“at the very end, ” mr johnson told dennis, “you will pick up a hitchhiker.”
“oh?” dennis replied.
“yes, at the very end of your trip, the whole object of your trip, just before you get to elko nevada, you will see a hitchhiker. a hitchhiker wearing a brown suit and a gray hat and carrying a green suitcase. you will pick him up and you will deliver the package to him. brown suit, gray hat, green suitcase, can you remember that?”
“yes, sir.”
“if you can’t, it’s on the tablet, which you can keep, along with some other instructions and helpful hints. any questions?”
“what will i eat?”
“we will give you some suitcases full of sandwiches and bottled water. and you might be able to buy food and drinks at some of the gas stations. with the card we will give you to buy the gas or chargeups. that’s another thing - most of these stations wlll be automated but a few of them might be staffed with humans. so we will give you some cash. have you ever used cash before, or seen it?”
“and of course, if you do encounter humans at these places, you won’t tell them where you are going or what you are doing.”
“what will i tell them?”
“nothing, unless they ask. if they do, there will be some suggested stories in the instructions. “
*
dennis left babylon in the limousine the next morning after a night in which he had dreamed for the first time in his life.
he had dreamed he was driving down a road. it was neither light nor dark. he saw a hitchhiker - a young woman with long blonde hair. he woke up before he could pass her.
he had the tablet with the directions and the extra instructions on the seat beside him.
he had checked the glove compartment to make sure the package was in it. he had one suitcase full of sandwches and bottled water and coffee in the back seat, and another in the trunk.
he passed the checkpoints on the outer edge of the city. nobody stopped him. he got a few curious glances from the heavily armed guards. they were there to check people coming in, they did not care if anybody got out. mr johnson had given dennis a pass which he told him he could use to get back in when he returned.
he drove all morning, toward the first gas station on the map, just outside the site of the old city of harrisburg pennsylvania.
the map identified places with names like “youngstown ohio ”. or ‘indianapolis indiana ” or “grand platte nebraska” but of course all those places had long since been abandoned.
dennis drove through the first morning without seeing anything or anybody - no marauders, no lonesome hobos, and no hitchhikers.
there were no people at the stop in harrisburg. just the gas pump which worked smoothly, and a vending machine filled with candy bars and other snacks. dennis got a baby ruth bar out of it just to see if the card, and the machine, worked.
as he left harrisburg he wondered for the first time what was in the package, and why mr johnson was going to so much trouble about it.
but he was not naturally a curious person, and the thought quickly passed.
*
as he approached akron ohio and the sun was going down, he saw his first hitchhiker.
it was, of course, the girl from the dream, with the long blonde hair. she had a red suitcase on the ground beside her.
he could see that she shouted at him as he passed her by, but he could not hear her through the thick walls of the linousine.
*
dennis saw the girl with the long blonde hair - or her twin - again in the middle of the night, just before he got to springfield illinois. the moon was full, and he saw her her clearly. this time she had a black suitcase besude her and was wearing a red beret.
*
he saw the girl again the next morning as he passed by cedar rapids iowa, and again as he entered nebraska . he saw again after nightfall as he approached cheyenne wyoning. each time she was dressed a little differently and had a different suitcase or backpack.
dennis was not fooled. he knew it was not really the same girl, but probably a series of clones, probably wired with bombs, and he did not feel any temptation to pick her up, even though she seemed to shout at him a little more angrily each time he passed her.
*
he decided not to sleep, but to just drive on through and get it over with, using some high caffeine drinks he bought from machines at the gas stations, and some pills he had that he had always used on long shifts back in the parking garage.
*
he had one encounter with what appeared to be a fellow human. a gas station just before grand platte nebraska, which he had a little difficuty finding, was not fully automated , and was run by a little old man with a bald head and nasty eyes.
dennis purchased a couple of “fresh baked” chocolate doughnuts from the little man, using the green cash bills mr johnson had given him.
“it’s awfully quiet out there,” dennis remarked to the old man as he was making change. “and awfully dark and lonely.”
“what! what!” the little old man cried. “did anyone ask your opinion about the night or the highway - or about anything else? you got a big mouth, don’t you, sonny boy? just do your job - get back in the car and do your job!”
end of part two
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