Trucksong by Andrew MacRae

smelt it sharp and clean as the smell of solvents and diesel fuel on the breeze.
    Something happened to Isa, she was softer then. She was turned on by the truckrutting. A skew of little droans scampered out to where the Brumby King pumped its seed to gather it up and take it inside. Of course the trucks couldn’t mate like animals, so they’d got some helpers along to carry the parts. I put me arm around Isa and me face into her neck, smelling her earthy scent, it made me high. By this time Silver calmed down. It had come back in closer while the Brumby King took off now that it’d spent its load. The droans skittered around and with their feelers they gathered up the King’s issue and carried it inside the Silver. They were making a babby truck, mechin together their separate parts into a newmint truckmind for a substrate that would find a truckbody one day. But I was lost in the moment, feeling Isa up close, reaching inside her trucksuit and me mouth searching for hers, pressing closer and she closed her eyes and yielded. I felt her small teats and reaching further down, pulled the suit down and ripped at me own zippers too and the roar of the brumbies fell into the background as I fell into Isa. I was hard as stone and she was sopping wet between her legs and I slid in all of a rush of blood going to me head, blood storming through me veins. Isa’s voice caught in her throat as she took me and I bucked like that Brumby King till I cummed me load out inside her and the colours flared behind me eyes.

    We laid together in the afterglow and this is the yarn Isa told: ‘The folks what lived in the gigacity, they had everythin any one could want. They had all the knowin of machines and truckin lanes and their world was a massive system what ran almost by itself. It became almost its own livin thing until the real livin things started on dyin all around them. Somethin happened to the system and it stopped workin in some places and then more and more the machines was breakin down and leavin the slave grid to look after them selfs. And the ground poisoned the machines and they started doin their own thing with no thoughts of the system of the gigacities. And the gigacities was poisoned too and now there’s no one that goes there. That’s how the people came to live in the scattered camps in the backroads lookin to the Wotcher for answers and a way to get back to the past.’
    I was just lying there looking into her eyes as she spoke. I didn’t want it to end. Her voice was soft and flowing like the sounds of a creek. She went on.
    ‘The Wotcher’s got its place in two worlds. It’s from the world of the past and the knowin system of seedin the gigacities but it speaks into the world of the backroads and the machines like flapples and robodogs. It’s a bridge. That’s why it’s so important and I wunna crack the Wotcher’s secret. Coz it’s got the knowin in there somewhere of how to reseed the system of them buildins what talk to each other grow together and generate the power of the world. Underneath all the bullshit, there’s the truth in the Wotcher of the past and if we can figure out the knowin we can find our way back to balance. Not like now where it’s all down to muscle and how much weight you can pull. But Smoov ain’t gunna give me the codes till he thinks I’ve earnt the right. Well I got a different idea coz there’s new kinds of life comin up outta the ground, you seen it in the slinky snake what bit me. It’s changed me, I can feel it. There’s a cracklin in the air whenever Smoov hits the linkmaker. I can almost hear the Wotcher in me own head now. I’m seein things more clear. Once I get the last codes of the Wotcher and I can hook with the right roadin crowd, hybrid animal or machine and I know it’s only a matter of time before I can lead the backroads folks to return to the gigacities. Smoov don’t like them thoughts though. Plus he never trucked with no notions of the Wotcher as a