Chapter Text
Alfred F. Jones first awoke to the grit of feldspar sand and the warmth of desert heat.
…And then immediately after, to the excruciating aftershocks typically associated with being turned into a fine red paste on the desert floor.
Alfred hissed and let out a slew of curses as bouts of fiery pain erupted in his temples and down through his spine, violently retracing the points of impact where his body had knitted itself back together. Suddenly, the sun went from pleasant to blindingly bright— enough to burn right through his screwed-shut eyelids and pierce his retinas. The wind too seemed dead under the roaring of blood in his ears, burst and not yet recovered from the fall. Alfred’s only recourse for any of it being a— dignified and not at all super pathetic— curl into his side.
Everything hurt. His muscles ached, and he felt as though his insides had been recently liquefied. His head throbbed with the agony of something akin to multiple hangovers, and delirium nearly convinced him it was divine punishment.
Fuck. How long had it been since he had died like this again? Must’ve been a couple decades at least. He nearly forgot how much he didn’t miss it.
Alfred pressed his forehead firmly into the dirt in some attempt at mock shade and seriously considered burying his face further when it didn’t get him anywhere. The sun was near unbearable, and Jeez, could he have picked a less bright place to die than the fucking Mojave? At this rate, he would have rather killed himself and spared his saboteur the trouble—not that he was planning on saving them from much of anything now.
Grit teeth curled into a furious grin at the reminder. How could he forget? The whole reason he was even in this mess in the first place.
He’d gone flying beforehand; his scrambled brains remembered that at least.
Something, something, Edwards Air Force, a new fighter-bomber he’d been meaning to take for a spin since they’d gotten that contract ratified a few years back. The troops stationed there would love it either way; nothing inspires more patriotism than seeing Mr Liberty himself starring in a one-man air show, and Alfred had been itching to go supersonic since the last time he’d been cleared.
He was pretty confident he'd gotten into the craft. It'd been pre-flighted, but a healthy dose of paranoia had Alfred going through pre-engine, anyway. Inspecting the pins and checking the avionics, the full nine yards, really, but he was the best in the business for a reason.
‘Service testing,’ he remembers being told, not that it mattered to him. Just an impromptu demonstration of the shit they’d already proved in the altitude chambers. That’s about where things got fuzzy.
Then what?
Then Air Command gave him the go-ahead
Then he made a joke about hightailing it to Vegas instead
And then he was inexplicably outside the aircraft…
... plummeting to his death.
Fantastic.
God, hadn’t he left this shit behind in the 60s? He swore if this was Braginsky still trying to fuck with him for the whole Cold War thing, there would be words exchanged next summit, World War III be damned.
Another flare of white-hot agony raced down his spine and settled in his dorsal. Alfred yelped as his arm buckled, and within seconds he lost balance and was spitting up sand.
Yeah, words would fly, alright.
He was going to find whoever tampered with the aircraft, who was responsible for the slip past his security— who let either of them within a hundred-mile radius of US military infrastructure. Come hell or high water, he was going to smoke them out of their hidey-holes and into the spotlight. And when he did, so help him God, because Alfred was not in a merciful mood.
Unfortunately for him, all that would have to come later. All he could do now was grin and bear it until the worst of it passed and soothe himself with visions of the economic nightmare he was going to dump in retaliation. Probably in Europe, he usually did that in Europe.
By the time Alfred’s ears stopped ringing and the worst of the pain subsided, he had dug long grooves into the ground and thoroughly ruined his pair of flight gloves— not that they were in great condition after the fall, anyway. There was still an unfortunate amount of sand in his teeth and a persistent tremor in leg, but Alfred only collapsed in relief when those things registered actual sensation, not drowned out by agony.
Right… the here and now. That’s all that mattered for the moment, all that was worth focusing on. Reprisal could come after he dealt with the current situation.
Instead of getting up or doing anything even remotely productive, Alfred flopped onto his back. Yup. That was the Mojave, alright. Sweet, sweet California sun; he could already feel the incoming burn cooking his skin. At least he’d have the fortune of tanning afterwards. He dragged a hand down his face, bracing himself for the crust of dried blood and viscera that would no doubt come off on his gloves. To his surprise though, he didn’t bring back anything other than sand.
He frowned. That couldn’t be right.
But no, as he glanced down and took stock of his clothes, the only things he could find were smudges of dirt on his flight suit. Even the bomber jacket he’d worn for posterity's sake was conspicuously absent of gore. By all accounts, he seemed… clear?
That was weird. Alfred was pretty damn sure he’d died; he definitely felt like he did. He fell out of a plane; immortal nation or not, people usually didn’t survive stuff like that. Oh well, it meant he wasn’t going to have to be picked up looking like a zombie at least, or an axe murderer, or an axe murder victim, or— you get the picture. He was going to take his luck where he could get it.
Incidentally, Alfred was pleased to find his glasses had miraculously survived mostly intact, aside from a hairline fracture in the right lens (which he instantly found infuriating). His once pristine Randolf case had taken most of the beating, but its singed edges were a worthy sacrifice if it meant he wouldn’t be stumbling around half blind in the desert.
Speaking of which…
Alfred shakily stood up, which took a frankly embarrassing amount of attempts to get right. His body clearly hadn't finished recovering because his left leg refused to do its job, which sucked because it hurt like hell every time he wiped out. At least he got to fall flat on his ass in peace this time— if being shipwrecked in the American outback was good for anything it was the isolation. Back when this would happen in the force, he’d never hear the end of it. Came with the perks of being the only one who could fuck hooking his static line and not die of the consequences— at least not permanently.
Once he was done stumbling around like a newborn fawn down several shots, (the difference between the newborn fawn was more stable.) Alfred got to work on figuring out where he was. His surroundings didn’t exactly give him much to work with. Nothing but sand, shrubbery and the suggestion of mountains in the distance, all painted in vibrant shades of brown and beige. That was an apt description of anything west of the dust bowl, so it was back to relying on his intended flight path for direction.
It was strange; usually he had a pretty impeccable land sense. He'd been coast to coast more times than he could count. Typically he had an intuitive enough grasp to just ‘feel where he was’, so to speak. But for some reason, whenever he tried, he’d come up strangely blank. It was like there was something obnoxiously slotted between himself and the earth, and it wasn’t budging no matter how much he pushed it. Guess the fall must’ve scrambled his brains more than he thought. Great.
Alfred patted himself down, cringing when his hand made painful contact with broken glass.
Ah Shit, His phone.
He hadn’t expected it survived, but he’d been cautiously optimistic. Clearly, that was misplaced. He hesitantly fished it out of his back pocket, feeling his faint hope dwindle more when he got a hold on the meager strips of rubber left of his so-called indestructible case. ‘Premium protection’ his ass, Alfred had spent good money on that thing, and a glasses case made of overpriced leather had beaten it. Oh well, probably what the impulse purchase warranted.
After spending a considerable amount of effort dislodging the parts that got snagged on his jeans (read: he now has glass in his ass) it’d been made clear the thing was complete junk if not even somehow more worthless. He'd only managed to grab a good 60% percent of his phone, the rest in pieces that presumably wound up in the contents of his back pocket. The thing looked like it’d been detonated, (and boy did he hate what that implied.)
Alfred tossed the heap of scrap somewhere off to the side, littering be damned. Bomb or not He wasn’t about to carry around a useless chunk of metal across the desert, especially if it did nothing but cause him pain and weigh him down. He’d donate to a charity or something when he was in a better mood.
Alfred sighed and wiped the grime off his brow. Maybe burying his face in the dirt wasn’t a good idea after all. so, calling for help was a bust. That was fine.
He expected that would’ve happened. He literally fell out of a plane. Didn’t sting any less, though.
He dusted himself off, frowning slightly at the small cloud it created.
It’s not like he needs someone to come rescue him anyway, he’s literally Mr America himself. The Alfred F. Jones! He could make his own way through the Mojave Desert— he practically owned the place!— How hard could it be?
As it turns out, wandering the desert on foot was easier said than done.
Not to say it was actually strenuous or even hard, It’s just that the last time Alfred found himself stranded in the American frontier, he’d been on horseback, armed with a Colt SAA, and an attention span a good 150 years younger. Suffice to say boredom wasn’t a big concern.
But this? Shoveling sand into his boots and kicking at stones to pass the time? This was tedium at its finest. Only now, with the full force of the sun bearing down on him and a gradual accumulation of sweat that made the dust stick to his skin. At least the Wild West brought an actual sense of danger to isolation. Right now the only threat Alfred was facing was the verbal beating he was bound to get from his boss. This stunt wasn’t anything more exciting than an extremely annoying detour by an extremely immortal office worker.
Fuck, when did he get so boring? Must’ve been sometime last century, probably when he started getting back along with Arthur.
Because instead of any dramatic escapes or unexpected shootouts, Alfred had taken some time to watch the shadows, got tired after a bit, and then, once he cemented what he was pretty sure was east and west, picked a cardinal direction and started walking. Real exciting stuff.
In theory, he knew that waiting for rescue was his best shot if he wanted to be back in his Washington townhouse by tonight. But if it had been long enough for him to make a (mostly) full recovery from some hundred-million g’s of direct impact, then administration probably wasn’t in the business of finding him anytime soon.
He rolled his eyes. Bureaucracy at its best, clearly. He was a world hegemon, the world hegemon in fact, and they were expecting him to walk himself back because what? The rescue crews here were all too busy? Please. It’s not like recovering from being liquidated was time-consuming or anything.
Clearly the man upstairs agreed with him because after God knows how long of scowling at rocks and sand biting his skin every time so much as a light breeze passed through, Alfred eventually stumbled on a road.
Or rather, what might’ve been a road, because geez, where was the infrastructure budget in this state going?
The stretch of asphalt was more potholes than anything drivable, and as he examined further, he found little evidence to suggest it had been operational for some time. In fact, the more he looked in the distance, the more it seemed like the damn thing had been victim to an earthquake then a decommissioning, and a violent one at that.
Alfred blinked, as if the entire thing were a mirage squinting would stave off.
That was… weird.
Like, really weird.
He gingerly scratched his neck. Just where exactly did he end up?
Despite every strange thing that had happened to him that day—which there were a lot of— (getting chucked out of a plane, flattened and subsequently baked into the sand came to mind.) this actually might’ve taken the cake.
Of course, it would be just his luck that the only road he’d come across in some hours of walking was the single one devoid of cars in the entire state of California. Never mind the fact that it looked as though it’d collapse if one so much as drove on it.
God, he needed a drink.
…and probably a map as well.
After several minutes of deliberation that boiled down to the somewhat crushing reality that he had no real options, Alfred decided to just… start walking. With only two directions, he picked the one most likely east, being fairly positive he was closer to Nevada than 29 palms, anyway. (it had nothing to do with the fact that, strolling back to base after crashing a fighter jet would be really really embarrassing and not something he wanted to confront any of his handlers about.)
It was a bit of a gamble that it would connect to anything, but if calling and hitchhiking were both off the table, he would just have to settle for the next best thing.
As long as he could find someone willing to take him to the city, he could get picked up from there. Or better yet, if he could find someone with a working phone, he could just call a ride over. As luck would have it though, he hadn’t seen a single cell tower since he started walking— of course leave it to him to get himself stranded in America's biggest dead zone.
Alfred shook his head. Guess he wasn’t lying about high-tailing it to Vegas after all.
He didn’t even care about the earful he’d receive back in Washington. If Administration wanted him back, then maybe they should’ve considered that before abandoning him in the desert.
Briefly, Alfred flirted with the idea of trying to locate the crash site. If he'd landed near the cabin of the craft, he might’ve been able to get something workable out of the ELT, but that was pretty much a pipe dream. He had yet to come across any parts of the X-59 wreckage so far, and if he couldn’t find his ejection seat— the thing his ass was on — then there was no telling where the locator had ended up.
Alfred huffed, kicking a rock further down the pavement in what had since become his only source of entertainment. The jet was probably scattered across a hundred miles of desert anyways, that kind of thing happened when an aircraft exploded out of the sky. Even if he didn’t remember much of the actual incident, Alfred knew better than anyone that there were about a hundred different ways to get taken out in the air. But, unless he somehow missed a J-20 in his periphery, his leading theory was sabotage.
A lopsided smile wormed its way onto his face. He was still a little too angry to pass for incredulous, but that didn’t matter without an audience to tell him what he already knew.
sabotage.
Fucking sabotage.
If he wasn’t so furious he could’ve laughed, When’s the last time that happened to him? World War II!? It not even like he was out infringing on foreign airspace! This wasn’t the U-2, he was flying his happy ass over the Great Basin and still—
and still—
Alfred stopped walking for a moment, dragging a hand through his messy blonde mop, now significantly sandier than he remembered. He took a breath, and forced his jaw to relax.
Holy hell, he needed a break, and now a shower along with it.
Bullshit like this didn’t happen to other national personas. Hell, most of them had taken a backseat to positions of political authority in recent years. They could make all the public appearances they wanted, but Alfred knew he was one of the few still willing to get his hands dirty.
It was what he’d become known for in a way. Alfred F. Jones; the United States. Still willing to stay when it mattered. Still willing to make the tough choices when others wouldn’t. Still willing to do the right thing for his people, even if they couldn’t see it and besmirched his name through the mud instead. And where did it get him? Blown to kingdom come on the one good day he was supposed to get that month. No one else had to put up with that, just him.
He looked towards the horizon, sun stubbornly cheerful as it always was in this neck of the woods. It was quiet out here, in a way his land just hadn’t been since electricity connected his coasts.
Alfred suddenly felt strangely off. Not emotional necessarily, just spent.
It hadn’t always been this way, had it? He used to be land of the free for a reason; back then it applied to him just as much as any citizen. When the European powers were up to their necks in imperialism and nationalist policies, Alfred had left the stuffy waistcoat behind and been out here. Boots on the ground, dutifully marching west.
To be honest, he couldn't recall when exactly he’d traded the thrill of spurs and six-shooters for years behind buttons and nuclear codes. If it had even been a decision he’d made, or just one of those steady changes that went unnoticed until he could no longer ignore it, but shit if he didn’t miss it. Don’t get him wrong, missiles and foreign colluding had made him the strongest player his side of the Pacific— the world even, despite some 30 years passing since the Cold War. But globalization had practically uprooted the non-interventionism he once preached, and each new generation had him buckling under its pressure further.
It was all the crushing weight he’d once been exempt from, now returned full force, but he’d asked for it, hadn’t he? He warranted the expectations, the presumptions, and the confidence that he’d still pull through, was deserved for a reason. And yet… with the recent policy shifts, Alfred was at a loss.
Alfred shifted, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin, a recent development he couldn’t quite shake. Thinking It felt like a betrayal of everything he’d worked for, a betrayal of what thousands of people worked for but really… was it so wrong of him to just…?
The horizon stayed stark, a brown smudge against the brilliant blue, just as it had been a century before. Nothing out there answered his question but the wind.
Alfred sighed. …God. What was he even doing?
A fighter jet malfunction might’ve just landed him his most gruesome death in years and all he could say about it was he wished to be invisible. Empires had risen and fallen in the time it took the Spaniards to reach his continent, and they sure as hell didn’t collapse because one guy got the hit on them.
Something really was up with him lately, Now more so than usual. This was beyond him—below him, even,— uncharacteristic and otherwise ridiculous. That last death must’ve gotten under his skin more than he thought, and it was tripping him up because of it.
Yes, That’s all that this was, a momentary weakness. Going non-stop was his prerogative last century and it would continue to be his prerogative this century, nothing was going to change that, least of all some nosy therapist he’d get saddled with— or god forbid a psychiatrist.
He was fine.
Everything was fine.
He’d get back to Washington and leave this behind him, then, once he was done complaining to his handlers, he could focus on finding the culprit and correct this mistake. Because that’s all this was, a mistake.
With a harsher set of his jaw, Alfred turned and kept walking.
His first real clue something was off came hours later. Not that he hadn’t been aware things were off beforehand, but anyone rational would’ve found excuses, and Alfred was quickly exhausting those.
It started pretty innocuously, just a broken-down car on the side of the road. In theory, it should’ve made complete sense: the road was abandoned, thus the car would be as well. Except as he neared he couldn’t help but catalogue the discrepancies.
The pale mint, the panoramic windshields, the fender skirts— and were those whitewall tires?
Alfred paused for a moment to get a better look once he was close enough. He didn’t recognize the make and model but he could tell an American car when he saw it. Either someone had an eclectic taste for the 50s, or this thing had been left outside for quite some time. Judging by the aging and the way it looked like the thing had been literally taken apart for scraps, he was inclined to say it was the latter.
(He winced when he got a peak into the interior. The thing really had been gutted)
Alfred shrugged, designated it as a one off, admittedly the most interesting ‘one off’ to happen to him in literal hours, but a one off none the less. It was a broken down car on the side of a broken down road, real revolutionary stuff. sue him if he didn’t think much of it.
That was until he came across the second.
And then the third.
And then the fourth, fifth and sixth after that, all with the same jet age bodywork attributed to the fifties.
he scratched his neck, electing to give up on counting once he passed enough cars to get him firmly in the double digits. Just what the hell did he stumble on? A scrapyard? Just out in the road for some reason? He didn’t recognize half of these vehicles and he had literally been around for the atomic age! Heck, there were several times had to do a double take when he was sure he passed what could have only been concept cars with the level of outlandish design on display.
Alfred ran his fingers along the fender of some strange approximation of a Chevrolet Corvette. Even for the fifties it would’ve been hard to justify these things as road safe.
He frowned. Something was off here.
Something was off since he woke up actually, but this was too many coincidences for him to dismiss as chance.
He wasn’t kidnapped, or if he was, then whoever had tried had done a botched job seeing how they couldn’t even get him out of the country. He didn’t think this would be the end goal of some conspiracy, (he was legally non-partisan) and sure he was a public figure, but there were better ways to get him to disappear than to explode the plane he was flying in.
Intuition told him it wasn’t mere coincidence, but the more he thought about it the more he couldn’t rule out a technical malfunction. That was the whole point of a test flight after all, to see what the hardware could withstand. It was part of the reason Alfred even agreed to participate, that way some poor bastard wouldn’t have to be scrapped off the ground in his place. That didn’t clarify anything about
Even still. He tried to push down the inherent feeling of wrongness that had set in, even as he passed by toppled billboards with adverts he couldn’t remember and useless telephone poles that hung with rusted cables. There was a logical explanation for this, Alfred was sure. He just didn’t think he was going to like whatever it was.
The cars at least made for a welcome change in scenery, even if they were unnerving. He would be lying if he said looking at sand for hours was an exciting use of his time, not that walking through a junkyard was any more entertaining, but Alfred was at the point where he’d take anything so long as it wasn’t beige.
He started playing a game with them as well, seeing if he could spot the manufacturer at a distance. He failed an embarrassing amount more than he would’ve liked to admit— due to the rust obviously— but it at least kept him occupied.
Alfred squinted, That one there was definitely a Buick, and the one behind it looked like someone had done something to an old Chrysler.
He thought he recognized one of them from a magazine article he saw god knows how long ago, either Hudson or Nash— he never could tell the two apart
He passed by what he was decently certain was a ford only for him to come up blank when he saw the actual logo (what the hell was a Corvega?) and decided it counted anyway out of spite.
There were a couple others he didn’t recognize but the one by the weird silhouette was probably—
Hang on, weird silhouette— Was that another person!?
Sure enough emerging from behind a rusted chassis and trudging along the same beaten up asphalt path, was an honest to god human being. The first Alfred had seen in hours.
He froze up in shock for a moment, blinking a couple of times to make sure it was real. He knew the heat could do strange things to one’s perception, and with his recent track record, hallucinating a whole person wasn’t as far-fetched as he would’ve hoped. But no. As their silhouette sharpened and their tattered duster fluttered in the breeze, Alfred realized it wasn’t some trick of the light or strange cast shadow; there was really someone there. Genuine flesh and blood stranded in the Mojave, with him.
About a dozen different emotions flashed through him, but the biggest was undoubtedly relief. A wide smile broke out across his features. He couldn’t believe his luck.
Finally,
He could get the fuck out of here.
Against his better judgment, (and because he really wanted to get this whole thing over with) Alfred raced forward, and just as quickly halted when he saw the figure tense up at his approach. Ah, right. Stranded in the desert or not it was probably considered poor form and run at strangers, wasn’t it? Alfred raised his hands in the universal ‘I come in peace’ gesture and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when it seemed to work. The last thing he needed was to scare off his best shot at salvation— no amount of charisma was going to save him from that.
The person, upon approaching, looked to be an older woman in her late thirties or forties. Just as the road and the cars her clothes were worse for wear, but Alfred probably wasn’t much better himself after trekking through the desert.
Not that he was complaining, at this rate he would’ve taken anyone willing to crawl out to the ass crack of nowhere.
For the first time in a while he didn’t need to force an ounce of enthusiasm into his voice, to his surprise the delighted laughter was completely genuine. “Oh man— you have no idea how happy I am to see a friendly face! let me tell you—you would not believe the day I've had,"
As was to be expected of someone caught alone in the Mojave, Alfred could immediately tell she wasn’t exactly the friendly type. He wilted a little when he caught sight of a mouth drawn taut in a scowl and a hand that lingered protectively over her bag.
She appeared to take a moment to think before stiffly closing the gap. Cautiously, she raised a sceptical brow and looked him up and down, assessing. “Funny. Didn’t think I looked particularly inviting. You armed?”
Alfred quirked a brow. “Not at the moment.” Unfortunately— or fortunately, he’d left his beloved Colt .45 behind in Washington, the right move considering if he hadn't it’d be junk on the desert floor. “That an issue?”
“Not for me, it isn't.”
His smile dimmed. “Do you, like, mean that as a threat?” He chuckled, “Because that sounds kinda like a threat.”
She shrugged, “Depends if you’re planning to pull something or not.”
Alfred stopped suddenly, the remainder of his enthusiasm quickly dissolving. He was in no mood to die out in the desert a second time, but he wouldn’t put it past the one person he came across to just so happen to be a serial killer. It would be just his luck.
“Are you?” He asked, incredulous enough to keep the edge out of his tone.
“Armed? Would be pretty stupid not to be out here”
“No, I mean, are you going to pull something… on me.” That at least got a reaction.
Alfred thought it was a little unfair that her eyes widened a fraction, as if she were actually somewhat insulted by his insinuation. “What? Christ, kid, no. It’s a warning, not a damn accusation.”
sure could’ve fooled him, Alfred inwardly scoffed. The honeymoon phase lasted all of five seconds, a record for him.
“Believe what you will but I’m not in the business of attacking unprovoked.” She huffed. “These roads aren’t all that, ‘specially not if you’re out alone, better safe than sorry is all.”
There was a hint of something in there that spoke a bit too loudly of experience for Alfred’s taste. “That’s not very reassuring coming from someone also out alone on the road.” He pointed out,
the woman only shook her head like Alfred had told her something funny.
“I'm a courier, kid” She tapped the little white patch on her shoulder like it somehow absolved her of suspicion. To her credit, it at least read ‘Mojave Express’, which was more than he could say for the faded logo on her jacket. “Contractors don’t tend to hire people who’ll run off with the cargo. Makes for bad business."
Great. So this woman was either crazy or ferrying illicit drugs. Alfred didn’t know which he preferred.
“Right, Miss Mailman, then. Not going to hurt me. Glad we got that sorted.”
She scoffed. “Ditto.”
Alfred rocked back on his heels, unsure where to take this. Irritatingly, his usual boyish shtick wasn’t getting him much headway. he didn’t think he was that out of practice.
“So… what brings someone like you out here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“The usual rounds, what else you think?”
“Wandering alone in the desert is ‘the usual rounds'?"
She sighed, as if repeating this particular point was some tremendous waste of time. It reminded him a little bitterly of his current head honcho “I’m just doing my job, kid. not itching to bite you. If I did, we wouldn't be having this chat, alright?”
Alfred’s smile grew a little sharp.
“Now, you need something, or ‘didya just pull me over to yammer?” She glared, subtly shifting her bag beside her. “Because if so, I’m not in the business of small talk.”
He cleared his throat to disguise the incredulous laugh. He could've guessed as much.
“About that… I had a bit of a favor to ask of you if you don’t mind.”
Her eyes hardened, although they had never exactly been soft to begin with.
“Unless it’s directions, I don’t give handouts,”
Alfred sputtered. Handouts!? What was her issue?!
“I’m not asking for—!“ Alfred bit the inside of his mouth hard enough to draw blood, willing himself to shut up and rethink before letting himself go further. He took a deep breath and pointedly ignored her expression. Right, diplomacy first.
“I think,” he all but hissed, “you’ve got the wrong impression.”
She raised a brow, “Do I now?”
“I’m not looking for much; I just want…” a bit of sympathy, “to borrow your phone for a moment,” he said. “I promise I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I make a few calls.”
The stranger didn’t give him a response, (Alfred wasn't sure why he was expecting anything else). Instead, her face went impressively blank and Alfred feared a hard restart— because no human acted like this—until whatever internal dialogue came up empty.
Her expression was pinched, as if she couldn’t decide to be more confused or astounded. “Sorry, Come again?”
“Your phone.” He grit out, “Can I use it?”
She glanced between him and the desert several times as if she was having a physical problem conflating the two.
“…Think I’m missing something here, kid. You're askin’ to… what exactly?”
God, was everything in the world conspiring against him today? How was this possibly being misconstrued? He was literally making things as clear as he could; at some point, the onus was on her. Still, Alfred slipped into an easygoing smile and dulled his irritation into something more manageable. Seems they were going to do this the long way. Charming.
Alfred channeled his best customer service voice, the one he saved for especially dense constituents, and tried to keep his tone level. “Don’t know if it’s news to you, but I’m pretty lost.” He motioned to the empty highway like the scrapyard they were stuck in didn’t prove it well enough. “If you’ve got cell service out here, I’d really appreciate making a few calls, just to get my pickup in order.“
He had at least a dozen numbers he could call for this sort of thing, which, depending on how you looked at it, said more about his irresponsible tendencies than those of his handlers. Good thing at least someone in Washington learned to keep their phone on them.
An uncomfortable thought crossed his mind.
“You do have one, right? A phone?”
There was another beat of uncomfortable silence, long enough for him to start feeling apprehensive. The realization dawned when she didn’t answer. “…You don’t. Do you?”
“No, kid.” She said slowly, with the barest hint of mirth, “I’m afraid not.”
Despite the heat, Alfred could’ve sworn his veins turned to ice. God fucking damn it.
Screw anything Alfred has ever said about God being on his side. This really was divine punishment. Because of course, of course, the one person he's come across— in literal hours, mind you— didn’t have a smartphone. No, no, that would just be too easy, wouldn’t it?
Alfred realized embarrassingly late that he was stood just gaping at the woman, and even more mortifying, she was getting a kick out of it. He shut his mouth with an audible click, face hot, either from heatstroke, sunburn, or most likely, pure frustration.
If he didn’t wholeheartedly believe that the crazy mail woman alone in the desert was without a phone, he’d probably be going through her bag right now, forcefully.
“Okay, great. That’s— that’s awesome.” He choked out, fists balled tight by his sides, enough to feel the crescent-shaped indents forming. “You don’t have a phone. Cool. Fantastic, even.”
“Sounds like it.” She mused.
Alfred was this close to ripping his hair out.
“That's… really helpful. Thanks.”
“Glad to be of service.” She said, bemused, now somehow in the best mood Alfred had seen her in, which did little to quell his frustration. “Now, was that all you needed?”
Alfred couldn’t even muster the strength for a response. All he needed? All he needed!? He was in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, stranded in the Mojave Desert, on a highway determined to take him in circles! What Alfred needed right now was someone with a functioning brain— not whatever this was.
Distantly he registered his company shifting impatiently from foot to foot. Alfred couldn’t help feeling some petty satisfaction in it. Any discomfort on her end was a fraction of what he was feeling, and that was about as far as solace went.
The woman, who Alfred was really getting sick of, gave up after 30 odd seconds. She quit drumming her fingers on her satchel, and cleared her throat.
“Better keep a move on then,” she nodded stiffly, airing on the edge of impolite, not that threatening him with armed assault had convinced him she was curtious. “Not interested in wasting time, I’ve got places to be.”
It was only once Alfred felt her walk past— at a brisk pace he’d abandoned hours back— that he finally found words again. Unfortunately they weren’t the most helpful ones.
“Wait, what do you mean places to be!? And you’re just walking to them!?”
She scoffed but didn’t otherwise turn around. “I'll be sure to fly next time. Have a good day.”
“Wait, don’t—“
Alfred clenched his jaw, forcing down his ego, if only for a second. Insane lady or not this was still his best shot at getting out of here, and he wasn’t exactly stoked about spending the night in the desert.
“Okay, look, I’m sorry. I know I came on a little strong—"
“—Oh, really?—”
“—But I’m seriously in need of some directions”
She spun around, irked he was still following. “Directions? on a straight road?”
Heat rose to his cheeks. God, why was this so much harder than it needed to be? "I know it sounds weird, but it’s the truth.”
The woman eyed him under choppy bangs. Alfred recognized a threat assessment when he saw it, but unlike before, this one felt more geared towards crackheads, psych patients, and other types the public were told bite when agitated. He felt the heat rise further.
Good to know he graduated from unpredictable to unstable.
“…You’re not from around here, are you?” She hesitantly asked
Alfred barked out something between a laugh and a groan. Took her that long, huh? “Lady, I'd love to know where ‘here’ even is.”
She looked unconvinced.
He hung his head, irritation giving way to exhaustion in what was becoming a common theme. Fine, whatever, she didn't need to believe him anyways, just so long as she didn't flat out ditch him out here with nothing.
“Please just… at least point me the right way.”
She stopped for a moment, lips pursed, thinking. He waited out the internal debate— not like he had much else going on, anyway. It was somewhat interesting, the survivalist instinct to keep her eyes down butting heads with her (extremely meager) altruism. He could practically see her weighing the pros and cons in real time. Alfred hazarded a guess most of which came down to if he was planning to head in her direction.
Alfred bit his lip, trying not to draw too much attention. It was best not to linger on the fact that his immediate future was up to the whims of some insane lady whose name he didn’t know.
With a burdened sigh she turned to the road, gaze tracing the way it disappeared into the horizon. Alfred could relate to that at least, if it wasn’t for the recent car pile up the road would’ve looked identical to when he started. Who knew wandering aimlessly could be so taxing.
Eventually she shook her head in defeat, and Alfred risked the faint spark of hope that swelled
“There’s a ranger outpost up ahead, back the way I came—same way you’re headed now—” she gave a sharp nod east. Alfred followed her gaze behind him, now with a renewed interest. “follow the route and you can’t miss it.”
Outpost—a ranger station— Alfred could’ve wept. He was in Death Valley. After two and a half hours of walking, and he was somewhere in Death Valley National Park. Everything clicked, the shitty roads— had they ever finished those repairs from the hurricane season? The car pile-up— another bizarre art piece added to the collection. The isolation, the empty horizon, even the woman in front of him was explainable.
The wave of sheer relief had him near breathless. Alfred slumped, suddenly feeling the lightest he had in hours. It was impressive how abruptly the world went from sketchy to mundane, he honestly felt a little ridiculous for ever considering otherwise.
God bless the park ranger service; some poor bastard was about to have the most confusing day of their life. Alfred tried to imagine holding up in a dinky little cabin one moment and being swarmed by secret service the next. He’d have to order a fruit basket once he got back.
“Outpost, got it.” he affirmed, nearly giddy, much to the crazy lady’s chagrin “Quick question, how will I know when I see it?”
She rolled her eyes “If the chain link doesn’t give it away, then the ten-foot statue will,” she huffed, like that was somehow arbitrary information. “You can figure the rest from there.”
Ten-foot statue— a monument or memorial, Alfred realized after a beat. Death Valley was filled with those, visual landmarks to offer some sense of direction. It was kind of surprising he hadn’t run into one already, really what were the chances?
“Thank you.” He said, sincere for what might have been the first time in conversing with the woman. He had a lead, and a destination, Washington seemed more and more feasible by the minute. “Seriously— you have no idea how helpful this is.”
She muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘all I told you was to keep walking straight’ before apparently thinking better of it “Sure kid, glad to help,” she said, sounding not remotely happy to have done so. “so long as you promise to bother them and not me.”
Alfred laughed in spite of himself, “Of course! I said I’d be out of your hair didn't I?” He started idling back as if to prove it. He was approaching that point where he’d exhausted all her goodwill anyways— not that he likely had much to begin with, and there was no use in burning daylight, especially since sleeping in the desert was out of the question.
“Lets hope it stays that way”
“You bet! I’ll see you around then”
“Sure thing kid, just…” for a moment, she seemed almost pensive, at least more contemplative than Alfred had seen her. as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. “Just— stay frosty, would you?” She asked, surprisingly genuine.
Alfred stopped for a moment, small smile rising to his lips. For all her posturing it seems his boyish act had endeared her after all. Who knew?
“I make no promises.”
With that Alfred turned eastward, now with more enthusiasm than he had felt in hours. chucking under his breath at the exasperated sigh behind him and the footsteps retreating into the distance.
Maybe his luck was finally turning around.