Two Hard Days
A story of Josh and Argos
Josh woke up to the morning light coming in through the cabin’s windows. He rubbed his eyes, and, after a minute, rolled out of bed. He poured himself a cup of water, then walked out to the front porch. Argos came around the corner on his patrol round, saw Josh, and came up and nudged against his thigh a few times.
Argos was just under 3 feet tall, about a foot wide in the body, with four legs and a grappling arm coming from the top front. He was a dark grey-green, with a few spots of chrome in his build. He was, in fact, a robot.
Josh was a slim young man in his late teens wearing a worn band t-shirt and blue jeans. He had an unruly mop of dark blond hair and a calm, serious demeanor.
“Hey boy,” Josh said, and reached down and rubbed at Argos’s shell, “anything interesting last night?”
Argos swung his grappling claw back and forth like shaking your head. No.
“Good boy, Argos. Let’s see how you’re doing.”
He flipped open the console on Argos’s right side and checked the reading. Battery life was 64%. Good. That should do for three days . . . or two hard days.
After taking a moment to admire the early summer foliage, Josh walked down to the stream fifty yards away to check on his hydroelectric generator. It wasn’t much, just a simple water-wheel. But he didn’t need much. There were power lines coming down from the main road, but they were unreliable. So he had a set of car batteries set up to charge from this generator or from the main line when it worked. Since he only used electricity for Argos, for his own computers, and the fridge and freezer, this mostly covered his needs.
When he got the parts, he was going to build another generator using his bike. It shouldn’t be tough to set up.
“Speaking of parts, we need a few things from town. Up for a run, Argos?”
Argos “nodded” his grappling claw.
“Alright, boy. Let’s hope that Mason has some work for us. If not, those frozen deer hides will be worth a little at least. Come on, let’s get packed up.”
Josh strapped several canvas packs to Argos, a few of them loaded with deer hides for the tanner. He put a backpack on himself with a water bottle and his pistol in it. Then, he got on his bike and headed down the gravel track to the dirt road, Argos running along beside him.
As they neared the road, he remembered a hive of wild honeybees he’d seen not too far from here. They’d have to check that out on their way back home. If it was a good harvest, he might even have some for him and some for sale in town.
His cabin was about three fourths of a mile from the main road, and from there, it was something under thirty miles into town. Occasionally, he’d pass a car, or a cyclist headed the other direction, but for most of his ride, he had the road to himself, the only sounds were the wind in his ears, the creaking of his bike, and Argos’s feet clattering on the road. Argos had better ears than him, and, on his instructions, headed a little into the woods whenever he heard someone coming.
Josh had never asked him, but he had the feeling that Argos enjoyed their runs together.
About two hours of hard pedaling later, the two of them arrived just outside Camersville.
Josh stripped the packs off of Argos.
“Ok, Argos, go find a good hiding spot and listen for my call.”
Argos “nodded” and ran off a little from the road, heading towards a patch of trees. Josh, with his load redoubled, got back on his bike and headed into town.
After taking his deer hides to the tanner for a little money, Josh headed over to the cafe and bought himself a burger. By the time he was finished, it was 11:30, and he headed to city hall to meet with Mayor Mason.
The mayor’s receptionist, a man just a few years older than Josh with close-cut black hair wearing a white dress-shirt with a dark blue tie, told Josh the mayor was busy and he’d probably see him in about half an hour. Josh nodded and went back out to the hallway. He looked around a moment at the off-white plaster walls, the old, scarred hardwood floor, then took one of the wooden chairs and pulled out an old paperback of science fiction stories to pass the time.
Forty-five minutes later, the receptionist called him in and told him Mayor Mason could see him. The mayor, a tall man with brown hair and a mustache streaked with grey came out of the door to behind the receptionist. He was a physically imposing man, noticeably over six feet tall and broadly built, most of it muscle. He wore a light blue dress shirt and khakis, but no tie.
“Hey, Joshua, good to see you again! How’s your family?” The mayor held out his hand.
Josh stepped over to shake his hand. “Well, my parents are both still dead, sir.”
“Suspected as much. Just wanted to check.”
Out of the side of his eye, Josh saw the receptionist’s eyes bug out at this exchange. But this was now an old joke between the two from when they had first met.
“How’s your day so far, son?”
“Fine, just been waiting a while out in the hall till I could see you, reading.” Josh waved his paperback.
The mayor squinted at Josh a moment. “Waiting? But my schedule’s been clear since…” He turned to the receptionist. “Ryan, you been making Josh wait for no reason? Don’t play those kind of games with him. He’s a good kid.”
Ryan looked down at his desk shamefacedly and said, “Yes, Mr. Mason. Sorry sir.” Josh felt a little bad for him.
The mayor gestured back towards his office. “Come on in, Joshua. I’m pretty sure we’ve got some projects for you.”
Josh followed the big man into his office. It was a really nice room. The thick carpet was dark red, the bookcases on the right wall were full of a mix of imposing-looking legal volumes and old paperback travel guides to dozens of foreign countries.
On the left wall were framed a topographical map of Pennsylvania and a road map of Camersville.
“I do have a couple of small projects for you today, Joshua, that I was hoping you could help us sort out,” Mason said as he picked up a notebook from a corner of his desk. “Let’s see. First thing is the security cameras watching the interstate on the north side of town. They should be working, but the feed’s just not coming through.”
He came back around the desk and led Josh back into the hall, turning right and going deeper into the building. “Follow me to the security office.”
As they walked back, Josh asked, “Why are you worried about cameras there anyway?”
As he pulled out his keys and unlocked the door, Mason looked over at Josh and raised an eyebrow.
“Well kid, everyone knows that eventually most of what used to be Pennsylvania is going to come together under one government again. Probably with a few parts of surrounding states. The blacks and the spics are fighting it out for possession of Harrisburg and Philly.”
They entered the cramped room and Josh sat down at a desk in front of a bank of monitors. The room smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.
“The point is,” said the mayor, “until that happens, this particular patch of Penn’s Woods is mine to defend. And that stretch of highway is a great way for people intent on trouble to come in. So we’ve got to watch it.”
Josh thought about this a moment, then nodded.
Mason said, “I’ve got some other business to clear up. When you’re done here, come find me, and we’ll see what’s next.”
After he left, Josh started digging through the system, looking for the missing camera inputs. Twenty minutes later, he walked back into the mayor’s office.
He smiled. “I’ve got your cameras back, Mr. Mason. It looks like some kind of reset or system update changed the settings and your computers were looking in the wrong place for that input.”
“Knew you’d sort that out. Next, our Xerox printer is acting up. We’ve got some smaller ones, but for our big jobs, there’s really no substitute. And there’s not much in the way of official support these days.” He drew in and released a long slow breath. “A lot of things went away.”
Josh had an idea what he meant, but echoed him anyway, “Went away?”
Mason leaned back in his chair, and looked up towards the ceiling, his eyes growing unfocused. “I guess you’re probably too young to remember.… It’s hard to explain how much things have changed the past twelve years.”
Josh sat down and listened. He’d never heard this nostalgic tone from the big man.
“It was only about a three hour drive from here. I could’ve been there that day. Trump was doing another campaign rally. Some crazy kid with a rifle took a shot and got lucky.… And we were all very unlucky.”
Mayor Mason looked back down to Josh. “In the next few days, everyone understood it was over. He was the last hope of restoring faith in the government. And the system killed him. On live TV in front of all of us.”
Admittedly, Josh’s life was mostly solitary these days, but even so, he hadn’t heard many adults talk about the break-up. It was like some grotesque monster lurking in the corner of the room that everyone knew about, but just tried to avoid looking at. He leaned forward in his chair and rested his chin on a fist.
“Everything was quiet for about a week, and then his supporters started rioting. And they,” Mason stopped and exhaled loudly, “they were put down brutally. At least ninety people were killed by police and national guard across the country. More were wounded, maimed even.”
“Three months later, the election went on. The walking corpse was put back in office. But in January, multiple states refused to recognize him as president. They sued to declare his election illegitimate. The Supreme Court wouldn’t hear it. So first Texas, then shortly twelve other states declared the whole federal government a fraud. They refused any federal orders, and within the year, troops were sent in to enforce compliance. And once that happened, the official soldiers were the least of the problem.”
The mayor shook his head like someone waking from a doze. “Sorry ‘bout that, kid. I was supposed to give you a project to work on, not a history lesson.”
Josh just smiled and nodded. He was interested, but he felt some things were discouraged by just coming out and asking for them.
Mason stood up and led the way out of his office. “Come on. It’s up on the second floor.”
Josh followed him to a large shared office upstairs. The big machine was in the back corner of the room, the rest mostly occupied by three desks, currently unstaffed. Two were neat and orderly. One, though, was an absolute wreck of scattered papers, notepads, and file folders.
Josh surveyed the printer, found an input port and pulled out his laptop and a data cable. To the mayor, he said, “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll take a look. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
Borrowing a chair from one of the desks, he plugged his laptop into the printer and started running diagnostics. Mason nodded and headed back downstairs.
A couple of hours later, Josh walked back into the mayor’s office. Mason was gathering a few things together to leave.
“Hey Josh, I was just about to head home for the day. Everything good?”
Josh nodded. “I won’t bore you with the details, but it should be working fine. I printed out a test page.”
He held out a sheet with a crude cartoon of a face peeking over a wall and the words “Joshua Hartlove was here.” below it.
The mayor smiled. “Alright then. Would cash be good today?”
“That’d be fine.”
Although there was no longer a U.S. Mint or Federal Reserve banking system, many parts of the formerly united states still used old U.S. currency as a form of exchange. It was relatively scarce and tough to duplicate, so it did the job.
Mayor Mason pulled a lockbox from a drawer of his desk and counted out a stack of twenties for Josh.
Josh counted them then shoved them in a back pocket. He turned to head out.
Mason said, “You know, you could just work here regular. You’re much better at these things than Malcolm. I could help you find a place here in town. Maybe even a girl.”
Josh stayed with his hand on the doorknob a moment before turning back to answer: “I like you, Mr. Mason, and I’m happy to work with you. But I don’t want to work for you, if you understand.”
Mason smiled, nodded a bit, and held out his hand. Josh stepped back to shake again, and the mayor’s grip was just a little tighter this time.
“Good luck, then. See you soon.”
Josh just nodded in return and left the office.
That night, he crashed on the couch of a friend in town. The next morning, he picked up a couple of components that would eventually be a part of his bike generator, bought a few canned goods and some salt, repacked his backpack and pedaled up the hill west out of town.
When he reached where he’d parted ways with Argos, he whistled a three-note sequence. A minute later, the robot dog came running up to join him. Josh patted him a couple of times, then divided his packs between them. As he was about start biking again, Josh noticed dark clouds on the eastern horizon.
“Huh, hope we can stay ahead of that. Let’s get moving, boy.”
He got back to the turn-off to his cabin a little before noon; the rain had just caught up with the two. Ducking his head to keep it out of his face, Josh didn’t notice the pickup pulled off to the side of the road just a little past his drive.
After turning onto his gravel road, Josh stopped and took the packs from Argos, then told him to go check out that beehive and get a few pictures. Argos “nodded” and darted off into the woods.
Josh parked his bike on the covered porch of the cabin, set down his packs, stretched, and opened the door. The instant he did, he realized something was wrong. He heard a sizzling sound and smelled meat cooking.
He hesitated an instant in confusion and a dark hand grabbed his wrist and yanked him into his cabin.
A voice yelled, “¡Ha vuelto, cholos!”
Something struck Josh on the side of the head and he found himself lying on the floor. He had a momentary view of a pair of worn brown leather boots and legs clad in light blue jeans. One of the feet pulled back and kicked him in the belly and he was dragged to his feet and shoved into one of his kitchen chairs.
He was still trying to breathe when he felt his hands pulled behind him and tied to the rods backing the chair. When he could think again, he was looking up at three Hispanics standing around him, one pointing a handgun at him.
Two of them wore plain black t-shirts. The one in the middle had a blue & red flannel with the sleeves rolled up. He had a black mustache with a few streaks of white. The one on Josh’s left held the gun.
The middle one said, in accented, but clear English, “Eh, muchacho, nice place you had here.” He reached around Josh and grabbed a hunk of venison steak from the table behind him and took a bite. With his mouth still half full, he added, “Good meat too. You kill this?”
Josh stared up at him a moment, then nodded.
The man looked down at Josh and chewed a bit.
“So,” he said slowly, “you’re just a kid. You didn’t own this place.”
Josh thought, There’s that past tense again.
Josh jumped in, “It’s my Uncle Brian’s. He was following me. He’ll be here any minute now.”
The man looked at his two friends, “Su Tío Brian.” He said it like “Bree-ahn.”
They chuckled and nodded. One said, “Sí, Santiago, Su tío.”
He leaned down close to Josh’s face. “We’ve had some time to look around the cabin. There’s only one person living here.” He stood back up and slapped Josh across the face backhanded. “Mentirosillo, don’t lie to me!”
Josh was only half lying. But that didn’t help now.
The three started talking to each other in Spanish. Josh didn’t know Spanish, but he caught that the gunman’s name was Javier. He also understood enough from their looks to know the conversation was not good for him.
Suddenly, he heard a sound from the next room, his bedroom, something rapped against the outside wall. A moment later, it came again. It sounded as if something were being thrown at the cabin.
One of the two who hadn’t spoken, the one not holding a gun, went back into the room to investigate. An instant later, the window shattered as Argos burst in.
“¡Mierda!” Javier shouted, and started shooting at Argos.
This was entirely futile, as the robot was armored for combat, but how could he know that?
Santiago yelled, “¡Marcos, aquí! ¡Ahora!” Then Argos kicked him in the stomach and he went flying into the front room. Argos’s grappling arm grabbed the wrist of the gunman and twisted. Josh winced at the sounds of bones snapping, and the man went down screaming.
Josh yelled, “Get me free!”
Marcos rushed back in with gun in hand just as Argos reached over and snapped the chair backing Josh was tied to, knocking Josh over. Marcos stared at the scene, stunned. Just as he was raising his gun, Josh got to his feet, pulled one of the broken rods from the chair and stabbed the sharp end into his left side. He clutched at his side, but stayed standing, gun still in his other hand, blood streaming down his side.
Javier was now scrabbling after his gun with his only functioning hand. Josh dove across his small kitchen and grabbed it, then stomped on his broken arm. The sound of Javier’s screams mixed with several gunshots. Josh turned around to see Argos had Santiago pinned to the floor in the doorway to the front room. Marcos looked in confusion at his gun, then turned it from Argos to Josh. Josh drew a bead first, and shot him twice in the chest. He slumped forward, then collapsed to the floor.
“¿Qué? ¿Qué es eso?" yelled Santiago. When he saw Josh standing over him, he said in English, “What is it?”
Josh shook his head a couple of times trying to clear the ringing from his ears. He then grabbed the other chair, thank God his uncle had two here, and pulled it up next to where the invader lay pinned to the floor.
“That’s Argos. He’s my friend.”
He looked over to where Javier lay, apparently passed out from the pain, then back to Santiago. “You guys were going to kill me, weren’t you?”
“What? Ah, no! No!”
Josh looked at him, then chuckled softly. “Ese, don’t lie to me.”
He looked back to where Marcos lay, then to Javier and Santiago.
“I didn’t want to kill Marcos. I’ve never killed anyone before.” He said it almost as if he were in a confessional and Santiago was the priest. “But it was him or me.”
Santiago looked between Josh and Argos, his face shifting between confusion, fear, and hope.
“I don’t want to kill you two, but you know where I am. Know I’m alone. If I let you go, you could come back tomorrow, a week from now, a year from now.… I can’t live with that.”
Santiago started breathing fast. “No, no, no! You let us go, we get in my truck, you never see us again!”
Josh smiled sadly. “And if you can’t trust the word of a robber and would-be murderer, who can you trust?”
Santiago started to struggle again, and Argos kicked him in the head.
Josh stood up and paced. In the kitchen, he looked from Javier to Marcos. He inhaled the smell of blood. He walked back to the front room where Santiago, still held down by Argos, lay momentarily stunned. He looked at the gun he’d taken from one of these robbers.
“Why’d you make me do this?”
He leveled the gun at Santiago’s head and squeezed the trigger. Looking at what was left, he said to Argos, “Help me get the other guy outside before he wakes up.”
Argos nodded, and they each grabbed a leg and dragged the last robber out and off of the porch, into the rain.
A minute later, after it was done, Josh came back in. He surveyed the damage, the broken window, smashed furniture, the blood, the…not-blood.
He collapsed into the chair next to Santiago’s body and said, “You know, Argos, that job offer is starting to sound a lot better.”
Outside the cabin, the rain slackened, and the sun started to show again through the clouds.
Never thought I would read a story about those weird robot dogs where they got to be one of the good guys!!
Dude, this is amazing! Can't wait to read more of it!