Cyberkatz 1999

Parker's Lucky Bandanna

                                                      EPISODE FIFTEEN

Kurt let his bag drop with a groan and flexed his arms. He felt as if he had been walking for days without getting any closer to his destination

He should have gone towards Ucluelet instead of Tofino. Ucluelet was closer, and he could have caught a bus there just as easily as in Tofino. The difference in distance had seemed negligible when he was on wheels, but he was on foot now, loaded down with a hockey bag that seemed to be gaining weight by the minute.

He looked at the sun, trying to estimate the time. His almost new multi-function watch was still lying on the bedside table in Unit 6 of the Riverbend Hotel in Port Alberni, unless the police had seized it for evidence, or the chambermaid had wrapped it up for mailing to Bill Curtis at a non-existent address.

The walk had worked the chill out of his bones and sharpened his appetite. His stomach growled, reminding him that breakfast was overdue.

He had planned to make his getaway on Parker's motorcycle. If he could manage the switchback in the dark, it should be a cinch by daylight. At Nanaimo, he would buy a bus ticket and spend the long ride home making up a plausible story to explain the loss of the Trekker and its contents.  Once he arrived in Saskatoon, he could get his life back on track and forget Melissa, Cynthia, Parker, and their assorted thugs. His plan, which had seemed simple and elegant while he was sitting on the driftwood log listening to the soothing roar of the ocean, had run aground when he discovered that the motorcycle had disappeared. Someone had beat him to it.

A recreational vehicle passed. He tried to flag it down, but the driver accelerated.

Kurt dropped the bag beside the pavement and slumped down on it. Tofino might as well be on the moon. Surely somebody would take pity on him and give him a ride before he starved to death!

His eyelids began to droop. 

The sound of an approaching engine snapped him back into alertness. He looked around eagerly, then sighed.  It was only a motorcycle.  Even if the rider wanted to help, he couldn't accommodate the hockey bag. 

The road hog roared closer. The rider was helmetless, going hell bent for leather, his auburn curls swept back by the wind. It looked like . . . it couldn't be . . .

"Parker!"

Kurt leaped to his feet, waving wildly as the motorcycle swept past him.

"Parker," Kurt said again, letting his hands drop to his side. He had greeted him as a fellow survivor, forgetting that their last meeting was not particularly amicable. Instead of waving his arms and shouting, he should have been praying that Parker did not recognize him as the man who had knocked him out with a chair, shot at him with a disintegration pistol, and stolen his motorcycle.

Parker executed a U-turn without slowing noticeably. Kurt picked up his hockey bag and hefted it. Maybe, if he threw it at Parker hard enough, he could get a head start in the final race of his life.

Parker stopped beside him, scowling. The scowl deepened when Kurt reached into his pocket.

"Relax," Kurt said. "It's just your bandanna." He held it out to Parker tentatively, like a white flag. "I found it when I was checking out the explosion."

Parker's face lit with a grin. "Thanks," he said, as if the battle of Unit 6 had never happened. "That's my lucky bandanna.  I just had to come back and look for it."

"It must be lucky, for you to survive that explosion. Your jacket is hardly melted at all."

Parker finished tying the bandanna around his head. "That was your car, wasn't it?" he asked. "Sorry about that."

"Nothing you could do." Kurt put the bag down, his knees trembling. "It was a cow anyway."

"A bit underpowered, but it had guts. We would have made it if I hadn't slowed down, but that damn cat kept screaming at me to slow down so she could jump out, and I got rattled."

"Sorry about wiping out your road hog," Kurt said. "I'm glad it's still running."

"She's a tough machine. Been through worse."

"Did Cynthia send you back here to kill me?"

Parker snorted. "If that was the case, you'd already be dead. I'm done with this gig. I told Jenny to pack up her equipment and get the hell out of my shop. I never want to see that bitch again."

The corner of Kurt's mouth twitched. "Bet you've said that before."

"Yeah, but I mean it this time. She keeps me in the dark about everything, and next thing I know, I'm in the middle of a fight with no idea who's who."

Kurt nodded. He and Parker had more in common than he'd realized.

"Cynthia is gone too?" Kurt asked, fantasizing about just one more farewell appointment before he headed home.

"Forever," Parker said emphatically. "I ran my shop without all that fantasy junk before Jenny came along, and I can do it again."

"What -- and live without the VR rush?" Kurt teased.

For a moment, Parker's eyes softened with longing. Then he shook his head. "Forget the VR. I'm sticking to rpgs from now on."

"You do role playing?" Kurt asked. "What's your favourite?"

"Megatrex."

"Me too!" Kurt said. "Path of Peril has sort of taken over the last six months, but there's nothing like a good Megatrex campaign to get my mind off my troubles."

Parker revved his engine. "Gotta get back to the shop. You want a ride?"

"Cool," Kurt said. "I'll just grab a few things out of my bag."

"Leave it," Parker said. "It's just stuff."

Kurt meant to protest. Instead, he found himself laughing. "You're right," he said. "It's just stuff."

He straddled the seat behind Parker and yelled a war cry as they took off. It was good to be alive.

"Can we stop for breakfast at Port Alberni?" he shouted into the rushing wind.

While Kurt is enjoying his breakfast in Port Alberni, please vote for this section of the story.