The Lane Plan free porn video

The Lane Plan by Erin Tyler I could tell you the story about what happened to Gary Carson after he was exiled from his hometown of Parkside... but there's not much story to tell. He spent his days carefully scavenging the ruins and his nights trying to figure out what he was surrounded by in the storeroom of Mariel's. The Mistress was keeping me busy with lessons on the science of the glider we were building, so I was only able to come down and see him for less than an hour a day. I brought him a functioning space heater, hooked it to the solar panels, and showed him how to turn it on at night. It took away power from the lights, but better he sit in the dark than freeze to death. He had no end of other necessities: Alan visited his son whenever he could drop the ABCs off with a neighbor. Given Gary's lack of formal education, I thought that I could teach him the basics of reading so he could while away some of his time with the books I had in there; however, surprisingly, he could read pretty well already. He wasn't up to 2015 high school student standards, but he managed. He told me that the literacy rate was pretty bad in Parkside, but he knew someone who was a really good reader, someone who had taught him to read, someone who wasn't his father. I asked him who. He told me. I didn't believe him. I doubt anyone would. More on that later. For now, I don't want to focus on Gary. I want to focus on his grandfather, Grant Carson, who had passed away shortly after the birth of his first, and only, grandson. Moreover, I want to tell you a story about Parkside and the Metal Witch of New England. There are plenty of first-hand accounts, so you can trust my story to be accurate. Also, it is pertinent to my own tale, and it may answer a question or two that you have. The morning of March 17, 2423 was a cold and blustery one. It had been a dry winter, and many in New England were worried that it was shaping up to be a dry spring as well. Although no one said it out loud, many wondered whether the Sea Witch of Norfolk was going to send rain their way sometime soon. The crops had not be planted yet because the ground was so dry; at least some water was necessary to get things started. It was around 9 am, and Grant Carson was walking the fields, his little boy Alan walking along behind him and kicking up dust. "Are we gonna have broccoli this year?" Alan asked, rubbing one eye after getting some dust in it. Grant scratched his cheek through his dense beard. "I dunno, kiddo. We should be planting it about now, but these fields..." He looked back east, toward Sky Tower, and saw nothing but a flat expanse of brown bordered by broken asphalt and two-story townhouses. "...It's not looking too good." "Good," Alan grumbled, scratching the dirt with the bottom of his small boot. "I hate broccoli." "Mmm... you'll like it more if we don't have any," Grant mumbled. His son didn't say anything, but that was fine -- the boy was only 7 and hadn't experienced much misfortune. In Grant's life, he had experienced more than a few seasons in which the town went hungry because of bad weather, and he wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy. It was still early, however. April hadn't arrived, and that could still bring rain. Grant looked up at the sky, hoping just a little to see the swirling, smoky rainbow colors of the Witch's Lights, and the giant woman who appeared out of them. "RAIN IS COMING, PARKSIDE," he wanted to hear. "GET READY FOR A GUSHER!" He grinned a little -- everyone was always so terrified of that strange, broad-shouldered witch with the wide mouth and jovial eyes, but frankly, she never struck him as the type who meant any harm. She was proud, yes, but there was no malignance behind that pride. When he looked back down to earth, he saw plenty of malignance. He smelled whiskey before he spotted Galen Foster shambling up the road, a black duffel bag in one hand and his house keys in the other. Grant discreetly pushed his son behind him. "Good morning, Galen," Grant said. Galen responded by shooting him a dirty, cross-eyed look with his small, deep-set peepers. His uneven stubble was several days old and flecked with bits of what could have been food. "Early morning at the bar?" "Shove it," Galen muttered. Grant smiled insincerely. "Ah, funny! How's Junior, by the way?" Leave him with any fresh bruises lately, you son of a bitch, he avoided asking. Galen said nothing. Grant's eye twitched, and he looked at the bag. "If I look in there, am I gonna find-" "-You gon' find my fist in your face iff'ew mess with m' bag, Carson," Galen slurred, spittle leaking out of his mouth. He unlocked his door and opened it quickly. Grant's fake smile was so forced, he was really just baring his teeth. "Heeeehhh!! Nice-" Galen slammed the door shut behind him. "...Talk, Foster," Grant growled. Alan was hiding himself behind his father. "Dad," he whispered. Grant didn't hear him. "Dad!" "What?" Grant grumbled, turning to his son. "Kick him out." Grant blinked, feeling a little winded by the encounter with Galen. "...What?" "Kick him outta town! Why don't you tell him he has to leave?" Grant sighed, then got on one knee. "Son... you can't... just..." He sighed again and rubbed his eyes. "You can't... pick and choose your neighbors. You just gotta deal with the hand you're given." "But he's a bad guy!" "I know. But Helena... you know, Mrs. Foster? She's nice, isn't she?" Alan nodded. "Junior's not such a bad kid, either." "When he's let outside... which is never." "Yeah, well... they can't really leave Mr. Foster, so if he's forced out-" "-Why not?!" "Why not? Why not what?" "Why can't they leave him?!" Grant breathed out. "...It... they..." He paused. He wanted to give his son an answer. Any answer. Because frankly, Grant Carson wanted to understand it himself. "...Because it's complicated, son," he settled on saying, which didn't seem to satisfy Alan in the least. Grant didn't blame him; it was a bullshit answer. He tried giving his son a smile to cheer him up, but that only worked a little. "C'mon, kiddo. Enough playing in the dirt. I seem to recall you asking me yesterday how to shoe a horse. Mr. MacGruder down at the stables can show you-" And then he heard the bang. It was loud, but distant. He turned around and saw smoke arise from the top floor of Sky Tower. It didn't worry him too much at first, because it wasn't the first time the Metal Mistress had raised a ruckus up there. A couple times in the past, the people of Parkside had heard a loud explosion from the inside of Sky Tower. One of those times, the explosion had even rattled some of the windows in town. Both times, she had come down an hour later, covered in soot and chuckling about how she should've been more careful, should've figured she couldn't do something-something with the something-or-other. When she was a little shaken up, she tended to speak with strange words that nobody understood. She was very friendly, however, and always apologetic for making a scene, even if she didn't -- or , Grant thought, simply couldn't -- explain what she was doing. Given how nice she was toward everyone, it was never a problem. After all, if anyone ever got hurt by the Metal Mistress, the person who got hurt would most likely be the Metal Mistress herself. Everybody knew that. But then he heard a yell come from Sky Tower. It was long, but faint. The wind was blowing from south to north, so it didn't carry very far, but he could still hear it a little. Some other people who were outside turned their heads toward the noise; however, nobody went to go check to see what had happened. After a few seconds, it ended, and nobody worried much about it. It was only Brooke, after all. By noon, Grant was a little worried. The smoke had cleared, but Brooke hadn't come down. He figured that maybe she thought she didn't owe them an explanation this time. He wouldn't have faulted her for feeling that way, but... well, he was worried about her. Many people in town had heard the explosion, and several people were asking him about it. He told them not to worry, just let her do her thing. She's not bothering anyone up there, so when she comes down, she'll come down. Then he went home for lunch, and his wife Abigail asked about her. "Is Brooke okay?" she asked. "Abby-" "-Everyone in town is talking about it! Is she okay?! Has she come down yet?!" Grant sighed. "...No, she hasn't." "Well, why not?!" "I have no idea." He smiled at her. She glared at him. Although their son would grow up to be a big guy, he hadn't really inherited that quality from the Carson side of his family. Grant was a little shorter than his wife, and he had -- I'm just relaying information here -- a potbelly. Abigail, however, was of the Turner clan, a family of hardy farmers from the foothills of the Adirondacks. "Listen, this is Brooke we're talking about here. Whatever she's got going on, I'm sure she's got it under control, or she's getting it under control. If we went out now, we'd just be a distraction to her." "We could just check! Stop by, say hello!" "She's fine, Abby. Really." She looked unconvinced. "Really!" Still nothing. Deadlocked. "...What do you want me to do?" "Go to Sky Tower. Ask one of her guards-" He rolled his eyes. "Don't you roll your eyes at me, buster! They may not have faces, but they can take a message! I've done it before!" Grant threw up his hands. "...Okay! I'll send someone out to check up on her. Are you happy?!" "That's all I ask," she said calmly. Grant nodded and plodded toward his front door. He opened it just as the sheriff was about to knock. "Waltrip," Grant said. "What's up?" "Something weird, Grant," Sheriff Waltrip said. "Bad weird." "What happened?" "One of my boys just came back from Sky Tower. I sent him out there to see if Miss Lane's all right." "Thank you," Grant sighed. "Abby'll be pleased-" "-No, chief! This isn't good! My guy said the guards pulled guns on him!" Abigail had been listening in -- Grant heard a sharp intake of air behind him. "That's ridiculous," he said. "Brooke doesn't arm her guys." "Well, she does now! My guy said they're packing serious firepower! Shotguns, automatics, the works! They told him to back off, or they'd open fire!" "-Teh-heh!" Grant chuckled involuntarily. His face beamed with incredulity as he looked from Waltrip to his wife, then back to Waltrip. Neither of them were laughing. "...This is Brooke!" he stated. "Grant!" Abigail snapped. Waltrip shook his head. "It's somethin' weird, chief." "She's babysat Alan!!" "Grant!!" Abigail nearly yelled. Grant threw up his arms in frustration. "Do you want me to go see her myself?! I will!!" Neither Waltrip nor Abigail said anything. "Fine! I'm going to go see Brooke! Scary, scary Brrrooke! Watch me go!" He huffed and stormed out of his house past Waltrip. Waltrip nodded and mumbled a polite, "ma'am," to Abigail, then ran off after Grant. He caught up with the village chief a few yards from the house, although Grant didn't slow down for him at all. "...Chief, don't you think we should ask Galen-" "-No," Grant said tersely. "...You haven't even heard what I was about to ask. Can't we ask Galen- " "-No," Grant repeated. "But-" "-If the question begins with 'Should we ask Galen Foster,' then the answer is no. Should we ask Galen Foster for a favor? No. Should we ask Galen Foster for a cup of sugar? No. Should we ask Galen Foster to watch our kids?!" He spat into the dirt. "You know he can provide-" "-Misery!" Grant stopped in his tracks and turned to face the taller Waltrip. "As if it wasn't bad enough that he had to start bringing the Coalition of Independent States' shit into this town, he had to go and start selling it to the Republic of the North! And do you want to know where that shit ends up?" He jerked his finger hard toward Parkside's western entrance. "Out west, where the R-O-N uses it to slaughter Dakota boys. I want no part of that!" "I know, and there's nothing we can do about it, chief." Grant sighed. "He handles all the transactions outside the town limits. He hasn't actually broken any laws. And if he sells just one to us, that's one less in the hands of the R-O-N." "They're fucking dangerous!!" Grant cried. "You don't need to fire 600 rounds a minute to take down the occasional crazy from the ruins!!" "What about a heavily-armed metal man from Sky Tower?" Grant's jaw dropped in disbelief. "I believe my man, sir. He's not a liar." Grant blinked a few times. "...Okay... Jim? Listen to my words." He spoke slowly. "...This... is... Brooke!" "And if it's not?" Grant froze. "She's not alone up there, you know. There's the other lady, the, uh... ah, crap, what's her name..." Grant rubbed his eyes and chuckled. "You mean Sheila?" "I've never met her. Have you?" "...No." "The impression I got from talking with Miss Lane is, Sheila's not too personable. One time, Miss Lane flat-out told me that Sheila's got some anger issues." "Brooke can control her," Grant muttered dismissively. "And what if she can't?" Grant chuckled and shook his head. "Do you remember Old Lady Wallenberg?" "...Ugh! Brooke is fine!" Grant groaned. "I'll get this all sorted out with her. You'll see!" He left Waltrip alone on the cold, barren ground. "We can't keep the town safe with just six-shooters, chief!" Waltrip called out. Grant forced himself to stop feeling frustrated as he got closer to Sky Tower and started thinking of happy things, like puppies. He loved dogs. There was also Alan's first Christmas. Or, there was the time he proposed to Abby. That put a tear in his eye, so he backed down from that memory a little. He wanted to show up at the lobby of Sky Tower looking peppy, not overcome with joy. Once he could see the guard robots at the front desk, he waved. With a big smile on his face, he opened the doors and strode in. "Hey, fellas!" he crowed. "Good morning! How's Brooke-" As he was speaking, one guard took a step out from behind the desk and faced Grant, and that was when Grant saw the hand cannon at his hip. "- Haaah," Grant said, and tried to ignore it. However, he couldn't ignore the shotgun the other robot was holding -- he hadn't seen the weapon before the guard stood up. "...Ahem! Ehh... so, anyway, how's Brooke?" he asked soberly. "Please leave the premises," the guard robot with the hand cannon said. "...I will...," Grant looked sideways at the guard robot and spoke slowly, "...as soon as I get a chance to talk to Brooke." The guard robot with the hand cannon quickly unsheathed it from its holster faster than Grant's eye could follow. The other guard robot cocked his shotgun. "Please leave the premises. You will have one final warning before we open fire." Grant held his hands up. "Whoa, hey! No need to get rowdy, now! If, uh..." He swallowed. "If she's got something else goin' on, I can leave a message-" And now the hand cannon was pointed directly at Grant's head. "Please leave the premises. This is your final warning." "Okay, okay!" Grant cried. "I'm backing up! See me back up?!" He backed toward the door. "Leaving now! Tell Brooke... tell her, uh..." He groped for the door handle behind his back, then stuffed himself into the small crack he opened. "Uh, h-hi-" There was a loud blast, then one of the glass doors on the far end blew out. Grant's heart skipped a beat. The second guard robot's shotgun was smoking. "Uhhhh!!" he cried, feeling his lunch almost come up. He ran from the tower, looking back only once. The guard robots were sitting down again. "We have to tell people something, chief." Waltrip stared at the back of his boss' head as Grant stared out of his living room window toward the great black building. He had gone to see Grant as soon as he saw him pounding back into his house, and he had found a strange scene within: Grant at the window, and Abby holding Alan in her arms on a nearby sofa. It had been like walking into a tableau of a family after a tragic event had befallen them. Then Grant had told him what happened. "It's not possible," Abby muttered, stunned by the news. "Brooke would never... I mean, she couldn't..." Grant was silent for another moment. Then: "We tell people that Miss Lane isn't accepting visitors at this time. I want you to station a guy by the east entrance of town. Anyone who goes that way needs to be told that and turned back." "People heard the gunshot." "It was... an accident." Grant turned to Waltrip. He looked resolute, but there was fear in his eyes. His voice was calm, but underscored by worry. "One of Miss Lane's machines went off, made a loud noise. Nobody was hurt." Waltrip tried to be sensitive; however, he hadn't gotten his job by being a nice guy. "People know what a gunshot sounds like, chief." "...Yes... and it's one of her machines." Waltrip sighed. "We wait and watch. That's all we can do." "Chief-" "-What do you want, Jim?" Grant said quickly. "Unless somebody can tell me, with certainty, that Brooke isn't up there? Then I have to assume she is. And I don't know what she's thinking!" "Chief, she's-" "-She's Brooke!" A pause. "Brooke!" he repeated. His voice was heavy. "Jesus, Jim, she makes toys for kids," he said as he turned back to the window. And so the people of Parkside watched. And the people of Parkside waited. Trade was a little uneasy early that afternoon, but got looser as the day progressed. People stopped glancing toward Sky Tower every few minutes as they went about their day of buying and selling their goods and services. An itinerant merchant who arrived around 1:30 pm was quickly told what had happened (at least, what Grant and Waltrip told people had happened), but by 4, he was singing at the tavern with some of his local customers like everything was fine. It was only Brooke, after all. Grant didn't feel easy all day, however. He stepped out a couple times to take care of things that required his immediate attention, but he returned home immediately after each thing and continued his watch from the front window. Abby was zoned out, wandering throughout the house like a zombie as she completed her own chores. Although he wanted to go outside, Alan was told to stay in his room. The Carson household was quiet that afternoon. Around 4:30, there was a knock at the door. Grant went to it immediately and found Waltrip outside. "Something's happening," Waltrip said. Without questioning it, Grant grabbed his coat and left with his sheriff. "My guy said there's been a lot of movement in the lobby. It looks like two of her metal men... uh... what were they... it was the, uh, big-" "-Tiny and Leviathan?" Grant asked. "Yeah, I think so. Teeny's the box one, right? He didn't see him. But he thinks he saw a person." "Brooke?" They were getting closer to the east entrance. If they squinted, they could see the front entrance of Sky Tower, but not into the lobby. "He wasn't sure. He said it was either someone wearing a lot of clothes, or a new metal man." "A lot of clothes?" "That's what he said. It's too dark in there to see clearly. All he could really make out were shadows." Grant nodded in understanding. "All right. Okay. Listen, here's what I'm thinking: one of the ruin crazies got into Sky Tower. Got past the guards. Made a big mess of things, but now he's either dead or captured." He looked at Waltrip with a slightly wild glint in his eyes. "That'd put me on edge!" "Makes sense," Waltrip said. "But why's she keeping this up?" Grant waved his hands around. "She... she wants to make sure... there's nobody else. That crazy didn't leave any friends outside. So, yeah, she's gonna take precautions. She's gonna arm herself. She's gonna come out looking mighty scary, but it's Brooke." He stopped in his tracks. "It's Brooke. You understand that, right, Jim?" Waltrip nodded quickly. "Of course!" "Good." They kept moving toward the east entrance, where three more of Waltrip's men had gathered. "Any changes?" Grant asked. "I think she's checking her metal men, sir," the youngest man said. "They sure look like Tiny and Leviathan to me." Grant fished a pair of small binoculars out of his coat pocket and looked through them. "Although The Mistress looks kinda... strange." She sure did. Through his binoculars, Grant saw a heavyset person tinkering with something on the side of Tiny. Brooke couldn't be called svelte, but she wasn't that big. Grant could think of only two other possibilities: Brooke was wearing a lot of clothes for some reason, or it was a new metal man, just like Waltrip had suggested. Something moved on Tiny. There had been something on the side of his body that, in an instant, rolled up and disappeared into him. The heavyset person turned to Leviathan, and something snapped up into him, too. The person tromped over to the center of the lobby, picked several things off the floor, then slung them into a pack on his/her back. The person cracked his/her neck, then tromped toward the doors. "She's coming out," Grant said quickly. "Listen, fellas... don't worry. When she gets here, let me do the talking." He took few slow steps out of town. The lobby doors of Sky Tower opened. There was The Mistress, clad in a thick black cloak with wires running up and down its length. For a second, Grant thought he saw something shimmer on the cloak, or... around the cloak. He wasn't sure; he figured it was just some trick of the light. Her head was encased in a dense black helmet, a gray face mask, and green welder's goggles (the very same that The Mistress that I knew wore). She was soon flanked by Tiny and Leviathan. Her stride was purposeful. Her gaze was low. "Jesus, she looks like she's going to war," Grant wanted to say, but didn't. Instead, he held up his hand. He didn't see Waltrip behind him, or his men. Their eyes were wide, their hands on the six-shooters at their hips. Waltrip quickly waved two of them behind the fence next to the nearest house. He grabbed the upper arm of the youngest man and pointed, with force, back into town. The young man wordlessly took off running into Parkside. "Brooke!" Grant called out happily. "Hello! What's, uh... what's going on?" She didn't respond; she only got closer. Something instinctual rang deep within Grant. His legs tensed. "Hey, uh... what's going on, Brooke? Your, uh..." She clearly wasn't listening. Grant kept talking, although that instinctual feeling was intense now, and only growing worse. Was that the butt of a shotgun pointing out of her backpack? Was that four butts?! Grant's breathing grew shallow. "B-Brooke-" She reached behind her and pulled out a tremendous, terrible weapon and pointed it right at his chest. Grant looked down the barrel. In an instant, something tackled him in the side and drove him into the road. The Mistress' shotgun let out a mighty boom, sending shot pelting into the road where Grant had been standing. Waltrip, who was lying on top of Grant, caught shot in his shoulder. "Gaaaaghh!!" he cried as he rolled off his boss' chest. Grant wheezed, then stumbled to his feet, grabbed Waltrip under the shoulders, and dragged him toward a nearby house. Waltrip screamed as Grant's fingers accidentally dug into some of the holes of his fresh wound. Grant was in panic mode. "Get up!" he cried. The Mistress cocked her shotgun. He heard a click from Tiny, to her right. "Get up!!" he cried again. Two doors opened in Tiny's side, which had never happened before. In fact, they had been machined into him that day. A pair of miniguns popped out of the new cavities and aimed at Grant and Waltrip. "Run!! Run!!" Waltrip screamed to his boss. Grant, however, was frozen in fear. Loud pops came from The Mistress' left. The two guys Waltrip had positioned behind the picket fence were firing at the woman in the cloak. Something was preventing the bullets from reaching their target, however; a thin curtain of light shimmered and flickered around her, causing the bullets that passed into it to suddenly slow to a near stop and hit the ground. They saw this, and they saw Tiny, and they fired at Tiny's guns. Several bullets hit, dinging the barrel. The Mistress waved toward the two men. Two miniguns popped out of Leviathan's side and trained on them. "Get down!!" Waltrip screamed as he stumbled to his feet. The men hit the dirt just before Leviathan's miniguns turned the fence into a cloud of splinters and tore a hole in the side of the house. The owners within ran screaming from the room, out of the house and into the road, where they kept running. A woman, barefoot, was carrying her infant son as she raced away from her wrecked home. Recovering from the momentary distraction, Tiny turned back toward Grant and Waltrip. Grant bashed open the door to the other house with his shoulder and tackled the frightened homeowner to the ground, and Waltrip dragged an elderly woman out of her chair and did likewise with her, just before the front of the house was ripped into a rain of glass and tinder by the miniguns' blazing fury. The support beams holding up the house were torn to shreds; with a loud groan, the whole front of the building sagged. Grant looked up, the homeowner sobbing under his chest, and cried, "Jim, out the back!!" The two men lifted their respective elderly person and drove them out the back door just before the top floor of the structure came careening down into the lower floor. The Mistress continued walking. Her robots rolled on. At the entrance of town, she waved her left hand to her left, and her right hand in front of her. Her robots split off from her: Leviathan to the left, and Tiny went ahead. Spigots emerged from the tops of their heads and sprayed a clear liquid over the houses along their respective paths. And then blowtorches folded out atop their miniguns and spit plumes of flame into the air. The houses that had been sprayed caught fire immediately, and were engulfed within seconds. With their first houses burning, Tiny and Leviathan efficiently, coldly, moved onto their second. People ran from the market in terror. The Mistress pointed her shotgun at the nearest stall and blasted it apart. At the second stall, she missed the owner by a hair as she destroyed it, too. Several owners pulled out guns and started blazing away, but the bullets were sapped and thrown to the ground by The Mistress' strange glowing shield. She reached under her cloak, pulled out a grenade, then yanked out the pin and flung it down the line of stalls. The armed merchants went running just before the grenade went off, destroying three stalls and critically damaging a fourth. The Mistress tossed a second grenade, which destroyed that unfortunate fourth, along with another three. And all the while, Tiny and Leviathan were going from house to house, spraying and burning. Spray, then burn. Spray, then burn. Crowds of people were now running for the western entrance. Some were sticking behind with guns at the ready, but The Mistress' shield made them useless. When she depleted one shotgun, she had another one ready in three seconds, and by then she was halfway through town. When one of the men got up the courage to charge her, she whipped a taser out of nowhere and brought him down single-handed as she blew apart another stall with her other hand. A second man charged her, and she pistol- whipped him hard in the side of the head with the butt of her shotgun. Three more men came at her at once. She spread her legs and hunched up her shoulders. When they got within three feet of her, the shield flashed with a bright white light, and there was a loud snap of thunder. The three men went stiff, screamed in pain, and fell. A little smoke arose from The Mistress' cloak, but she seemed unbothered by it. The shield remained up. Spray, then burn. Spray, then burn. People were running from houses further down the road, carrying children, furniture, pets, whatever was important and whatever they could get their hands on. A man leapt through the second-story window of his burning home and hit the asphalt on his side. He screeched in pain as his broken radius tore a hole in his forearm. Spray, then burn. Spray, then burn. Meanwhile, in the small backyard of the collapsed house, Grant, Waltrip, and the Foresters (i.e., the elderly homeowners, who were trying to comfort each other now that absolutely everything they owned, other than the clothes on their backs, was gone) were trapped. The yard used to be part of an alley, and the back end of the yard was a brick wall. On two sides were sturdy, high picket fences that nobody there was fit enough to climb, including Waltrip (due to his injury, which he had quickly wrapped up with a torn strip of his own coat). And, of course, the pile of rubble that used to be the Forester home was the fourth obstacle. "Shit!!" Grant lamented, pacing around like a caged animal. "Shit!! Shiiiiit!!" Waltrip was in excruciating pain. He needed a doctor, and soon. His eyes darted around the backyard. "...Chief," he groaned. "Chief." He weakly pointed up, toward where the kitchen had been just a minute ago. Grant looked up. Glimmering faintly in the light of the afternoon sun, nearly smothered by debris and dust, was something flat and metallic. Grant quickly hopped up and grabbed it, then dropped it on the ground. He managed to back away before it hit his foot, and it's a good thing, too: the object was a medium-sized butcher's knife. It had been well cared-for; aside from the scuffs it had taken in the collapse, it was as clean and sharp as the day it had been manufactured. Grant picked it off the ground, nodded in understanding of what he had to do, and went to work hacking away at the fence. Waltrip sighed. "Chief." "I... can get through this!!" Grant cried as he madly struck at the fence. The wood was as thick as a carver's block, and the knife didn't do much damage. "Chief." "It's thick...! But! I can make it!" He was chopping and hacking away, striking the fence with the knife as fast and as hard as he could. Distant wails could be heard, and he had no intention of staying in that yard any longer. "I'll do this all fucking day! If I have to!" His arms were strong, but he was burning up energy quickly. "Chief!" "Don't move, Jim! I'll! Get-huff! Get us out! Of here!" Chop-chop- chop-chop-chop! Waltrip lifted himself up and plodded over to the fence, up next to Grant. Chop-chop-chop-chop-chop-chop-chop-chop- Waltrip lifted the latch off the gate with one hand and pushed it open. Grant stopped chopping and stared at it. Then he stared at Waltrip. "Whuh-" "-I meant you should take that knife and fucking kill her," Waltrip explained politely. "Good hustle, though." "...Heehh!" Grant chirped before he ran out of the gate as fast as he could. Waltrip slumped against the wall and cradled his injured shoulder -- the shot in there had sapped all of his energy. "...'N that's why I'm sheriff, 'n you're chief," he mumbled. Grant hesitated at the east entrance of Parkside and looked into the flaming wreckage that his town was becoming. "Oh, Jesus...," he groaned, then ran across the road. Waltrip's two men were there, pinned under the rubble of the fence and the house above them, yelling for help. "Hold on!!" Grant yelled back, and started pulling on the largest piece of rubble. One of the two man crawled out from under it, then reached back underneath and pulled his buddy out by the arm. The buddy's leg was broken; he wasn't going anywhere or helping out anyone, not under his own power. The buddy knew this, and waved them away. Grant directed his one remaining man toward the south side of town, ahead of Leviathan's rampage. "Get ahead of him! Get everyone you can out of their homes! Don't try to slow Leviathan down, just get everyone out of here, then get to the west side and make sure my family's out!! Hurry, go!!" The man took off running. "Where you goin', chief?!" the buddy said, holding his broken leg. "To stop her," Grant called back. He felt the weight of the butcher's knife in his hand. "God help me. God help me!" He ran into Parkside, down the row of destroyed stalls. The smoke in the northeast corner of town was becoming choking, and everything was collapsed, on fire, or collapsed and on fire. He heard cries for help from the burning houses to his right, but there was nothing he could do. The northwest side of town was a mad stampede of people struggling to get out of the west entrance as fast as they could, but there was nothing he could do. He spotted The Mistress among the wreckage and flames. He gripped the butcher's knife. There was something he could do. Maybe. He fucking doubted it, however. His gut churned. His eyes watered. With a half-hearted cry, he charged the Metal Mistress, the knife held over his head. When he got within 15 feet of her, she spun around and single-handedly pointed a shotgun directly at him. And Grant halted. Once again, he stared down the barrel of her gun. The knife dropped from his hand. His cry was choked in his throat, dried up by the smoke drifting into his lungs. "...Stop this," he said. She said nothing in response. He felt something other than his meager attempt at rage. "...Stop this!!" he cried. "Jesus Christ, Brooke, stop!! Why are you doing this?!" She cocked her head a little. "For God's sake, Brooke, why?!" She slowly lowered the barrel of the gun to the ground. He didn't charge her again. Then, her helmet moved. He didn't know how she made it happen, but it moved seemingly of its own accord. The visor slid back, up and over her head. And that's when he realized she wasn't Brooke. Brooke's hair was messy, curly, and brown with some gray coming through. She was 55 years old -- which made her the fifth-oldest person in the village -- but she looked good for her age. By all rights, her hair should have gone white or fallen out, but it hadn't. This person's hair was messy as well, but was straight and deep, dark brown. She lifted her goggles, revealing severe green eyes. "...You're not Brooke," Grant said, feeling a terrible confusion, and a horrible realization, wash over him. The woman lowered her mask. Her lips were small and turned up in a sneer. "...You murdered her," she said in a low, nasal growl. "Wh-what?! No!! No, we-" "-You murdered her!!" she snarled loudly. Her voice was high-pitched and nasal; however, if someone burned your home to the ground and menaced everyone you love with powerful weapons, you wouldn't really give a shit if they sounded a little like Urkel. "You murdered Brooke!!" "No!! No, I-" Grant hesitated. "...Sheila!! You're Sheila!!" Sheila's entire face twisted into an expression of the purest hatred and rage. "You bitches murdered Brooke Lane!! You murdered my Brooke!!" A sharp intake of air, then, "You murdered my Mistress!!" she shrieked. "Sheila, please!!" Grant begged, clasping his hands together. "Stop this!! Please!! We can fix-" "-You will not call me that!!" she shrieked. "Brooke Lane is dead!! I am the Metal Mistress now, and you will address me as such!!" Grant was sobbing. To his left, he saw Abigail and Alan being rushed out of their home. Tiny was getting ever-closer to the west entrance, where people were still struggling to get out. He got on his knees. "Metal Mistress, show mercy!!" Sheila towered over him. The sky itself was on fire above her. The world was on fire behind her. Unabated fury burned in her eyes. "The age of mercy has passed!!" she bellowed. "My Brooke is dead!!" She held her head up and screamed across town. Heads turned. People cowered. "You sons of bitches want to fuck with a witch?! Fine!! You'll get a witch!!" Her goggles lowered over her eyes on their own, and her helmet snapped shut over her head. With a shotgun in each hand, she screeched, "I am the Metal Witch of New England, you bastards!! And I will fuck... you... up!!" And she let out a loud and terrible howl, like the one that had emerged from Sky Tower hours ago. Grant groped around the ground for the knife. He found it and picked it up, but Sheila saw him do it. She let out an angry "Hoooo!!" and spread her legs again. An arc of electricity shot from her cloak into the blade. Grant felt every muscle in his body tense, and his heart skip a couple important beats, before he collapsed on the ground with a cry. He rolled on the ground wheezing and saw Alan come running for him across the field. Sheila saw him, too. She reached into her thick cloak to pull out nothing that could be good for the boy. "No! No!" Grant gasped, trying to warn his son to stay back. And then the sky spoke. "OH... GOODNESS! SHEILA!" came a booming voice from the heavens. "STOP THIS!" "Whhaaat?!" Sheila shrieked. She looked up. Grant's gaze followed. He could hear new keening from the people at the west entrance. The Witch's Lights had appeared in the sky, the lights that preceded the appearance of the mighty Sea Witch of Norfolk. Only it wasn't the Sea Witch that appeared in them. Grant thought it was Brooke at first, before realizing that Brooke had a longer face. This woman -- this towering woman hundreds of feet in the air, her head, neck, and shoulders composed and colored by the swirling Witch's Lights -- had curlier hair and a rounder face. Her massive eyes glowed bright red, and her voice was loud enough to break the firmament. "SHEILA! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!" Sheila lifted her goggles off her eyes again, then reached into her cloak and pulled out what must have been a smart phone. She pushed two buttons, then yelled into it, "High Mistress Blood!! They killed Brooke!!" "BROOKE LANE IS DEAD. I KNOW, HONEY." Another cry of dismay arose from the crowd. "They murdered her!!" "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT, HONEY." Sheila threw up her arms in anger. "Yes, I do!! I found the pins!! I saw the explosion!!" "SHEILA, THIS IS WRONG. STOP ATTACKING PARKSIDE AND RETURN TO SKY TOWER RIGHT NOW!" "Not until they pay!!" Sheila shouted. The Witch's Lights grew in size. Another shape, another woman, formed beside the first: the Sea Witch of Norfolk. She looked less jovial: her wide mouth was turned down in a scowl. "SHEILA TUCKER!!" she roared. "YOU WILL CEASE YOUR ATTACK ON THE TOWN OF PARKSIDE IMMEDIATELY, UNDER THE ORDER OF THE HIGH MISTRESS, THE BLOOD WITCH OF ATLANTA!!" Grant's blood froze. Alan was at his side, and Grant could barely stand, much less defend his boy. The Blood Witch of Atlanta?! That's her?! The Spreader of Plagues, with the Destroyer of Cities?! Just how much more screwed could Parkside get?! "Stay out of this, Rebecca!!" Sheila snarled. The Sea Witch raised her chin and stared down her nose at Sheila. "WE WILL SEND THE WHITECOATS," she growled, her voice like thunder. "THEY WILL RECLAIM YOUR INHERITANCE AND STRIP YOU TO YOUR BARE SKIN. WE WILL THEN RELEASE YOU TO THE MERCY OF PARKSIDE. FOLLOW BLOOD'S ORDERS, OR THAT WILL BE YOUR FATE!" The Blood Witch's voice became much less patient as well. "LOVE!!" she hollered. "GO... BACK... TO SKY TOWER!! NOW!!" Sheila looked up at the sky and scowled at the two massive women above her. "They're going to kill us all," she growled into the smart phone. Before either Blood or Sea could respond, she threw the device to the ground and stomped on it. She pulled back one sleeve of her cloak, revealing another device strapped to her wrist. She pressed one button, and Tiny and Leviathan's rampage ceased; they stopped rolling, they stopped spraying, and they stopped burning, just like that. "Tiny!! Leviathan!!" she barked. "Come!! We return!!" They turned around and followed Sheila as she stormed back to Sky Tower, leaving the flaming rubble of Parkside in her wake. Blood and Sea watched her leave. Blood sighed. She looked down on Parkside, right at Grant. He looked up, and saw her look down at him. If you've ever faced a man-eating predator, or a train barreling at you, you'd know how Grant felt at that moment. "...EHHHNNN... E-EX-EXCUSE ME, D-" "-Haaaaahhhhh!!" Grant cried, turning his head away and shielding his son. Blood and Sea could see him, thanks to the Holo-Sats. And, since Sheila hadn't completely broken the smart phone that was on the ground in front of him, they could hear him, too. "...OOOHHHH...," Blood groaned, "OH, DEAR..." "WE SHOULD DISCONNECT, HIGH MISTRESS," Blood said. "BUT-" "-ANY EFFORT ON OUR PART WOULD ONLY EXACERBATE THIS SITUATION. PLUS, THE HOLO-SATS HAVE VERY LITTLE CHARGE LEFT, ABOUT 20 SECONDS' WORTH. WE HAVE TO DISCONNECT." Blood sighed. "...OKAY, SEA," she mumbled. "UH... KEEP... KEEP TABS FOR ME..." In a swirl of colors, she disappeared. Sea looked back at Parkside for a moment, also sighed, and also disappeared. And the Witch's Lights disappeared as the smoke from Parkside reached the sky. By the grace of God, by some divine miracle, nobody died... ...Immediately. Homes were destroyed. Businesses were lost. People saw everything they had go up in smoke. Over the next few weeks and months, Parkside had more than its fair share of suicides. And let's not forget the injuries. So many injuries! People had been burned, their bones broken, their minds shattered. What couldn't be set had to be amputated. Bandages were in short supply within no time, and people turned to their own dirty clothes to patch up the large remainder of wounds. Many children were inconsolable and would go on to develop serious emotional issues, and let's not forget the adults who felt the same way. The town doctor, God bless the man, was worked past the point of collapse. Waltrip survived, of course. One man had to hold his head, another two his arms, and another two his legs at the doctor dug the shot out of his shoulder. Waltrip cursed and screamed through his gag as he did so, then he thanked the men as the doctor washed off and stitched up the holes. The wound still hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but at least it was closed. He found Grant on the front stoop of his house, cradling Alan in his arms. Abigail and the boy were unharmed, but Grant had a bad burn on his hand that was bound in cloth. He also had a distant look in his eyes that told Waltrip that his boss' injuries went deeper than the skin. "...I can't do anything about her, chief," Waltrip warbled. He looked out at the northern and eastern rows of homes -- men were throwing water at it, but whatever Tiny and Leviathan had sprayed them with, it prevented water from putting out fire. Oil, maybe? Of the few things that made sense that day, that was one of them. Both rows were surely lost. That was half the town gone, right there. "I can't... send men up there. It's her home turf. They'd be walking right into-" "-I know," Grant piped up. "I know, Jim." Waltrip stood silent for a moment. Grant said nothing. Alan said nothing. Abigail was rocking back and forth in silence. "What do you want to do, chief?" Grant said nothing for another few moments. Then, "Watch. Pray." Waltrip nodded. He was about to leave. He had just turned to leave. "...Bring me a quote," Grant said. Waltrip turned back. "...Chief?" Grant's eyes were closed. "...Bring me a quote from Foster," he mumbled. "As many automatics as you need." A pause. "Tell me what his price is, and I'll approve the funds." This was not a victory for Waltrip. This was not a good thing. He would have been happy spending the rest of his life with six-shooters, if he thought they would be enough. "...Yes, chief," he said, before plodding away. Grant stared at the ground for another minute. Somebody asked him for something. He gave it to them, or told them where to get it... he didn't know. He wasn't paying attention. He absently looked toward the south side of town and saw a man inside one of the houses. He hadn't left. Grant wondered if Helena was inside, too, or if she had fled with her son. And he stared at the man. And he suspected, just a little. But he never, ever knew for certain. I never said Grant Carson's story would have a happy ending. It doesn't end there, however. When the woman spoke, she sounded like she was asking a question. "This is the Air Witch of Minneapolis?" she said, not asked, with a heavy- sounding voice. "Responding to a request for a private, high-security connection between the Blood Witch of Atlanta and the Sea Witch of Norfolk? Please confirm?" "Fortress-Alpha-7-9-X-ray-Bravo-2-4-Quebec-Zulu," Blood spoke into a radio. "Confirmed." "Arcadia-Poppa-9-3-4-Hotel-India-Bravo-5-Romeo," Sea spoke into another radio. "Confirmed." "One-time passwords have been confirmed?" Air replied. "Connecting private terminals now?" A couple seconds passed. "Terminals are connected? You are now connected, sisters? Station Air, disconnecting." Air's voice disappeared. On one screen, somewhere on the North American continent, was displayed the face of the Sea Witch of Norfolk. She wasn't the Sea Witch I knew; she was the Sea Witch that Grant Carson saw. On another screen, somewhere off the coast of Texas (or maybe Louisiana, or Mississippi, or Alabama, or what little remained of Florida, or Georgia, or South Carolina, or North Carolina, or etc.) was the face -- the younger face - - of the Blood Witch of Atlanta. Her hair was still yellow, and most of her permanent wrinkles had not appeared. At that moment, however, she looked old. "...This is a disaster, Rebecca," she groaned, holding her forehead with one hand. "What should I do?" "Send the Whitecoats," Sea said. "We implied I wouldn't." "Send them anyway. We shouldn't tolerate this kind of B-S in the order." Blood smiled weakly. "...Thank you." "No problem, Karen." Blood sighed. "I don't think I will, though." "Why not?!" Blood leaned back. "We're not here to mete out justice, Rebecca. We're here to keep science alive." "Science is fueled by public discourse. We can't do our jobs without a public!" "It's also based on the establishment of laws. Facts. Reality. It's not about what people want it to be, it's about what it is." Sea sighed. "We're arguing philosophy, Karen. Sheila messed up bad. That's a fact." Blood weaved her fingers together. "It's also a fact that she's the only person in the world now who can implement the Lane Plan." A pause. "Have you spoken to her about that?" "...Yes, I have... and she won't go through with it." Blood let out a strangled cry. "She wants nothing more to do with Parkside. If she can't burn it down, she'll avoid it entirely. Honestly, I consider that a more reasonable approach. I still think we should send the Whitecoats, however." Blood kneaded her fingers as she thought about this. "...She could... change her mind?" "I doubt it. Without her cooperation, the Lane Plan is defunct. That makes her worse than useless." Blood was crestfallen. "Let's cut our losses, Karen. Strip Sheila bare." Blood sighed, then looked back up at her screen. "...But it still exists..." "It's dead in the water!" "...But it's there." A pause. "If we remove Sheila now, we'll need to scrap the Lane Plan entirely. I just can't do that!" Another pause. "It's too valuable, Rebecca! You know that! If it's implemented, it could put us ahead by... decades! Centuries, maybe!!" "It could be... replicated, with a new Metal." Blood chuckled. "I highly doubt it, dear! Brooke used an amazing amount of resources in a region that was accepting of her! Friendly, even! Where else can we find that?" Another pause. "Has Sheila scrapped the plan?" "No, she'd never destroy something Brooke made, even if she disagrees with its purpose." Sea scratched her chin. "She'll probably just stick it in storage. She has more than enough room in Sky Tower." "Storage!" Blood groaned. "All she has to do is flick a switch, and it'll be active! She doesn't have to do anything else!" "I think it's more complicated than that, Karen. Plus, she hates Parkside with a passion." Pause. "Are we really going to let Sheila get away with this based on the incredibly slim possibility that she might someday activate this thing?" "Heh! Maybe she'll trip over it and turn it on." Sea didn't laugh. "...I know you disagree, dear, but... it's just too valuable to let it all go to waste." "It's going to waste anyway... but..." Sea sighed. "If that's your final decision, Karen, then I'll abide by it." "I'm sorry. It is." Sea nodded. "Okay. I suppose you're right: we're not the police." "We really aren't, dear." "All right." Sea looked thoughtful. "...Maybe... Sheila won't turn it on... but if we wait long enough..." "I've thought of that, too," Blood replied. "Sheila won't be the last Metal Witch, not if I can help it." "Then I have a new suggestion: we control who she brings on as an apprentice." Blood was listening. "We hand-pick them ourselves. Sheila lost the right to pick her friends when she tried to murder the last bunch." "That sounds like a plan," Blood agreed. "Until then, I'm placing her in isolation. She's not allowed to leave the Boston ruins. If she does... I'll send in the Whitecoats." "I'll work with Air to set up a perimeter. If we see Metal's tech set one foot outside, you'll be the first to know." "And just to clarify, dear: this is only in effect so long as Sheila's alive. No matter who her apprentice is, they're not going to be punished for her crimes." "Agreed, High Mistress. I'll draft the protocols immediately and send them to you for approval." "Very good. Thank you, Rebecca. How's your brother, by the way?" Sea shifted uncomfortably. "Not good. His blackouts are getting worse. I'm heading up to Long Island now." "Oh, no. How are Michael and Roxanne taking it?" "I don't think they know. I don't think they even know I exist!" "Oh, that's not good..." Blood shook her head with concern. "You know Martin has a place here, right? I can make him very comfortable." "...I know. Thank you very much. I might..." Sea sighed -- she looked very stressed. "...I might have to take you up on that offer." "I'm very sorry to hear that, Rebecca. Call me if you need anything, anything at all." "Thank you." "Have a good night, dear." "Good night to you, too, Karen." The two women disconnected. In the privacy of her own quarters, Blood muttered, "What a waste! Such terrible waste! Ohhhh!" In the privacy of her own quarters, Sea relaxed a little. She spent a minute collecting her thoughts before she mumbled to herself, "Being her apprentice would be punishment enough..." The Mistress -- my mistress -- was the first person to tell me one version of that story. It wasn't exactly the way I told you, but it was close enough for me to reach the same conclusion: "Jesus, Mistress! Your mistress was a lunatic!" "You don't have to tell me twice," she replied, jerking a socket wrench on a lug nut. "...Barely... contained... maniac! There!" She took a step back from our (really, her) handiwork: the skeleton of our (again, her) glider. We had started it a week before, the day after Father Fitzpatrick tried to kill me and Gary, but was scared off by a well- timed mix of Fatboy Slim and orbital satellites. "Whaddya think?!" "Looks good! Will it fly, though?" "Well... not yet. We still need to put wings on it. You understand Bernoulli's Principle? For an inviscid flow of a nonconducting fluid-?" "-An increase in the speed of the fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure, or with a decrease in the fluid's potential energy. Yes, Mistress." It had actually been covered several lessons ago by the Garamond tapes... but she didn't need to know that. "Soooo, the sisters brought you in to be her apprentice? She didn't actually pick you herself?" The Mistress raised her head a little. The ice storm the Sea Witch had predicted only glanced the area, but it had left behind an arctic chill. The Mistress had slipped on an extra coat as a result; I could swear her voice sounded a little more hoarse, however. She desperately needs herbal tea, I thought. I searched her hydroponic garden top-to-bottom for ginseng and came up empty. It's just as well -- I didn't know how to prepare tea from raw plants, and I didn't want to accidentally poison her by brewing it incorrectly. I tried to get her to drink more hot water, but she always seemed too busy, except when it came to her morning coffee. She made time for her coffee, savored it, breathed it in. It wasn't enough, though. Eventually, I broke down and complained out loud, "You're going to give yourself strep, Mistress!" She laughed it off. I did find some antibiotics hidden away in her kitchenette, and I managed to goad her into taking one. ...Good lord, I thought, I'm becoming worried about her! "...Ehhhhnnn... actually, I'm not... so sure about that," she said. "What do you mean?" "Ehhhh..." She scratched the top of her head. "...That's... a long story. Remember when I told you Sea's an asshole?" "Yes." "Well, that's the take-away of it: Sea's an asshole." "You're here... because the Sea Witch of Norfolk is an asshole." "Yep." I paused. "...That's not very detailed." She groaned. "Look... I... can't remember all of it, okay?!" This was surprising. "You can't?!" "No! A whole bunch of shit happened around me, Sea delivered me into the hands of a psycho, and here we are!" She huffed. I froze. "W-wait... were you kidnapped?!" "No!! I don't think..." She sighed. "...I doubt it. If I had been kidnapped, it would've been a rough experience, but I don't remember things going down that way. There was lots of talking, and then the suck happened." "The suck?" The Mistress said nothing for a few moments. From her body language, she looked beaten and worn. "...I spent 10 years with that nutcase, Natsuko. Ten... long... ass... years. And every day sucked. Sucked donkey balls. Do you think I want to remember that?" "No, I guess not. But she's dead now. That's... good?" "You'd think so!" The Mistress threw up her arms. "But noooope! No, ma'am! Sea fucked up by bringing me here, then she fucked up after Sheila died!" I put a hand on her shoulder. "You don't have to stay here if you don't want, Mistress." She looked at my hand on her shoulder for a few moments. Something about her composure betrayed incredulity. Then, her whole body started to shake. For a split-second, I thought she was about to cry. "-Dah-hahahahahahahahaha!!" she laughed out loud. "Oooohhhh!! Natsuko!! Natsuko, Natsuko, Natsuko." She shook her head, then breathed in and out for a few seconds. "I have nowhere else to go, Natsuko." "You can go anywhere you want! You can... you can go south, or north, or... or go home to your family, or-" "-My family?" "You said you were from Richmond! That you were born in a house there? Why not go back? Go see the people you left-" "-My family's dead, Natsuko." ... This is happening too often, I thought. She seemed so strangely blas? about it: "My family's dead." She sounded like she could have added, "Ho-hum, oh well. Easy come, easy go." "...A-are... are you-" "-Sure? Yes. It happened nearly 18 years ago. Some kinda... Old Republic gas line or something ruptured in the ground under my house. Caught fire. Huge explosion. I haven't heard one word from any of them since." "...I... um..." I struggled for words. "I found out eight years ago, right after Sheila died. The night after her death, in fact. Sea told me, on the radio." "...W-wait, what?" "Oh, yeah. Didn't you know? The Sea Witch of Norfolk waited 10 years to tell me my entire family was dead." ... "How ever-fucking sweet of her, wasn't it? She said she didn't it want to interrupt my studies. Isn't that lovely." Pause. "What a lovely, lovely woman." I was numb. When I didn't react, The Mistress put her hands on my shoulders. "I've had eight years to adjust, Natsuko, and I've come out of it pretty well! However, there is one thing to learn from my misfortune, and it is this." She roughly patted my shoulders as she said each word: "Sea-is-an-asshole. And that's that." And that was that. She stopped talking and started assessing the glider. ...No, wait, I thought, that's not that!! That can't be that!! "Do you want a hug?!" I blurted. "What?! No!!" She made a disgusted noise and moved to the other side of the glider. But I want a hug, I thought. That night, The Mistress and I sat in her small kitchenette. I watched he eat an entire salad without lifting her scarf high enough to see her face. "...Okay, I gotta ask... why can't I see your face, at least once?" She looked up at me for a moment. "You don't have temperature sensors," she mumbled through her mouthful of lettuce and tomatoes. "You don't know how cold it gets up here. Middle of winter, in New England, on top of a skyscraper without walls? Huh-huh!" She chewed for a moment, then swallowed. "You'd think spring or summer, it'd get nice... but nope. No, it's the wind up here that'll get you." "Not even for a second?" "I'm not risking exposure to satisfy your curiosity, Natsuko." I sighed. "You've got power. Don't you have heat?" "Let me reiterate the 'without walls' part." She stabbed another tomato. "Heating does shit. It just wastes energy." "You could go down to one of the lower floors, the ones still with walls. Or install walls up here. Or... move..." Her hands were resting on the table. She was staring at me. "...I just want to help," I muttered. She said nothing. Then, a neutral "Mmm," and she went back to eating. We sat in silence for a few minutes. I had a question that I couldn't ignore, however. It had been bugging me since that afternoon. "So what was the Lane Plan?" I asked. "The Brooke Lane Plan," she said without looking up. "A plan created by Brooke Lane." "I know, but what was it for?" She looked up and chuckled. "Better I show you... right after dinner." She took another bite of lettuce. "If you want to help me, go to the junk-lab. In the second computer terminal from the door is a USB drive. Go get it, and hang on to it. We'll need it to start that other project I want to do." "You mean the robots you want to fix?" "Yeah, that's pretty much what the Lane Plan is: robots. They're old and dusty, and I want to get 'em back to working condition." "That's it?" She swaggered a little, in the way she always did when she had a surprise for me. "That's it," she said. Robots. Ha! Once I had the USB drive, The Mistress put her plate in the sink and barked, "Teeny! Elevator!" Teeny rolled into the elevator shaft, and we got in. "Tenth floor!" She looked at me and asked, "You ever been down there?" "Yeah. It's locked up." "I know. I have the key, right here." She showed me a scratched keycard, like the kind they used in some hotels. "I also have the four- digit pin memorized. Sheila didn't want anyone getting up there and messing with it." "What's such a big deal about it?" "Heh-heh!" she laughed, then hesitated. "Natsuko... what would you say the biggest problem with Parkside is?" "I'd know what you'd say." Nothing nice, I thought. "Purely objectively, I mean. No judgment of their general character. Think of it from a technical standpoint." I thought about it. "...It's kinda... weirdly designed." "Can you clarify?" "Poorly designed, I mean. It's a farm in the middle of a city. There's not a lot of arable land." She hesitated for a moment, then looked ahead and said, "Hmm! I suppose that's true, too! I was actually thinking in terms of the city's size limitations, but your thing is a good way to put it." She crossed her arms. "If Parkside wants to expand, it needs more people. If it wants more people, it needs more food. However, it needs more land and people to grow more food." She turned her head back to me. "It's a Catch-22 with a little irony thrown in. The asphalt and concrete that built this city is the very thing holding it back." "They could move." "Heh!" she chortled. "Christ, I wish. But no. Moving an entire village is expensive, and Parkside's not that wealthy. Having a residential district in one area and a farming district in another location miles away presents a whole other set of problems. The best option is to start where they are, and expand south and west. But then they run into that whole asphalt-and-concrete situation." "So what do they do?" "Blow up some buildings. Rip up some of the old shit -- 's not like anyone cares." We reached the tenth floor. "But that runs into the problem of manpower again. Who has time to haul away Old Republic garbage when there are mouths to feed?" I followed her out of Teeny and stood in front of the locked door. It was large and white, with a red horizontal bar across its center. "They could hire guys," she said, "but again, super-expensive. They could buy slaves!" I grimaced. "Also super-expensive, and, as a bonus, heinous!" She showed me the keycard again. "Brooke thought about this," she continued, twirling the card in her fingers. "She realized the answer was simple: she's a roboticist. She could set up Parkside with robots. Solar-powered, low-maintenance, networked together for synchronization and efficiency. A no-demand workforce that she could control with the touch of a button." She slid the keycard through the black, dusty card reader by the door. "You know my robots upstairs in the hydroponic garden?" "Yeah?" "Brooke built them." She punched in the four-digit code. "The Lane Plan was the name the order gave to the extras she built." "She built extras?" The door next to me clicked. "...Ohhh, yeah." I stepped back as she pulled it open The inside of the room was darker than night; I felt like I was staring into space. "How many?" The Mistress stood in the doorway and faced me. With one hand, she reached for a switch inside. With the other, she jerked her thumb back. "This many!" Then she turned on the lights. Robots!! Ha!! When the first set of florescent overhead lights came on, I was taken aback. Out of the darkness appeared a row of 20 tarnished robots, built from sheet metal, car chassis, and clearly whatever Brooke could get her hands on. Most were sitting down, their robo-butts on the floor and their knees in the air, but others had toppled over from a sitting position, and they were all littered with cobwebs and dust. Some had open panels on them, others had their arms or legs or heads fall off at some point in the past. They were a sorry-looking bunch of 'bots... ...Until the lights behind them came on, and another row of 20 robots appeared. Then another row. Then another. And then another. Over and over and over again. The lights came on to my left and right. There were more robots, sitting there, collecting dust! Rows of robots wrapped around the enclosed area containing the elevator shaft and the stairwell. My eyes goggled. My jaw fell to the floor. More and more lights flickered on, and more and more rows of robots appeared. Like The Mistress said, they all looked to be of similar design to the gardening robots upstairs, even if their parts were a little more lackluster. "Boosh!!" The Mistress cried, throwing her arms in the air. "Behold!! The Lane Plan!