Driver Eight

“Driver Eight, take a break, we’re still a ways away, and you’ll need your energy for the home stretch, so you should take a nap.  Put on the auto for now, there ain’t gonna be trouble around here.”

The man sitting behind the wheel of the transport leaned back and turned the autopilot on, double-checking the coordinates to make sure that nothing had been inadvertently altered.  He didn’t go to sleep, though; he was suspicious that the transport might be bugged, and he needed to protect his identity.  Anonymity was important for a driver.  There must have been a thousand drivers in the country, each one of them operating illegally.  Not that the government cared to stop any one of them, hell they were practically a part of the government, but once a media center found out about it, they had to pretend to care, and the driver stupid enough to get caught would have to go through hell for it.  Those people, strung out across the North American Republic, the everyday men and women, they loved nothing more than to see a rich criminal suffer at the hands of the government they all pretended not to know he was serving.  That’s why he couldn’t risk getting found out.  He wore the mask that all drivers wore, that blank, expressionless, face projected by the holograph on his belt, almost unreal in its simplicity.  No technology had ever been made that could bypass it for identification purposes; it was a perfect disguise.

Driver Eight dialed for his chair to push backward so he could stretch out his legs.  He reached into the briefcase on the passenger seat and pulled out a manila envelope.  He opened it and reread the single sheet of paper it contained.  His identification for this assignment was “Eight.”  He didn’t need a name for his profession, and therefore didn’t have one.  A long time ago he had had a name, not that it mattered, or that he even bothered to remember what it was half the time.  For now he was Driver Eight, and in a few days he would not be.

As Eight looked out his window, he couldn’t help but be disgusted by the landscape.  Ever since the Second Nuclear War, the Midwest had been so bleak, desolate, and deserted.  No people for thousands of miles, unless you counted the mutants, but they weren’t people, they were barely alive.  There wouldn’t be any on this route, anyway.  For a brief moment he wondered what was in the trunk, but then immediately scorned himself for it.  The second rule of driving, after keeping yourself anonymous, was never to know what you were carrying, or who you were bringing it to.

He would never have looked into the contents of the transport, which is why he was so shocked when he heard an explosion from behind.

When he woke up, Eight felt the eight of the front bumper of the transport on top of him.  As he pulled himself from under it, he realized that his left shin was badly burnt, the pant leg ripped below the knee, and that his left arm was in just as bad condition.  He cringed as he forced himself to sit up.  He looked at the wreckage of the transport.  Obviously it wasn’t his, but he would have been able to sell it on the black market after the drive for a good price.  It was obvious that he had been set up.  But how?  He had always been so careful.

It didn’t matter.  Someone knew his identity.  He was as good as dead.  It didn’t matter that he was, in theory, untraceable; somebody had tracked him down, and was probably watching him now.

Whoever it was, thought Eight, expected me to die in that blast.  He looked down, noticing the piece of paper he had clutched in his fist.  It was his assignment.  He looked it over again.  He considered his options: he could go to the mission’s end point, where no doubt some kind of trap had been set, or he could wait there, in the desolate wasteland until he got shot in the back or his starved body picked at by some buzzard.
No where to go but forward, Eight decided.

*****

The night was spotlessly dark, no lights for miles, sans the distant beam that Eight saw in the distance.  What the hell is that thing? he thought, gazing at the beacon.
The sky grew impossibly blacker as he continued toward the source of light, which seemed to grow brighter by the moment.  Finally he could see from where the light was radiating.  He saw a tall wooden fence surrounding a circular area, at least seventy or eighty yards in diameter.  The spotlight in the sky that he had noticed was radiating from near the edge.  He began hearing voices, and edged nearer to the fence.  As he approached it, it became apparent that the walls were surrounding a sort of crater in the ground, from which he could hear rowdy cheering and angered chanting.  When he heard that inhuman groan, he felt his stomach twist; he realized that he was nearing a mutant circus.

Circus, of course, was too kind of a name for the entertainment these illegal venues provided, a pastime which recalled the days of the Roman Coliseum.  Eight wasn’t particularly sympathetic for those barely-humans, but he always experienced anxiety and a sense of unease the few times he encountered such arenas.  Still, this was at the edge of the town that his assignment would have led him to.  No doubt the denizens of the village were using the mutant circus as a means of raising money to pay off some dirty cop in the area for protection.  Finding an opening in the fence, Eight followed a staircase down into the depths of the bowl, which he could now tell was about two stories deep.

Most of the inner edge of the crater was filled with bleacher seats, most of which were occupied by screaming fans.  Eight was careful to keep in the shadows, where he couldn’t be seen.  From where he was hiding, he had a clear view of the center of the arena, where two mutants, both chained to the ground, were attempting to tear each other limb from limb.  The one on Eight’s left was tall and skinny, with lanky gray arms that ended in almost bear-like paws, its eyes sunk deep within its skull.  The other was slightly shorter, with a more even build and a greenish complexion.  The overlarge teeth protruding from its shapeless mouth landed themselves in the neck of the first creature, pulling out a large chunk of flesh.  Eight had to turn around at the sight, disgusted by the act.  What made him even sicker, however, were the huge cheer it instigated.  People were actually enjoying this barbaric display.  He kept his head turned until he was sure the fight, if you could call it that, was over.  As people rose from their seats, prepared to leave, a voice from outside the arena shouted, “he’s here!”  Immediately a panic spread throughout the audience.

“He wasn’t due for two more days!”

“Mister mayor, Is the homage ready?”

“It’s in the arena cellars, in the safe, get me the key…”

“What will he do if we don’t have it on time?”

The rambunctious crowd of entertained savages had turned craven, each man, woman, and child worried and uncertain about what would transpire shortly.  In a moment, the loud noise generated by the anxious mass was subdued.  On the opposite end of the stadium, Eight could see a figure walking through one of the gates.  His eyes widened in shock as the jigsaw of events which had been strewn about unintelligibly began to piece itself together.

“Officer Samson,” stammered a man near the gate, “the money—”

“Where is it?” said the sneering voice that Eight remembered all too well.

“The mayor, he…he’s getting it from the—”  The man was silenced with the sound of a gunshot which rang throughout the rest of the terrified crowd’s ears.

“Who will be next?”

Eight could hardly suppress his rage, which under normal circumstances was a mistake he would not have made.  He stepped forward.

“When I knew you, your name wasn’t Samson.  If I remember correctly, you called yourself Arnold Valvert...”  He spat on the ground.  “The hit man.”

Rule number three of driving: never bring up the past.  Ever.

The officer grinned.  “I always preferred to refer to myself as a bounty hunter.  I assumed you would come here if my package didn’t kill you first.  If I remember correctly, you and I have a score to settle.”  Eight’s brain began to combat itself.  He tried to push back the memories that were clawing their way to the surface.  A driver could have no history.  He needed to be able to keep his true identity a secret, even to himself.  It was far too dangerous to have memories, or worse, memories of other people.  It was too late for that, though, now.

The smile on the officer’s face faded.  “You sold me to the media.  Once my story was out, they locked me up.  Do you have any idea what I went through in there?”

Eight’s rationale couldn’t defeat the pure disdain and animosity he held towards the man opposite him.  “You deserved what you got, for what you did.  I’d hoped you were dead by now at the hands of some inmate.  And now you’re posing as a—”

“Who said I was posing as anything?  Our noble government loves to have men with such credentials as mine on the force.  If I take a bit extra, it only reproves my skill and thereby my value to them.

“You—”  Eight was cut off by the sound of panting.  A short, round man with a cleanly cut beard, was out of breath, and holding an oblong black bag with his left hand.

“Mr. Mayor,” said the man now identified as Valvert.  “You’re late.”

“I…you’re early!”  Another gunshot rang, and the mayor dropped to the ground.

Valvert turned back hastily to face Eight.  “Now, where was I?”  A third shot was fired, and Valvert stumbled to the ground, his eyes wide open.

“Next to my brother,” rang a voice from the crowd, whose body was standing with its gun still pointed in the direction Valvert had been.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, a soft murmur began to circulate within the crowd.  Nobody condemned the mayor’s brother for his action, but a new fear began to fill their minds.  It wouldn’t be easy to hide the death of a cop; they carried too many fail-safes on them.  Other officers would find some trace of Valvert, and when that happened, the citizens of the town would be beyond hope.  Undoubtedly, most of them would end up in forced labor camps, or worse, one of the unholy prisons that Valvert had once been punished in.  No one among them had either the education or the skill to protect them from their impending fate.

Eight regained control.  “Does anybody in this town on a transport?”  Already he had forced away the memories of self.  He was safe again.

*****

As the driver was boarding his transport, the mayor’s brother, who seemed to have become de facto leader of the town in his kin’s absence, stopped him.  “How can we contact you?  You understand, to make sure…”

Eight nodded, and pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket.  He wrote down a series of numbers followed by few words of explanation, and handed the sheet to the impromptu mayor.  “On that paper is the radio frequency at which I can be reached.”

“Are you sure the…the cargo…won’t be a problem to move?”

The driver stared at the man before him perplexed.  “Why would I know what your cargo is?”  The former mayor’s brother smiled, as if the traveling driver were making a joke.  The smile was not returned.  He shrugged off the seeming amusement of the head of the town and climbed into the seat of the car, and as he shifted the transport into gear, Driver Eleven drove out into the distance towards his next destination.