2 Dads from AZ

Impulse walks past it. It’s only after a moment that he realizes he can’t hear Skizz’s footsteps anymore.

He stops. Checks either side of him. No Skizz. How in the world is it possible to lose someone that tall?

He turns around, spots the idiot that he calls his best friend, and frowns. “Skizz.”

The idiot in question is hanging back a few paces, staring down at the dandelion.

Evidently he didn’t hear the first time. Impulse tries again. “Skizz.”

He doesn’t move. “He’s gotta be joking, right?”

“Skizz, don’t do it.”

“I’m gonna do it. No I’m not YES I AM no I’m not.”

“SKIZZ.”

He lifts his foot and hovers it over the dandelion with a big, stupid, taunting grin. “Ahhh—!”

Impulse bolts forward and slams him in the chest. “Cut it out!”

Skizz stumbles backwards. “Whoa, geez!”

Impulse grabs his collar and drags him down so that he can growl right into his face. “Skizz. For the love of god. This is not the time for messing around.” His voice is thin and frenzied but he has to get this across. “This place is crazy. The people are crazy. We don’t know who or what we’re dealing with, and we have a baby now. We are not. Taking. Any. Chances. You hear me?” He’s pulled him in until their noses are just inches apart.

Skizz’s voice is tiny. “Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.”

“Good.” He sighs, releases his collar, and walks away, carefully steering around the dandelion. He’d really prefer to go to bed tonight with his throat not slit by a razor.

Skizz follows, dragging his feet. “Geez,” he mutters. “It’s just a weed.”

Impulse opts to ignore that.

There are two ramps to enter the garage—one going up, and one going down—and both of them are clogged with hover vehicles that have been smashed and overturned and set up like a barricade. The whole structure is crisscrossed with a web of yellow police tape. It looks impassible. But at one end, there’s a narrow gap between a car fender and the wall, just wide enough for a person to squeeze through. 

Impulse starts to step into the gap when a hand on his shoulder pulls him back.

“Wait, hang on, dude.”

“What?” asks Impulse, a little harsher than he meant to.

Skizz doesn’t seem to notice the bite in his tone. He just pulls out his gun, readies it in front of him, and puts on a game face. “I’ll go first.”

Just like that, Impulse feels kinda bad for being snippy with him. The implication is clear. Skizz is willing to be the meat shield in case anyone in there is hostile.

I’ll protect you.

Normally, he would have put up a little more of a fight. But he is carrying the most vulnerable person here, and she can’t defend herself. 

Besides, it’s…kinda nice to be protected.

So he nods, lets Skizz go on ahead, and then follows close behind, shoulders hunched by his ears.

The vehicles have been positioned like a hedge maze across the entrance. Both of them have to walk single-file and squeeze through switchbacking paths to weave their way between the cars, and their visibility up the ramp is often blocked.

Impulse starts to feel claustrophobic. He can’t see what’s around the next corner. It could be anything.

The only thing reassuring him is that, in all the graffiti on the chassis of these vehicles, he can occasionally see that tiny rectangular symbol that Gem pointed out, spray-painted in various colors.

Bar across the middle = good. I hope.

They work their way slowly up the ramp and then finally step out of the maze of cars. This level of the parking garage is completely empty.

Except for the man standing in front of them.

“Hello, strangers.”

He’s covered almost head to toe in scraps of old military armor and SWAT gear. Large biceps poke out from underneath the huge green shoulder guards. Diagonally across his body he is toting a frankly enormous plasma gun, humming and bright with neon lights, but the muzzle is pointed downwards and his gloved finger is not on the trigger. He seems wary, but not actively hostile.

Impulse can’t see his face. He’s wearing a full helmet, and his breath hisses and rasps through the respirator. But through the tinted visor, he can see two eyes—one intact, and one blind and grey and crossed with scars that form a jagged X.

Skizz steps forward, alert but lowering his gun. “You’re X?”

“That’s me,” is the answer.

Impulse is still half-hiding behind Skizz, but he manages to find his voice and stammer out, “Gemini sent us.”

“Gem did? Interesting.” The man called X thinks for a moment—there’s a hiss and whoosh from the respirator—and then he turns around and beckons them with a motion of his head and shoulder. “Come with me.”

------

X leads them up the emergency staircase onto the second level of the parking garage. Impulse is starting to feel exhausted. He’s still running on next to no sleep, and he was not expecting to do this much cardio tonight. 

As soon as the door opens, he’s hit with a wave of warm-body smell, like stepping into a crowd. 

They have finally found civilization.

Or, well, as close to civilization as anyone would get out here. It actually looks much more like an emergency refugee camp. The dozens of old parking spots are filled with makeshift tents and bulging bags and stolen shopping carts piled with belongings. There are a few tiny fires going, and the smoke clings to the ceiling of the garage until it slowly rolls out into the rain. A few people with hunched shoulders and wide, sunken eyes look up and stare at them as they pass. 

Impulse looks back into their hungry faces as long as he can, but eventually has to turn away. His heart hurts.

X does not lead them into the camp, but past it, heading for a door marked elevators by a half-faded sign.

“Sooo,” Skizz begins conversationally, “is your name actually X?”

X sounds like he’s smiling in his helmet. His inhale hisses before he speaks. “Of course not. They call me the Administrator. We don’t give out real names around here.”

“Why not?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” X replies as he opens a door. The room inside used to be a lobby for the elevators, but now it’s now been converted into an office of sorts, lit by a single lantern, with maps on the walls and a desk and chair made of crates in the corner.

“With real names…” His exhale wooshes. “You can find people.”

The door clangs shut behind them. Impulse jumps and shoots a nervous look at Skizz, who also looks disturbed. They haven’t exactly been using code names.

Uh-oh. 

X turns and faces them, and suddenly that plasma gun looks really dangerous right now. Hiss. “Skizz LeMan.”

Skizz’s spine goes ramrod straight. Impulse feels his heart jump.

X steps forward. “One of the top ringleaders of the Underground, wanted in every jurisdiction of the City for smuggling and sale of contraband…how many times did you break out of prison? Five, was it?”

Skizz has the good grace to look ashamed. “That’s…that was a past life. I don’t do that anymore.”

“Huh.” X pauses, studying him—hiss, woosh—then turns to the other man in the room. “And Impulse…I’m not so familiar with you, but I believe I saw your face on a wanted poster once.” He looks a little closer. Impulse can hear the vents on his helmet rattle with his inhale. “Though it didn’t quite look like this.”

Impulse turns his head, as if it’ll hide the scarring that X has already seen. Sheepishly, he admits, “I put a tap on the Convex plant in District 11…geez, over a decade ago.”

X whistles, and it’s muffled by the respirator. “That’s brave.”

“Yeah, I’m not…proud of it.”

X turns back to his makeshift desk. His boots beat out a slow and steady pace on the faded tile. “I hope you understand the position I’m in.” He leans back on the crate and rests the glowing plasma gun on his knee. Woosh. “Two criminals show up on my doorstep. They’ve got the approval of both my best assassin and my canniest sniper. They’re wearing strange clothes and speak in strange ways, and if you don’t mind me saying it, they don’t exactly look like they’ve had to scrap for food—”

Imp and Skizz share a Look. Is he calling us pudgy?

“And everything they encounter here, they act like it’s brand new. Most confounding of all, they’re two men traveling alone—but they show up with a young’un.”

Impulse’s grip on the lump in his jacket tightens ever so slightly.

“You’re a right puzzle to me. If I didn’t know better, I would think you were taking advantage of people, which is why you’re better dressed and better fed than the rest of us, and I’d have to kill you before you hurt my people.” It’s not a threat, the way he says it. Just a simple statement of fact. But he looks at the baby that’s slumbering against Impulse’s chest, and the next woosh is softer. “Somehow I get the sense that’s not true.”

Impulse puts his hand over her downy little head and sighs into his knuckles. Saved again, by an advocate who can’t even talk. He’s starting to wonder who’s actually the rescuer here.

“Gem wouldn’t have sent you to me if she didn’t think you were good people. Scar wouldn’t have let you through if he smelled a rat.” X pauses, and then finally, after a hiss: “So how about you answer my riddle for me, and then we’ll go from there?”

There’s a long silence. Impulse almost forgets to breathe.

Naturally, Skizz is the one to break it. “Okay so you’re not gonna shoot us with that?”

X’s eyes smile in his helmet. “Not unless you give me a reason.”

“Okay good because it was stressing me out, dude!” he says loudly.

Impulse interrupts before Skizz can put his foot any further into his mouth. “I’m Impulse—well.” He winces. “I guess you already know our names.”

“Yeah, and everything we’ve ever done, apparently!” cries Skizz.

X shrugs. “Scar passed your names on. Criminal records are public, you know.”

“Yeah, but that was creepy, dude! I was starting to think you knew when I wiped my butt last!”

Impulse hisses at him through his teeth. “Skizz.”

“A few hours ago, before bed,” says X.

Skizz’s voice almost squeaks in terror. “What?!”

X just laughs, waving his hand. “I’m joking, I’m joking!”

“How did you—?!”

“It was an educated guess! I’m not omniscient.”

Skizz crosses his arms and pouts. “Could’a fooled me, man.”

“So—” Impulse is looking back and forth between the two of them, hoping to get things back on track. “Do you already know we’re from outside the City?”

X is strangely quiet for a moment. “No.” Hiss, woosh. “Though if you’re telling the truth, that could explain some things.”

All of the sudden, it occurs to Impulse exactly where he is: in front of someone called the Administrator, the leader of this ragtag group of ruffians and refugees—What did Scar call them again? Loners? Recluses? No, Hermits, that’s it—someone cautious but benevolent and sharp as a tack, someone who realizes the plight of the people in the City and wants to protect them, someone who just might be interested in a hare-brained scheme to make it so that every last soul out there in those makeshift tents might never have to go hungry again—

“X—!” he exclaims, suddenly leaning forward, breathless with excitement. He can feel Skizz looking at him with surprise. “What if I told you you could get your people out of here?”

X frowns. His breath hisses. “Out of here? What do you mean?”

“Out of the City. Forever. Get away from all this, all the fighting, and go somewhere that’s safe, away from the robots, away from the bandits, away from the weather, and has space and clean water and there’s always more than enough food…”

X narrows his eyes. He looks like he’s not quite buying it. Then, with a noise like byooom, the lights on the plasma rifle go dark, and he sets the gun aside on the desk and crosses his arms. 

“Go on.”

Impulse shoots a giddy look at Skizz. Skizz, for being a little slower on the uptake, seems to be slowly realizing what a great stroke of luck this is, his eyes getting wide.

“Man, where do I even start…?” Impulse takes a steadying breath. It comes in a little shaky. He hasn’t felt this combination of nerves and excitement in such a long time.

Focus. Just tell the truth.

He lifts his head and begins.

“We’re from the Silo.”

------

Years ago…

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Impulse looked up in surprise. He’d spaced out, arms folded on the railing, lost in the mesmerizing spin of the ventilation fans several levels down, and he hadn’t even heard anyone come up behind him. But when he saw who it was, he smiled a little. “I’m…not sure they’re worth that much.”

“Nonsense.” Mavis’ heels clicked on the metal grate walkway as she joined him at the railing, standing tall and straight with her hands clasped behind her back. “If anything, I’m underpaying.”

He just chuckled.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment. The low mechanical purr and distant voices of the Silo wrapped around him, simultaneously comforting and stifling. He rubbed an old scar on his hand and tried to find both the words and the courage to express what was banging around in his head.

“I just…I feel like I’m wasting my time.”

Mavis turned her head. One eyebrow was arched, but more in confusion than judgement. “Wasting it?” She turned to face him more fully. “Your work is what’s made life here in the Silo possible.”

“Yeah, but what about everyone outside?”

Her smile was kind. “They are none of our concern.”

“But they should be.”

She didn’t seem to have an answer for that. 

He straightened up, gesturing in front of himself with his hands. “What’s the difference between us and them? Just…lucky chance. If things just went a little bit differently, we could be out there right now. Any one of us.”

She pondered this for a moment, brows furrowed, and then shook her head with a sigh. “We can’t be certain that anyone else even survived the Fall of the City. The chances of them making it this long on their own are…vanishingly small. And your responsibilities here…”

“If there’s even the slightest chance that anyone is still alive out there,” said Impulse, looking right into her eyes in defiance, “that is my responsibility.”

“I…disagree,” she said, smiling.

He threw his hands in the air dramatically and cried, “How did I know you were gonna say that?”

“Because one of us thinks with their heart, and the other thinks with their brain.”

He just groaned.

She chuckled softly, drew in a low breath, and sighed. 

After a long moment of watching the turbines spin, she finally lifted her head. “S.V., we’re not ready.”

Her voice was uncharacteristically soft and gentle. It wasn’t even about winning the argument at that point; it was like this almost pained her, and she was pleading with him to understand.

He slumped, defeated, over the balcony railing. “I know.”

“We barely have the resources to maintain the population that’s inside the Silo. We cannot overtax it.”

“I know, it’s just…”

He sighed in frustration. How was he supposed to put this into words? How was he supposed to explain how much he ached for the City, for his old home, and for the people who might still be in it?

How could he explain the way it kept him up at night, wondering if there was still anyone out there who needed him?

“Your concern is admirable. It really is.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “But you cannot help a man to shore if you yourself are drowning.”

He slumped heavily on the railing. She was right. He knew it. But he wasn’t ready to admit that yet. 

“But when we’re ready…” he said, lifting his head, almost nervous what he’d see when he looked at her.

Her gaze was steady, and she nodded, slow and regal like a bow. “When we’re ready.”

He smiled a little, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. That promise would have to be enough for now. 

He looked down. The turbines just kept spinning.

Mavis seemed to think this conversation had concluded and moved to walk away, but then she paused and turned to say one last thing over her shoulder. “I do respect you.”

Impulse blinked in surprise and looked up. Oh. That…you do?

“You have the right ideas, I think,” she said. “Just the wrong timing.”

He sighed. He couldn’t help the little smile of fond annoyance that sprung to his face. “You’re right, Mavis,” he said, with just a touch of sass.

“I’m always right,” she said, and turned and walked away.

------

In the present…

Skizz can’t help but feel a little bit out of his depth here. He’s watching two geniuses ping ideas back and forth, and he’s having a hard time keeping up. But honestly, that’s okay. He’s just glad they finally found someone in this city that’s as smart as Impulse—or even smarter, if that's possible—and things are actually starting to move. 

“A silo?” echoes X. “You mean one of the old air raid shelters?”

“Well…” Impulse hesitates. “That’s what it used to be, yeah, but we converted it into a settlement.”

“And you’ve been there since the Great Collapse?”

“If you mean the Fall of the City, yeah.”

“Interesting. How’d you manage that? Those bunkers aren’t exactly designed to be inhabited long-term.”

“Well, I mean…I’m not gonna go into all the details, that would be kinda boring, but we did have a lot of work to do to make it work. We dug more levels, got water and plumbing in, put in ventilation and waste disposal and farm units for growing crops underground…honestly, I think the real breakthrough was when we figured out how to use this grey moss from the caves to scrub radioactive waste and power our bio-reactors.”

If the helmet wasn’t holding it in, X’s jaw might have been on the ground. “You’re joking.”

“No!”

“Crackin’. And how many people did you say you’ve got down there?”

Impulse doesn’t answer right away. He seems to be calculating in his head. “Not quite three thousand…?” he answers slowly. “But my recent calculations say we’ve got enough resources for four.”

X is shaking his head in amazement. “That’s…wow.”

“That’s why we came back here,” Impulse says earnestly. “We’ve got things stable there now, finally, and it’s been a bumper crop this year, so…we wanted to tell people about it. Can’t…keep all of that to ourselves, y’know. Not when there’s people we can help.”

X just stares at him. The good eye is wide in his helmet. Finally, he starts to laugh wildly, leaning on the “desk” and pressing the heel of his hand against his helmet. “You’re either the cleverest charlatans I’ve ever met, or an actual miracle,” he cries. “Oh my lord.”

Impulse is half beaming, half still looking unsure. 

Skizz looks at both of them and then leans forward. “What would convince you?”

“I don’t know,” admits X. “Seeing it for myself, I suppose? But I can’t leave my people here…oh, dear god, I want it to be true.”

“It is, X,” Impulse says softly. “I…I don’t know how we would prove it, but it is.”

“Do you want some deepslate?” Skizz twists his foot in his boot with a frown. He’s pretty sure he can feel something under his toes. “I think I still got a rock in my shoe from mining the lower levels.”

Impulse laughs fondly. “You can’t prove it’s actually deepslate though.”

Skizz shrugs. “Eh, yeah, you’re right.”

X chuckles, waving his hand. “No, no, it’s all right. I’ll bite. I might regret it, but…I need an out. Things have been getting worse around here. It’s either die out there…” His sigh comes out in a woosh. “Or die in here.”

Skizz looks at Impulse. He seems equally confused and concerned. There’s a pause, broken only by the sound of X’s respirator.

“What,” Impulse asks slowly, like he’s afraid of the answer, “do you mean…getting worse?”

X’s smile is somehow amused and sad at the same time. “You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?”

Oh that’s it. Everyone has been acting like they’re stupid all day and Skizz has HAD IT. He bursts into a rant, gesturing wildly in the air. “Buddy we showed up less than twelve hours ago, and we haven’t been here in almost ten years, so—”

Impulse leans towards X with an apologetic smile. “The short answer is no.”

Skizz ignores him. “We came here, we found a baby, we went to bed, some chick jumped us while we were asleep, and then two other people showed up yelling about knights and kingdoms and Seers or something—”

X stiffens, and his breath hisses.

“And there was a kid with a bow and arrow called Hot Guy and we got told this rectangle is good and that rectangle is bad. That’s all we know.”

“So…” X says slowly, “so you heard about the Watchers?”

Impulse looks at him with an expression Skizz can’t quite read, and he asks in a low, anxious voice, “What…what are they?”

X is tense for a moment, staring at the floor. Then, with a woosh of a sigh, he lifts his head. “They’re a rival gang. The largest in the valley. They’ve been vying for control of the entire City ever since the Collapse, trying to claim as much territory as they can. It would be fine if they’d just leave the civilians alone, but…you either become one of them, or you become a victim of them. They’ll take everything you’ve got, torture you, kill you…use you for whatever sick pleasure they desire. Maybe in that order. Maybe not. I’ve heard horror stories.”

Skizz does not like where his brain went with that. Impulse looks horrified.

“We’ve been trying to hold them off for months, but…we can only do so much. There’s so few of us Hermits.” His voice falls. “And fewer all the time.”

“Is it always as bad as today?” asks Impulse.

X gives him a little smile. “What do you mean? Today has been rather calm.”

“But,” stammers Impulse, “but we heard gunfire and explosions—”

“Oh, of course. Those happen. But I haven’t had any fresh bodies I had to throw out yet. That’s a good day.”

Both Impulse and Skizz blink and say nothing.

Shit, thinks Skizz. Right. Okay.

“As I say,” continues X, “the Watchers have been getting more aggressive lately. Taking more territory. We keep getting pushed back. This street corner is our last stronghold, and we only just arrived a few nights ago. I’m not sure how much longer we can hold it.” He crosses his arms and inhales with a hiss. “That’s why I’m willing to risk this. I’ve got my back against a wall, and I need an exit. How soon can you get my people to your Silo?”

Skizz keeps his trap shut at first, expecting Impulse to answer. When he doesn’t—he looks pale, and his eyes are wide and unfocused—Skizz answers for him instead.

“It’s about five days’ walk due southwest, if you make a good time. Our protection detail through the desert should be coming back sometime this week, as early as tomorrow.” He jabs his thumb over his shoulder. “He’s got his own schedule, but he said we can tag along. Keeps the bandits off our back.”

X nods, thinking this over. “Sometime this week is good. Gives me time to get everyone packed up and mobilized. You said it was a five-day journey?”

“At best, yeah.”

His sigh wooshes, but he sounds resolute. “I’m not sure we’ll have the stores for that, but…we’ll have to make it stretch. Better my people be hungry and alive than dead.”

At this, Impulse seems to pull himself out of whatever funk he got stuck in. “So…so you’ll come?” he asks in a small voice. 

X pauses and shakes his head. “I’m not usually one to trust the words of strangers. But I haven’t got much of a choice right now. So yes. I’ll take the risk.”

“You won’t regret it, X.” Skizz leans in, trying to force as much sincerity as he possibly can into these words. “We promise.”

X gives a little smile in his helmet. “Well. We’ll see.” 

He straightens up, leaving the plasma gun on the crates in the corner, and nods at Impulse as he heads for the door. “In the meantime, I’m sure you need a nurse for the little one.”

That seems to pique Impulse’s attention. “Do you have anyone who can help?”

“We’ve got a few mothers with small children in the camp.” X puts his hand on the door. “Wait here. I’ll ask around.”