The Farmer: XSF Getaway

Chapter 2: Egged On

Dear Mom, June 10th, 2003 3:00 PM

Man, what a day! Here I am, holding a stupid egg in my robotic right hand and writing with my normal left hand! Thank God I’m left handed! Of course, growing up with only one arm, I had to learn to write that way. Ugh, but about my day.

The Farmer woke me up, all right. I didn’t wake from him opening the barn doors, but I sure as hell woke up from the cow bell that he rang. In all honesty, I fell right out of bed with a fright. The Farmer was shouting and “rousing the animals”, as he called it later that day.

“Mornin’!” he shouted up to me while he lightly pushed the horses and the mother cow and calf out the barn doors.

I groaned in response as I pulled myself up to my feet.

“Up late? Well, come on then. The cows usually have to be milked first thing in the morning. You ever milk a cow before?” he asked while grabbing a metal bucket off of a hook beside him.

“I’ve had some cows in bed before, if that counts,” I chuckled to myself while pulling on my boots. The Farmer gave a sly grin and walked over to the remaining cow and put the bucket underneath it.

“Nope, and a dirty mind doesn’t help either,” he said in a completely straightforward manner.

This guy was certifiable, I swear. I was ready to open up the wrist of my arm and blast this guy. Maybe some wanton destruction was what I needed. With the high powered laser equipped in my arm, I could easily burn down this whole damn farm. It would just be a flick of the wrist, the robot hand would flip up and the laser would whiz out of its housing in the forearm.

But no, his note said no violence. So for now, I was going to play it his way. I left my trenchcoat hanging on its hook and climbed down the ladder in just my black jeans and white tank top. I don’t think I was completely woken up yet because the bitter morning cold had not hit me yet. I stumbled back up the ladder, grabbing my trenchcoat, after all. It’s the frigging summer!

I didn’t realize how damn cold it was in Western Canada. As I was climbing back down and thinking about my own attire, I realized The Farmer was wearing the same thing: just a pair of dirty blue jeans, a big pair of boots and a pair of working gloves. The guy had enough hair on his chest to make a sweater as it was. Compared to my perfectly modeled blonde hair, The Farmer’s was long brown hair and he had a surprisingly well groomed beard. If he wanted to be “The Farmer”, he sure as heck looked the part, at least.

“How’d you sleep last night?” The Farmer asked, sitting down on a stool beside the lonesome black and white cow.

“Okay, I guess,” I answered. “I wrote for awhile.”

“Oh, good. Glad the paper’s not going for rot.” He tapped a hand on an empty stool beside him. “So you didn’t answer my question. You ever milked a cow?”

“Uh. No.” No point in giving him two sarcastic responses in a row.

Without saying another word, The Farmer reached down and pulled on a couple of teats on the cow’s udder. Milk spurted from one of the teats and into the bucket. The cow didn’t seem to even notice or care what was going on.

“You wanna try it?”

“Not really.”

“You just clamp down on the upper part and give a little squeeze. It’s kind of like popping a zit.”

I sighed with just a hint of a groan and reached down. I thought maybe my robotic hand would be okay to use, so I grabbed one teat with it and another with my normal left hand. The cow made a loud mooing noise, and milk ended up squirting into my face.

“Oh, for...!” I didn’t swear, but I bolted to my feet and lifted my tank top up and wiped my face off with it. Blinded for a moment, I kicked the stool away and I heard it clunk against the wall of the stall.

“Don’t know your own strength with that thing, huh?” The Farmer chuckled. At that point, I think I might have lost it a little.

“You’re crazy, you know that!?! You’re goddamn crazy! This whole thing is just a screen for something, right? Some giant underground military base is right below us, right?!”

I yanked my tank top back over my stomach and stomped over to behind the cow. I grabbed the tail of the cow with my normal left hand so I at least wouldn’t break it off or something.

Now, before you hand out the award for “Most Stupid”, at least understand that I wasn’t exactly thinking all that straight at the moment.

“And I suppose this is the lever into your secret headquarters?!”

I held up the tail, showing it to The Farmer, who was now standing up and leaning against the stall’s short wall.

“I wouldn’t do that. She doesn’t like it,” he warned me. He still had that stupid little grin on his face, even while I was freaking out.

Boy, did he ever warn me. But of course, I didn’t listen. Though not with all my strength, I pulled down on the cow’s tail with a bit of force. The last thing I remember before blacking out was the feeling of a hoofed foot connecting with my scrotum area. I vaguely recall hitting the floor, but at that point, I was on the way to passing out.

I’m gonna grab a smoke before I keep writing about this mess.

***

Strangely enough, I woke up to the smell of bacon. I opened my eyes and I found myself sitting at a small kitchen table with my head in my arms. I sat up straight, groaning as I realized there was a pain in my crotch from a bovine kicking me. There was a plastic bag filled with ice cubes in front of me. I quickly snatched it up and put it between my legs. The pain didn’t subside, but it sure felt good.

“About time you woke up. I’ve already got half of today’s chores done with,” The Farmer said while frying some bacon in a pan on the stove.

I had a look around the kitchen and noticed some surprisingly modern appliances. There was a refrigerator that was working just fine. The stove seemed to be electric. While there wasn’t a microwave, it was obvious there was some kind of electricity flowing somewhere.

“How long was I out? What time is it?” I asked groggily.

“About two hours,” he answered with a chuckle. “Bit of a glass jaw on ya, eh?”

“Kinda wish your pet hit me in the jaw, instead,” I answered back.

“No, you don’t. Trust me.”

The Farmer quietly continued to make breakfast over the stove while I continued to wake up.

At this point, I was looking around the kitchen to familiarize myself with my surroundings. While the appliances were modern, the rest of the kitchen was quite old fashioned: oak cupboards, ceramic flooring. I looked to my right to see a screen door leading outside to behind the farmhouse. And lying by the door was the little black and white spaniel that had greeted me before. He had his head on the floor with his eyes closed and not bothering a single soul. I was so distracted with my conversations with The Farmer that I had forgotten all about the little guy. He must’ve been following around the whole time.

“Morning, pup.” I say to the little guy.

The dog pulled his head up and looked at me, wagging his tail a little bit. He probably thought I was going to give him table scraps. He looked over at The Farmer and saw the breakfast wasn’t ready yet, so the dog put his head back down and watched closely at the scene.

“Ah, so you’ve met Digby, then?” The Farmer said, looking over his shoulder for a second.

“Yeah, he greeted me on the road up to The Ranch. Friendly little guy.” I couldn’t help but grin.

“I didn’t want to scare anybody with some Doberman or something.” I decided not to respond to that. I’d had to break into a few places that had some pretty mean Dobermans at one time or another. One broke off some teeth trying to gnaw at my robotic arm once, I remember. I’m sure the owner was confused as hell.

“Smells good,” I said, inhaling a whiff of the bacon.

“It’s almost ready. You mind getting the dishes?” He nodded sideways to one of the cupboards, still keeping his back to me.

I shrugged. “Sure, what the hell.”

I slowly got to my feet, putting the ice bag back on the table. As I was taking some plates out of the cupboard, The Farmer seemed to feel in the mood for small talk.

“So how’d you lose the arm?” he asked.

“Car accident when I was a kid.”

I placed two of the plates down on the table and started opening drawers to figure out where the silverware was in this place.

“Third from the fridge,” he told me, without waiting for the question. “That’s rough, though. How long have you had that?”

I glanced over at him to see he was motioning to my exposed robotic arm with a fork.

“About a year or so. I’ve been running from the guys that made it.”

God! Why did I tell him that?! But he didn’t even flinch. He must have realized I was a low key villain. He just didn’t seem to care.

“Prototype, is it?” he asked.

So he wasn’t a complete shut-out from the world, after all.

“Yeah,” I answered. “They said I could use it as long as it was for their purposes.” I started placing some of the silverware beside each of our respective plates.

“Which was?”

He flipped some eggs sizzling in another pan.

“Assassination, mostly. Not my kind of thing. I’m more of a grunt work and armed robbery kind of guy. Can’t really stand the ambush or sniper work.”

“So you left?”

“So I left. I’ve been trying to take the homing device out, but then the arm would be no good.” I tapped on the shoulder area of the robotic arm, which was connected to my flesh. “All things considered, they didn’t do too bad of a job with it. If I cover it up with my trenchcoat, it looks pretty ordinary.”

“Mm,” he hummed, and scooped the bacon evenly onto the two plates on the table. He did the same with the eggs and tossed the frying pan in the sink.

“What about you?” I asked while I slowly sat back down, placing the ice bag back between my legs. The toaster on the counter popped, revealing some lightly toasted bread; yet another electric appliance.

“What about me?”

He grabbed the toast and tossed a piece each onto the plates.

“Well, I mean, is this all for real? Are you for real?”

“What do you mean?” He asked and rested his hands on the back of his chair.

“This whole surreal Neon Rider thing. You’re a SPEC who doesn’t do anything but this? Living in isolation, away from society and everything? I mean, who the hell are you?” I admit that I might have raised my voice a little when asking this. I was getting a little sick of the smoke and mirrors.

The Farmer turned his chair around and sat down, propping his arms up on the chair’s backing. He stared at me for a moment while our food cooled. It felt like he was sizing me up or something. Finally, to break some of the stress, I grabbed a piece of bacon off of my plate and bit into it. It was slightly crunchy, but just enough that it wasn’t hard as a rock.

“You ever hear of a guy named Lord Powerhouse?” he asked as he brushed the hair out of his face. He stared at me as I swear my jaw hit the floor. I was supposed to believe that this guy was Lord Powerhouse? I mean, man, who hadn’t heard of Lord Powerhouse?

About ten or so years ago, Lord Powerhouse was the number one SPEC threat on the FBI’s list. Lord Powerhouse, given the name, was rumored to be a ten. I heard he once threw an entire mountain at the Shatterpack (the world saving super group). He was a major threat on a global scale. He had a cult following ranging in thousands of powered SPECs and hundreds of thousands of non-powered. He was a religious cult leader who believed that he was to be the one and only powered person to be worshipped. It was said that the more people that followed him, the more his power grew. He’s been responsible for hundreds of powered deaths and those of millions of innocent people. He was apparently well nigh invulnerable and able to lift as much as…well, I told you about the mountain.

Again, I stared at The Farmer. I was speechless. Here was this totally down to earth guy who was claiming to be the artist formally known as Lord Powerhouse. There was no way this was possible. I mean, the Shatterpack said they found his body and everything.

“Stunned ya, did I?” he asked as he bit into a piece of bacon for himself.

“Yeah, just a little. I mean, you were...”

“Ah, ah,” he waved his finger, “I never actually said I was Lord Powerhouse.”

“But...”

“You’re jumping to the wrong conclusions. Lord Powerhouse has been dead for twenty years. Everybody knows that.”

“But you just...”

“I might be just a former victim that got hurt by the world, ever think of that?”

“But...”

“No more buts. Finish your breakfast.”

So we ate our breakfast in silence. I didn’t even make eye contact with him. I kept my head low and focused on the food on my plate. He brought me coffee that was brewing on the counter. I mumbled a “thanks” but kept silent. Why the hell I did, I have no idea. I’ve never been one to follow the rules. I think it was just that scrap of information that was bugging the hell out of me. I mean, first he gets me thinking about one of the most dangerous SPECs in history and then drops it? The pain in my crotch was replaced by the inner workings of my own mind.

Once we finished breakfast, The Farmer climbed out of his chair, taking both his plate and mine with him. He dropped them off in the sink and opened the refrigerator. I couldn’t see what he was doing since his bare back blocked any view into the fridge.

“I’ve been thinking about that arm of yours. If you’re gonna be helping me around here more, you’re gonna have to control it better,” he said as he rummaged around the fridge.

“Control? I’ve never lost control of it.” I told him.

“Well, let’s say you don’t know your own strength, then,” he closed the fridge door and handed me something: an egg. Yeah, this is where I started out talking about today.

“I want you to hold this for the rest of the day. Even during chores that I give you. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything too strenuous.”

He opened the index finger and thumb of my robotic hand and placed the egg between them. He then closed the digits so that the hand was holding the egg by its top and bottom.

“You’re kidding me.”

“After all that you’ve seen so far, you think I’d be kidding now?”

The man had a point...again.

“Come on, let’s get some work done.”

I followed him outside and onto the field where we first met. The little black and white dog trotted beside us, wagging its tail. The Farmer unhooked a brown sack that was hanging on the back of the large plow-like device he was using when we first met. He opened the sack as wide as he could and took hold of the wrist of my robotic arm.

“Hey, what the hell!?” I exclaimed.

The Farmer was being careful enough not to disturb the stupid egg between my fingers. He tied the drawstring of the sack around the robotic wrist, keeping the back open as well. I looked in to see large seeds of some sort.

“Just follow behind me and throw a couple into the grooves I’m making.”

He grabbed the chain to the plow without wheels and began pulling it in a straight line down the field. He didn’t even ask me if I wanted to do this chore. He was too good to give me a choice, was that it? The great and almighty Farmer who hides himself away from the world because of some old association with Lord Powerhouse? Was that it?

“Yeah, whatever,” I said and threw a seed or two into the plow-made groove.

So we did that for most of the day. It wasn’t until sunset that he stopped. My feet were killing me and my new designer boots were filthy from top to bottom in mud. My jeans were splattered with mud and I could see that they’d need some heavy duty detergent to get the stains out. The Farmer, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind the dirt on his own jeans, boots and skin. In fact, he seemed to revel in the mud like this manual labor was something to be enjoyed! Can you imagine that, Mom!?

What surprised me more was the guy never grew tired. Here was this plow with no motor, no wheels and looked like the front of a giant battering ram on some kind of truck or something. It must’ve weighed at least a ton. But no, he threw that chain (one of those heavy duty ones) over his shoulder and trounced through the mud without a single grunt. Sure, he was sweating from the heat and maybe (just maybe) the workout. When he had to turn the plow around, he would stop, and pull a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his brow and make sure sweat didn’t drip into his eyes. He’d then pick the plow itself up off the ground, drop it back down on the ground and start making a new straight groove down the other way. So, I’ll admit. Maybe it was those signs of strength that I wasn’t giving my usual attitude.

Finally, after we did a couple of rows, he dropped the chain and looked at me.

“Bushed?”

“Yeah,” I said, finally catching my breath. “Can I drop this damn egg now?”

He snatched it from my robotic fingers and held it up, eyeing it.

“Hm. Not a crack.”

The Farmer handed it back to me, forcing me to hold it in the same position again. “Still, hold it until you’re done writing tonight. Waste of an egg, but it should help you some.”

He started walking back towards the farmhouse. The dog looked up at me, barked once, and trotted after him.

And now I’m back in the goddamn barn, in this stupid loft, sitting at this frigging desk and writing this stupid journal for no goddamn reason Gee, I wonder if next, he’s going to show me how to ride the horsies... bareback! Blindfolded! And the horse is blind, too!

You know what? Screw it. I’m sick of this. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this.