The and His Bubble One

Drop a ball from the sky,

Drive a car on the road,

Katanas verses implosions verses words…

Seventeen miles south of the wrench.

Nathan wasn’t able to forget about the ice that had formed in his arms, but at least the next couple of miles passed in silence. The chill had thawed some when it was apparent that the only sound the outside world had was the quiet cruise of a single car. Nothing to note. Nothing to investigate.

It helped that Cocoa had rested her chin on his right shoulder, giving him a quick wink in the beginning, and now they watched the miles wind down together. Tanner had reclined the back of his seat so far that it was in Pudding’s lap. She was leaned over him now, staring down into his face, massaging his scalp while he rested his arms across his chest, his eyes closed enjoying her easy touch.

Easy, yes, despite her quick fits of ripping paper and clawing glass. That was a side note in Nathan’s mind as it made its gradual digression from ice to Cocoa. The redhead at his shoulder was the one with something to say every second of every hour, whereas when Pudding spoke, she said little but covered a lot of bases. Cocoa was easy to read, almost stereotypical, a redhead with an energetic personality, and so her antics and jokes came and went, the fun was had and she and everyone laughed.

Pudding surprised him. She might have even scared him a couple of times. Where Cocoa’s energy could shift intentions and make him feel weak in the knees, he had often questioned how well he knew Tanner who was the object of Pudding’s romantic passion. From the outside, they looked like a normal couple, but not everyone saw what Nathan had seen. The strangeness of Pudding. The strangeness that didn’t even make Tanner flinch. In fact, he handled it like a champ, knowing how to push her buttons the right way.

Tanner was a man of words. He was almost as precise as Pudding, but there was no way anyone could ever be as accurate as her. And Cocoa, well, she just let things fly from her mouth. This was the first time he’d ever seen her so quiet. It almost felt deadly. Like he imaged Pudding, a calm assassin.

The cold started to thicken again, though only in his right arm, flowing from Cocoa’s chin to his bicep to his elbow, making his joint ache, though it was only a mild pressure now. Yet it flowed down his forearm into his wrist. That’s where it started to cut. He felt the ice like a blade making its slow way into his hand, cutting through the muscle and reaching for his knuckles. It was a single line of pain at first, but when it reached the first knuckle, it spread to the others, so there was a T-shaped blade inside his hand. But the ice didn’t stop there. He could feel more sickle-like points growing from the top of the T into each of his fingers. He kept himself from believing this was really happening until the sensation reached the joints in the middle of each finger. He couldn’t help it then. His hand came off the steering wheel and he gave it a little shake, flexing his fingers in and out a couple of times.

Cocoa noticed this and picked her chin up from his shoulder. The chill sensation thawed instantly. “You okay?” she asked, reaching out and taking his hand in hers.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” he said, giving her a smile, appreciating her thoughtful gesture, but as she rubbed his hand with her fingers, his smile struggled to hide the subtle wince. Her touch called back that chill to his hand, and it picked up where it left off a few seconds ago, the ache in his fingers now reaching to each tip, irritating the spaces just under his fingernails.

“Come on, Nate,” she said, her voice still low, “it’s not that long of a drive.”

“Yeah.” he said, forcing his word out in a fake chuckle, but she appeared to buy it. Yeah, that’s how she appeared, but could he buy that she really bought it? Being who she was, what she could do, was he the one buying her gesture? If he could only manage a fraction of what she was capable of, how much could he keep from her? How much had he kept from any of them? This long of a ride and no one in sight, the clouds staying in place, there was just no way. No way they didn’t suspect something.

So why? Or…was he just being paranoid? Was Cocoa really excited to visit his hometown for the first time? How would he know when she had picked up on something? How sharp was she, really?

It was in the shift of her focus, the slight contraction of her eyebrows. She was looking out the windshield, focusing upward.

Nathan would have never noticed this was a sign of her awareness, because the smile on her face never changed. He only found out when he heard the other noise. The growl. A strange growl that would have had him guessing what it was for some time if he hadn’t have gazed out the windshield, too, and saw it.

The thing that made the growl, the growl being the first thing to hit Nathan’s mind, seeing as the object was flying. Being that it was flying, it had to be able to lift itself with some type of propulsion, an engine. The growl of a turbine that burned the fuel or the growl of the resulting exhaust.

But this was a stranger growl he heard. The mixture of propulsion and the body of the object cutting through the air. Last Nathan looked, he was cruising at a comfortable sixty-five miles per hour. There was a lot he considered to result after what he had done to everything, and the air standing still was one of them. There was an extra resistance on his car as it headed up the highway. He could hear it in the whistle off the side view mirrors, the edges of the windshield, and the small alcoves between window and seals of each door. But that was something that could be written off, because the resistance wasn’t that bad. The air might have stood still but it wasn’t frozen in place. Yet, because there was so much of it, there would be something to it being shoved out of the way. A strangeness to the whistle he heard, but ignored.

Now that another object was with them, that whistle couldn’t be ignored. And because of the object’s shape, there was one unified whistle coming off it, intensified and maybe given a little bit of a boom. The object was a sphere of metal, the top portion made of glass, the bottom housing rounded nozzles to expel the exhaust of its propulsion system, keeping it afloat, and it was facing away from them, exposing the extra thrusters on its assumed rear section, propelling it forward.

The thing was a dull bullet, not piercing the air but hammering into it, forcing it over its rounded surface and then raking it off its horizon, the ride causing a buildup until freedom came like a compressed explosion.

The sphere was still in its slow descent, having found Nathan’s car and matched its speed with his. It dropped to put its metal belly leveled with Nathan’s windshield. This was the first time Nathan considered the brakes. His eyes widened with the brightness of those thrusters taking away the gray of the day, and his foot lifted from the gas pedal.

“No.” Cocoa said, gripping his forearm, and the chill he felt in that one part of his arm was a side note to what his mind was processing at the moment. “Don’t slow down. Keep driving.”

He found it easy to comply, his foot already resting back onto the gas pedal. Maybe it was the calmness in her voice, an authoritative tone he’d never heard before, that convinced him. He held on tight to the steering wheel, keeping his car aligned with the lane, and stared into those bright thrusters.

“Well, how about that?” Tanner said, still reclining but raising his head up to see.

“Visitor.” Pudding said, her fingers pulling from Tanner’s hair, her assassin focus targeting those bright thrusters.

Tanner hit the lever, and his seat came up. He leaned further forward, “Not very shy, either.” he said with a smile.

“No one you recognize?” Cocoa asked.

“Not me.” Tanner shook his head.

“You don’t know what this thing is?” Nathan asked them.

Before they could answer, a voice sounded above them, its projection given electronic aid. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and ask if there is a Nathan Clark riding with you.”

Nathan’s eyes went even wider, “It knows who I am?”

“Wow, hey, and they speak English, too.” Tanner chuckled.

“How does it know who I am?” Nathan turned his wide eyes upon Tanner.

“Almost surprising...” Cocoa said.

“How does it know me?” Nathan gasped.

“…seeing as we know English as well.” Cocoa finished.

“Translator.” Pudding muttered.

“They said my name!” Nathan gasped.

The voice boomed from the floating sphere again, “Come on, I figure you’re just as special as I am. No need to hide. I am in a big metal ball after all.”

“Someone who chats more with anti-natives, I’m guessing.” Tanner said.

“Scout.” Pudding said.

“Or an extreme free spirit.” Cocoa laughed.

“Guys, should I stop?” Nathan asked.

The voice spoke again, “Just please pull over so we can talk face to face, huh? No reason we shouldn’t. There’s no one for miles, anyway.”

Cocoa was easing back from between the two front seats, though she kept her eyes upon the metal object, “No way are we stopping. Who does this guy think he is?”

“Battle.” Pudding muttered.

“W-w-wait! Now?” Nathan gasped.

He caught Cocoa’s teeth-glinting grin, but her teeth weren’t the only things catching the light. He heard a third noise like a hiss, and a beam of reflected light stretched into view, unsheathed from the back seat area.

“Don’t panic.” Pudding muttered, and Nathan squinted.

The sparks flew. They came from above. They rained down around Cocoa as she danced. She wasn’t hunched down between the seats, she was squatting, leveled with the dash board, her feet catching the console between the front seats, sometimes the back bench seat, sometimes his lap, sometimes Tanner’s lap, and she sent the sparks in a circular shape around the roof of the car.

It was all Nathan could do to stare forward and keep the car on the road, having to gaze through a curtain of falling lights and the glare of those growling thrusters. He ducked his head, bunching his shoulders up around his ears to ready himself for the flying heat, but as those lights fell and touched his face or bounced off his arms, it wasn’t heat he felt. It was cold.

Then the sparks fizzled out, and the wind came to take them away. The car’s interior glowed with the gray that was brighter than Nathan realized. He looked up for several reasons, mostly the sudden gust of wind, but everything was answered when he saw those motionless clouds above.

His rearview mirror caught a dark rectangular shape in its reflection. That shape flew from his car, waving to Nathan just before one of its edges struck the road. There was another shower of sparks, and then the object flattened, then came up and twisted around to go into a thousand cartwheels, its edges lighting up a sparkly orange white color as it attempted to chase after the car but was nowhere near fast enough.

Nathan looked up again, and Cocoa was standing tall at his side, one foot on the console between his and Tanner’s seats, the other anchored onto the back seat. She was facing into the wind that ruffled her fiery red hair. She was holding her right hand out in front of her, and in her grip was the handle of a sword, the long bluish-gray, double-edged blade slanting upward, cutting the wind and sending it to either side of her in frosty clouds.

The voice called from the metal object, “Whhoooaaa there, ma’am.”

Nathan was gasping as he looked from Cocoa to the metal object to the new space where his roof used to be, and finally to Tanner who was staring forward, wearing a smirk. When he noticed Nathan’s gaze, he turned and stretched his smile, “It’s all in the way you breathe, Nate.” he called over the winds.

“Huh?” Nathan hollered.

“Just breathe normally.” Tanner said.

“But my roof!” Nathan hollered.

“You’ll get another one.” Tanner said.

“What?”

“Another car.” Tanner corrected himself.

“Nate!” Cocoa called.

He looked up. She was still smiling.

“Drive faster!” she said.

He stared at her.

“Floor it!” she cheered.

“Do it, Nate.” Tanner said.

Nathan looked at Tanner’s confident smile. Tanner nodded, “It’s in your favor.”

Nathan was used to a lot of things ever since he met these three, and he supposed that was what allowed him to bypass the consideration of any logic behind what was happening. Besides, he had a bad feeling he wanted this metal sphere gone, because it knew his name.

He stomped the gas pedal.

The front end of his car jumped and the engine shouted a tightening whine, and it was at that moment Nathan realized he had passed the point of no return. His own action felt like another’s, and that action was bringing him that much faster into perdition. The metal sphere knew this, for it was being drawn to him. Perhaps this was how it all started.

“Hold on, now!” the voice called.

Cocoa was raising her sword to the side, leveling the blade, point aimed up the highway. Her smile stretched the closer they got to the metal sphere.

“Keep at it.” Tanner said.

Nathan was fastened to his seat, arms stretched out all the way, knuckles white as he squeezed the steering wheel. His right leg was aching as though he was trying to press the gas pedal through the floorboard. Though, he didn’t let up. Not for a second. He didn’t want any of this, but he would be stupid to pass it up. Even if it was ludicrous. He had nothing else. Nothing but these three friends.

Cocoa was leaning into the wind, pivoting the sword’s blade to reach out behind her.

“You don’t have to do anything, Nate.” Tanner said.

Nathan heard him but didn’t take his eyes off the road.

“Just drive, and don’t let off the gas.” Tanner added. “You’re the lucky one.”

Nathan couldn’t ignore those thrusters. They were right there in the windshield, taking over, hiding all but the few feet of road in front of the car.

“You don’t have to compensate.” Tanner said. “Just keep it straight. The road is ours.”

Nathan heard him. He trusted him, but still…

“You won’t wreck.” Tanner added. “You’re doing fine.”

The chill under Nathan’s skin was about to go away, but then Cocoa sucked in a sharp breath, and he knewt he was putting his fate in his friends’ hands. From here on out, he could be seeing every bit of this for the last time.

The thrusters flared, dissolving the road from his view, painting the windshield, and the metal sphere jumped.

Cocoa swung with a laughing gasp. The air over the car went cold, a gust of the change racing down inside the car, startling Nathan, and then he could see the road. Cocoa looked up, and the metal sphere was soaring over the car, ascending and rocking from side to side.

“Whhhooooaaaaaaa, heeeyyy noooowww!” the voice cried.

The metal ball descended, dropping down behind the car. There, it maintained a distance of several yards and leveled its belly with the rear windshield.

“Don’t be so hasty with that thing, girlie!” the voice called.

“A valiant effort.” Tanner said, looking up at Cocoa. Then he looked over at Nathan who was trying to see something in his rear view mirror, but all he saw was Cocoa. So, he glanced in his side view mirror, barely getting a glimpse of the object.

“But that’s not all we got.” Tanner reassured him.

Pudding slithered up over the torn edge of the roof, her unblinking eyes trained on the metal sphere.

“I don’t suppose you’re willing to talk about this first?” the voice asked.

Pudding brought her arms up and out to her sides, swinging them inward until her hands came together in a cloud clap.

“Mean hands.” Tanner commented and gave Nathan a wink, “One of her pet names.”

Pudding kept her fingers pointed at the metal sphere as she brought her hands toward her face. She leaned her mouth close to the space between her wrists and opened her hands a half an inch apart. She puckered her lips and blew between her palms. What shot forth from the other side was hard to see, but the metal sphere saw it, the long thin string of blur reaching out from between her hands to the front of the craft.

“Uh oh.” the voice said.

The string was just a reassurance, and it was short lived, transforming into something else. Pudding was the one who changed it, widening her hands apart and moving them to where her left hand was above the right one. Between them was a ball-shaped blur, and it was alive, or it appeared to be, because it made a sound like a muted gust of wind.

She brought her left elbow back, her hand tugging the ball with it, her right hand following. This was where the transformation happened. The bottom of the string widened to the same width as the ball which Pudding immediately shoved forward. Running up the string, the ball was delivered straight to the front of the metal sphere…with a bang!

This process happened in the blink of an eye and finished in a flash. The metal sphere rocked from the explosion, its altitude dropping, its belly coming close to the asphalt as bits of shrapnel sprung from the charred front. Those parts skittered along the road behind it, giving off tiny showers of sparks before disappearing in the distance.

“Heeeeyyy, geeeezzz! What was that?” the voice cried. The thrusters underneath bellowed the keep the sphere afloat, the smaller ones on the sides puffing in succession to straighten itself.

“The brakes!” Cocoa cheered, bringing her sword to her right side, the blade pointing straight up.

“Do it.” Tanner said to Nathan. “It won’t crash into us. Cocoa will see to that.”

Nathan swallowed hard and shook his head as he gritted his teeth and slammed on the brakes. The tires locked up and squalled along the asphalt, coughing a bluish-gray cloud up around the car, leaving four separate stripes of black behind it.

“Whoa, hey!” the voice cried as the sphere zoomed straight for the car. It went into a quick ascent, its belly almost grazing the rear windshield on its way up. Pudding ducked down into the car, her fingers gripping the torn edge of the roof, and Cocoa raised her sword as she smiled into the light of those bottom thrusters.

Her sword connected with that curving slope before the thrusters arrived. Nathan was too busy keeping his eyes peeled wide to the sound of his crying tires to close them when the waterfall of sparks rained down inside the car. There was a loud combustion overhead, and then he saw the metal sphere zooming out ahead of the car, rocking from side to side as it not only suffered from bursts of flames at its base, but also having to regain some semblance of a flight path.

“Now, Pudd!” Cocoa cheered, picking up her left foot and stomping it down on top of the steering wheel, right between Nathan’s hands. She kicked her foot back toward herself, sending the steering wheel rolling after her, out of Nathan’s grip.

“Don’t fight it.” Tanner said before Nathan tried to grab the steering wheel again. By that time, the car had jerked to the right, but instead of racing off to the right of the highway and diving off into the ditch, the back end came swinging around. The tires shrieked, cutting black curves along the gray asphalt and then settling into two parallel stripes when the car’s side faced up the highway.

Pudding had shifted to that side of the car. The metal sphere was being drawn back to them again, sputtering and swaying above the road.

“Close your eyes.” Tanner said, his hands pressed against the dash board to secure himself. He was looking over at Nathan who was pressed into his seat yet again, eyes wide, teeth clenched and showing. He was gripping the sides of his chair. Upon Tanner’s advice, he squeezed his eyes shut and just let the squall of the tires block out all the bad thoughts that wanted to play before his eyes.

The metal object had yet to recover from Cocoa’s blade and was right where Pudding wanted it. Nathan’s car brought itself right up against the sphere, but before the two collided, Pudding caught the metal craft in both her hands, her palms separated from the metal surface by a layer of blur two inches thick.

The car continued to fishtail, and Pudding shoved that blur forward. The blur left her hands and expanded, shoving the metal sphere away from her and the car. The blur stretched to its intended limit and snapped out of existence. The metal sphere went flying off to the right of the highway into the trees. It disappeared once in broke through that wall of trunks and carved a hole deeper into the vegetation.

Nathan’s car was skidding up the highway backward. When enough rubber paid the toll for this maneuver, the car jolted to a stop and then rocked forward. When it settled back, the cloud of bluish-gray caught up to it and sailed on up the highway.

The engine sat idle. The two girls were standing tall out of the interior, staring off toward the hole in the trees. Cocoa was smirking. Pudding wasn’t.

“Hey…Nate.” Tanner said. “You can open your eyes now.”

Nathan opened them and blinked several times to work off the strain of having squeezed them. He was seeing the whole stretch of the highway where they had been, several lines of black curving and crisscrossing, then straightening to mark every bit of it.

“You did good, man.” Tanner said, clapping his hand on Nathan’s shoulder.

Nathan jumped to the gesture, but then realized what it was and relaxed. Well, not really relaxed, but checked one thing off his list of uncertainties.

“Think he’s down for the count?” Cocoa asked.

“Temporary win.” Pudding muttered.

“Huh.” Cocoa said, resting her sword down at her side. “Oh well.”

Nathan felt a chill in the wind as soon as her blade entered the interior, and he shuttered. He looked at the sword. He never knew she had one, and felt his eyes drying as he stared at it. It was like facing into the cold dry winds of winter, except without the gust. He reached up and rubbed his eyes.

“Hey.” Tanner said, patting Nathan’s shoulder.

Nathan dropped his hands and saw Tanner leaning forward to peek around Cocoa’s legs.

“We should go,” he said.

Nathan sucked in a sharp breath and jerked around to gaze out his window. “Did you get it?” He saw the hole in the tree line. There was smoke drifting up from over the trees a distance inside the vegetation.

“For now.” Tanner said. “Now’s our chance.”

Nathan turned to look at Tanner, but he just caught a glimpse of his friend’s smile when Cocoa dropped down, her knee replacing Tanner’s face, and she smiled her teeth glinting smile at him.

“Aren’t you glad you got friends like us?” she asked.

“Fortunate.” Pudding muttered from the backseat. She had settled back behind Tanner who flipped down his sun visor, which was still intact, and spotted her in the mirror. He said, “I know I am.”

Nathan couldn’t see Pudding because of Cocoa’s other knee, but he swore he heard her blush. It sounded like a loud puff or something. He turned to look back at the hole in the trees, “How did it know my name?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Tanner said.

Nathan turned to look at him, but Cocoa was still perched on top of the console, blocking his view. He looked up at her instead. “You want to see what my bathing suit looks like, right?” she asked.

Nathan grinned, taking one last glance out at the hole, and then looked away. He realized he was still pressing the brake down as hard as he could. He released it, letting the feeling come back to his leg. He grabbed the wheel and Cocoa slipped back to bounce onto the back seat. She took the sword with her, and Nathan felt the chill leave.

He turned the car around and resumed their gradual cruise north. The wind that came in from the missing top was neither warm nor cool. It just was. Tanner had promised him another car, but Nathan wasn’t worried about that. He might not need a car once they arrived in his hometown. Yet, he wondered, after seeing what just happened, why he didn’t have a little more faith in his friends. It was why he brought them in the first place. Reassurance. But knowing what lay ahead he didn’t know if anything could save him. So, really, he was being selfish. He didn’t want to die alone.

Which dumbfounded him more.

His friends just attacked some unknown being who claimed to know who he was. Once the deed was done, they were ready to get to a swimming pool. Why wouldn’t they ask him what was going on? They knew. They had to, and yet they said nothing. Perhaps nothing had to be said, and they fought anyway.

Yes, it was their act of ignorance or whatever they wanted to call it that was one of the many reasons he was glad they were his friends.

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Next Chapter: Him and the boy