Three Pedals

"There's no version of leadership that includes being laughed at by the people you've kidnapped. And yet, here we are."

Making a beeline for the front door, I triggered the Portal with the familiar press of the Portal Key, positioning it against the back gate—a habit I'd vowed to break and yet found myself repeating like some cosmic joke at my own expense. The coloured swirl hummed into existence, patient and impossible, waiting for whatever I needed to push through it.

Climbing into the front seat of Kain's ute felt like entering territory that didn't belong to me—which it didn't. The seat was adjusted for someone taller, forcing me to stretch for the pedals. The cab smelled of sawdust and dried sweat and something faintly chemical, the accumulated traces of a construction worker's daily existence. It's not often I find myself behind the wheel of any vehicle, a role I typically avoid with the particular aversion of someone who prefers being transported to doing the transporting.

My hand found the gear stick, and my stomach dropped.

"Crap," I muttered, staring at the manual transmission with the particular dismay of someone who'd just discovered their escape route was booby-trapped. Three pedals. A gear stick with a pattern I could only vaguely recall. The promise of humiliation lurking in every potential stall and bunny-hop.

"Why the hell do people still drive this shit now?" I vented to the empty cab, frustration building as I closed my eyes and strained to resurrect the driving lessons Jamie had given me years ago. His patient voice explaining clutch control. His hand over mine on the gear stick. His laugh when I'd stalled for the fifth time in a row.

The memory of Jamie's hands brought other memories—his hands on my chest last night, pushing me away. What the fuck are you doing, Luke?

Focus. Clutch in. Ignition. The ute's engine coughed and sputtered through my initial attempts, resisting my unpractised efforts with the stubbornness of machinery that could sense incompetence. The sound was pathetic—grinding, protesting, dying before it could properly live. My foot found the wrong balance between clutch and accelerator, and the vehicle lurched forward a foot before shuddering to a halt.

Again.

And again.

By the fourth attempt, sweat had broken out along my hairline despite the winter cold, and my thigh was starting to cramp from the unfamiliar pedal work. But persistence—or perhaps desperation—finally paid off. The engine caught and held, roaring to life with a sound that felt like triumph.

A grin spread across my face as I eased off the clutch with exaggerated care, feeling the bite point engage. The ute moved forward, jerky and graceless but moving, lurching toward the Portal's vibrant swirl like a drunk finding their way home.

The colours enveloped the vehicle—swallowing metal and glass and my temporary victory. Transit felt different from inside a car, the sensation of dissolution somehow magnified by the additional mass being transported. For a moment, everything was light and vertigo and the particular nausea of existing between dimensions.

And then Clivilius materialised around me, the rust-coloured dust and blue sky snapping into focus beyond the windscreen.

My victory was short-lived.

The ute stalled the instant we fully emerged, the engine dying with a pathetic cough that seemed deliberately timed for maximum embarrassment. The vehicle stopped so abruptly that my body pitched forward, forehead meeting steering wheel with a thunk that probably looked as graceless as it felt.

I stayed there for a moment, using the wheel as a makeshift shield for my flushed cheeks, hoping that if I didn't look up, the witnesses might somehow vanish.

No such luck.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Kain, doubled over with the particular abandon of someone who'd been given an unexpected gift of comedy. His laughter reached me even through the closed windows—loud, genuine, the kind of amusement that was entirely at my expense. And Paul, barely containing his own mirth, his shoulders shaking with the effort of not joining Kain's outright display.

Fuck.

Leaving the key in the ignition—a symbol of my hasty retreat, an admission that I couldn't be trusted to operate this machine further—I clambered out of the ute with whatever dignity remained available to me. Which wasn't much. My shoes hit the dust, kicking up small clouds as I stormed away from the scene of my humiliation.

"Luke, wait!" Paul's voice cut through the air, stripped now of any mirth, carrying the particular urgency of someone who'd remembered there was actual business to conduct.

Despite my irritation, my feet obeyed before my brain could overrule them. I halted mid-stride, dust settling around my ankles, and turned to face my brother.

My frown deepened, the embarrassment curdling into defensiveness. "I said no," I snapped, assuming he was circling back to the car request.

Paul caught up, his expression serious, the earlier amusement packed away in favour of something that looked like genuine concern. "I know," he acknowledged. "It's not about Jamie's car."

My patience, already threadbare from the morning's accumulated frustrations, frayed further. "Then what is it?" I demanded. "I'm already late for breakfast with Karen."

His reaction was immediate and gratifying in its wrongness—mouth dropping open, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. "You're going out to breakfast!?" he scoffed, the words emerging with the particular indignation of someone who felt personally betrayed. "We're stuck in this dust bowl and you're going out for breakfast? Unbelievable!" His frustration was palpable, dust swirling around his gesturing arms as he turned away, body language broadcasting the betrayal he felt.

"It's not like that," I protested, reaching out to grasp his arm and pull him back around. The contact was brief but solid—the familiar feel of my brother's forearm beneath my fingers, the reminder that whatever tension existed between us, blood remained thicker than dust.

"Then explain yourself," he demanded, anger and plea tangling in his voice.

I couldn't help it—a chuckle escaped, bubbling up from somewhere beneath the frustration and embarrassment and lingering hangover.

"What?" Paul's voice sharpened, confusion adding to his annoyance.

"You're so funny when you're mad," I admitted, letting my grin widen despite everything. It was true. Paul's face did particular things when anger had hold of him—the set of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, the way his nostrils flared slightly. I'd watched this transformation since we were children, had learned to read its stages like weather patterns.

"Oh, shut up," Paul retorted, but the words lacked genuine bite. I could see him fighting against his own amusement, the corner of his mouth twitching in betrayal of his stern expression.

"Ahh," I teased, pointing at the involuntary movement, calling out his suppressed smile like the shit-stirring younger brother I'd always been.

"Stop being an idiot," Paul countered, brushing my hand away, though his tone had shifted to something more playful than angry. "What do you want?"

"You wanted me, remember?" I reminded him with a laugh, steering the conversation back toward whatever had prompted him to chase me down in the first place.

"Oh yeah," Paul conceded, a flush creeping across his cheeks—visible evidence of his shifting emotions. "But first, why are you having breakfast with Karen?"

My eyes darted automatically toward Kain, who sat patiently in the ute's driver’s seat now, apparently content to wait out whatever drama was unfolding between the Smith brothers. His presence was a reminder of the tangled web of relationships and responsibilities I was navigating—each person connected to others, each action rippling outward in ways I couldn't fully predict.

"Well?" Paul pressed.

"I'm hoping to bring her and her husband here," I confessed, keeping my voice low despite the distance between us and Kain. The words felt significant—another piece of the plan being revealed, another step toward whatever this settlement was becoming.

Paul inhaled sharply, his initial surprise morphing into the kind of concern I'd expected. "Are you sure that's a good idea? We're not exactly a thriving community."

He wasn't wrong. The settlement was barely more than tents and optimism at this point, populated by people I'd coerced or manipulated or outright abducted into this dimension. Hardly the thriving community one might use as a selling point for immigration.

"Not yet you're not," I conceded, acknowledging the reality whilst holding onto the vision that had been driving me since the Portal first revealed itself. "But you will be."

Paul's gaze narrowed, scepticism and curiosity mingling in his expression in that particular way that meant he was actually listening despite his reservations. "And how can they help?"

"Their skills will be pretty evident. Give them a warm welcome," I urged, confident in the potential benefits Karen and Chris would bring. Their knowledge of growing things, of coaxing life from reluctant earth, of the patience required to cultivate rather than simply consume—these were exactly what our fledgling settlement needed.

"Of course," Paul replied, resignation and trust mixing in his tone.

"Now, what is it you wanted?" I asked, eager to redirect away from the weight of recruitment and moral complexity. I noticed the spark of remembrance in Paul's eyes as he shifted mental gears.

"Oh," he said, his expression transitioning to practical concern. "We need some more wood for the campfire."

"Sure," I responded with a nod, adding it to the mental list that was growing faster than I could comfortably manage. "I'll make sure you have some before nightfall."

"And Kain and Glenda need fresh clothes," he continued, requests accumulating as if he'd been storing them up for exactly this opportunity.

"Okay," I acknowledged, already calculating the logistics—whose homes I could access, what sizes I'd need to guess at, how to manage the financial constraints that were becoming increasingly real.

"And Joel too," Paul added, almost as an afterthought but carrying its own weight.

My eyes widened as the oversight hit me. Joel. Still lying in that tent, wearing whatever he'd been wearing when he'd died. Twice. The boy who'd come back from the dead probably needed clean clothes as much as anyone, and I hadn't thought to include him in my mental inventory.

How can I be so far behind in keeping up with all of their needs already? The question arrived with self-recrimination attached. How the hell am I forgetting such simple things?

The settlement had been my idea. The people were here because of my actions. And I was already dropping balls I hadn't realised I was juggling.

I'll have to get Paul to start writing things down for me. The thought surfaced as practical solution—delegate the mental load, create systems that didn't rely entirely on my increasingly overwhelmed brain.

"I'll get Glenda's clothes first," I decided aloud, trying to impose some order on the chaos. "But I'll need you to get me Joel's address."

"Why do you need his address? Can't you just buy them some new ones? It'd be much easier," Paul questioned, clearly not grasping the full picture of our constraints.

"We're running low on cash," I stated plainly, watching his face shift as the reality landed.

"Already!?" The disbelief was genuine, his voice carrying the particular shock of someone who hadn't been tracking the flow of resources.

"Yes, already," I confirmed, frustration leaking into my tone despite my efforts to contain it. Every supply run, every piece of equipment, every practical necessity—it all added up faster than I'd anticipated. "And get me Kain's wallet at some point, would you?" I added, already thinking ahead to the next financial crisis, the next need that would require funds I was rapidly depleting.

Before Paul could pile on additional requests or questions, I stepped through the Portal. The colours enveloped me with familiar strangeness, the transition from Clivilius to Earth happening in the space between heartbeats.

My study materialised around me—books on shelves, desk by the window, the particular quality of Tasmanian light filtering through glass. The vibrant hues faded as I grounded myself in the here and now, in the task that had been waiting since I'd first discovered Kain's ute sitting in my driveway.

"Now for breakfast with Karen," I mumbled to myself, my stomach growling in agreement. The toast I'd abandoned this morning felt like a lifetime ago, and my body was making increasingly pointed demands for actual sustenance.

Karen. Chris. Duck egg omelettes.

And the conversation that might add two more people to the settlement I was still trying to believe in.