The wilderness was a lonely place at night. Except for the few Park Rangers that would visit, or the lost hikers, it was not often that Torsten would see anyone coming up to his mountain abode. It was a welcome change of pace, he figured, to have someone to walk with. He motioned his hand towards the city at her questions, “Not really. The city is a technology hub. Not many power outages. It is filled with.. how do you say.. hippiesters?” The Finn had obviously not gotten a strong grasp on Yankee terminology for its ‘cool’ younger generations. Skinny jeans and ironic haircuts weren’t cool in Finland. Drifting cars over ice lakes was cool in Finland.

Torsten bounced on the balls of his feet when she made it back to her car. He gave a cheerful smile and a little wave. “It was my pleasure. Have a good night and good luck in Portland!” He called to her, deciding it best to wait until she got going. He waited.. and waited. His eyebrows furrowed together at the silence of her car. The dome light didn’t even turn on. Maybe she had a bad battery or alternator? He clucked his tongue, before giving a hopeless shrug. “Maybe I could jump you? I have a motorcycle that could charge your battery, if you would like. Let me go grab it. Just shut your door, you’ll be fine,” he told her. He knew she would be frightened of every shadow once he was ‘gone.’ She was obviously not from the countryside.

The Finn made his way back to his cabin, walking around to the back. He had never owned a car while in the United States, but he had owned multiple motorcycles. The American winters, at least to him, were never severe. He’d even ridden the things in deep snowfall. Americans called him crazy. He called them lazy. Behind the house sat an old Russian motorcycle – a Ural Solo. If something was rotten in the state of Denmark, the Ural would most certainly tell him. It was always reliable. Always firing up. Sure, it required maintenance every thousand miles, but it meant no roadside breakdowns. Torsten mounted it, hitting the electronic start.

The wilderness was silent. He hit it again; making sure the key was in the correct position in the pitch dark. Nothing. “Weird,” he mumbled to himself. That was fine. The bike had a kick start, making it able to start even if the battery were flat. He stood on one peg, his foot finding the kick lever. He eased down on it, but found no resistance point. Kick starts would always ‘break’ at a certain point. That’s where you knew when to hammer down on it. This one seemed to be missing. He resorted to kicking again and again. The motor did not spool. He broke into a sweat, before opting to stop. 

Military instinct caused him to look up at the sky. Was there a war on? He knew relations between the US and Russia were tense, but not this tense. A solar flare? It would explain the outages. He looked back down at the Ural. It wouldn’t explain that. The kick start was a mechanical start. No electronics, which would have been fried in an EMP, were there. It should have started. He licked his lips, before turning to make his way back down the dirt driveway to find the woman’s SUV. 

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “My bike won’t start. Listen, you can’t get down off the mountain in the dark. You can spend the night in my cabin – I’ll make you dinner and I’ll get a fire going. I’ll walk you down to Portland tomorrow, if you have good boots.”