15. The Happy Man And His Dump Truck
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T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U :
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CROSS THE AMAZON
By Chatoyance
Chapter Fifteen: The Happy Man And His Dump Truck
"Come on!" Calloway said the words quietly, but there was no doubt about how much insistence there was behind them. The loud, arguing men were being cruel to the side hatch of the Mamá Gansa. From the sounds, it appeared they considered crowbars to be the most elegant method of entry into a high technology airship. Crowbars and cinderblocks. Huns at the gates of Rome.
Dropspindle followed Kotani down the sloping deck. The Gansa was tilted slightly, and still on fire. The fire was dying, because there was little left to burn. Likely, the edges of the nanocarbon hydrogen sac had been superheated and within the ruin of the dorsal surface acting as a wick. Or perhaps the insulation of cables was smouldering. There was deliberately as little as possible that was flammable to the Gansa. The hydrogen had already exploded into the night, raining hot water down in the process. That had caused the impatient men some consternation as they were scalded at the hatch.
The pair crawled through the broken, half crushed windows. The Gansa had drifted down, but the slow impact had the weight of the craft behind it - the delicate flight deck viewports had been bent and crumpled somewhat before the craft found equilibrium. "Careful - glass." Both human and pony balanced swiftness with caution - neither wanted to be caught, or sliced open.
Outside the heavily damaged airship, Calloway led Dropspindle into the shadows cast by the remaining combustion on the dorsal surface. At least twenty, possibly thirty men were prying open the hatch, still all loudly arguing with each other. There had been sounds of pain earlier, almost certainly coming from whichever one of them had launched the missile. From the level of punishment overheard, Calloway had doubts the man still lived.
Dropspindle followed Calloway closely, as they moved in the darkness away from the Mamá Gansa and into deeper shadows, between two structures that supported ore offloading chutes. The men were in, now, the hatch ruined in the process. From the cacophony, they were running amuck within the Gansa, likely searching for whoever had been piloting it. Their preferred method of detection seemed to be loud angry shouts and smashing noises.
"I'm afraid." Dropspindle was shaking. Calloway couldn't blame her one bit.
"Me too. But we just have to stay one step ahead of those bastards." Calloway thought for a moment. "How did they get here?"
"They just were here!"
"No... well, yeah, but there isn't enough here for that many men to live off of. They can't be from this depot. They came here from somewhere else, somewhere with food and water." Calloway strained his eyes against the impenetrable dark. "They must have vehicles. Trucks, burros, bicycles... something. I just can't see a damn thing!" The lights from inside the Gansa, combined with the fact his own eyes had not adjusted yet, frustrated him.
"Trucks. Big trucks. Over there." Dropspindle pointed a hoof in the direction of the covered depot, but Calloway didn't see it in the dark of their hiding spot.
"Where? How can you..." He laughed, softly, nervously "Big eyes. You ponies have those big, big eyes. It must be like high noon for you."
"I can see clearly, if that's what you mean."
"Okay, little kitty-cat, lead us to the trucks - provided that there is nobody guarding them. There's nobody guarding them, right?"
"I'm a pony, not a cat! And no. They all seem to be inside our poor ship." Dropspindle's fear turned briefly to grief. She had liked the Mamá Gansa.
"Get us there, quietly. I can't see a goddamn thing." He could, of course, just clearly not as well as Dropspindle.
Dropspindle took the lead with Calloway clutching, once more, tightly to her mane. It still hurt, the way he did it, but under the circumstances it was oddly comforting. She led him like a service animal carefully across the open ground between the chutes and the depot, then around the side of the depot. By now there was no ambient light. The night was pitch, and it was clear that Calloway truly couldn't see anything at this point.
Dropspindle pulled Calloway around a rusted pile of metal rods, through several stacks of crumbling pallets, and to the opposite side of the covered depot. There, around a dozen or more various vehicles were parked. There were all manner of trucks, motorbikes, modified jitneys and even a jacked-up limousine outfitted with oversized tires. All had seen too much time, and too much desert and definitely too much abuse.
Dropspindle felt her ears brushed by a breeze. At first she imagined that for some reason Calloway was leaning down and sending hot breath into her ears, but a quick look back showed him to be standing, hand on her withers, gazing intently in the wrong direction. Humans really were virtually blind in the dark. The breeze came again, a pulse in the still air. Weather on earth was so very strange - and random.
"Find us something powerful. Something fast and big."
"I'm sorry?"
Calloway crouched down, and patted her shoulder with his free hand. "Pick out a ride. Something that looks like it could outrun all the others. Extra fuel tanks are a plus. All terrain even better."
"I don't understand."
A soft chuckle. "We're stealing us a ride, Dropspindle. Grand Theft Auto: Southamerizone!" The joke was lost on the Equestrian. "Too old for you... and too... alien. Sorry. Pick us out a car, I still can't see shit."
"You want to... steal... one of those human's vehicles?" She seemed appalled.
"We stole a jitney, and an airship! What's the problem?" Calloway couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Those were abandoned. And our lives were at risk - anypony would understand that. But the owners of these cars are right here! We haven't asked permission!"
Calloway slapped his forehead with his free hand. His other hand wanted to shake the Equestrian by the withers, hard. "Those men are currently ripping our ship apart searching for us. If they find us, they will likely rip us apart too. Those are not nice men! At the very least they are desperate, and on this planet, that always means not nice. Jesus!" Calloway caught his breath. "New rule: on earth, you never have to ask permission from any human that tries to kill you. All their stuff is forfeit. It's... it's Official Human Law!"
"You're making that up!"
"Yes, I am, but it's still true. Now pick us a ride, and be quick about it!"
"Fine!" Humans shooting, humans prying open hatchways, nopony being nice and now stealing - stealing - things... why did there even have to be such a word, such a concept, in Humanese to begin with? It was such a crazy, mean, awful... The big truck looked fast. It had big, huge tires on it, with knobby things all over them. Those would do well in sand. And it had big tanks in the open back end, they must be fuel tanks. And it had big metal bars over the place where one sat, and a metal thing in the front of the truck that sort of looked like the ceremonial helmets of the Equestrian Royal Guard. It was an imposing, big, somewhat scary looking truck.
"This way!" Dropspindle led her human through the mass of vehicles to the Big Truck. "Here. Put your hands up... there. Yes, that's it. That's the side. Feel your way... no the other way! Yes! That's the door. Higher. The handle is way up. You're going to have to lift me up into it, it's really tall."
Calloway managed to open the door. Feeling about indicated a step to climb up in. The truck had been jacked up on shocks to permit oversized tires. Calloway bent down and grabbed Dropspindle around the barrel, and lifted her up and into the cab.
"OWWWW!!!"
"Shush! What happened?"
"My rib!"
"God... I forgot!"
"Well, it hurts! A lot!"
"I said I was sorry!"
"Ow... ow... owie..."
"I'm climbing up, okay? Move over or whatever. I don't want to slam into you!"
"I'm moving... ow... sweet meringue that hurts. Ow."
Calloway used the step and pulled himself up into the dark cab of the jacked-up high-riding truck. Due to the angle, some light spilled across the dash from the scene at the downed airship. The lights were still on in the Gansa, though the fire was out. The men would not remain there indefinitely. Calloway searched for the starter button.
The truck roared to life. A row of spotlights on the top illuminated the desert brightly. Running lights on the body of the vehicle glared baleful reds and greens. Worse, the horn honked out a brief musical passage before it fell silent.
"CHRIST!"
Calloway found the accelerator with his foot and pressed it, somewhat harder than he perhaps should. The truck leaped forward, bouncing and rumbling over the ground. He did not bother with finding the road - in any event what road they had seen from above ran parallel to the Barrier. There was only one direction - East. Away from Equestria. Dropspindle kept repeating 'OW!' as the vehicle made its bumpy, rough and tumble way across the uneven Amazonian desert. Calloway steered around a pile of long dead tree segments and avoided a rocky outcropping. The view to the front was like daylight, to the sides, Christmas. Whoever had modified this truck had a very extroverted personality.
"See if you can find a way to turn off some of these lights!" The truck must be visible for kilometers in the desert night. "On second thought, stop! No, don't try!" It struck him how screwed they would be if Dropspindle accidentally turned off the headlights and the spots overhead. That could end up in a very short trip.
A brief glance down revealed several gauges. Some of them were fuel related, one for each of the many tanks in the back. It was hard to make sense of it, but it seemed that they had a lot of fuel onboard. One positive thing about the situation, at least. Dropspindle had picked a fast, big truck. And it had a lot of fuel. But it was also the most brightly lit, gaudy thing Calloway had ever seen. They were a moving bullseye, and there was zero hope of sliding unseen into the desert.
Calloway barely missed the edge of some kind of pit or cliff or ravine - it was hard to tell - and hazarded a look at the rearview mirror. Everything was shaking and bouncing too much for him to get a good visual lock on the mirror, much less what it showed. "Look behind us! Are they following?" Of course they were following. What else would they do? Laugh and say 'let it go, no big whoop?'.
"Ow... Calloway, it hurts to try to... OW! Okay... um... there are lots... lots of lights behind us. Pairs of lights. And sometimes bunches. Of lights."
"Those are the mean men trying to catch us. They are probably a little bit upset about our taking this truck." Calloway narrowly avoided an unfortunate incident with a boulder. The vehicle shook as it swerved, then bounced for a while on its large wheels.
"I told you it was stealing!"
"Listen... Dropspindle... just listen. If... if I fuck up, and they catch us, if you get the chance, I need you to run. Just run. As fast and far as you can. Run, keep on running, and don't look back. Don't think, don't talk, just run." Calloway steered onto a dry riverbed. It was narrow, but not unlike a road. Nice. "No...! No happy pony bullshit out of you about this! If I say run, if the car breaks down, if we smash into something, you don't think, you don't fuck around with me, you run - UNDERSTOOD?"
"Calloway, I would never..."
"UNDERSTOOD?"
"I won't abandon you! Equestrians don't..."
"SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACE AND AGREE!" Calloway's arms bulged as he wrestled the wheel. "UN-DER-STOOD? My world, my rules!"
Dropspindle was silent for a while. "Understood. Calloway."
"Good!" The dry river was turning out to be a blessing. For now. "Those aren't nice men, Dropspindle. Maybe they were, once. Probably they were... miners... or ranchers or something. They likely got left behind when the money pulled out. They might not even know what is coming, or if they do they don't care, or they don't know what to do. But their actions... shooting us down like that, even if it was an accident or an itchy finger..." More likely the latter, considering what must have happened to the guy who did it "...means that whatever they might have been once, they are dangerous and mean now. You're going to have to trust me on this - if things get bad enough, even good men can go bad too."
Many bumps and a long silence passed. "Are you going to turn bad?"
"NO! Why would you even say such a thing?" Calloway was personally offended. After everything they had been through together!
"Sometimes I think you humans are very confusing."
"What?" There was a lot of gravel here, and it was noisy.
"Sense! You don't make sense!"
Calloway laughed. "Welcome to earth." He steered off the riverbed, to follow a slope down into a low, flat region that looked like it went on forever. It was free of rocks and dead stumps and basically anything. Most likely a salt or alkali flat. It was flat, at any rate.
For a while, the ridge behind gave them a sense of having eluded their pursuers. But the feeling was short lived. The lights of the following fleet of vehicles made their way down to the flats and soon regained their position, directly behind. The angry blimp-killers were not going to give up. Not without a fight. Probably not even then.
"Calloway..."
"Yup? Good news, I hope?"
His quick glance at Dropspindle did not indicate good news at all. "They... the mean men... they are closer now. I think it was harder for them on the rough ground. The flat ground is helping them. I think."
She seemed subdued. That bothered Calloway more than the information.
"Can you get us back onto the rough ground again?" Dropspindle's voice was barely audible in the rumbling truck. He wondered if he had yelled at her too fiercely.
Calloway looked out at what appeared to be an endless plain stretching beyond where the truck lights could go. They were on an ocean of flatness. "If you have any spells or magic you've been hiding, now would be the time to surprise me."
"I've told you that I..." Dropspindle half smiled, half frowned. "I wish I did. I'm sorry."
"Then pray to your princesses, because here they come."
On the right, the equally high-wheeled limousine drew near. On the left, a dirt bike and a dune rider began to approach. In the side rearview, Calloway noticed unshaven, dirty faces with feral chimpanzee grins inside the limo. For the first time in his life, Calloway Kotani fully saw his own species as the animals, as the beasts, they were. They looked like apes in cars, and they were apes in cars, and they were enjoying the thrill of hunting him down.
They would enjoy hurting him in vengeance for his audacity even more. That was the end game when humans played 'chase' as adults - tasers or clubs or knives or axes or guns. Blood. Blood and injury and screaming and laughter. Shrieking chimpanzees, dismembering their prey. This was fun for them. They were loving every moment of it.
And the worst part, the very worst part was that deep inside himself, Calloway was too. "Dropspindle! Your side! Watch out!"
It was a given they would have guns. Men loved guns. Men loved the power to kill easily and instantly.
Dropspindle watched in quiet horror as the bike and its rider pulled close to her side of the truck. The running lights made a glowing red demon of the helmeted man. He held the handlebars with one hand while reaching out with the other for the handle of Dropspindle's door. "CALLOWAY!"
Without a thought, Calloway turned to the left. The impact barely shook the truck. Dropspindle watched as the dirt bike rider tumbled to the flats, only to catch under the wheels of the dune rider. The small buggy seemed to stumble over the body of the man, and began to turn sharply. Something caught in the hard soil and the lightweight dune rider flipped over throwing two more men into the vanishing darkness behind them.
"Calloway! You killed all of those men!"
He could only give her a mask of a glance, his lips pressed tight. There was no use getting into an argument. How could she ever comprehend any of this? "I need your help. My side. Get your ass over here and do something, anything! I need magic now!" There was no way he could bash the limo without wrecking the both of them. He didn't have the skill. He felt sure there were all kinds of tricks that Blackmesh probably learned about vehicular combat. He didn't know a single thing. Only what he had seen in old movies.
"What can I possibly... there's barely any room..." Dropspindle, caught in a nightmare, shocked almost beyond reason, complied because she could do nothing else. Ponies helped. It was the last bit of her that was not completely traumatized by what had just happened. Ponies helped. She squeezed into the half-meter space behind Calloway's seat, and peeked out of the narrow slice of window there. If her rib hurt, she was beyond caring. "There's a big, long, dark car! With big wheels!"
Calloway glanced to the right. The car was full of men, and the windows were open. Guns were being pointed, but it was difficult to tell at what with such a brief look in such dim red light. "Dropspindle. Magic. Now." His words were measured and just loud enough to overcome the racing of the motor and the rumbling of the wheels. They were constrained panic, and the feeling was palpable.
Dropspindle heard them, heard how terrified and lost Calloway sounded. Over and over in her mind, the same words, the only words she had left that still made any rational sense. Ponies help. Ponies help.
She ran down every spell she knew. She only knew a few. She hadn't been a good student except when it came to what she loved - fabric. She was very good with fabric. She'd won an award. She'd been mildly famous in textile circles. That's why she was allowed to come to earth to study. To learn. She knew only a little magic. Vestication. She could apport clothing. Tincturation. She could dye or remove dye in the blink of an eye. She laughed. It was funny and she didn't know why, because she was actually terrified and horrified and sickened. Ausokinesis, automatic weaving. It was fun to watch cloth weave itself. Very soothing. Adjunctication. Oh, that was a good one. Magical effects applied to clothing. Make colors brighter, make things shine, or ripple or glow. Clothometry. She could experience the history of any piece of...
Instantly, the clothing of the nearest man in the car lit up like it was on rainbow fire. He shrieked silently, beyond the truck window, dropping his rifle as his hands flew to pat out the not-fire he wasn't being consumed with. The man directly behind him suddenly found himself naked, his clothes briefly appearing beside the limousine in a burst of thaumatic light, before being blown behind and under by the winds of speedy travel.
The big-wheeled limo jerked suddenly to the right and split away, falling behind. In the driver's panic, he failed to see the one lone dead tree on the whole of the plain. For dozens if not hundreds of kilometers that lonely tree had stood, the only thing left of the once mighty Amazon jungle. In the whole of the flats, nothing had cut it, disturbed it, or hit it... until now. The impact was terrible, the dry wood of the tree exploded in the faint automotive lights. As the remains of the limo vanished behind them, the only light that came from it was the false flames of one passengers glowing clothing, and the real flames of the burning wreck, until both became tiny and vanished in the distance.
Dropspindle sank to the floorboard, smashed into the narrow space behind Calloway's car seat. She laughed and laughed and laughed, then giggled at a shrieking pitch. The rapid, nervous giggles turned to wails, and the wails became hollow, yowling cat cries in the night.
"Dropspindle?" Calloway tried to see her in the mirror, but she was too low. "Dropspindle!" He took one hand off the wheel, briefly, to try to touch her. She shrank from his hand. "Dropspindle? What's going on? That was brilliant! Genius! Dropspindle? Dropspindle!"
She cried and screamed for what seemed like an hour. The fleet of vehicles had ended their chase, undoubtedly to deal with their wounded and dead. They would believe that whoever stole their truck had strange and incredible powers. Terrible and arcane magics at their command. They might just be frightened enough not to continue the chase. It must have been truly nightmarish to be invisibly attacked inside the safety of their limo by forces they were incapable of comprehending. It must have seemed like demons and sorcery and every horror holo all at once, coming true.
Maybe they wouldn't pursue. Maybe they would consider such terrors too terrible to follow.
"Dropspindle?"
She was weeping now, and somehow the softness of her crying was more horrible than her anguished wails. It was an odd sort of tears, despondent, destroyed, the grief of a child who had just seen their mother die before their eyes. He had never heard such crying before. It was terrible simply to be in proximity to.
It sounded like the death of god.
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Generally, creatures with large eyes see better in the dark. Also, animals with large eyes generally have higher visual acuity and more visual pigments.
That is it. Dropspindle is at the end of her rope. She just had a psychotic break.
Oh my those emotions... that writing... I would give you almost all my likes from my stories if I could.
Wow. Poor Dropspindle. Humans have issues dealing with choices like that and we have a lifetime of social conditioning to (somewhat) prepare us.
Poor Droppers. Helped someone kill humans, then (probably) killed some herself. Poor dear's gonna be scarred for life.
(Also, I really hope Calloway just squished the rib, and didn't get a broken end stuck into anything vital.)
Dropspindle's innocence has been beaten, tortured, and nearly drowned over the course of this panicked cross-continent trip. Now it has died, along with a limo driver. I'm not sure what's left in that head of hers, but it's not going to be particularly happy.
Hehehe! Well this sentence made me laugh how appropriate that Calloway an exiled Japanese man would wind up with of all things a Dekotora truck. This couldn't be more perfect if Chatty tried.
In case you guys don't know what that is a Dekotora truck (which translates to Decoration Truck) are semi trucks that have been decorated very extravagantly by there driver. These decorations include gaudy paint jobs, bright lights, and often music much like the truck Calloway and Dropspindle stole.
Also looks like I've got two more downvotes from here to add to my wall of shame!
I hope that she doesn't end up resenting him for all of this. They have a good friendship and I don't want to see it end just because he reminds her of the time that she killed several people.
6225854 I think that is exactly what is going to happen. It might take her some time to realize it herself, but she will reason that she killed because Calloway told her to, and if that is the case, she will only hurt more when she remembers it was her kindness that drove her to attempt to save this idiot in the first place.
Oh Dropspindle... you should have never gone to Hollywood.
Sisters... this is just heartbreaking. Oh, Dropspindle...
Don't worry Dropspindle, I see their parachutes!
Ride eternal, shiny and chrome!
She didn't do it on purpose.
Not that that matters to her.
6228832
I got that reference.