The makeshift train-gon, that's the name I've decided for this train-wagon hybrid monstrosity, finally came to a stop at the end of the tracks. The tunnel had collapsed before us, just a stone's throw away from the old Roagnark underground train station, which according to my grandchildren, had been defunct since the war started. Black rings around the ceiling showed the explosion used to close off the path, an intentional blockade made by The Forum inside.

I dismounted from the handcar just as the rebels got out of their wagons and my own party climbed out of the cart behind, stretching their aching backs as they did so.

Jason approached me first, asking, “Where are we?”

“Roagnark,” I replied.

“Impossible,” he looked to his watch. “We're six hours ahead of schedule,” he looked at me with shifted eyes.

A time traveller came while everyone was sleeping, put the train-gon into a time bubble, and zoomed us here at twice the speed of time. Was what I wanted to say. It would have been an infinitely more interesting story than me, raising my prosthetic and saying, “Robot arm. Super fast. Doesn't get tired.” I realized how badly I wanted to make a masturbation joke with those lines.

“Huh...” He stepped towards me, face coming closer than I was comfortable with. His stare was intense, like that down a barrel of a gun. “Guess you are a cyborg,” he said the word with the same underlying hatred as a racist would say nigger, but never admitting that they were racists. “We'll start digging a way through. Once that's done, you're going in and do what we promised.”

“And what's to stop me from running away once I'm inside?”

I already knew the answer, even before he looked over to my grandchildren. A part of me was just optimistically hopeful that he'd have forgotten. “So long as you do this for us. Nothing will happen to them. I guarantee it.”

I wondered if I punched him with my metal arm, would his head snap off. My first violent thought in over a decade was that of murder. “And how am I supposed to get in?” I asked instead.

From his coat pocket, he took out a metal orb no bigger than an apple, with a base that was grounded and buffed flat. “There's a sensor wall surrounding the entire developed border of the city. There's an old border right at the entrance of this old train station. Just go up there, place this orb down at the centre of the entrance, and it'll allow us a two meters gap to move in from. But it has to be placed from the other side for it to work.”

“That's it?” I asked, suspicious of how easy the job seemed.

“That's it,” he replied. “But of course, I told your grandchildren something different. That the machine needs to be placed near to the generators in the middle district of the sector. That should give you plenty of time to find us the warehouse with the E.M.P bomb.”

I took the device from him. It made a low humming noise, and I could see my hand vibrating slightly from whatever machinery that was working within it. I wondered how it was powered, and for how long it would last. Perhaps it was one of those perpetual motion devices.

“Me and my men are going to dig you a path. Shouldn't take long.” He waved the rebels over. A pair of them pulled out a jackhammer-like machine from the wagon, though with infinitely more complex moving parts, wiring strung in and out like veins. “You might want to spend what time you have left with your family.”

His back turned to me as he walked away towards his men. I stared as he turned out of sight and behind the wagon, wary of how nice he acted to me with his last sentence, despite the threat of having hostages and possible murder of my family line.

Lindsey came up to me. Unlike the siblings who stood, relatively relaxed, talking amongst themselves behind, she had her hand firmly on the grip of her rifle. Her tension though, was expected, seeing as she was the only other person there who knew what Jason wanted me to do.

She asked, “What did he say?” I showed her the device, to which she immediately identified it as a, “Shield Damper. You're going to going put a hole through the sensory fields?”

“That's the plan.”

“But he told us that...” she was probably going to repeat the fake plan that the Colonel had provided. “Of course. So that you could find the bomb.”

“Yes,” I reaffirmed her with an extra nod. “Should I just do it? He said it's just an E.M.P bomb. No casualties.”

“I don't know,” she replied honestly. I could see her brows scrunching in thought as she ran through the scenario. “Personally, I won't trust anything that Jason says. For all we know, it's some sort of nuke instead.”

I let out a sigh loud enough that my grandchildren turned to look. I smiled at them, to which John waved back and Amelia stuck her tongue out. Then the two parted to their own activities. I said to Lindsey, “I'm going to go in there. See things for myself. But if things even starts to look like it'll go south, get those two out.”

“What about you?”

“Once I'm in there,” I explained, keeping the Shield Damper into my coat pocket. “I can hook myself up to the old Cryo-Tubes, no problem. And as long as I don't drop this Shield Damper thing down at the border, Jason and his men can't get to me. But you guys...”

“Oh...” she said as she understood. She looked left and right, making sure that the rebels weren't staring, and from her pants' back pocket, took out a black walkie-talkie. “Take this with you. It doesn't have much battery left. Batteries are hard to come by these days. But it should last you a few hours. Radio back if you think something might go wrong.”

Without hesitation, I took the device from her. My heart was starting to drum as I thought about all the dangers that could happen to these people I leave behind. “I'm sorry for dragging you all into this.”

“I told you already. This is me doing this, for my brother. Not for you,” she said coldly. Though I could not get angry at her lack of emotion. She patted me on my shoulder and turned away and back to the cart where Amelia was unpacking the rest of their gear.

John waved to me from the wall of the cave where he leaned alone. I went to him, keeping the walkie in my already brimming pockets of tools and gadgets.

“What's up?” I asked, once we were within talking distance.

He did not meet my eyes, but instead, stared down at the tip of his boots. “That girl, Lindsey, do you know her well?”

“Not really. She's Borris's sister and she wants to help finish what her brother started.”

“Yes, I know that,” he replied, a slight frustration in his voice. “But anything else? Where's she from? Hobbies?”

“John, I just met her yesterday. I don't know all these–” and my mind wrapped itself around one word. “Wait, hobbies?” I examined his face which was blushing uncharacteristically. “Oh my lords, you have a crush on her?”

He jumped away from the wall at my exclamation, pulling me in with an arm around my shoulder. Head-to-head, he whispered. “Do not tell Milly, okay? I will never hear the end of it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” His calm demeanour faded as he got flustered. It seemed to me that like his sister, he too lacked certain skills in the emotional department. “She's very protective. The last girl I asked out she stalked us on our date and hooked her up to a polygraph machine.”

“Where did she get a polygraph machine in a world like this?”

“I don't know! Apparently something great-grand uncle Oliver passed down to mom. Point is, don't tell Milly.”

“But I wasn't asking 'why Amelia?', I was asking 'why Lindsey?',” I corrected him.

“Oh,” he stated, surprised. “Well how do I put this? She seems nice. We had a little chat before we got on the cart and we really hit it off. And she didn't try to shoot us, which is nice in a girl.”

“She didn't try to shoot you?” I asked, my tone slightly more condescending than I hoped it. “That's your reason for liking her?”

“Look Milton, there's not a lot of good people around the world these day,” he started, his tone suddenly solemn. “There's a lot of ravagers and hunters around who wouldn't blink an eye at killing two travellers like us. There's even less room for any romantic attraction. It's very rare to find someone you're both attracted to and doesn't want to shoot you between the eyes.”

“Then go for it!” I encouraged, slapping him a little too hard on the back as he squirmed in pain. “Sorry. But really, go for it. Not now though. After all this is over. When you guys are all back somewhere safe.”

“How? If you haven't noticed though, our lives aren't exactly stable enough to settle down.” I could see the hesitation in his eyes. The uncertainty. I had felt the same way right before I asked Joan to marry me, though under drastically different situations and reasons. “You know what, forget I said anything. It's a stupid idea anyway.”

“John,” I grabbed his arm before he could leave, forcing him to halt and stay. “If there's one thing I've learned in the past fifty odd years, is that life is short. And fleeting. And I mean, really fleeting. I've never got the chance to spend my golden years with your grandmother like I wanted to. I wasn't there for your mother's wedding, not to mentioned all the missed birthdays.”

John stopped struggling, his embarrassment and frustration fading as I spoke.

I continued, “Life is never stable. We have wars and famine and disease and death. Not to mention the great grim reaper of time always on our tail. We blink once and decades could fly past without us even flinching. Chances coming and going, fading with each day.” I took his hands in mine, as my parents did over 60 years ago when I asked them for the same advice about Joan. But this time, with my own experience added to pass down. “Bad things will always happen. But chances for good comes ever so rarely. Grab them. Don't let go. Ride the wave. If better things come, good for you. If it ends, hold on to those happy days and drown your memories in them.”

I did not realized how much I needed it, but apparently John did. Just like his namesake, he saw right through me, and embraced me with a hug.

“Hold onto them,” I choked out. “Hold onto those happy days and never let go.”