Time under the bridge stretched like tar under the Florida sun—slow, sticky, suffocating.
Amos had just crushed the last aluminum can beneath his heel, slid it into the snakeskin sack, and was tying the knot when a new sound broke the monotony.
Not Jimmy's squawking. Not the eternal drone of I-95 above. Something heavier. More official. Predatory.
Engines. Low, guttural. A convoy of black SUVs rolled in, tires chewing gravel with military precision, blocking most of the daylight at the bridge's mouth. They idled there like armored beetles, their tinted windows blank and unreadable.
Doors slammed open. Black-clad men spilled out, tactical vests strapped, rifles raised. They moved with crisp efficiency, fanning across angles of fire, muzzles sweeping shadows where only terrified vagrants cowered. Until, inevitably, their sights locked on Amos—the hooded figure still fussing with the knot of a filthy bag.
The stench of trash clashed with the sterile sharpness of drawn steel. The air itself went taut.
Last to emerge was a man in a dark suit, hopelessly out of place. Kyle, Special Assistant to the President. He should have been in a climate-controlled bunker, not here, picking his way around puddles of piss under a Florida overpass. Sweat beaded his pale forehead. From fear. From heat. Both.
He cleared his throat. "S-sir?" His voice wavered against the backdrop of idling engines. He wasn't sure what to call this man. Not after the general's half-mad debriefing, dripping with terror and reverence.
Amos dusted off his hands, flicking away specks of invisible filth. Only then did he glance up, shadows hiding his eyes.
"You're blocking the sun," he rasped.
Kyle blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Your cars." Amos gestured lazily at the hulking SUVs. "They block the light. Hot."
Silence. The kind that makes armed men twitch.
A commander muttered into his mic; two engines coughed and died. The roar softened, but the shade lingered, oppressive as ever.
Kyle dabbed sweat from his temple, forcing his voice steady. "Sir, the crisis may be paused, but the threat remains. The Global Alliance is only stunned by your… intervention. We need your power. The nation—no, the world—needs your guidance."
Amos ignored him. He was busy prying a stuck plastic bottle from the corner of his cart. He tossed it into the bag with a hollow clunk.
"Sir?" Kyle's voice cracked with desperation.
Amos finally looked at him. "Where's Old John?"
Kyle froze. "I… who?"
"Old John. The one with the beat-up truck. Trades for bottle caps." Amos said it like gravity itself hinged on the man's whereabouts. "He hasn't shown today. Did your cars scare him off?"
Kyle's brain stuttered. He was trying to negotiate the fate of civilization, and this… hobo was asking about a junkman?
"We—we don't know any Old John," he stammered. "Sir, please, I beg you to consider our request! We can give you anything—money, rank, the finest food, the—"
"Food?" Amos cut in, eyes narrowing. "Now?" He tapped his stomach. "Hungry."
Kyle nearly choked. He spun on the nearest agent. One bolted to a vehicle and returned with a foil-wrapped ration pack. Kyle seized it, offering it with trembling hands. "Here! The highest standard!"
Amos tore it open. Inside: an energy bar, jerky. He sniffed, took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed. "Too sweet. Scrapes the throat." But he kept eating anyway.
The world's most elite soldiers, bristling with weapons, watched him munch his way through military rations like peanuts. Their faces were masks of horror and disbelief.
Kyle pressed on, voice tight. "Sir, about… cooperation—"
"Mmh." Amos spoke around a mouthful. "Sure. Cooperation."
Kyle's heart leapt. "Excellent! What are your terms? Anything—you name it!"
Amos swallowed. Pointed at his rusty, lopsided cart full of cans. "Push this. To Old John's corner. Good haul today. Heavy."
A beat. Then, as if bestowing unimaginable grace, he added, "Once we're there, maybe I'll hear your offer."
He returned to gnawing jerky, utterly absorbed.
Kyle stood frozen. He, Special Envoy of the President, had come with the sharpest blades in the republic to secure the allegiance of a walking apocalypse… and the first condition placed upon them was to chauffeur a junk cart.
His eyes flicked between the rust-eaten wheels of the reeking cart and the stone-faced agents at his side. Finally, jaw clenched, he gave the order. "You. And you. Push the cart."
The team leader's face went purple.
Amos, already finished with the jerky, licked his fingers clean and claimed a spot on an upturned bucket. He squinted into the sunlight, now filtering back where SUVs had shifted aside. Eyes half-closed, posture loose, he looked more like a man about to nap than one about to dictate the future of nations.
Out at the edge of the lot, Jimmy and the other homeless peeked from hiding. Their mouths hung open as two armored specialists—men who could dismantle an insurgent cell i