Gyaros Book One: The Mice Eat Iron (YA 17+ Sci Fi Adventure) (30 page)

After using his hand to wash away the dark brown trimmings that filled the sink,
Miles dried himself off completely and slipped into the set of clean crisp pyjamas that Doctor Galand had kindly donated to the filthy man. The feeling of fresh clothing was indescribable, in fact he spent about five minutes sniffing and touching them, revelling in the cleanliness. Before hopping into bed for the night Miles kneeled beside the sofa bed that Lucy was lying on and softly stroked her jet black hair. Just then her eyes opened slightly.

“Pa…pa?”
still slurring from the sedative, she reached out with her right hand and placed her palm on Mile’s freshly trimmed beard, “you look…better.” They smiled at each other for a moment and then Lucy’s eyes closed again, she was fast asleep. ‘I don’t care what you are, or what Galand says, I’ll do everything I can to see that you are safe Lucy.’ Miles tucked her in and made his way to the double bed in the centre of the room. He hopped in, the sheets were cool and refreshing against his body which was still hot from the shower. He made himself comfortable and quickly drifted off to sleep.

The morning sunlight crept through a crack in the blinds, and when it passed over Miles’ closed eye lids he twitched, irritated by the sudden brightness. His right eye squinted open and he quickly moved his face out of the glaring sunlight and into the shade. Remembering the events of yesterday he sat up. Lucy was there, sleeping away, recovering from her injury. Miles hopped out of bed and moved closer to Lucy. He checked her pulse and her breath. Satisfied that she was okay he used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, washed his face and replaced his pyjamas with a slightly tight, but perfectly wearable pair of jeans, a white button up shirt, and brown leather work boots all of which once belonged to the kind doctor.

Lucy was still fast asleep so he decided to let her rest.
After closing the door to room number eleven Miles made his way down to the dining area which was already half full. He took a seat and ordered a full breakfast, his appetite was back to normal and if the breakfast here was anything like it was at Guppy’s he simply couldn’t resist. After all he had to leave the next morning, who knew when he would get his next good meal? The food soon arrived and Miles tucked in. After a few minutes Adara entered the restaurant and ordered a sandwich and tea at the counter. She then walked toward Miles and smiled at him.

“Do you mind if I
join you?” she chirped cheerfully. Her big blue eyes sparkled in a way that Miles hadn’t seen so far on Gyaros. Her contagious happiness was a pure manifestation of what Humber Dam represented, a refuge, a sanctuary in the middle of a kind of hell.

“Of course not, please have a seat,” said Miles swallowing quickly to answer the attractive lady. Her straight blonde hair shimmered in the morning light and her
clear pale skin caught Miles off guard, she reminded him a little of Hellen. His reaction to her beauty was a testament to the exclusive ugliness he’d been exposed to for the past month. He had Lucy of course, she was beautiful in her own way, but she was a child, it was different. Miles consumed the vision of Adara like one would smell a rose or eat an exquisite desert. In the midst of the panic of the day before, Miles had not noticed how attractive Adara was, but now it hit home. Not a single impure thought crossed Miles’ mind, he was simply grateful to be able to take in her beauty. The beauty was hers, he didn’t need to possess it, he was content to admire and nothing more.

“How is Lucy doing this morning?” she asked compassionately.

“She seems fine, Doctor Galand did an amazing job,” replied Miles gratefully.

“That’s good, I’m glad to hear it,” Adara’s sandwich and tea arrived thanks to the young waitress
. “Thank you Stephanie,” said Adara and the waitress smiled at both of them, wishing them bon appetit.

“Doctor Galand told me about Lucy,” she continued, leaning in and lowering her voice
, “she’s not human. I don’t believe she’s dangerous but if word spread it could cause panic in the town,” Adara’s cheer had vanished and was replaced by dead seriousness. “I know it’s horrible of us to ask you to simply leave so soon, but you must understand.”

“I do understand Adara, Galand made it perfectly clear.
Lucy and I owe you more than we can repay already so please don’t feel bad about asking us to leave, I mean it.” Miles smiled broadly, of course he would have preferred to leave Lucy here, but it was true, he was in no position to ask more of Galand and Adara, they’d already done so much.

“We’ll give Lucy one more night and day, I’ll pay what I owe and we’ll be on our way. Thanks Adara, you’ve been such a big help.”

“No Miles, we just do what we can. We work damn hard to keep the scum of the wastelands out of here so that we can help anyone who genuinely needs it, and to keep decency and civilization alive in whatever small way we can.”

“I was wondering about that,” Miles started with a quizzical look on his
slender face, “how
do
you defend this place? It was far too easy to get in here, just some sleepy old guy that opened the gate without hesitation! I’ll bet there are a ton of nasty people who’d literally kill to get at what you have here!”

“Haha!” Adara laughed, rocking back on her chair as Miles looked on, stunned
by her reaction. “You mean old Eagle Eye Darren? He might not look it but he’s the finest shot on the wastelands! Yup, he could have taken you out before you even saw the Humber Dam gates. He’s a good judge of character as well, if he let you through that’s good enough for us.”

“But he must be eighty years old!” Miles exclaimed.

“At least! He fought in The War of Unification for Talos when he was real young, worked as a merc after the war until he was caught and sent over here. After wandering a while he wanted to make good so Doctor Galand put him to work protecting the town, that was about seventeen years ago. He also leads the town militia, his years on the battlefield give him a strategic edge you know. Yeah Darren likes to put on the old geezer act but he’s as sharp as ever, believe me,” Adara blew her tea and took a sip, “yeah when we wanna, we can sure put up a fight. These days everyone’s too scared to start anything, it ain’t worth the losses you know?” Adara finished talking and took a bite of her sandwich which looked to contain lettuce, tomato, onion and blue cheese with some kind of yellow sauce.

“Well I have to say, after spending the past month in The Dustbowl I can sure appreciate what you all are doing here
, it’s really amazing!” Said Miles before taking another bite of sausage.

“Yeah well
we’re just doing our part. The Humber Dam used to power a third of the Gyaros settlements including New Fortune. But since the water levels dropped we’ve got just a little more than what we need to power the town. Don’t know how long that’s gonna last though,” Adara sighed and looked forlornly out of the window at the children playing on their front lawns. She returned her gaze to Miles, “but we’ll hold out as long as we can.”

“Why are the water levels falling?”
asked Miles.

“It’s the Wilhelm stations, we’re running out of Chimerium to power the towers, once we’re all out that’s it, Gyaros turns back into a dusty rock with no weather, no atmosphere, nothing. There’s that but also it’s hard to find people with the technical knowhow to maintain the stations these days, and the syndicates are so busy fighting each other they can’t even rally together to find a way to save the moon.” Adara looked depressed thinking about the fatal inevitability of it all.

“That’s awful, I guess there hasn’t been a shipment of Chimerium to Gyaros since the end of The War of Unification. That’s sixty years! How has Gyaros even latest this long?” Miles asked curiously.

“Well Talos had huge stockpiles here, enough to power the colony for decades but of course when everything fell apart after the war, the syndicates fought over the remaining supply. This meant that some sectors’ stations went off line entirely creating unliveable regions and adversely affecting the weather in the other sectors as well. Hence the storms, the deserts and the empty oceans.”
Adara finished her tea, let out a refreshing “ahhh” and continued.

“So what’s your plan, if you don’t mind me asking
?”

Miles thought for a moment, hi
s plan of course was to get to New Fortune, find Mesa and get the hell off Gyaros, but he was not willing to divulge the full details of his goal.

“I’m going to try and make it to New Fortune and
eke out some kind of existence there. I’m hoping my skills as an engineer and electrical technician will be good enough to secure some work, then I can find someplace safe for Lucy. Try and find someone who will take care of her, you know?” Miles took a last bite of his breakfast and placed his knife and fork down on the plate with a light clatter.

“Seems like you’re doing a pretty good job of taking care of her already,”
smiled Adara admiringly, Miles scoffed.

“She deserves better than me Adara, she deserves a family that will love and care for her, give her the security a young girl needs.” Miles had yet to fully take in the fact that Lucy was an artificial intelligence made of wires and steel, veiled in human form. He still very much thought of her as the yo
ung girl that she appeared to be. A bell could be heard jingling as Doctor Galand entered the eatery and took a seat at the table with Adara and Miles.

“Good morning Miles, how did you sleep?”
he asked beaming brightly.

“Better than I have in about a month!” Miles exclaimed with a laugh.

“I’m glad to hear it Miles, I hope I wasn’t too harsh yesterday, I…” Miles cut him off.

“Please, say no more, I understand
, you’ve already done more than enough. Tomorrow morning we will continue north toward New Fortune.”

“Yes about that,” said Galand, his brow furrowing
, “I thought you should know that there is a brilliant technician and roboticist who lives to the west of here about a hundred miles. He could certainly fix up that little girl’s arm, maybe make her a full replacement even. You see I did what I could to repair the damage to the biological part of her but I don’t have the skills necessary to work on her mechanics. She may have sustained damage to her systems that might be worth checking out.” Doctor Galand finished speaking, a look of concern for Lucy on his wise old face.

“Thank you Doctor, we’ll make a stop out there on our way to New Fortune,” Miles bowed his head slightly in appreciation of this information.

“Excellent,” the Doctor smiled, “Adara will mark his location on your map. The man’s name is Adam Powell, he lives in a small house with his wife where he runs his machine shop and does a little farming. A very good man, if a little testy at times,” a wry smile crept up one side of Galand’s face which suggested that he and Adam had been through a bit together. “I have a few patients to attend to this morning, including little Lucy, so I will let you finish your breakfasts in peace.” Galand began to stand and leave when Miles stopped him.

“Hold on just a second Doctor,
I was thinking about Lucy, and I have a question. You said you gave her a sedative, but if she’s a robot why would an injected sedative work on her at all?”

“Well Miles it seems that she was designed to mimic human behaviour in every way possible, even down to the effects of drugs on the human body. I don’t know the specifics but I imagine that when the sedative was injected into the blood stream, her diagnostics module presumably ran a toxicology test to determine what had entered the system. Once the drug was identified the computer would have then simulated the effects of that drug, which in this case was unconsciousness. Speaking of which the drug’s effects should be wearing off fully around now, you should be with her when she wakes up.” Galand pardoned himself and headed out the door cheerfully into the warm
sunny morning.

“He’s
right, I’d better get back to Lucy. Thanks again for everything you’ve done, I’ll talk to you later,” Miles smiled and began to leave.

“You’re very welcome Miles, it’s always a pleasant surprise to get nice visitors. I’ll load your truck up with fuel and as many supplies as we can spare for your trip,” Adara beamed back and started clearing the table.
She watched Miles head up the steel stairs to room number eleven and sighed.

Back in the motel room Miles opened the heavy curtains letting in the bright midday sun. The light spread across the room and illuminated Lucy’s pretty face. Her eyes and cheeks twitched at the sudden change in brightness and slowly her eyelids opened. Miles rushed over to be at her side.

“Hey you, how are you feeling this morning?” Miles asked in a hushed tone. Lucy groaned and stretched.

“I’m hungry,” they both giggled and Miles went to the diner again momentarily to fetch Lucy something to eat. He returned with a bowl of steaming hot mushroom soup and a fruit salad, as well as a small plastic portable table, the type that is used for eating breakfast in bed. Placing the food on the table by the window Miles carefully helped Lucy to sit up on the sofa. Lucy moaned in pain before finding a comfortable seating position. Miles propped the sturdy little table over Lucy’s lap and placed the bowl of soup on top of that. Taking a spoon in his hand he scooped up some soup and blew on it to cool it to an edible temperature. He then went to place it into Lucy’s mouth.