May 3rd, 2513
Interior Temperature 5'C (41'F)
Warning life support error – life support assumed offline.
Executive package selected stand by for support.
Initial charges and deposit included.
Kate sighed, watching steam pour from her lips like a dragon's breath. The smiles and jokes had fizzled to nothing, every women and boy staying out into the snowy white. A wall on the glass, the chill seeping through like gas towards them.
Even better there wasn't even a truck full of supplies to be rummage through for aid. All their stuff having been sent to their new home ahead of them. In the name of adventure and family bonds, Kate has been volen-TOLD to be join in.
"Let's play a game." Mother said. There was a matching pair of groans and grunts. "That was an order."
Mother sang those words, the honey like sweetness that has been there holding the hidden sharpness of a blade to the throat.
Sluggish and slow, Kate battled her way up. But before Kate could get the chance for insubordination, Griff was pointing.
A tiny light popped up on the steering wheel, it throbbed on and off.
Mother clapped.
"See, there we go. Hello?" She said after pressing on the centre.
"G'day ma'am."
The new voice was slow, with a drawl to it but not southern. It was like an impression of Goofy, if Goofy had had a stroke.
"It's good now, phew!" Mother sighed, just disgustingly peppy.
"We're glad te 'elp!" Goofy said.
She pulled up a tiny screen the size of a bank card and tapped her finger against it a couple times before she flicked her finger upwards like she were flicking a piece of paper at a bin.
"These licenses work for you?"
"Why ye'es. My son's awl'ready on the way. Tryin' to expan the ol' bizniz. I'll verify whah I can right 'ere."
"Why, thank you!"
Mother was one octave short of pompoms and a mini skirt to get the quarterback's attention.
Kate needed a shower to wash off the access syrup that had been splooged over the car by a grenade.
"Ya'ay, we're saved!" Griff said, punching the ceiling.
He'd taken the words right out of Kate's mouth, just with none of the scathing sarcasm she'd so meticulously arranged in her mind. Instead, Kate just stared, unsure if he was being real. Silly went without saying.
"Saved!" Mother said, tapping the roof in solidarity. "Now we wait."
"We could tell ghost stories." Griff suggested.
"You know you're older than five, right?" Kate asked.
"Come on sis, you're good at it. Like actually good." Griff said bouncing.
Kate's lip twitched toward a smile, rebelling against the scowl she'd scheduled six months in advance. She had her buttons pressed without her belly fat being touched.
"So you want me to tell you about the doting mother who lost her boy? Well, the road was long, with no stops, just like us, well the mom desperately needed to pee. With choices she pulled the car over. It should have been quick, and in a way she was very quick. That should have meant everything would be fine. But when she came back, her favourite child was gone. Taken, and she never found him. Lost, that boy was swallowed by the dead men and women who'd been devoured by those same icy paths, caught by the merciless cold. They engulfed and surrounded him as he froze up, his entire body coated in ethereal ice, cold enough to freeze but not enough to fully kill him, his eyeballs turned to ice, blind and never frozen enough, he searched, the ice over his skin red with his blood, he still walks these roads looking for his mother and his mother looks for him. No bigger sister in sight. Both stealing overbearing mothers and silly little boys, and he-"
There was a knock on the glass that made them scream so loud it drained away any and all pride she had ever had. It had been her own improve, why was she scared?
Through the now clear windows there was a rather large man at the door holding what appeared to be a sledgehammer forged for murder. Blinking a couple times revealed that it was just a folded net glued to dozens of black bowling balls.
His face couldn't be seen behind a massive scarf and giant googles. But there was a glowing business logo with a spanner crossed like swords.
"Kaitlyn." Came the 'authoritative Mother' voice.
Kate's heart sank.
"Get out and talk to him." Mother ordered.
"I don't know what to say!" Kate complained.
"Use your head, I believe in you, I'll pass all the info."
There was a thud on the roof as the net with the bowling balls were laid on top.
Soon a red glow emanated.
"I'll go" Griff said suddenly puffing his chest.
Mother's laser gaze cut through the rear mirror into Kate's soul.
If 'Kaitlyn' didn't step outside, she'd die. Her bones would be snapped and folded like twigs before a budding campfire.
Limited National Access Code Mother
Mother Profile
Defeated, Kate extended a hand and a metal wallet was passed dropped into her palm, multiple paper thin screens with metal frames popped out onto her hand. She pushed the spares back. All the while the world got warmer, where the glow touched the while fluff grew clear and jagged before it steamed and melted away.
"Don't forget your protection." Mother sang, chipper.
"Condom in my back pocket." Kate returned without missing a beat.
"Kaitlyn what!?"
"Kidding!"
She pulled the back of the front seat's headrest and popped off a flap. A metal sleeve awaited, she wore the it under her jacket and waited.
The gushing raw heat made short work of the doors. She officially could open, but the giant man was still placing more heat on the floor. Dense mushy root, soil and millions of bark chips poked out from the blanket of ice, fat and bloated.
When he was a little further away, she made her entrance.
The world was warm, the chill pushed away. There was a duality to it, like a back and forth, a tug of war that had heat holding advantage.
"Yor ow't, which meayns tha door werks. That's good."
His accent was nowhere near as slow or thick but the goofiness remained. Just a couple steps short of Canadian, but with the depth of one who was clearly over six feet.
There was a hominess to him too, like the earth was who he was and if it wouldn't have been unprofessional, he'd have been in his underwear, all of which would have been plead.
"Yeah, thanks." She said sheepish.
He kept working, melting a path up the slope of forest to a six wheeled truck. It was a small beast. Angular with a square hatch filled with a dense crane arm which was turned towards them as if it had just noticed them and was extending a sheepish hand of greeting.
The path grew wider, the ice melting faster. The white eased into a midnight mahogany and grey, transforming from a footpath to a driveway.
The giant was determined, eyes locked on the 'work'.
Finally the heaving, pulling and adjusting of all that heat and wood came to a halt and he stopped with a clap of his hands. He took a breath, pulling off the insane scarf to wrap it around his hand. The pull was tight, like a fighter putting on gloves.
Clearly the man enjoyed the little things in life with severity of an execution. She wanted to look at his shoe laces to see if they were tied to the point snapping with the knotting being thinner than the head of a needle.
Mid examine of his careful work, his face fully came into view and Kate's jaw dropped. He was tan, with buttery soft features, a lot about his face felt like a drawing, like someone had drawn a superhero. A meaty, dense chin, with a butt at the end. He'd clearly shaved recently because the skin around it looked as though he went to bed with a mask of needles. As for his neck, it matched the density of the pickup truck. But most interesting were the gold and green eyes, large and babyish, all of him was babyish while still being huge.
He smiled, soft, shy and mild. Too polite and awkward to actually be happy, because heaven forbid he offend someone by frowning.
Kate smiled, her body demanded a sheepish wave. She shut it down with an iron fist that would have made Mother proud, but it'd happened too late, and she waved a fist.
"Thah anti personae or fir bug hunt'n?"
She blinked, unmoving in her blankness.
He tapped his sleeve, looking at her own.
"Oh, the sleeve!" She laughed.
She lifted the sleeve to reveal, a long black sleeve hiding a tube, magnets all around it and very small and very thin gun.
She pointed to the gun.
"The ERB590 Kinetic Slicer is anti-human," she pointed to the magnets. "That's anti nature."
"A knife gun?" He asked.
"It's more like a knife and gun. The gun being for people who bother me and the knife for the personal connection." She said closing her sleeve and crossing her arms.
He smirked, matching hers.
"So? You scared of me?" She asked.
"A warrior who don't think and a thinker who don't fight leave a world of thinken cowards and thoughtless killers."
Her brow rose so high she could feel her ears rising too.
"That's an interesting expression." She said.
His face fell.
"Um, sorry. Et's weird. I only seem to come off as weird when I'm trying te be clever. I meant te say tha yer a badass. Umm… er… well… Didn't think you were from these parts, judging by the car, which ain't made fir this level of cold and ice. So I figured, Florida, tha South."
She laughed.
"No, this is my state, Harvard side hence the car, but also the gear but a better guess than you'd think."
He grinned, it was as big as he was. And contagious.
"So, what have you got to get rid of Oddys or mother nature herself?" Kate asked.
He shrugged, his smile sly.
"Well, keep your secrets." She said with a laugh.
How many times had she laughed? It must have come off as a circus act.
A knock on the window made them both jump.
"Oh, ah, the cab. Well, yer looking for a full repair, right?"His tone gained a formality that never been there.
"No, just enough to get us on the road to the city." Came 'chipper' mom.
"An' then?"
"Don't know, I doubt there'd be a reason to drive it much once it's there. Why? Are you planning to buy her?" Mother asked.
That seemed to catch him completely off guard, Mother was doing her horrible, horrifying thing. Reading people like a damn book, pulling and tugging at strings like a puppet master. Kate needed to cut those strings quick. And at the same time, Kate couldn't help but wonder if the giant would let himself be juggled.
"What? No-" he stammered and stumbled out like a drunk trying to be sober.
He stopped, thought a moment, caught between two invisible evils.
"Yeah, car- buy, yeah." He mumbled.
Kate grinned despite herself, it was vital she find out his original thought. It had to be something amazing. But another knock on the window broke that train of thought.
"I'll get tha pullay." He said, jogging up their new road.
The window opened and Mother stared with a raised brow.
"That's the son?" She said and whistled like a lecherous hag, "How old is he?"
Kate shrugged.
"We weren't talking that long mom, but I think late teens, early twenties. He clearly shaves."
"Judging by his size, he probably started shaving at ten."
Griff laughed with Mother, who swelled with pride at making a child laugh... Kate cringed, there was a scary risk that Griff's laugh has just kicked off a world class cringe stand-up comedy performance.
"Well, Mom, before he gets back. He wants to know what exactly what he's supposed to be doing."
"Get the car moving."
"So, not a tow?"
"Why would-" She stopped.
"Were you hoping to sit in the car with him while we were dragged?" She exclaimed, the scandal in her voice left Kate red-faced.
"Shut up Mom, he's coming back."
"Look at you! You're so red. Maybe he's big enough to pick you up and kiss you." Her brother cried out.
"I'm going to kick you neck until you die."
"You're too fat to do it anymore. But he's big enough for you."
"Mom!"
"Hell, look at him, he's definitely big enough." Mother purred.
"Mom!"