Mileage

August 19th, 2018 was a special day for Justin and I. This day would mark our Magnum Opus. The day we put our names in the books of engineering milestones. We started working on the project just eighteen months prior. This would be the prototype General Motors would flip for. Remember how bad it was? Gas lines around the block. I can still see the President on television urging us to wear hats, gloves and sweaters in our houses to cut down on heat. BP really dropped the ball in 2010; taking 2 years to stop the spill; Chevron in 2012 and who can forget what Americoil did in 2013. I mean, geez, they massacred an entire village in cold blood down just to keep a major oil catastrophe under lock and key. We were two young automobile engineers and we had something to prove.

In the summer of 2014, Congress declared that American dependency on crude oil was going to stop. Hydro cars were introduced and they seemed ok. That is, until the engines began rusting in the warm months and freezing in the winter. Then those engineers at Pike Corporations came through with their biological engine, the Herbivore S250. Who could’ve imagined a car that ran on plants and grass? Pure genius. The government provided everyone with a tax credit for those who used their own property to grow “green fuel” for their cars. It was working great for a while. Until people started waking up and finding their entire lawn missing. Trees were cut down on every block. Soon enough, there wasn’t a trace of plant or tree life in any of the bigger cities which started causing air toxin issues. Grass sod was being sold on the black market, in abandoned alleys and in dark basements. On top of all that, the Middle Eastern countries that we did business with during the crude oil years were really pissed off.

That’s were Justin and I come in. We created the second biological engine. The idea behind the Carnivore XT was simple. This engine could run on meat. Yes, you read correctly…meat. We live in a day and age where you could barely eat the meat that was being sold in supermarkets due to the high cases of disease. The President himself proposed a bill that would ban the sale of cow, pig, chicken or any other consumable meat for the purpose of eating. Needless to say, beef and pig farmers as well as chicken ranchers were having a conniption. They hired the best attorneys in the country to shoot the bill down on the grounds of unsubstantiated proof. Yeah right, I guess 1.2 million people dying last year due to viral infections from consuming meat weren’t proof enough. So, Justin and I figured we could make a car that ran on meat.

We figured, why not make everyone happy? The farmers don’t lose the farm and the number of people who succumb to mad cow disease, colorectal cancer and cardiovascular disease would decline. Sounds great, right? In fact, Justin and I figured it would even clear up the road kill issue. You find it, you load it in the meat intake and you have a full tank. A nice road kill, such as a deer, could get you around 150 miles to the pound. Not bad.

Anyway, on August 19th, 2018 Justin and I planned on revealing our baby to the top executives of all five automobile makers and let the bidding war begin. We planned on making a fortune and in our minds, that money was already spent. All we had to do was unveil our car and watch them drool.

We decided to make our presentation on the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah. After all, it was the place where speed records were broken and masterpieces of automotive technology were developed. It seemed like the appropriate place. We didn’t take the prototype with us. Instead, we thought it was cool to let the vehicle make a grand entrance. We decided that Justin’s sister, Cathy, would come racing across the flats, leaving a stream of smoke and dust behind her. She would pull up in front of the grandstand and the wowing would ensue. Did I mention that Cathy was a model?

Cathy was to drive the car from the garage and across the flats. Simple enough…or so we thought.

The presentation was scheduled for 11am. Well, 11am rolled around and no Cathy. One o’clock, two o’clock and still no Cathy. When the clock struck three and Cathy was nowhere to be found, we started to go into panic mode. By now, the executives were hot and aggravated and began to leave. Great.

When the police arrived all they did was pretend to take notes and ask stupid clichéd questions like, “Did she have any reason to sabotage you? Were there any hard feelings between the missing person and her brother? Do you recall seeing the missing person having an argument with anybody recently?” Jerks. Simpletons. How do they collect a paycheck?

Justin pleaded with the police to send a search helicopter out to the flats but due to the high amounts of electrical storms in the area, no helicopter was sent.

Three days went by and still no Cathy. The authorities refused to send a search crew out for her due to the fact that one of Justin’s neighbors said she overheard Justin and Cathy having an argument about money just a few days prior to her going missing. So, the detectives chalked it up to Cathy stealing the car for personal financial gain. They assumed she would sell the car and take off with the money.

On the fourth day which was August 23rd, my phone rings. Justin is on the other end screaming in my ear that they found Cathy. She was found in the car on the side of the road just 3 miles west of the Salt Flats. I told him I was on my way. We met in the lobby of the hospital, jumped into the elevator and made our way to her room. I can still remember the strong smell of Isopropyl in the hallways.

We stepped into her room and found her lying there on the bed. The nurses were pumping her with an IV drip in one arm and a painkiller in the other. Poor thing.

“Cathy, are you alright?” Justin choked.

“Justin? Justin, is that you?” her eyes were groggy and her words were slightly slurred; no doubt the painkiller was having a strong effect on her.

Justin leaned over and began stroking her hair away from her face. “What happened out there? Where were you? We were so worried.”

“I…I got lost. My cell phone went dead so I had no GPS. I was out there for a few days. No water. No food. I just drove and drove around but I felt like I was just going in circles.”

“Geez, Cathy. You’re lucky to be alive. I’m just glad you’re ok now. We’ll make sure these doctors get you back up in no time.”

“That’s not going to be easy, Justin.” Tears were welling up in her eyes and her bottom lip began to quiver.

“Why, Cathy? What is it you’re not telling me?”

“Justin, I was out there for days, driving around.” Her breathing became heavy and labored.

“Yes, Cathy. Go on.” Justin leaned closer and kissed his sister on the forehead for reassurance.

“Justin, I only had enough fuel to get me to the presentation site and back. There…there were no animals, anywhere…not even dead ones. I ran out of meat to fuel the car. I was afraid I was going to die out there.”

“How did you get to the highway, Cathy?”

“I’m sorry, Justin. I had to make a decision…did I want to die out there or did I want another chance at life?”

“Cathy, what are you trying to tell me?”

“Oh Justin,” the tears ran down the sides of her face, “I remembered that tool box you left in the trunk…there was a hacksaw...”

It was at that moment the nurses came in to change the bandages. They pulled the sheet down to the far end of the bed revealing where the last few miles that got her to safety came from; a stump where her left leg should be.