The wheel bearings groaned, the chain squealed, the pedals chirped, the fenders rattled as Milton manically pumped his rusty stingray into the hot, dry headwind. The highway hadn't been paved in decades and the pot-holes and desert debris made for an obstacle course Milton negotiated with natural ease as he'd done countless times before only this time his heart beat in a panic and his breath came in gasps. The pedals turned at a furious pace while over the rise he could see the old service station beginning to push up through the desert, distorted in the rippling waves of reflecting heat. He prayed that Old Man Jensen, likely fast asleep in his swivel chair behind the counter, had an auto-drive transformer control unit in stock.

Milton chastised himself repeatedly for bypassing the alarms on the fail systems for the other four backup control units, keeping the powers that be off his back, so he could spend more time typing sweet nothings to his newly proclaimed soul mate hovering in the stratocity twenty-thousand feet above him. After all, he'd reasoned
the protocol was stupid having to replace a backup as soon as one failed. Why have the other four at all? And who is the idiot that designed to rest directly over the final backup unit - the compressor tank - who's malfunctioned bleed-off valve is now leaking water into the sole remaining control unit's circuit housing?

Little relief came as he passed the dilapidated road sign marking one mile until Culver City. His mind wandered to blaming God for unfairly infecting him with the plague that sent the rest of humanity scrambling for the heavens and leaving him now virtually alone with only other carriers, outwardly unfazed by the illness, to eke out a humbling existence on Earth's cheerless surface. Alone to man the broadcast power station that half a million people depend upon to keep them floating in the automated paradise known as Culver Stratocity.

Milton cranked the pedals in reverse, locking the rear wheel and sending him skidding under the station's awning. The stingray crashed into a pillar as he leaped clear of the bicycle long before it came to a natural stop. Milton was through the front door in an instant. Jensen was nowhere to be seen.
“Jensen! Jensen! Where are you?”
Silence.
“JENSEN!” Milton hollered at the top of his lungs. Then came a scratchy, muffled voice from the hall behind the counter.
“Jesus Christ! Hold your horses, boy! I'm takin' a dump!”
“Hurry, please hurry, it's an emergency!” Milton could hear rustling in the restroom and after what seemed like an eternity the crusty, white bearded Old Man Jensen appeared.
“Goddamn it boy if you ain't got the worst damn timing. That's the first movement I've had in a week and I can't even do it in peace!”
“Jensen, I need an auto-drive transformer control unit! Do you have one? Please say you have one!”
“Maybe, how much you got?”
“Whatever you want. I need it NOW!”
“Settle down, Jesus! Alright, it's gonna cost you though. These are hard to come by especially since the cities give these things to you power station drones for free. There's no market for 'em. What'd you do...?
“Never mind I just need it now, now, now.”
“Okay, okay.” Jensen went into the back and returned shortly with what resembled a small toaster.
“You're a lifesaver!” screamed Milton jumping up and down like a giddy schoolboy.
“Glad I could help.”
“I need a favor, Jensen.”
Jensen's eyes narrowed in suspicion, “What're you getting' me into boy?”
“I need you to drive me back to the power station as fast as you can. The beam generator's last control unit is moments from failure.”
Jensen stroked his beard for a of couple seconds, “Well if that's the case then you'd better start peddalin' your ass off, boy, cause right about now I'm jumpin' in my jeep and makin' a b-line for as far away as I can get from here!”
“Jensen, no! I need you!”
“Boy, I ain't gonna be at the epicenter of disaster if that city falls from the sky.” Before the last word passed his lips Jensen was headed for the back door.
“Damn you Jensen!” Milton yelled as he burst out the front.


As Milton neared the power station the usual continuous, electric roar of the skyward beam could be heard wavering dramatically. He was just in time! In one swift movement he leaped from from the stingray while removing the pack from his back and the auto-drive control unit from the pack. Unit in one hand – door knob in the other he made for the interior. Click, click. The door was locked.

“S#%T! The keys, the keys!” Milton fumbled through his pockets without success. “THE KEYS!!!”

He looked through the porthole window in the door and there sitting on the neatly arranged work bench were the keys. “NO GOD NO!”

Milton ran around in the surrounding brush looking for the largest rock he could carry and upon finding a head sized stone ran back to the door where he immediately began slamming it against the glass. The rock bounced off repeatedly without affect. Milton knew it was a fruitless endeavor. The station was built to withstand a bomb blast, but what else was he to do?

At last with his strength sapped he sank to the ground an wept, not in frustration but for Abigail, his reason for being. His hope for an ordinary life was disintegrating with each passing second. Even though he knew deep down it could never be, it was all he had. He turned his head to the permanent, overcast canopy above and said, simply, “I'm sorry.”

There was a loud electric pop, then silence. The beam had stopped.

"The horror. Oh the humanity."