We exited the bunker and I was reminded yet again that my suit was lacking a helmet. Chloe donning hers was one reminder but the frigid wind slicing into my face was the biggest one.
Instinctively I checked my glove to see how cold it was and grimaced. The black screen was the worst reminder yet.
We made one last stop at the bodies Chloe had chalked up to make sure that at least one helmet was usable and, as luck would have it, one turned out to be.
“Got this one in the neck.” Chloe said with about as much ease as a great golfer would mention a birdie. I caught it when she tossed it to me. Then I noticed the blood all over it and made a face.
“Gross,” Was all I said before sliding it over my head. It wasn’t too gross, though, because the blood was frozen.
“Don’t be such a baby,” I heard Chloe’s voice crackle in my ear.
Since I’d been acting like a complete lame-wad about all the futuristic stuff that had been going on, I decided not to be floored by us being able to communicate with the suits.
“Just next time maybe a little less frozen blood?” I shot over to her.
“Tell me, Jericho,” Chloe began, taking a step away from me. I noticed her right foot was slowly twisting slightly on the snow-covered ground, the universal sign for catch-me-if-you-can.
“Do you like your woman fast, or is that just a fabricated exterior?”
I opened my mouth to tell her that I simply adored fast women but I never got the chance to say it because she bolted into the mist, kicking up snow as she did so.
“Oh, no she didn’t,” I muttered before speeding after her. She must not really have been trying to get away from me because when the cap speed was close to 70 mph, whoever got the head start wasn’t about to get caught. So when I loped up beside her I said, “Hi. Beautiful day, ain’t it?”
This was meant to be sarcastic due to the extremely unbeautiful day we were running through at that moment so I was kind of thrown when she said, “Yes, very.” Without the least bit of sarcasm.
After running at top speed for almost five minutes we both skidded to a halt on what appeared to be a large white embankment that overlooked what I was guessing was Flagstaff.
Or what was left of it.
The city looked like a snapshot from any zombie apocalypse film you could think of. Large building here and there missing huge sections of important structural spots on them and no lights on anywhere. The only signs of life were the large smokestacks that seemed to border the entire city, billowing black smog like crazy.
“I’m guessing you guys aren’t exactly green folks around here,” I said.
When Chloe asked what the heck I was talking about I went on to explain about all the save-the-earth jazz that was going on back home which led me to a thought.
“Did the icecaps ever melt?” I asked, turning away from Flagstaff to look at her. We were both looking exceptionally awesome in our suits, by the way. Just thought you guys should know that.
“The what?”
“You know- the polar icecaps. Did they melt?”
Chloe wasn’t exactly sure what I was asking but she figured if I was thinking of a landmark or standing structure that I could pretty much bet on it being nonexistent after World War three.
“Wait, hold up,” I said, “I remember you saying something about a World War four back at the lab. Three wasn't bad enough to mention?”
“Normally we don’t count the third World War because it was less than ten minutes long,” Chloe said, shrugging.
“Wow,” I said. “Did, uh, America or Russia fire first?”
“Russia. But not on America. We hit South Africa and Finland.”
“Why?” Was all I could think to ask. “I mean, nukes are the norm in 2012, don’t get me wrong, but what changed that made people, I don’t know… actually use them?”
Again, Chloe shrugged, “The rest of the world all believe it was because we were the next target. We had been at war for over a decade with Finland and South Africa had just joined the Finnish against us.”
I frowned. “You say rest of the world like that’s not the real reason you guys fired.”
“Because it’s not the real reason,” She said, hitting a button and lifting her mask. I took this as a cue and lifted my mask. “We all thought that when the time finally came, mother Russia would win with honor.” She took a few steps closer to me, which was fine with me except that all flirtatiousness was out of the question due to the way she looked as she talked.
“In the end all it took was for someone high on the ladder to have too much vodka. Thus the start and end of World War three.”
“Whoa, back up.” I said, waving at the crumbling city, “You mean this is all that’s left of the world because some schmuck’s vodka bottle happened to be sitting right next to a Defcon 1 button?”
Chloe nodded, turning away as her mask clamped down.
“Welcome to the future, Jericho.” I heard her buzz in my ear.
I fell in step behind her as we made our way down the slope toward Flagstaff. “But you guys have the gloves,” I told her, “I mean, you could have zipped back and stopped Otis Campbell from nuking the planet.
“Can’t,” She said simply, “Can we drop it?”
Chloe was irritated, that much was certain. I’m guessing it was mostly due to Russia’s premature nuke fest, which I was also guessing was embarrassing to any Russian, but I could tell that I’d struck a chord with my time-travel idea.
“Why?”
“I said drop it,” She growled.
Grabbing her shoulder, I whirled her around to face me. “Tell me why, Chloe,” I growled back. I wasn’t trying to be mean, or anything, but her irritation was irritating me.
I couldn’t see her face because of her helmet but I could feel the glare. “And what would knowing the answer do for you, Jericho?”
I let go of her shoulder. “Just tell me.”
Although I could see she wasn’t too thrilled about it, Chloe said, “Fallout.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said, looking around, “Don’t tell me that’s the reason.”
“Generally, yes,” She said, “After the nukes went off everything changed. Not only did it move the planet further from the sun, thus beginning the everlasting ice age, but it also messed up Earth's core structure as well. Or fixed it, as my father would say.”
“Maybe fixed it if you were a mammoth,” I muttered, glancing around at the snowy landscape.
“Or trying to create a time-traveling device,” Chloe said, “After the restructure, which was one of the real reasons most cities collapsed, new elements were discovered, one of which resides in all three gloves.”
Taking all of this in wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. Just saying. But I was pretty sure I knew the reason now.
“So you’re saying that since the gloves were only created because of nuclear fallout than any notion of using the fallout offspring to go back and stop fallout from happening is out of the question?”
Chloe turned around and resumed her trudge with me close behind. “Brilliant.” Was all she said, still ticked that I’d made her explain the whole drunk-Russian-nuke story.
The rest of the journey to the edge of Flagstaff was silent. Chloe was probably just fuming although I wasn’t so sure about her thoughts. I know my thoughts were filled with the new knowledge of the future and how the world had really went downhill and how I really was starting to feel scared for some reason and how I was about to walk into a city trashed by nukes.
Then I remembered that I had never beaten all the expansions on Fallout: New Vegas yet and got bugged all over again.
“Is Vegas still standing?” I asked suddenly.
“What?” Chloe asked, cocking her covered head a little.
“I’m going to take that as a no. Thanks for nothing, Bethesda.”
Entering the city, which I thought was going to include ninja-like reflexes and maximum stealth--wait, that’s an oxymoron because
ninja-like reflexes states that maximum stealth has already been initiated--anyway, the point is that entering the city turned out to be a cinch. One minute we were walking toward Flagstaff, the next we were walking in it.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love it when I can walk without dodging bullets but I was at least expecting a few unmanned turrets or something equally as sentinel-like, you know?
Abandoned cars lined the streets, their broken out windows and flat tires looking ever so-
Wait.
There weren’t any tires on the scrapped cars.
Where were the tires, you might ask? Okay, you might not so I’ll just say welcome to the future, Will Robinson.
I’ve only been to the 2012 Flagstaff once in my lifetime and although the air was a little thin for my taste, the journey did end with my coming home with a time-traveling glove so I guess I can’t really judge the city too much. After living in Chicago, the streets of Flagstaff had felt severely spread out to me and all drivers had had plenty of room to get around without killing someone.
Future Flagstaff didn’t even look sort of like the one I remembered and not because of the whole nuclear wasteland feel, either. The entire city structure was different now complete with thin streets, tall cramped buildings on either side and lots of messed up future cars.
“You sure we’re not in New York?” I asked Chloe, glancing around.
“Get down,” Was her reply, her voice low in my ear.
Not knowing what else to do, I ducked into an alley and behind a dumpster, squatting low and putting my back against the brick wall. Then I noticed that Chloe was right beside me.
“Hi,” I told her, smiling behind my helmet. “I think you’re pretty.”
“Shut up, fool,” She whispered, “There’s an S-20 in the streets.”
That shut me up. I mean, one minute we were skipping through the streets all cake and ice-cream then the next we were ducking for cover. The concrete shook beneath me as whatever we were hiding from stomped down the streets, each step resounding loudly in the alley.
Dropping my voice to a whisper, I asked in my quietest voice just how big an S-20 was, exactly, because it felt like Godzilla was coming.
“It can’t hear us but keep your voice down, anyway,” Chloe said, and then I saw the shadow. The S-20 had stopped right in front of the alley we were hiding like rats in and although I couldn’t see it because of the dumpster, the tall silhouette that was cast along the damp snow-covered alleyway was very discernible.
Gulping as I peered at the enormous shadow cast by the S-20, I asked in a whisper, “Is that an Autobot or a Decepticon? ’Cause I’m on whichever side this guy’s on, believe you me.”
Then a lot of stuff happened at once. The first of which was that the dumpster we were hiding behind was ripped from the pavement with ease by the S-20. My first thought was that it didn’t look anything like any Transformer I’d ever seen before. My second thought was probably somewhere along the lines of-
"Aahh!" I screamed, scrambling backward on my hands while my butt scraped the street.
My third thought was around the same thing when the huge mech turned two gatling guns our way and started firing.
“Hide, Jericho,” Chloe shouted, leaping over me and running toward..."
Wait. We finally caught up with where I started. Whew. Finally. See? And you thought you were missing out on some big, huge, crazy part of the story, didn’t you?
I tried to skip it but you said no.
And don’t even try to pin finishing chapter 15 on me. That was all you, chief.
And the S-20 really didn’t look like a Transformer. Just saying.
Chapter 16
(Continued)