GunBarrel Gauntlet: The Last Bronze II

02. The Never-Never.

                Screaming along the highway in hungry pursuit, two motorcycles were closing in on another, a black machine that was cutting through the wind ahead of them, its rider calm in the saddle as it weaved through rocky debris and pitted holes that could trip them at high speed along the road.

The two wolves that travelled in its wake were desperate, committed to the chase as a static electrical storm rolled out to meet them on a distant horizon. The rider of the black cycle flicked his gaze briefly to the rearview mirror on his handlebars, convinced now that his pursuers were crazy enough to risk everything to bring him down. He'd have to accelerate out of the cruising pace he had established, use a little more fuel to open up the 1100cc motor and lure them into doing something stupid at a deadlier speed.

The black Enforcer roared at the quickening pace, the burnt ochre landscape blurring outside the road as the speedometer needle shivered near the limits of the dial. Taking his lead, the first hunter profiled his body over his machine as he dared to fill the sudden gap.

Aligning the marauder's profile back into his mirrors, the black rider squeezed his thumb over a switch on the handlebar grip, a compartment near the Enforcer's tailpipe springing open to scatter caltrops across the eroded asphalt.

The wolf's front tire was stripped to the rim, skidding out of control for a second before the rim buckled and folded back under the fuselage, kicking the rider into the air. Taking its place, the second raider burst out of the churning dust, cautious now of what the black cycle was capable of.

Tapping his brakes to suddenly drift backward toward his remaining pursuer, the back rider struck out with his elbow and smacked the raider's body as they exchanged positions. Recovering from the impact, the raider' offhand found the handlebar grips too late to avoid the rocks they were hurtling toward, bowling the wheels out from underneath him as he flipped like a ragdoll into the blacktop.

Death was always waiting for you in the wastelands.

Sunlight began to fail with the onset of the storm, impenetrable walls of howling dust consuming the eastern landscape. The chase had driven him too close to the storm front, and the road ahead was fading into a sea of flint particles.

Turning the right grip accelerator, man and machine fought to stay on the road as the wind broadsided their position. All the details were beginning to wash out of the area, his instincts screaming that he had to find immediate shelter or suffer the same fate as the bandits he had left behind.

Everything looked the same, obscured in the wind. Then he saw it, a shadow that dipped near the road ahead. Flying toward the gully as lightning bolts arched in glowing blue fingers behind his rear tyre, the bike became airborne as it left the shoulder of the highway, slamming down on impact as it bounced, the rider using the momentum to dismount and flatten himself into the basin of the clay gulley.

The chorus of whipping dust drowned out any other noise, the sky an umber shadow peppered with meteor speed fragments.

* * *  

Having survived the static storm by remaining under its path in the hollow of a shallow gully, the nomad emerged from the weight of sand over his form, removing his helmet to shake away as much as he could from within his hair and racing leathers.

Scoured clean by the ferocious elements, the noon sun descended through clear skies as he dug into the sand for his motorcycle. Memories came to him, old memories from before the lawless collapse. A voice coming through a radio, metallic and female:

"This is MFP headquarters to Breaker Squad-3, do you come in, over? ...Chaser-3, a gang of youths has just murdered a police officer in Sun city, the officer's vehicle has been stolen and is currently following the Trans-Con into Sector 9. All Breaker squads in Sector 9 respond, over..."

"... if you can help us get past these brutes, we'll take you with us... Believe me, the complex is secure and completely self-sufficient, we'd want for nothing until the trouble is over."

This last promise had come from the leader of a group of survivors escaping the city, a man's voice from years ago, from a time when he was the only officer left to fight the gangs on the roads.

Scooping away more loose earth, the rubber grip of a handle emerged. Working until late noon to retrieve the vehicle out of its grave, he managed to upright the frame and wheel it out of the gully. Scanning the horizon in all directions, the road had been buried with any other previous landmarks. Unsure of which compass point to follow, he slipped the helmet back over his head before saddling the Enforcer.

Exhaust pipes coughed out residual dust, engine idling as he appraised the limits of the wastelands for any sign of life. Then, with a determined turn of the accelerator, the nomad began again his sojourn across the blighted plains, wandering alone through a land once known as Australia.

* * * 

                Days later, the nomad was dragging his feet through saltpan hell, possessed by some compulsion in his reptilian brain to keep breathing, keep lifting the lead of his boots another inch, another mile. That core instinct kept him moving puppet fashion, hissing at him to drop the bike, but he wouldn't do it. The Enforcer was all he had to keep his identity together; the bike was his burden, his duty, his past.

The silhouette of hills in the west was something to aim for, a harbour from the relentless burn of the sun. He could smell water in those hills, taste it in the air. Lactic acid cramped his muscles, tight as frayed bowstring about to snap.

Pain now, water later. It was a fair compromise his body could agree to.

Heatwaves danced like ceaseless serpents, warping his vision as the air sizzled. Falling to his knees, the nomad's chin hit the bike saddle, making him bite his swollen tongue. Raising a foot to steady himself and the bike before it fell, he shook with exhaustion, dry throat gargling in abject anguish.

Pushing up from his fall, the nomad wobbled as his arms struggled to keep the Enforcer moving in a straight line for a few more metres, then he finally collapsed, rolling away from the machine he had dragged for miles into hell.

'I'm dead now.' He told himself bluntly, cracked lips moving silently as he closed his eyes on the azure blue sky.

The haunting beat of clap sticks drifted into his sleeping consciousness, accompanying the droning note of a didgeridoo, pulsing as it breathed its song. A man was chanting. It was the call of his Death Song. Wild dog silhouettes gathered around him, their blood thirsty tongues lolling as they panted in the sundown heat. Fighting against the sleep of eternal night, he rose in the dream, urging himself to wake as one of the shadow dogs lunged at his face, followed by the rest of the pack, stripping his body to the bone as they fought over the ragged remains.

Waking from the precipice of death, the sudden opening of his eyes startled a wild dog, skipping backward with nervous energy. It had been cleaning his face with its tongue after coming down from the hills, curious about the man that had entered its territory.

Bounding up the incline to a safer position, the dog looked back over its shoulder at the dying nomad, yelping as though it could talk. The man followed, staggering onward where ever the animal led him. His innards twisted in anticipation at the moisture in the air. Disappearing under the ledge of a cave, the whining bark of the dog steered him to its priceless treasure; a puddle of rock filtered water. Brought to his knees as he cried out in awe, he bent his head closer to drink from the well of life.