, Mo stuck her head out the door and called out, “All right, here she comes!” Ben wondered if maybe the “surprise” was nothing more than his bike’s front wheel properly attached. Either way, he moved away from the ladder and around the side of what looked like an old ramp to get a better view of what was going on. He heard Mo wheeling his bike out onto the deck, and then it gracefully descended, lowered by an elevator she’d rigged up on the far edge of the deck.

He couldn’t help but smile. It was a beautiful sight, all right--his bike, back from the dead and gleaming like new, with the best mechanic in the county leaning against the handlebars.

“Am I cool or what?” Mo crowed, motioning towards the bike with a wide, overzealous gesture.

“You’re amazing!” Ben answered, and he meant it. He didn’t think anybody could’ve saved his bike after the wreck it had been turned into. But not only had she managed it, but she’d made it look the best it’d looked in a while. “I should crash that thing every day! So what’s the surprise?” Maybe he could learn to like surprises.

Mo jerked a thumb towards the bike, slowly walking around towards the front wheel to give him a better look. “Oh...just your average, everyday, pre-regulation, destroyer-class, solid-fuel recoil booster.”

Ben stared at her for a good solid minute before he seemed to understand exactly what she’d just said, in a tone so casual you’d think she’d just told him that all she’d done was put on new tires. “You’re serious.”

“Yes.”

“But only the Vultures...” He trailed off, at a loss for words. Yeah, she’s definitely amazing.

Mo flicked some dirt out from under a fingernail and answered smoothly, “I have my connections. Now, are you gonna try this thing out or not?” Ben hopped onto the bike, still smiling, just getting a feel for it again. It felt right. Hell, it felt better than right.

She whistled, smiling at him. “Wish I had a camera.”

“I wish I had some way of paying you back,” he said, his smile vanishing.

“Just beat it, will ya?” She slapped him once across the shoulders as she jumped down off the ramp and out of his way. “You’re scarin’ away my regular customers.”

He shook his head at her. She was crazy, but she was right--he had an ambush to stop. No sense wasting any more time here. “Bye, Mo.”

“Send me a postcard from the ambush!”

He kicked the bike to life then, listening as she roared, loud and clear. Yeah, she was alive again all right. And it sounded like Mo had made a few more modifications besides the recoil booster, from the way the engine sounded. Definitely amazing. He took off down the path and out onto the road as fast as he could, accidentally lighting a few things on fire--like the ropes to Mo’s elevator--along the way. Mo winced at the smell of smoke.

Ben hit the road east out of town, towards Corville. He’d only gone a few miles when his headlight lit up a welcoming sight--the Polecats--and a less than welcoming sight--the Corley limo. They were hanging out at one of Highway 9’s rest stops, and his gang was just sitting around. The suits were nowhere in sight--if it wasn’t for the limo, he would’ve thought that the Polecats were just standing there waiting for him. But he knew better.

Ben cruised to a stop underneath a dim pool of light from a dying streetlight and killed the engine.

Darrel snapped to attention the second Ben pulled up in front of him, eyes wide with surprise. “Ben! How’d you get behind us?”

He ignored the question completely. “Where are the suits?”

“Corley’s making a pit stop.” Darrel rolled his eyes. “He has a bladder the size of a thimble, man...”

“Ripburger?”

“Haven’t seen him in a while,” he answered, shrugging. But he frowned when he saw the look on Ben’s face. “Ben, man, what’s the deal? Did you find something up the road?” When Ben didn’t say anything, Darrel pressed him further. “Are we headed for trouble?”

“No,” he said, climbing off his bike. He had an uneasy feeling about all this. “We’re in it.”

Malcolm Corley wandered out of the restroom, singing because he had nothing better to do. “Put my head in a gasket...’cause I’d had a tank full...”

He paused, looking down at his fly just before he left the restroom’s harsh, bright lights. Unzipped. Dang. “When she blew my gasket...I surely was thankful...”

He started hopping his way back around the building, but stopped underneath a small overhead light, jumping up and down. Dang thing’s jammed! “’Till I head for the skies up abooooove...it’s a woman with wheels that I love!”

Hidden deep in the bushes, Miranda Wood, photojournalist, peered through the viewfinder of her camera and fought with the zoom lens until she got a clear shot--although it was tinted shades of red from her night lens--of Corley. And it was about time, too--she’d been sitting there for what felt like forever. Bugs were trying to make little bug-sized homes in her hair.

“Come on, old man...I gotcha.” She made sure the flash was off and started taking pictures. “Now, do something incriminating, like ambush somebody!”

For a few moments, nothing happened--her camera caught the same image of Corley fighting with his fly over and over again. But then it managed to catch something else, something that brought a smile to Miranda’s face: Adrian Ripburger, sneaking up behind Corley, his cane brandished like a club.

“Ah-ha,” she whispered, snapping pictures faster than ever, “the plot thickens!”

Her camera caught the entire thing, in a sort of jerky stop-motion style. Ripburger got right behind Corley before seemed to realize what was going on, but by then it was too late. With more force than Miranda thought he had in him, Ripburger swung his cane down and hit a clean blow across Corley’s temple. Corley fell to the ground, and Miranda zoomed her camera in strictly on Ripburger--or more specifically, the twisted look of glee on his face. She almost had to wince at that--almost.

“What a psycho,” she muttered, still snapping pictures. Something rustled in the bushes behind her. Probably just a man-eating cougar or something, she thought, shaking her head at the idea. She dismissed the noise entirely and focused on getting a few more pictures of Ripburger.

Ripburger fixed his hair and returned to leaning on his blood-spattered cane for support. He watched as blood pooled and began seeping through cracks in the concrete. Corley himself lay still. “You shouldn’t have laughed at me in those board meetings, Malcolm,” he told him solemnly, sounding perfectly calm and collected.

“Hey, boss! Look what I found in the bushes!”

Ripburger looked up as Bolus emerged from the bushes, dangling a squirming shadow from one large hand. He raised one eyebrow in a distinctly nonchalant manner. “What is that?”

“It’s a choke hold,” the shadow snapped in a nasally New Jersey accent. “C’mere and I’ll demonstrate!”

Ripburger rolled his eyes at first, prepared to dismiss the woman. She was a witness, easily eliminated. Likely no one would miss her. But then he saw what Bolus was holding in his other hand. “It’s got a camera!”

The woman squirmed one last time, slipped out of the vest she was wearing, and darted for the bushes like somebody had lit her feet on fire.

“I’ll get her!” Bolus growled, starting to take off into the bushes after her. But Ripburger swiftly put an end to that.

“No! Nestor will take care of her. You have an important engagement with the rest of the Corley family,” he said, giving him a pointed look. Bolus nodded, his wide face splitting into a smile.

“Right!”

“But don’t forget to destroy that camera!” Ripburger added, watching the small shadow still spinning in Bolus’s other hand. He shuddered. There was no telling how many pictures that annoying little woman had taken, but even one would be too many.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bolus muttered, disappearing around the corner. Ripburger returned his attention to Corley. The blood on the concrete was starting to congeal, but Corley’s chest was still rising and falling--although shakily.

“Now then, Malcolm...how about one for the road?” He grinned and raised his cane again.

Ben searched the entire area in front of the rest stop within a matter of minutes. The parking lot, the limo, the other Polecats--he’d looked everywhere. And there was no sign of Ripburger or Corley. One of their drivers, a tall, skinny guy who strongly resembled a crow--with a nasty attitude to match--had been lurking around the limo, but Ben hadn’t gotten anything more out of him than a cold shoulder.

He sighed and was about to tackle the building itself when another man came out from around the side of the building. He was tall, stocky--and wearing a business suit. Ben frowned and walked right on by him, heading straight for that same side of the building.

“Corley?” he called, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “Corley?” He peered around the corner.

Well, shit.

“Ben!”

Ben’s eyes widened. The old man was tougher than he gave him credit for. He hurried over, dropping down to one knee and leaning over him. He winced at the sight of the ugly, purpling mark on his right temple, then again at Corley’s hacking cough. For an instant, he thought of taking Corley back to Mo--he wasn’t sure how, but it wasn’t that far of a ride--but he quickly tossed that idea out.

She may be amazing, he thought, but there’s got to be some things she can’t fix. I’d bet this is one of them.

“I guess Ripburger couldn’t wait for natural causes,” Corley coughed out, drawing Ben back to reality. “Just like him to hit a man when his fly’s down.” He chuckled, but it swiftly degenerated into a series of wracking coughs.

“Ripburger did this to you?” Ben asked, disbelieving. He took a quick look around--there was no sign of him, wherever he’d hobbled off to.

“Yeah, he knew I was dyin’...and he knew that my will would put him out of a job.” With a sudden burst of strength, he reached up and grabbed hold of Ben’s jacket with one bloody hand, tugging on it frantically. “He wants to take over Corley Motors, Ben! Sell it off to foreigners, lay off workers, start makin’ minivans... You understand me? MINIVANS--!”

He let go of Ben’s jacket, groaning and coughing. When he managed to collect himself again, he continued slowly, “You gotta hurt him for me, Ben. Promise me...you’ll hurt him bad!”

Ben nodded solemnly. “I promise.” It was the least he could do.

Corley coughed again, and this time there was a sickening rattle deep in his throat. “I want my daughter to take over the company,” he finally managed, spitting the words out all at once in a frantic rush. Ben raised an eyebrow--he knew that Corley had been married, and his wife had died a few years back...but he didn’t remember anything about any kids. Maybe the old man was getting delusional.

“You have a daughter?”

“Yeah, and she’s a real mechanical genius, Ben!” He smiled, his voice gaining in strength--and pride--for a few moments. “Rebuilt her first carburetor when she was four! Eh, I used to call her the Diapered Dynamo--” he coughed, and the rattle in his throat was louder this time. He looked Ben straight in the eyes and pleaded, “Find my daughter, Ben...find Maureen.”

His eyes closed and he went still at last. Ben stood up slowly, eyes wide, head spinning.

“Maureen?”

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