Chapter 43: Homer X Barack

Homer dashed back to the car as quickly as possible. Homer hadn't wanted to keep it so far away but couldn't risk Jerry Shankar noticing Homer's presence and making a run for it. Once more, assumptions on Homer's part were ruinous in preposterous obnoxious ways. Homer realized now that Shankar wasn't hiding, that Shankar was, indeed, deliberately provoking them to action. If Shankar had been willing to tell Homer the hideaway's location like that, then there was no doubt in Homer's mind that Shankar either already had or was about to provide a clue to the rest of the Rainbow Shirts to the same effect- with suitably disastrous consequences. Homer had to warn them.

Unfortunately, it had already gotten so dark by the time Homer got back to the car's hiding place that Homer couldn't much see it anymore. That was the first delay. The second, far less predictable one was that the car's battery was dead. This particular development was so preposterous that Homer had trouble processing it at first. Homer's car ran entirely on high-capacity batteries that were integrated with all the vehicle's internal electrical systems. It shouldn't have been possible for the car's battery to die. Emergency shutdown procedures would have been initiated if any problems had been detected.

Homer tried to banish these thoughts. How, exactly, the batteries had failed was not terribly relevant. Homer needed a back-up plan. Homer needed to get to Barack Worthington, and fast. But how?

Homer spent several minutes in ponderous silence trying to make sense of the limited tools available. Homer had weapons, and a fairly precise idea of location, being at Storm Lake. Homer knew that Barack was staying at a seedy hotel at the Eastern edge of Des Moines. Both of these locations had physical points which Homer had memorized and backed up digitally via augments. Which meant that...

Homer started running. Homer needed to know exactly where the car was relative to Storm Lake. Upon determining that the current trajectory risked collision against trees, Homer then performed overexertions trying to move the vehicle just far away enough that there was a clear path to the hotel. Survival and emergency equipment had never been a strong suit of the Rainbow Shirts, since there were usually functionally unlimited supplies they could call on. But they always had plenty of weapons. And weapons could cause explosions.

The bomb was actually the easiest part of the get-up to hotwire. The real problem was trying to figure out how to make a shield powerful enough that the explosion would move that shield instead of simply destroying it. Homer settled on using the car doors. These, again, had to be physically mangled using only the overclocked aspects of Homer's augmented body. Even with these, physically tearing a supposedly indestructible door off of its hinges took a lot out of Homer's stamina. The first two doors were so badly wrecked in this process that Homer couldn't use them as shields. Homer was just barely able to curl the third door into a somewhat usable shape. Homer was grateful for having made the bomb first. The most likely irreparable damage to Homer's hands made fine movements impossible. This was quite the sacrifice but Homer's horrible premonition about the situation was such that Homer would have gladly have made the ultimate sacrifice to deliver this message.

It then dawned upon Homer that in the event of death before arrival, it was necessary to crudely write the phrase "no hit school" by physically carving the message onto Homer's own body with a giant piece of metal. Homer scrawled the same message into the shield, but Homer was less confident that the shield would survive deformation from the trip. There was also the matter of how it probably would not occur to Barack to look for a secret message on Homer's shield, which could easily end up landing in a very different location entirely. Homer was prepared to make mid-air adjustments and jump if necessary. Homer was tracking the positioning through a locally created grid in the operating system, nervously writing down any random factor or odd piece of trigonometry that could change the landing spot as necessary. Once in the air, Homer would have to make far too many calculations too quickly to allow for any room for error.

When all the preparations were finished, Homer surveyed the creation. The flamethrower would ignite the battery, which was under the remains of the car. The shield was on the roof. Homer was on top of the shield. If these calculations were correct, the blast would carry Homer approximately three hundred kilometers. Assuming Homer survived the trip, limping to the hotel was a possibility. And if not, the noise would no doubt alert Barack into action.

"OK," Homer said, lighting the fuse. "Let's do this."

Homer woke up, quite surprised, not having expected the plan was actually going to work, but from the rough calculations Homer had only missed the motel by a few kilometers. This was fortunate. Barack would arrive soon.

It was only then that Homer noticed the preponderance of battering and blood, and also that Homer was surrounded by burning trees. Fortunately the air moisture was think enough, and the surrounding forest thin enough, that Homer did not consider an ecological disaster to be terribly likely. But as the area around Homer started to lose oxygen, Homer started to consider moving to a new location.

The problem was, that Homer clearly was not strong enough to get to the motel completely unaided. And if Homer went too far away from the fire, Barack was unlikely to make contact. Homer also started to ponder just how serious the physical damage had been, and started to slowly resensitize the pain settings. Even at ten percent the damage was excruciating, so Homer dialed it back down to five percent. Homer wanted to avoid provoking self-preservation instincts too much. It was just very difficult for Homer to calculate the relative success of every individual move, particularly when contrasted with a negative outcome as horrific as the destruction of the Rainbow Shirts writ large.

Given all of this it was quite lucky for Homer's sake that Barack was on the scene relatively quickly, before Homer had gone entirely delirious from these calculations. Homer attempted to smile in gratitude but Barack's expression was so loaded with horror that Homer quickly wished the attempt hadn't been made.

"How did you...?" winced Barack. "I didn't even know it was possible to only give half a smile! Are you having a stroke?"

"No hit school!" Homer said. Or at least, that's what Homer thought had been said. Barack just gave Homer a quizzical expression.

"Look, uh," said Barack, "maybe I should get you out of here. Please stop talking for now."

With that Barack hoisted Homer upon Barack's own back and, trying to avoid moving Homer's body as much as possible, exited the forest as quickly as possible, laying Homer down in the previous proximate position nearby.

"No hit school!" Homer cried out feebly.

"Right, uh," said Barack, scratching his head. "I can't understand you. I think you need to go to sleep, Homer. I imagine the self-repair will fix you eventually but you really have to start right now."

Homer stubbornly pushed Barack away and tried to call attention to the message. It took Barack longer to catch on to that than Homer would have thought.

"No hit school," said Barack. "OK, sure, I won't. But please, Homer, I need you to sleep."

Homer was reluctant. Even if Homer had, however marginally, succeeded in the effort to warn Barack of the trap, Homer had a sneaking suspicion that these efforts were more pathetic than that. Homer probably wasn't going to die and also wasn't feeling much pain. Consequently, the whole life flashing before Homer's eyes experience was unnerving. Homer suddenly felt like existence itself was like this, coming up with pointlessly elaborate plans that were ultimately of no help to anyone or anything. All the same, Homer started drifting out of consciousness, realizing that for the moment at least, this was the feeling of literal powerlessness as opposed to the usual metaphorical powerlessness.