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Cruise Control, Part 4





Cruiser sat near the little window and wondered when Tammy would come back for him.

"So," Emerson said. "Cruiser? That's an interesting name. Does your owner go to lots of singles bars?" She sat by the opening of the space, idly playing with a zipper tag shaped like an evergreen.

In her hand it looked like half of a pizza in Tammy's. He wondered if Tammy would like meeting Emerson. Then he actually heard the question she'd asked.

"What? No. We play Battleship. I'm really good at it." She'd heard of the game with her first owner, but never played it. He explained all about it. In short order, his whole life history came out.

She'd heard of the bloodsports when her second owner had her. "We never went, but he kept threatening to sell me to someone he knew."

"Because you disobeyed?"

"No, because I was going to get older and less interesting to him. When these sagged," she said, pushing her breasts together, "he was going to make me some fighter's pet."

"Oh," Cruiser said with a shake of his head. "We never had pets. What he would have done was make you a toy. Then fighters that won could..." He stopped as he noticed her expression. "What?"

"He didn't know the right word? He didn't really know anyone in the blood rings! He was just making empty threats!" She seemed strangely happy to Cruiser.

"I mean, I saw him make all sorts of lies to his friends. To make himself look big. Or important. I never thought I was worth lying to! Wow." She stared off into space, smiling at whatever she saw.

"Well, then, how'd you get your name, Emerson?" he asked after a moment.

"Oh. When the jackass got me out of the box, he held me up and put a thumb right here." She held her hand over the front of one boob and pulled it close.

Cruiser imagined putting a thumb there and lost the power of speech.

"He pushes it in, he pushes it to the side, then he grabbed me around the waist and twisted me back and forth, watching my breasts shake and tilt. And he gets this really big smile and says, 'Em 'r some big titties, babe.' And I was Emerson ever after." She shook her head with a wry smile. "Um. Are you okay, Cruiser?"

"Fine," he croaked. He tried to look anywhere but at her chest. "What, uh, did your first owner call you?"

She stared at him for a second, a smile slowly spreading across her face. He wasn't smiling. He was sweating He swallowed but his mouth was dry.

"Cruiser," she finally said, "if I tell you my first owner called me Boobsie, are you going to have a heart attack?"

"Maybe," he admitted. "Do,uh, you have any water?"

"Yes," she said, rolling to her feet. There was a folding hiker's cup in one corner. She made a point of turning away from him as she dipped an acorn cap into the water and replaced the lid.

But when she brought it to where he sat, she bent way over to hand it right to him. He kept his eyes locked on hers.

She ruffled his hair and whispered, "Dorothy."

He took a quick sip, holding the cap with both hands. "I, uh, I think that's a pretty name."

"You think that you can say the name without tripping over your tongue," she said with a giggle. He didn't argue. "I dunno. I found out that one of the forms of 'Dorothy' is 'Dolly.' I lived in a dollhouse at the time. I never liked it after that."

Emerson and Cruiser got to know each other over the next few days. He followed her around, helping her scavenge what the hikers and walkers and scouts lost.

If no one dropped a few crumbs or a piece of candy, she had a cold mashed acorn.

Her water was collected when it rained, or carried up by bucket when it was dry.

And when it was cold, she got cold. There was no heat in the tree. The best she could do was stuff a sponge into the entry and pin a button over the peephole to block winds.

Cruiser didn't think much of her standard of living, a concept he'd picked up from Tammy's work. But Emerson used the word 'free' about a bazillion times as she talked about her life.

Cruiser absently rubbed his neck where the fighter wire had been and thought that it just might be worth it.

Of course, she used the word 'lonely' about half as often as free. He thought about that, too, as they lay down for the night.

She turned off the pocket flashlight and curled up under the blanket against his back. The blanket he'd given her was the only one she owned.

"What do you do in winter?" he asked as they lay there.

"I only escaped last spring," she said. There was a long silence. "I'm pretty sure that what I do in winter is freeze to death."

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. For a wonder, the breasts pressing against his back weren't the most important thing in his mind.

------

Tammy didn't show up the next day. Or the next. Cruiser wasn't worried. He'd seen fighters hit hard enough to knock them out a few times. They were usually out of commission for quite a while.

And Mildred was probably at the hospital, making sure the doctors didn't forget to make Tammy all better.

She'd be really good at that, if he was any judge. She knew so many doctors, after all.

Every night when they went to bed, Emerson was very sympathetic. She told him not to worry about Tammy not showing up. She never quite believed that he wasn't worried at all.

He didn't want her wandering around the forest until she was healthy enough not to slip on the trails. He just hoped it would be before the first snows.

Towards that end, he started looking for ways to heat the little wood cave. Or at least insulate it. He wandered farther and farther up and down the trails, looking for materials.

Emerson followed along most of the trips, although she wasn’t terribly hopeful. She hadn't ever seen the humans drop too terribly much on these trails.

"What we need is a campground," she said. "There, we'd be picking through trash cans, living like kings."

"Well, you're probably right," Cruiser admitted. "But we have to try."

"Okay, but we're burning a lot of energy we could be spending piling up acorns."

"Bleah," he said. "I'm almost willing to wrestle a robin to the death to avoid mashed acorns."

"You did say almost, right?" she asked. He smiled and nodded.

"For now, I'm...OOoh! LOOK!" Sitting under a pile of leaves was an entire granola bar. The wrapping was intact. They grinned at each other and hoisted it up.

At the base of the tree, Cruiser scampered up the shaft to find the headphones from an MP3 player. The player was worthless to them, but the cord could be used to lift the bar up.

A fluttering sound came to Emerson's ears as she waited. There was a piece of paper pinned to the bridge. She glanced at the hole, then scampered over.

She ripped it down and took it under the bridge. She read it slowly. "Cruiser," the firm, clear writing said, "If you're anywhere around here, I'll be back tomorrow. Who knew there were two Red Goddamned Bridges in one park? I've been going back and forth between the other one and the hospital.

"Tammy should be out in a day or two. She feels horrible that she lost you. Except when she feels like a fire engine. Just Kidding, she's fine.

"Leave me a sign near where this note is and I'll know to wait for you here. I think this is the place she fell, but the cops aren't certain.

"Anyway, hope to see you soon.

"Mildred."

Emerson dragged the folded sheet down to the stream and slipped it under the water. She ran back to the tree to find that Cruiser had just finished getting the food into their little hideout.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"I had to pee," she said. He nodded and turned to climb back up. She followed.

"Now, what do we-" he started to ask. Emerson grabbed him and hugged him tight. "Okay..."

"Cruiser, tell me the truth. Do you want to stay here with me?"

"Truth?" he asked. She nodded. "I'd rather be home with Tammy. Or with Mildred. I'd, uh... I mean, if they never come back, I'd like to stay here with you. But if they do... Maybe you could come back with me?"

"This is the only way we can be free, Cruiser. Back there, we're pets! We're subject to their rules, their whims... Their groping. Here, we're free!"

"Here we FREEZE!" he replied. "Look, if you don't want to come back, I won't make you. I won't tell Tammy you're here. And maybe I can get her to bring me back and I can drop stuff off for you. But it's not what I want."

She ripped open the front of her jump suit. The name-changing breasts popped into view, bouncing slightly before his bugged eyes.

"How about these?" she asked. "You want these?"

"Red light," he whispered. "That's Red light behavior." She shook her head and stepped closer. He didn't move as she put a hand over each temple and pulled him closer.

She pulled his face against her breast and dragged it across the surface.

He shook his head and broke free, taking a step back. "No. No, you're making me choose between... I don't want to... I can't..." He looked her in the face. "Don't make me choose, Emerson."

In reply, she cupped her breasts and pointed the nipples towards his face.

He screamed and ran. He shot down the opening like evacuating a burning zeppelin.

"Cruiser?" Emerson stood shocked for a moment. Then she pulled the jump suit back up over her shoulders and tried to cover her tits.

She crawled quickly down to follow him. She searched until well after the sun went down but never found or heard the other sylph.

--------

Mildred came around the last corner of the trail and saw the bridge. The 'other' Red Bridge. Sometimes bureaucracies helped, sometimes they were just so boneheaded one had to believe they were the devil's agencies on Earth.

She'd spent far too long waiting for Cruiser at what was probably the wrong one. If her little grandchild was hurt because no one could tell her where he needed to be rescued, there would be hell to pay.

Her heart lifted when she saw that her message had been removed. But she didn't see any sign that Cruiser left for her.

She crossed and recrossed the bridge, calling his name. Then she heard a cough.

"Cruiser?" She turned around to see that there was a sylph on the bridge. Just not one she recognized. "Emerson?" she asked. Mildred took a step forward and the sylph took a step towards the edge of the bridge. Mildred stopped and stepped back.

"Okay, stay calm, I'm not out to catch any wild sylphs, okay?"

"Okay," Emerson replied. "I'm Emerson. Are you Mildred?"

"Yes. I heard you on the phone the other day. Do you know where Cruiser is?"

"I scared him off. He ran away."

"Yeah, he does that. Well, which direction?"

"You're not mad?" Emerson asked.

"Mad won't help get Cruiser back." She turned around, looking at the woods with one hand shading her eyes. She wasn't mad.

The little sylph couldn't have known how hair-trigger Cruiser's defenses were. He probably said something stupid and she took it personally and when she snapped at him she ran.

Again, Mildred told herself she wasn't mad at Emerson.

"I've looked everywhere for him," the sylph said. "Up and down the trail, then through the brush."

Mildred blew air through her lips. "Well, Emerson, where haven't you searched?

-----

It took some work to get the little woman to trust Mildred. But knowing Cruiser's track record for mad flight, if they could tell where he started they could better figure where he went.

She didn't want anything from Mildred except space. The human woman stood on the middle of the bridge until Emerson jumped out of the grass and screamed. "Over here!"

By the time she got to the tree and the burnt shaft, the sylph was nowhere near.

"Okay," she said. "Assume he came straight out of this..." She walked forward. She kept track of the ground, for anything that might have tripped or deflected Cruiser.

After about six steps she crossed the trail. There might have been footsteps in the dirt.

After seven more steps she came face to face with a tree. It was right across the path she was following.

Forty feet tall, it went straight up in the air without any branches except near the top.

Cruiser would have bounced off it to go left or right. She glanced at the ground for footsteps. She didn't see anything so she started to circle the tree.

"Mildred?"

On the side opposite Cruiser's flight there was one single branch. It was ten feet off the ground. A scared and cold-looking sylph sat on it.

"How did you get up there?" Mildred asked. She took off her beret and held it up like a safety net. A tiny, lavender safety net.

"I dunno," he said. He looked down at the hat. "Can you hold it up a little higher?"

"Just jump, I have to pick Tammy up at the hospital."

"She's okay?" he asked.

"No, she's frantically scared that you're lost and she's overcome with guilt about it. JUMP!"

-----

Cruiser craned his head back and forth as Tammy walked up the trail. She carried him in cupped hands rather than the carrier. She almost laughed as he tried to look every single direction at once.

They got to the Red Bridge and stood for a moment, looking at the spot she'd fallen from.

Then she looked up and down the trail as far as she could see. There were no other walkers. They'd come on a week day, hoping for fewer humans.

"Looks like we're alone," she said and knelt. He stood where she put him on the ground. She pulled a bulky pack from her pocket and he slung it over his shoulders.

Then he just stood there.

"Go on," she said.

"She probably moved," he said. "Fear that I'd bring someone along to capture her."

"Probably," Tammy agreed. "But she might have left you a note or a sign." And she might have no place else to go, she thought to herself. Or maybe she's hoping you'll come 'capture' her.

She held her hand over his head and crossed her fingers. He smiled, copied the gesture and took off.

She rose and walked to the middle of the span. If Emerson was anywhere, the sylph would be able to see exactly where Tammy stood.

And she turned her back to the tree Cruiser and her mother had told her about.

Cruiser ran to the base and tossed his pack aside. "Hallo the tree?" he shouted hopefully and climbed.

The space had been emptied in the two days he'd been gone. Nothing was in it except the button pinned over the peephole.

He walked over slowly, pushed it aside and looked out. There was a second button on the pin. He pushed that aside to see that Tammy was still patiently waiting.

He let the buttons drop and turned to look around. There was still no sign. The sylph shrugged and started toward the shaft.

He was halfway down to the ground when he stopped. There'd never been two buttons on the pin. Ever. There was no reason for a second button.

He climbed back up and looked them over. There was no note on either one, on any side or face. He took them off and put them on.

Then he looked through the button holes. With the two in place, hanging off the pin, the holes lined up light a little sight line. They pointed at a gnarled tree on the downstream side of the bridge.

-----

Tammy heard some rustling in the undergrowth. She turned to see Cruiser running towards her and started to bend over.

He swung wide around her outstretched hand, holding a finger up for her to wait just a sec.

Her eyebrows rose, but she didn't interfere. She even moved to the other side of the bridge so her back was towards his destination. Whatever it was.

From the ground, almost all of the trees looked the same. Only the gnarled one stood out. He felt confident it was the one highlighted by the two buttons.

On the far side of it from the bridge there was a hole burrowed in under the roots. He shifted his pack to the ground and stood at the opening. "Knock, knock!" he said.



Cruise Control, Part 1
Cruise Control, Part 3
Cruise Control, Part 5
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