Truck Drivin’ Hero Page 17

  “What makes you think I was covering for you?” Hero asked.

  “Because you didn’t mention the wedding to Zorflox until after I kissed her.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, I'm not jealous, don't worry. And I wanted to say thank you for covering for me, too.”

  “What am I covering for?” Apple asked. She smiled, though. She already knew, and was glad that Hero had figured it out.

  “You’ve heard the whole story about our multi-day history with Zorflox. You know that he couldn’t tell me from another human when we were at the diner yesterday, even though he was two feet away from me. You know that he scanned my information into the system a few days ago. Speedy’s too, but-”

  “But she probably used a fake ID. And she’s probably even using a different one now than she was a few days ago,” Apple said.

  “Right. So you, Speedy, and Sunshine are all complete mysteries to him.”

  “But he knows your name. He called you 'Mr. Reynolds' over and over again.”

  “And just now, when you called me 'Mr. Reynolds,' I knew you had picked up on that. You’re a very clever girl,” Hero said.

  Apple sighed. “That’s what they tell me.” There was a pause. “So what are you going to do now?”

  Hero shrugged. “As you’ve already figured out, I can’t go back to my auto repair shop in Iowa. Not after the yarn I just spun for the Sheriff back there.”

  “You just ruined your life, just so you could mislead the alien chasing us. You seem awfully calm about that,” Apple said.

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, and not a second before,” Hero said. He reached down and grabbed the Atlas. “I want you to try to figure out where we are, how far we are from I-80, and whether it makes sense to get back on there.”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” she said. She opened the Atlas and began flipping through pages.

  “You can read one of those, can’t you?” Hero asked.

  Apple shrugged. “I’ve never had to, but I’m a pretty clever girl. Or so certain people say.” She buried her face in the map book, turning all her attention to it.

  “Hey, Francheska,” Hero said. Apple looked up. “I didn’t say this before, but I’m really glad you came. You’re the quickest learner I’ve ever met. Not only did you save our asses back there, but you’ve been great company.”

  “Call me Apple,” she said with a grin.

  In five minutes, the Mustang was ready to roll again. Hero had them move to I-70 and drive west to the next exit, just to get them out of the way of impending doom should Zorflox recover quickly. As soon as they were back on the highway, Apple pinpointed their location. They stopped for fuel and gathered around the Mustang.

  “Do you guys want the good news or the bad news first?” Apple asked.

  “Before anyone answers, I’m going to add that I also have bad news,” Hero said.

  Speedy bit her lip. Sunshine sighed and said, “Apple likes dessert first, so I’ll take Apple’s good news.”

  “The good news is that we’re on I-70,” she said. They all looked at her with “no duh” looks, and she continued. “I-70 heads straight into Colorado. It’s practically a straight shot to Boulder from here.”

  “Okay, that’s good news, yeah. What’s your bad news?” Hero asked.

  “The bad news is that we’re pretty drastically behind schedule. As you can see, we’re here in Terre Haute, Indiana. I don’t have Google Maps or anything due to the solar storm, but by my calculations, we’re still about sixteen hours of driving from Boulder.”

  Hero looked at his watch. It said it was a little before noon. “Well that’s fine,” Sunshine said, beating him to the punch. “We have six hours of driving left today, and another ten tomorrow.”

  Apple shook her head. “You forgot that we crossed from Ohio into Indiana. It’s actually almost one o’clock, and we’ll lose another hour before hitting Colorado tomorrow.”

  Hero rubbed his temple. “Of course. How could I forget?”

  “Are we going to make it?” Speedy asked. Hero didn’t answer, and he didn’t stop rubbing his temples. He put his back to the side of the Mustang and slid down, sitting on the ground when he stopped. His head was in his hands. “Well, that can’t be good.” Speedy added.

  “What’s your bad news?” Sunshine asked.

  “I just got off the radio with your boss, Max. They said that the solar storm has been decreasing in intensity. They didn’t have it on a schedule, but they were hoping it would last three full days.”

  There were a few moments of silence. “And it’s not going to,” Sunshine said. It wasn’t a question.

  Hero shook his head. “The solar storm peaked two hours ago, or 1000 hours Eastern time. That’s thirty hours from when it started. Another thirty hours from then is 1600 hours Eastern time, or 1400 hours Mountain time.” He looked up at the three women who now towered over him. “Our already tight schedule just got four hours shaved off of it.”

  They all let that sit in for a moment. “So what do we do?” Speedy asked.

  “I’m thinking,” Hero said.

  “We can’t just give up,” Sunshine said.

  Hero didn’t respond right away. Apple cleared her throat. “Just a few minutes ago, when I thought we were in danger, a wise man answered me when I asked what we should do.” Hero looked up at her. “He said we should gun it. I think that’s still pretty solid advice.”

  Hero chuckled. “It was a lot easier a few minutes ago. Our enemy was just one alien, not time itself.” They stood around, silent for a few more moments. “Either way, we’re taking our lunch on the road. Grab whatever snacks you need, use the head, and meet back here.”

  Zorflox woke up with a chest full of pain. The aliens didn’t respire like humans did, but they did have a similar circulatory system, and he thought he could feel some damage to that. He knew he’d have to go to an alien recovery station due to his dermal injuries, anyway. What was one more thing?

  He crawled over to where the robot was laying, inspecting it closely before realizing it was a goner. Poor robot, he thought. It had done the right thing by coming to assist him, and now it was dead.

  Could he really blame Bill Reynolds for his actions, though? He knew more about the reproductive habits of humans than most of his species. He had seen westerns with romantic subplots. In High Noon, for instance, the wife of Marshall Kane does everything she can to get them to leave town and start a new life before they are killed. Was that somehow different than Bill’s situation?

  The betrayal of being shot hurt, both physically and emotionally. Bill could not have known about the Kevlar vest, and therefore had meant to kill him. However, if Zorflox ever wanted to visit Texas, to live among the humans, he’d have to learn to deal with their transgressions, their petty acts of rebellion, especially when their lives or way of life was threatened.

  He opened up the case containing JR’s memory block. It was more like an airplane’s black box than the rest of the computers that the aliens used. If anything, this was what allowed JR to function through the storm, even if it was at a reduced capacity. He wondered if there was anything that he would need to alter before turning it in to his superiors, but decided that there was nothing more damning than what they already knew. They might get a recording of this encounter, or they might not. JR didn’t seem to have any memory of yesterday when he was functioning last night.

  A car came past, and thankfully, it stopped when it saw the overturned police car. “Hello? Officer? Are you down there?” a man called down to him.

  “Yes. Please come assist me,” the alien said.

  “Oh, hey, it’s one of you. I’ll go to the police station and tell them you’re here,” he said. He began to walk back to his car.

  “Stop right there,” Zorflox called out. He tried to use his command voice, but it came out weakly. “I require immediate assistance.”

  “Hey, look. Officer, I’ve got my kids with me, and-”

  “It is Sherif
f. I am a Sheriff. Now, you will render me aid or I will have you sent to a re-education camp,” Zorflox said, getting some of that old energy back.

  The man was clearly terrified. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, Sheriff. What do you need?”

  “You will assist me to your car, and then you will deliver me to the nearest police station.”

  “Sure. Just, no more talk of camps,” the man said. Zorflox stayed silent about that. The man came down the gentle embankment and stood over him. “Jesus, what happened to you?”

  “I was shot,” the Grey said.

  “In the face? And I didn’t think you guys bled white.”

  Zorflox chirped a dozen curse words at the man in his own language before calming down. “This is SPF 80. I’m wearing it to protect myself against the sun’s radiation.”

  The man chuckled nervously. “Yeah, it’s a real killer, that sun of ours.” He reached down and wrapped an arm around Zorflox, helping him to his feet. Zorflox managed to get his feet underneath himself and walk, albeit stiffly. The man bore most of his weight, grunting as he helped him up the hill. Zorflox was glad that the man was willing to help. He didn’t want to have to send a father to the camps.

  When they reached the top of the embankment and got onto the road, three things happened. One, Zorflox saw that the man’s car was an ancient station wagon, which even had wood paneling. Two, the murderous rays of the sun’s light began attacking him again, disorienting him. Three, the occupant of the car in front of him began to scream. The screaming didn’t stop until the car door opened.

  “What are you doing with that thing?” a woman asked. He assumed it was the man’s wife.

  “Cool!” a juvenile human in the back cried out.

  Zorflox couldn’t care about any of this. He just wanted to get out of the sun. “Tell her to get out of the car so I can get in,” he said.

  “Um, sweetheart, would you mind getting in the back so that the Sheriff can have your seat? He’s been shot and he needs to go to the police station right away,” the man said.

  “So call an ambulance, or a flying saucer, or whatever! I am not-”

  “Deborah! Get out of the car and into the back seat,” the man said, raising his voice significantly before lowering it again. “We wouldn’t want to make the Sheriff here wait.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, which Zorflox attributed to squinting because of the sun. Then she did what she was told. Zorflox saw that the two juveniles were in car seats in the back, which meant she had to squeeze past the smaller of the two to sit between them, crammed into a seat between the two. Zorflox would have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t been so rude and if the sun weren’t beating down on him.

  The man helped him into the seat, and the Grey collapsed into it. Finally somewhat out of the sun’s direct path, he began to think about what he would do. First, he would have the police station tow his car off the road. He had no more use for it, so he’d probably just leave it here. Then, he’d rest until nightfall, preferably in a basement or a jail cell with no windows. Then he’d call Headquarters and ask for extraction. He’d tell them the truth, up until JR got shot. Then, he’d omit the details where Bill told him where he and his harem were going. He didn’t owe Bill anything, especially not after getting shot, but the human had spoken to him like a fellow human, something no other human ever had. He was rooting for Bill’s happiness.

  Somehow, he’d put his life back together, and bringing Bill to justice for his crimes wouldn’t be part of that. Zorflox closed his eyes. Despite Bill’s actions, Zorflox knew he'd still make it to Texas someday.

  Hero arrived back at the Mustang first. He hadn’t given anyone a time limit, but he assumed that they all knew to hurry. They all came back from the gas station in a group, chatting and giggling among themselves like they weren’t under a death sentence.

  Sunshine and Speedy threw their snacks in the back seat while Apple hung onto her bag. “Are we all ready?”

  “I assume you’ve thought of something,” Apple said.

  “Not really,” he said with a shrug. “You said it earlier. We gun it and see how far we can get. It’s still just as important that we get off the road before sundown. However, we’re not stopping right at six o’clock PM. I’ve radioed your boss and asked them to let us know when the solar radiation is weak enough that the ground-based sensors start functioning again. We’ll take that time, subtract fifteen minutes, and that’ll be our stopping point in whatever time zone we’re in.”

  Sunshine nodded. “That’ll buy us a couple hours, sure. What about the rest of the time?”

  “I know you’re not going to like this, but we leave before sunrise.”

  “Won’t they be able to track us? Won’t they immediately know we have a fusion reactor?” Speedy asked.

  Hero looked defeated. “We don’t have much of a choice, assuming that thing back there actually is putting out radiation. If we stop at any point after sundown, they’ll know exactly where we stopped. However, if we are driving during sunrise, we’ll suddenly disappear from their radar. And I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you that if the ground-based sensors start working before we arrive in Colorado, we can’t drive the truck into their base.”

  Sunshine nodded. “It would be like a trail that leads directly to them.”

  “We didn’t bring any explosives, unfortunately. If we do run out of time, our best bet would be to leave the entire trailer on the side of the road. At that point, either Sunshine or your boss Maxwell would be forced to kill me, per the terms of our contract.”

  Sunshine rolled her eyes, but Hero knew that even if Sunshine didn’t pull the trigger, he’d be as good as dead. It had been a long shot for the solar storm to last long enough to complete the mission, but the eventual blame would land squarely on his shoulders.

  “So, we get as far as we can tonight. We plot how long it’ll take us to get the rest of the way, add thirty minutes to be on the safe side, decide what time we need to leave, and haul ass. It’s as simple as that, folks. Any questions?”

  “I’m beginning to regret taking that long lunch break yesterday,” Apple said.

  “That’s not a question, Apple. And there’s no use regretting the past. I had a good time. We all did. Just look at the present and let the future sort itself out,” Hero said, though if he were being honest with himself, he was also regretting taking such a long lunch. “That’s it, then? We’re all set. Saddle up and let’s hit the road.”

  Speedy and Sunshine jumped in the Mustang, visibly looking relieved compared to how they had looked either. Even Apple seemed to have a little faith in him, which was good. Now, all he needed was a little faith in himself.

  20

  The next few hours were uneventful, as the highway was practically empty. The solar storm was still outputting a sizable percentage of its peak, and Hero knew that the police were too overwhelmed to make an example over two vehicles traveling over the speed limit. Still, Hero was constantly looking in his side mirror, thinking that a police officer or the ghost of Zorflox would make an appearance at any moment.

  “I should have done this at the gas station, but I got some kind of sticky oil on me when you shot that robot. It’s driving me crazy. Do you mind if I change my shirt?” Apple asked a couple of hours in.

  “I don’t mind at all,” Hero said. Apple grinned and reached back, rummaging through the bag that Hero thought was just full of snacks. “In fact, you can go back in the sleeper if you need some privacy.”

  She shrugged as she brought her new shirt back up. “It’s fine with me,” she said. She grabbed her pink t-shirt by the bottom and pulled upward. Hero struggled to keep his attention on the road, but he stared for a couple seconds while her shirt was blocking her face. Her breasts were full and spilled a little over the top of her black, lacy bra. Her abs were toned, and down by her yoga pants, Hero could see the edge of her matching black panties. Against her pale skin, the black underwear set looked amazing. It was everything he had imag
ined over the last couple days.

  As quickly as the peep show started, it was over. Hero managed to look away before he got caught, or so he hoped. Apple threw the dirty shirt in her bag and put the other one on over her head. “Shoot,” she said.

  Hero looked over. “What?”

  She turned toward him. “I think I bought the wrong size.”

  He took another look. The pink exercise shirt was definitely too tight on her, squeezing her torso. As bad as that was, the shirt exposed her midriff. It was little more than a sports bra on her. The top of her black bra poked out of the neckline of the shirt, and he could see the rest of the bra under the fabric.

  He shook his head. “Yeah, that’s a shame.”

  “Guess it’s too late to return it, huh?” He looked over at her, incredulous. “I’m kidding!”

  In that hot pink shirt and yoga pants combo, Hero didn’t think she could have put on anything sexier if she tried. He had seen glimmers of her body before, but he never had this complete a picture. His desire for her had just been kicked up several notches.

  Of course, Hero thought to himself. These were no accidents. Changing her shirt in front of him, buying the shirt too small, showing it off to him. He had laid out their plan and she knew how little chance they had of success. She thought tonight was her last night on Earth, and she was going to try her best to seduce him.

  He looked over at her again, about to say something. She was bent over her notebook, writing something furiously. That shirt, despite being too tight, showed off her cleavage just fine. He looked back at the road. Let her try her schoolgirl antics on me, Hero thought. I can resist them, and I can enjoy the show for the next few hours. I can even play back.

  “I think that outfit looks great, actually,” Hero said.

  “Really!?” Apple said. Her expression lit up the entire cab of the truck.

  “Yeah. Are you planning on going to the gym when we stop tonight? It’ll be great for that.”

  She pouted, then turned back to her notebook. Hero almost felt bad for ribbing her like that, but he needed to break the tension somehow.