“To HIM belong strength and victory;
both deceived and deceiver are his.”
-Job 12:16
They lined the crest of a three-boulder ridge that overlooked the sight of the cannibalized ranch. No buildings were left. However, the outline was obvious; scattered machine parts, tires of various sorts and, what looked like makeshift pole barns, dotted the remains of the ranch. This had been a fine place. Sean could see how the private road had two great boulders for a gate, that the pipe cattle fencing drilled into the boulders to form a half natural corral, had not been removed. There was even an ancient, rusted metal outhouse, with some blue paint still clinging to it. He was with Arne, whose long blond hair, curled at his shoulders, alternately obscured most of his face as his head bobbed in excitement, “Boss, look ye dere, at the old windmill—never been took down.”
The windmill was still, but Sean could see at its base that the steel pool wall was intact and that hundreds of gallons—thousands—of water filled that artificial pond.
“Half-assed job removing man’s trace up in these parts,” commented Sean. Arne corrected him, “Half-ass job keeping it goin’. I came here with sixty other fencemen for that reason.”
“What about congregation limits—the APM drone strikes?” asked Sean
“Promise not to whack me, Big Man?”
Sean opened his heart as fallen fears played before the gates of his Christian scruples, “You have my word—so long as you do not turn against us.”
Arne nodded to the banging of the oil rig to the east down the arroyo, and then to the one to the west on the meadow, “They went whackado, the drones. Not the boss drones, but the scouts, the workers. We were rounded up and tagged like the dogs—rather tagged, then rounded up through the ear commands. You don’t listen and they squeal in your brain until you gibber all insane.”
Arne lifted his curly blond locks with his left hand, to show an APM tag, of the sort that his intubation briefing had assured him was for wildlife management. Arne looked at Sean and at his knife and nodded, as if the deal was in force, “So, we was commanded by the boss drones, APM, whatever—might be some bitch-ass man on Mars or a bot on a satellite, who in heck knows—to come here and repair the windmills, make some habitations, that when the deluge comes, those that would live need to be up here, up top. The tags made—make—me, what is left—us free from the congregation strikes, took us out of the drone sights. The APM drones and the feral drones fight, if you can believe that. The wild shard was the Gas Gorillas. Who would a’ guessed that some drones would be salvaging parts, building bots, drinking gas! Drone kind have some gone nuts, some turned evil and some turned in. My tag don’t speak to me no more, don’t squeal. But I’m afraid to take it off ‘cause the flying drones and bad birds they pass me bye. My coworkers took their tags off, got targeted for congregation and lone wolfin’. I trust you, Sean. You seem about more than livin’, but ‘bout doin’.”
He felt a sinking feeling, “I will have to tell Chuck and Drex and the rest. We are a team.”
“I understand,” nodded Arne. He then nodded at a set of wings gliding against the moon, “See that?”
Sean nodded, “No real eagle flies by night. That is what APM has become, tagging animals, transcriterizing, really, with no purpose other than killin’ folks. What tagged us, that is some other brain. And the Gas Gorillas and other whackados, they’re free range like wild critters. Point is, other than the occasional satellite, by day or night, the world has gone nuts—it were bad to begin with, and keeps getting’ worse. I’m sick of bein’ alone—you all are heaven sent in my mind; make me think we could find some women, children, men that aren’t kill-tagged or gone bad.”
“Kill-tagged?”
“Like transcriterized people. Boss, you ever see a man what got a metal plate stitched into the side of his head, a head shaved only on that side, den he transhumanized en got but one job, makin’ sure no marooners, stay-behinds or used up fence-men stay above the dirt. Once we got the windmills fixed and the gas gorillas took up the wells—got them pumping, we got hunted; APM, transcrittery, trannshumanry… only the whackadoes leave us be, acting like bees—my pap kept bees.”
Sean gave the quiet sign, something Arne had an eye for, as a grinding, stamping and clacking sound started up below them to the left. Arne nodded and whispered, “Old mine shaft the Gassers lair up in. Dey hates da rain and have feud with certain of the forever drones.”
“Forever drones?”
“You’ll know ‘em when you see em—don’t get old, still shinin’ like the day dey were hatched; Mars shit I bet, Big Boss Bullshit toys bred up to keep a man down in da dirt!” Arne growled, under a simmering breath, assuring Sean that he could trust Arne in the face of this wicked garden of fallen man, beast and tool…
The revving of a generator down to the left, echoing up out of what he assumed was a mine shaft, brought him to attention. The tramp of iron on clay, the clank of gears and clack of rusted steel coming near, drove aside his deepest Christian concerns.
Sean and Arne occupied lead point over the boulder gate, stones 20 feet wide, nearly as high, through which, in times gone by, some rancher used to drive his truck thru. The eagle soaring high above, twinkled red for an instant, as if its eyes momentarily glowered on those men scattered across the boulder line, mostly under cover of stunted ponderosa, pungent juniper and pinion pine.
Through the boulder gate stamped a vaguely humanoid form—no, that was the fear and the night. It was a backhoe with a driver’s cage converted into a gear box, supporting a nozzle, like an elephant trunk. The bucket curled up behind like a scorpion’s tail, the stinger replaced by a clawed scoop. Additional gas tanks where bolted onto the sides.
“A drinker,” hissed Arne, and Billy whined, wanting away. Arne assured him, “They go to the wells to drink, don’t use the fuel for other den that.”
Sean trusted Billy, grabbed Arne, who weighed maybe 140 pounds, and hustled back up and over the boulder as the grinding of the gears and clacking of the treads was joined by a woosh of fire. A juniper went up like a ten foot match and heat warmed his calves as he ran down over the side with Arne slung like a sack—a sack on fire, that gargled in muffled pain. Sean rolled Arne in the sandy duff, which left the feral man just about naked with slight burns by the time the smoldering clothes were torn away.
“They never spat fire!” complained Arne, recovering his composure, checking his skin, and thrilled that he still had pants and shoes, though the overalls, flannel shirt and coat were gone—his hair burned a bit shorter of curl, his back flash-red, but only burned in the first degree.
Something crashed where the fire team was and a man bellowed in agony. Sean looked up at the moon where the night eagle flew and pointed to it through the gap in the boulder and the smoke rising up from the torched juniper, “That thing is directing the equipment—ever seen that?”
“That’s new,” assured Arne.
Sean then looked to Mars, which could be seen winking in the eastern sky south of the moon, “Then I know who called that in.”
He felt Arne looking up at him as Billy whined. Looking down at them, Sean saw he was the center of attention, “What?”
Arne grinned and licked his lips, “I thinks he best stay where he is, lest you lay hand on ‘im.”
“Glass,” came a hiss from the dark, and he turned.
