.......This is an older story. Haven't updated here in a while, and I wanted to post something. I can only promise more updates in the future- not sure what or when.
Here is the original story, Junktown Blues. I've been working on creating a series of short stories of the same name- but this story fits within that context as something I want work on to fit within that compilation in the future. And I know the text is messed up- note to self to fix this garbage later.
Maybe.
Enjoy! ~BCR
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Lying in his bed was Bolt. He was sixteen, and he and his friends lived in the Cell. Their home was a mess of welded plates and support pillars dug out at the bottom of a giant mountain of garbage, cleverly hidden around twists and turns through endless piles of scrap metals, plastics, and trash. Piles of stuff got dumped daily onto Junktown from the big city to the east, New Dallas. But Junktown was less of a town than a playground for orphaned kids, a place where they gathered into underground gangs, barely scraping by while hiding from deranged scavengers, murderous robots, and rampaging bikers.
Bolt lounged on his bed, smiling up at his ceiling posters of deathmatch gladiators who ruled the big city arenas. But his favorite poster was an old, worn-out recruitment photo for the Church. ‘Protect. Serve. Join Today!’ It had a squad of Angels on it; giant humanoid shaped suits of flying armor armed with swords and guns, with huge wings. Bolt dreamed of joining the academy and getting a real chance to fly like the Cherubim pilots did in their Angels. His bedroom door flew open, and suddenly the sounds of the twins angrily arguing filled the room.
“Nuh-uh!” Yelled Flare, her mess of long red hair waving while she sneered at her brother through the doorway, “Bolt’s gunna be in the big race, and he’s gunna win!”
Burner walked in behind her, rolling his eyes at his twin sister, arms crossed. He had short red hair cut close to his scalp and freckles on his pale cheeks. He smiled at Bolt, “Bolt dudn’t have to prove anything to the bikers! ‘Sides, kids who go to the big race always get buried or wipe out on purpose, just so’s the bikers don’t get ‘em! Ain’t that right Bolt?”
Flare ran over to Bolt’s bed and climbed up, jumping up and down on it while she yelled, “Bolt would never join those nasty, old, ugly bikers! He’s the fastest, and he’s gunna win, and then they’ll leave us alone forever!”
Bolt had won both of the last two kid’s races at the big track. He had easily skated circles around all of the fastest kids in Junktown. After the last race, though, one of the bikers stood up and pointed at him after he won, grinning at him like a fresh piece of meat. He saw the biker say something, but he couldn’t hear it over the roar of the kids cheering his name and hoisting him overhead as the winner of the kid race – Bolt! Bolt! Bolt!
“…Bolt?” Flare stared at him, looking worried.
Bolt smiled weakly at her, “I guess I don’t have much choice anymore.” Flare smiled back.
Burner ran to the bed, jumped up and knocked over his sister, then scrambled onto Bolt’s right knee and grinned at him with a toothy, crazy look, “I have to show you something Bolt! Come on, get outta bed, you gotta see!”
Flare got up on Bolt’s other knee, “He’s making-“
Burner tackled his sister and shoved his hands over and partially into her mouth. The two started screaming and fighting on the bed, rolling around and onto Bolt. Bolt pushed them off and got up, then started putting his skates on, checking and rechecking the Power Cores for cracks and a good charge. He fiddled with the emitters on the underside of the metallic shoes, making sure nothing had gunked them up before fitting them onto his feet and strapping them on. He tapped his heels, turning them on. He always enjoyed the familiar shudder and hum of the emitters under his feet, before jumping up and lifting off, hovering a couple of feet off the ground over the jets of flame that blew under him, suspending him in the air and burning the floor. Bolt clicked them off again, then looked back at the twins, who were still yelling and wrestling on his bed. “Burn-“
“WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO MESS EVERYTHING UP?!” Yelled Burner. “GET OFFA ME BURN, BOLT’S GUNNA GET MAD-“ yelled Flare.
“BURN!” Yelled Bolt. The two stopped wrestling and looked back at Bolt sheepishly.
“Are you going to show me the thing, or what?”
The three walked single file out of the bedroom and into the main room of the Cell. It, too, was a chaos of patchy welded metal plates and crisscrossed supports, all carefully fused to the floor and ceiling so the Cell wouldn’t collapse. Spike sat on a couch, eating a bowl of stale dry cereal, still wearing his studded jacket and too-big spiky helmet. He waved at the trio, and Bolt waved back. The flash of whatever Gear was working on lit up the edges of her door on the far side of the room. Wrench was nowhere to be seen, and Bolt was glad for that at least. Burn led the three to a big metal plate, which he budged just enough to reveal a hole that led deeper down into the Cell.
“I started digging this tunnel a month ago to get away from Flare-“
“Hey!” Flare scowled at her brother.
“-But I found some good stuff down here, too!” Burn ducked into his tunnel and beckoned them to follow. Bolt had to crawl to fit in the long cramped space, and carefully avoided the precarious looking supports along the way. “Uh, Burn, you sure this tunnel is safe?”
“Yeah! I had Gear look it over, and she said-“ Bolt knocked the ceiling with his back, and the sound of shifting trash made them all freeze. The ceiling buckled couple of inches, sliding down painfully slow, and Bolt felt his stomach hit the floor before it stopped. “…She uh… s-she said it was fine.”
The three hurried the rest of the way. The end of the tunnel was an open area, and Bolt could tell that Burner had definitely decorated it like a room. There were interesting pieces of scrap sitting in piles on the floor, and there were poorly made welds everywhere on the ceiling, walls, and floor. There was even a bed made out of old clothes and magazines. “Here!” Burner rushed off toward a three-legged table propped up with junk and waited until Bolt was close. He waited dramatically, and then he pulled back a dirty cloth to reveal a pair of partially repaired skates, just the right size for Burner. Bolt grinned at the skates, ruffled Burner’s short red hair, and picked them up. “Did you do all this yourself? These are good welds, Burn! Nothing like the hackjob you did on the walls.” Flare laughed and Burner turned red, but he was still smiling. “The walls were just practice! The right skate was almost done, but… I broke the tank.“ Burn pointed to an old oxygen tank with a busted top lying in one corner of the room, jumbled together with old welding tools held together with bits of wire and melted plastic.
Bolt smiled, amazed at what he had managed with such a shoddy set of tools. “Well, you’ll just have to borrow my old tank and torch to finish them!” Burn looked up at Bolt in awe and disbelief, “Really?” Bolt nodded, smiling wider. Burner ran up to his sister and hugged her, and the two jumped up and down happily and danced around the makeshift workshop. “I’m finally going to have skates!” yelled Burner gleefully.
“And once yours are done, you can make mine!” said Flare, equally happily.
“No way! I’d never make girl skates!”
The two started arguing, and eventually Burn tackled his sister again, and they went right back to punching, kicking, and screaming in the piles of trash on the floor. Bolt watched them and laughed. Eventually, making sure they didn’t notice when he did, he left.
Most Junktown kids knew better than to go too fast. Bolt had seen lots of kids, too many to count, land in a pile of trash at high speed and never get up again. Plenty of gangs had kids missing a foot, a hand, or even a whole leg; usually they just replaced them with whatever could be screwed on, and they’d be skating again tomorrow. But Bolt relished the dangerous, weightless feeling of falling forward so fast that the air pushed back against him like a rushing wave of water. He broke into a full sprint once he got out of the Cell, pumping his legs, skipping and hopping between steps to build up speed, burning or melting the trash he passed over. The hot Texas sun shone bright across the metal wastes, a blinding silvery lake covered in piles of rubbish that choked out anything green near or around Junktown.
Bolt skipped his way up a mountain of garbage and sat at the tip top, admiring the big city in the distance and the buildings so tall they pierced the clouds. Cars flew everywhere there faster than any kid could, quicker than any biker, weightlessly soaring through the air to, from, and around the city. Garbage trucks, freight cars, busses, sports cars, Police cars – Bolt had seen them all, sitting like he did every day, dreaming of the Angels he’d never seen, which were always just too-distant specks over New Dallas. One day, he’d go to the city, and he’d finally see an Angel, and maybe he’d even get close enough to make out its squadron, like in his poster.
Today though, he saw something else.
A bus flew across the old highway out of New Dallas, low enough to the ground that it turned the scrap underneath and behind it into a molten river of glowing orange. Bolt looked hard at it, trying to discern anything about it, but it was really far away and moving fast. He smiled, and put on his goggles. He jumped up and throttled his skates, already skipping down the mountain, kicking and boosting off the ground, bounding over the piles of garbage, going faster and faster, and keeping his eyes on the bus more than the ground.
Bolt had no idea what kind of crazy person would drive a bus along the highway straight through biker territory. Closer now, he could tell the bus was a scrapper, assembled from repurposed junk. It looked nothing like the clean city passenger busses that occasionally flew overhead. Something was following behind it, too. A lot of something’s actually! Bolt’s mind raced with the possibilities. Maybe a caravan is coming through Junktown… He thought of some good scrap he could pawn. Maybe… Maybe they’ll let Junktown kids ride, too! Bolt started thinking of all the stuff he could sell for a trip to New Dallas, all the while pumping his legs faster and harder, flying like a bouncing bullet toward the caravan.
Bounding up and over a hill of trash, Bolt finally laid eyes on the bus, and his heart dropped. He saw bikes following the bus. Not hired mercenaries or caravan guards, but bikers, heavily armed and taking shots at the bus with pistols and shotguns, whooping and hollering over the roar of the bus and their own bikes. They were all adults, some younger than others, but all gangsters of the worst kind, Bolt figured. The group left a river of molten steel behind them, passing over the highway at an insane pace. Bolt stopped, cut off his skates, and ducked behind an old blown out hovercar to watch from a safe distance.
There were eleven bikers in all. The shots they fired pounded dents into the sides of the hoverbus, but didn’t appear to damage it all that much. Bolt saw one of the clear glass windows get hit and not even crack. There was a sign on one side of the bus that Bolt could read: Lemonade. There was an even smaller sign near it that read and Guns. Both were barely legible, with some backwards letters, and all painted in an ugly yellow.
A biker rode up to the side of the bus, waving a shotgun over his head, yelling at the bus, “Open up, goddamn it!” He fired a shot at the closest window, which bounced off in a deadly spray. Much to the biker and Bolt’s surprise, the window rolled down. The biker divided his attention between the window and reloading his shotgun.
A kid popped his head out of the window. He was young, even younger than Bolt. He had sunglasses on, and a leather jacket that was too big for him. He definitely looked like a Junktown kid, and his long hair flapped in the wind. The biker didn’t stop reloading, although he looked just as confused as Bolt felt. He pointed the shotgun at the kid, who held out a hand, palm out toward the gangster, as if to say stop.
“Pull ov-“ A loud boom rolled over the wastes. Bolt gasped, waiting for the kid to tumble out of the open window. But he never did. The biker fell over the side of his bike, falling down into a sideways roll. Three others trailing behind him turned off the highway to avoid crashing into the mangled mass, but the bike rolled under another biker close behind and bounced up and directly into bike behind him. All three bikes exploded in a huge plume of fire, smoke, bike and biker. Bolt felt the shockwave, and looked from the distant explosion to the bus.
The kid on the bus smiled at the huge crater now far behind, and then leaned out of the window to watch the bikers turn off the highway and ride away into the wastes. He gave them a friendly wave as they went, yelling as loud as he could in a happy voice, “Get fucked, assholes!”
“Bolt!”
Bolt jumped, flipping on his skates and boosting twenty feet into the air out of pure reflex. Below him, he saw his best friend Spike being thrown backward into a pile of trash from the blowback of Bolt’s sudden boost, “Spike?!” Bolt dove for the ground and skated over to Spike to help pull him out of the trash he was stuck in. “What’re you doing out here? This is biker territory-“
Spike looked angry, but his voice was cracked with fear, “I-I was looking for you, Bolt!” Spike checked his skates, which flickered back on. Spike had always been a little clumsy, but he always had Bolt’s back when it mattered. “It’s the Cell – Flare’s hurt!”
The trip home was painful because Bolt couldn’t leave Spike behind, despite wanting to ride back to the Cell faster than he ever had. Bolt was first inside with Spike close behind him.
Burner was digging near the hole to his workshop, which had been covered by a heap of fallen scrap. Gear had a robotic arm working to move piles of trash from the avalanche of garbage that had shifted and fallen into the Cell. She was working on a hydraulic support near the pile, looking frantic and panicked under her hooded jacket. “-j-just a minute, I’ve almost got it Burn! Hold onto her!” Burn was crying while he dug, holding onto something poking out near the bottom of the collapsed tunnel while he dug with his other arm. Bolt felt the blood drain out of him when he saw that it was Flare’s arm, pale, unmoving, and lifeless.
Wrench stood nearby, watching and wearing a grim look. He looked disinterested, more intent on fiddling with his missing hand than helping. Bolt felt anger boiling up in his stomach and ran over to the collapse. “Bolt, here, help me-“ said Gear, trying to shift a big horizontal sheet of metal enough to shove the support under it. Immediately, Bolt tried to lift it, but it must have weighed more than a car, maybe more than a bus, since there were tons of garbage piled over it. Even with all three of them – Bolt, Spike, and Gear together, they couldn’t budge it an inch. Spike and Gear backed away to catch their breath, but Bolt kept trying, lifting until he felt his back pull tight and his arms grow weak. “…It’s no use. She’s already dead anyway.” Wrench sounded like he was complaining.
Burner had stopped digging or crying completely, and stared quietly at his sister’s bloodied limp hand, his eyes wide. Bolt glared at Wrench, who wasn’t even looking their way anymore. Instead, he was messing with his metallic arm, the one he’d lost falling off his skates last year, which had been replaced with a big metal tool, the old wrench that he used to just use as a weapon.
Bolt flicked on his skates and shoved his feet into the ground under him, burning molten pools into the floor of the Cell. Wrench yelled at him, “Bolt, stop! You’ll-“ Bolt screamed in effort, but he felt the metal plate cut deep into his hands, down to the bone. But he gripped harder and didn’t let go, and only boosted harder. The plate shifted, and one whole side of the Cell shifted with it, along with the heaps of trash that had piled there with the cave in; the entire wall moved, but Bolt rose, and the plate rose with him. Gear ran over and shoved the hydraulic support she’d made into the newly created gap. Immediately, the plate lifted higher faster, and Burner pulled his sister into his arms, weeping into her long red hair, muttering between sobs, “Please wake up. Please, please… please…”
Bolt couldn’t feel his arms or his hands. He flicked off his skates and stomped his way over to Wrench. “Well well, looks like Bolt saves th-“
Bolt slammed his fist into Wrench’s face as hard as he could, splattering it with fresh, hot blood. Wrench reeled from the blow, stunned. Bolt grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him close, hoping Wrench would take a swing. But Bolt saw fear in his face, the kind of fear he’d only ever seen when bikers were around and Wrench thought nobody was looking at him.
“What happened?!” Yelled Bolt into his face.
Gear spoke up, “Wrench told Flare to show him Burn’s workshop. Then the tunnel collapsed, and Wrench yelled at Spike to go get you.” Bolt looked back at Burner, but Burn was looking at a wall, whispering into his sister’s ear, rocking back and forth with her in his arms.
Wrench stared daggers at Gear, but the same fear from earlier came back to him when he met Bolt’s eyes. “What, you think I did this? Burner’s shitty tunnel practically exploded! Whatever the fuck he had in there was unstable, it must have-“
Bolt punched him again, but Wrench didn’t falter this time. He pulled out of Bolt’s grasp, looking angry now and ready to swing. But he didn’t. Instead, the two stood inches from each other, their faces nearly touching. Spike stepped in, staring at the space between them, “Gear, make sure Burner and Flare are okay.” He swallowed hard, looking from Wrench to Bolt and back again, “Do you two really want to do this? Right now? Flare needs help, we have to-“
“No. We have to settle this shit now,” said Wrench, “Me and Bolt, the fastest there is,” he said sarcastically.
Bolt laughed, “What, you want to race for the Cell or something? I’d beat you barefoot.”
“Half-pipe deathmatch. Right now.” Gear, Spike, and even Burner looked up at Wrench, each one looking tired and scared, but each was silent.
Bolt smiled, happy to get exactly what he wanted.
The old half-pipe wasn’t far off from the Cell. It was a public place, and although the sun was starting to set on another summer day, it was busy with dozens of kids skating around and on it. Teenage gangsters with matching color or themed outfits skimmed around on their hover skates, laughing and giggling, yelling and fighting, trading and racing. One of the older teenagers on the top of the half-pipe looked and spotted three figures coming toward them. He squinted, and then grinned, “Guys! Guys, it’s Bolt! The champ is here!” A dozen teenagers skated off toward them – Bolt and Wrench skated side by side, not looking at anyone or saying anything. Bolt had bandages over his hands, and his fingers were turning blue at the tips. Wrench’s face was swollen up, and his eye was black where Bolt had slugged him. Spike followed behind them, and yelled when they approached, “Wrench has challenged Bolt to a deathmatch! Everybody off the ramp!” The teen gangsters everywhere whooped and cheered, and within seconds the half-pipe was clear. The teens gathered up into a crowd around it and everyone stopped to watch. Even the little kids skated up onto big piles or nearby mountains of trash to watch.
From opposite sides of the gap, Bolt and Wrench stared each other down with angry expressions. One of the older teen girls yelled up the half-pipe at them, “Hey, where’s Bolt’s weapon? Wrench already has his!” There were snickers and laughs from the crowd, and someone tossed a sword up which landed next to Bolt. Bolt stared at it, unsure if he could even hold it in his numb hands. Wrench turned a dark shade of red, “This isn’t my weapon anymore bitch, it’s my arm!” A loud oooh ran through the crowd, and someone tossed an old pipe up to Wrench, which elicited more laughs from the crowd.
Spike stepped up into the center of the basin of the half-pipe and raised his hands over his head, “Fellow Junktowners, Wrench has challenged Bolt, the undisputed winner of the last two Championship Races! Today’s match is a death match – nobody is allowed to leave until the other is dead!” The crowd cheered and clapped.
“Cellmates, start your skates!” Wrench swung the long, straight pipe experimentally, and Bolt picked up the sword. It felt much heavier than it looked, and he felt the cuts in his hands open up as he gingerly gripped it in his right hand. The bandages turned red, and he felt blood dribbling out onto the pommel of the sword and drop to the ground. Flicking on their skates, they stared each other down while hovering over their respective edges. They both looked at Spike, who nodded at each of them, and ran off the half-pipe. Under the roar of the crowd of teenagers and kids, they could barely hear him say, “START!”
Bolt flew down into the half-pipe, coming up the other side and meeting Wrench before he even made it to the halfway point. Bolt swung his sword up to cut at Wrench’s chest, but only met his pipe and wrench. The sword rang against the metal like a bell, and it took every bit of strength Bolt had not to drop it as he sailed past him and sped up the other side. They both spun around, each hanging weightless in the air, staring and trying to see what the other was going to do when they came down. Bolt grabbed the sword with his other hand, but his blood had made the whole handle slick. Wrench looked at Bolt with a hateful, foul smile.
Bolt tilted into his fall, boosting himself down the ramp and up the other side, and his sword met Wrench before he was on the ramp. Bolt’s sword hit the pipe again, but the jaws of Wrench’s wrench wrapped around the base where blade met hilt. Wrench twisted, and the blade snapped off of Bolt’s sword. Bolt flew high through the air, still holding the useless handle in his numb hands, watching the blade of his sword fall away from him. He tried to drop the useless handle, but his fingers wouldn’t move anymore. Wrench landed on the other side, watching Bolt soar through the air from the other side of the half-pipe. Bolt looked out past the mountains of trash and saw New Dallas, a rainbow of dazzling lights in the distance. It was like thousands of technicolor bugs zooming around an electric beehive.
Bolt had to boost hard to land properly, still holding the bladeless hilt. He had to shake it out of his hands, but it finally slipped out of his grip. He looked and saw that his bandages had ripped open, and his hands underneath were pouring blood from cuts so deep he could see inside them. His stomach turned, and he tried to close his hands, but his discolored fingers wouldn’t move anymore. Wrench rested his pipe on his shoulder, shaking his head sadly at Bolt, “Well slowpoke, if you give up now, I’ll let you come back and live in the Cell. I’ll even help you bury your girlfriend!”
The crowd booed Wrench, but he just laughed at them. Someone held Spike back by one of his arms, “Fuck you Wrench! I knew you did it to Flare on purpose – fuckin’ kill him, Bolt! KILL HIM!” The crowd joined in and chanted with Spike, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
Bolt didn’t break eye contact with Wrench, watching and looking at him from his feet to his face. He felt a fresh wave of disgust wash over him, knowing he had to win. Wrench shrugged and half yelled under the roar of the chanting crowd, “Well, if you insist, I guess I’ll kill him!”
Bolt and Wrench both jumped down into the half-pipe, but Bolt went slow and jumped too high. Wrench came up fast, faster than Bolt had seen him go before, and he swung his arm and the pipe so hard he spun into the swing. Bolt ducked and cut off his skates, slamming his back into the half-pipe, and then kicked his feet into Wrench’s skates. Bolt boosted hard enough to send him flying out of the half-pipe and into a nearby crowd, landing in a pile of surprised teenagers. When he woke up, Bolt heard Wrench screaming; he saw Wrench lying in the middle of the pipe holding one of his mangled legs and screaming a terrified, blood curdling yell. The Cores in his shoes had exploded, taking his feet and most of his shins with them. There were teenagers around him saying nothing, but they were tying metal wires around his legs near the bloody stumps and bandaging him up. He might not be dead, thought Bolt, but he won’t live through the night out here. Once they were done, everyone left, with Bolt being carried back by Spike. Night fell, and Wrench never came back.
Bolt was carried home as the new leader of the Cell. Plenty of kids, mostly the older teenagers, asked him if he was going to be in the race the day after tomorrow. “I… I don’t know. We need help, Flare’s injured, she-“ Before he could say more, several of them yelled at their buddies to get their best doctors to the Cell, taking as much medicine as they could scrounge up.
But Flare was still unconscious when Bolt and everyone else made it back to the Cell. “I don’t know Bolt,” said Gear, who had been working to help her since they left. She and the other kids were trying to figure out what was wrong, why her breathing was so shallow. “I think… I mean, she got crushed. I just don’t…” Gear’s voice cracked, and she lowered her head. The other’s tried to help, but after hours of trying, nobody knew what to do.
Bolt went into Gear’s room and saw Flare lying on the bed, her red hair a dirty mess on the pillow. Burner hadn’t left her the whole time, still holding her hand. He turned and looked at Bolt when he saw him, “Flare would… she always wanted you to be leader, Bolt. She hates Wrench.” He tried to smile, but sobbed instead, and fresh tears streamed down his face. Bolt hugged him, and stayed there with him.
It was already dark outside by the time everyone had left. Burn had fallen asleep still holding his sister’s hand, but Bolt just stared at Flare, watching her breathing. He looked at his hands covered in fresh bandages, and none of his fingers would move. Blood still soaked through, despite changing them twice. Gear came in, “Bolt, you’re still awake? You should-“
“I need you to do something for me, Gear.”
Gear frowned, but nodded.
Skating at night was the most dangerous thing most anybody could do, so nobody did. Junktown didn’t have lights, and skates burned brighter than a bonfire in the dark. Gear had helped Bolt strap Flare to his back and change the cores in his skates. Despite his bruises and useless hands, he knew Flare wouldn’t make it through the night. He had to take her to New Dallas, and it couldn’t wait.
Without the usual sounds of distant bikes roaring across the wastes or the Junktown kids boosting around, the silence was deafening and terrifying. It was practically pitch black outside, and the moon was hidden behind the clouds tonight. Bolt carefully flicked on his skates and glided toward a more open area, hoping he could remember how to make it to the highway. From there, he could easily see if someone or something was watching him, and there wouldn’t be any piles of junk to slam into.
Slowly, he made his way through the twists and turns around the Cell, past and over heaps of garbage, trying to listen under the low hum of his skates for anything. Something shifted in a pile of trash, and he stopped, trying to discern whatever it was in the darkness.
Nothing moved. What felt like forever passed by in complete, dead silence.
The sound of shifting metal parts made Bolt turn again. He spotted two glowing blue eyes in the darkness, barely illuminating a metallic jaw filled with sharp, metal teeth. Junkyard dogs ate piles of scrap metal and chewed through kids like snacks. They ran faster than most kids could skate, and they never got tired. But Bolt wasn’t most kids.
Bolt kicked off and pumped his legs, bounding blindly through the night as fast as he could. He could hear the big metal dog running close behind, howling an unearthly, blood curdling noise. Bolt was going by memory now, trying to remember every bit of garbage that had shifted in the last week or fallen from the dump-trucks. He remembered what to do as he went, jumping over rusty metal pipes and deep sinkholes of trash. Bolt remembered a huge pile of polycrete that had been dumped and leapt over it, listening to the Junkyard dog not bother to climb over, but instead plow through it. Even after that, it was close enough that he could hear the whirring of its limbs pounding as it ran through the heaps of garbage. It howled again behind him. He felt a sickening feeling well up in his stomach at the noise, and it lurched when he actually heard a response, another horrible but distinct howl close by, and then a third from somewhere else.
Bolt raced blindly toward the highway, listening to the three hounds close in around him, still barely managing to avoid the half-remembered obstacles he had to bounce around, over, and across while still managing to keep Flare on his back, who he could hear breathing shallow breaths on his shoulder.
A blinding light broke the darkness. Something big was barreling toward him and the dogs. In a panic, he slammed his skates against the dog next to him and boosted as hard as he could. The blast sent him flying out of the path of the bus, and he turned over in the air to land, but when he tried to boost to land on his skates, he heard a pop, and skidded painfully across the ground. One of the dogs was a nothing but a whining molten puddle, and whatever it was must have slammed into another, blowing it into pieces littering the area. But the last one, the one that had followed him all the way from the Cell, the same one that he’d boosted in the side, got up and limped toward him. Bolt landed on his stomach thankfully, and he could still hear Flare breathing in his ear. But the cold blue lights of the Junkyard dog were getting closer, and he could see the warm red glow of its belly furnace smoldering on its underside.
A boom rang out in the night, and Bolt saw the flash of a big gun go off. The dog stumbled and growled at his attacker, rearing up for a leap. Three more shots, boom, boom, boom, exploded in the night, one after another. Bolt turned to see the silhouette of a kid, and the flashes all came out of his outstretched palm. The Junkyard dog didn’t stopped moving, and the glow of its eyes dimmed in the darkness.
“…The hell you doing out here at night, kid? Shit’s dangerous around here you know, ‘specially at night.” Said the younger kid. Bolt could hear a clicking noise coming from him in the dark, and the same hoverbus from the highway was coming back toward them. Another kid stuck his head out of one of the bus’s windows, “What, you trying to find costumers at night now, Annie? Look at ‘em! Probably got a disease or summin’.” Annie looked back and shrugged at the other kid in the bus window, “No, I just saw robo-dogs, and I hate those robo-dogs, so I figure I’d kill ‘em.”
“Whatever.” The other kid ducked back into the bus and slammed the window shut. Annie looked over at Bolt, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting Bolt’s confused look. The area was illuminated by the headlights on the hoverbus, which looked surprisingly big, bigger even than a normal passenger hoverbus, so far as Bolt could tell. “Don’t mind Warpigs. He hates getting woken up.” Annie smiled and fished a shotgun shell out of his jacket pocket. Bolt watched curiously as he pressed the shell into the inside of his elbow, where it slid up into his arm toward the wrist and clicked. He loaded three more shells into arm, then pumped his fist in the air, and his whole arm clicked exactly like a loaded shotgun.
“Who the hell are you?” Said Bolt, still lying stomach first in the garbage.
“Oh, I’m Annie. Wanna buy some lemonade?” Annie smiled mischievously.
Warpigs reluctantly agreed to let Bolt and Flare ride on the bus to New Dallas. “It’s his bus after all,” said Annie, “He built it, and Mysteryman, too!” Annie pointed at the android driver. Mysteryman had bright glowing eyes, and sat in the driver’s seat, expertly working the levers and panels to keep the bus moving.
“Does he talk?” Bolt had met a few androids before, and they made him uneasy. Some of them even said they used to be people, and talked about missing their skin.
“Warpigs tells him not to…” Annie looked at Flare with a neutral stare, “Is she alright?”
Bolt looked at Flare, and saw her barely breathing. He felt hot tears streaming down his cheeks when he looked at her, and his voice cracked, “I-I don’t know.”
Annie frowned, “Don’t worry kid, we’ll be there soon. Let’s go Mysteryman! Give ‘er all she’s got!” The hoverbus shook and sputtered, then zipped off toward the big city at a high speed. Bolt watched New Dallas growing in the distance, the dazzling colors dancing in the black night. It had always seemed like a distant dream, a far flung hope, but now, when Bolt would be there soon, it seemed menacing and dark, glowing like the blue lights of the Junkyard dogs he had barely escaped.
Mysteryman drove the bus up to the hospital, which was one of the biggest and tallest buildings in the whole city. It was clean everywhere here, and all the buildings, people’s clothes and cars, and even the ground looked new. Despite it being the middle of the night, hundreds of people were coming and going around the hospital. Bolt stepped off the bus and realized that the streets were all polycrete, with no metals at all except for the tall light poles that dotted the nearby streets. He held Flare in his arms and walked toward the big hospital, and he was immediately approached by a strange man in a white coat, “Excuse me, young man, what’s wrong?” He looked from Bolt to Flare. Something about him made Bolt feel nervous, but he spoke up anyway, “My friend, she’s hurt, she needs help, I don’t know how much longer… I don’t…” Bolt felt the world shift under his feet and lost his balance. The man caught him before he fell, but his arms were so weak, Bolt almost dropped Flare. The man called for help, and a minute later they were both being pushed into the building in beds on wheels, with doctors shoving things in Bolt’s mouth and pricking him and Flare with needles. Whatever they gave him was making him sleepy, and he panicked before losing consciousness. He was scared, horribly afraid to separate from his friend, watching her being led away from him. He saw them taking her apart, peeling away her skin and replacing her insides, piece by piece, with mechanical parts. “I remember… their faces. But not their names…” said the android. How a robot looked sad, Bolt didn’t know, but it did just the same. “My family… they took them.”
Bolt woke up in a hospital bed. He tried jumping out of it, but he was attached at the arm. They had put a huge needle in his arm, and he pulled it out. When he did, the bed started beeping at him, but he ignored it, instead suddenly realizing that his hands worked. But they didn’t just work; they were perfect, as if he had never cut his hands at all. He flexed them, and they weren’t even sore. An old scar on his right hand was gone, too. Bolt checked an old scar on his knee he’d got in a crash two years ago, but it was gone too. Fear crept into his mind – maybe he wasn’t himself anymore, maybe he was a robot under his skin, maybe-
The door to his room opened, and a doctor stepped inside. “Hey there, Bolt. How are you feeling?”
Bolt didn’t recognize the doctor smiling at him, and suddenly felt naked without his old clothes or his skates. Shit, he thought, the cores were shot… he remembered blowing them out on the road, and then he remembered why he was here at all. He looked up at the doctor, suddenly angry, “Where’s my friend? I want to see Flare-“
The doctor waved his hands, “Woah woah there Bolt, easy! Of course you can see your friend – Flare, was it? – She’s just fine, I assure you, although she was nearly beyond even our help when you brought her in. You saved her life!”
Bolt wanted to sigh in relief, but he still felt naked in his hospital gown and out of place in the spotless hospital room. The doctor smiled at him, “Okay, well, your clothes are here-“ the doctor took Bolt’s old clothes with his skates sitting on top an armed guard in the doorway. A guard in a hospital? The doctor handed Bolt his stuff; someone had cleaned both his clothes and skates. Bolt looked up at the doctor, who smiled at him, “Alright, well, get dressed and we’ll talk in my office, Bolt.” The doctor left the room and closed the door behind him. Bolt heard the lock click into place. There was no handle on it, just a keypad with no numbers.
Bolt scoured the room for power cores while he hastily pulled on his clothes. He’d found a dozen lamps in Junktown that were nearly identical to the ones in his room, and he knew exactly how to take them apart. But when he did, he found that the cores had already been taken out. Defeated, he knocked on the door, skates on, dead or not. An armed guard opened it, and Bolt could see a second guard directly behind the first. “The doctor will see you now.”
The two guards walked Bolt to the doctor’s office and pushed him in. There were books and stacks of papers piled high on his desk, and he sat lounging in his chair, smiling at Bolt when he walked in. “Hello, Bolt. I imagine you’re wondering how I know your name?”
Bolt said nothing. The doctor waited, and then eventually shrugged.
“So… no questions, then?”
“Where’s Flare?”
The doctor sighed, “As I said, she’s fine. Here-“ The doctor pointed to a small television near one corner of the room. He tapped on an electronic panel on his desk, quickly flipping through a set of menus. The picture on the TV changed to a camera in a hospital room, and Bolt saw a small red-headed girl laying in a hospital bed. There were tons of lines and numbers on the screen, too, none of which Bolt understood. “See that?” The doctor pointed at a steady beeping line on the screen, “Heart rate is good, breathing is normal. Flare will wake up feeling better than she probably ever has. She was irradiated, malnourished, and suffering from a dozen different maladies, which are all now little more than a memory. You yourself weren’t much better off.”
The doctor flipped the channel off of the camera, and a beautiful woman in a bright red sports hovercar danced on the screen, along with a price tag over the car. Hot ladies, hotter cars! Don’t be a wimp, drive a NeoToyo! Bolt looked back at the doctor, trying not to look as mad as he felt.
“…and the two of you, Bolt, could live happily here in New Dallas. We could find a family for each of you. You could go to a nice schools, have parents, a yard, friends, and spend summers skating to your heart’s content in a safe neighborhood, one without bikers trying to hunt you and your friends down. No more scavenging to survive. No more struggle to live.”
…And I could join the Church. Bolt thought of the things he’d been wanting for as long as he could remember, and the harsh reality of Junktown. He’d lived in the wastes since he was younger than Flare and Burn, always on the run. It was all right in front of him on clean plate, ready for him and Flare. But every time he looked at the doctor, he couldn’t help but feel his skin crawl. Something about his offer sounded so sincere and wonderful that even he believed it. Bolt considered having a family, a real family, and finally made up his mind.
“I wanna see Flare. I need to tell her everything’s alright and calm her down when she wakes up.” The doctor smiled. He tapped his finger on his desk and spoke to the panel on it, “Please take young Bolt here to Flare’s room. She’s in forty-six-fifteen-A. Thank you,” the doctor got up to shake Bolt’s hand, but he was already leaving.
One guard walked in front of Bolt, and another behind him. They both had swords and guns, and they were definitely wearing some kind of armor under their uniforms. Their feet clicked in perfect unison as the three walked into a nearby elevator, rising floor after floor up to forty-six. One of the guards looked at Bolt in the elevator and chuckled, saying nothing. Bolt focused on how high up they were going, wondering if the doctor planned it that way.
Bolt’s heart pounded when they walked up to Flare’s door, which the guard took his time opening. Bolt barged past him into the room and threw the door shut behind him, which locked. He heard the guards laugh on the other side.
Flare looked cleaner than he’d ever seen her. Her breathing was steady and even, nothing like it had been. All the color in her skin had come back, and she definitely seemed perfectly healthy so far as Bolt could tell. He carefully slid the needle out of her arm, and was almost glad to see a little blood. “Flare, wake up,” he said softly, “Please Flare, you’ve got to wake up.”
Flare turned over and groaned unhappily, but then her eyes shot open. She looked around and saw Bolt, then flew to his chest and clung to him, suddenly sobbing, “B-Bolt, Wrench, h-he made me – made me s-show him Burn’s skates, and he left… h-he…” she cried into his shirt, and he hugged her close to him, and she continued after a moment, “…but I knew you didn’t – that you w-wouldn’t leave me there-“ Bolt hushed her, and she quieted a little. He pulled away from her and grabbed the nearby lamp, taking it apart with a practiced ease. “W-where are we Bolt? What-“ Flare looked around the strange, too-clean place. She looked afraid, but it was replaced with awe when she saw the window. She looked out of it at the buildings across the way and the cars flying past both below and overhead.
“We’ve gotta go, Flare,” Bolt whispered, hoping the cameras wouldn’t hear him. He tossed her the clean clothes they set out for her, and she quickly started dressing.
“Go?” Said Flare loudly, “Back to Junktown?” Bolt popped the power core out of the lamp and smiled at Flare, then nodded. She smiled back.
The doctor ran through the halls. 4609A, 4609B, 4610A, 4610B… If Bolt got away, if the Champ managed to escape from the hospital, it might very well be his ass. His boss would have him killed if he let Bolt leave the hospital, leave the life planned for him and his friends.
The two guards spotted the doctor running toward the room, “Hey, what’s up, doc-“
“OPEN THE DOOR YOU MORONS!”
While the one began to question him, the other immediately opened the door. A bright flash came from the room, and they all heard the sound of glass cracking. The guard who had opened the door pulled out his gun, “DON’T YOU DARE!” The guard didn’t aim it inside, but he lowered it. The doctor slumped against the inside of the doorway, gasping for air after the long run down the halls. Inside, Bolt had Flare on his back, both skates on, but only one powered on. He was already hovering, balancing himself two feet in the air on just the one skate. There were already fires burning in the room, and the skate was making a pool of molten polycrete.
“Bolt, please, stop-!“ he continued trying to catch his breath, “For both your sakes, for your friend’s sake, stop! You could be happy here, all of you, just bring them here and we can help you! You could all have families, real homes!”
Bolt turned back and looked at the doctor, smiling sadly. “My Cellmates are my family.” Bolt tucked his arms under Flare’s legs and slammed into the window, feet-first, breaking through the glass and sailing out into busy Sector Four traffic.
Skating down a vertical surface was hard. Well, skating it wasn’t hard, but slowing down was. Bolt couldn’t see the street below past the hovercars roaring by at high speeds. Thousands of them were flying every which way in a cacophony of noises. Worse was the feeling of going faster, as Bolt leaned into his fall and used his skate to move through the air. He could feel the air blasting his goggles into his eye sockets, and Flare screamed wildly in his ear, gripping him so tight around his neck and waist that he could hardly breathe.
Bolt may not have liked it, but today, he relished the thought of really being the fastest. But he could hear sirens. He looked back – well, up – and saw two cars flying straight down, trying to catch up to them. They’ll just catch us when we land, he thought to himself.
But just then, Bolt passed an Angel.
It was big – bigger than any adult, but smaller than a bus. It was shaped like a person, with legs, arms, and a head. He’d never seen one so close before, but seeing it now was terrifying, although it looked just as shocked to see him as he was to see it. Something about finally seeing one made Bolt feel a little sad, because it looked so fake up close, so mechanical, and en-masse factory produced. It was all shiny reds and golds glimmering in the afternoon sun. Clean, pristine, and manufactured, just like everything else in New Dallas. Bolt smiled in spite of a despair he felt, like he’d lost something he didn’t know he had.
When he looked down again, he panicked. A dump-truck was fast approaching them, coming up blindingly fast. He would have to boost hard to avoid it, maybe too hard, and with only one skate, he might blow the core in his skate again. But Bolt smiled a sudden and crazed sort of smile. He looked back up at the Angel. As good a sign as any! He boosted hard, slowing down, and then boosted again toward the back end of the garbage truck. The police cars zoomed past it a second later, slowing down and searching for where the two kids had gone, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Bolt and Flare spent their time laughing on the long ride home in the back of the garbage truck. They were both happy to see New Dallas at a distance from the back of the truck, happy to be heading home to the Cell. It was an uneventful trip, the end to a long and terrible-
“The race!” yelled Flare into Bolt’s ear. He nearly fell over in surprise. He had completely forgotten about the big race! They were quick to get back, hoping they could gather up their stuff and head to the track. But they were both surprised to find Gear, Burner, and Spike at home in the Cell. “FLARE!” Burn yelled and ran up to Bolt, crying happy tears when he saw his sister. Flare jumped off of Bolt’s back and tackled her brother, and the two were started laughing and wrestling on the floor. Spike ran over and hugged Bolt, and Gear joined in. The three watched Flare and Burn wrestle. “You guys!” Bolt said, “We’ve gotta go! I’ve got a race to win!”
“What d’you mean Bolt, the race was yesterday!” Flare and Bolt had been gone for two days. Spike and Burn showed up to the race yesterday in the hopes that Bolt would have been there, and Gear stayed in the Cell like she always did. Everybody expected to see Bolt there and for him to try to win the big race, and all the Junktown gangs were worried and sad when he didn’t.
At first, Bolt was sad about missing the race. He learned later that Wrench had been there on a hoverbike, and he took third place, guaranteeing him a spot in a prominent biker gang. Spike heard that someone had given him a bike in the hopes that he would run Bolt down and kill him, and after the race, Wrench even made a point of calling out Bolt as a coward for not showing up. Wrench knew all too well where the Cell was, and now that he was a biker, Bolt and his gang would have to leave their home. Bolt thought about the doctor’s offer, and he thought about going to join the Church and becoming a Cherubim pilot. He thought about family and new friends, about leaving Junktown and the Cell behind, as well as Wrench, Junkyard dogs, stale cereal and mountains of trash.
Once he told the gang they had to leave, Burner was the first to ask what they were all thinking, “Where are we gunna go, Bolt?”
He smiled. “I dunno, Burn. But we’ll go together.”