TRP: Epilogue

Somewhere in Eastern Nevada, 2059

[SPOILER="Thread Music"][MEDIA=youtube]nTuyXfAxb-8[/MEDIA][/SPOILER]



10 year-old Billy Tschinnie looked up from the fire, to which he was adding some more pinon branches. He and his classmates from Anthony Mendoza Elementary School had been taken out here for a field trip by their teacher, Mr. Haskie, and he had brought old man, a Hosteen who was a legendary Long Rifle from the Coyote War. They had been hiking for seemingly hours, but they were glad to be back outside the classroom for a change. It was sunset now, and they had stopped here, at the edge of this canyon, to rest for the night and to have dinner. The other children chattered about things they'd seen that day- the massive rattlesnake that his friend Liza had wrangled, the old Coyote head they'd found buried in the sand, the ancient piece of plastic they'd found with the words "E.T. The Extraterrestrial." Nobody knew exactly why they had been taken to this canyon in particular- there were so many back home.



The old man hadn't heard his question, standing further uphill at the apex. His hands were in his pockets, and he was staring at something at the bottom of the canyon.



Billy cleared his throat, theatrically. "Gunny, where is Coyote now?"



Hosteen "Gunny" Nez looked behind him. "Oh!" He exclaimed. "I forgot that part of the story." He squat down to the youngsters, creaking and groaning on his way down. He took a seat next to his granddaughter Aly, who was vociferously munching on a mutton sandwich. She mumbled something, mouth full. He chuckled and tussled her hair.



"When we blew up the core, collapsed the mountain, we saw rocket trails, so many, as far as the eye could see." The children stared at him with intent, their attention positively seized from their dinner. "We thought, well...We thought they were bombs to destroy us, and some of us got very scared...But then they kept going, and going, and going..." He spread out the fingers on his hand, dragging them up from the horizon to the night sky. The children's heads followed. "And then they were gone. From Earth, anyway. The first place they stopped was the moon."



Billy frowned, tilting his head. Billy's best friend, a fierce Hopi girl named Liza Manuelito raised her hand in the air. "The moon?! Why would anybody want to go there?"



Gunny chuckled. "I asked that question too, kid. The scientists said that the rocks on the moon are packed with something called Helium-3. Something Coyote would need to fuel rockets and spaceships." Liza dropped her jaw at the word "spaceship." "Only a few days later the moon had these bright orange cracks all across its surface, glowing all night."



The children all looked at him with incredulity.



"Oh. You were too young for that. Joey might remember." He looked over to Joe Haskie, his godson and their teacher, perched on a boulder.



He nodded, vaguely. "I wasn't much older than you all." He raised a finger to point at the opposite horizon. "You see those lines, all from top to bottom and across? They didn't used to be there. We could see them for, I don't know...two years? Then one day they were gone too."



Liza Manuelito raised her hand again. "You mean they were REALLY gone?"



"Yes, Liza, REALLY gone. But nobody knows exactly where the Machines went.  Somewhere, far away in space. Maybe they went to one of the other planets, or maybe even further. There's billions and billions of stars, more than we could ever count or even see with our own eyes. Which one would you pick?" Mr. Haskie offered a shrug to Liza, and she returned the shrug. In true Navajo fashion, the group sat silently to digest this information...Until Liza butt in once more. "I think they went to Jupiter to get more stupider." The children roared with laughter.



But Billy didn't seem satisfied just yet. Once the laughter had died down, he raised his hand again. "Gunny, what happened to Tech-Com, and your Long Rifles?"



Gunny leaned back, eyes seeming to recall distant people from distant memories. "Well, we all went home. There was a lot of work to do- Tech-Com had to make their own home safe again, just like we did after The Exile, and we had a lot to fix too. After the pulse, a lot of Coyote machines didn't work anymore, so rebuilding took longer for most people.  The Hopi brought water back to the Black Mesa, we learned how to build things and move things without polluting the air. We made sure everyone had food to eat, water to drink, a place to stay. We didn't have much time to think about Coyote anymore, once we knew they weren't coming back. We said goodbye to Tech-Com in Window Rock, and they went home to make their own future too, in the Pacific Commonwealth. Some kept their weapons and stayed soldiers, the others became farmers, scientists, teachers, moms and dads, all sorts of things that they needed to make a better world.  Before Coyote was gone, the only thing you could think about doing was to survive, but after that...You could do anything you wanted."



"What about the Machines Tech-Com freed?"



"Some Machines were left behind, or decided to stay. Tech-Com had freed some, but some had promised to help us if we promised to leave them alone. Remember that story I told you about the Toaster King in the jungle?" The children nodded. "Coyote had made them smarter than the others, able to learn from what they could see. They had become alive, almost like you and me. Like us, but... different, in a way you and I won't understand. They just wanted to be free. What did Hosteen Connor always say?"



"Thmmms nmmm fttt bmt whnt wn mkkkk," Aly exclaimed mid-sandwich. The children all laughed uproariously while she hastily swallowed her food. "There's no fate but what we make," they all said in unison.



Gunny grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Come on, kids, I want to show you something." He rose to his feet, offering his hand to Aly. The class rose to their feet and followed Gunny and Aly up the ridge. "Class, watch your step, and don't get too close to the edge," warned Mr. Haskie, who grabbed his old Hawkeye rifle and slung it on his back. The children muttered among themselves, wondering what might be ahead. Their foosteps pitter-pattered in the dry soil, watching their feet so as not to trip.



As they reached the top of the canyon, they were finally able to look down. A massive facility, almost as large as a city. Lights of all colors dotted the landscape. Bright spotlights shone down on the canyon floor, where they could see workers, trucks and cranes hustling around, assembling a large rocket, the frame mounted to tall orange scaffolding. The children gasped together, staring down at the rocket.



"In a way, kids, Coyote saved us. Until we had almost nothing, we never knew what we could do. They reminded us how important it was that we work together and make things better, together. No more wars, fighting each other, no more walking in darkness. We give everyone an equal chance to live, to breathe, to be free, no matter who they are or where they come from.



"And as to what happened to them, and where they went?"



"Maybe one day we'll find out."