Chapter Text
“Maaabel! Butter up ol’ Betsy an’ bring ‘er on out right quick! We got ourselves a situation with that ol’ herd of mavericks out by the windmill!”
The Wandering Y’s unflappable matriarch in question glanced up from her shop till, sticking a mental pin in her daily gol-balancing tally. She rolled her eyes as she spotted the flailing form of her dear ol’ Coop, hightailing it back to the ranch from the direction of Lucy and Logan’s place on the southern side of the tracks.
Her husband was a blur of ginger and mint green, barreling across the clearing in a manner that made the whole spectacle rather reminiscent of that ornery orange tomcat Elsie had tried to bring home a couple of years back. His labored caterwauling completed the caricature, and he seemed alarmingly oblivious to the fact that his own hat was attempting to strangle him, floundering in his wake and flopping against his back as it dangled from the chinstrap.
Threatening thunderheads gathered into towers across the dusky horizon behind him, crowns splaying out like Hugo’s collection of anvils as they grazed the stratosphere. The last stubborn rays of a rusty sunset blinked out one by one, extinguished in the staticky murk.
Typically, she’d humor him. Miss Mabel could’ve had any yakboy her heart desired within a twenty-league radius back in her day, and she certainly wouldn’t have married the man currently hoofin’ it home to harangue her if she wasn’t at least a little bit entertained by his antics.
On this particular evening, however, Mabel had business to finish before she could indulge in what was definitely not Cooper’s first conspiracy-ridden ramble of the day. She quickly returned to her end-of-the-day gol count, unperturbed and determined to close up shop before the impending storm.
“Two thousand…two thousand five hundred…three thousand two hundred fifty…” Mabel mumbled to herself, rushing to finish her inventory before her husband’s chicken legs managed to carry him over the train tracks…past the train station…across the field…up the porch steps…and…
“MAAAABEL! Show some sense of urgency, fer Lightssakes! Them roughstock yakmel in the outskirts, I reckon they—”
“...three thousand three hundred seventy-five,” Mabel proclaimed, closing the till a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary and locking it with a sharp click. Nine and a half times out of ten, Cooper’s “emergencies” were either more than a mite exaggerated, or figments of his exceedingly active imagination.
“Yes, dear?” Mabel asked airily. She’d determined long ago that staying cool as a thorny jumper moonbathing in midwinter was the best way to keep her other half in that sweet spot between amusing and, well…a bit unhinged. “What seems to be the problem this time?”
Cooper was doubled over now, hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. “Mabel…Betsy…” the rancher wheezed, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of their front door.
Mabel turned back to her farm stand’s stock, and began packing it in for the night. “You’re here now, Coop, may as well go get ‘er yourself. I’m fixin’ to get all these leftovers inside before the rain.”
Cooper sucked in a breath and straightened up, eyes wide with incredulity. “Some dang gully-washer’s gonna be the least of our concerns tonight if I don’t get to the bottom o’ this predicament, Mabel! Ain’t ‘nough that they been tryin’ to sneak into the pasture under cover of night t’get with my heifers! They really done gone an’ stepped in their own Peach-danged patties this time, I reckon! I dunno what in thunderation—”
A bolt of lightning cleaved through the murky sky above them, and the accompanying thunderclap drowned out Cooper’s undignified yelp as he dashed into the house. His muffled tirade continued, a disembodied whine filtering through the wooden walls. “Ya send Duvos packin’ one time an cain’t nobody be bothered ‘bout nothin’ ‘round here no more, not even with the Darkness itself at work out in them outskirts, I swear to the dang Light…”
Mabel rolled her eyes again—she’d perfected the move over the years—and looked up just in time to see Lucy and Logan ambling through the tunnel from Back Street on Rambo and Merle, hands raised in greeting.
“Everythin’ alright there, Aunt Mabes?” Logan called out, steering Rambo toward the farm stand. “We could hear ol’ Coop airin’ his lungs from the Research Center.”
The builder nodded in agreement, smirking a bit at Mabel’s exasperated expression. “What’s he on about this time, Miss Mabel? You’ve got the patience of a saint. I swear I could feel my mental fortitude multiplying just from listening to him the last time he got me cornered.”
“Yes, it was quite the racket. I do hope it won’t become a regular occurrence, I must say. I require an hospitable environment for my studies,” Director Qi stated flatly, emerging from behind the hunter and the builder’s shaggy mounts. Everyone knew that Qi had soundproofed the Research Center to this end, and not even Cooper’s antics could breach its walls.
“Well, hello there you three,” Mabel smiled brightly, her mood a stark contrast to the ominous storm front that continued to inch closer to Sandrock from the southwest. “You know how Coop is…by the time I’ve got dinner on the table he’ll be on to somethin’ else entirely—”
“I’ll be doin’ nothin’ of the sort!” Cooper blustered, bursting back out the front door of the ranch house. “I’m gonna see to it that them yakmel out past the Salvage Yard go the way of them big ol’ whales or what-have-you, them skelly-tons out in the Eufaula!”
“Er…Coop, is there a reason for this sudden animosity toward my bovine neighbors?” the builder asked, vaguely concerned.
“Yer one t’ talk, builder! Don’t you go chinwaggin’ like I ain’t seen the crime scenes ya leave behind when ya go out huntin’, pullin fifteen, twenty head o’ cattle at a time!” Cooper jeered.
“It’s not my fault you only stock ten steaks every few days when Ernest is commissioning forty or fifty meat-stuffed mushrooms a week!” the builder countered, looking a bit sheepish despite the reality of the situation. “Not sure where he’s putting them, but that isn’t my business…”
“Now look here, there ain’t no way that city-slicker is scarfin’ down all that protein, I can guarantee ya that! Ain’t you ever seen his scrawny little bee—hey, waitaminute! Ya went and got me all distracted from the crisis at hand, builder!”
“And what crisis are ya referrin’ to, Coop?” Logan cut in, figuring the issue may fall under his purview. “Alphas actin’ up? They sense incomin’ pressure changes y’know, get all riled an’ heated when they know a storm’s comin’. Like how Uncle Hugo had ter tell ya to git gone when a storm comes through, he gets them headaches. Happens every time, I know y’know that—”
“Yer damn right I know that, been ranchin’ yakmel since afore ya were a gleam in yer Pa’s eye! You think I’d be pitchin’ all this brou-haw-haw over yakmel actin’ as the Light intended?”
Cooper leaned in toward Logan, hand on his waist and eyes wide, anticipating Logan’s response.
Logan crossed his arms and blinked, unperturbed. He didn’t dare say it, but he absolutely believed that alpha yakmel doing as they were wont to do in a storm would be more than enough to ruffle Coop’s feathers. Count to three…
“Well?”
“Coop, it’s my job t’make sure them bulls don’t wander into town an’ bother nobody. Why don’t ya jus’ help Aunt Mabes close up shop an’ let me take care of—”
“I repeat, I’ll be doin’ nothin’ of the sort! An’ y’all best be headin’ on home unless ya got some secret exper-teese of the ecto-plasmic variety, seein’ as I will not be acceptin’ a lick o’ blame fer yer potential demise should the evenin’ go awry!”
“Ecto…what?” the builder wondered aloud, ignoring Cooper’s dire warning. He issued them at least twice a week, after all.
“Ectoplasm,” Qi stated flatly. Cooper’s jaw dropped with a look of incredulity, as if he couldn’t believe that the director, of all people, was picking up what he was putting down.
“I am not a biologist, but having taken every science course available to me in Vega 5, I can state with certainty that “ectoplasm” refers to the outer portion of a cell’s cytoplasm. It is a clear substance that both supports the cell membrane and aids in transportation within the cell. Furthermore, in amoeboid cells, the microfilaments contained within the ectoplasm aid in the motility of the entire—”
“NAW!” Cooper exclaimed, his face reddening as he rounded on the director. “I’m referrin’ to the super-natural, not any of that…ameeba-zoid…filla-thing…anyway! Losin’ the plot, these ive-ree tower fellas, I swear to Peach…” Cooper scoffed, shaking his head at an infuriatingly unruffled Qi.
“What I’m sayin’ is…” Cooper looked at everyone in turn, pausing for dramatic effect. “The YAKMEL are HAUNTED!”
“...Pardon?” Logan prodded after a moment of blank-faced silence from Cooper’s captive audience. Mabel, Qi, and Lucy all glanced at him, knowing that the bid for some clarification would likely prove futile.
Cooper merely shouldered Betsy and huffed as he checked his belt pouches for extra buckshot. “I said, the yakmel are haunted! Now, unless yer gonna help ex-or-cise these ol’ devils from the general vicinity, I’d appreciate it if ya’d quit wastin’ my precious time!
With that display of his distinct lack of self-awareness dropped between them like a yakmel patty, the rancher marched off to the stable, mounted one of his rental horses, and cantered off toward the Salvage Yard as another peal of thunder rolled across the sky.
“That man…” Mabel sighed, shaking her head. “Could I bother y’all to follow him out to the windmill an’ make sure he doesn’t do anythin’ particularly foolish?”
“You got it, Aunt Mabes,” Logan quickly agreed, fighting a smirk. “Must admit, I’m a mite curious what’s got ‘im makin’ such claims.”
“We’ll talk him down and send him on home. He should know better than to stand out on the cliffs during an electrical storm,” the builder added, as if she and her husband didn’t have an ill-advised habit of seeking out enraged dive buzzards and tunnel worms come rain, snow, sand or hail just for the bonus Civil Corps bounty payouts.
Equipment was expensive, and if you asked the hunter, there was nothing like a little adrenaline to “keep ya on yer toes.” The builder wouldn’t disagree—any excuse to fight back-to-back or toe-to-toe, after all.
“Better be off, then,” Logan nodded. “See ya later, Aunt Mabes. You too, director.”
“Oh, I’ll be accompanying you,” Qi replied quickly. “In the words of an Old World author, “the science of tomorrow is the supernatural of today.” I fully expect to be capable of formulating a hypothesis as to the scientific basis of whatever it is that the rancher has stumbled upon today, if not offer a concrete, data-supported explanation.”
“...Suit yerself. Just don’ expect ol’ Coop t’listen. My hunch is that if yer inklin’ ain’t got nothin’ t’do with moon men, spies, or that Ataran catnip cartel he was tryin’ to “educate” us all about at the saloon last night? Man ain’t gonna be wantin’ none of it.”
Qi scoffed. “You seem to be under the impression that I would let the rancher have the last word on the matter. One may only prattle on for so long when bloviating from one’s rear…but I have been trained in the art of the lecture.”
Logan caught Lucy’s eye with a furtive glance as they started across the clearing toward their side of the tracks. She fought valiantly to keep her composure, biting her lip as she watched her husband suppress a wide-eyed shudder at the prospect of a real debate between their two most inexhaustibly verbose neighbors.
“So…” Lucy mumbled a few moments later, letting Qi walk briskly ahead so that she and Logan might have a fighting chance at an uninterrupted conversation. “You got any ideas of what Coop might be on about this time? I reckon you’ve seen more of this desert than anyone in town at this point.”
Logan doffed his hat and ran a hand through his hair, mentally flipping through the pages of the countless journals that his Pa had left him and the ones he’d begun to keep for himself at his Pa’s behest. He let the incoming winds tousle the silvery strands, staving off the uncomfortable mugginess in the air that preceded the gust front. Even with the greatly increased water levels in Martle’s Oasis and more frequent rainfall in the wake of several successful plantings in the Outback, most native Sandrockers were still unaccustomed to the sticky heaviness of humidity.
“I might,” Logan mused, mulling over his memories. “High desert’s a real unique place to begin with, and some weird shit tends to happen in unique environments when ya introduce new factors…like electricity, I reckon. Pa wrote about somethin’ in his journals from before I was born, remember him tellin’ me the story, too…a storm came through way back, prob’ly durin’ the relic rush. All the extra minin’ and diggin’ had stirred up the local bed of tunnel worms, an’ Pa found ‘imself facin’ off against an enraged one out on the cliffs behind where the Moisture Farm is now. Weren’t a safe thing t’be doin’ durin’ a storm, but it had to be done an’ he was the only game in town.
“Anyways, he was fightin’ the feller, and its big ol’ horn starts glowin’ purple ‘round the tip! He hadn’t never seen anythin’ like it before or since, but he told me the researcher they had at the time said that, by her estimation, it had somethin’ ter do with the lightnin’ storm. Reckon somethin’ like that could have ol’ Coop claimin’ things look…ghostly or what have ya.”
Logan chuckled, draping his arm over Lucy’s shoulders as she wrapped hers around his waist. “Anyways, I’m wagerin’ there’s little chance he ain’t makin’ a mesa outta a molehill.”
“Think you’re probably right,” Lucy smirked back as they waved the goats off toward home and trudged up the sandy slope toward Eufaula Salvage. “Could we even call him Cooper if he wasn’t cryin’ “rockyena” at least twice a week?”
“Nah, darlin’. When I tell ya he’s been like this fer every last one of my thirty-odd years, I ain’t ex—”
“LIGHT ALMIGHTY!” Cooper bellowed from over the rise, several dozen yards ahead. “Get yerself behind me an’ ol’ Betsy, science feller! Where’s that conflagratin’ heap o’ scrap of yers ya call a robot when ya need it?! Reckon this wouldn’t be happenin’ if’n ya’d let me breed them Super Yakmel I told ya about way back when! You an’ yer ethics an’ whatnot, I’d’a made ‘em immune ter these here afflictions of the paranormal persuasion! Now we got ourselves that green gas all over again, but soon y’all’ll be glowin’ purple! Plumb plum, I reckon! More lavender’n that lizardman-turned-sous-chef they got slitherin’ ‘round the saloon like Owen ain’t never heard o’ salmonella! Yer starberry cologne machine ain’t gonna save us this time, rocket man!”
Logan cocked a bisected eyebrow. “Well clearly it ain’t so urgent if the man’s got the wherewithal ter be yammerin’ on like he ain’t got nowhere to be…”
“Man, he’s on a tear…poor Larry,” Lucy cringed. She grabbed Logan’s hand and they hurried onward, cresting the hill to reveal the source of Cooper’s consternation.
Logan let out a heavy sigh as soon as the yakmel herd came into view, a group of ten or so circled together to ride out the storm…two alpha bulls, eight cows. Sure enough, each yakmel horn they could see was tipped with a bloom of eerie violet light.
“Woah,” Lucy whispered. “Your Pa was right, Lo. It is pretty bizarre looking though, isn’t it?”
“Bizarre an’ pretty neat if I’m bein’ honest, but not bizarre enough to let Coop empty his shotgun fer no good reason when we ain’t got time ter process the meat before the storm. C’mon.”
Logan jogged ahead, putting a calm hand on Bessie’s barrel before Cooper could do anything drastic or wasteful. “Pull in yer horns, Coop. I know it looks like somethin’ outta one of Owen’s ghost stories but my Pa told me all ‘bout this once. Seen it on a tunnel worm—”
“A haunted tunnel worm!” Cooper shouted petulantly.
“—An’ he reckoned it were due to elec—”
“Ahem!” Qi cleared his throat loudly. “As the resident expert in all fields of science save for medicine, including that of electromagnetism, I must interject,” he blustered. “As I suspected, I can indeed offer an explanation of the scientific phenomenon currently on display in front of our very eyes. It is quite a rare one indeed, particularly in a climate such as ours that does not frequently supply the atmospheric water vapor levels required to experience thunderstorms. You see, when a strong enough atmospheric electrical field is generated in advance of a storm—”
“As I were ‘bout to be sayin’...” Logan mumbled. Lucy let out a stifled snort of laughter. Qi, of course, was undeterred.
“—the air may become ionized. Under the right conditions, this may produce a blue or purple glow as the air shifts from a gaseous state into plasma as a result of the ionization.”
“See? Plasma! As in…ecto-plasm…a!” Cooper exclaimed, rife with premature enthusiasm. He was promptly steamrolled by the director, who barely paused to take a breath despite the interruption.
“...Most pertinently to today’s observations, the geometry of sharp objects lowers the amount of voltage required to ionize the air around them, as the electrical field is most concentrated in areas of high curvature…such as spires, ship masts, or…in this case…animal horns. Thus, a corona discharge is produced at the sharpest point, which is what we now observe before us,” Qi stated matter-of-factly, gesturing toward the herd.
“Some call this phenomenon Peach’s brûlée…insisting, as usual, on attributing any “mysterious” light-related incidents to a hyperbolic representation of a man, while likening the glow itself to the color of a culinary torch flame…which is of a completely different scientific origin,” Qi huffed.
“Frankly, I find the comparison disingenuous and more than a bit trite,” he continued brusquely. “I shall continue to leave any talk of kitchen implements to the saloon owner and his reptilian protégé. And yet…the modern term may not be quite as ridiculous as the Old World term for the very same atmospheric anomaly: Saint Elmo’s Fire. Currently available research supports the notion that “Elmo” was some sort of fuzzy red monster created for the sole purpose of entertaining children prior to the Age of Corruption. Studies to determine what such a creature may have done to merit and attain Old World sainthood remain inconclusive. I prefer to refer to it more plainly…it is simply a meteorologically induced corona discharge in an area of high atmospheric voltage and curvature.”
For a single, blissful moment, even Cooper was speechless.
A bright flash of light and a sharp clap of thunder cleaved through the sky, striking the Church of the Light’s steeple and drawing Qi’s eye. “Exhibit B,” the director added sharply, pointing off into the distance behind Cooper’s head. The rancher turned on a dime.
An otherworldly blue glow enveloped the tip of the steeple, and—rather predictably, for everyone else present—it was as if Cooper hadn’t absorbed a single word of the explanation Qi had just imparted.
“PEACH almighty! I reckon we’re doomed! May just be time to light a shuck an’ set out fer Walnut Groove!” Cooper blithered, waving his shotgun around precariously. “First my herd, an’ now the very pillar of Sandrockian society!”
Lucy and Qi exchanged sideways glances at that one, churchgoers neither of them. Logan was too busy tracking Cooper’s firearm in the absence of the man’s common sense to join them, but they both heard him scoff under his breath.
Cooper dropped to his knees, dropping Betsy as he spiraled into a rather theatrical display of despair.
“Why has the Light forsaken us? We sent the Geeglers packin’…we kicked Duvos outta the ruins!”
Lucy mumbled something under her breath about not seeing Cooper in Gecko Station or on the Northern Plateau.
“We exposed an honest-t’-Peach conspiracy! We rid the Eufaula of banditry!”
Logan shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“We found enough water t’ turn the desert back into a sea! We convinced a robot ter plant a whole dang forest in the Peach-fersaken Outback! All fer naught!”
“Who is this “we” you speak of?” Qi deadpanned.
Lucy sighed and turned toward Logan as Cooper blubbered on, lost in his own world. Her eyes landed not on his very exasperated expression, but on the horned hat that he still held in his hand. An impish grin crawled across her face.
“Psst…Lo,” she whispered, her voice almost carried off by the whipping winds. Gesturing wildly, she pointed at his hat, and then at his head. Confusion furrowed his brow for a moment before it clicked, and the hunter had to press a fist to his lips to keep from laughing. Even Qi offered them a rare smirk, having watched the entire exchange.
Logan shoved the hat back on his head and they waited patiently, listening to Cooper’s barely-coherent rambling, the words tumbling away into the wind like uprooted brush. Qi pointed toward the yakmel herd and Logan shifted a few steps closer, seeking the perfect conditions. Slowly but surely, a luminous indigo haze appeared at the tips of his signature horns. Lucy took a moment to compose herself, then nodded. Qi slipped back into impassivity as seamlessly as always.
Logan cleared his throat. “Uh…hey Coop? Storm’s really gonna be pickin’ up here in a minute, can’t rightly stay out on the cliffs, it ain’t safe.”
Cooper froze, suddenly remembering that he had company. “Ain’t safe? Ain’t SAFE? I’ll tell ya what ain’t safe, it’s lettin' things that ain’t of this here world go un—”
Cooper turned on Logan and froze, the splotchy redness that had besieged his complexion blanching to sheet white.
“Somethin’ wrong, Coop?” Logan asked coolly. “Look like ya seen a—”
“Darkness take us all! They got ya too! Ain’t nobody safe if the dang monster hunter ain’t safe! The devil went down ter Sandrock an' he done bodysnatched the ol' bandit fer 'imself!” Cooper squawked, his voice rising to a panicked pitch. Logan’s eyes widened as Cooper reached for Betsy again, letting the barrel drift in the direction of his hat.
Lucy gasped and Logan threw himself into the sandy dirt, thankful it hadn’t yet turned to mud. “Coop, ya damn fool, that’s a shotgun! Ya can’t fuckin’ aim when yer—”
Logan’s protest was cut short by a pained grunt and a dusty thud as a massive blur of shaggy brown and red fur headbutted Cooper to the ground. Logan scrambled forward toward the felled rancher, quickly checking his pulse point to make sure he was just out cold. He gave Lucy and Qi a weak thumbs up and a flat smile before launching himself to his feet and rounding on the bovine culprit. The alpha yakmel blinked placidly and offered Logan a snort of acknowledgement, a soft glow still adorning the tips of its impressive set of long, curved horns.
“I, uh…think the alphas know who keeps their herd safe from that Dive Buzzard that’s always trying to pick ‘em off from up on the ridge when it storms,” Lucy chuckled. “Not a bad ally to have, I s’pose?”
Logan took a step toward the bull and cautiously extended a hand, patting him gently on his furry red head. “Er…good…good boy?” Logan mumbled awkwardly. The yakmel snorted again and trotted off to rejoin the herd, huddled together and ready for the storm.
Lucy laughed. “I’ll make sure that one doesn’t end up stuffed into Ernest’s mushrooms next week,” she quipped, winking at him. “Could be a new Day of Memories dish to pitch to Owen though. Haunted yakmel steak. With a boo-urbon glaze.”
“I love ya, Luce, but Light, that’s awful,” Logan smirked, shaking his head.
Qi cleared his throat. “Wag-boo beef,” he muttered, as if trying to hide the fact he’d even spoken.
Lucy and Logan stared at him for a moment in disbelief.
“Ain’t ever heard ya make a joke before, Director. Not bad,” Logan chuckled.
“Hey, “wag-boo” was good but “boo-urbon” was awful?” Lucy whined, failing to fight back a smile. Logan dropped a quick peck to the top of her head before he turned back toward their unconscious charge. Qi simply hummed to himself, thoroughly satisfied by an evening of novel-to-him scientific observations and flouting societal expectations.
Heavy raindrops began to pepper the cracked dirt, and as the winds shifted, the purple glow slowly faded from horns both stylistic and bovine. Logan bent down to shift Cooper into a seated position, and Lucy retrieved a small sachet of ammonia salts from her pack, waving them under his nose. He woke quickly with a cough and a shake of his head, his eyes darting around in confusion. The yakmel herd looked positively ordinary, and he turned his suspicious squint on Logan’s hat…also returned to its usual state.
“Dang yakmel…always tamperin’ with the evidence,” Cooper mumbled, still more than a bit out of it.
“Don’t have a clue what yer talkin’ ‘bout, Coop,” Logan said flatly, fighting to keep a straight face. Behind Cooper’s back, Lucy pressed a finger to her lips, motioning for Qi to keep quiet. The director nodded tacitly.
“Whaddaya mean ya don’t got a clue? They was glowin’ purple! So’s yer hat! I know what I seen, and I ain’t gonna be told I ain’t seen what I done seen!” Cooper challenged Logan, his voice rising worryingly.
“Hey, hey…try’n stay calm, Coop. Alpha yakmel gotcha pretty good. Think ya can walk back to the Y?” Logan asked, handing the dazed rancher a canteen of water while refusing to indulge in his provocations. If they could pass this all off as some sort of concussed dream, it would save everyone involved a headache. Well, except maybe Cooper.
The rancher pushed himself up slowly, holding his head with one hand and dusting himself off with the other. He shouldered Betsy with an irritable huff, mumbling to himself all the while. Nevertheless, he conceded that it was time to head back to Mabel, and he let the trio of co-conspirators lead him back across the outskirts. He continued with Qi toward the train tracks while Logan and Lucy broke off from the group, dashing toward their workshop as the deluge began in earnest.
A raven-haired woman in a Paradise Walk uniform stood stock-still at the edge of a nearby cliff, looming like a shadow as she stood watch above the scrapyard. Flickering in and out of clarity and opaqueness with each crackle of electricity from above, she went completely unnoticed. As usual. Just how she liked it.
“Maybe I should talk to that rancher sometime, though…he seems fun,” the pale woman thought, smiling as she watched the four Sandrockers head back into town.
It was always good to see those folks who’d afforded her old city under the sands a reimagined future, after all…even on strange days like this one.