The
Station: a seething mass of humanity. Some came with hope in their
hearts, ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime. For others, it was
the only place they had left to go. They had reached rock bottom. Day
or night, the scene was always the same: Transporters arrived and
departed constantly, full of people desperate to get away from here,
from there, from everywhere. Others wandered around the Station
aimlessly. These were the homeless, the addicts, the criminals, the
thieves and deadbeats. They spent their time begging or looking for
something to steal.
And there was always tension in the air. A
fight could break out at any moment as these tired and hungry people
reached their wits’ ends and lashed out at the world.
Max and I
had been waiting there two hours, which was at least one hour and
fifty-nine minutes too long but neither of us minded. I kept reaching
into my pocket to pull out the letter and stare at it.
“You’ll
wear it out, buddy,” said a smiling Max after I had brought the note out
a tenth time. “Just accept it. Next stop: Easy Street.”
I
pushed the letter back into my pocket. I still couldn’t believe it. I’d
been accepted. That was the good news. The bad news was I knew that this
letter only confirmed that I had been chosen for NSC training. It was
incredibly difficult to get this far, but even so, only a very few would
make it to through to the next stage—to become officers. Frankly, I had
grave doubts I could make it that far.
Max tapped me on my
shoulder and pointed to a transporter that had just pulled in to Dock
10. It had the word Seattle printed above its windshield. It was Max’s
ride. “Okay, Hogan, looks like it’s my time to go.”
I moved
behind Max’s wheelchair and pushed it through the seething crowd towards
the vehicle. It was, like all public transporters nowadays, driverless.
So since there was no one to help, it was up to me to put Max’s ticket
into the scanner and to lower him into in his allotted seat. After that,
I folded his wheelchair and carried the chair to the luggage rack at
the front.
As I finished storing the chair, I spotted an
attractive woman in her mid-thirties walk up to Max. I watched as she
checked the seat number on her ticket. “That is twenty-two N isn’t it?” I
heard the woman say to Max as she pointed to the vacant seat next to
him.
Max smiled. “It sure is. And you have the luck to be sitting next to Max Creeling.” He held out his hand. “Great to meet you.”
The woman smiled and sat next to him as I returned.
“Okay, Max, time to go. See if you can get someone to help you with the chair at the other end.”
“I think I can organize that,” the woman said. “I’m Lisa.” She pushed out her hand and I shook it.
“Pleased
to meet you, Lisa. Thank you for your kind offer. Now, Max, don’t
forget when you get to Seattle to keep out of trouble.”
“Will do.”
I high-fived Max. “Bye. And behave yourself.”
“Always.”
I
turned quickly and headed for the transporter’s exit door. Almost as
soon as I had stepped down from the vehicle, the door slid shut, the
last passenger just managing to squeeze on. As the transporter drove
off, Max peered out of the window and winked at me before turning to
speak animatedly with Lisa. It looked like he had struck it lucky.
I missed him already.
My
transporter would be in next. Dock 20. I started to walk towards the
number 20 sign, scanning the crowd for those who were waiting for the
NSC Transit transporter like me.
A tall, handsome man in his
early twenties stepped in front of me, momentarily blocking my way. I
glanced across at him. I knew the type. Dangerous and arrogant but the
sort of asshole that women love. In fact, two young beautiful girls were
with him: long legs, flowing blonde hair, angelic faces. They were
obviously twins.
A commotion came from behind, and a
middle-aged, scruffy, worn-down man pushed through the crowd, a rusty
shotgun in hand. “Hey, you!” he screamed at the guy with the girls.
“Those are my daughters, you son of a bitch.”
The handsome man turned, taking in the man and his gun.
“Really,” he replied. “Then I guess I owe you for raising such lovely pleasure units.”
“They aren’t pleasure units, they’re my girls, and they’re only seventeen.”
“Oh,
God…I didn’t know,” the handsome man said, looking shocked. “They swore
they were fifteen.” He grabbed one of the teenagers and starting to
kiss her passionately.
“You bastard,” the older man said, and
raised the shotgun, ready to fire. The handsome man pushed away the girl
he was kissing, spun around, and yanked the weapon from the father’s
hands in one motion. In an instant, the father was looking down the
barrel of his own gun.
“The only reason I don’t shoot you right
now is ’cause I’m afraid this rusty piece of shit might blow up in my
face.” The younger man cracked the gun open and dumped the shells onto
the floor. Then he pulled a gleaming handgun from his trousers and
leveled it directly at the father’s head. “This, on the other hand, is
in perfect working order. Care to test it?”
The father lunged forward, but I grabbed him, pulling him back. “That’s enough.”
The
handsome man stared at me. “Well, thank you,” he said, stuffing his
pistol back into his pants. “You should thank him too, Dad,” he said to
the girls’ father, “you could have got yourself hurt.” He turned away to
look at the girls. “Ladies—it’s been a pleasure. I’m sure you won’t
forget your time with Jake Teerman.”
“Bye, Jake,” one of them shouted as she consoled her teary-eyed sister.
The man, Jake, quickly headed towards the transporter that had just pulled up at Dock 20.
“I guess some girls like that kind of thing,” a voice behind me said.
I
turned. The woman who’d just spoken was strikingly attractive, with
long dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a button nose. She was dressed
in form-fitting jeans and a blue blouse that hugged her shapely body.
She carried an antique leather holdall.
She held out her hand. “Ruby Mason.”
“Hogan Duran. Pleased to meet you” I said, shaking her hand and pointing at the NSC Transporter. “You getting on board?”
Ruby smiled proudly. “Yep. And you?”
I nodded and glanced at Jake Teerman, who was climbing up the transporter’s stairs.
“He’s going as well. I thought the NSC was more selective.”
“I guess not,” Ruby said.
***
About
a hundred of us were cramped on board. Most were in their late teens
and early twenties, mainly young men but with a sprinkling of women. I
knew I was an old man by their standards. It was a pretty big handicap,
and since Max’s shooting, my confidence had never really returned. Was I
up to this? The transporter had been pretty quiet from the start, with
only a few talking to one another. That was the sensible thing to do. We
didn’t know exactly what our training would involve, and to give too
much away about yourself at this stage was not a smart strategy.
Ruby
and I hadn’t spoken much, either. I’d told her about me being an
ex-cop. She’d told me that she was a waitress who had just been fired
from her job. The news of NSC acceptance had been the lifeline she’d
needed. To keep the conversation going but avoiding any more personal
talk, I pointed at the transporter driver. “Haven’t seen one of those
for years.”
“Me neither,” Ruby said.
It was a surprise
to both of us. Nowadays, cars and trucks were almost all driverless.
When they were first introduced, people had willingly given up their
vehicles and relied on driverless taxis to get around. Before long, all
trucks had been made driverless, too, and as demand for ‘driven’ cars
fell, the industry collapsed: factories closed and workers were made
redundant, joining the thousands of professional drivers in the ranks of
the unemployed.
The NSC was one of the few employers who kept
their drivers on, not trusting the security of driverless vehicles.
Onboard computers could be hacked, they reasoned. It was difficult to
accomplish, of course, but it was a risk the organization wasn’t
prepared to take.
The view from the vehicle was a revelation to
me, too, even though as a cop, I had traveled all over the city. In the
four years since resigning from the force, the landscape had changed
dramatically. I could see the wealthy zones with their well-lit stores,
malls, and schools. These were surrounded by rows of affluent suburban
homes, some of which had glistening swimming pools in their back yards.
Cars shunted along the wide, clean boulevards, and children played
happily in the lush green parks. The zones were protected by high
steel-mesh fences hung with huge searchlights. Gun-toting guards,
walking with vicious-looking dogs on leashes, manned checkpoints along
the border.
In contrast, most of the city’s other zones looked
like they’d been bombed out. There were no green spaces: the schools
were huge, gray, factory-like buildings; the few stores were tiny,
temporary structures; and hardly any cars traveled the crumbling roads
that often looked impassable anyway. Homes were, for the most part, a
mixture of temporary-looking Nissan huts or constructions built out of
old wood and corrugated metal sheets.
As the transporter sped on
and darkness fell, the signs of decay and dereliction increased. Tents
replaced houses and roads became fewer and fewer. When the vehicle
finally left what remained of the town and descended from the freeway
down onto the open road, the lights inside were dimmed. People slumped
back in their chairs, trying to get as comfortable as possible to sleep.
“Night,” said Ruby, shutting her eyes.
“Night,” I said, and did the same.
***
I awoke hours later, my legs aching, my back in pain. I really was getting old.
I
stared out and saw that the sun had just started to peek over the
horizon. Soon it would be high in the sky, streaming through the
transporter’s tinted windows. If I was to die and somehow found myself
in purgatory, it would probably look like this: dirty brown wasteland
stretching out as far as the eye could see. On the horizon was a
mountain range. But these boasted no romantic, snow-covered summits
glistening in the sun: just steep, hostile, rocky escarpments layered
with brown dust.
Ruby opened her eyes. “Hi,” she said, stretching and pulling herself up.
“Morning.”
Ruby turned to look out the window. She shivered. “Is this Hell?” she asked.
“Sure looks like it.”
“Three more hours,” Ruby said, yawning.
“Yeah,
maybe,” I said, peering at the small clock positioned high over the
driver’s head. I reached into my pocket for my old flip phone, and then
remembered we’d had to leave all electronic gear with the driver. The
NSC expressly forbade anyone to carry anything that could be used to
reveal where we were going. I doubted if the clock really showed the
correct time. It would be too easy to work out where you were from the
time traveled.
Ruby gave a start. “Oh my God.” She was staring
out the window. I followed her gaze. In the distance, a band of bikers
were riding through the wasteland, heading towards the transporter. I
recognized them. “Krails,” I said. “I’ve never seen them up close.”
Others
on the transporter had seen the Krails, too. They watched fascinated as
the gang approached. As they came closer, I could make out the lined,
tough faces of the riders. Although all were dressed in the same tight
black leathers, some wore black bandanas or had long scarves covering
their necks and faces. Many had grown their hair out, letting it fall
down to their waist, while others had it shaved off completely. It was
hard to tell the women from the men. All looked equally tough, with
lined faces browned in the sun.
More than anything else, Krails
were proud of their bikes. Despite the dust, each machine had been
meticulously cleaned so their chrome and steel handle bars shone. Some
riders had bows slung over their shoulders, quivers of arrows hanging
from their belts. Others carried long hunting knives stuck into ornate
belts, and handguns stuffed into leather holsters. The man on the lead
bike looked huge and terrifying. He was bald, and his face was
crisscrossed with long scars.
Ruby made a face. “Disgusting. How can anyone live like that?”
“Maybe they ask the same thing about us,” I said as the transporter accelerated away.
Staring
back, I saw the big bald man, the Krail leader, raise his hand and
indicate the rocky outcrops on the horizon. Pulling his bike around, he
started to ride in the direction he’d indicated. The others followed in
V-formation.
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