"Just what kinda ack-cent is that you got there, mister?" asked the gasman as he jacked into Duroc's car. He wore a baseball cap with the team logo obscured by oil, and had a name-tag on his multiply-holed bib-overalls. Slim Pickens. Whoever nicknamed him Slim was about thirty years out of date. His belly wobbled under denim like a double pregnancy.
"French," Duroc said, gritting his teem. The pain in his side was almost intolerable, but he kept it to himself. A few hours ago, the numbness had worn off, and now he felt as if he were driving around with a flat-bladed knife between his ribs.
The demon needed to be bathed in blood at all times.
"My name is Roger Duroc." The man might as well know. He was going to die soon, and the name would not mean anything to him.
"Ro-jay, huh? You from N'Orleans way? Lou-easy-on-Anna?"
"Non. Paris, France."
"Yurrup, huh?" said Slim, exposing mainly rotten teeth in an approximate grin. "I mighta guessed frum the way you got yer hand in yer jacket like that there Napoleone Boney-party feller on the teevee. You Frenchy fellers must sure like yusselves to go round grabbin' yer own titties all the time. We don't git many folks from Yurrup in these parts, nossir, not never. Japs 'casionally, but never no Yurrup-peens."
Under his black coat, Duroc pressed the pad to his wound. The demon was stirring, restless, and the blood was still seeping. The pain would go away soon, when his mission was discharged.
The Path of Joseph was thorny. Thorny but rewarding.
Slim left the pumps to refill Duroc's tanks by themselves, and tapped keys on the forecourt terminal. The computer was melded with the Caddy's systems.
"Just runnin' some checks, Ro-jay. Safe sex fer automobiles, I calls it. What with all these here viruses goin' around, you gotta be on the look-out. I don't want ole Beulah—that's ma master program, Beulah—to pick up no foreign Frenchy computer ailments and rot to pieces on me, do I?"
Duroc didn't say anything. Slim was heavy-set, tattooed, scarred, probably a war veteran. He was big, but only his paunch was soft. He sounded like the cowboys in the sub-titled Western films his uncle had taken him to at the Cinematheque Francaise when he was a child. There was a slight awkwardness about Slim's keyboard action. He was missing the tip of his left little finger. That made him yakuza. They cut off part of a digit for every mistake you made. So, the gasman had been careless. But only once. That was a good record for someone stationed out here in the Colorado Desert. The yaks must want their best men to keep the supply lines open. Running a sandside gas station was a risky business, what with renegades and gangcults. Slim must have fought many battles, killed many people. It was just good business practice.
"Ah-hah, yer cleared, Ro-jay. No bugs on yer auto. It's a real clean machine. Yurrup-peen?"
"American. Cadillac coupe de ville, 1962. With alterations."
Slim whistled through his teem.
"Neat to beat your feet-o, Hirohito."
Duroc knew he was sweating badly. His collar was soaked through. His jaws ached as he bit an imaginary bullet. The demon shifted slightly and his ribs seemed to grind together. He pressed the pad tighter, and swallowed his spit.
It was a powerful demon. The Summoner had dipped it in his own blood before entrusting it to Roger Duroc. Duroc had travelled all the way down from Salt Lake City with the thing, struggling to prevent it from seeding early. If it were to spawn inside him he would be as dead within seconds, and his mission would have to be repeated. Another demon, another disciple. The Summoner would not be pleased.
"Don't git many private citizens through here, y'know. It's convoys, mostly. The big corps need to stop off somewhere on the interstate. GenTech route their trade this way. And we see a few Ops, and I daresay a couple of outlaws have stood where you're standin' now and filled up on gas. Real nasty boys 'n' girls, I s'pose, real nasty. Still, their cold kish is as good as anyone else's, and no one much bothers with gas stations any more. The gangcults need 'em as much as the corps. Gas, water and food. That's what you need to stay alive out here, and we got 'em all three. Would you care to try some of Slim's Special Refried Beancurd-shaped Ribettes with Chilli Fries and Root Beer? We don't stock no shamburgers. I knows you Frenchos got you a reputation for appreciatin' fine food. I could kick in some of Pappy Moe's cone likker."
Duroc shook his head. Slim did not seem to feel rejected.
"Never know what you're missin', Ro-jay. Say, I could hunt me up some ole frawgs and hack their legs off fer ya if n you'd prefer. Throw in a fistful a' snails an' whip up some kinda gore-mette sauce or somethin'."
"No thank you, that's all right. I've already eaten."
Beulah had run a complete service on the Caddy in the time it took the twin tanks to fill. The car was certified bug-free.
"Say, has anyone told you you don't look too well, Ro-jay? The desert don't agree with you none, huh? S'pose you don't have no acres of sand over there in Yurrup, no burnin' sun beatin' down all day and whistlin' winds freezin' you stiff all night, no mutated coyotes tearin' at yer tyres? Gol-dang, but I hates them mew-taters. Frum where I sit, rattlesnake don't need no extra heads, right?"
Duroc's stomach shifted. He wanted this over soon. He had seen his face in the rearview mirror, and knew he looked like a week-old corpse with a bad case of the Detroit Sweats.
"Will that be paper or pretend money?"
"Cashplastic."
"Fine. But you don't git so many trading stamps that way."
"No bother."
Duroc peeled the pad away from his wound, and let it fall inside his jacket. He ran his fingers over the slit and felt the hard edge of the demon sticking out of his ribs. He coaxed it loose and took the protruding strip between thumb and forefinger.
"Are you okay, Ro-jay? Can I git you some drugs? We got a special on amphetamines today."
"I'm fine," said Duroc, pulling the demon from his flesh. "My credit card seems to have slipped into the lining of my coat. It's happened before."
The demon came free. He pulled it out and held it up. It was not red-smeared. It had absorbed the blood. His wound closed, and he felt a tingle as the new flesh knit. It was an enormous relief to get the thing out in the air.
The gasman took the demon and looked at it. He would be seeing symbols on the plain white oblong. American Excess, Disneycard, US Gov't Bonds. Whichever was trading highest.
Slim shoved the demon into a slit on his terminal keyboard, and it vanished into the workings of the machinery.
Done.
"Let me git you yer GenTech traders." He pulled a fistful of green-faced stamps from a roll. Duroc took them.
"You got blood on your hand, mister."
"My nails bleed sometimes, if I don't get them trimmed."
"Sounds like you could use them traders. If you collect fifteen books, GenTech will perform any minor surgical amendments free of charge. I heard tell of a bulk customer out around Flagstaff who got hisself replacement kidneys for only fifty-three books."
Duroc walked towards the car.
"Hey Ro-jay…"
He bent, and slipped into the driver's seat. The car engaged immediately.
"You forgot…"
Zero to sixty in twelve seconds.
"…yer…"
The Caddy kicked up a duststorm.
"…credit card."
Deep inside Beulah, the demon was settling in, and beginning to sprout.
This, it thought, is going to be a piece of piss.
This is ZeeBeeCee, The Station That's Got It All, bringing you What You Want twenty-four hours a day, sponsoredby GenTech, the bioproducts division that really cares…
Later on, we'll find out whether Bobby and Suki can afford that new testicle for Tommy on today's moving episode of My Mother, the Biosurgeon, and Cyke Steele, the self-help expert from Guns and Killing magazine will be explaining the ins and outs of the new napalm laws on our consumer advice show, Staying Alive. But first, tune in to reality with luscious Lola Stechkin, bringing you The Brunchtime Bulletin from the comfort of her Jacuzzi…
"Hi, America! It's January 10th, 1999, and this is Lola, inviting you into the water. Here it is, folks, all the news you can handle…
"Washington, DC. President North hosted a dinner yesterday for all the surviving holders of his office. Former presidents Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro Agnew and Charlton Heston were in attendance. Sadly, the affair was cut short halfway through Frank Sinatra's rendition of 'You Did It Your Way' when Ex-Presidents Nixon and Heston got into an unspecified altercation that led to a short circuit in Mr Nixon's brain pacemaker. The Ex-President was not a GenTech consumer, and his malfunction is the latest in a series of blows to the reputation of the Thalamus Corp, manufacturers of the product. Mr Nixon, although clinically dead, is described as 'comfortable' by his doctors, who will attempt to resurrect him with new cerebro implants before he perishes…
"Salt Lake City, Deseret, formerly Salt Lake City, Utah. Elder Nguyen Seth, the Josephite leader who has defied the experts by reclaiming the formerly abandoned city from the wilderness, today announced that he is throwing open the PZ for 'any and all gentiles who are willing to work to build a new life.' Armoured convoys of resettlers have been making regular runs to Salt Lake for the past three years, but hitherto only those who subscribe to the Josephite faith have been aboard. Now, the way is open for, as Elder Seth says,'all good Christians to find their salvation where the desert blooms'…
"Fort Comanche, Nevada. General Ernest Haycox, commander-in-chief of the United States Cavalry, and Ms Redd Harvest, of the Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Agency, have announced that subsequent to their last joint action, the Maniax gangcult are no longer a problem in the Southwestern United states. The Grand Exalted Bullmoose of the Maniax has sent the severed heads of ten assorted Cavalry and T-H-R personnel to this station along with a formal declaration of all-out war. We will bring you more on this feud as it develops…
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"Vatican City, Rome. Pope Georgi, at 56 the youngest man to hold the office in centuries, has expanded the terms of Vatican LXXXV, the controversial Bull which has changed the shape of the Catholic church. Women can still not be ordained to the priesthood, but nuns have been given equal stature within the church and may conduct the mass. In view of the third-world population problem, Georgi has reversed the longstanding papal position on family planning. Rumours that the Vatican plans to market an officially-blessed condom under the brand name of His Holiness's Swiss Guards are unconfirmed at this date…
"London, England. Prime Minister Archer announced on the Home Service of BeeBeeCee-Teevee that the temporary rationing of butter, sugar, gasoline and ammunition would continue at least until the end of next year. During a spontaneous demonstration of loyal support outside the Palace of Westminster, the Metropolitan Police estimate that 300 people were overcome by the heat and had to be hospitalized…
"Moscow, USSR. Premier Yeltsin married for the third time today. His bride, former '80s musickie Tasha, sang for her fans at the reception, and dedicated a version of her million-selling hit 'Love, Sex, Love' to her new husband…
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"Naples, Italy. Bruno di Geronimo, convicted crimelord of all Southern Italy and alleged capo of the Twelve Mafia Families, today set sail for the penal colony of Sicily where he has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life. Judging by the high mortality rate on the island, which is populated entirely by convicted felons from the European Community, his life expectancy is not thought to exceed three months…
"Berlin, Greater Germany. Rudolf Hess, recovered from his recent cybersurgery, has won his court case against The Swinging Swastika nightclub and now retains copyright on the symbols, uniforms, flags, weaponry, architecture and philosophy of the Third Reich. If all the organizations currently using Nazi regalia pay up, Hess will be a very rich man. Ulrich Sturm of the Knoxville Kultur Kommandos gangcult of Tennessee has issued a press statement that reads 'if that old kraut freaks with us, we'll yank his freakin' lungs out and make him freakin' choke on 'em!'…
"Puerto Belgrano, Antarctica. The Malvinas War flared up again in miniature last week when a party of drunken British molybdenum miners got into a gunfight with the Argentine authorities. The casualties will not be named until next of kin have been alerted, but it is believed that famed esperado Ice Kold Katie is among the dead. Sheriff Felipe Almodovar, the self-styled 'Law South of Tierra del Fuego,' has decreed that sidearms can no longer be worn within the city limits except by duly deputized peace officers. 'Wild' Charlie Mander, spokesman for the British mining community, has complained that Almodovar followed up this ruling by deputizing 'every Argie within a thousand miles and declaring open season on the Brits'…
"A housewife in Utica, New York, has replaced her pet duck's flippers with a built-in robo-skateboard. 'Dribbles can get around much better now, and he's too fast for the children on the block to shoot at,' she claims. Scientists are amazed. That is what we at ZeeBeeCee call 'quack thinking,' he he he…
"This has been Lola Stechkin at ZeeBeeCee, signing off. If it's all right with you, it's all right with us…"
Stay tuned to ZeeBeeCee, The Station That's Got It All, if you want to enter our current Gentech Competition. You could be the lucky winner of your very own Lola Stechkin sexclone, or a hundred thousand dollars worth of bio-implant surgery. All you have to do is answer three simple questions, complete the following sentence, "I hate my body because…,"and send your answers on a fax with coupons from any three GenTech products. The questions are: a) Who, at the time of this recording, is CEO of Gentech Korea? b) Which famous movie star has three penises? And c) What is an axolotl? Gentech, the biodivision that cares.
Next up from ZeeBeeCee, The Station That's Got It All, is our ever-popular family quiz show, The Cain Factor, in which you can find out whether one of this week's contestants has got what it takes to stay alive in the Attica NoGo, followed by Pro-Celebrity Sexual Gymnastics, with the celebrity home team, Dr Ruth, Kermit the Frog, and the Vice-President of the United States of America taking on this week's pro guests Voluptua Whoopee, German porno superstar Billy Priapus and the Grand Old Lady of Hardcore Humping, Kittikat Gazongas. Now, a message from GenTech…
Ken Kling, the Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Op, was a total and complete pain in the ass. He treated all US Cavalry personnel like labourclones, and never stopped bragging about his Agency's record against the Maniax. It seemed to Sergeant Leona Tyree that it was easier to rack up a reputation zapping everybody in sight with hood-mounted lases than by keeping the peace. Everybody knew how many panzerboys Redd Harvest had dropped in the dust, but you never saw stuff on the teevee about the interstates kept open, the disputes settled, the wildernesses pacified by the Road Cav. Boobs and bullets, that was all the newsies were into.
She shifted in her seat, and pressed the accelerator. On the long flat, you could afford to open the cruiser up. The patrol had taken them up into the barren mountains, and now they were back in the Big Empty, the desert that stretched across most of these United States. This was the kind of detail that made you thankful for air-conditioned ve-hickles. Outside, the unclouded sun shone mercilessly down on the endless sands. Co-cola bottles left on the roadside eventually melted into glass pools. The life expectency of a casual daytime stroller without a decent hat was five hours.
"Of course," said Kling, "me and Ms H are on a personal basis, if you know what I mean. I don't like letting her work solo, but that's the way she wants it. Usually, I'm there to cover her. Ken Kling the Killing Machine, they call me."
Tyree looked at Trooper Nathan Stack, her co-driver, and he looked at her. They understood each other's opinion of Ken Kling the Killing Machine. Stack looked down at the screens. Nothing potentially hostile in range. The patrol was proving uneventful. Things are always quiet in the aftermath of a war. Kling was comfortable in the back, wiping N-R-Gee Candy crumbs off the knife-edge creases of his striped pants. He wore a dandy suit, the jacket loose to hang well over the shoulder holster, rainbow shades and a haircut that looked like a sugarloaf mountain. His taste in music was lousy too. He expected them to put up with W.A.S.P. and Mothers of Violence on the CD.
"The Maniax are Yesterday Men," he said, "real gone and forgotten. Ms H stomped them. T-H-R stomped them. Hell, even you Cav stomped them. The Grand Exalted Bullmoose is just blowing it out. I doubt he could put more'n twenty-thirty soldiers in the sand after the last purge. Lady and gentleman, our troubles are over."
They might be at that. If the Maniax were beaten enough to disband, the Cav wouldn't have to cooperate with T-H-R any longer and Tyree could boot the unwanted observer out of the cruiser. And according to General Haycox, the Maniax really were beaten this time. Of course, he had said that last time. That had been just the same. Haycox and Redd Harvest had gone on the teevee, and Leona Tyree had gone to a lot of funerals. There was a phrase that turned up in too many press releases, "acceptable casualties."
You got a flag on your coffin, even if there wasn't much of you left to put in it, and your name on a plaque somewhere where the survivors wouldn't have to look at it too often. If you went out really bloodily, you got a fort named after you. You were a hero. But you were still dead, and there were still Maniax out there. Even if the Grand Exalted Bullmoose couldn't regroup and start again, there would be others. Other names, other gangcults, but the same deaths.
"Now the Maniax are gone…" began Stack.
"You mean, if the Maniax are gone, Trooper," she said.
"Yeah, well, if the Maniax are gone, who do you reckon is the next most dangerous gangcult?"
"Voodoo Brotherhood," said Kling from the backseat, "but T-H-R will whip them soon, you see."
"Leona?"
"Voodoo Bros are tough. So are The Bible Belt, The Daughters of the American Revolution, The Gaschuggers, a few others. But I figure the most trouble we're going to have will come from the Josephites."
"The Josephites?" said Stack, surprised. "But they're supposed to be like the Mormons, or the Amish. They're the resettlers. They've turned Utah around, made themselves a paradise, I hear."
"Deseret," she said. "They call Utah Deseret now. There are things you don't hear about the Josephites. I had a run-in with them once, when we were all riding out of Fort Valens. I was with Sergeant Quincannon men. Some strange things went down. That guy, Nguyen Seth, the leader of Salt Lake City, is a pretty mystifying dude. It's not in the reports, but the Quince remembers, and I remember."
Kling laughed. "You've been on the trail too long, cowgirl. The sun's frazzled your brains. The Josephites are the New Pioneers. The Prezz backs them up all the way."
Tyree half-turned. "That's as may be, but I'd still rather face the Voodoo Bros than a group of Josephite Missionaries."
She flashbacked, as she did too often, to Spanish Fork. A lot of people had died that day, when the Josephites came to town and her patrol had been caught up in a shooting war between the resetders, The Psychopomps and the townsfolk. There had been other combatants, too, ones you could not see. She had left a friend—Trooper Washington Burnside—back there dead, and seen another—Trooper Kirby Yorke—shaken loose of his senses. And she had glimpsed the true face of Elder Nguyen Seth. She remembered him smashing a ganggirl's face against the road, the blood spreading with each blow, and, worst of all, she remembered wanting to join him, wanting to dip her fingers in the girl's blood, wanting to stand with the Josephites as Spanish Fork burned.*
*See the Dark Future anthology Route 666.
"Cheese, but you yellowlegs are a bunch of pussies. You wouldn't last five minutes in a NoGo. Why, Ms H could…"
Stack turned round and said something to Kling in a low, urgent voice, and the T-H-R Op shut up in mid-sentence. In the rearview, Tyree could see him slumping grumpily in his seat, nervously hitching his shoulders to settle his holster. He was one of those Ops who liked to cart around a big cannon. Back at Fort Apache, they had a saying, "the bigger the gun, the bigger the talk, the smaller the dick." On that scale, Ken Kling the Killing Machine should be genitally equipped in minus numbers.
The cruiser told them to stop for gas and service within three hundred miles. Stack called up a menu of possible autostops.
"Slim Pickens's Place?" he asked.
Tyree gave it some thought. Slim was tied into the yaks, and that wasn't good. But the Japanese crime consortium at least had a rep for being honourable. They wouldn't sugar the Cav gas the way some outlaw stations did. And Slim's B-B-Q was one of the Wonders of the West.
“Fine." She reprogrammed the cruiser's course, and turned off the interstate at the next opportunity. The secondary road was pitted and bouncy, but Tyree didn't mind. Ken Kling got a good shaking up in the back, and the front-seat independent gyros kept her and Stack comfy. Outside, everything was quiet. Just sand and rocks, with a few bleached bones. In this part of Arizona, even the vultures starved.
"Do you want some music on?" asked Stack.
"Yeah, okay. It might perk up the atmosphere."
"What kind of music you got?" Kling asked.
"Both kinds, Ken," Stack replied. "Country and Western."
Kling groaned, and Stack unsheathed The Best of Willie Nelson. The cruiser ate up the dry, cracked desert road as if it were smooth as milk. Tyree let the car do the thinking.
As systems went, Beulah was a weak sister, a pushover. The demon's physical form melted in the cashplastic chute, and bled through the terminal, following the main conduits, tapping into the major programs, knocking the security guards down like ninepins. It was the cybernet Master of the Universe! There was no program it couldn't out-ace, no system it couldn't peel like a hard-boiled egg, no check it couldn't drop kick the full ninety yards. There were yakuza blocks thrown up around the memory banks and the prime directives, but the demon shredded them with ease and redistributed their information bits throughout the system. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, it exulted, how was that for a hoo-hah?
It had been an uninteresting victory. This was a small, self-enclosed system, isolated from the datanets. However, Beulah was still complex enough to be a comfortable launchpad for its master assault plan. The bones were rollin' well, and it was getting its show together to put on the road.
Beulah was dragged down, and multiply violated. The newcomer tore into the system circuit by circuit, and complete control of Slim's gas station was in its provenance within three minutes of insertion into the set-up. Now, it was cookin' with gas!
Contemptuously, it let Beulah continue to exist as a semisentient entity, and amused itself by picking through the system's memories. Information could always be useful. It took seconds to learn Japanese, and composed a few dozen obscene haiku before it got bored again. It stretched out to each of its terminals and saw what it could do.
It turned the lights off and on in each of the gas station's rest-rooms, and shut down all the fans and cooling devices. Then it turned on the rarely-used daytime radiators, and experimented with household appliances. It burned empty air in the toaster, turned the inside of the icebox into a solid block, played the radios and teevees at the same time, and used the telephone to ring wrong numbers all over the world.
"I know who y'are, and I'm comin' ta get'cha, get'cha, get'cha," it purred into answering machines on several continents. A little paranoia never hurt anyone.
Eventually, it got bored with that too and just sat back in the gas pump jacks, waiting for the cruiser.
Trooper Nathan Stack needed to get out of the ve-hickle. It wasn't just five hours stuck in the machine with that blowhard Kling, listening to the Op's hard-earned stupid opinions on everything from aardvarks to zygospores. It wasn't just what seemed like twenty-five cups of recaff sloshing around in his bladder. It wasn't just staring down at the screens until everythng he saw had a green line around it. And it wasn't just the tantalizing effect of being strapped into a bucket seat inches away from the Sergeant, whom he had dated regularly over a period of eighteen months until her promotion came through. It was the cruiser itself. Stack had signed up with the Road Cav in the hope they'd put him on a motorcyke and let him outride solo. He wasn't a four-wheels-and-a-roof boy. Give him a mount, and there was no one in the service to beat him. Give him Number Two spot in a cruiser, and he was just another sweaty button-pusher with VDU headache. He was getting too old for this.
When Tyree braked on the forecourt of Slim's, Stack released his safety-belt and opened his door. He stepped out of the air-cooled interior, and took the heat on his face. He perched his stetson on his head, shading his eyes, and stretched his arms and legs, adjusting his yellow braces. There was no breeze, so everything in sight just lay under the desert skies as if nailed down. An old dog was sprawled on an armchair, its body curved around the protruding springs. Wind-chimes hung silent on the porch, and the skeletons of long-discontinued models rusted in the adjacent auto graveyard. Even the flies were taking a siesta. This was Boot Hill for motor ve-hickles.
A dark shape shambled from the outhouse, swatting the air with a battered baseball cap.
"Yo, Slim!"
The gasman waved a lazy salute and ambled over. He had twenty-five arrests on charges ranging from first-degree murder to spare part copyright violation, and had one conviction-resulting in a suspended sentence—for reckless driving. For a nowherseville gas-pumper, he had a freak of a good Japcorp lawyer.
"Afternoon, Trooper. You wouldn't believe the day I've had. Durn near ever dang thang in the whole place's gone crazy. Mah toaster exploded, the oven's leakin' them macramewaves all over, garbage disposal ate my best dinner service and the perimeter lase's been poppin' off at tumbleweeds."
"Time is out of joint, Slim, time is out of joint."
Slim had the gasjacks out. "You said a mouthful."
Stack accessed the gas panel and had it open. Slim dipped the hose into the tank, and plugged in the system interface. A row of lights lit up in different colours and went on and off in sequence, beeping a happy tune.
"Had a customer in earlier all the way frum Paris, France, we did. String of onions round his neck, stripey shirt and a beret, practically. Had an oo-la-la accent like you wouldn't believe."
"Is that right?"
Tyree was out of the cruiser too, now.
"You got some ribs on, Slim?"
"No ma'am," he replied. "Kitchen done gone lost its mind this after'. B-B-Q is off."
Tyree spat in the dust. It would be back to the Cav rations. N-R-Gee candies and mineral water.
"I might get some recaff goin' if'n the kettle ain't shot to hell and back."
"I'll pass."
Stack tried not to look at Leona Tyree as she paced the forecourt, tried not to notice the way her hair escaped from the regulation bun, tried not to follow the curves of her body. She looked good in the Cav uniform, tight blue pants with yellow stripes down the outside, tubetop short-sleeve blouse with sergeant's stripes, the heavy gauntlets she was peeling off. Perhaps he should put in for the sergeants' exams again when they got back to Fort Apache. If they were equal in rank again, perhaps the thing between them might take new fire. Fourth time lucky, maybe.
"Hey, cowgirl," shouted Kling from the back of the cruiser as he wound down the tinted window, "get me a couple of hits of co-cola while you're out there."
Tyree pretended not to hear him, and worked the aches out of her knees, elbows, wrists and hands. Stack admired the way she used martial arts exercises to overcome the inevitable pains of the driving life. She was much more disciplined than him, much more organized. No wonder she got her stripes.
There was a roar and a smell, and a motorsickle pulled up next to the cruiser. Stack eyed the cykeman, a young guy in traditional leathers. He wasn't flying colours. He had no distinguishing marks.
"How about some service?" the cykeman shouted in an inappropriately reedy, high voice.
Slim ignored his new customer. "Say, Trooper," he began, "I heard me a new one. What do you call a cuss that goes all the way frum New York City to Paris, France, crossin' the Atlantic, and then comes all the way back again, without ever takin' one single bath?"
There was a clicking from the forecourt terminal, and Stack smelled something odd in the air. He looked around. Tyree was alert too. It wasn't the cykeman. He was lighting up a smoke. It was the gasjack. There were sparks around it, and a whisper of smoke.
Slim began to laugh deep in his gut, his rolls of fat shaking, and he answered his riddle. "You call him…"
Stack and Tyree hit the ground at the same time.
"A dirty double crosser!"
Then, all hell broke loose.
The demon, nudged from its resting place, jumped, and swarmed up through the gasjack into the cruiser's guidance and maintainance system.
Taken by surprise, the machine caved in immediately. The demon was happier here than in the ramshackle gas station. This was top-of-the-line, this was state-of-the-art. It located itself in the main control centre, and dispersed its spawn throughout the system.
It left Beulah behind, exhausted and broken. It had no further use for the Gas 'n' B-B-Q.
The engine was a dream in steel and oil. The weapons systems were superbly trim. The memory banks were deliciously full of information. And the demon could sense the cruiser's parent datanet, with which it had interfaced within the last day. Fort Apache. Even the echoes of the Fort were awesome to the newcomer. It was as far beyond the cruiser as the cruiser was beyond a digital watch. Some hour soon…
The cruiser, possessed in an instant, came to life.
It had a voicebox, with a limited repertoire of mechanist platitudes—"please fasten your safety belt," —a gas refill is needed within three hundred miles," "emergency shutdown will commence," "have a nice day”—but which could be adapted to its needs.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaowwwwwww!" it howled, "rock and rowllllllll!”
Tyree rolled across the forecourt as the cruiser's hood-mount lases, suddenly extruded, burned up the tarmac. An oilcan exploded, and drops of flaming liquid scattered over a twenty-foot radius. Pain bit her leg as a patch of her britches caught fire. She pressed the flame out in the dirt, and pushed against the asphalt, launching herself upright. "Kling's gone psycho!" she shouted to Stack.
The hose swivelled upwards, and she had to duck to avoid the needle beam. The cruiser's engines grumbled, and the car began to move forwards.
But Kling was still in the back.
This was crazy.
She could see Kling, battering glass as the windows slid upwards, screaming behind the soundproofing, his mouth an irregular, contorted oval. Slim was heading off towards his outhouse, zig-zagging with surprising agility to make himself less of a target. He almost made it, but the miniature chaingun that rose from the roof coughed, and a row of red splashes stitched across the back of his overalls. He was pushed forward a few yards as his legs kept pumping, but there was no hope. He virtually fell in two parts when he collapsed in the sand. The chaingun angled down and discharged itself completely, sucking in the belt and spitting out hot brass cartridges. Slim shook as the bullets went into and around his corpse.
Tyree had her revolver out, but it was difficult to know what to shoot at. She took cover behind the house, but the cruiser followed her. It was definitely out of control, moving without anyone in the driver's seat giving orders. Inside, Kling might be having a fit. His face was bloody and he was thrashing wildly. Her first assumption had been wrong. The T-H-R Op was not in control.
Stack was under the porch, wriggling his way under the entire house. That put him out of the picture for the next minute or so. Slim was dead, Kling was immobilized. That left her.
The car, moving with casual ease, bumped over Slim and swung around the corner of the house. The chaingun was empty, but the matched lases were primed. The motorsickle man had hared off the forecourt at the first sign of serious hassle, and was nearing the horizon. Slim's dog loped off towards the desert, leaving the humans and their machine to settle it between themselves. Tyree felt like shooting the mutt, but saved her bullets.
The lase stretched and aimed. It flashed briefly, and the biker—not quite out of range—fell off his mount. His head rolled independently. Someone else dead in the sand.
Knowing it would do no good, Tyree shot at the middle of the windscreen, aiming at the head of an invisible driver. The durium-laced glass didn't break, although the bullet lodged in a little white crater. She was loaded up with ScumStoppers, explosive rounds that were designed to bring down hopped-up gangcultists, but they weren't made to put a dent in a US Cavalry Road Cruiser. She shot one of the lases off, and the other withdrew quickly into the bonnet. It could fire through pinholes in the headlights as well as from the open. That gave less flexibility of movement, but didn't stop the beam cutting deep. And the cruiser hadn't yet called upon its mortars, the crowd-control gasses, the maxiscreamers or a dozen other devices.
"Aeeeeowww," screamed the cruiser, the system's voicebox channelled through the loudhailer, "ah'm the dog-gonnedest, gol-damedest, hog-freakinest buckaroo ever to draw on a man from behind!"
A red beam came out of the headlight, and the wooden house smouldered where it touched. Stack had better get out soon, or a fire would be falling on his head.
Tyree ran, knowing it was not going to be pleasant being around the gas station when the fire spread to the underground tanks.
"Ah'm the blood-thirstiest, shootem-firstiest, freak-danged worstiest desperado…"
She dropped to one knee, and took a shot at the front wheel.
"…North…"
Her aim was perfect, but that didn't do her any good.
"…South…"
The bullet exploded, but the tyre didn't burst.
"…East…"
She didn't even feel any better.
"…and WEST of the Pecos!"
The cruiser came at her like a wildcat, inching forward slowly, engine rasping like a buzzsaw. She couldn't tell what it was exactly, but the car looked somehow different. For some reason, she was reminded of Spanish Fork. The sun glinting on the tinted windscreen made exactly the same patterns it had when reflected in Elder Seth's mirrorshades as he tried to kill the panzergirl who had robbed him.
The demons were back.
She could run again, but she thought she was dealing with an intelligence akin to an attack dog. It would be more likely to tear her apart if she made a dash for it, if she showed her fear. She tried to stand tall, legs slightly apart, and holstered her gun. It wasn't Mexican, but it was a stand-off.
"Stop right there you miserable rebellious freakin' cyberpsycho sonofabitch death-oh-wheels hearse!"
It rolled to a halt, and the sun-sensitive windows became fully transparent. Behind the cruiser, Tyree could see the gas station taking fire. Black smoke swept up into the cloudless sky. In the back of the vehicle, Kling was tearing at his clothes. She realized the internal cooling-heating system was going insane. Kling's suit was smoking, and bullets of sweat popped from his pores. He struggled, and pulled his gun.
The idiot!
The shot was completely muffled, but she could imagine it ricocheting inside the cruiser until it lodged in something soft. A seat, or Ken Kling the Killing Machine.
If he had shot himself, he had not put himself out of action, because he was still convulsing. For the first time, Tyree felt sorry for the man.
And sorry for herself. She wished she'd had more than N-R-Gee and recaff for a last meal. She wished she hadn't dumped Nathan Stack. She wished she hadn't let Elder Seth walk away from Spanish Fork without at least trying to bring him down. She wished…Hell, there was no point in wishing…
The rear side door hissed open, and Kling fell out, screaming and shouting. He'd holed himself through the thigh. His expensive clothes were a mess. His hairstyle was lumpy and melting.
What would Ms H think?
"Get back, Kling," she said. "Slowly."
He couldn't hear, or didn't care. He still had his gun. He fired a wild shot. She realized the T-H-R man was aiming at her, blaming her.
"We're not responsible, Kling," she shouted. Kling stumbled forwards, and fired again. He missed again, but was getting closer. She pulled her gun and brought it up.
"Kling," she snapped, feeling stupid, "don't make me shoot you."
His face was ugly with pain and rage. He was bleeding like a burst leech. His wounded leg was trailing useless as he pulled himself along the side of the car, leaving a smear.
Tyree could have sworn the blood sank in like water into sand. The polished and painted metal was clean now. She imagined something licking vampirish lips.
The cruiser just sat there like a machine, as if it had nothing to do with anything.
Kling was only a few feet away. Even he couldn't miss at this range. He raised his gun, and she shot him. In the remaining three minutes of her life, she would tell herself several times she had no choice but to make a head shot, that there hadn't been time to wound Ken Kling. Then, she would call herself a liar.
Stack was out from under, and running towards her.
The cruiser's right headlamp winked, and she felt her shin sting as the beam holed her leather boot. It passed through flesh and bone.
She was dead already, she knew. There was just going to be a little more fuss before it was all over.
Stack couldn't figure it. Leona had just shot Ken Kling. The cruiser was on automatic and killing people. The gas station was burning, and due to go up like the Fourth of July in moments. This wasn't a routine patrol anymore. The peace was over.
He drew his gun, not liking where this was leading.
"Leona," he said. "Drop your weapon. Maybe we can sort this out."
She fell to one knee, wounded somehow, and looked at him. He saw hurt in her eyes, not at the physical pain, but at his instinctive assumption she was behind all this.
But, damnit, she had control of the cruiser! She had just shot a T-H-R man!
She had dropped her gun, and was holding her leg with both hands.
"Leona?"
She opened her mouth to speak; and the cruiser lurched forwards. It must have hit a stone as it started, because it lifted up off the ground. The front bumper struck Leona in the chest, forcing her backwards, and the ve-hickle drove clear over her.
Stack screamed, and automatically fired his pistol, emptying it in the air. It got hot in his hand, and he threw it away.
The cruiser drove off, leaving Leona sprawled in the sand, half-buried already, leaking black blood. Stack ran to her, and took her in his arms. There was a fresh tyre track across her chest. Her hair was loose, and thick with blood, grit and oil.
She was still breathing, but he knew there was no hope. He took a squeezer of morph-plus from his belt-slung medkit and shot it into her arm. As he depressed the syringe, an eye snapped open in her soot-blacked face.
He had something to tell her, but he couldn't get it out.
She gripped him with one hand, clutching a fistful of his shirt, scraping skin off his chest. She was shaking as the drug killed her nervous system. There wouldn't be any more pain, at least.
"Leona?"
Blood came out of her nostrils and mouth.
"Le…oh…"
The cruiser was coming back. Stack disentangled himself from the corpse, and ran. He ran towards the burning house, the cruiser swallowing the ground between them in instants.
There was a voice coming from the car. "Cum-a-kay-aye-yippie," it shouted, "yippie-yippie-yippie-aye, cum-a-kay-aye-yippie-yippie-ay!"
He felt flames as he ran past the house, through the already burning rubble. He was surrounded by heat. Behind him, the cruiser's engines gunned. The gas tanks exploded, and he was at the centre of a fireball.
Duroc's chest was as good as new. Better, even. Thanks to the Zarathustra treatment, designed by GenTech's finest and available only to the very wealthy, Duroc's body became more durable, more healthy, with each hurt overcome. "Every day, in every way," he muttered, "I am getting better and better."
The woman at the desk was plastic. She could have been a sexclone with a voice-activated set of automatic responses. She smiled at him, and buzzed him through. There weren't many people who could be admitted as easily to the Central Lodge in Salt Lake City.
The two tall, bearded, barrel-chested men stood aside, and Duroc went through the double doors into Elder Seth's personal office.
The Elder sat with his back to the door, looking up at nine inset television screens on the wall, each showing a different channel. There was a soundtrack babel. Lola Stechkin read the news on ZeeBeeCee. A bionic bobby doffed his nipplehead helmet and beat up a scruffy French terrorist in a black and white British police series. President North emphatically made a point. A Spanish-speaking lady aristocrat with remarkable cheekbones struggled on a soap to come to terms with her daughter's romantic attachment to a dobermann pinscher. A cartoon Op chased Mohawk-headed renegades on a kiddie show with more violence to the minute than Hitler's home movies. Petya Tcherkassoff, in an open-fronted white shirt and unpleasantly tight culottes, seduced a teenage girl with a song called "My Heart Bleeds Love for You" in a Russian musickie video. And the Josephite Tabernacle Choir raised money on Salt Lake's own network.
Seth swivelled around on his chair, and smiled. Duroc was reminded vaguely of a piranha. It was a smile designed purely to show off sharp teeth. It wouldn't extend to the eyes currently concealed behind dark glasses. The office was bare apart from the screens. Everywhere else in the City, there were crosses and portraits of Elder Seth and the original Elder Shatner. Here, no trimmings were needed.
The Elder stood up, and extended a hand. He wore a conservative black suit, anonymously tailored in a style that hadn't changed for two hundred years.
They shook hands. As always, Duroc was surprised the Elder's skin was warm, normal. Such a great man should have ice-cold flesh and a grip like a vise.
"It is done?"
Duroc nodded.
"It is as well."
The Elder was the titular head of the Josephite Church, a protestant sect founded in 1843 by the American visionary Joseph Shatner. By the sheer force of his will, Nguyen Seth had rallied many followers, and persuaded the United States to turn over sovereignty of the wilderness of Utah to him. He had renamed it Deseret, he had brought the first motorwagons of resettlers to the region, he had supervised the irrigation and fertilization projects that had made crops grow where science said none could, and he had built a power base unmatched in the mid-west. Now, having unified and fortified the Josephites, he was actively seeking gentile resettlers to bulk out the population.
It was not a bad roll-call of achievements for someone who barely qualified as a human being.
Seth flipped his desk intercom. "Saskia, would you bring in a kid and the ceremonial knife?"
He looked at Duroc. "Blood must be spilled, Roger. There must be a seal on the mission."
The Frenchman was unable to hide his distaste.
"You will understand, Roger. When the time comes, you will understand."
The doors opened, and the plastic woman led in a young goat.