Welcome, New World

As I shifted the truck into second gear, it was just enough to come up to speed before crossing the second set of railroad tracks. Double crossings have always fascinated me. I then down shifted into first gear. Trucks like this don’t move fast. All I could think about was the war. Hitler was just building up speed. Humans are so incredibly animalistic. They needed to be humbled.

Frank was a civilian in our world. What that means is that he was expendable. The rest of us weren’t. Especially me.

“Frank, are you keeping watch?” I yelled.

The noise of this truck was like aluminum pans clanking down the road. The gears ground like a shovel being dragged on concrete. That’s what it was supposed to sound like. The civilian exterior disguised technology that would necessitate killing a man if he even heard it existed. I knew what death it held also. That only made me want to carry out my mission all the faster. I had to get as far away as possible from that stuff. It’s funny how comfortable Frank was- not knowing what was coming.

Sometimes it’s just better not to know the future.

“Yeah I’m OK,” Frank nervously said after a long pause.

He was so uptight. He really should’ve relaxed more. As I took my foot off the clutch and the gas pedal at the same time, the truck sputtered a little then stalled with the cab dead in the center of the second set of tracks. Right on target.

“What happened?” Frank quietly said with a blank stare at the road and valley scenery ahead.

“Stalled.”

As if waking up from a light nap, Frank said, “Wha- what- what happened? We gotta keep moving sir. We can’t stop here.”

I opened the door handle on the truck.

As I stepped out, I said, “don’t worry, just gonna take a quick look at the engine.”

After realizing that I was actually leaving the truck in a non-moving state, he started to grow into more of a frenzy.

“No! You gotta get this thing going!” He paused to add -sir. “We can’t be late, we can’t stop!”

I let the door swing lightly closed as I stepped out. I said, “Don’t worry- won’t take long.”

Frank picked up his radio and pushed the button to talk. A small part of me felt like he was tattle-tale as he contacted our security escorts.

“We gotta problem,” Frank said as he nervously and irritably shook his head side to side.

“Whats the problem?” replied Dan in a serious, stoic voice.

“Engine trouble- I- I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I’m not a mechanic,” he whispered to himself.

I popped open the hood and pretended like I was fixing something. Just as I was about to yell to Frank to give me ten minutes, I heard a faint, long sustained sound.

Frank pushed the button on the radio to talk, and at the same time he yelled to me to ask how long it was going to be. That way, it would make him sound like he was handling the situation as Dan listened on. He really needed to relax.

After hearing the sound, that was my cue. I yelled back, “Its totally shot- I gotta go into town!” Even for me, that was a ridiculously stupid excuse to get away.

“What! You can’t go! You gotta find some way to...”

Frank paused, he heard the sound too. Except, unknown to him, it was louder than when I heard it. Dan and his partner had their windows up. It was hot, but they were outfitted with the latest cooling technology. No one had seen anything like that in a car. The technology was slightly noisy. I ran as fast as I could to nearby trees. Frank was too busy squinting his eyes, searching frantically to see if he could see the train in the distance.

They were instructed to never leave their vehicles under any circumstance. The cargo was too security sensitive- so I knew they wouldn’t follow me as I sprinted away. Besides, they had a train to deal with now. About 300 feet away there was cover of shrubbery.

The bushes were so green that I almost stopped to admire them.

There was a medium-sized old metal box with a rusty lock on it embedded in the small patch of reddish dirt clearing.

I quickly stomped on the lock and it cracked off easily. This chest was purposely left here by The Lamps. The rivets were actually buttons. In combination lock fashion, I pushed in several of the rivets around the edge of the box. It was a combination-locked fortress disguised as a rusty box.

Immediately, the chest unlatched with a small puff of cool vapor. Inside the smooth, white, sterile interior lay a one piece jumpsuit with attached gloves, shoes, and head mask. There were also a special set of keys. The chest was large enough to hold a human inside. The white jumpsuit could only be sealed once. After that, it couldn’t be trusted to be safe from gases or fluids.

I sealed the suit by peeling away the adhesive protective layers on the opening of the suit, and pressing them closed to melt all the openings to an airtight seal. I then switched on my built in rebreather. I heard the train whistle louder than ever now. With controlled precision and haste, I uncovered the specially designed motorcycle lying on it’s side beneath a hard piece of formed plastic covered with red soil. I turned the ignition on the motorcycle. It started with a quiet whir.

This was a contrast to the heavily revving motor in the nearby distance that sounded like a race car revving up.

I put the special cycle in drive and slowly rode to the edge of the bushes to see the progress of the flatbed train in relation to the truck target.

I saw Dan’s partner and driver frantically ramming the car into the back of the truck to push it off the tracks. Frank, in the meantime, was foolishly trying to start the truck. It was not going to start.

The train was about 15 seconds away and since the conductor did not notice the truck due to a well-timed distraction, it was not going to stop on time. As the black sedan pressed the bumper of the truck and flooded gas to the motor, the truck shifted forward, but rocked back into place. 10 seconds.

The driver apparently just realized he could rock it free like getting freed from being stuck in a mud puddle. He then with lightning speed rocked the truck forward, and before it could go back to it’s original position, the car lunged forward. He pressed full force on the gas, and the truck began to move.

Frank’s face was pale white with fear as the train approached in 5 seconds. He had no idea how misplaced his loyalty to his mission was. My heart nearly skipped a beat when I saw the truck move forward.

But it only moved Frank’s cab out of harms way. The black sedan slammed in reverse about 1 second before impact.

The train, with whistles blaring, crunched into the cargo area of the truck with a loud mixture of twisted steel and smashing glass.

The flatbed train carried the truck at least 500 feet before starting to slow.

Frank was still in the truck hanging on for dear life in the clutches of this mechanical juggernaut. He pressed his hands against the doors and roof of the cab as the iron tsunami carried him on a wave of metallic destruction.

After the train screeched to a stop- leaving behind a trail of mechanical entrails and steel skin flesh- there was smoke and silence, similar to the aftermath of bombing a city.

The conductor jumped down and ran to the truck to see if the driver was OK. He helped pull Frank from the wreckage. As Frank stumbled down, extremely shaken- but in control- the conductor guided him over to Dan.

Dan had what appeared to be a photograph that he seemed transfixed to in his hand. Frank stumbled up to the drivers side and appeared to be excitedly demonstrating how he was alive.

Dan was one of us, and he knew the sacrifices that were necessary to be one of us. He was not a lineage born Flame, but he was still one of us. He put down the photograph and closed his eyes as if in a dream after having a brief conversation with the driver.

Just then, Frank looked up- as there was a hissing sound that started to louden from the wreckage. It was time for me to depart.

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As I hopped on my motorcycle, I thought about our future as Lamps. I thought about being one of the founding Members. I thought about how civilian humans would never understand their sacrifice- so elimination was a kind solution. I switched the bike into hover mode and headed for the bunker.