The Rolling Wheel of Ka.

“So what brings you out to Boston?” I asked the pretty girl setting next to me at the bus station. She had on a black winter jacket and a white shirt. One her neck was a silver crucifix. Her nails were unpainted and her face unadorned with makeup. She was lovely even without those things.

“I can out to help with a Promise Keepers convention.” She said. I could tell she had a Midwestern accent. Probably Michigan since she had a University of Michigan key chain. I guessed she might be about sixteen.

“That’s that big Christian organization right?” I asked. I don’t really care. She smells like cinnamon. I can tell she is a virgin. I can always tell.

“That’s the one.” She said. The wind was up outside. January in Boston was thick with snow and ice and when the wind blew it shook the entire building. In the corner an old television blared in the background. The screen was mostly green but that didn’t stop the three people in the station from staring at it like slack jawed monkeys.

“Where are you from?” She asked. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth when she talked. I could see on her teeth were braces had been put to pull her teeth straight. She wasn’t a runway. That was a good sign.

“Lots of different places. Boston is my home but I’m heading out on the late bus to go to California for a job.” I said. I was lying.

“Really that sounds exciting. This is my first trip out side of Michigan.” She said. I knew it was, she had that look.

“Hopefully not your last.” I said. It probably would be. “Where are you going to college?”

“U of M.” She said. That’s how she said it, as all letters as though I was supposed to know what it meant. I did but why did people always do that.

“Show me on your hand.” I said. Michigan is shaped like a hand and ever moron from there whips it up to tell you where they live, as though you have an atlas on your skin.

She laughed and pointed to the middle. She had no calluses on her soft hands. No sign of work no real existence. My hands were crusted with calluses, dirt and even blood. She shouldn’t even be talking to me.

The snow outside the door was piling up and threatening to spill inside. Little spiders of ice and dirt formed in the corner of the windows and twinkled under onslaught of the florescent lights and the bad green interior.

The garbage’s in the bus station were overflowing, wadded up gum and cans. No Starbucks coffee containers for the bus riding crew. People who ride the bus are a special bunch. You’ve probably run into them in the past. None of them are the kind of people you’d want sitting next your kid.

“I was thinking of becoming a doctor. Maybe a pediatrician I like kids.” She said. Her voice was breathy as she said it. “Assuming I can afford it. I have to get loans.”

“I’m sure some one will help you out. What about your parents?” I asked. She looked at me with her blue eyes that were the color of the ocean and her blonde corn colored hair.

“They don’t make much money. I’m kind of on my own when it comes to paying for school.” She said. “I got a couple of scholarships but none of them enough to pay the whole ride. I can do a work study and maybe pay the bills but not at any of the more expensive schools.” She said. She pushed her hair over her ear as she talked. She kept doing it even when it wasn’t down almost like it was a nervous tick.

“The world does need more doctors.” I said. She smiled at me and the room seemed brighter with her in it. I was lying I didn’t really give a shit if the world had anyone.

“That is the plan anyway. I have to get though this summer anyway.” She said. Okay maybe she wasn’t sixteen but she was a virgin. I could tell. If I let her live then she would go into the world and be corrupted. I had to save her.

“So you want to get a cup of coffee? Starbucks next door kitten.” I said. She bit her lip. She knew she shouldn’t go but I was a young attractive male who seemed smart and she let her guard down. Of course she was going to go.

“Okay, we can come right back.” She said. She slipped her backpack on over her shoulders while I fiddled with my knife.

“Sure thing.” I said.

******

“I have good news and bad news.” The officer said squinting at the computer screen.”

“Give me the good news first.” The detective said as she drank the bitter swill they called coffee.

“We have over a hundred hits in the database for tis guy’s M.O.” He said.

“Bad news?” She asked.

“None of them have any more forensic data than we do. No camera hits, no fluids no DNA. No witnesses. The only thing they have is the same, the Narwhal scrapings from the weapon.” He said.

“What kind of sick fuck cuts the heart out of a schoolgirl and then rapes her corpse?” The detective asked.

“I don’t know but it’s almost like only virgin school girls can even SEE him.” The officer said.

Earth is the battleground between the dinosaurs and the alien robots called the Mekatta. I know how stupid that sounds but a little more than ten years ago the Dinosaurs returned and brought the machines with them. No one is really sure what happened but what we do know is that the dinosaurs appeared in the Yucatan and there was a terrible explosion like a meteor striking the earth.

Things happened fast after that with South America being overrun. The Dinosaurs have been fighting the machines since they both came and they just don’t think much of the rest of us. You might have though we could fight them with missiles and bullets but the lizards have powers we don’t understand. The dinosaurs destroyed our infrastructure so the Mekatta could not use it against them. Now the cities are their hunting ground and we have retreated to the edges of the world.

Their only weakness is the cold of Canada but the Mekatta caught on to that early and wiped out the bases of the humans an installed their own mysterious factories. This is how mice must feel when humans go to war.

All of this brings to my current predicament. On the edge of the Mojave Desert with Joshua trees and black cracked roads for as far as the eye can see. The clouds were thick and the weather was hot along with a sour dry taste that I could feel in the back of my throat.

After lining up the red dot with the neck of one of the wild dogs I fired. Dogs were scavengers and if I didn’t get down there they would eat their own. Once at the bottom of what was once an over pass I went over to where the dog was laying on the ground. With my knife I slit down across its belly and pulled out the guts. I cut free the really nasty stuff that would foul the meat the rest of the organs I packed in a mesh sack.

Waking up in the middle of the night is never pleasant. Even less pleasant was waking up to the image of a six foot feathered lizard with six inch claws on both of its front feet tearing at my food. The fire still cast a light on the creature which was some kind of raptor. I could see that it looked paralyzed on one side of its body as though it had been crushed. The thing had not detected me or I would be dead. The creature reached up to the drying meat and pulled it down by grabbing it with its jaw and jerking. I had never been this close to one of them so I didn’t do anything. The creature chewed up the meat and swallowed it before going for more.

My rifle was right along my body and I put my fingers around the heavy wooden stock and waited for the thing to reach up at again with its snout. As it did so I slipped out of the blanket and aimed the gun manually at the base of the thing’s skull. I pulled the trigger and the shot rang out. The bullet slammed into the creature’s skull and pushed it up against the cement of the overpass. The thing was still twitching and one leg was trying to kick so I stood up and put another shot into its eye. Even then it was still moving so I fired once more into its neck.

My heart was thundering in my ears as I watched the thing die. It looked up at me with big reptile green eyes and blood on the feathers around the holes in its head. I was curious about the things that ruined the earth for humans.

This one was over six feet tall and had grey downy feathers about its back and under belly. Long jagged sharp teeth filled its mouth. The creature was lean and I estimated it weighed about a hundred pounds. Flipping it over on its back and spreading the legs I determined it was female. The legs were thick and had the texture of steel fibers. The underbelly was armored as well but it was the softest of the body. I got out a dirty black medical bag I’d been toting around. The stainless steel tools inside were old and dented but they were the best thing that I had.

First I took out a rusted set of shears and used them to cut a hole in the throat of the creature down across the breast plate. With my fingers I pulled back the thick bloody skin and exposed the rib cage. The bones were thick and hard with knobby ends and tendons holding them together.

Pulling out my axe I hacked the skull off the thing with a few whacks. The spine was extremely thick and the cord its self was over three inches in diameter making it much bigger than it needed to be for a normal creature of that size.

Using that same axe I chopped the piece of nearly ossified bone that made up this raptor’s version of a sternum. Thick plated bones stretched from the narrow base of the sternum down the belly forming a bony inner wall of for the internal organs down to the base of the tail at the back. At the base of the spine where the tail meets the body I found an armored bony protuberance at the very base that held a second bigger brain. While the upper brain was mostly just the brainstem and lizard functions like hunting and breathing the bottom brain contained a complex four lobed cortex. All of the nerves and body functions lead me to believe this was the creature’s true brain. The other was just body maintenance. These creatures were probably sentient and had much more brain functionality than we did. The lower brain was more armored and more secluded than the upper brain and that meant it was harder to get to. A human would have to kill both brains in order to kill the creature in a single hit.

After I finished examining the animal I piled all the spoiled and ruined meat near the far embankment. The sun was up in full force so I gathered my things and what was left of the dog meat and broke camp.

“I can’t believe my wife thinks she’s going to get the kids in the divorce.” The guard in a composite plastic helmet and armor said as he stood outside the armored car. The other guard nodded. “She’s all strung out on Neuro anyway.”

“Mike she always kind of a hag.” The other guard said. “She just wants your money.”

Cars flew by over head. The city was dark but for pinprick of floating lights off in the distance. The Mekatta Corporation’s building stuck up from the city like shard of jagged glass reaching into the sky.

“Boys.” A woman said dropping down from the sky out of nowhere. When she landed she created a deep crater in the concrete and plasteel roadway. She had long black hair subtle asian features and her entire body was covered in shimmering tattoes that seemed to move in the shadow as she walked. “How are you doing?”

“You aren’t supposed…” The guard said as she grabbed his helmet and crushed it between her two hands. She was small and lithe but she crushed his armored helmet easier than a frat boy crushed a beer can against his forehead.

“Frakk.” The other guard said and he lifted his plasma carbine up and aimed it in her direction. Her mouth opened and a toxic green flame shot out and stuck to his armor and helmet. Green flames reacted with the material and it melted. The caustic liquid took his face as he went to his knees screaming.

“I know sweet heart.” The woman said as she walked behind him and put her arm over his head and snapped his neck. “Better for both of us.”

She went to the back of the armored car and found the reinforced door that seemed to have a magnetic lock. The tattoos on her arms whipped about wildly as she grasped the edges of the door and pulled. The door buckled but did not break.

“Base, we have an issue. I can’t get this frakking door open. Going to have to bring the entire vehicle.”

“Dragon, can’t you just use the acid?” came the repsonce.

“No, you know what’s in there right?” She said.

“Do what you have to do.” The voice said.

She walked in front and slipped into the driver’s seat. The keycard was with the guard’s stuff so the armored car didn’t go anywhere. After checking to see if she had any blood on her in the rear view mirror she got out.

“Does the lady need a tow” a metallic voice said from the shadows. A dark shaped snapped into focus. The man looked like a bug with a large black helmet that had no eyes and swept back and big pads with red circles for hands.

“Not from you.” She said bring her arms up to kick him. Time slowed down. The dark shape moved out of the way by warping space around him.

“Dragon, I would hope you would know that wasn’t going to work.” Quantum said with his metallic tinny voice.

“You have to give a lady credit.” She said.

“You are not going to surrender are you?” He asked.

She opened her mouth and spit green flame and acid directly in his face and then she took off on foot. The flame bounced off Quantum’s shield but the flame blinding him for a second and gave her the edge.

“What kind of jackrabbit shit was that?” He said mostly to himself. He put his arms up and a black ball appeared inside. A snap and a pop as space warped around him. He appeared behind her as he watched her run into a nearby high school. Since it was dark it was abandoned anyway.

The doors were closed when he got there and he flung them open. Rows of electrically sealed lockers with biopads on them greeted him.

“I hate highschool.” He said. His sensors weren’t pulling anything so he had to use mostly video. Tracking was not his specialty but he did manage to follow her into the gym.

The gym as a large room with a high tech padded floor and holographic computers mounted on the walls to simulate any sport in any environment.

He spotted her in the corner and it looked like she was crouched down behind a wall.

“Really?” He said. He closed his fists and focused a ball of gravity on her. She didn’t move.

“Bitch.” He said. She didn’t move because she was a hologram.

Back at the armored car the woman got it fired up and lifted it up into the air. Even though the armored car had high powered Tesla engine it was acting very sluggishly as she took off.

Quantum snapped into reality sitting right next to her.

“Nice play.” He said.

“Yah. How about this. Back there? Mini-Blackhole.” She said ripping out the controls of the car and jumping out the door. Wings sprouted from her back in full Technicolor as she fell.

“I hate her so much.” He said. “She does have a nice ass though.”

Quantum locked a field around the car and caused it stop moving. Once that was done he flew back and dropped it off at Mekkata before teleporting back to his house.

His apartment was filthy. Plastic pizza boxes and take out containers filled very corner. Rats and roaches played games of hide and go seek in his carpeting.

Quantum took off his suit to reveal the skinny blonde haired boy who wasn’t even out of high school yet. He uploaded the image of the dragon lady into his computer and put it to facial recognition. She wasn’t going to pop on any of the databases.

“I can’t wait to see you again.” He said to himself.