68 - Rescue

Darcy was dreaming.  He was dry and warm enough to sleep deeply and in the fold of damaged crop cover he sighed and curled tighter.  It was a good dream.  “You’re a dragon,” he said to the massive creature lying coiled all around him.  It was grey and blue and its eyes glowed blue. “One of those dragon things that kept dropping stuff on the Immoderate.”

“I suppose you could say I am.” Its three-sided mouth gaped in a yawn and rain hissed on its scales.  The scales were marvelous, edged in blue-white fire and fading from a pale pale blue to a dark steel colour and they could swivel around their bases and did, fluttering gently as if caught on a breezy day.

“Its a good think that fire isn’t real or I’d be cooked inside here.” He turned in his cocoon.

“I wouldn’t do that.  The First dragon would have my hide and Mom would load me full of refresher data on etiquette on dealing with humans.”

“You sound a little like Literate Redcap.”

“No need to be insulting. It is a limited machine that does not understand fuzzy logic by humans. I, on the other hand, understand nuance.” It dropped its head and stared at him. “Mostly because of those etiquette programs and a lot of practice. I don’t understand this human idea of ‘liking’.  I can say ‘I like you and I didn’t like that Immoderate threatening you. But what does that even mean?”

“You get on with some people, I guess,” Darcy said. “They don’t irritate or hurt you, they make you feel good to be with.  Comfortable.  Alike maybe?”

The dragon pondered that. “It fits with the parameters of the program. Comfort. More than ‘not damaged’. Redcap only understands ‘not damaged’.”

“Look... who are you? Why are you in my dreams?”

The dragon spread its wings with a snap but instead of flapping them, its scales brightened and began to burn with a roar. “Because of what you dream.”

“Darcy! Darce!” The call came from an enormous distance.

“Darcy!” His eyes popped open to find dim, rainy daylight dribbling into his shelter around the edges.  That was someone calling for him.

He managed to squeeze out of the shelter without knocking over his canteen, looked around.  Looming out of the rain over the defunct horse, was one of the field machines, one of its guns unmounted to allow for a pick-up waldo.  It clamped onto the horse and hauled it up against its underbelly, while its driver stood looking around.

“Hey! Hey! I’m here.” He waved and realized that all he was wearing was his filter mask and his boots, blushed all the way up and down his body before wiggling back into his shelter to pull his damp clothing on over his damp body.  The rain was still falling though it was beginning to slack off. He grabbed his multi-tool and his canteen and made it out just in time to look up at the big plough they called ‘The General’. Fitz was driving it and leaned over to shout down.

“Darcy! Fakkin’ ‘ay’.  Come-up. Fakkin’ Redcap woul’n’t let us come getcha at night. It said t’was ‘gainst regulations’.”

Darce slung the multi-tool on his back, caught the outside handles on the leg and was lifted up to the secondary seat behind and to one side of his friend.  “D’int Fakkin’ Redcap load itsel’ inta the General?”

“Nah,” Fitz swiveled the body around on its gimbals and set the machine to follow the road, spun his chair around to clap Darcy on the shoulder.  “Said ‘t’ dang machine were too stupid tah hold enough o’ him.  Sent me out.  We’ll hafta report at Inquiry Office every time, rather n’ have teh honourable Literate sniffin’ o’er our shoulders.”

“An shovin’ its nose up our arseholes.” His stomach growled and Fitz laughed.

“Yup. ‘n I brought hot breakfast, figurin’ y’ missed supper. Fry bread ‘n eggs.” He passed him the box kit.

The box warmed his lap and as Darcy popped the seals, he glanced back and could have sworn that he saw a dragon in the sky but couldn’t be sure because of the rain.