The Second To Last Human Alive

Chapter 6 - Two Rights Make A Wrong

The threatening howl of an alien wind was broken only by brief pops of static, as the external shielding of the fortress struggled to overcome the jammers. Rusty waited for a gap in the shield’s rapidly narrowing field of effect, then jumped through. He hit the ground hard, but managed to tuck and roll with some small degree of success. Standing quickly, Rusty patted three different areas of his person. Now secure in the knowledge that his booze was safe, he took off into the alien night.

Rusty was not usually the type to abandon his post. He may have turned to soldiering merely because he was a drunk with no useful skills, but he was fiercely patriotic. This took an extra especially large amount of doublethink, owing to some of the paradoxes associated with a supposedly anarchist anti-state having an army and, frankly, an empire. The army itself had all but dropped the pretense of being a defense force, but they still never ran out of new reasons why the invasions were necessary for the safety of the Divided State of the Anarcho-Capitalist Americas, and Rusty ate it up with a spoon.

But one thing that Rusty wasn’t was stupid. He was just intellectually lazy. War had looked so glamorous on paper, but Rusty quickly learned the downside of being shot at all day. The Oonagoora hadn’t seemed like they’d be able to put up a real fight, but that’s when they somehow started jamming the shields. Suddenly bows and arrows were deadly again, and the modern soldiers were ill-prepared against weapons that didn’t fire bolts of light. So Rusty got himself and all the liquor he could conceal about his person out of there.

* * * 

“This is great. This is way better than stumbling around time blind,” said Randal. He was impressed with the new toys that had been given to him and Mint by beings from beyond time. In response to his desire to find Rusty, atom-sized machines built what could only be described as a Rusty-Finder out of atmosphere, dirt and dead skin cells.

Randal clicked the only button on the Rusty-Finder. An electric arrow lit up on the display, pointing in the direction of Rusty. The distance to Rusty (1.9 kilometers, 1.2 miles, 2.6 gnarls, 70 trillion f’l’rtxs’s) blipped beside it, updating itself in real time.

Mint, who had been enamored of the incredibly advanced technology initially, had grown more conservative as the results of her subconscious desires being made manifest seemed to slip further and further from her control.

“What is going on? The caveman is in love with the dangerous new technology. Aren’t you usually afraid of consequences? What happened to that?” Mint muttered.

“I’m worried about the consequences of time travel. I can’t prevent my own birth with these nanoassemblers.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” said Mint.

* * * 

Three motion detectors lit up in Rusty’s helmet. He hadn’t survived the war this long by using discretion when choosing targets. He fired off a fourth of a clip worth of energy in the rough direction indicated by his ancient tech. There was an explosion of bright energy, and the familiar crackle of an energy shield igniting atmosphere.

“Hey,” came a woman’s voice from the darkness “Fuck you too asshole!”

A barrage of laser fire soon followed, forcing Rusty to take cover behind one of the remaining unvaporized trees. These were no crybaby savages fighting for their home. These were real soldiers.

The smell of burnt atmosphere lingered as both sides waited for the other to make a move. At length Rusty called out.

“Um, sorry ‘bout that. I thought you were someone else.”

* * * 

“Is that Rusty?” whispered Randal.

The entire display of the Rusty-Finder lit up with the word YES.