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Subject: Repost: After - Chapter 4 (bd, holocaust) 2/2
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After - Part 4 (2/2)
By "Ero-Tales"


He wasn't sure whether he slept. With nothing to hear or see, it was pretty
hard keeping tabs on his consciousness.

After some timeless time, the horizon to his left pinked, and as the light grew
he looked out to see where Wendy was. She must be a more trusting person than
he felt was fully justified; he really had managed to talk her into a calmness
that made sleep possible, and she lay now on the ground next to the floater,
curled in a half-fetal position, her upper body slightly twisted so she could
rest her head on her shoulder. Quietly, not wanting to wake her until he knew
what to tell her to do, he opened the glove compartment and fished around in it
for the manual.

He flipped through the pages, and his lips twisted in a snarl as his eyes
focussed first on a warning printed in red: "DO NOT LET FUEL CELL RUN DOWN
COMPLETELY!" A lot of good the warning had done him, and he felt like driving
straight to the factory and giving a lot of shit to the engineers. The fact
that the factory was probably a smoldering ruin by now gave him a mild
satisfaction.

According to the manual, there was a small compartment in the trunk for the
spare fuel cell. His stomach tightened as he wondered whether there was any way
to get into the trunk. He fumbled with the trunk release under the dashboard,
and, contrary to all expectations, he heard the trunk latch click as the trunk
slowly opened. Apparently the designers were less concerned with trunk security
than making the passenger compartment fast against unauthorized attack.

Beside the car Wendy stirred at the sudden noise. She stretched groggily and
slowly maneuvered into a sitting position. *She* could replace the damned fuel
cell, if he could get the hood opened as well as the trunk. He pulled the
release, and the hood slowly opened on its front-mounted hinge. His spirits
rose. Well, it was up to her now, if he could talk her through it. He felt
thirsty, but didn't want to take a drink in front of her if he couldn't get any
to her. The inside of the floater was beginning to warm, and he realized with a
start that he was in more danger than she was -- with the sunlight starting to
stream in, it was going to get unbearably hot inside the closed-up floater in
very little time, probably less than an hour. He futilely tried the doors
again, the windows, the retractable roof, anything that might let him out of
his prison. If there was some way he could get himself out, it wasn't obvious
to him.

She heard him now and twisted to look expectantly at him.

"Wendy, could you do something for me? Look in the trunk and see if you see. .
. wait, let me show you this. See the picture, here?" He pressed the page of
the manual against the window. She leaned her back against the side of the
floater and worked herself up to a standing position, then looked in intently
at the photograph on display.

"Look for a compartment in the floor of the trunk that looks like that, this
little door here. Okay?" She nodded and hopped back towards the rear. He called
out after her, "When you open it up, bring back the fuel cell inside it. I'll
tell you what to do with it after that." He could hear her start to rummage
around in that junk-filled trunk. He held his breath: if the jack-ass who owned
this floater didn't carry a damned spare. . .

He could feel the rear of the floater depress as she sat in the trunk, still
trying to clear the floor enough to spot the little compartment that supposedly
carried the spare. Finally she hopped back around to the front, triumphantly
displaying the flat energy-pack behind her. Vehicle propulsion having come a
long way, what was now referred to as a "fuel cell" would probably have been
called a "battery" in the old days, but it would have been hard for a visitor
from the 20th century to reconcile the difference between what he thought of as
a battery and what served the purpose these days -- almost infinitely
rechargeable, producing an order of magnitude more chemical energy than
anything of a similar size would have been capable of a generation ago. David
marveled at the human ability to figure out how to make things work and then
make them work better. And then cursed the same humans who never did find a way
to keep from blowing each other to bits. Well, he thought, maybe we'll all be
replaced by an improved version of the human animal. The present breed is
obsolete. Like internal combustion.

"Okay now, look at the engine, and look for the fuel cell. It looks just like
that one you're holding, and it's up at the top on the near side, with cables
attached at both ends. See it?"

He waited as she hopped towards the front and peered into the engine,
afterwards looking back at him and nodding. She seemed puzzled by something,
but merely looked at him steadily now. "Okay, you'll need to unscrew the cables
on the one in the engine and attach them to the one you're holding." Her
puzzlement started spreading into alarm now. She hopped back towards him,
pointing from behind her back towards him and then the engine. She was willing
to be helpful, but drew the line at messing with an engine. She must not have
ever done anything like that before. She tried the door handle now, turning
towards him afterwards with a pleading look.

"Wendy, I really am stuck in here. I can't get out until after you replace the
fuel cell." He'd thought she understood that, but maybe she had been shying
away from full comprehension of the idea. He looked again at the engine, and it
became easier to see the reason for her resistance to the idea of doing it
herself. The fuel cell was about a third of the way across the engine, easily
in reach of anybody who had their hands free -- but it wasn't easy to see how
she was going to get to it. At the least she was going to have to climb into
the engine and sit on it.

"I'll talk you through it. I'll be right here, and I can see what you're
doing." The inside of the floater was continuing to get warmer. He could feel
beads of sweat starting to form under his hairline. She was looking back and
forth between him and the engine. Taking a deep breath, she finally hopped back
towards the front, and settled back with her back towards the engine, her butt
resting on the fender. She used her hands to lift herself up and sit on the
fender, looking uncertainly at the power plant behind her and back towards him
for instructions and reassurance.

"You're doing great, hon. Can you reach the cell from there?" She leaned back
and let her fingers walk their way carefully along the upper surfaces of the
engine, towards the fuel cell and the cable on the near side leading into it.

"Turn it counterclockwise. Is it turning?" He could see her grimacing,
evidently having trouble unscrewing the cable. Inside it was continuing to get
hotter. Droplets of sweat were starting to run down his face.

Suddenly, with a grin of satisfaction, she displayed the loose cable.

"Great! Okay, the other one now." The other lead to the fuel cell was on the
far side. She tried to stretch her arms back towards it but it was just out of
reach as long as she was sitting on the fender.

"Move farther in. It's okay, you can sit on the engine. You won't hurt
anything. It's just a little grimy, but we can wash you off later." At least it
wasn't one of those 20th-century combustion engines, with so many more moving
parts. The floater's engine, though, left a gap between itself and the fenders
on the side. Leaving the replacement cell perched on the fender, she carefully
shifted her weight back onto her hands and let her butt slide off the fender
towards the upper surface of the engine. There was no comfortable place to sit
between the edge of the engine and the cable.

"Wendy, move on past it and sit on the other side. That'll be easier." As he
watched, she slid a little further back, bringing her feet over to the engine
now, and carefully scrunched herself to get turned around. She maneuvered
herself to sit just in front of the fuel cell, and started working on the
cable. This one seemed to have been screwed on even tighter than the other. She
stopped several times to rub her raw fingers, trying various surfaces on her
fingers and palms to loosen the connection. As the minutes went by, David could
feel butterflies getting loose in his stomach, practicing their dive-bombing
techniques. His entire body was covered in a slick sheen of perspiration, and
he was feeling a little lightheaded. If he didn't get out of here soon. . .All
he needed was a little damned electricity running through the wires! There's
got to be some way. . . hey! Maybe this would work.

"Wait, stop. I think connecting the cells in series would work. Connect the
positive pole of the new cell to the cable you got loose, and then touch the
terminals of the two cells together. See what I'm saying?" Uncertainly, she
shook her head.

"Look, just get the other cell. I'll tell you one step at a time." She looked
behind her at the replacement cell still lying on the fender. She slid back a
little towards it, reaching back for it. It was a long stretch, and she
couldn't slide much farther back. He was about to suggest she turn around again
and move towards it feet-first. She managed to lean far enough back, finally,
to reach the fender. It appeared that just at that moment her butt slipped
slightly on the uneven surface, and she instinctively brought her hands towards
her slightly to steady herself. Her fingers lost their grip on the fender and
her hands and arms slipped downward into the gap between the engine and the
fender, as she fell back on her back and her head cracked hard against the
fender.

"Wendy! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Can you look at me?" Her head turned slowly
towards him, her eyes brimming with tears of pain. She jerked suddenly, and
again. It looked like she was trying to sit up, but her handcuffs were caught
on something down below. He tried to get a view of what the trouble was,
pushing his face against the windshield and moving around to find some place
where he could see down where her hands were, but they were just out of sight.
She was jerking more frantically, almost convulsively, close to panic.

"Wendy, stop! Just freeze. Do you hear me? I can help you get out of it, but
you've got to stop moving around. Listen, listen to me!"

He hesitated before plunging on. "Wendy, I could die in here if you don't
stop."

That did it, finally; she stopped suddenly and looked at him in shock.

"Just take a deep breath. Calm down. Try to look down. Can you see what you're
caught on?" Her head turned to the side, she was obviously trying her best to
turn it farther, but her hands were well beyond the limits of her peripheral
vision. She shook her head, streaked with sweat and tears.

"Okay, stop moving again. Try to relax. I've got a picture of the engine in the
manual here. As soon as I see what's down there, I'll tell you how to get
loose, okay?" She closed her eyes and he could see she was trying to follow his
advice, breathing slowly and deeply. He turned to the page with the picture of
the engine. There, that had to be it: the intake valves, through which air
entered to be afterwards blown out through the bottom to provide the cushion on
which the floater floated, stuck out about seven or eight inches from the base
of the engine on either side. She had to be hung up on the one on that side. He
tried to look down towards the real one again. It puzzled him that she couldn't
just slip the cuffs off the end of it.

"Wendy, just slide your hands back a little ways. You're caught on a pipe that
sticks out of the engine. Slide the handcuffs back past the end of it." Her
face contorted in pain as she obviously tried to do what he said. Her arms,
though, were already held far out from her back at a painful angle, and she
couldn't seem to force them back any farther. In the confusion of falling she
had gone through a contortion she couldn't voluntarily reproduce.

"Can you slide yourself back a little? Move. . . look where I'm pointing. Move
your body back that way." His shorts were on the seat next to him, and he used
them to wipe his eyes to keep the sweat out, but it wasn't doing much good. His
eyes stung constantly, and he was finding it hard to concentrate on the
problem. He could see her flexing and relaxing muscles all over her body,
trying to wriggle back towards the fender. He classified it intellectually as
incredibly sexy, but he was just too hot to really appreciate it right now. Her
head was resting on the fender, but her shoulders were just a little below the
edge. She couldn't seem to get them up any higher, and until she got them up
over the edge she wasn't going to be able to move in that direction. As he
watched he could see her strain her neck muscles, trying to get her shoulders
to clear the barrier. But she couldn't get her shoulders up onto the fender
until she got her hands loose, and she couldn't get her hands loose until she
moved farther back, and she couldn't move farther back until she got her
shoulders up.

He swore briefly, and stopped when he decided it was using too much energy. He
couldn't imagine which of them was more frustrated: she, because her body was
trapped, or he, because he couldn't do anything about it.

"Wendy, I think you're going to have to let your head slip off the fender." She
shook her head, wide eyed, obviously terrified of falling head-first into the
little crevice.

"It's the only way, Wendy. Do it really slowly. You won't fall in, there's not
enough room in there." Was that reassuring? It could be taken either way, he
guessed. "You'll be able to slip the handcuffs off the end of the pipe."

Slowly, an inch at a time, she bent her neck and forced her head towards the
edge of the fender. Her eyes scrunched so tightly that she must have been
seeing stars, her stomach steel-tense with held breath, she let her head skid
down off the edge. He could hear her squeal in fear, and immediately her butt
slid a few inches back along the engine, and then stopped. Flexing muscles now
in her arms, hips, and legs, she squirmed in the opposite direction. She must
have got a grip on the valve, he decided, and she's using it to push herself
up. Finally, her stomach muscles quivering with the strain, she slowly sat up,
and regained a sitting position on the engine, free at last. Or as free as
she'd been in the last few days, anyway.

She sat for several minutes, facing away from him, her shoulders heaving as she
breathed in great gasps.

"Wendy? You're okay now. We still need to get me out of here." His head was
pounding. She turned towards him, giving him a weak smile.

"The other cell, remember? You need to get it and hook it to the cable. Wait,
turn around first. Move towards it feet-first." She got herself turned, and in
a couple of minutes was back sitting on the fender next to the cell.

"Look at the cell, see the end of it with a plus on it? Screw the cable onto
that." Obviously it was hard on the overstretched muscles in her arms and
shoulders to lean back once more, to fumble with the cable and, at last, get it
attached to the appropriate pole.

"Now, touch the two terminals together. Be careful, there's a lot of power in
there." As she brought the terminals in proximity, she was startled by a great
sparks that jumped between them, and she immediately jerked them back apart
before he could reach the door handle.

"It's going to work! It's going to spark like that, that means it's okay. Put
them back together." With one more deep breath, she joined the hissing,
sparking terminals. He yanked the door handle and threw his weight against the
door, wanting to act before she lost her nerve again, and found himself flying
out into the cool, cool outside world.

He lay there, gasping in deep lungfuls of fresh, almost cold-seeming air, then
scrambled to his feet and threw his arms around her waist, lifting her off the
fender and squeezing the skin of his sweat-soaked body tightly against hers.

(continued)

_________________________________________________________
Story archive: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/9911/door.html
Mail: adrianhunter-at-geocities-dot-com

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