Nine: Tail-End Charlie

When it was the middle of the afternoon, I saw a small pile-up in the middle of the highway. This was an honest-to-goodness accident, and I saw two of the cars actually flipped over.

Out of some morbid curiosity, I started inspecting the cars. The two cars flipped over looked really badly damaged. By the accident, I mean.

I touched the bottom of the cars, and they were more-or-less intact. This one was curiously a rounded kind, not like the others - those had the same general lines, and this one was a bit different. I’ve seen a few of these in the ruins that I’ve passed by, and I had that feeling of déjà vu again, this time stronger. As I walked around the vehicle, I herd something go “ping.”

Maybe I dislodged something.

I looked underneath, and I saw something shiny on the concrete. I stretched and picked it off the floor. What it turned out to be was a circular metal thing that had what looked like chrome chevrons inside a chrome circle.

It must have fallen from the hood of the overturned car, and, as I held it, the little ornament was so very familiar. I didn’t know why, but the feeling persisted.

As I pedaled, I saw something moving, glinting in the distance. Using my binoculars, I saw it was my pursuers.

No wonder they got ahead of me. Obviously, they got a couple of the little utility trucks from the ship’s hold working again, and though only designed to move stuff around in the cargo hold, apparently they were able to repurpose them as pursuit vehicles. Not very good pursuit vehicles, though, since both of the trucks were moving at a slow twenty or twenty-five miles per hour.

That was still faster than me, though, so that’s how they were able to catch up and actually get past me. That was fine, I thought, so long as they don’t realize that they’re now ahead of me. I was playing tail-end Charlie now.

All throughout the rest of the day, I kept a close watch on them with my binoculars, noting that they were still moving forward, and still ahead of me. But at around 4PM, or what I thought of as 4PM, I saw them turn onto another wide highway, as the bulk of the ruined cars were flowing in that direction.

Recalling the maps I’ve seen, my intention was to keep going straight.

In an hour, I had reached the point where they turned off, and in yet another hour, I was what I now knew was the “space center.”

I pulled up to the side of a big concrete sign. Pulling away the weeds and the vines covering it, I confirmed that I was now at my goal. I knew where I was.

I couldn’t help it. I started to cry.

Swiping at my tears, I got back on my bike and proceeded into the ruined center.