Destination

Chapter seven of Repairs, a story of Josh & Argos

Back to the beginning

After they’d crossed a bridge and gone under an overpass, on their right was a red brick building. It looked like it was very nice not long ago, but now all of the windows were boarded over and it had graffiti like a nasty rash.

Liam was holding the map on which Josh had traced out the route to the warehouse. he said, “Okay, turn right at the next road.”

This was where things started to go wrong. The next road was under a raised highway. Josh started to turn right, then came to a halt.

“Uh, that’s not happening.”

The road was completely blocked by abandoned cars, many of them with doors, hoods or windshields missing.

Liam looked up from the map. “Huh. Guess not.”

Isabella tilted her head this way and that as she surveyed the scene. “That’s creepy. What now?”

Josh nodded. “Not a problem. We have a map. We just drive around this.”

And the next road they tried to turn down was blocked by dumpsters. After their first turn in the right direction, they could not continue far down that road because a collapsed building blocked the road, and the deeper they went into the town, the uglier it got, with trash and debris scattered all around. At one point, they passed a dead dog lying on the sidewalk, eyes missing and belly swollen with rot. Josh was very glad they had the windows up.

In the end, they drove another twenty minutes, and by a circuitous three miles finally pulled up beside the warehouse. It was surrounded by a ten-foot high chain link fence, and on the far side was a bank of the Schuylkill River.

As they pulled up beside the fence, Isabella said, “Hey Josh, have you seen any people here?”

Josh slowly shook his head. “No. No, I haven’t.”

Liam said, “That don’t seem right.”

Josh replied, “No, it does not.” He killed the engine, and looked over at the fence. “I don’t think I brought a good tool for that. Fortunately, Argos is here.”

Josh and Liam got out and walked over to the fence.

Liam looked over at the dormant robot. “What’s Argos going to do?”

Josh whistled a three note sequence and Argos stood up. Josh set the tailgate down and waved the robot over. As it hopped down to the asphalt, Josh said, “Argos, can you cut this fence for us?”

Argos walked over to the fence, extended his gripping claw, and, with and audible click, extended the blades hidden inside the three prongs. He reached out and clipped one of the wires of the fence. The gripping arm turned back to Josh, as if for approval.

“Oh,” said Liam, “did not expect that.”

Josh traced a line on the fence about four feet high, and another perpendicular about two feet at the top. “Good, now cut this out for us.” As Argos got to work, he said, “He doesn’t use them very often, and he’s under orders to not use them on a person without explicit permission.”

Liam had not gotten as far as considering that possibility, and his eyes widened at the thought. He drew a deep breath. “Good to know.”

He looked over at the warehouse, a 100 foot by 100 foot cinder block building painted a dull beige. “So like I said, we can’t spend all day in there. One hour enough?”

Josh sighed, “You’re right, and I hope so.” He pulled out two flashlights and two pistols from a backpack in the back of the truck.

“Come on, Izzy, we’ll go in to find the part. Liam can keep watch at the truck.” He fished in his pocket for a piece of notebook paper with the part name and number.

Liam held up a finger. “Wait a minute. Who’s to say you two don’t find it in five minutes and spend the next thirty minutes fooling around?”

Izzy, now standing beside the open door of the truck, put her fists on her hips and said, “Liam! Why would you think like that? You’re awful!”

“Hey, I’m here to be a chaperone, and I take my job seriously.”

Josh sighed and rubbed his forehead, “Ok, fine. We need to get the job done. Who goes in and who keeps watch is not particularly important. Izzy, are you comfortable handling a shotgun?”

She turned to glare at him. “I can’t believe you’re going along with this.”

“The longer we’re here, the more could go wrong. If this is how he wants to do it, arguing is just going to waste time. So what about a shotgun?”

She crossed her arms and huffed. “Yes, I can.”

“Then you stay here with the truck. We should be back soon. Keep an eye out. If anything goes wrong, yell for us and ask Argos to help you.”

Josh and Liam ducked under the section of fence Argos had clipped out and headed across the cracked asphalt towards the warehouse. As they walked away, Isabella stuck her tongue out at their backs, then climbed back into the pickup and grabbed the shotgun from behind the seat.

As Josh and Liam walked across the thirty yards of cracked, weed-riddled asphalt, they discussed search patterns, and whether they should split up or stay together.