Batteryville

Cannibal Bikers

Okay, so they weren't cannibal bikers.

They weren't even a gang, they were a young family, not much older than me and Erin. Well, the man was older, maybe in his early twenties but the girl holding the baby looked like a teenager. And there was another kid about two or three in a wagon the mother was pulling. The man was also pulling a wagon but it was covered by a blanket. They all had dark skin, darker than suntanned, but not really dark like Terence or Malia with African roots.

Erin had gotten off her bike and was standing beside the girl holding the baby. They were all looking at me as I rode up so I hadn't got Kara's gun out of the bag and I was a little scared.

"Hey," Erin said, "you might be able to help."

"What?"

"They're on their way to Batteryville, can you believe it?" She glanced at the girl with the baby like it was an inside joke, like they were old friends.

It had taken us a few hours to ride bicycles this far so I figured it would take these two, walking and pulling wagons, the rest of the day and probably all day tomorrow.

The man said, "I don't think so."

It startled me a little, the way he said it and now as I was looking at him I realized he was Native, First Nations, the whole family was.

Erin said, "Walter works in the recharging station but he knows a lot about a lot of things, he might be able to help."

Well, that was certainly the first time I'd ever heard Erin say anything like that about me so, yeah, I wanted to help. I said, "What is it?"

The man looked at me for a while and it was really quiet. We were at the top of a rise on the big highway, the one Kara had warned me to stay away from, and there was nothing for miles in every direction. Well, there were trees and what had been farmland that was now all overgrown with all kinds of plants and huge weeds but nothing else, no buildings, nothing.

Finally the guy said, "Motor's broken." He pulled the blanket off the wagon.

I got off my bike and put it on its stand. I took a step and paused and Erin said, "Have a look, maybe you can fix it. It would save them a long walk to Batterytville and back."

"I can look," I said, "but they'll probably have to go to Batteryville." I walked to the wagon and then I said to the guy, "It's a water pump?"

"Yes. Solar powered."

"I've seen these," I said. "Shurflo, this is a surface pump?"

"Yes."

"If it's the fuse you'll have to go to Batteryville, they can help with that."

"It's not the fuse."

I got down on one knee to get a better look. I had seen this pump before, or at least one an awful lot like it, they could be hooked up directly to a solar array and were usually really simple to operate – when the sun was shining they pumped water and when the sun wasn't shining they didn't.

"Is the pump connected directly or is there a controller?"

"Controller."

"Well, if that's the problem," I said, "you could connect the pump directly."

"If that's not the problem?"

I stood up and walked towards Erin and pulled her aside a little and whispered, "I don't have anything, I don't have any tools, nothing. You took off so fast, I wasn't ready."

"That was the point." There was a real edge to her voice now and I figured all that happy to see me and maybe I could help when I first rode up had been an act. "If anyone knew I was leaving they would've tried to stop me."