FLUX

Chapter 4: Fill up

Alex awoke to a scruffy man-face thirty centimeters from her face. She jumped.

"Easy now, sweet cheeks, I'm not gonna getcha," Jack said, offering her a hand. "You didn't need to stay out here all night. I was done in five minutes."

Alex rolled her eyes. "I bet you were," she said, pushing his hand aside and standing up on her own. She stretched out her arms and arched her back. Alex couldn't remember the last time she'd slept in a bed. Jack took this time to look her up and down.

"Like what you see?" she scoffed and put on her jacket.

"Not bad," he commented, grinning. "Got me goin' last night."

"That wasn't a real question," she said disgusted. Alex smacked him soundly on his wounded shoulder

Jack winced. "Sounded like one," he grumbled.

She rolled up her blanket and tied it to her pack. "Are you ready to go?" she asked.

"Yep."

They took turns pushing the heavy motorcycle as the sun rose behind the clouds at their backs. Alex had wrapped her black scarf around her neck and put on her protective sunglasses. Jack walked with the motorcycle helmet on. Each made sure no skin was exposed to the deadly solar radiation. After an hour, they reached what looked to be an abandoned gas station.

Jack reached under the gas pump, hit a few switches, and then punched a button that read "Regular".

"Is the surface always so empty?" Alex asked, looking through the dirty glass windows of an old "Food Mart".

"Yes, there are just a ton of people walking around in the sun, asking to be shot at, and getting sun poisoning." Jack shook his head. "You got a lot to learn about the surface, honey bun."

Alex put her hands on her hips. "My name's Alex. A. L. E. X." she spelled. "Can you say it with me?"

"Give me the file and I won't have to call you anything."

"So you're just going to annoy me enough until I just give you the file?"

"That's the plan." Jack gave her a thumbs up just as the nozzle clicked full. "Of course, that is, if you do have the file."

Alex ignored him. She wiped the dirty window and peered through. "Where are all the mutated humans? I thought they ruled the surface of the Earth? People are always talking about the reckless things they're up to."

"The mutants aren't doing the reckless stuff. The mutants are spread out in the last livable places on the surface. They're mostly harmless. They were just the poor humans that got left behind and changed by the solar radiation. They probably aren't much different from you or me. The news pumps you guys up to make people too afraid to go come up here." Jack pushed the bike up next to her. "Besides, you won't encounter any people over here. It's too hilly, too many shadows for the solar towers to be effective here, more wind turbines instead, and those things are too huge to mess with. Most of the normal people on the surface work around the towers. You hybrids pay a pretty penny to protect your energy farms."

Alex waved her hand, having enough of the history lesson. "I think there might be some stuff in there," she said, her nose pressed to the window.

Jack set to making a fireball, but Alex put a hand on his before he could release it. A subtle look of surprise crept on to his face at her gentle touch, which he quickly subdued. Alex flicked out her lock pick and worked at the door. In under ten seconds, the door swung open.

"Now that's hot," Jack said, following her inside.

The shelves stood mostly empty except for a few choice pieces of wrapped sugar monstrosities.

"What's a Twinkie?" Alex asked holding up a particular piece of wrapped goodie.

"I'm not sure, it's probably too old to eat anyway," Jack said, dusting off an old white motorcycle helmet. He held it out to Alex. "Tired of getting bugs in your teeth?"

Alex looked at it ruefully. Jack shook it a little as if it were a piece of candy in front of a small child. "Fine," she said and swiped it from him.

Red and blue lights reflected through the dirty glass windows. Alex saw a caravan of mechanical black and white cars racing towards them. "How'd they find us? And how are they powering those things?" she asked, shielding her eyes from the lights.

"I'm sure they found us using thermal imaging satellites. They can use them on the surface to locate people sometimes if the local magnetic poles are just right. And those are cars powered by gas." He gestured towards the door. "Let's go."

Before the cars reached the station, they both jumped back on the motorcycle and zipped down the road. Alex slammed the stale, old helmet on her head. She watched the cars pull into the station as they rode away.

Alex and Jack rode down the broken sun-greyed pavement road through the rocky mountainous desert until the slope became more gradual and eventually stopped all together. The giant white wind turbines grew rare and were replaced by great black twisted columns, spaced evenly apart in a grid pattern covering the desert floor before them.

At the edge of the border, Alex slapped Jack's shoulder to get his attention. Jack stopped the bike, annoyed at the distraction. He flipped up the visor on his helmet. "What is it now? Do you have to pee again?"

"What are those?" she asked through the flipped up visor of her new beat up motorcycle helmet.

A look of wonder filled her eyes, causing Jack to smile and curb his irritation. "They're solar towers, but I think they look like a bunch of sundials."

"Like what?"

"It's an ancient time keeping device that uses the sun like a clock to tell time."

Alex pulled the jacket of her sleeve back, revealing her own wrist watch. She pointed to a panel of a nearby tower. "So, they're just solar panels? Why are they shaped like that?"

"Beats me, sweetheart. I have been back and forth across this continent for a decade. Every time I come across a bright flat space they are filled with these towers. It might have something to do with how the sun moves across the sky."

"Yeah, but the sun is covered by clouds all the time, it's pretty much the same brightness all day." She looked out across the desert. "It makes the desert look so dark. Do you think they could be absorbing harmful radiation from the sun, like a purification system?"

"I don't think you hybrids would do anything to clean up the surface. If it was a radiation filter, it would have to be between us and the sun, not here on the ground."

"Please don't group me with all the hybrids in the world," she said harshly. "Didn't you say that people are out here protecting these things?"

"Yeah, so we shouldn't be sticking around. Now, if you're finished with the tour, I want to put as much distance between us and them as possible."

She nodded and flipped her visor back down. The motorcycle buzzed its way down the road, leaving only a dusty trail looming over the ominous towers.