The Drive

This page is rated T for Frequent Depressive Themes and Frequent Light Horror Themes.

Blurry vision of a highway…and then it all started coming back.

The man driving the car, Brant Lennox, spoke up. "Parkezke Waznow, are you fortunate to have gotten out of that jailhouse." It was more of an assertion than a question.

"But seriously, Park, my guy, you got a lot of nerve to bust out like that. Most people would rather die than do that." He chuckled as he rotated the wheel. "Shame. Worst that'd happen is they'd die getting out."

Park chuckled in return, then sobered up. "People are born into lockdown. Dreaming of freedom is taboo. Why would anyone even try escape, save rebels like us?" He leaned against the back of the hard car seat. "I mean, sure, everyone hates the government. It makes itself hated by saying that we own nothing of our lives; either we sit in a cell and waste away, or we're forced to do the work someone else wants. Fight, farm, clean, whatever stupid chores they need done. Some day they should hire help for a change."

"Who'd they hire?" said Brant contemptuously. "The Endoheads? Nah."

There was silence for a bit, nothing but the bleak highway going by to show any signs of life.

"Well, thanks for breaking me out of there," Park said finally. "You gotta be gutsy yourself to crash your car into one of the walls. You're lucky I was only in sand aggregation. Nobody watches that place."

"Who's gonna watch it?" Brant said. "The Overseers're busy watching the really important stuff, like the farmers—"

"Poor blokes," Park cut in.

"—and anyway they're too thinly spread out," Brant said. "When you need one person bossing around a thousand others, some of those people are bound to fall through the holes in the net." Seeing Park's questioning look, Brant added, "Like trying to capture a school of guppies in a loose-holed net…except you never saw those, did you. Too young to have seen."

Discussion was rendered impossible for a few seconds as Brant pushed the car through its loud and clunky mode shift, giving it the capacity to go faster. When the noise died down, Park spoke up again.

"Well, I hope they cave in," he said. "Better than them just sticking around forever."

"Or the Endoheads'll smash them," Brant said. "War with the Endoheads is what caused this whole thing."

Park's eyes widened.

"You didn't know?" Brant said. "They locked everyone up to keep them from deserting. Why've they got no patriots? Because their fear of a few deserters made them make enemies of their own people."

"Well, I hope they cave now," Park said. "It's what they deserve. Making enemies of everyone should bring them down by the people they're closest to. It's only right."

"Eh," Brant said, waving his free hand. "Whatever brings them down is fine by me. Long as I'm there to see it happen."

The ensuing stretch of silence was far longer as both men kept their eyes on the road ahead.

Fun Facts

 * The name of the protagonist/focus character came from a randomly generated password, "xukPar-6kezke-waznow". Since the password was too un-memorable for me, but did make a good name with a randomly-generated feel (something that I felt was appropriate for this setting), I decided to use a modified version of the password for this character's name.