Chapter 6

“So you really could just leave anytime you wanted”? Jennifer commented as the trio made their way through the uncomfortably cramped halls of a cave they all agreed they’d had enough of.

“Yep, I don’t think there’s really a way to actually contain me.” Enoch replied in his previously monotone voice. He’d been this way ever since he’d agreed to go with them, only ever giving short replies that dismissed any further attempt at conversation. Deep down Jennifer must have known that this was Enoch’s way of keeping his emotions in check and avoiding charring everyone within a fifty-foot radius of himself, but on the surface it bugged her, a lot.

Back home Jennifer had experienced a game the other kids called, ‘code 555,’ only Jennifer wasn’t aware that it was a game. See, the other kids had been systematically tracked down by a very lonely Jennifer who just wanted someone to play with and now the kids seemed to be stuck with her as her tracking skills far outweighed their hiding skills. So, to deal with the nuisance of Jennifer, they created a game. The game worked like this; first they told Jennifer that their conversations were top secret and no one else, especially adults, can know about it, from there they created a code called, code 555, which they told Jennifer meant that an adult was nearby and they all needed to become quiet to avoid the adults hearing their secrets, and finally they admitted to Jennifer that they knew what subjects were safe to discuss with adults around and, since she didn’t, she would have to be quiet even if they kept talking. This game ensures that anytime Jennifer began talking too much in the group or taking over the conversation or just generally saying anything they didn’t like one of the children would shout, ‘code 555’ and Jennifer, loyal to her ‘friends’ would get quiet to protect their secrets. It wasn’t until the tenth or so time that Jennifer realized there hadn’t once been an adult nearby when code 555 was declared. The truth hurt and, while she tried to make herself believe otherwise, the truth eventually came crashing down and Jennifer learned an important lesson, people lie.

All that being said it also lead to a pet peeve Jennifer had beyond all others, being ignored. And this wasn’t just limited to the childish notion of ignoring someone, but all forms of ignoring, whether it be not listening, or not paying attention, talking over her, or simply not appearing engaged when she was speaking. Enoch was unknowingly pushing all the wrong buttons. James, not exactly unobservant, noticed Jennifer’s rising anger and, wanting to not be charred just as much as Enoch wished to not do the charring, decided he better step in.

“Jennifer tell me again about that strange cobbler from your city! What was his name again…? Burr- something”? James lead and Jennifer immediately latched onto the bait,

“Burleson! I hated that guy! Weirdest fellow you’ll ever meet, he was this short roundish fellow with curly brown hair on the sides on his head and nothin on the top. He wore these really tiny little glasses that looked absolutely ridiculous on his sphere of a head! He was one of the only guys in the city who wasn’t married and heaven knows that wasn’t a shock to anyone…” She caught herself for a second and began to slow down her speech a bit and not be AS judgmental, “Not that looks are everything of course, and he did have a certain good natured charm about him about his particularly odd appearance, always pointing out that he’d be in trouble if the city had a dough shortage as they’d come after him first… Whatever the hell dough is…” Jennifer shrugged as she watched James who was making a clear and conscience effort to meet her eyes throughout the whole story, not realizing he may be laying it on a bit thick. If he’d had any higher of an opinion on Jennifer’s intelligence he would’ve realized she figured out exactly what he was doing and why; and now it serving the opposite of its intended purpose. But Jennifer knew that her going full on aggressive right now would only prove his point so she decided to use this opportunity to have a little fun,

“But ole Burleson was a sweetheart in the end… After his wife passed the whole city mourned with him and everybody wished to help in anyway that they could. Me of course I decided to take care of him in the same way his wife used to. See, she was quite beautiful, and she was quite skilled in… insuring her husband’s happiness, so not just anyone could take her place.” She lingered on happiness as she waved her hand in a knowing way, as if her meaning should be clear but unspoken, “It was certainly odd at first since I had never done anything of that sort before and I was merely a late stage teen while he was an adult man, but someone had to do it.” Jennifer allowed the last words to drip off her tongue as she watched with subtle delight as both James and Enoch watched her with wide eyes. Enoch was attempting to make his interest less than obvious by only glancing back at her every once in a while, but his hands gave him away as he seemed to be incapable of figuring out what to do with them. James, who had already made quite a show of listening intently to everything she was saying was forced to maintain his same level of eye contact, only now he was more than a little self-conscious about how long his eyes connected with hers, “My father wasn’t pleased about the whole thing though… Said if I was going to do that for a stranger I might well should be doing it for him…” James and Enoch’s jaws dropped as both of them let out an audible gasp. “But hey, who else was going to cook for the guy, besides, my father can cook for himself.”

Jennifer grinned smugly as she watched James and Enoch’s faces glow bright red and, she was a bit amazed to see, Enoch’s face actually glowing. James coughed a bit as he tried to regain his composure, Enoch turned back toward the path of the cave with his hands now awkwardly, and obviously uncomfortably, on his hips, but he dared not move them now.

“You two are idiots, ya know that right? Especially you James!” Jennifer scolded, her smile still present on her face, “James I told you before that no one dies in my city! So how could Burleson’s wife have died! And, to make things worse, I already told you that he wasn’t married like two minutes ago!” Jennifer was a bit proud she was throwing around measurements of time now like a pro. Needless to say, but I suppose I’ll say it anyway since you might need it to be said, neither one of them ignored Jennifer after that.

By the end of the awkward exchange James and Enoch were happy to see that the cave was beginning to open up in front of them and the low light of twilight seeped through the opening. As they exited the cave Jennifer wondered why she felt so much more free outside now than she did before, and then it hit her. She reached for her jacket which was currently tied around her waist and was about to put it on when she realized something quite strange, she wasn’t cold. The wind was blowing and the snow was still falling and the whole landscape certainly looked cold, but she felt totally warm, maybe even a little toasty. She was about to comment about this to James when her eyes glanced passed Enoch and her brain began ticking. She nearly slapped herself as she gazed at the truest form of fire in front of her and felt quite silly for wondering why it was she was warm… She promised herself this particular mental slip up would never be shared with anyone.

The cave had lead them out into the ruins of another civilization clearly long passed, only this one looked to be much larger than the previous one. The ruins of buildings nearly the size of the tower from her old city lay crumbled on their sides while some stuck out diagonally from the earth, their highest points still visibly crumbling away, each one an ugly brown color with large rusted metal beams sticking out from them like branches off a tree. Rusted pipes stuck up out of the ground where the foundations of the ruined buildings were, and fragments of those same pipes lay strewn about all around. Like Jennifer’s town back home this city must have also had roads, only on a much larger scale. The remnants of the roads were few and far between, but the roads were wide and looked as if they used to go on for miles and miles. Off in the distance the trio saw a large rectangular building with great concrete cylinders that stuck out from the top and straight up toward the sky and, while Jennifer thought it was absolutely hideous, it seemed to be the most intact of the lot.

“I know where we are!” James shouted, Enoch and Jennifer jerking around to stare at him, their eyes both annoyed and slightly curious. “This is Terra! I’d always meant to go here at some point,” he beamed as he marveled at the ruins that Jennifer had just been disgusted by. “Terra used to be the leading industrial city in all of Adam! They had the most amazing inventions! Balloons that could lift a man into the air and bring you down whenever you wished! Boats that moved without help from the wind or the currents, and platforms that could take you from the bottom of a building all the way to the top in only a matter of seconds! They were astonishingly ahead of their time and yet no one ever knew how they did it! They would export all these wonderful inventions across the globe using this thing they built, this massive heaping metal container that ran on these metal rails and could travel massive distances in only a matter of days. Everyone used it and, if you wanted your city to thrive you needed to beg them to build rails going to your city as well.

People came from miles and miles on horseback using these roads only to leave in these slick machines that were barely bigger than horses and yet could move ten times faster! But, no matter how much money you offered them, how much you begged and pleaded, no one in the city would tell you how they powered these machines of theirs….” James considered the problem and then snapped his fingers as he looked at Enoch with new found fascination, “They used you! Not just to power the cities’ electrical grid, but to power all their machines as well! But how… How could you be in more than one place at a time…” James considered the problem as Enoch debated whether or not he should jump in and just tell him, Jennifer looked over at him and shook her head no, let him have this. “Flames, individual Flames taken from you directly! Unbelievably hot and nearly impossible to put out! Put one of those in anything, pour enough water on it and the steam could turn any axil, or lift any balloon, any platform! GENIUS!” James exclaimed proudly as he stuck his hands in his pockets, took a deep breath and just allowed himself to take a step back and marvel again at this once groundbreaking metropolis. “And that off in the distance must be one of the factories they used to make all of this! I’m going to go in and take a quick look.” James began fast walking like a kid leaving school conflicted between the overwhelming desire to leave and the knowledge that getting caught running might lead to them having to wait even longer to leave. A loud cough stopped him in his tracks.

“I seem to recall you saying something to me when I first joined this expedition of yours,” Jennifer mused as she made a show of scratching her head in a mock attempt to recall information, “Something about this not being a sightseeing trip… Was it me or you that said we wouldn’t be making any stops for anything other than searching?” James, already a bit humiliated from her trick earlier decided to stand his ground on this one.

“And I stand by that,” James stated with a sly smile, “but I also want to remind you that, since neither of us know where my brother is then wouldn’t you agree that it’s possible that he’s in that very factory”? Jennifer took a moment and then returned his smile with one of her own,

“So, if he could be anywhere, then any stop either of us wants to make should be taken into consideration as, like you said, he could be there.”

“On the contrary,” James crossed his arms but left one sticking out slightly and he was waving it about as he spoke, “since he’s my brother I have some idea at what places he’d be likely to go, and, while he could potentially be anywhere, we’d be wasting time if we stopped everywhere we both suggested, so it’d be better to simply take the suggestions of the person who knows him best, or at all, wouldn’t you agree.” James brought his free hand to his chin and stroked it knowingly, but mainly to cover the massive wolfish grin he had on his face. He reveled in seeing Jennifer’s brow furrowing as she sought out some kind of response, she was normally quicker than this, but he caught her off guard. After a moment or two of Jennifer not answering James shrugged,

“Well I suppose we’d better get moving then.” As he strutted off toward the factory with Jennifer trudging behind her, frustrated as the perfect response entered her head now moments too late. Enoch walked up beside her,

“Do you guys always fight like that”? He whispered, clearly quite concerned. Jennifer raised her eyebrows awkwardly, the goal likely to just raise one,

“Fight? That wasn’t fighting, we were just… matching wits.” Enoch looked back blankly, “Some humans like to argue with each other just for fun. It’s like… It’s like when kids play fight, it’s not to hurt the other person it’s just to see who’s more clever.”

“Oh…” Enoch considered the notion, as the Form of Fire he’d rarely spent time talking to a person about important things, much less debating over pointless things, “So you two aren’t mad at each other?”

“I can’t exactly speak for him, but I’m only a bit peeved because he… cheated that last round and now he thinks he won.” Jennifer looked awkwardly up at the sky, hoping that Enoch didn’t pick up on her hesitation.

“How did he cheat?” Enoch asked quizzically, looking at James who seemed to be ignoring their whole conversation.

“He umm… Well it’d be too hard to explain since you don’t really argue with people, but just trust me, he cheated.” Jennifer was pleased to see Enoch nodding his head and then looking at James with a tad bit of disappointment, sad to hear that he would resort to cheating like that.

The trio arrived at the abandoned factory after a good half hour of walking and came face to face with a sealed solid steel door with a single lock on the front. James stared at the door with disappointment, frustrated as to why an abandoned city had a locked factory door.

“Enoch, could you melt the door?” James pleaded. Enoch shook his head,

“I think I’d better not, to reach the temperature necessary to melt steel there’s a very good chance I’d lose control and melt the whole factory…” Enoch responded regretfully, ashamed that he wasn’t strong enough to handle such a simple task. James considered this issue and, rather than push Enoch into something that could get them killed he decided he’d attempt to pick the lock himself. He pulled a screwdriver from his pouch and borrowed a hair pin from Jennifer and then got to work.

Jennifer, bored by the prospect of watching James fail at picking a lock and disappointed to see that Enoch was captivated by the whole process, opted instead to take a walk around the factory to clear her head. Her body still hurt from the fall and the hand she’d placed against Enoch’s cage had taken some major burns and now throbbed and stung leading Jennifer to continually pile snow on top of it whenever she got the chance. Having Enoch join them was a nice change of pace, despite what she told Enoch, James did get on her nerves a lot, mostly due to rigid, ‘things must be done a certain way,’ mentality that didn’t seem to mesh well with her personal philosophy, ‘life’s more fun when you don’t know what’s on the next page.’ She’d gotten in trouble for that a lot growing up, breaking into the tower, breaking Stephen’s arm, the time she decided to teach herself how to swim and nearly drowned in the pond by the grove. But something about life made her yearn for freedom, the kind of freedom that makes all kinds of horrible circumstances temporary. She didn’t quite mind that bad things happen, in fact she imagined life’d be pretty dull if they didn’t, but the true tragedy, as far as she was concerned, would be if people were unable to fix it. That’s where all her issues with Destiny came to a head, Destiny, whoever he was, not only allowed bad things to happen, but also forced people to be unable to change them. The more Jennifer saw of the world the more she knew that Destiny needed to be talked some sense into.

She knew that the odds of James’ brother having actually found Destiny were slim, but she couldn’t let a lead like that pass by. But a thought kept nagging at her and she kept trying to suppress it, the thought was not a helpful one. She wondered why everyone else seemed to be stuck following Destiny in her city and yet everyone outside of her city seemed to do whatever they wanted… And the people outside her city… she looked around at the ruins… well they weren’t doing so good. She shook the thought away, people deserve a choice, even if it means a choice to fail.

Speaking of failures… Jennifer stood toward what used to be the northern facing wall of the factory, and unlike the southern facing wall where James was furiously attempting to pick the lock, the northern facing wall had no locks to be picked. That is to say that the northern facing wall was no longer there, or at least not there in the capacity necessary to still be considered a wall. Jennifer was able to look into the massive pile of collapsed metal beams, pipes that sprouted from the ground next to large heaps of gears that could still be seen to connect to one another in the vaguest of senses. Jennifer smacked her forehead and debated whether or not to tell James what she had found, but her earlier conversation with him still bugged her and she decided she needed to even the score again. Climbing over the mass metal debris and navigating out the jagged metal pipes strewn about the floor, Jennifer made her way through toward the southern wall, her eyes focused on the door where an unsuspecting James and Enoch waited on the other side.

But something caught her eye and she shuffled around some pipes leaning against one of the inner walls to reveal another door propped slightly open by a strange rubbery circle. Jennifer poked the circle a few times and was surprised to see how bouncy it was. The rubbery circle, when given enough of a shove, rolled into the room behind the door and Jennifer followed after it. The room differed heavily from the rest of the factory, where the factory was clearly made with pragmatism in mind and design, beauty or anything appealing to look at was obviously thrown out the window, this room looked like it had been pulled right out of a painting. While the damage the whole factory had suffered certainly played a negative effect on this room as well, enough of it had been left intact for Jennifer to gain a pretty clear picture of what it must have once looked like. The walls were a beautiful sandy brown color with images of Corinthian pillars lining the sides. Flying in between the pillars were doves drawn with such accuracy that Jennifer kept having to do double takes to make sure they weren’t actually real. The ceiling had been painted oddly, a blue sky with small white clouds, a sky the likes of which Jennifer had never seen. Statues of men and women crafted from marble adorned a walkway of cobblestone that ran adjacent to an empty stream once poured into by an immaculate sculpture of a man lifting an urn of water above his head and pouring it into the stream. All of this lead to a raised platform where a strange shiny metal contraption sat proudly.

The contraption held seats within the center, two in the front and a bench in the back. In front of the seat in the front left of the contraption hung a wheel the protruded from metal paneling that stood before the front seats and curved around to encompass the rear seats as well. A number of dials and knobs could be seen aligning the paneling, and Jennifer noticed two metal pedals that hung from below the paneling, also on the front left side. This lead Jennifer to the conclusion that, whatever this thing was, that seat was the one in charge. Along with all that Jennifer noticed four more round rubber circles, two on each side of the contraption, one in front of the other. On the back of the contraption Jennifer discovered a strange little hatch that looked oddly similar to Enoch’s cage. Seeing as she had no idea what this thing was or how it worked she sighed as she went to go get the only person she knew who might have the answers.

James reeled back in shock as the door swung open into the factory and Jennifer stood in front of him, a combination of eager and impatient. She grabbed him arm and beckoned Enoch to follow as she ran them through the debris, James oohing and awing at every bit of rusted tech he came across until she eventually got them into the strangely nice room with the odd contraption.

“What is that thing?!” Jennifer demanded, pointing up to the platform where the enigma sat. James’ eyes lit up.

“I can’t believe it!” He exclaimed, running up to the platform and squatting down in front of the contraption, “I would’ve thought they’d all been destroyed or rusted to the point of uselessness, how did this one…” He wondered as he ran a hand across the metal and his eyes widened, “perma-steel! How did they talk her into it?!” Jennifer stood off to the side watching impatiently as James doted over the object that he’d still failed to identify and now she really wanted to know who, ‘she’ was. Enoch made his way over to the back and opened up the small compartment to find the small container.

“This is where they’d put my Flames.” Enoch spoke with a monotone, but a weight could be felt in each word, a pride of ownership in how he stressed, ‘my.’ “I could feel it, each Flame being held in these little containers, they wanted freedom, but I wouldn’t let them…” James perked up at that

“Enoch,” he began cautiously, “are you telling me that each of those Flames was sentient”? He uttered the words in a strange mix of guilt and wonder. Enoch nodded,

“All of my children are sentient, everything that comes from me directly, like Water giving birth to Oceans, I give birth to living Flames.” Enoch stared into the container, a replica of the very prison he’d just been freed of. Jennifer couldn’t believe what she was hearing, to think that Enoch’s children had become slaves just because somebody had managed to make Enoch ashamed of himself… She thought back to her own father, the shame cast upon him for his freak of a daughter… maybe children bearing their parent’s sins wasn’t such a crazy thought after all.

“Those sentient Flames, without making the conversion they would never go out so long as you sustained them, Enoch you powered this civilization on the backs of slave labor!” James shouted, showing the first signs of actual disgust. Enoch bowed his head and looked away,

“It was the only way… So long as I provided them Flames, my cage would stay shut. I needed it to stay shut, and I took solace in knowing that my children were serving a purpose. Isn’t that the way it used to be? Before conversions, before humans, weren’t we all his slaves”? Enoch asked to someone who didn’t seem to be in the room.

“Who”? Jennifer wondered, now stepping in front of Enoch whose eyes were glued to the floor, “Who were you all slaves to?” She looked over at James to see if he’d jump in with his usual long-winded explanation, but he was being uncharacteristically quiet.

“Destiny,” Enoch whispered, “The one who reads the Book.” Jennifer shuttered at the mention of the man she’d sacrificed everything to find.

“Do you know him? Destiny I mean”? Jennifer prodded, excited to finally get some answers. Enoch looked apprehensive, his eyes never left the floor, but Jennifer could see them darting back and forth lost in some inner turmoil. When Enoch finally did look up from the floor he did so quite slowly, as if the time it would take to bring his head upright would give him just enough time to finish his thought.

“I only met Destiny the one time, he, unlike most every other ancient Form, never made the conversion so speaking to him had to be done in the ancient way. He had called us all together after conversions were becoming a more prominent endeavor amongst our children and they were beginning to run wild. Destiny can’t control Forms that have made the conversion so keeping order and balance in the cosmos was becoming increasingly more difficult, which is why he called us. He asked us to keep our children in line, to teach them to adhere to the purposes they’d been given otherwise they would cause their own destruction. Matter and Energy, the two highest Forms below Destiny and Time, and my mother and aunt, agreed and that sealed the deal as most of the rest of us were their children and found it unwise to cross them. Destiny’s voice, despite it no longer having full control over us, was still undeniably persuasive. He has a gift for language and a hunger for control that transcends his position. I think he hated us for making the conversion, for wrenching ourselves from his control… Even though our efforts to keep our children in line succeeded for the most part, I doubt he ever thought it was enough. I used to think he was a monster… I thought that he had made me to be the monster that I am, a creature doomed to set ablaze everything he loves, but the cage gave me clarity. When Destiny was in charge I burned only what was necessary and subsided once my task was complete. He had placed other Forms in positions that allowed them to keep me in check and I, in turn did the same for other Forms. Under Destiny’s direct command the cosmos, while not free, at least were something beautiful… I couldn’t undo the choices I’d made, but my children would not be allowed to make the same mistakes. By preventing them from making the conversion and assigning them a purpose I could rest easy knowing that I’d kept them from ever feeling the pain I’d felt, the pain of losing themselves and destroying everything around them…”

James got up and hugged Enoch, an action Jennifer didn’t even know he was capable of.

“I didn’t know…” James whispered, his voice wobbling slightly, “but what is clear is that you cared about your children, and you wanted what was best for them, you should be proud.” Enoch, much smaller than James and currently being swallowed by the hug, wrapped his arms around James’ waist and mumbled,

“Thank you.” Jennifer vehemently disagreed with everything she’d just heard and felt herself itching to explain to them exactly what was wrong with every conclusion Enoch had come to, but she decided to sit back and allow them to have this moment, besides, she had a lot more to think about anyway. The fact that Destiny can’t control Forms that have made the conversion is interesting and she wondered if it had to do with them becoming human, if humans had some ability to say no to Destiny. If that’s the case though then she wondered why here city seemed to still be enslaved by Destiny’s will… Enoch had said something about higher Forms keeping their children in line, maybe one of them was responsible for the state of her city. She kept getting more and more questions and less and less answers the longer she stayed out here and it was beginning to wear on her nerves. Either way she knew that the guy who’d have all the answers to her questions, the guy who’d know how to fix all of this was still Destiny. Her mission hadn’t changed.

“So what’s the metal box thing”? Jennifer interrupted after she felt she’d allowed the pair to have a suitable amount of time for their moment. They released the hug and James turned toward the contraption and smiled,

“That Jennifer is a car and not just any car, a perma-steel Terra charger, basically the finest car in existence! I figured they’d all have been destroyed but clearly Aurora crafted this steel to keep it from rusting, I can’t imagine what they offered her to get her to do that…”

“So what’s a car exactly…”? Jennifer inquired, accepting that she was just going to have to look ignorant for a while.

“It’s a vehicle, like a horse only made of metal and not exactly alive. This one runs on steam produced from pouring water on Enoch’s Flames, the steam is compressed and then, when you push down on that petal, the steam is released through a small opening where it collides with the axil which, in turn, spins the wheels. Some of these cars could reach nearly a hundred miles an hour with only ten or so gallons of water. It’s really something incredible to behold.” James’ voice flowed forth with awe and wonder. Jennifer had entirely lost focus after hearing, ‘a hundred miles an hour.’ James continued on with his explanation of the inner workings of the vehicle, but Enoch had already heard the engineer himself explain it hundreds of years ago and Jennifer was completely lost in the fantasy of driving such a vehicle.

“We should drive it!!” Jennifer burst out, no longer able to contain herself. The pair looked at her skeptically. “Yeah, think about it! Can you imagine how much more ground we’d cover if we were going that fast?!” She couldn’t hide her excitement and at this point didn’t want to, the dream of going that fast was just too strong.

“First off;” James began, his tone already sinking Jennifer’s hopes, “We don’t have a way to power it, secondly, the roads aren’t intact enough to drive on and third, these things are dangerous, a good many people lost their lives crashing these things.” Despite how much she wanted to, Jennifer couldn’t fault the first two points, but the third made her even more invigorated.

“So what if a few people crashed? They probably didn’t know what they were doing.” Jennifer sneered.

“And you do”? James bit back. Jennifer had to admit, he had a fair point on that one.

“I suppose it’s a moot point anyway,” Jennifer sighed defeated, “Without anything to power it, it doesn’t matter whether it’s safe or not…” Enoch watched this unfold in confusion, he couldn’t understand why they seemed to have forgotten that he was standing right there, a literal power source right beside them. He coughed a little awkwardly and Jennifer turned his way,

“You okay over there”? She called over, not even acknowledging what Enoch thought must be so blatantly obvious.

“It’s just…” Enoch muttered, “I could-uh… you could just get me to… ya know,” He rubbed the back of his head, he seemed much more like an actual child now, a child in a room full of grown-ups who seem to be speaking an entirely different language, “You could just ask me to… power the car… if you wanted.”

“Out of the question,” Jennifer proclaimed firmly, her head swinging up and off to the side.

“Bu-But why?” A very lost Enoch stammered.

“We didn’t talk you out of that box just to put you into another. We let you out of that box so you could do what you wanted to do, not so you could become someone else’s slave.” Jennifer stated with total resolve. How could there be people like this, Enoch wondered, where did this resolve come from… All the people he’d met before had all been fond of making great shows about how much they cared about the, ‘greater good’ and they were always so quick to inform everyone else of their place within it, but this… She had just freed him, she’d just talked him into having a life again, he should owe them way more than just a ride in a car and yet she refused even that. Though he didn’t know it, the strange new quality before Enoch was called integrity, a gift that can make a great many people very lonely. But Enoch, though he hadn’t realized it before, had a spark of integrity within himself that had lead him to want the best for those around him even if his attempts were misguided.

“Okay then, you don’t have to ask and I’m not offering, I’m telling.” Enoch announced gritting his teeth, a few embers rising off his skin and his body growing slightly larger, “I’ve decided I’m going to power that car, and I want y’all to be in it when I do.”

“Are you sure,” James prodded, “You really don’t have to do this, we’re completely capable of walking.”

“Not only am I going to do this, but I want to do this, now please get in the car.” Jennifer and James complied quickly and hopped into the front seats, only Jennifer realized too late that she’d allowed James into the driver’s side seat.

“Wait!” She shouted, “Switch seats with me, I want to drive!” James shook his head and placed his hands on the wheel.

“No way, these things are dangerous and you’ve never driven one before so, if we’re going to drive this thing then I’m going to be the one behind the wheel.” His tone didn’t leave much room for debate, but that didn’t stop Jennifer,

“Have YOU driven one before?!” She demanded

“Of course not, but I’ve read five or so books on the subject and I’m positive that makes me much more qualified-” Before they could continue they heard a roaring sound from behind them as Enoch entered the small compartment and began heating up to unbelievably hot temperatures. James pointed toward a lever against the wall and told Jennifer to pull it, she refused, James told her again, she refused again, finally James folded his arms and, in a matter of fact tone, informed Jennifer that they couldn’t leave until that lever was pulled. Jennifer crossed her arms and informed James that he was perfectly capable of pulling the lever himself, but James reminded her that the second he left his seat she’d take it, she didn’t deny it.

“WOULD ONE OF Y’ALL JUST PULL THE DAMNED LEVER!” Enoch roared from within the engine, Jennifer didn’t think twice as she leapt from the car, pulled the lever and hopped back in, still shaking a little. Sometimes she forgot Enoch’s potential to burn her and everything within a ten mile radius to a crisp. With the lever pulled the wall the car was facing began to split open and roll away to the side as a ramp rose from the ground and attached itself to the platform. The sound of grinding gears echoed through the room as they occasionally collided with some rust and halted for a moment until they inevitably squeaked through and the process continued. But none of the trio had counted on just how loud the gears would be and, from only a few miles away, men and women on horseback, limbs and chunks of body replaced with ice, perked up at the sound.

James waited until the ramp had risen all the way up and the doors were completely open until he finally pushed down on the pedal, opening up the compartment housing Enoch just slightly enough releasing the pent up steam with a high pitched whistling, the steam collided with the axil and the wheels began to spin launching the car forward down the ramp and onto the broken and cracked road ahead.

The car bounced and bobbed with each crack in the road as James tapped continually on the other pedal which he explained to Jennifer was the brake, until the car began moving at a snail’s pace. The car rolled slowly across the broken street occasionally jostling as they crept over tiny cracks. James’ eyes were transfixed on the road ahead, his foot constantly switching back over to the brake save for the few moments when he would lightly tap on the accelerator. Jennifer had never been more disappointed with another person in her entire life and she’d had many occasions to be disappointed. When she’d heard, ‘hundred miles an hour’ this is not the image she had in mind.

“Could you please go faster?! I swear we’d be making better time walking!” Jennifer yelled, throwing up her hands and then crossing them when James ignored her. “Are you even listening to me?!” She demanded.

“It’s not safe to yell at a driver while they’re driving, all the books are in agreement on that.” James spoke with his eyes still stuck to the road. “And I’m not going to go any faster, the road is slick from the ice and snow and, since it’s in such bad shape, if we go any faster we’ll likely spin out of control and crash.” He stated very matter of factly. Jennifer wanted to fight him but, since she literally knew nothing about cars, figured it probably wouldn’t do her any good.

A rumbling sound could be heard off in the distance behind them, James refused to turn around on account of his safety protocol so he told Jennifer to see what it was. Groaning, Jennifer turned around and gasped, directly behind them, barely over a half mile away, rode the same band of Deathless they’d escaped earlier. Jennifer spun back around and screamed at James to go faster.

“I can’t!” He shouted back, “if we go any faster than we’ll crash!”

“If we don’t then we’ll be dead anyway!” James gritted his teeth as he considered his options and then, with a face filled with worry he lifted his foot off the brake and, in a bold and heroic gesture, place it back onto the accelerator and pushed down… slightly harder.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Jennifer exploded, her arms flailing and pulling at her hair.

“THAT WAS ME GOING FASTER!!” James yelled, frustrated that she was still yelling at him even though he’d actually done what she’d asked.

“THEY’RE STILL GAINING ON US! YOU CAN’T JUST GO SLIGHTLY FASTER AND CLAIM THAT SOLVES THE PROBLEM!”

“WELL EXCUSE ME FOR NOT WANTING US TO DIE!”

“I DON’T WANT US TO DIE EITHER WHICH IS WHY I’M TELLING YOU TO GO FASTER!” Jennifer finally had enough and grabbed the wheel.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Yelped James in complete and utter shock, “YOU’RE GOING TO GET US KILLED!” Jennifer climbed on top of James and wiggled her way over to the other side of the seat and forced her way down beside James on the driver’s side seat where she then proceeded to shove James with all her weight off of the seat into the little space between the front two seats with James yelping with fright and anger all the while.

Eventually Jennifer seized control of the driver's seat where she proceeded to stomp her foot down on the accelerator causing the car to lurch forward and then rocket out. Jennifer gripped the wheel tightly and smiled as the wind blew past her face and the road before her seemed to narrow as she flew past snow drifts with ever increasing speed. She looked over her shoulder and smiled, pleased to see that she’d left the Deathless in the dust. This was the feeling she’d been after, the feeling of throwing a giant middle finger to the limits of the human body, too slow to even go a quarter this speed. Her face beamed as the setting sun glistened off her cheek and the wind whistled past her ears. She wished the folks back home could see her, watch her thundering past with reckless abandon as they all stood awestruck and overcome with envy. This is where she was meant to be, she thought, behind the wheel of a car, cruising at impossible speeds, and leaving the world behind her.

James continued to shout at her, but, unlike her, was much too afraid to touch the wheel or mess with Jennifer in anyway while she was in control of the car. Everything around them blurred and the wind whipped past them making it more and more difficult to see what was ahead. Jennifer’s eyes burned as the flurry of falling snow collided forced their way into past her eyelids and she lifted a hand off the wheel for a moment to use her sleeve to rub away the snow, but as she was momentarily blind a bump appeared before them and the car smashed into it, throwing the whole car out of control. Jennifer attempted to regain control, gripping the wheel to keep it from spinning, but it was no use. A great, ‘fumph’ sound could be heard as the car rammed into a rather large snow bank, launching the pair from the car and into the densely packed snow ahead.

The first words Jennifer heard as she lifted her head out of the snow were,

“I TOLD YOU!!!!” James bellowed as he pushed his way through the heavy snow back toward the car which, by all appearances, was totaled. “NOW WE DON’T HAVE A CAR AT ALL. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY!”

“I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS PERMA-WHATEVER! DOESN’T THAT MEAN IT CAN’T BREAK?!”

“PERMA-STEEL JUST MEANS IT WON’T RUST! IT DOESN’T MAKE IT INVINCIBLE YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER MORON!”

“OH I’M A MORON NOW? AT LEAST I’M NOT A SPINELESS COWARD WHO WAS ABOUT TO GET US MURDERED BY UNDEAD MONSTERS!”

“I HAD IT UNDER CONTROL”

“LIKE HELL YOU DID!” The shouting continued as the two stood over the wreckage of the vehicle, arms waving wildly. Enoch popped out of the little compartment in the form of a little flame that hovered a couple feat and then transformed back into his child self.

“We still have a problem.” Enoch concluded, ignoring the squabble going on behind him. He stared back into the distance. “We put a lot of ground between us and the Deathless, but they’ll be here shortly and y’all can’t outrun them without that car…”

The pair stopped their bickering for a moment to listen until they heard it, the vague rumble of hooves on concrete.

“What are we going to do? Can we fight them?” Jennifer asked, her voice trembling slightly.

“You’re not going to,” Enoch ordered, “Y’all are going to get out of here, I’m going to stay behind and take care of them.”

“We’re not going to let you do that!” Jennifer snapped back.

“Which is why it’s not up to y’all. You don’t make my choices, I do, and I’ve decided to stay behind.” The statement left no room for disagreement.

“Then we’re staying too!” Jennifer declared, her hands shaking.

“If you stay then I’ll burn you to a crisp, not by accident, but on purpose. That’s a promise. So either leave or die, your choice.” Enoch’s voice had no hint he was kidding. James nodded and grabbed Jennifer by the arm and pulled her away, pain accompanying every step. With James’ ankle still sprained Jennifer knew there was no way they’d out run those monsters… She knew this was the only way. She shook off James’ arm and sprinted over to Enoch and embraced him, shocked to see that he was now the same height as her. He held her close, his whole body warm and comforting,

“Thank you, Enoch.” She whispered, “I’ll come back for you, I promise.” Enoch nodded and then gently removed her arms from around him and turned toward the approaching Deathless,

“Go now, if you’re in even a mile radius you’re liable to be seriously burned, you have to hurry.” The pair nodded, they gave Enoch one last smile and then hobbled off down the road, leaving Enoch standing alone, looking quite a bit more like a man than before.