"Sir, I've got traffic. Very close-under a thousand yards, bearing three one oh."
"That's inland!" Kranuski bolted from his stateroom and rushed to the sonar suite. "What's their heading?" he demanded, buttoning his shirt. On the flat-panel monitors, he could see the familiar saw-toothed waves of different small-craft signatures.
"They're upriver," Phil Tran said. "Reception's bad in these shallows, but I'd say they're idling or moving away. At least four-no, five contacts: three light diesels, low rpms, and now two high-speed impellers-probably Jet Skis or something similar. I'm catching a lot of support activity, too. Sounds like heavy machinery and general deck noise. Somebody's got a regular little marina going out there. I guess we know who set those fires."
"Sir?" Jack Kraus called. "Topside watch reports smoke and sounds of organized activity, bearing three one oh."
Kranuski went to the control room and raised the periscope. The mouths of two rivers opened into this uppermost arm of the bay: the Providence River, immediately astern, which passed through downtown and was where they had seen the signal fires, and the Seekonk River, which lay half a mile east. Getting his bearings, he followed the contours of the nearby shore eastward to where it cut inland at the mouth of the Seekonk. Around that bend, rising above a line of trees, he could see a thin plume of smoke.
"Goddammit," he said. "All right, let's be ready for them. All hands to battle stations. Mr. Robles, muster an armed detail and post them on deck. Make sure they look as intimidating as possible."
"Yes, sir. Uh, sir, the Moguls cleaned us out good. Except for those ceremonial carbines and a few personal sidearms, we're down to slingshots."
"I know that! I said try to look intimidating! Make more rifles out of broomsticks if you have to. And don't knock slingshots-remember Davy and Goliath. Here, take my gun. Mr. Webb, you rig the outboard and organize a quick recon patrol around the point so we at least know what we're up against."
They didn't go to the submarine.
At the mouth of the river, just beyond the interstate highway bridge, was a flotilla of two massive cargo barges, each one half the length of a football field, each with its own tugboat. One was a junkyard pyramid assembled from big metal shipping containers-tractor trailers stacked in colorful tiers like so many Legos, with labels like MAERSK and SEA LAND, sharing deck space with the enormous crane that had put them there. The other barge was more striking, its tall white superstructure resembling that of an old-time riverboat, including smokestacks and paddle wheel, though the latter appeared to be purely ornamental; it didn't touch the water. Other amphibious vehicles were there, too, as well as small watercraft of all kinds.
As the duck boat drew closer, Sal could see that holes had been cut into some of the cargo boxes, making jack-o'-lantern-crude windows, and that there were lights inside and fuming stovepipes on top. Some of these perforated containers were homes for people, not cargo. And there were other, weirder shantytown structures: faulty towers banged together out of plywood and corrugated metal, with blue plastic port-a-johns jutting on planks over the water.
Yes, people were living out here by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, packed together like junkyard bees in a rusty hive. Sal could smell them: mingled odors of raw sewage, trash, and fryer grease. He could see and hear them, too. Some shot hoops while others called out bets from windows and still others hooted down from rooftop deck chairs, cracking beers. A better life than that aboard the submarine, clearly-this was a well-functioning caravan, a whole floating village, a Mongol horde. A Mogul horde.
As they passed under the bridge, and the view opened up, Sal was startled to see two more duck boats plowing toward them, heading inland. The crews catcalled and made crude gestures at each other as they passed. The sudden sense of relative normalcy, of routine human traffic, was overwhelming. Sal hadn't felt this way since first catching sight of… of…
Thule, he thought apprehensively. The Mogul base.
"So who do you guys work for?" he asked.
"Work for? We work for ourselves, son. We're independent contractors." Marcus seemed offended at the very thought.
Sal held his tongue. Could it be they weren't connected to the Moguls after all? Or maybe they just didn't know they were. Coombs and the Navy men hadn't known-not until they got to Thule. Feeling a buzz of possibility, Sal asked, "Are you all refugees?"
"Lifers, boy! Reapers! Skinwalker Platoon, Rodeo Zulu Tango! The one and only Hopalong Cassidy Phalanx out of Huntsville, Alabama."
"Is that the Army?"
"Is that the Army? Shee-it! That's the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, rolled into one! That's the full and complete membership of the Huntsville Prison Rodeo Association! We're George Washington, brother! We're Thomas fuckin' Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Lewis and Clark! We're Paul Bunyan, Wild Bill Hickok, and John Henry! We're the Founding Fathers, y'unnerstan? Forget your dead white men, we the dudes they gonna write history books about, the ones who redraw the maps and make up the laws. While everybody else just accepts the way things are, we make up reality to suit us. This is our country now, and we its new hee-roes! When men get back around to building monuments, they'll be dedicating them to us. When they name all the new states and territories, they'll be naming them after us! Naw, they won't even have to name them, because we already done it. Look around you, boy-you ain't in New England no more. On that side of the river is the great state of Shaka Zulu, New Africa, granted by solemn treaty to the Mau-Mau Brotherhood. On the eastern shore you got the Mexican paradise of Aztlan, laid claim to by our brothers in La Raza. And we ain't leavin' out the white folk: White Pride staked out some sweet reservations for y'all down around Connecticut and Long Island-the Aryan Evangelical Co-Prosperity Sphere. And this here's the People's Expedition of the New United States! Uncle Spam has granted us charter to all the lands we can claim… so long as we keep up our end of the bargain."
"And what's that?"
"Shit, boy, work with me! Don't you even know why you're here? To gather weekly shipments of supplies and deliver them up to you folks for pickup. SPAM, it's called-hell, we only been doin' it all up and down the whole damn eastern seaboard. Government handles the rest, using cargo planes, submarines, ships, and whatnot. It ain't no damn secret. What did you think them signal fires were for, a weenie roast? When we saw that big-ass submarine come humpin' up the channel, we damn sure figured that's what y'all was here for-'less there's some other submarine we don't know about."
Sal shrugged, heart pounding.
"Then you folks take it all up north somewhere, Valhalla, God knows where that is-we just call it the North Pole. Whatever they're using as the provisional capital until they can come back, jump-start the country again." He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "I hear tell they got women up there to use as breeding stock. Must be right nice, considering all the goodies we send 'em."
Sal couldn't help asking, "Why do you do it?"
"Yeah," Kyle said. "What do you get out of it?"
"Same as you. Manifest destiny! We the new colonials, man-we building a new nation, all pulling together. And it ain't just a one-way street: They provide us with logistical support, mapping out the best pickings, updatin' us on the latest research-that's how come we here at all. Couldn't hardly set foot on dry land before. Now we got free run of the place, and it's only gonna get better. Soon they'll have a vaccine for Agent X, then everything will start up again… with the deck reshuffled in our favor."
Sal thought Voodooman's mythologizing had the sound of something predigested and regurgitated whole, a canned pep talk like those self-help tapes his mom used to listen to in the car. A mantra to ward off dread. But perhaps he was wrong about the dread-these men all seemed to be having the time of their lives. And why wouldn't they be? Unexpectedly freed from prison, given the run of this all-you-can-grab Armageddon-it was like hitting the jackpot.
He blurted, "Doesn't it scare you, though?"
"What?"
"That it might never happen. That all this might be just pie in the sky?"
"Pie hail. It's our cut of the American pie, boy-the American dream. Forty million acres and a mule. Property is power. Power of ownership-that's the story of the human race. People come and go, but real estate is forever. We're taking ownership of these new territories so that when Agent X runs its course, and the scientists hand down their cure, we'll have staked our claims. Australia was founded by prisoners; this'll be our homeland, our Botany Bay."
But how do you know you can trust them? Sal wanted to ask.
The duck boat approached the nearest barge, the cargo carrier, its flank looming above like a rust-streaked cliff topped with barbed wire. One of the men shouted, "Boat Three with fresh fish. Open up!" and a door cranked open, lowering on chains like a drawbridge. When it was at the level of their gunwales, the crew tied up as though to a dock, and the boys were ushered up the ramp. Looking inside, Sal felt as if he was entering fantasyland.
First, he and the boys were greeted by an equal number of dour-faced, heavily armed men-men who nevertheless were dressed in the most outlandish pimp costumes, tricked out from head to foot in garish formalwear usually reserved for Broadway musicals and Mardi Gras parades, all feathers, spangles, glitter, and glitz.
"What the hell is this?" Sal said under his breath.
Kyle replied, "Looks like a Halloween party."
Ostentatiously decorated sombreros and chaps, tuxedoes and tails, maroon top hats, Dick Tracy fedoras, fancy cowboy hats with bands of silver skulls, toreador suits in blinding colors and patterns-plush purple and green velvet with linings of ruffled silk, snow leopard and zebra patterns-striped zoot suits and bolo ties, bloodred snakeskin boots inlaid with turquoise. And bling!-massive jewel-encrusted rings and gold chains, Cartier studs, sapphire pendants belonging to the czars, priceless museum pieces from Aztec coffers or Egyptian tombs.
The men themselves were not as fancy as their couture, resembling a post-office billboard's worth of sketchy characters and ugly mugs, FBI's Most Wanted, their thick necks and bald heads marked with scars and thug tattoos. Beneath their expensive clothes and cologne they reeked of sweat and machine oil. But they were well fed, and at least they weren't dressed in pulsating Xombie flesh-for the moment Sal was grateful for any trace of civilization.
"I don't think we gonna meet the dress code," whispered Kyle, dazzled in spite of himself. He had always been vain about his appearance, shoplifting designer clothes and primping in front of the mirror so long that his brother Russell used to joke, You worse than having a sister, man. The thought of his lost brother was like a sucker punch to the gut.
"You guys always dress this way?" Sal asked.
"Pert much ever night, after work," said Voodooman.
"Why's that?" asked Todd.
"Naught else to do… and because we can. Keeps the blues away. Out here, we like to make every night a party."
Freddy asked, "There's gonna be a party?"
"Hail yes! We observe all the formalities in this organization-gotta keep up all them good old traditions. This here's Big Rock Candy Mountain! You boys ain't never been to a party till you been to a lockup hoedown. Ain't a lot of fun left in this world, but one thing us saddle pimps know how to do is party!"
Sal said, "Uh, sorry, sir, I'm not sure we're really up for a party. We're pretty beat. We lost some friends, and it's been a rough day."
"That's when you need to get likkered-up the most! But don't you fellas worry, the party ain't gonna get goin' till after sundown. You got a few hours to rest up yet."
Working up his nerve, Sal said firmly, "Well, that's just it-we were thinking we need to get back to the boat. We're way overdue, and they have to be wondering what happened to us by now. If they think we didn't make it, they might sail without us."
"Don't you worry, son-your rust bucket ain't goin' nowhere."
"It's not?"
"Hail no! We got 'em in the sack. Ain't but one way in and out of this bay, and we control the out. Trust me. Now come on, let's get you squared away."
The boys were directed to wait while the crew from the duck boat went into a clear plastic tent. Once they were inside, the enclosure was flooded with purified oxygen from a large tank, and immediately their Xombie leathers began to relax, turning pink and bloody, sagging off them like so much raw meat.
"Ohhh, sick, dude," Todd remarked under his breath.
The men effortlessly stepped free, scooping the shed hides into steel drums. Removing the limp sacks of their helmets, they revealed gleefully sweaty faces marked with numerous gang markings: scars, brands, purplish prison tattoos. Having seen the deckhands, the boys were less surprised than they would otherwise have been, no longer expecting from the men's country twang to see a bunch of redneck hillbillies. For the most part, these were ghetto warriors, pimped-up vaqueros and part-time buffalo soldiers-convicts before they were ever cowboys.
The lids were cinched down tight, and the men emerged to be hosed off, gratefully shedding layers of protective gear and sweaty hazmat coveralls.
Suddenly someone shouted, "Duck!" and Sal spun to see several wet Xombies leaping onto the ramp. They had been clinging like leeches beneath the duck boat.
He and the other boys scattered, screaming, but the men on the barge were ready. In an instant the creatures were roped, gaffed, and pinned to the deck, then their limbs and heads hewn from their bodies. The loose parts were bagged and tied off as if for some future purpose.
Carpet remnants, Sal thought. Scrap leather. He watched, revolted, as those bags-as well as Lulu and the captive Xombies at the stern-were hoisted away by crane.
"Fun's over, gentlemen," said Voodooman. Out of his flesh suit, wearing shorts and flip-flops, he was revealed to be a knobby-kneed older black man with gray in his beard. "Go on up."
They were led around the deck to where a rope ladder dangled from the mountain of shipping containers. There were more ladders up to the higher tiers. It reminded Sal of pictures he'd seen of an Indian pueblo in New Mexico.
Voodooman said, "We pull these ladders up after dark, so you don't need to worry none about Harpies kissin' on you in the night."
The boys climbed to the next level, following as the man briskly walked them around the first shelf of the pyramid. It was like the sundeck of a very unruly cruise ship, littered with deck chairs and sun umbrellas and just plain litter. They passed a port-a-john on a plank and were told to remember its location. At intervals there were holes cut in the metal floor, and at one of these the boys were directed to go below.
"Just like on the submarine," Kyle said, climbing down the ladder.
"Yeah."
It wasn't quite the same as the sub though, didn't have that subterranean heaviness, that density that always made Sal feel like he was locked inside a bank vault. This felt more like a barn: stinky but well ventilated, and not nearly as claustrophobic.
First they descended into a long shipping container loaded to the ceiling with cases of soda pop. Open at one end, it faced into a fluorescent-lit corridor under the pyramid, and they were taken down this narrow passage to another container-a bare box about the size of a bus and nearly as comfortable, with dozens of hammocks and folding cots, a hundred-gallon barrel of water, soap, rolls of paper towels, and a washtub. The perforated walls rang with raucous sounds of men.
"This is my crew's bunkhouse here," said Voodooman. "We'll let you use it for now, just until you get fixed up. All I ask is that you don't bring any food in, on account of the rats."
"Rats?" squeaked Freddy.
"What food?" asked Kyle.
"What food?" The man seemed to find this amusing. "When you get hungry, just head on down the passage-I'm sure you'll find something."
He left them alone, and the boys considered their situation. It was all so overwhelming, and they were so exhausted after the long, terrifying, tragic day, that they barely had the energy to discuss the situation.
"What do you think?" Sal asked softly.
"I don't know," said Todd, yawning. "Looks like they don't know much about us or the sub, which is good."
"I agree. They obviously think the boat's here to hook up with them and get supplies for some kind of bogus 'provisional government.' Sounds a lot like MoCo to me."
"Maybe it's true," Kyle offered. "Did you ever think of that? That would explain why Coombs brought us here in the first place, and why the crew mutinied."
The boys lay stunned as this possibility sank in.
"Shit, man, you're right."
As they were mulling this over, one by one, the exhausted boys fell asleep.
On one level, Lulu was aware of her body being rudely stripped from the jagged spike upon which it had been impaled, her gaping, shredded body cavity huge and drafty as a hollow tree. She felt herself being bound up with baling wire and bagged in coarse burlap, then tossed and banged around like a sack of bulk mail. While this was going on, she remained perfectly inert, as immune to rough handling as a rag doll, her consciousness dwelling elsewhere, out there, up where the stars pooled, carried along on tides of gravity and time. But it was not the immensely distant phenomena that held her attention. There was something else going on up there, something much closer to home, close and drawing nearer every minute-an amorphous paisley shape in the void, white on black, fuzzy as smudged chalk on a blackboard and crude as a child's drawing of a tadpole: a bulbous head with a long, trailing tail. Invisible to the naked eye, and insignificantly miniscule by astronomical standards, this eyeless object seemed to stare right back into Lulu's mind as though shining a spotlight on the back of her skull-no, not on her, but on Earth itself, the whole planet. Fixing upon it with the obsessive fertility of a sperm contemplating an egg. It was coming, this thing, not directly but on a wide, looping intercept, using the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter as slings to multiply its force. It was coming. How she knew this she didn't know, nor why. The knowledge came unsought, delivered upon her like an unsigned threat. What did it mean? It occupied the space of dreams, but whether this was dream, vision, sheer figment of her imagination, or impending truth, Lulu didn't know… or care. She was barely capable of caring. To her it was merely interesting-an abstraction like everything else.
Punish Mint, said a voice in her head. Punish Mint Gum. The sound of that voice had more of an effect on her than being skewered on a pike, more than having her skull fractured through burlap; it actually caused her to wince. Within the stifling bag, a blue tear ran down Lulu's dusty dead cheek, shed by a tear duct that instantly closed up shop, withering like a dried flower and being sucked up in her head. The last tear of her residual humanity.
Mummy, she thought.
They opened a trapdoor, opened the neck of her sack, and dumped her down the well. From one darkness to another, deeper, Lulu landed headfirst in a sump of cold grease, a gummy tank of artificial amniotic fluid that enfolded and encased her, making the least movement arduously slow… had she wanted to move. But she didn't. She was content to float, to feel. And she wasn't alone. There were hundreds of others buried around her, bodies entwined every which way like fossils in a tar pit, or flies in amber.
And one of them was her mother.
They woke to the sound of music. Not music, actually, just a beat, a powerful stomping of feet that caused the metal walls to vibrate. It was the middle of the night.
"Sounds like a party," Sal said grimly.
"Rock the house," said Kyle, rubbing his eyes. "Where's it coming from?"
"One way to find out."
They woke Todd, Ray, and Freddy and left the room, heading down the corridor. There was no one around. Some of the truck trailers had been set a few feet apart, creating a maze of narrow passages deeper into the stack, and the boys ventured down one of these. Following the music, they entered a crevice that got narrower and narrower before suddenly opening on a much larger space.
"Daaaamn."
A kind of courtyard spread out before them, an open-topped hall perhaps a hundred feet long, with sheer walls of stacked shipping containers and the night sky visible through a web of rope netting. The place was bright with laughter and the yellow flames of torches, dense with voices and music and the aromas of marijuana and hot popcorn. Half the people were making music of one kind or another-a lush cacophony of mismatched instruments and voices that sounded like the world's biggest jug band-and the rest were stomping and singing along. The song was "O-O-H Child," by The Five Stairsteps.
"I guess this is the party," Kyle said.
"No duh."
"Well, howdy, boys!" It was Voodooman. They hardly recognized him now, a blinding apparition in a hot pink suit and ten-gallon hat. He looked like a Nashville novelty act. "Glad you could make it! How do you like our little pleasure dome? Feel free to mingle, and help yourselves to the grub!"
Help yourselves-that was the invitation of a lifetime.
The room was a hoard of treasure, a moveable feast heaped high with vast quantities of luxury goods and non-perishable goodies of every kind, amid which the crowd milled freely, sampling at will. It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet in a bulk food warehouse. But Sal felt too conspicuous, too vulnerable to join the free-for-all. He and the other boys were still sick from the convenience-store splurge, sick from losing friends and brothers, sick with worry and confusion over what to do next. They couldn't relax, much less enjoy themselves.
Sensing their hesitation, Voodooman said, "Don't be shy, boys. Listen, we're all family here. Things ain't like they used to be, with folks all fired up at one another, steppin' on each other's toes. Them days are over. What reason do we have to fight? There's enough here for everybody! Look yonder, you'll see Bloods dancing with Crips, Muslims with Mormons, Latin Kings chillin' with White Pride. Those labels don't matter like they used to in the joint. We're all brothers now, and we got us a whole world to carve up, like the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Here, let me take you to meet El Dopa."
Dragged through the room like starstruck peasants, the boys gaped at truckloads of wine and champagne, cigarettes and cigars, whole hams, sides of bacon, sausages and other cured meats, every kind of canned and dry goods, imported chocolates and cheeses, a huge trove of prescription pharmaceuticals, enough designer clothing to stock a Fifth Avenue department store, and endless cases of cheap beer and expensive liquor. There was also a huge arsenal of military weapons and ammunition. But what really caught the boys' eyes were the Christmas decorations everywhere they looked: a large street display made of lights spelling MERRY XMAS as well as ivylike profusions of red and green bulbs, giant glowing candy canes, fake Christmas trees covered with flock and silver and gold tinsel, images of angels, reindeer, bells, gold stars, gold ornaments-gold everywhere they looked, even hanging overhead. Real gold: golden lamps and chandeliers, gold jewelry, gold goblets and tableware, gold eggs, gold coins, gold bricks. Several Oscar statuettes. At the center of it all, a massive golden crucifix with a bloody, tortured Christ.
Sal noticed other gory Christ images as well, valuable-looking paintings and museum pieces, and asked, "Are you guys Catholic or something?"
"Some are, not me. We don't trouble much about each other's religions since El Dopa turned us on to Bhakti-Yoga."
"Yoga?"
"I know what you're thinking. But it ain't like that; it's a kind of philosophy-the spiritual glue that's held all us different groups together and carried us through a lot of bad shit. It was invented hundreds of years ago by a dude in India, man by the name of Ramakrishna. He basically said that it don't matter what religion you are-all religions are paths to God. He said, 'All rivers flow to the ocean.' That's what's helped us get along so well up to now. Which ain't to say Jesus Christ don't have a special significance. As someone who was raised from the dead hisself, he reminds us what it's all about."
"What's that?"
"The promise of eternal life."
"Like a Xombie?"
"Whoa, now. Jesus wasn't no Xombie. Xombies are devils; we want to be angels. That's what Uncle Spam has promised us as the reward for our labors, and I've seen enough to know it's true. There are angels roaming the Earth again, folks immune not only to Agent X but to the rigors of sickness and death. They're out there, and if we serve them faithfully, we may even earn a place at their table. In Valhalla."
Working up his nerve, Sal asked, "What do you guys know about Valhalla?"
"I expect you boys would know better than we would. It's the last capital-the New Jerusalem. The City of Angels, and I ain't talking about no damn Los Angeles." Voodooman eyed him intently. "Why? You been there?"
Rushing to cover his tracks, Sal said, "No! Just… curious, I guess."
"I hear that. It's the only paradise left in this world, the last and most ideal government. It's where all of man's wisdom is being kept safe, in preparation for the Savior's return. And it's the place we send our dead, so that someday they can live again."
"So you believe Christ is coming back."
"Some folks do. Personally, I don't know if it'll necessarily be Christ himself, or some other redeemer. I never been religious, but I believe that something is coming. Some higher power. We've all heard tell about it from the Harpies we catch: a glowing light in the sky, getting bigger and bigger. We call it the Big Enchilada. It's comin' all right." Suddenly the electric lights flickered off, and a brilliant spotlight winked on over their heads. "Oh shit, hold up-the Thuggees are on."
The boys had arrived at the center of the room. At the front, rising above a wall of truck batteries, was a platform in front of a blue velvet stage curtain. A carpeted ramp rose to the dais, which was empty except for a fancy wingback chair and a microphone, both gleaming in the spotlight. The crowd cheered as a fur-coated man mounted the ramp. "Welcome to the Thug House!" he called.
Speakers on the walls began throbbing with a familiar beat.
"Is that 'Funky Cold Medina'?" asked Sal.
"Seriously, dude," Kyle said, rolling his eyes. "Learn your history. It's 'Going Back to Cali,' by LL Cool J."
Making up his own lyrics, the man onstage mumbled along to the beat, listlessly punching the air. "I'm singin' 'bout Vedanta, Vedanta, Vedanta-I'm singin' 'bout Vedanta-Kill your ego-"
Kyle whispered in Sal's ear, "Yo, it's the Grinch."
Sal shushed him… but the man did resemble the Grinch: a prune-faced faux Santa, prematurely old, with bad teeth and jaundiced eyes. He was dressed in a fur-collared red cape over a red velvet suit, with gleaming black platform boots and a peculiar furry cap that was more Attila the Hun than Kris Kringle. In his rich brocades, the man was a strange fusion of Hollywood hustler and Russian Orthodox priest-half pope, half pimp.
One by one, as at a beauty contest, a line of extraordinary figures began to sashay out from the wings, making strange shapes with their arms and singing a high-pitched chorus. The room erupted in cheers and wolf whistles.
Oh my God, Sal thought, heart pounding. The boys around him gasped.
Women. Women of every shape and size, only their stage costumes identical. All were barefoot and bare-limbed, bodies painted coal black from head to toe, with peculiar skirts of gnarled roots or sticks, beaded breastplates, and great quantities of gold bangles and other jewelry, including jewel-encrusted crowns or tiaras that held back tremendous manes of wild black hair. In their hands they carried wicked-looking curved blades and objects that resembled withered fruit. It took Sal a second to realize that their disturbing black faces-red eyes popping, red tongues protruding-were only masks.
It didn't matter that they were weird-looking; what mattered was that they were women. The boys were rapt, drunk on music and incense, their frozen hearts thawed with childish yearning for this impossible bounty from a dead world. Some of them started to cry, reminded of what they had been missing, keeping buried in their hearts: every woman they had ever known. The sight of these unearthly black goddesses dredged it all up.
Hearing the other four sniffling, Kyle leaned over and hissed, "Hey! Assholes! They're dudes!"
Freddy Fisk physically recoiled, blinking tears. "What? No, their voices-"
"It's a recording. Just look, stupid!"
It was true. As soon as Kyle spoke, the illusion fractured and their wistful soft focus sharpened to a painful resolution: These were not women at all, but frightening caricatures of women. Under their masks, ebony body paint, and fake boobs, they were nothing but transvestites.
Parading above the boys was the unlikeliest female of them all, a gangly, chicken-necked character, his face disguised but his leathery Adam's apple bobbing as he lip-synched along. Like the others, he was wearing a necklace of shrunken heads and skeins of teeth that swayed like rosaries as he danced languidly to the beat. A separate blackened head dangled from his fist, leaving a trail of perfumed smoke as he waved it around by its long hair. The tuberlike objects that made up his skirt were desiccated arms-children's arms. Viewed closely, they were every bit as real as the shrunken heads.
Unable to bear it, Freddie cracked, whimpering, "Oh no, no, no! Please, not again!"
The boys had been through this before, far up north at Thule, and were still traumatized from the experience. This same heinous charade. They remembered all too well the shame of being tarted up in wigs and makeup, fodder for elderly Moguls seeking a female substitute. Even though there had been no choice-it had been either give in or die horribly as a guinea pig for the Mogul Research Division-they bitterly regretted having allowed themselves to be so abused… and would gladly die before they'd ever let it happen again.
Falling to his knees, crying, Freddy begged, "Oh God no… nooo… they can't do this to us! They can't make us do it-"
"Shut up, bitch," said the gawky dancer, jarred out of his mellowness by Freddy's outburst. "Joo so stupid! Nobody's making nobody do nothing-this ain't no fucking Scared Straight. Who are these punks, anyway?" Still dancing, he turned to Marcus Washington, demanding, "Voodooman, why you do me like this in the middle of my rumba? Joo know how I hate to be disturb."
Marcus said, "Sorry, Chiquita-I just need two seconds with El Dopa, you don't mind. It's kinda important."
El Dopa-the Grinch-overheard and nodded from his perch, dismissing the dancer and beckoning the boys with a flaccid wave.
"Shit, go ahead," Chiquita said. "Why not? Just because it's a fucking lost art." He flounced offstage and sat down in a huff. To the boys, he said, "Joo have to shut up and listen when he speaks, okay? He's the boss around here, so give him some damn respeck. He's also a fucking recording star, entiendes?"
"Oh shit, man," hissed Kyle. "That's really El Dopa!"
"Who's El Dopa?" asked Sal, unnerved.
"Are you kidding me? You never heard of El Dopa? He did all those pirate tracks from prison-dude had some mad beats. He was heavy into Eastern religion. He did that chanting thing: 'Como Se Lama'!"
Chiquita nodded. "He's a bad motherfucker, so don't mess with him."
"Thass right," El Dopa slurred. "Ain't nobody better fuck with me. I got karma on my side, baby-I have mastered Mahasamadhi and passed beyond birth and death. Everybody said my career was gonna blow up as soon as I got out of the joint, but Agent X beat me to it: Was the damn world that blew up. But it's cool-I finally got me a headlining gig, hey! Yo, Marcus! Rise and come forth."
"What up, El?" said Voodooman. "How you doing, brother?"
"It's all good, man. I see you starting your own Boys' Club. Who these cats?"
"They from that big mother sub off downtown. We picked 'em up goin' into Miska's tunnel, along with a real interesting Harpy, regular damn Kewpie doll, tame as a kitten. They claim her blood has some kinda magical effect on other Harpies, chills 'em right out. They also mentioned the name Langhorne."
El Dopa's eyelids drooped to mere slits. "Well, ain't that nice. Friends in need. Chiquita! Put out some milk and cookies for our young guests, would you? These boys look hungry." He clapped his hands.
The dancer scoffed, "Fuck you, I ain't putting out shit."
"How nice to know that in this vast, deserted wasteland, it's still possible to run across folks with mutual interests," El Dopa said lazily, waving at them to dig in to his pharmaceutical tray: candy-colored pills and capsules of every type. "Small world!"
The man's hooded eyes bored directly into Sal's, and the boy felt the skin prickle at the nape of his neck. There was an absence behind those eyes, a vacuum as harshly unforgiving as a black hole in deep space. Perhaps El Dopa had been a whole person once, but now he was damaged, shut down inside from having witnessed one too many unthinkables. Sal knew plenty of people like that, ghosts living in a ghost world, and one thing he knew was you didn't want them calling the shots.
"There's just one thing I don't understand," the wizened man said. "The timing. See, things have gone a little funny with our sponsor. We've had a slight… communications breakdown. I assume your people on that submarine must have a direct line to Valhalla, all that high-tech gear you got out there. Right? Can you also jam radio signals? Suddenly here you come along, and what's the first thing you do? Start poaching on our turf."
Sal jumped in, "No!-I mean, I don't think so, sir. The Navy officers don't really tell us anything, but I know the boat maintains radio silence almost all the time, so-"
El Dopa wasn't even listening. "I hope they don't think we're going to renegotiate our contract," he said. "Is that why you're here? Give us a little wake-up call? Introduce some healthy competition, a little competitive bidding? Are they unhappy with what we've been sending them? Think somebody else could do the job better? I'd like to see them try. Or maybe you're with a rival agency? Come into our territory and try to muscle us just because you think you so bad with that big-ass submarine? Is that it?"
"No, sir. At least, I don't think so."
"Boy don't think so. Well, there must be SOME explanation!" El Dopa flung his beer bottle at the floor, then subsided and pondered them for a moment. Shaking his head, he sighed, "I guess there's nothing for it but to call up Uncle Spam."
Eavesdropping, Chiquita said, "Why you gotta do that? I had enough of that creepy spider. He don't say shit no more."
"Now, baby, he is still our esteemed company agent-the only one we have. Don't worry, I'm not sending you." He clapped his hands. "So let it be written, so let it be done." Abruptly dismissing the visitors, he took up the mike and started singing again: "Cortez was a gangsta, a measure of thanks ta, conquistador killa in the biblical mold… bust a cap in the Az-tecs, dust the map what he did nex', and played Montezuma for a room of pure gold…"
The dancer's leering mask was fixed on them, something out of a nightmare. "The audience is over," Chiquita said. "Get out before somebody carry you out."
"Oops," said Voodooman. Hustling the boys away, he said, "I guess he'll call for you in the morning. For now, you guys just enjoy the party. That's what it's for. If anybody mess with you, tell 'em you're under the special protection of the Skins."
The boys nodded agreeably, but as soon as Voodooman was out of sight, they felt scores of predatory eyes on them. Kyle, feeling particularly ogled, said, "Let's beat it the hell out of here, please," and they began to move back toward the exit, huddling close together. The faster they moved, the more unwanted attention snowballed around them:
"Hey, baby, how you doin'?" "You stepped on my foot, bitch." "Shit, you fine, girl." "Oooh, honey, come on over here, show me that ass." "Lookee here, bitch, lookee here…"
"Hey now, what's your hurry?" It was another one of the heinous dancers-one of the more convincing ones. He planted himself in their path, his buttery-soft voice cutting through the gauntlet of cruder remarks. The boys were forced to stop in their tracks.
Taking out a cigarette and accepting a light from the crowd, the dancer took a puff through his mask's leering bloody mouth, and said, "You boys won't let a few hardened criminals chase you away, I hope. As you can see, they're harmless. We have a strict hands-off policy."
Fending off a rough grope from the mob, Sal said, "We're-hey!-under the protection of the Skins-"
A brutal voice drooled in his ear, "I don't care who you under, bitch! You under me now, punk."
"Shut up, Carl," the dancer said, his muffled voice suddenly dropping an octave, "unless you want me to use your boiled skull for an ashtray." The other man retreated under a gale of jeering laughter. Resuming his composure, the dancer purred, "How do you boys feel about flaming Zombies?"
"Excuse me?"
"The house drink." Not waiting for their reply, he said, "Get these lads some drinks." A dozen men ran for the liquor. The other convicts immediately lost interest and drifted away.
Desperately hopeful, Freddy said, "You can control them?"
"It's the feminine mystique, what can I say."
"But you're not a real woman," Kyle said contemptuously.
"Shh!-don't tell anybody."
"Then how come you let them do you like this?"
"Do me? Who's doing who? Listen and listen good: I'm not some punk gal-boy from the joint, I'm a straight-up K-Thug Original, a Kali Dolly after the Black One herself. Old school, baby-the oldest. In case you hadn't noticed, women are synonymous with scary shit nowadays, and us Tarbabies are the scariest motherfuckers of all. Put on this uniform, and it's like the red on a black widow spider: Nobody better fuck with you, not unless they want to take on the whole Dollhouse."
Sal asked, "I don't understand. What are you supposed to be?"
"I told you: Kali-goddess of destruction. Mother of the Thug cult. That's where the word comes from, son."
"Like Lassie, you mean?" Freddy asked.
"Not collie, stupid," said Todd. "Kali-K-A-L-I."
"How'd you guys come up with this?" Kyle asked.
"Originally some of us started dressing in drag because Major Bendis told us it might act as camouflage against the Harpies. Didn't work, but it gave us a certain social clout, which was nice, and also a sense of power-fighting fire with fire. As anti-X defenses improved, we incorporated them, so that we're running pretty state-of-the-art right now. Those bulky skinsuits the Reapers wear are old technology, strictly 1.0, but they had trouble enough getting used to that; they're not about to change. The Kali thing came after-it was El Dopa's vision, his way of unifying us."
"So you guys believe in all this?"
"Ain't a matter of belief, honey-it's pure survival. Rule number one is that the best defense is to protect your airway, don't give 'em an opening, so face masks are a no-brainer. We started with hockey masks, but learned pretty quick that Harpies play rough; a few straps are no deterrent. So some of us volunteered to make the mask permanent."
"Permanent?" The boys' hackles went up.
"Absolutely. Drill a few anchor bolts in the back of your head, nothing to it. Valhalla sent us kits with all the instructions. Really, everybody should do it-it's a matter of public safety. But try getting a lot of these guys to agree on anything, much less wearing a muzzle. That's the problem with democracy. Likewise, not everybody can stand to cover themselves with ichor. It sticks permanent, but there's no better repellent."
"Ichor? You mean that body paint?"
"It's not paint. It's not ink, either. It's blood-Harpy blood."
The boys got their drinks-huge flaming rum cocktails that looked inordinately delicious. Under pressure to keep things polite, they guzzled the fruity concoctions and immediately got a pleasant buzz. More rounds of drinks arrived, and with the alcohol came relief from worry. Feeling safer, they began to accept the finger food that was being passed around: enormous trays of oily pickled peppers, sausages, meats and cheeses, tinned cookies and fruit-cake. Some of them also accepted smokes from a bounty of hand-rolled cigarettes, though Sal bitched about this. Meanwhile, the drinks kept coming. Helpful people guided them to truckloads of designer clothing, amazing stuff, and in vited them to take anything they wanted. There was a curtained nook for changing, and the boys gratefully shed the filthy clothes they had been wearing for months and replaced them with whole new wardrobes of exotic finery.
Modeling a Matsuda jacket, Kyle said tearfully, "Dude, I have been hurting for some phat threads." He emerged to great applause.
"I think I'm wasted," burped Freddy, swaying a little.
"Yeah," Sal said, head swimming. He was breaking out in cold sweats. "We gotta get out of here."
"No way, man," slurred Kyle. "I ain't nearly done."
"Me neither," said Freddy.
"Yes you are. We gotta go while we can still walk."
Kyle turned on him. "Fuck you, Sal, fuck you. You ain't tellin' me what to do. Don't you fuckin' lay hands on me, bitch. This ain't the fuckin' boat-ain't nobody gonna tell me what to do. I had enough."
"You've had enough all right," Sal said. The men around them were starting to take an interest, smirking. He tried to nudge Kyle along, whispering, "Don't do this, man. Not now, not here."
"No! I said no! You got my brother killed-I don't know why we ever listened to you in the first place. You can have that fuckin' submarine, I'm stayin' right here. I like it better here."
Suddenly all the attention shifted away from them to a commotion nearby, an explosion of shouting and cheering. Sal was trying to use the diversion to usher the others out of the room, when Todd said, "It's Lulu."
Freddy stopped. "Lulu? Where?"
Ray mumbled, "They got her nailed to a board."
"They can have her," Sal said. "Come on!"
"I thought you dug her."
"Maybe when she was alive. Shut up and move!"
Across the room, Sal could see several men carrying an X-shaped wooden frame through the crowd, stirring up a hornet's nest of excitement. There was a naked blue body affixed to the planks-Lulu's body. She had a jeweled tiara jammed onto her head. Groping hands swarmed over her as she passed.
Sal's guts churned. He had gotten off to a bad start with Lulu Pangloss, refusing to acknowledge her authority over the boys on the boat-who did she think she was?-and then holding her at least partially responsible for everything that had happened since, including the death of his father. But in his heart of hearts Sal knew that Lulu was just a convenient target: The Last Girl on Earth. He resented her because it was safer than admitting he might like her-that would have been too pathetically hopeless, joining her goofy clique of admirers. So he had avoided her… and thereby avoided her fate.
Craning to see, Todd said, "What the hell are they doing with her?"
"I'm not sure I want to know," Sal replied, running out of steam. The alcohol was starting to really hit hard now, and he could barely see straight.
The boys stopped their unsteady flight, sensing that they were no longer the main attraction. As they watched, the men laid Lulu on the floor and were pushing back the clamoring mob.
"Back off!" a huge man yelled, firing a pistol into the air. He was wearing a wizard's outfit, complete with pointed hat. "You'll all get your chance!" He held up a roll of tickets and began handing them out. "One to a customer! Everybody gets one who wants one! Pass 'em around!" One of the tickets filtered back to the boys. It was numbered and looked like an ordinary raffle ticket.
Lulu still looked dead, or perhaps unconscious; in any case she seemed very small and harmless, her pale blue skin luminous as Krishna, with the black crescent of her forehead scar making a sleeping third eye-the antithesis of a raving, feral Xombie. She looked like a fairy princess. Still, the men weren't taking chances: They had nailed her down good and sewn her mouth shut to prevent any possibility of the dreaded Xombie kiss.
Now the wizard mounted the stage, and said, "Gents, we've all seen this little sleeping beauty since she come in this evening. Some of you been wondering why she's so meek and mild. How come she looks like a china doll instead of a bat-faced freak like all the others? The answer is, she ain't no ordinary Harpy. She's special. We found her in Miska's hidey-hole, and I got it on good authority that she's had a touch of his secret dope. She been living in harmony with regular folks, crowded together in a damn submarine, and they're none the worse for it. Look at those boys over yonder-they're the proof! Out riding bikes in the world as if they got some special gift. They'll tell you that just today she was out fetching kindling with them like a good Girl Scout. Point is, she ain't neither dead nor alive, but she's the best of both worlds… at least for our purposes."
A raucous cheer went up, and a few loud objections: "She's just another damned Harpy, preacher!"
"Yeah, what kind of stunt you trying to pull?"
The preacher replied, "She's more than a Harpy, for one thing. She's one of the Anointed from Miska's own test bed, a vessel into which he poured his elixir. Don't you understand? Fools!-that makes her body a font in which we may anoint ourselves. Look at her! Can anyone here deny she's different from the rest of that cursed society out there-all the people that judged us, and were judged in turn? This may be God's will that delivered her to us, and who are we to question His judgment? We been given dominion over this Earth and all the creatures on it, or did you forget? Her unclean loins have been sanctified, purified, and may be our path to salvation. Manna from heaven!"
Other men tried to argue further, but were booed down. This was a rare amusement.
Businesslike, the preacher said, "Now I got here a box with all your numbers in it. We gonna pick as many as we can fit in a night. If your number ain't picked, don't worry-we'll get to you tomorrow night, or the next. Put some mileage on this filly before the Man wants her back!"
The crowd erupted in thunderous applause.
"Okay, here we go: Number 13886!"
A huge, goateed man who looked like a TV wrestler threw up his fists and roared, "Yes! Yes! Fuck yeah!" He pushed through the cheering crowd, accepting their congratulations, then stood over Lulu and shouted, "This one's for the balcony!"
All eyes turned upward to see an odd figure peering down from a caged window in the topmost tier: a hooded man in dark sunglasses and a ski mask. The crowd fell silent, and the boys could hear people muttering, the Major, the Major.
"Who the hell's that?" Kyle asked.
A bystander replied, "That's Major Bendis-we call him Uncle Spam. He's our military advisor, our company rep: Everything comes through him. Only we ain't seen him since he got quarantined."
"Quarantined for what?"
"He almost got killed a couple days ago when we first got here-I guess it fucked him up pretty bad. Led an assault on a building where he thought Miska was hiding and just about got his ass blowed off. Anybody else, they would have left him ashore-you can't take chances with that shit-but he's our only link to Valhalla, so his men patched him up and brought him back. You don't argue with those boys on the B Team, not if you like your skin. Luckily, we don't see them much. Bendis was the one who sprung us from the joint and trained us to survive like we doin'-a hard motherfucker. Used to be some kind of mercenary commando, ex-Special Forces. We all figured him for a basket case, but maybe he's starting to heal up. Oh shit, look at Joe Earl."
The raffle winner was making a show of stripping off his snakeskin boots, swinging them around his head, and tossing them into the crowd to gales of wolf whistles. Then he got down to business. Snapping the kinks out of his joints, he had started to unbuckle his belt when suddenly there was a loud burst of gunfire. Everyone turned.
"Get the fuck off her," Kyle Hancock said soberly. He was holding a gold-plated Tec-9 machine gun with a banana clip, part of the Xmas display. "Unless you want to lose yo dick."
Kyle stepped forward, the crowd parting before him.
"I'm asserting my prerogative as an official representative of MoCo," the boy said. "That girl's Mogul property, and she's part of our mission, whatever it is. I don't know her purpose for being here; they don't tell us those things. But whatever it is, it's got nothing to do with being molested by you motherfuckers. So put her back in the hold or the brig or wherever the hell you got her from, or I swear to God I will empty this clip on y'all's Dolce and Gabbanas."
Men stood frozen, as if waiting for a signal. They weren't afraid, just fascinated by the turn of events. This was a new one. Suddenly there was a sound of applause from above-Uncle Spam's black-gloved hands were slowly clapping.
El Dopa nodded from the stage, and whoops of jeering amusement rose from the crowd as Joe Earl skulked away. The tension collapsed. Without a word of protest, the preacher's men hustled Lulu out of sight, and the party resumed in full force. All at once, the boys found themselves totally ignored.
Kyle hesitated, unsure of what to do next. The gun was too heavy to keep holding up. "So is that it?" he asked shakily.
"Yeah… I think so," said Sal. "Nice going. You ready to leave now?"
"Hell yes."
They dropped the gun and ran.
By early dawn, the party was over. Except for a lot of snoring, the barge had gone still. Sal and the other boys were sprawled in the bunks with their clothes and shoes still on, dressed for a quick getaway, squinting in their sleep against the painfully bright pinholes of daylight from outside. Freddy's pillow had a damp crust where he had vomited. There was a loud knock at the door.