FIC: The Desert Here and the Desert Far Away
Title: The Desert Here and the Desert Far Away
Pairing/Rating: Bob/Brian, PG
Summary: "Party Poison said if something ever happened to them, we should bring her to you."
Length: ~2,800 words
For the no_tags exchange, for the prompt Bob decided to stay in Battery City the day his mates took off for the zones. Title from Leonard Cohen.
It wasn't quite dawn yet, but Bob was awake when the van pulled up. He was standing in his doorway, drinking a cup of something that aspired to be coffee, thinking about doing some work on the bike before the heat got unbearable. More unbearable.
The van bounced across the crumpled asphalt of the parking lot and lurched to a stop in front of him. The side door slid open, and Dr. Death Defying stuck his head out.
Bob dropped his coffee mug.
"Bob," the Doctor said, and that's how he knew it was going to be bad. "We gotta talk. Get in."
Bob did. Show Pony was there, too, and Cherry, and some other guy he didn't know.
"This is Motorbaby," the Doctor said, and that's when Bob saw the kid. "She's, well - it's a long story. Party Poison said if something ever happened to them, we should bring her to you."
"And something's happened?" He had a hard time getting the words out.
Dr. Death Defying told him.
"Shit." Bob scrubbed a hand over his face. He felt gut-punched and numb, but somehow entirely unsurprised. "All of them?"
"Ray was the only one we saw make it out of the building, and...yeah."
"Shit," Bob said again.
"Look, they're still after her. We shook 'em loose for now, but they'll be back. Gerard said he trusted you to take care of her. Are you going to step up or not?"
Bob looked at her, this girl he didn't know at all, wide-eyed and curly-haired, scared and hurting and wrapping it all up in anger. "Fuck, yes, of course."
"What?" the girl said, her voice thin and high.
"I'm sorry, baby," the Doctor said gently. "You gotta go with him, okay? He used to be a Killjoy, y'know - you can trust him."
"No!" She curled closer to Show Pony. "I want to stay with you guys."
"You can't," Show Pony said. "It's too dangerous."
"I don't care."
"Not just for you," Bob said. "Too dangerous for them."
It was kind of a dick move, but it was true.
She looked at Dr. Death Defying and when he didn't disagree, her chin came up. "Okay," she said.
The van pulled out again with a squeal of tires, and she watched it go, backpack on her shoulders, radio clutched in her arms like a teddy bear. "C'mon," he said, conscious of time passing. "Let's get going. What's your name?"
She shot him a suspicious sideways glance. "You can call me Motorbaby."
He nodded gravely. "Well, then, you can call me BC." It was an old nickname; there was a caveman joke in there somewhere that even he'd forgotten the details of. "C'mon," he said again, and led her inside.
The building Bob lived in used to be an auto shop. There was a partially disassembled Suzuki spread out over the oil-stained floor. He stepped over the parts to bang on the spiral staircase. "Quit pretending and come down, you nosy old bastard," he yelled to his landlord.
He popped the trunk of his car, a huge old beast of a Caddy. His emergency kit was already in there: clothes, cash, guns, a first aid kit. He put his tools in, then added all his canned food and drinking water.
There was a clatter on the stairs, the Marshal coming down. He took in the car, the girl, Bob's efficient packing, and raised his eyebrows.
"She's the daughter of an old friend," Bob said easily. "He got into a little trouble with the establishment and asked me to take care of her until things blow over."
The Marshal nodded. Bob didn't know if he'd actually ever been a real marshal, and he realized now he probably never would. "We're going up north, out to the zones. Anybody that asks, you can tell them that," he added.
"All right," the Marshal said, and started back up the stairs. "Hang on a sec, I got something for you."
Bob put one, just one, extra gas can of biodiesel in the trunk and closed it.
"Here." The Marshal handed him a case of Power Pup Chow. "I was saving it for an emergency, but what the hell, probably easier to steal more here than out in the zones, huh?"
"Yeah," Bob said, surprised and touched. "Thanks." He cleared his throat. "Um. Hotshot can have the bike. It needs a lot of work, but he's at that point where he needs to start figuring stuff out for himself. Nothing like trial and error."
"It will mean a lot to him."
"Tell Violet not to fuck around with the mix on the biodiesel converter, that's not the problem. And-" Bob stopped himself. He wasn't leaving things behind, he lived too light for that, but people, ideas, purpose - that never got easier.
He shook the Marshal's hand, and the Marshal smiled, rueful and weary like he understood.
Bob pulled the car out of the garage and stopped. He rolled down the window and let out a piercing whistle. Dixie came bounding out of alley. He leaned over to open the passenger side door so she could get in.
A tiny gasp came from the backseat.
"What is that?"
Bob looked back over his shoulder. Motorbaby was pressed back into the corner of the backseat, as far as she could go, eyes fixed on Dixie.
"This is Dixie," he said. "Don't worry, she's a good dog. She's a pet."
She transferred her appalled, baffled gaze to him, and for a second, Bob hated everything about this world, because the concept of a pet was so strange to her. "She keeps me company," he said, but her expression didn't change.
Bob sighed and pulled out of the parking lot.
BLI didn't really care about people leaving the city for the zones. Bob was hoping - praying - that they were still ahead of the game, that the dracs didn't know to look for her with him. He was still running alternate routes and back-up plans through his head when she asked, "Where are we going?"
Bob gripped the steering wheel tighter and told her what he hadn't wanted to admit to himself. "We're going to see a friend of mine."
***
Bob had known Brian for a long time, long enough to know him as Brian, not just Riot Squad.
That was back when Bob was an enforcer for one of the gangs that ran Battery City's slums and Brian was a fixer.
If you needed guns, or auto parts, or high-end contraband, Brian could get it for you. If you needed extra talent for a job, Brian could hook you up with the right person. If you needed a plan to pull off the heist of the decade, or at least the news-cycle, Brian could put it together for you.
If you needed someone hit extremely hard in the face, Bob was your man.
When Bob would think back on those days, which he tried not to do, he'd remember how he didn't feel unhappy, just flat and tired. He beat people up for a living. The gangs weren't interested in standing up to BLI anymore, if they ever had been; they only cared about keeping control of the slums. People disappeared every day. Sometime they came back, but usually that was worse. Bob's boss was pressuring him to start fighting in some of the pit shows they had out in the zones, and Bob was having a hard time remembering why that was a bad idea.
And that was when Brian sat down next to him at the bar and said, "I need a driver. You in?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Bob saw his boss come out of the back room. Bob slammed the last of his rotgut whisky back and said yes, because he didn't have the energy to say no to the pit fight again.
That was how Bob became a Killjoy.
They saved his fucking life, and not a day went by that Bob wasn't fucking grateful. Of course, he still did quit in the end.
***
Bob pulled over for the night when they found a place where the car wouldn't be seen from the road. He built a tiny fire, just enough to heat dinner.
"Open these," he said, handing Motorbaby two cans of Pup Chow.
When he turned around again, she was already digging in with a fork.
"No, Jesus!" he said, appalled. "What are you doing? That's for Dixie. We have soup." He showed her the other cans.
She frowned. "F- Fun Ghoul says this stuff is totally okay for people to eat. That those rich fuckers in Battery City put better stuff in their pet food than in the public rations."
Bob stared at her for a long moment, and then he started laughing. "Fucking Frank," he said. "God." He could only begin to imagine the kind of ridiculous, fucked up life this kid had been living with the Killjoys, and he was suddenly deeply sad that he missed it. Because it would have been amazing and hilarious and, okay, probably a little terrifying, too.
She eyed him dubiously, but surrendered the Pup Chow to Dixie in the end.
Bob kicked sand over the fire when they were done eating. "We'll sleep in the car."
"I'll stay up and keep watch," she said, chin up like she was daring him to say no. "I slept a lot today anyway."
He barely hesitated. "Fair enough. Wake me up if you get too tired."
She fiddled with her radio in the car, but there was only static on the airwaves.
"It doesn't mean anything," Bob said. "They could be lying low tonight, or out of range, or-"
"I know," she said quickly, "I know," but she didn't look at him.
Silence filled up the car; he was almost asleep when she asked in a small voice, "Why aren't you a Killjoy anymore?"
"I quit. The costumes looked stupid on me." Which was not the whole reason, of course, but was, unfortunately, not a lie.
In the dark, she snorted quietly.
***
Brian left for good about six months before Bob did.
He'd been coming and going for months, working on other things with other people, but it still felt like a sucker punch when he said, "Listen, I'm leaving the zones for a while. You guys don't need me anymore, and there's other people that do."
Gerard threw a party, of course. Music, dancing, drugs (the good kind, well, the fun kind anyway); it seemed like the entire population of the zones was there. It went on for eighteen hours, until the draculoids broke it up and everyone left in a hail of gunfire.
Bob was still stupidly, irrationally pissed.
Brian found him afterwards, sitting and smoking out by the rocks. He sat down and lit his own cigarette.
"You can't raise a family out here," Brian said finally.
"What?"
"You can't build anything out here. The zones are full of criminals and rebels and crazy musicians, but there isn't a place for, for engineers or architects or teachers or social workers."
"I don't understand," Bob said.
"I know," Brian said. He smiled, but it looked sad. "I'm tired of tearing shit down. I want to build something for a change."
Bob's chest felt tight, and the dry, acrid air was making his eyes prickle and his head ache.
And then Brian leaned in and kissed him.
Bob froze for a second, and then shoved him away. He scrambled to his feet.
"What the fuck, Brian? You're doing this now?" He was breathing too fast. "You're quitting, you're walking out on us -"
"You don't need me -"
"Fuck need!" Bob shouted. "How can you just give up on this, on us? You know what we're doing."
"What you're doing is important, it's so important, but it's not the only thing."
Bob breathed out slowly. "Maybe not to you," he said and then he walked away.
Bob would end up regretting a lot about that conversation.
Six months later, he wound up stuck in a burning car, providing cover fire while Ray pulled Mikey out and realized maybe he did understand what Brian was talking about after all.
"Hold on," Ray said and shoved his hands into Bob's armpits. "On three, okay?"
Whatever they did on three hurt an amazing amount, and Bob was happy to pass out.
Everybody wants to change the world,Gerard said, but no one wants to die.
Bob couldn't really argue with that.
***
Bob stopped the next day to trade half their canned food for water and more gas, and to get the latest gossip on where the BLI surveillance was down. He figured they were far enough north to drop off the grid and start going east and south.
He woke up in the middle of the night when Dixie started barking.
He was stretched out in the backseat. He grabbed his gun with one hand and popped the door open with the other and shot into the dark, flat on his back. The good thing about the dracs was their white uniforms; it made them easier to see in the dark.
"Start the car, kid!" he shouted.
One of them reached the side of the car and grabbed for her. Bob rolled down onto one knee and shot the drac in the head. The engine roared to life and Motorbaby threw it into reverse. She was practically standing on the gas pedal. Another drac threw itself onto the hood of the car and Bob leaned out the window to shoot it off.
They bounced hard over sand and gravel, and then the wheels found something smoother and harder.
"Brakes!" Bob yelled and reached over her shoulder to yank the wheel hard to the right. They fishtailed around to end up straight on the road.
"Drive," Bob said more calmly.
He counted heartbeats in his head until he thought they were far enough away to risk a change of drivers.
"You did good, kid," he said as he slid into the front seat.
She nodded. She was shaking a little, and he reached out to squeeze her shoulder, not sure what to do. She didn't exactly throw herself into his arms, but she slumped over a little closer to him. Dixie whined and flopped down across both their laps.
Bob hated driving at night through the zones, but they needed to keep moving. "You want to know why I really quit? They gave me a reason to live, something to live for, and I realized that if I stayed, I was going to die for it."
She made a thoughtful noise, and leaned over to rest her shoulder against his. He didn't know if she understood, but he felt better for telling her the truth.
***
Beyond the zones were the salt flats.
Bob rolled up all the windows and tied bandanas over their noses and mouths, even Dixie, who gave him a look of mingled disgust and resignation, and laid down in the backseat to sulk.
At the end of the first day, the fine, dusty salt still coated everything, including the inside of their mouths.
On the second day, Motorbaby asked, "Are we going to die out here?"
"No," Bob said automatically. He checked the gas level. "Probably not anyway."
On the third day, they saw it.
"Why is it so...shiny?"
"Because of the solar panels," Bob said, and tried not to sound too relieved.
She looked impressed; solar panels were expensive, even in Battery City.
There was a chain-link fence about a hundred yards out from the walls. Bob stopped the car, stuck his head out the window, and waved. Someone on the wall waved back. They waited.
Bob had heard a lot about this city or commune or whatever the fuck it was that Brian was doing out here. People said it had electricity and clean water and - here they always lowered their voices - gardens. They said if you came in peace, they'd take you in, but if you came to rob or hurt people, they'd come down on you like the wrath of God. The ones who went, one way or the other, didn't come back.
Bob had been afraid to try, not because of the journey, but because of that last conversation he had with Brian, because he didn't want to know how badly he'd fucked everything up. The memory of what he said still made the back of his neck hot with guilt and shame and the self-conscious knowledge that he was the one on the other side of those words now.
(The memory of the kiss he folded up and put away like something infinitely fragile, like something that would shatter if he looked at it too closely.)
Ten minutes later, the inner gate opened and two people started walking towards them. Bob and Motorbaby got out of the car slowly. Bob made sure their empty hands were visible.
"Grace," Motorbaby said suddenly. "My name is Grace." She took his hand. "I'd rather call you Bob anyway."
The shorter guy walking towards them stopped dead, and then turned around and waved at the guy on the wall again. The gate in the chain link fence creaked open, and the short guy started running.
Brian slammed into Bob at full steam, nearly knocking him down with a full body hug.
"You fucker!" Brian yelled, laughing. "I thought you were never going to come!"
"Um," Bob wheezed.
Brian let go and stepped back. He grinned at both of them, wide and dazzling. "Come on," he said. "Come see what I've built."
Pairing/Rating: Bob/Brian, PG
Summary: "Party Poison said if something ever happened to them, we should bring her to you."
Length: ~2,800 words
For the no_tags exchange, for the prompt Bob decided to stay in Battery City the day his mates took off for the zones. Title from Leonard Cohen.
It wasn't quite dawn yet, but Bob was awake when the van pulled up. He was standing in his doorway, drinking a cup of something that aspired to be coffee, thinking about doing some work on the bike before the heat got unbearable. More unbearable.
The van bounced across the crumpled asphalt of the parking lot and lurched to a stop in front of him. The side door slid open, and Dr. Death Defying stuck his head out.
Bob dropped his coffee mug.
"Bob," the Doctor said, and that's how he knew it was going to be bad. "We gotta talk. Get in."
Bob did. Show Pony was there, too, and Cherry, and some other guy he didn't know.
"This is Motorbaby," the Doctor said, and that's when Bob saw the kid. "She's, well - it's a long story. Party Poison said if something ever happened to them, we should bring her to you."
"And something's happened?" He had a hard time getting the words out.
Dr. Death Defying told him.
"Shit." Bob scrubbed a hand over his face. He felt gut-punched and numb, but somehow entirely unsurprised. "All of them?"
"Ray was the only one we saw make it out of the building, and...yeah."
"Shit," Bob said again.
"Look, they're still after her. We shook 'em loose for now, but they'll be back. Gerard said he trusted you to take care of her. Are you going to step up or not?"
Bob looked at her, this girl he didn't know at all, wide-eyed and curly-haired, scared and hurting and wrapping it all up in anger. "Fuck, yes, of course."
"What?" the girl said, her voice thin and high.
"I'm sorry, baby," the Doctor said gently. "You gotta go with him, okay? He used to be a Killjoy, y'know - you can trust him."
"No!" She curled closer to Show Pony. "I want to stay with you guys."
"You can't," Show Pony said. "It's too dangerous."
"I don't care."
"Not just for you," Bob said. "Too dangerous for them."
It was kind of a dick move, but it was true.
She looked at Dr. Death Defying and when he didn't disagree, her chin came up. "Okay," she said.
The van pulled out again with a squeal of tires, and she watched it go, backpack on her shoulders, radio clutched in her arms like a teddy bear. "C'mon," he said, conscious of time passing. "Let's get going. What's your name?"
She shot him a suspicious sideways glance. "You can call me Motorbaby."
He nodded gravely. "Well, then, you can call me BC." It was an old nickname; there was a caveman joke in there somewhere that even he'd forgotten the details of. "C'mon," he said again, and led her inside.
The building Bob lived in used to be an auto shop. There was a partially disassembled Suzuki spread out over the oil-stained floor. He stepped over the parts to bang on the spiral staircase. "Quit pretending and come down, you nosy old bastard," he yelled to his landlord.
He popped the trunk of his car, a huge old beast of a Caddy. His emergency kit was already in there: clothes, cash, guns, a first aid kit. He put his tools in, then added all his canned food and drinking water.
There was a clatter on the stairs, the Marshal coming down. He took in the car, the girl, Bob's efficient packing, and raised his eyebrows.
"She's the daughter of an old friend," Bob said easily. "He got into a little trouble with the establishment and asked me to take care of her until things blow over."
The Marshal nodded. Bob didn't know if he'd actually ever been a real marshal, and he realized now he probably never would. "We're going up north, out to the zones. Anybody that asks, you can tell them that," he added.
"All right," the Marshal said, and started back up the stairs. "Hang on a sec, I got something for you."
Bob put one, just one, extra gas can of biodiesel in the trunk and closed it.
"Here." The Marshal handed him a case of Power Pup Chow. "I was saving it for an emergency, but what the hell, probably easier to steal more here than out in the zones, huh?"
"Yeah," Bob said, surprised and touched. "Thanks." He cleared his throat. "Um. Hotshot can have the bike. It needs a lot of work, but he's at that point where he needs to start figuring stuff out for himself. Nothing like trial and error."
"It will mean a lot to him."
"Tell Violet not to fuck around with the mix on the biodiesel converter, that's not the problem. And-" Bob stopped himself. He wasn't leaving things behind, he lived too light for that, but people, ideas, purpose - that never got easier.
He shook the Marshal's hand, and the Marshal smiled, rueful and weary like he understood.
Bob pulled the car out of the garage and stopped. He rolled down the window and let out a piercing whistle. Dixie came bounding out of alley. He leaned over to open the passenger side door so she could get in.
A tiny gasp came from the backseat.
"What is that?"
Bob looked back over his shoulder. Motorbaby was pressed back into the corner of the backseat, as far as she could go, eyes fixed on Dixie.
"This is Dixie," he said. "Don't worry, she's a good dog. She's a pet."
She transferred her appalled, baffled gaze to him, and for a second, Bob hated everything about this world, because the concept of a pet was so strange to her. "She keeps me company," he said, but her expression didn't change.
Bob sighed and pulled out of the parking lot.
BLI didn't really care about people leaving the city for the zones. Bob was hoping - praying - that they were still ahead of the game, that the dracs didn't know to look for her with him. He was still running alternate routes and back-up plans through his head when she asked, "Where are we going?"
Bob gripped the steering wheel tighter and told her what he hadn't wanted to admit to himself. "We're going to see a friend of mine."
***
Bob had known Brian for a long time, long enough to know him as Brian, not just Riot Squad.
That was back when Bob was an enforcer for one of the gangs that ran Battery City's slums and Brian was a fixer.
If you needed guns, or auto parts, or high-end contraband, Brian could get it for you. If you needed extra talent for a job, Brian could hook you up with the right person. If you needed a plan to pull off the heist of the decade, or at least the news-cycle, Brian could put it together for you.
If you needed someone hit extremely hard in the face, Bob was your man.
When Bob would think back on those days, which he tried not to do, he'd remember how he didn't feel unhappy, just flat and tired. He beat people up for a living. The gangs weren't interested in standing up to BLI anymore, if they ever had been; they only cared about keeping control of the slums. People disappeared every day. Sometime they came back, but usually that was worse. Bob's boss was pressuring him to start fighting in some of the pit shows they had out in the zones, and Bob was having a hard time remembering why that was a bad idea.
And that was when Brian sat down next to him at the bar and said, "I need a driver. You in?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Bob saw his boss come out of the back room. Bob slammed the last of his rotgut whisky back and said yes, because he didn't have the energy to say no to the pit fight again.
That was how Bob became a Killjoy.
They saved his fucking life, and not a day went by that Bob wasn't fucking grateful. Of course, he still did quit in the end.
***
Bob pulled over for the night when they found a place where the car wouldn't be seen from the road. He built a tiny fire, just enough to heat dinner.
"Open these," he said, handing Motorbaby two cans of Pup Chow.
When he turned around again, she was already digging in with a fork.
"No, Jesus!" he said, appalled. "What are you doing? That's for Dixie. We have soup." He showed her the other cans.
She frowned. "F- Fun Ghoul says this stuff is totally okay for people to eat. That those rich fuckers in Battery City put better stuff in their pet food than in the public rations."
Bob stared at her for a long moment, and then he started laughing. "Fucking Frank," he said. "God." He could only begin to imagine the kind of ridiculous, fucked up life this kid had been living with the Killjoys, and he was suddenly deeply sad that he missed it. Because it would have been amazing and hilarious and, okay, probably a little terrifying, too.
She eyed him dubiously, but surrendered the Pup Chow to Dixie in the end.
Bob kicked sand over the fire when they were done eating. "We'll sleep in the car."
"I'll stay up and keep watch," she said, chin up like she was daring him to say no. "I slept a lot today anyway."
He barely hesitated. "Fair enough. Wake me up if you get too tired."
She fiddled with her radio in the car, but there was only static on the airwaves.
"It doesn't mean anything," Bob said. "They could be lying low tonight, or out of range, or-"
"I know," she said quickly, "I know," but she didn't look at him.
Silence filled up the car; he was almost asleep when she asked in a small voice, "Why aren't you a Killjoy anymore?"
"I quit. The costumes looked stupid on me." Which was not the whole reason, of course, but was, unfortunately, not a lie.
In the dark, she snorted quietly.
***
Brian left for good about six months before Bob did.
He'd been coming and going for months, working on other things with other people, but it still felt like a sucker punch when he said, "Listen, I'm leaving the zones for a while. You guys don't need me anymore, and there's other people that do."
Gerard threw a party, of course. Music, dancing, drugs (the good kind, well, the fun kind anyway); it seemed like the entire population of the zones was there. It went on for eighteen hours, until the draculoids broke it up and everyone left in a hail of gunfire.
Bob was still stupidly, irrationally pissed.
Brian found him afterwards, sitting and smoking out by the rocks. He sat down and lit his own cigarette.
"You can't raise a family out here," Brian said finally.
"What?"
"You can't build anything out here. The zones are full of criminals and rebels and crazy musicians, but there isn't a place for, for engineers or architects or teachers or social workers."
"I don't understand," Bob said.
"I know," Brian said. He smiled, but it looked sad. "I'm tired of tearing shit down. I want to build something for a change."
Bob's chest felt tight, and the dry, acrid air was making his eyes prickle and his head ache.
And then Brian leaned in and kissed him.
Bob froze for a second, and then shoved him away. He scrambled to his feet.
"What the fuck, Brian? You're doing this now?" He was breathing too fast. "You're quitting, you're walking out on us -"
"You don't need me -"
"Fuck need!" Bob shouted. "How can you just give up on this, on us? You know what we're doing."
"What you're doing is important, it's so important, but it's not the only thing."
Bob breathed out slowly. "Maybe not to you," he said and then he walked away.
Bob would end up regretting a lot about that conversation.
Six months later, he wound up stuck in a burning car, providing cover fire while Ray pulled Mikey out and realized maybe he did understand what Brian was talking about after all.
"Hold on," Ray said and shoved his hands into Bob's armpits. "On three, okay?"
Whatever they did on three hurt an amazing amount, and Bob was happy to pass out.
Everybody wants to change the world,Gerard said, but no one wants to die.
Bob couldn't really argue with that.
***
Bob stopped the next day to trade half their canned food for water and more gas, and to get the latest gossip on where the BLI surveillance was down. He figured they were far enough north to drop off the grid and start going east and south.
He woke up in the middle of the night when Dixie started barking.
He was stretched out in the backseat. He grabbed his gun with one hand and popped the door open with the other and shot into the dark, flat on his back. The good thing about the dracs was their white uniforms; it made them easier to see in the dark.
"Start the car, kid!" he shouted.
One of them reached the side of the car and grabbed for her. Bob rolled down onto one knee and shot the drac in the head. The engine roared to life and Motorbaby threw it into reverse. She was practically standing on the gas pedal. Another drac threw itself onto the hood of the car and Bob leaned out the window to shoot it off.
They bounced hard over sand and gravel, and then the wheels found something smoother and harder.
"Brakes!" Bob yelled and reached over her shoulder to yank the wheel hard to the right. They fishtailed around to end up straight on the road.
"Drive," Bob said more calmly.
He counted heartbeats in his head until he thought they were far enough away to risk a change of drivers.
"You did good, kid," he said as he slid into the front seat.
She nodded. She was shaking a little, and he reached out to squeeze her shoulder, not sure what to do. She didn't exactly throw herself into his arms, but she slumped over a little closer to him. Dixie whined and flopped down across both their laps.
Bob hated driving at night through the zones, but they needed to keep moving. "You want to know why I really quit? They gave me a reason to live, something to live for, and I realized that if I stayed, I was going to die for it."
She made a thoughtful noise, and leaned over to rest her shoulder against his. He didn't know if she understood, but he felt better for telling her the truth.
***
Beyond the zones were the salt flats.
Bob rolled up all the windows and tied bandanas over their noses and mouths, even Dixie, who gave him a look of mingled disgust and resignation, and laid down in the backseat to sulk.
At the end of the first day, the fine, dusty salt still coated everything, including the inside of their mouths.
On the second day, Motorbaby asked, "Are we going to die out here?"
"No," Bob said automatically. He checked the gas level. "Probably not anyway."
On the third day, they saw it.
"Why is it so...shiny?"
"Because of the solar panels," Bob said, and tried not to sound too relieved.
She looked impressed; solar panels were expensive, even in Battery City.
There was a chain-link fence about a hundred yards out from the walls. Bob stopped the car, stuck his head out the window, and waved. Someone on the wall waved back. They waited.
Bob had heard a lot about this city or commune or whatever the fuck it was that Brian was doing out here. People said it had electricity and clean water and - here they always lowered their voices - gardens. They said if you came in peace, they'd take you in, but if you came to rob or hurt people, they'd come down on you like the wrath of God. The ones who went, one way or the other, didn't come back.
Bob had been afraid to try, not because of the journey, but because of that last conversation he had with Brian, because he didn't want to know how badly he'd fucked everything up. The memory of what he said still made the back of his neck hot with guilt and shame and the self-conscious knowledge that he was the one on the other side of those words now.
(The memory of the kiss he folded up and put away like something infinitely fragile, like something that would shatter if he looked at it too closely.)
Ten minutes later, the inner gate opened and two people started walking towards them. Bob and Motorbaby got out of the car slowly. Bob made sure their empty hands were visible.
"Grace," Motorbaby said suddenly. "My name is Grace." She took his hand. "I'd rather call you Bob anyway."
The shorter guy walking towards them stopped dead, and then turned around and waved at the guy on the wall again. The gate in the chain link fence creaked open, and the short guy started running.
Brian slammed into Bob at full steam, nearly knocking him down with a full body hug.
"You fucker!" Brian yelled, laughing. "I thought you were never going to come!"
"Um," Bob wheezed.
Brian let go and stepped back. He grinned at both of them, wide and dazzling. "Come on," he said. "Come see what I've built."