Artifact 38: Dusk’s Last Gloaming

Still in the future with Josh driving his hypercar. Dawn appears who he thinks stole his cargo, the artifact. He can't trust her.

Josh has met up with the girl who he assumes had stolen his cargo. They hear that Public Safety may be on the lookout for him traveling alone. With that in mind, it would appear fortuitous to Josh to let the girl ride with him not to mention she was a self-proclaimed hacker (unverified) and martial arts expert (sort of verified.)   

 

Certainly, you’re a hacker in more ways than one!”  Josh stopped short and faced her again while maintaining a straight face. “Just what I need, the PS guys and computer geek regulators to worry about with you along. Now do I have to worry about Ninja warriors as well?” He paused, waiting for a response but with none presented, he continued. “Come on, give me a break and come clean.”

            “Hey, I did come clean, “she said seemingly sincere. “I’m sure you know enough about ‘puting that a hacker knows more ins and outs of ‘puters than those board jockeys who write the programs. Besides, I have my avatar to jump into programs and sort things out, you know�"minimal key strokes.” She wiggled her fingers in midair. “So wat’s up with it?”

            “I don’t know what’s wrong with my computer. Maybe a lightning strike and maybe a virus of some sort from AOL. So considering the twofold problems, I have doubts about your potential success with it.” He said with a gesture. “My bug surgeon just got toasted in my messed up system; does your system emissary want to join him in the cyberspace necropolis? With that in mind, do you think you can do better?” 

            “Yes�"without a doubt, I can do better,” she said confidently.

            “Oh, jut crammed full of yourself, I see,” Josh thought a moment contemplating the situation. “I hesitate to give in and let you hitch a ride just because I know that you know I MIGHT be in a fix. I don’t know your true motivation for wanting to hitch with me, and then there’s that other problem�"”

            “Why ride with you? After my previous ride, I consider you safe,” she said leaning against the car. “And are you still worried about your stuff? Think I took it?” She said unstrapping her backpack and wiggling out of one shoulder strap. “Here look in my ‘pack.” She held it out away from her body and spun around. “Obviously, whatever I could have taken from you couldn’t be hidden on my body.” She opened her bag for Josh to look inside, but he didn’t look too closely. “All right? Settled?”

            “Yeah, sure. But not entirely�"if you had taken it back there all those miles ago you could have easily stashed it for later retrieval or passed it off to someone,” he shrugged, “an accomplice.” 

            “Maybe a scheme for some, but you’re barking up the wrong tree here, man. We’re burning twilight; we need to get a move on before it’s too late!”

            “Stay still, you!” Josh said, holding a halting hand up. “I was also tracking down a reported�"ah, an unnatural anomaly with EMP characteristics. Know anything about that?” Josh studied her and thought he detected a minute twitch in her demeanor.

             “Wouldn’t know about one of those,” she said off-handedly. “So, where did it occur exactly?”

            “Yeah, good question. The government-controlled media rescinded the report and then I lost my computer that I needed to find the lost report on the darknet.” He shrugged. “So I’m thinkin’ that it was somewhere around here. And now, coincidently I happen to find you’re here as well�"maybe not so coincidently, I might add to my list of suspicions about you.” 

            “Don’t look at ME that way. I am innocent of causing any sort of unnatural, Electro-Magnetic Pulse phenomenon slash anomaly and this place is just where I ended up. No coincidence. We need to go�"‘ya know?”

             As she edged closer to the car’s open door to stick her foot in, she started furiously chewing and popping her gum again.  Josh walked a few steps closer to the car and stopped�"he looked around. He stepped out again to take a deep breath.

Weird, he thought. Cigarette smoke again.  He looked around, but no one else was in sight. She stepped out away from the car toward Josh again.

            “Ah,” she said to get Josh’s attention while glancing aside with an odd furtive expression. “Let’s get back to business. What do you know about the problem with your ‘puter system? You must have some idea other than an electrical surge and maybe a bug.” She took a couple quick steps, stepping between Josh and the car. She looked inside the car.  

            “That’s about all I know. My surgeon isn’t talking anymore.” He made a sound with a slicing motion across his throat. He regarded her cozying up to his car. “A little presumptuous here aren’t we?  I didn’t agree to anything�"yet, and I am very nervous about this�"arrangement with you.”

            “You, very nervous?  Ha, I saw that look when my sword split the air over your head.  You didn’t blink. I saw the flex in your legs, so you’re probably fast enough to dodge my next move.” She gave him the look. “I can read my opponents.”

            “Sure…maybe.”  He re-contemplated the moments past. “We’re wasting time now. Okay, okay you can come along,” Josh held up his hands. “But, some ground rules: We keep a low profile, you draw attention to this car, us or you, like junior over there and you’re on foot again�"pronto.”  He lectured with a finger point toward the stocker boy who still stared out across the pump area at them. “And�" no drugs, vengeful boyfriends and so on. Cappish?”         

            She grinned. “That’s kind of a corny, vintage word, man. Sure. Brutum fulca.”

            “What’s that mean?” 

            “I’ll tell you later. Let’s go.” She pulled the backpack off her shoulder where it was dangling and swung it to the pavement. Pulling open the door, she looked in the back of the car and shoved her pack in between the seat and doorpost.  

            Josh swung into his seat behind the wheel and stuck his bag of food between the seats.  His jacket lay undisturbed on the floor. He grabbed and tossed it with her backpack farther to the rear of the car. “Need help with your shoulder harness?”

            “Easy.  Just like a parachute harness, I’ll get it in a flash.” A second later, he heard the center buckle snap shut. 

            “Good.  Sounds like you’ve been through a lot of experiences for your age.”

            “Yeh. You might say that I had the liberty and the money and took advantage of them.”

            Josh fired off the engine and turned on the normal running lights. She quickly eyeballed the car from the floorboards, to the roof, to the heads up display, and controls under the bright lights of the station. 

            Josh noticed her scrutiny. “What do you think?”

            “Definitely light on the comfort features, but I’d say this thing was build for speed.  I see a lot of aluminum, titanium and a lot of other weight-saving stuff. Like an aircraft really.”

            “How’d you know all that?”

            “Oh, skydiving and once I stowed aboard a military transport with a bud to Europe.  Cold enough to freeze your butt off, but we made it.” 

            Josh laughed. They pulled out of the station toward the west and headed for the interstate. The sun had set an hour ago and there was just a soft amethyst glow silhouetting the mountains. In the darkness, the craggy horizon looked sinister.     

            “This thing is amazing!” She said brushing her hand across the instrument panel top.  “You’ll have to teach me to drive it…you know, let me put it through its paces.  What’ll it do, 230?”

            Josh concentrated on the road but wrinkled up his forehead as he turned slightly toward her and curled up the corner of his lips.

            “Faster?  I’ve never been faster than 230 and that was on a bike.”

            Josh shook his head with the mental picture. He shook it off. Refocusing, he figured he had about 10 kilometers to the next interchange. A couple minutes later, a sign told him that he was close to his assessment. 

            “So is your HUD the only screen for your system?  She asked businesslike while eyeing up his computer gear in the dash. 

            “I have a flex screen tube stowed in the panel box in front of you there.”   He flipped on a map light over her head.

            She mashed the button with the side of her fist and the door popped open.  Reaching in, she pulled out Josh’s handheld, turned it over while looking at it, put it back in, and withdrew the screen tube. 

            “Oh how quaint! Where’d you get this stuff? At the Salvation Army rummage sale?”  

            “Friend of mind set me up with this stuff a few months ago…said it was state-of-the-art.”

            “Yeah and sock hats and galoshes are the latest fashion statement,” she said studying his computer.

             She shoved his things back in the compartment roughly and slammed the door shut. Turning and reaching around between the seats, she whipped her backpack over the seat and caught Josh across the back of his head. He let out a grunt and rubbed his head. She set the backpack down on her lap so she could rummage around in it. 

            “Sorry! Sorry.” She muttered still rolling and spinning her pack around until she happened to shove the sword grip into Josh’s ribs, eliciting an ‘oomph’ out of him.

“HEY! Careful there!”

            “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered again without looking like she meant it.

            She took two small cases out and set them on Josh’s food bag with a crunch. He eyed her with annoyance. She shoved her pack into place behind the seat and this time thankfully avoiding hitting Josh.  

            “Now this stuff is state-of-the-art,” she said picking up the cases and holding them up in front of Josh’s face causing him to look around them to see the road. She settled back in her seat. 

            “Right,” he said. “Nice boxes whatever they are.”

            “Wait a sec�"where are the interfaces?  Oh! Never mind, I see,” she said pressing a small panel alongside the storage compartment that revealed six ports.  “Okay, first things first.”

She folded open the rectangular case and pulled out a pair of what looked like heavy-framed sunglasses. She put them on, but Josh saw that the lenses were opaque. She grinned large and wide toward Josh evidently not seeing him at all. Flipping the glasses up to her forehead, she opened the other cube case that held what looked like a handheld and a handful of spaghetti-like patch cords.

            “You called my stuff archaic?  You use patch cords to hook equipment up?”

            “Makes sense you know,” she said looking at him with the big googly glasses on her head. “Some old stuff is better for different reasons than the technology that tried to replace them.  Like patch cords, takes less power to run, actually takes up less room and best of all,” she said hooking up the wires to one of her glasses earpieces. “No unpredictable leaking emissions. Best of all when your desire is to keep a super-low profile.”

            She eyed Josh’s unit and with her handheld plugged into Josh’s power she slid down her glasses and keyed in a command on a miniature keyboard.  Josh did a double-take when he seen multi-colored lights flashing erratically onto her wide open eyes behind the glasses.

  “Now what’s going on there?” Josh said looking back to the road.       

            “Don’t interrupt; I’m recharging my alpha brainwaves.”

            No one seen it of course, but Josh rolled up his eyes with the absurdity of it all.  Interrupting his own mockery, Josh noticed that their interchange was right there, but all of sudden Public Safety lights flashed on from both sides of the overpass. Lights flashed in their direction, he hit the brakes and grabbed her shoulder.

            “We have a big problem�"the numero uno anticipated problem.”