Dead World

Chapter 7: Uptown

Mar

Nothing happened. I stayed awake for the rest of the night, my eyes glued to the bay doors, but no one came through. When the sun rose and Hatsui wrenched the door open, my chest unclenched a sigh I didn't know I was holding.

For days after that, nobody came. But neither did the rain. I desperately wished it would pour again so I could go back to the market and get some answers from Rocky. Instead, we were stuck in a terribly dry and hot spell as we put finishing touches on the last cars for Dead World. The race quickly approached as the days in June continued to fall away.

Two weeks away from the equinox and Dead World, it rained. It started late morning, coming torrential and angry, flooding the streets and threatening to creep into the workshop. The storm was making up for last time, trying to rehydrate our desert city that was beyond bone dry. But instead, the storm washed the dust around and left everything slick with mud.

We were running low on supplies and Magda ran out of pills days ago. Her joints swelled and her arthritis-bent fingers continued to curl unnaturally. But it wasn't just that. Within days she became nearly immobile, hobbling from resting place to resting place.

"Magda?" I called casually to her from my workbench. I'd been in my uncomfortable stool for hours, crunched to finish the remaining projects Rocky had given me for the market that night. 

"Yes, dear?" She asked me from under the car. She was tinkering with some bolts, but the wrench kept slipping from her fingers and clanking on the floor. We all pretended we couldn't hear it and that it didn't bother us, that we didn't worry about her. She wanted to still feel normal, to still carry on like she wasn't suffering. But Alfred's constant gazes in her direction, the constant misery etched in his features told me something I feared: Magda was sick. I rose from my projects and kneeled next to the car she was under. 

"I don't mean to be rude, but would you like me to do that? I worry about your hands," I said, tucking myself under the frame so I could see her face.

She smiled, her lips pulling just enough not reveal her missing teeth. Her cold and crooked hand on my cheek and patted. "Oh dear, don't you worry about me. I'm just getting older."

"I'll get what you need tonight," I said, trying to sound threatening through my concern. Magda clucked at me and shook her head, as if I were being dramatic. In reality, Magda was being bashful and protecting me from a truth I could see with my own eyes.

That was the thing about Dead world. It wasn't just a race, but a reality. The world wasn't just dead but continuing to die around us. Mortality can be so pervasive.

...

Karl and I arrived early, at my request. I needed time not just to sweep through the market and look for suspicious characters but also circle back to talk to Rocky before he left for the evening. After I did my rounds and completed the barters quickly (thankfully getting three pain pills from the usual circle of ladies in exchange for a car battery I lifted from one of Hatsui's junk car—it needed a good charge, but a battery was a battery) I made my way to Rocky. He watched me approach with hopeful eyes, too chipper to see me.

"Rocky," I said scratching my left eyebrow and he nodded, his mouth downturn. We both moved from his stuff to hide in the shadows, a code we had when I felt we were in danger. A necessity when Rocky would give me stolen to tech to work on, tech he planned to sell to 'bots. That was where things got tricky.

"What's going on, kid?" He asked, as soon as we were hidden.

"The device you gave me, it had a tracker."