20.
 In the morning, she woke when Moira shook her shoulder gently. They were alone in the dorm. “I’m going to do some of my work later so I can walk you back to your helium drive bottle.” Moira looked beautiful, with her lean freckled face and full lips and orange hair, and Taxi reached up impulsively and kissed her on the mouth. Moira reacted like dry soil to a summer rain, sucking hungrily on Taxi’s mouth. Taxi fought herself free from Moira’s surprisingly powerful embrace.
“I brought you some food,” Moira said breathlessly, pulling a checked cloth off of a basket.
Taxi ate eggs, bread, some incredibly delicate beef. She drank orange juice and a cup of hot black coffee. “I don’t suppose you have any cigarettes.”
Moira looked at her blankly.
“Never mind. I’ve got a pouch of great tobacco. Something to look forward to about getting back. Now don’t start asking if you can come along. The answer is no.”
Taxi, wearing her camo uniform under her gray skirt and apron, marched across the yard with her skirt flapping over her combat boots. Once again, she had the knife in her boot, but now the .45 dangled in its holster from her trouser belt. Several men passed at a distance, but they were not permitted to speak with a single Young Woman at other than mealtimes. In her straw hat, she hoped to look like she belonged here.
This time, she was left alone to work on the engine. The helium bottle was half up-powered. Someone had said that it would be at least until 2100 before people could figure out again how to create practical fusion energy, maybe 2150 even. Damn heavy, the bottle, as Taxi popped it loose and it slid further down into the engine compartment amid a spaghetti of age-blackened wires. By contrast, the bottle’s stainless steel skin was as shiny and rust-free as the day it was made.
As Taxi labored on the helium drive bottle, she was only dimly conscious of the obscuring bushes around her. Each time she heard the tramp of feet, she’d stop what she was doing and lie flat on the ground until the Toons were past. Then, one time, she looked up and her gaze went right between the bushes, across the path out there, to another chain link fence, and there, standing behind the fence, was a very still figure in white, with huge shoulders, and long black hair and a thick black beard. Taxi stared. The person or whatever it was had on a long white gown that reached to its feet. It stood stockstill, staring at Taxi, and making no sign. Taxi felt spooked.
A while later, Moira came with some more cold black coffee. The coffee slid down nicely. “Thanks. Hey, who is the guy in the bedsheet over there?”
Moira peered through the bushes and looked sad. “That is one of the Wrong Turns. His name is Johnny Smith. He was Anna’s brother.”
“Was?”
“Here, was. That’s how it is here.”
“Does he always stare like that?”
Moira looked embarrassed. “We’re not supposed to talk about those things. Drink your coffee.” She left Taxi alone.
* * *
Before the men arrived from the fields, Taxi had a chance to flash Sam with her pocket mirror.
He did not answer.
Oh Jesus, she thought, I’ve got to get out of here. Soon as I have a bottle. Or all of them? Maybe we can come back if we need more. No, but there was a fortune here, and they’d be set for life.
Sam, she flashed with her little mirror, Sam?
She thought: hang in there, honey, I’ll be out today or tomorrow with enough fuel to get us to the moon.
Sam? She flashed again. There was no answer.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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