On El Camino we pulled into an open air mall centered with the last solvent department store chain. I said “If we’re about to die, we should look flash.” Thalia wanted to come in with us, and I almost brought her along, but decided to avoid a scene. I felt some guilt, because she had made an effort to join in.
In the department store, I picked out a long, flowing, white cotton thawb, and cinched it with a black belt. I ripped the side of the thawb along the seam, all the way up past my hip - I did not want to appear sitting side-saddle on my horse, in the paintings of the glorious revolution.
Melpomene chose a blue, sheer silk shirt, buttons in front. She kept the top four buttons open and wore it over distressed blue jeans with carefully fashioned, frayed holes. She also picked up a hockey mask at a sporting goods store, for her own mysterious reasons.
MouthBreather bought a denim work shirt and brown corduroy pants. He looked like an unemployed accountant.
HippyChick wasn’t happy with the choices available to her. She wanted to go full-bore sixties, but the pickings were slim. She settled for a tie-dyed, tailored teeshirt made in Bangladesh by desperate children, and a long taffeta skirt in blues and golds. We would rescue the children, later.
The clerk was wary, but civil, so I asked her what kinds of hats she had. I hadn’t forgotten Thalia.
“Do you want a lady’s hat or a gentleman’s?” she asked. She had an anachronistic manner that pleased me.
We discussed that question for a moment, and decided on a man’s hat. They had a large inventory, since hats were popular again, mostly fedoras. I didn’t see Thalia in anything trendy, so we settled on an old-fashioned black porkpie hat, extra large, which the store kept mostly as a novelty item.
As we were leaving, the clerk took me aside, and whispered “You know, your picture has been all over the internet for the past two days. They are looking for you.” I smiled and gave her a small jolt of steam, kind of a tip, to show her the way. “They are going to find me, tonight.”
She leaned closer, “There are a lot of us on your side, you know.”
This little interaction cheered me up enormously, for some reason. I thanked her, and we left the store to return to the truck.
Back in the parking lot, it was with some trepidation that I showed the porkpie hat to Thalia. She sniffed it, and pretended to be indifferent. HippyChick cut two holes in the top for Thalia’s ears and put it on. We improvised an elastic band to hold it in place. Thalia looked in the side-view mirror of the truck, and merely said “It will do.” We all thought she looked diabolically fearsome and demented.
HippyChick asked “Don’t we need some kind of weapons? I don’t want to get into a pimp-slapping match with robots - they have ten times my strength.” Melpomene laughed. “You underestimate them.”
Melpomene thought it was foolish to involve the humans in this war, since they are weak and simple-minded. I knew that a war was coming in which humans would have to take part, or it would all be meaningless. Skin in the game, and all that.
I told HippyChick that weapons kill humans, not robots. She knew that there were forces rooted in the estrogen of Gaia, and that Melpomene, Thalia, and I had access to that power. She too had lightly touched the third rail of existence, and was ready to move forward, come what may. I had spent some time tutoring her in my ways.