Trooper Kirby Yorke, United States Road Cavalry, shot a glance at the route indicator on the dash. The red cruiser blip was dead centre of the mapscreen, green-lines scrolling past. The ve-hickle's inboard computer hooked up with Gazetteer, the constantly updated federal map and almanac. Geostationary weather and spy satellites downloaded intelligence into the electronic notice board.
The patrol had just crossed the old state line and was heading up to a ghost place that had once been called Kanab. Through the armaplas sunshade wraparound, the rocks and sand of Kanab, Utah, could as well be the sand and rocks of Boaz, New Mexico, Shawnee, Oklahoma or most anywhere in the Des.
Yorke's own reflected vizz, dreadfully young under his forage cap, hung in the windscreen, superimposed on the roadside panorama.
The Big Empty stretched almost uninterrupted from the foothills of the Appalachians to Washington State. Rocks and sand. Sand and rocks. Even Gazetteer could not keep straight the borderlines of the Great Central Desert, the Colorado Desert, the Mojave Desert, the Mexican Desert and all the others. Pretty soon, they'd have to junk all the local names and call everything the American Desert. By then, they'd all be citizens of the United States of Sand and Rocks.
The two outrider blips held steady. Tyree and Burnside, on their mounts, would be getting hot and sticky. You couldn't air-condition a motorcyke like you could the 4x4 canopied transport Yorke shared with Sergeant Quincannon. That would be rough on Tyree and Burnside.
Yorke liked the feel of the wheel in his gauntlets, liked the feel of the cruiser on the hardtop. He appreciated a beautiful machine. The Japcorps could put heavy hardware on the roads and Turner-Harvest-Ramirez were known for impressive rolling stock. But the US Cav had access to state-of-the-art military and civilian tech. On the shadow market, the ve-hickle was worth a cool million gallons of potable water or an unimaginable equivalent sum in cash money.
He thought of the cruiser as a cross between a Stealth Bomber, the Batmobile, Champion the Wonder Horse and Death on Wheels. All plugged in to the informational resources of Fort Valens and, through the Fort, into the interagency datanet whose semi-sentient Information Storage and Retrieval Centre was in a secret location somewhere in upstate New York.
Ever since the Enderby Amendment of 1985 opened up, in desperation, the field of law enforcement to private individuals and organisations, Yorke had wanted to be with an agency. Sanctioned Ops were the only non-criminal heroes a kid from the NoGo could have these days. T-H-R's Redd Harvest, who dressed for effect, got the glam covers on Road Fighter and Harry Parfitt of Seattle's Silver Bullet Agency was always being declared Man of the Month by Guns and Killing, the nation's best-selling self-sufficiency magazine. It was the Wild West again. Heat went down all over the country: card-carrying Agency Ops out for the annual arrest record bonus and stone-crazy Solos who brought in Maniax for bounty.
But Yorke knew the only agency which guaranteed Ops a life expectancy longer than that of the average mafioso-turned-informer was the Road Cav. Quasi-government status bought better hardware, better software, better roadware and better uniforms. He'd joined up on his sixteenth birthday and didn't plan on mustering out much before his sixtieth. He wasn't ambitious like Leona Tyree. In a world of chaos, the Cav offered a nice, orderly way of doing things. He liked being a trooper, liked the food, liked the pay, liked the life.
He even liked Sergeant Quincannon.
Yorke reached up to the overhead locker and pulled a pack of high-tars down from the Quince's stash. The flap was broken and wouldn't stick back. The sergeant stopped pretending to be asleep, and commented, "I knew that gum-wad wouldn't last."
The flap fell down again.
"Wonderful," Quincannon commented. "They can whip up a machine so tough it can take out Godzilla and so smart it can play chess with Einstein, but they still can't get one itty-bitty little catch to stay stuck where it damn well ought to be stuck."
The sergeant accepted one of his own Premiers. He used the dash fighter and sucked in a good, healthy lungful. Quincannon held it in for a few seconds, then coughed smoke out through his nose. He hacked for almost a minute, cursing between choked gasps as Yorke lit up.
"You jake. Quince?"
"Yeah, boy, fine," he said, refreshing himself with another drag. His face had gone even redder. "You know, back when I was young, there were damfool eggheads who said cigarettes caused all sorts of disease. Heart trouble, the cancer, emphysema."
"I've never heard that," said Yorke, who'd smoked since he was ten. He dragged on his own Premier. "Dr Nick on ZeeBeeCee says nothing's better for your lungs than a Snout first thing in the ayem."
"It was a big flap, but it died down. Some say it was the tobacco companies bought or scared off the eggheads."
"Dr Nick says nicotine prevents Alzheimer's," Yorke said.
Like a lot of people his age, the Quince was paranoid. He was full of stories about the government and the multinats, and the sneak tricks they'd pulled. Yorke didn't believe a tenth of them. If he had a few snorts of Shochaiku in him, Quincannon would start claiming the President was mixed up in underhand arms deals. Yorke was used to the ridiculous fantasies the Quince picked up from those mystery faxes which spread malicious rumour and gossip.
Quincannon choked again but kept on dragging. Hell, if smoking were dangerous, the sergeant would be mummified in a museum by now.
Yorke stowed the pack of Premiers and shut the locker. The flap fell loose again and he noticed a picture of a girl taped to the inside. It must have been from some old magazine, because it was in black and white and the image was faded. A blonde stood on the street in a billowing dress, showing her legs. They were nice legs, particularly up around the thighs. The print on the other side of the picture was showing through, giving her gangcult-style tattoos.
"Old bunkmate. Quince?"
Quincannon grunted. "No, Yorke, just the fillette who got us all into this."
"Into what?"
"Hell, me boy, hell." The sergeant sounded wistful. "See those legs. They changed the world."
Yorke sucked in a lungful of gritty smoke and held it until his eyes watered. Tyree's blip wavered. Since there was no longer any such thing as a Utah State Government, the road ahead was unmaintained. Tyree was signalling slowdown. Sometimes sand drifted so thick you couldn't see asphalt. Without thinking, Yorke adjusted the speed of the cruiser.
"Who was she, Jesus's mother?"
Quincannon didn't laugh. "No, that girl was Marilyn Monroe."
"Hell, I know who Marilyn Monroe is. She's in that show on the Golden Years net, I Love Ronnie. The fat lady who lives next to Ronnie and Nancy. Her feeb husband is always coming over and making trouble."
Scanning again, Yorke saw Marilyn's eyes in the pretty girl's face. They didn't quite fit her now.
"Marilyn Monroe, huh?"
"Yeah, she's the one," the Sergeant said, almost wistfully. "Before you were born, she was a big star. Movies. Back when you saw movies on a screen, boy, not in a box. That pic's from The Seven Year Itch. I saw all her pictures when I was a kid. Bus Stop, River of No Return, How to Marry a Millionaire. And the later ones, the lousy ones. The Sound of Music. She was no nun, that's for sure, they laughed her off screen in that. The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffmann. She was Mrs Robinson. And Earthquake '75. Remember, the woman who gets crushed saving the handicapped orphans?"
Yorke had never had Quincannon figured for a movie freak. Still, on patrol, you wound up talking about almost anything. Out here, boredom was your second worst enemy. After the gangcults.
"So, she was your pin-up. I kinda had a crush on Sue Dallion back when she was with that Sove rock band. And Drew Barrymore was a knockout in Lash of Lust. But that don't make 'em world-changers."
The cruiser beeped a gas alarm at them. Refuel within 150 klicks or face shutdown. Yorke stubbed his butt into the overflowing ashtray. The interior of the car could do with a thorough clean-out at some near future point. It was beginning to smell pretty ripe. Dr Nick said there was nothing a woman liked better than the good, strong stench of tobacco, but Tyree always pulled a face when she got a whiff of the ve-hickle's upholstery.
"Marilyn wasn't like the others, Yorke. You're too young to remember it all. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that remembers. The only one who knows it could have been different. It was October 1960. That was an election year. Richard M. Nixon…"
"I remember him. Trickydick."
"Yeah. He was running against a bird called John F. Kennedy. A Democrat…"
"What's a Democrat?"
"Hard to tell, Yorke. Anyway, Kennedy was a real golden boy, way ahead in the polls. A hero from the Second War. A cinch to win the election. There was a real good feeling in the country. We'd lived through the first Cold War and put up with Dwight D. Boring Eisenhower, and here was this kid coming along saying that things could change. He was like the Elvis of politics…"
"Who?"
"I was forgetting. Never mind. Jack Kennedy had a pretty wife, Jackie. Old money. She was in all the papers. Women copied her hats. Back then, everybody wore hats. In October 1960, a few weeks before the election, Jackie Kennedy opened the wrong door and scanned the freakin' future President of these United States in bed with Marilyn Monroe."
"Sheesh."
"Yeah. And they weren't playing midnight Pinochle. It was in the papers for what seemed like years. People fought in the streets about it. I'm serious. The Kennedys were Catholics and the Pope had a big down on divorce back then, not like the new man in Rome, Georgi. But Jackie sued Jack's ass. He took a beating in the court and a bigger one at the polls. The country let itself in for eight years of Richard Milhous Criminal. Remember that scam with the orbital death-rays that wouldn't work? And the way we stayed out of Indochina and let the Chinese walk in? Trickydick was like the first real wrong 'un in the White House. Since then, we've not had a winner."
Sometimes Quincannon had these talking spells. Like a lot of old-timers, he remembered things having been better. That was sumpstuff; the Quince just remembered when he wasn't old and fat and tired, and assumed the rest of the world had , been feeling good too.
"I voted for North, and I'm proud of it," Yorke said. "It was important to keep the Right Wingers out of the White House."
Quincannon laughed. Yorke thought he might be missing the joke. His Premier tasted bitter. Maybe Dr Nick was right, and he should switch to mild-tasting Snouts.
"Remember the others, boy. Two terms' worth of Barry Goldwater, one and a half of Spiro Agnew, and a single for that lousy actor. If they were executin' any of them for havin' a brain, they'd be fryin' an innocent man. Now we've got a busted officer with sweaty palms and a used-weapons dealer's eyes. All he can do is kiss ass for the multinats and go on freakin' teevee gameshows so's he can lower taxes nobody pays anyway. I've a feeling Jack Kennedy might have done something for this goddamned country. And Marilyn started the rot. Without her, things would've been…maybe not better, but different."
The noonday sun was a circle of white hot iron, burning a hole in the blue canopy of the sky. Heat fell on his face like driving rain, hammering his frozen-open eyes. Slowly, his brain cooked.
Brother Claude Bukowski Hooper would die soon. He hoped. The Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots had downed him on the blacktop, then driven over him a bunch of times. Instead of knees, he had treadmarks.
Black scraps circled on high. Carrion birds, waiting for the spark to go so they could get their grits. Something with dark ragged wings dipped across his field of vision, flapping towards Brother Lennart.
As he breathed. Brother Claude felt the ends of snapped bones stabbing inside. He was too broken, crushed or squashed to fix. He'd hoped they'd zotz him outright, but here he was left in merciless sun, congealing into roadkill.
His fluid self seeped through sun-cracks in the road. The hardtop vibrated minimally. A ve-hickle, many klicks off. His nervous system fused with the Interstate. After death, perhaps he would see out of cats' eyes. Everybody knows, in a second life, we all come back sooner or later, the Josephite hymn went, as anything from a pussycat to a man-eating alligator… His senses would spread throughout the country, north to Alaska, Down Mexico Way.
If only Brother Claude could sleep now…
Loss of blood would probably get him, or else suffocation. It was almost impossible to draw breath into his collapsed windsacks. That was how Jesus died on the cross. As a kid, snoozing through scripture shows on the educational teevee that was all the cable Mama could afford, he hadn't thought much about what being crucified was like.
The Romans pierced Our Lord's hands and feet, just as the 'bots had zero-zilched Brother Claude's arms and legs. The idea was: exhaustion set in and you just sort of collapsed inside, lungs constricted flat by your ribs. He hadn't learned that from educational teevee – "yes, Davey," a fundamentalist cartoon dog might tell an audience surrogate, "it took three days for Our Pal Jesus to die in hideous agony" – but from his tour with the Knights of the White Magnolia. Whenever the Knights found a houngan, they crucified the conjure man and watched him fade to black. After a while, it got mighty tedious.
Elder Seth said that as thou sowed, so should thou reap. Brother Claude had never exactly crucified anyone, but he'd stood about uselessly like the sportsfans who voted for Barabbas while gentlefolk were nail-gunned to garage walls.
Fancy-shmancy bio-implants and replacement doodads of the sort manufactured and licensed by the almighty GenTech Corporation could do zero for him, even if he could have afforded that kind of repair work. Not that he approved of mad scientist stuff.
The Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots were cyborgs. Ashamed of their remaining humanity, they wore black all-over suits with cut-away patches to show off sparkling plastic or metal. Some must be more machine than flesh.
The 'bots had a roadblock in the middle of nowhere. A digital display sign on their largest RV read stop, pay toll. The resettlers' convoy had no way around, and little enough goods to hand over. So little that the 'bots were irritated enough to cut out a couple of the Brethren and enjoy a bout of mindless ultra-violence.
As he stomped Brother Lennart with seven-league feet, the hulking panzerboy they called Pinocchiocchio sang "I've Got No Strings to Hold Me Up or Tie Me Down". He did a puppet-like dance of strange grace, reminding Brother Claude of the British series – Thunderbirds, Stingray, The Forsyte Saga – that filled out the educational channels.
Something winged was tugging Brother Claude's boot, rolling the foot both ways. He couldn't feel anything that far down, and he couldn't lift his head to shoo the ugly bird away.
Before they drove on, one of the 'bots had knelt tenderly by him and spilled a little water into his mouth. He tasted his own blood in the drink.
"Are you alright, bro?" The kneeling water-dispenser asked, concern dripping from every syllable.
Brother Claude had tried to smile, tried to make the woman (if woman she was) feel better. She wore a black tutu, fluffed out to show long, shinily PVC-skinned legs.
"Snazz," she said, black against the sun. As she stood, the 'bot hummed to herself:
"When a gal's an empty kettle,
She should be on her mettle
Yet I'm torn apaaaa-art…"
Brother Claude remembered The Wizard of Oz. His MRA Troop had been shown the film, a scratchy video dupe from some striated celluloid print, blown up and projected on an off-white sheet. Tatum O'Neal as Dorothy, Lee Majors as the Tin Man, Frank Zappa as the Wizard.
Satisfied, the 'bot kicked him again, jamming the point of her pump into his ribs, breaking a few more bones.
"Just because I'm presumin'
That I could be sorta human
If I only had a heart…"
Her leotard was cut away over her chest like a fetish suit. Her breasts were hard, clear, plastic bumps. Inside were wheels and pistons. An LED clock flashed numbers. Tiny gears moved like insect-legs. A rounded glasspex stomach sloshed with acids that processed whatever the cyborg needed to keep walking. Batteries?
The 'bots drove away, leaving the stink of their exhaust in the air. Elder Seth said a few words over Brother Lennart, and repeated them for Brother Claude. He had thought it best not to interrupt his own funeral service with unseemly groans. The survivors moved on.
He understood the concept of sacrifice. By his death, the Path of Joseph would be seeded.
He didn't envy the 'bot. It was better to die clean than live on with half your guts replaced by vacuum cleaner parts and computer terminals.
Nobody had chanced along the Interstate since the convoy followed its yellow brick road. Brother Claude wasn't surprised. Only a damfool would venture this far sandside. A fool, or a pilgrim …
He was twisted in the middle, face up but skewed at the hips, groin pressed to the asphalt. He couldn't feel anything below his ribs. Considering what he could feel from the rest of him, that was a mercy. He realised he was deaf. One of his eyes was shut, sealed by a rind of dried blood.
Brother Claude, born in the Phoenix NoGo, had lived outside Policed Zones all his short life, and always had to follow someone. His daddy took off early – Mama Hooper tried to make out he was some high mucky-muck in Japcorp, but Claude knew better the types she slung out with and so he found other daddies.
During the Moral Re-Armament Drive of the early '80s, the ten-year-old Claude enlisted in President Heston's Youth Corps. Big Chuck looked like a Prezz ought to: a mile wide at the shoulders with a jaw like a horseshoe and acres of medal-heavy chest. When Pioneer Hooper was cashiered for breaking a kid's nose in a dispute about the superiority of Battlestar Galactica over Charlie's Angels, he transferred allegiance to Burtram Fassett, Imperial Grand Wizard of the Knights of the White Magnolia. The IGW told the pledge that he, as a white heterosexual male, was a Prince of the Earth, and that it was the young recruit's duty to stick killing steel into the human vermin who dared rise up against nature's aristocrats.
If he was a Prince of the Earth, he'd tried not to wonder, how come his mama couldn't afford the Playboy Channel?
Then he was a soldier in the War. Not any of the overseas Wars, like the ones in Cuba or Nicaragua; the War between the Knights and the Voodoo Brotherhood, when the Knights tried to clear nigras out of Arizona. That'd been a gold-plated bust. He'd had noble ideas about racial purity and Aryan jihad drummed into his graymass, then it turned out the Knights were financed by raghead troublemakers from the Pan-Islamic Congress.
His life was trickling out before his eyes, or at least ticking through his graymass. Brother Claude guessed that was a bad sign.
When T-H-R broke up the Knights and Fassett decamped for pastures greener, Claude drifted a spell. Didier Brousset, head houngan of the Voodoo Bros, put a bounty on the pizzles of ex-Knights, so it wasn't healthy to keep your white hood and red-cross robes. Claude was on the streets of the Phoenix NoGo, running. Ducking away from a couple of rattlesnake necktie Bros, he found himself in a meeting hall. A man was speaking. He wore a damfool black suit and a pilgrim hat, like many of his audience. He wore mirrorshades, also like many of his audience. And he had the Truth in his voice.
Claude had come upon the Word of Joseph and found himself a final daddy in Elder Seth. The Elder purred a sermon, not shouting like the teevee preachies Mama Hooper watched whenever she wasn't pumping the bunk with squiffed strangers. In him burned a fire of faith that spread wherever he went. Claude was not the only convert made in that hall that night. He had to jostle through a crowd to sign up.
Brother Claude had been Saved, he thought: he didn't miss recaff or co-cola or the Devil's music or carnal relations or fast foods or pockets or any of the things he was required to abjure. He wore his pegged black coat and round black hat with pride.
"We need men like thee," Elder Seth said. "The Brethren must have young blood. These are the last days."
Elder Seth believed the heartlands were not lost. The Des could be reseeded, resettled, reclaimed. Most everybody outside the Brethren said Elder Seth was a damfool but the Elder had a way of convincing people. Claude joined up with the Brethren's Resettlement Programme. He sang the hymns – "The Battle Cry of Freedom", "Tis the Gift to Be Simple", "The Path of Joseph", "Stairway to Heaven" – and enlisted as shotgun on the first convoy out of Phoenix for Salt Lake City; 850 klicks of lawless road and burning desert lay before the resettlers.
If he'd actually been given a shotgun, maybe he wouldn't be where he was, but Elder Seth frowned on needless violence. "Our weapons shall be our faith and fervour," he announced, while Gentiles shook their heads.
Brother Claude had no idea where he was dying. He wondered if they had reached the former state of Utah. He had the idea that they'd crossed the state line. This was his first time outside his native Arizona. And his last. According to Elder Seth, this wasn't even the United States of America. He was dying on the chosen ground.
As the convoy put out of Phoenix, crowds had cheered. Plenty of bignames from the PZ came out, shielded by armed goons – natch – and Elder Seth made a speech to the multitudes. It had been a speech of hope and promise. The big public screen played a message from President North, fumbling his way through best wishes. The Prezz's speech boiled down to "Good luck guys, but don't blame me if you don't make it". Then the gates of the city were opened, brushing away NoGo derelicts who were camping outside, and – after minimal escorting to get them through the Filter – the resettlers were on their way and on their own.
And here he was, bleeding himself empty on the Interstate. Flies buzzed and he imagined tall, dark figures standing over him. They had faces he could recognise – President Chuck was there, and ole IGW Fassett, and Elder Seth, and the woman-like gadget who had given him water – but no real shape. Elder Seth talked a lot about angels, and spirits he called the Dark Ones.
These must be the Dark Ones.
Where, Brother Claude wondered, were the others now? Elder Seth, and Brother Bailie, and Brother Wiggs, and Sister Consuela, and Brother Akins, and Sister Ciccone, and the Dorsey Twins? If he twisted his head a degree or so, he could see Brother Lennart, a black rag-doll with a bloody head. The carrion birds were closing in. And other things had loped out of the desert.
As gangcults went, the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots weren't so bad. Compared with the Maniax, the Clean or The Bible Belt, they were easy-goers. After all, they'd only killed a few of the resettlers.
Including Brother Claude Bukowski Hooper.
A Dark One stood over him, black shadow-robes whipped by an unfelt wind. A bearded man, with goat-horns stuck out of his long tangle of hair. He stretched out his arms and worms dripped from the palms of his hands. Brother Claude didn't recognise the apparition.
The road vibrated. Several ve-hickles, getting close. If Claude held on…
Something gave in his neck and his head rolled. His cheek pressed to the hot, gritty road, and his field of vision changed.
Beyond the asphalt was desert. In the distance were mountains. Nothing else. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, hadn't been for decades.
The sun still shone, reflecting like a new hundred-dollar coin in the pool of blood that was spreading across the road.
Blood on the road.
That reminded him of something Elder Seth had said. Something important.
Blood…
…on the road…
Blood…
A fly landed on Brother Claude's eyelash. He didn't blink.
The citizens were dead. There were two in the road, both dressed the same, both dead the same. As usual, they'd been overkilled. Trooper Leona Tyree assumed a parade had run over them.
"No wonder the population's declining," she said to Burnside.
For the first time in the recorded history of the world, according to ZeeBeeCee's Newstrivia, violence was a bigger killer than disease or starvation.
"This one lived longer than the other," Trooper Washington Burnside observed, frown crinkling his recaff-toned forehead, "the poor bastard."
He stood up, brushing road-dirt off the knees of his regulation blue pants After a couple of days on patrol, the yellow side-stripes were almost obscured.
Tyree scanned the startled faces, trying to puzzle out the look in the eyes. She always wondered about corpses. What had it been like at the end? Sometimes, she thought she thought too much. Maybe that was what held her back.
"The cruiser's coming," Burnside said.
Like Tyree, he wore gunbelt and suspenders, heavy gauntlets, a yellow neckerchief and knee-high boots. With his microcircuit-packed skidlid off, he could have been US Cav, 1875 vintage.
And the desert here had always been the same. There'd never been wheatfields in this part of Utah.
But it was 1995 all right. You could tell by the treadmarks on the deadfellas. And the armoured US Road Cav cruiser bearing down on them. The ve-hickle was shaped like an elongated armadillo, nose to the ground. Its gray carapace was coated with non-reflective paint.
"Here's the Quince."
The cruiser eased to a halt. Sergeant Quincannon pulled himself out, hauling a shotgun with him. For a fat old guy, he was in good shape. His ruddy complexion came from high blood pressure, Irish ancestors and Shochaiku Double-Blend Malt, but he never gave less than 150 percent on patrol. In his off-hours, he was another guy altogether. Now, the Quince was purposeful. This was a situation and he was going by the book.
Tyree considered the possibility that the deadfellas were ambush bait. It was unlikely: there was no cover within easy distance of the hardtop. Besides, this wasn't a convoy route to anywhere. Still, she'd scoped the Des for possible foxholes A man could hide in the sand, but stashing a ve-hickle was another proposition.
Tyree gave the no trouble sign and the Quince stowed his laser-sight pump action back in the car. Yorke stayed at the wheel. He got squeamish in the vicinity of deadfellas. Not a useful character trait in the Road Cav, but he was stuck with it.
Quincannon strode up. He had the Cav walk down pat: sort of an easy lope, with lots of shoulder action, belly pulled in. It was just the right side of a swagger.
"What's the situation?" he asked.
"Unidentified casualties, sir," Tyree replied. "We came upon them as they are. There were birds but I shooed them off with a miniscreamer."
"This deadfella's been gone less'n an hour," put in Burnside. "The other bit the cold one three – four ticks earlier."
"Careless driving costs lives."
"This wasn't careless. Whoever roadkilled these hombres made freakin' sure they did a snazz job."
Quincannon wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. A minute out of his air conditioning and he was sweating. Flies swarmed on the corpses. Soon the atmosphere in these parts wasn't going to be too pleasant.
"What do you reckon, sir? Maniax?"
The Maniax were supposed to be off the big board in the Western States, but there were enough rogue chapters of the gangcult rolling around pissed to do a pretty sight of damage before their file closed.
"Could be, Leona. Or Gaschuggers, KKK, Razorbacks, Masked Raiders, Psychopomps, Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, DAR, Voodoo Bros, any one of a dozen others. Hell, the Mescalero Apache ain't been no trouble for a hundred years, but this is their country too. Killin' people is the Great American Sport. Always has been."
The Quince got like that sometimes, mouthy and hardbitten. Tyree put up with it because the sergeant was a top op. After Howling Paul McAuley, probably the best all-round op in the Cav. If she wanted to advance herself off her cyke into a cruiser and then up the chain of command, she'd need his recommendation.
She'd been a trooper a month or so too long as it was. Put a tunic on her and she'd make a dandy lieutenant. Then captain, colonel. It could happen. Her mother had told her it was important to have ambition.
"What do you reckon to their outfits?"
The deadfellas were dressed square, in black cloth suits. No glitter, no frills.
"Don't rightly know, Burnside. Let's take a closer scan."
Tyree had hoped he wouldn't say something like that.
Without too much evident distaste, Quincannon examined one of the corpses, slipping gauntleted fingers between material and meat. He unpeeled a section of jacket from the crushed chest. The dead man wore a simple black suit and a shirt that had been white once but was now mainly red. The shirt was fastened to the throat but there was no tie.
"Funny thing," said Quincannon. "No pockets. No belt. And, scan, no buttons…"
The dead man had fastened his coat with wooden pegs.
"We found this." Burnside handed the sergeant a broad-brimmed black hat.
"He wasn't with any of the usual gangcults, that's for sure," the Quince said. "The ratskags who zotzed him might have taken his weapons, but they'd have left holsters or grenade toggles or something. This damfool wasn't even armed."
"Do you reckon he was an undertaker? All in black, like. Or a preacher?"
"Second guess is more likely, Leona. Though what the hell he was doin' this far into the sand is beyond me."
"Preachers these days pack more firepower than Bonnie and Clyde," Burnside put in. "Take the Salvation Survivalists."
"The other is dressed the same," Tyree observed.
"Just a gang of pilgrims, then. Looking for the Promised Land."
"The Amish don't use buttons," she said. "Or the Hittites."
"As far as I know, the last Amish were wiped out in '93. But that's a good thought. Plenty of religions about these days if a man has a fancy to pick a new one. Or an old one."
Quincannon stood up and dropped the hat over the dead man's face. He observed a private moment of silence and made a gesture that could either be the sign of the cross or the hoisting of a last drink.
"What should we do?"
"Bad news, Leona. You found 'em. You gotta scrape 'em up and bury 'em by the roadside. I'll call it in to Valens. Burnside, break out the entrenching tools and give the lady a hand. Then we'll go up the road a ways, following the tracks. There are tracks?"
Tyree nodded. After the pilgrim-flattening session, the killers' tires would be bloody enough to paint a trail for three counties The white strip down the middle of the road was a solid red.
"Thought so. Anyway, we see who's at the end of the trail. If we're lucky, we get to kick badguy ass before suppertime. If not, we ride through the night and head 'em off at sunup."
The Quince saluted. Tyree and Burnside returned the salutes, and pulled neckerchiefs up over their mouths and noses. They'd had all the infection lectures about handling suspect deadfolks. At an adjustment, the bandanas shrivelled onto their faces, functioning as filters.
"Remember, disease is your worst enemy," Quincannon said, "so check the seals on your gauntlets before you interfere with these former citizens Snap to it, men."
The girls were loitering around the Virtual Death Unlimited Arcade, a roof on stilts raised over a platoon of credit-machines. The games centre was attached to Arizona-Wonderworld, a failing mall out in the Painted Desert. In the stores, all goods were on massive discount. Jazzbeaux had glommed a pair of snazz boots on American Excess, a card she intended to pay off when Dracula got a suntan. She even found a stall specialising in ornamental prostheses and tried on a selection of eyepatches, none of which took her fancy.
Jazzbeaux, not Jessamyn Amanda Bonney. was Acting War Chief of the Psychopomps. Mostly girls, the Pomps favoured spike heels, fishnets; glam make-up, stormclood hairdos, Sove sounds, painted nail-implants, Kray-Zee pills and Kar-Tel Kustom Kars. Their turn-offs included lawnorder. school, soce workers, white picket fences. Ken Freakin Dodd. Mom's apple pie, Maniax and anyone over twenty.
She popped a cold can of Pivo, the new Czech beer currently benefiting from major marketing muscle. A mouthful was antidote to the subliminal brainwashing in the jingle. She squirted the vile stuff onto the ground and tossed the can in the air, drawing a killing bead on it with her finger as it arced towards asphalt.
There weren't many other customers kicking around. Solids stayed away from the sand. The mall was covered in dog-piss spray tags that marked the place as Maniak Territory. Since T-H-R took down the Western Maniax in a joint action with the United States Cavalry, the backbone of Ariz-Wonder's custom was kicking around the Reformation-Confinement Environments the newsies elaborately didn't call concentration camps. Without its status as a major Maniak drop, this place was headed for ghostville. Unless some new, hungry faction stepped in and took over the patronage.
Let's face it, girlie-girl, a power vacuum invites initiative. As Acting WC, it was her place to think ahead a month or two. Without the Grand Exalted Bullmoose and his Merry Marching Morons, Utah and Arizona – at least – were up for grabs. A nice piece of territory, and a chunk of change. She'd seen stats; it was a profitable patch, and someone had to provide the services the Maniax had been delivering. Some things might not exactly be legal, which meant corps had to filter products through street execs.
Andrew Jean, her trusted lieutenant, had opened talks with the Winter Corp and even the Mighty GenTech. If the corps had things (like drugs and guns and virtual porno) that solids wanted, why should feebs in government stand in the way? Wasn't the Prezz supposed to support Free Enterprise? The Psychopomps were notionally communist, if only because the reds had better uniforms and songs. It was better for all conce if alternative enterprise was handled by a gangcult with broadly commie principles rather than a rabidly capitalist krewe like the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Sweetcheeks, plump and adorable in leopard-print leggings and a monumental fakefur jacket, wiggled her butt as she zapped into a wraparound screen, her head insectile under the VR helm. She was playing Mambo Massacre, a game program combining dancersize and combat; kidstuff until Level Nineteen, when the player faced Fred and Ginger with chainsaws. Some of the others fooled with games but most just sat on out-of-order consoles and looked out at the sand. Varoomschka was triple-coating her nails with a hammer-and-sickle motif, working as meticulously as if she were putting the final touches to a Fabergé Easter egg.
So Long Suin's shower radio hung from the frame of one of the cars, tuned to Radio Moscow. Petya Tcherkassoff put his tormented soul into "The Girl in Gorki Park". Jazzbeaux was over her queensize crush on the Soviet musickie but still found it hard not to sway when she heard this song. It was about the singer's beautifully pale ex-lover; in the last verse, it turned out she was pale because she was dead. When Petya threw her over, she lay herself naked in the snow and willingly hypothermed. According to Moscow Beat magazine, the girl was based on a real person, Natalia Ludmila Someonova, but Jazzbeaux felt the song was just for her. She resented sharing it with the rest of creation.
Her life had not presented unlimited opportunities. She'd bought the gangcult package early and worked her way up from Shrimp to Acting WC. In her early teens, when Papa Bruno was alive and kicking, she did time as warehouse gladiatrix, racking enough brownie points to make her a chapter leaderine. She lost her left eye in a rumble with the Gaschuggers, and Ms Dazzle, her sponsor, personally paid Doc Threadneedle for the augmentation surgery. The Psycho-pomps were more a family to her than her late, lamented daddy and long-gone mama ever were. No 'Pomp had ever tried to sell her; well, not lately…
Jazzbeaux knew the ganggirl scene was stupo, but – hey? – what else did she have to do? She could read and type, so her basic education was taken care of. No way was she going out for indenture to a Japcorp; she didn't want to turn tricks for scuzz like her Daddy, thank you very much; and there weren't many other career opportunities for a fillette from the Denver NoGo in These Here United States, so she'd taken a vacation and was opting to hang out for the rest of her life.
She'd be seventeen in November. If she made it, maybe she'd take a look at her life-pattern and change it. Or not. Nichevo, as they said. It didn't matter, much. Everything was going to end one day. Probably soon. Five years from now, when the odometer ticked over all those zeroes, there'd be a big bang. Everybody said so.
She didn't pay tax but according to Andrew Jean her cut of last anno's yield put her on a salary par with a mid-level exec with an American multinat. If today's negotiations settled favourably, she'd be up there with a fast-track Japcorp software samurai. She wondered if any of the shoulderpad dolls who strode through offices on business soaps started out in gangcults. That wouldn't be for her; she'd never wear a suit.
Sometimes, they'd burn money. Literally. It became a drag to haul it around in paper or negotiable gems. When they couldn't jam the trunk shut, they'd scatter stuff for the sand-rats. The 'Pomps were wild like that.
Andrew Jean hunched over a Virtualsex Machine, cockatoo beehive dipping, pretending to interface. The game was hooked to other locations on the VDU chain; you could virtually rut with anonymes. This model was sneakily altered to function as a terminal for a one-time message. It was part of the II service. Word had been sent to the DAR that the 'Pomps could be reached in the Painted Desert and word had come back that the Daughters were agreeable to one-on-one negotiation.
Jazzbeaux was bored. Until the Daughters approved a site, she was hung up on this spot. The others kept their distance, as always when a negotiation was in the immediate offing. She understood. No one liked to be too close to someone who might shuffle. After, they'd cluster around like amorous octopi and throw her a party.
If she shuffled, she hoped Petya Tcherkassoff would sing a song about her. "The Girl in the Ground"?
A dust devil rose out in the Des, coming this way. A heavy machine. Sleek enough not to sound a whisper.
So Long came out of lotus and looked at the silent tornado. She was the kar krazy of the chapter.
"It's a V12," she said, "G-Mek."
Very heavy machine.
Jazzbeaux shut her good eye and lifted her patch. Her optic fed a heat picture to her brain. It was blurry but hot dots told her the V-12 was loaded for bear.
The DAR couldn't know they were here. Virtualsex was guaranteed secure. Both gangcults were laying out a cool ten thou to Irving's Intermediaries, ensuring mutual mystification.
The Daughters should be loitering at some other site, waiting for the window to open.
So Long hefted a rocket-launcher and drew sight on the car. She initiated a countdown.
"One pop and bye-bye," she said.
Jazzbeaux shook her head.
"Stand down, tovarich. It's just a solo cruising through. We need no hassle today. 'Member, we've an appointment."
Also, from the V12's heat pattern, she doubted So Long's hatpin missile would dent its hide.
"I think it's an old girlfriend."
So Long triggered an abort sequence, pissed-oft It wasn't good for deathware to get boiled up but not let off.
The ve-hickle made an elegant curve, dropping rpms, and smoothed to a halt by the porch of the VDU Arc. Close up, it hummed like an electric appliance. As dust settled, Jazzbeaux clocked the Turner-Harvest-Ramirez tag. An antique pin-up was stencilled on the fuselage: a girlie in a bathing suit posed on a knobby little bomb with fins, showing one shaved armpit and a Pepsodent gleam. Everyone knew 'Nola Gay. And the machine's owner.
There was an uncomfortable shifting among the 'Pomps. PMS. Pre-Massacre Syndrome. Weapons eased out of sheaths, safeties switched. Andrew Jean remained intent on Virtualsex but 'Cheeks hauled out of cyberdisco and put the helm down.
The V12's door opened silently. A long, long leg slipped out, and touched a dainty boot-toe to the dirt. On the hip was an empty holster. Then the driver got out, holding up a side arm. She wore her naturally red hair long, a rare affectation.
Redd Harvest, the H in T-H-R. Probably the most-profiled Sanctioned Op in the Enforcement Sector, despite her publicity-shyness. The only woman with whatever it takes – sheer guts, colourful psychoses, qucensize deathwish, elephantiasis of the ego – to declare war on the Maniax.
"Hello, Jessamyn," Harvest said. "Still pissing it away with these panzer pussies?"
Jazzbeaux didn't remember Rancid Robyn, her alleged real mother, but Harvest always came on like a mix of Mom, High School Principal and long-suffering Big Sis. They had History back to the '80s.
"Hi, Rachael," Jazzbeaux said. She knew Harvest didn't like to be reminded that she no more used her real name than anyone else. It made her too like the gangbangers who were her prey. "Neat outfit."
Harvest wore a functional one-piece, with a flakjak and a utility belt. Her hair was held back by an Alice band, but frizzed out a lot around her shoulders. It must get in the way in fights.
"And cool gun, ma'am. Real horosho killing piece."
The Op bolstered her side arm. It was something sensuous, with a big kick. She looked over the 'Pomps, probably totalling rewards in her head. Everyone in the krewe had paper hanging over them in some state or other. Most had gone federal and were just wanted.
"Small-timers," Harvest said, snorting. "We'll get down to you someday, but just now we've got a moose to fry."
"Got away, did he, Rachael?"
The Op shrugged.
"If there is a he."
The Grand Exalted Bullmoose of the Maniax was probably a mythical being. No one had ever seen him and lived. Jazzbeaux reckoned it was a revolving office; the Maniax were basically Anarcho-Capitalists, so their hierarchy was about as stable as a lavalamp. That was what made them hard to stamp out; like ticks, cutting off the body wasn't enough, you had to dig the head out of your skin and burn it.
Harvest looked Jazzbeaux up and down, not showing her opinion in her face. If she wore make-up, she'd be a pretty woman. With her legs, she'd even look good in a dress. Once, in previous lives, they'd got close. Too close for mutual comfort.
Jazzbeaux pouted and leaned on a Blood Bowl console. She let her tongue play over her lower lip and fluttered her single eyelash.
"You should have more fun, Rachael," she said, meaning it.
Harvest looked blank.
"Fun is not an early priority."
Before she went into the private sector, Rachael Harvest was a Denver beatcop. She'd rounded up Jazzbeaux back in her gladiatrix days and they'd played Mama-Daught games neither wanted to remember much in the harshness of the '90s. But the Op always made Jazzbeaux feel twelve.
"How's blat, Jessamyn?"
Jazzbeaux shrugged. She knew the woman cared (under the armour plate, the Op was a dogoodnik) but she'd never understand. For her, everything was right or wrong and pick-yourself-up. She'd never had a Daddy like Bruno Bonney. And she'd never have a daughter like Jessamyn Amanda…
"Must be business openings this anno," Ms Harvest mused. "Especially in pharmaceuticals supply. If I were a smart fillette, I think I'd pass them up. Prospects are strictly short term."
Out of the Op's sightline, Sleepy Jane hefted a blowpipe and took aim. She usually packed tranks but she had a variety of interesting psycho-active darts.
"I wouldn't exhale if I were you, Miss Porteous," Harvest said, not turning her head. "If someone were to give that thing a good shove, you'd lose those expensive steel-core teeth."
The blowpipe went down.
"How do you do that, Rachael? A pineal peep implant?"
Harvest didn't crack a smile.
"Jessamyn, Jessamyn, what to do about you?"
"Here's a radical concept, how about getting off my back and leaving me the freak alone?"
Jazzbeaux fancied a wind of disappointment blew across the Op's smooth face. Jazzbeaux would have killed for Harvest's complexion.
"One day, my dear," Harvest said, "there'll be a reckoning 'twixt thee and me."
"Won't that be something to see, though?"
Jazzbeaux knew she was flouncing like a lolita, shoving hips against her skirt and blowing bubbles with non-existent gum. It was uncanny how far back the Op took her.
"Jessamyn, grow up," the Op said, a feeble parting shot. She slipped back into 'Nola Gay and the door descended. The windows were one-way opaque.
The 'Pomps drew fingers and popped off gun-noises at the V12, thumbs recoiling. Sweetcheeks had a bad case of hiccough-giggles and had to be slapped on the back.
Jazzbeaux wondered why she let Redd Harvest get to her.
"Dance on my finger, ladylove," she said, not loud enough for the car's sensors to pick up.
"Attention," a computer-generated speaker said, "your warrant status and current locale have been down-loaded with the nearest node of the Highway Patrol net."
"I'm so scared," So Long said, exaggerating. She'd kept quiet and hung back while Harvest was out of her car.
'Nola Gay did its famous nought-to-ninety trick and zoomed off for the desert horizon.
"Thank Cristo for that," Andrew Jean said. "I've been sitting on the message for minutes. How does Moroni, Utah sound to you? It's up near Silver City and Spanish Fork. Ghost town."
"Snazz."
Moroni? Irving specialised in ghost towns with silly names. II would have scouted the site. The commission was to find absolutely neutral territory for negotiations. Somewhere, the DAR rank equivalent of Andrew Jean would be receiving the same message.
Jazzbeaux gave Andrew Jean the nod.
"I'll tap in an acceptance. Boyar, it looks like you're invited to single combat. A duel of honour and business."
Andrew Jean knuckled keys, authorising the transfer of funds to II, accepting the site. As the message was processed, the Virtualsex simulated an affirmative orgasm. The Daughters must have gone with Moroni, too. It used to be form for both sides suspiciously to turn down the first proposal but Irving got offended easily.
'Nola Gay was out of sight. The Psychopomps' ve-hickles were neatly parked in the lot, under armed guard.
"Girlie-girls," Jazzbeaux announced, "we've got klicks to cover 'fore tomorrow night. So let's move out."
In the Outer Darkness, the Old Ones swarmed, awaiting the Summoning. The Dark Ones Who Stand By Themselves. The Summoner felt their immense excitement, their unknown activity, reach through the Planes of Existence, focusing on his own beating heart. The Power of the Crawling Chaos was almost too much to contain in one mere physical body.
Blood had been spilled on the Path of Joseph. The Channels were opening. Not enough blood yet, but a start was made on the Great Invocation. The ritual, more ancient even than those it was to summon, had been commenced. Again.
The Road to the Shining City must be marked out for the Dark Ones and their Servitors, just as landing lights mark out an airfield runway. The spilled blood would guide the Dark Ones to the Earthly Plane, to the Last City.
More blood, more blood!
The Summoner assessed his work and was well pleased. He had travelled this route before, spilled blood before. Since then, he had had time to wait, time to live. Now the cycle could recommence. Lines came into his head, and he followed them through…
Turning and turning in a widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned …
The Irishman had known more than he understood, the Summoner mused, and had died too soon to realise what he was talking of. He was one of the so-called magicians. They had all been fools and children, playing conjuring tricks, never really grasping the cosmic significance of the old rites. He had known them all, and seen them for what they were: the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, A. E. Waite, Arthur Machen, the Si-Fan, the Illumanati, the Adepts, Fools and children.
The Summoner was happier with his collection of half-mad geniuses: De Sade, Poe, Aspern, Edvard Munch, Bierce, Gustave von Aschenbach, Kafka, Howard Lovecraft, Meyrink, Scott Fitzgerald, Jake Lingwood, Plath, Michael Reeves. Poets and painters and fabulists and freaks. Taken before their times, they had been worthy offerings to the Dark Ones. Nothing so pleased his masters as the waste of human potential. Sometimes he flirted with exposure, allowing the sacrifices to learn a little, letting it seep into their work. He was quite a patron of the Arts. Sometimes, through carelessness, someone doomed to early disgrace and death grew wise and slipped away.
He thought of the singer, Presley, who had so nearly been his toy but who had diverged from the path laid out in blood and gold. The Summoner knew Presley was out there in the world. His was a sacrifice which would be completed some day.
Now the secret societies, the love cults, the freemasonries were gone. The poets and philosophers were dead, the dilettantes and madmen in their graves. But the Summoner breathed still, alone in the knowledge that the Time of Changes was truly imminent.
Fish would sprout from trees and the sun would burn black. But first the blood ritual would be complete, the Dark Ones would walk the face of the Earth, the common mass of humanity would be cast down, the raging chaos would coat the red-soaked land. The battles would be joined, and the fires of ice would burn. The Age of Pettiness would be at an end, and the Great Days, the Last Days, would be upon them. It would be a glorious sunset, and an eternal night.
And the Summoner would have his reward.
ZeeBeeCee's Nostalgia Newstrivia:
The 1960s
Do you remember where you were, what you were wearing, which song you were humming, when Americans touched the moon in 1965? Tonight on Nostalgia Newstrivia, Luscious Lola Stechkin recalls the decade of Family Value and the British Invasion, of American Harmony and Chaos Abroad…the Solid '60s.
Hi, America. Wouldn't you just love to hug me and squeeze me and touch me and feel me?
Slip into your Interactive Rubber Cardigan and enjoy the totality of the Lola Stechkin arm-wraparound experience. For further sensations, turn your dial to 143 and place your mouth to the lip-mallow, selecting the "French Kiss" option. This has been a bonus service from ZeeBeeCee.
Mmmmmmmm-wah! Tonight we drift back to those dreamy idyllic years of your baby-boomette childhood, when Marlon Brando ran the Ponderosa and Richard Nixon ran the country.
It was the decade that began with the promise, made in President Nixon's 1961 inaugural address, that an American would walk on the moon by 1965. That promise, like so many others, was fulfilled.
John Glenn: One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind…
It was the decade which ended with the escalation of a futile war in South-East Asia. Hostilities between Russian and Chinese ground troops in Indo-China lead to a brief, terrifying exchange of tactical atomic weapons along the Sino-Soviet border in the Nine-Minute War of 1970.
First Secretary Gromyko: The People's Government of South Vietnam cannot be allowed to fall to the barbarians of the North, behind whose depradations we sense the insidious hands of the barbarians of the East.
Montage: Soviet troops marching, parachuting, driving tanks, smiling at the camera, smoking kir. Vietnamese villages burning. A running firefight. A Kremlin official reading off casualty figures Mao Zedong ranting. Long-haired protestors thronging Red Square. Mushroom clouds rising. Gromyko resigning. A KGB officer holding up a severed head.
Tonight, on Nostalgia Newstrivia, we remember the moods and the music, the triumphs and tragedies, the faces and factoids, the prices and the crises, the fashions and the food…
President Nixon: My fellow Americans, we must survey each situation, national and international, and ask one simple question, not "what's in it for us?" but "what's in it for the US?"
For America, these were years of achievement as President Nixon seemingly conquered the universe. After the calamitous failure of the first manned Soviet orbital flight, we surged ahead in the race thanks to massive US investment in the space programme and the diversion of Russian initiative into its ruinous land war. Mercury begat Gemini begat Apollo begat Hercules begat Pegasus.
Everyone remembers the first men on the Moon, John Glenn and Wally Schirra, but spare a thought for the casualties of mankind's first steps to the stars. Yuri Gagarin, Virgil Grissom, Richard Rusoffe, Garrett Breedlove and so many others. A sombre rollcall of heroism.
It was once suggested by General Westmoreland of NASA that the moon be granted statehood, though the question of who exactly might represent the new state in Congress and the Senate was never satisfactorily answered.
Montage: Rockets rising from Cape Canaveral. Rockets exploding on the gantry. Funerals for dead astronauts. Mass oblations before smiling, blown-up ID cards. Americans walking in space. Americans on the moon. Americans beset by tickertape. Countdowns, Touchdowns, Splashdowns. Animated diagrams of weapons satellites. John Glenn in a plaid suit, grinning on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
In music, the decade saw the withering of American dominance in the wake of the rock 'n' roll riots of 1961. Followers of evangelist Jimmy Swaggart clashed with those of DJ Alan Freed at Madison Square Gardens, New York. Among the thousands left dead by morning were Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, Little Richard and Freed himself. A family footnote was the tragic, permanent crippling of the Reverend Swaggart's cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis.
In the wake of the Tin Pan Alley Self-Regulation Codes, names like Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins disappeared from the jukeboxes, remembered only by a rising generation of Russian children who, energised by the anti-war movement of the late '60s, would transform the American rhythms of the '50s into the all-powerful Sove Sounds of the 70s and beyond.
These were the years of the British Invasion. The Liverpool Sound came to America, represented by Ken Dodd's first international million-seller, "Tears (for Souvenirs)". American artists were fast to react and soon Fabian Forte, Jan and Dean and Gracie Wing were covering the hits of Matt Monro, Mrs Mills and Valerie Singleton.
America's teenagers embraced the Brits but found a place for their own idols. The President, admitting he owned every disc Pat Boone ever cut, commended the music industry for championing decent young citizens whose example in moderate behaviour, modest dress and fetching hairstyles was eagerly copied by adoring fans. The President even confessed one or two "race records" had caught his fancy, reserving especial praise for Diana Ross's interpretation of Rolf Harris's "Sun-a-Rise".
Sizzling Sixties Top Ten: 1961: "(I Love, I Love, I Love, My Little) Calendar Girl", Neil Sedaka; 1962: "Love Letters (Straight From Your Heart)", Marilyn Monroe; 1963: "Happiness, Happiness (The Greatest Gift That I Possess)", Ken Dodd; 1964: "Shout", Valerie Singleton; 1965: "It's Not Unusual", Norman Wisdom; 1966: "Theme From Star Trek", The Billy Cotton Band; 1967: "(It's a Treat To Beat Your Feet on the) Mississippi Mud", James M. Hendrix and the Merry Minstrels; 1968: "White Horses", Jacky; 1969: "Hooray for Nixon", Cherilyn LaPierre; 1970: "(I Did It) My Way", Ken Dodd.
At this point, should you wish to further your intimate relationship with the lovely Lola, please press the PAY button on your remote, and attach the milking sleeve as shown in the diagram provided. ZeeBeeCee takes no responsibility for coronary ill-effect or electrical discharges caused by faulty wiring or overuse of this consumer function. If in doubt, consult your family doctor…
While the '10s were marked by War and Revolution, the '20s by racketeering and bathtub gin, the '30s by Depression and the New Deal, the '40s by World Conflict and Swing, and the '50s by the dread shadow of the unleashed atom, no decade before or since has seemed so uncomplicated and peaceful to the great mass of the people of America as the 1960s. There were overseas wars, but America was merely a mournful, helpful observer, consistently intervening in futile attempts to find common ground between combatants.
After 1961, there were no more riots among the young, the happy racial minorities, or the working man. 1969 saw the great Peace March – lead by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Senator Lyndon Johnson and John Wayne – which gathered outside the Washington consulates of the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. Similar marches in Moscow and Peking were not as peaceful; the death toll of that day will probably never be known.
Employment held steady, rates of divorce and suicide plunged, American industry launched countless successful products – typified perhaps by the most popular car of the 1960s, the Ford Edsel – and the nation's position in the world was paramount.
Alfred E. Neuman: What, me worry? I drive an Edsel!
Truly, the 1960s were the American Decade, and the Man of the Solid '60s was Richard Nixon, the only First Executive ever to have co-hosted Your Show of Shows with Milton Berle and Chevy Chase. President Nixon, that wise old bird, resisted calls that he share with FDR the opportunity of running for a third term. With typical good humour, he claimed he could make far more money from books and lectures after his retirement than he ever could in the White House.
President Nixon: Pat deserves a new coat and Checkers II is looking forward to the California sunshine.
Who can forget the spontaneous demonstrations of loyalty that erupted throughout the country in 1968, as the presidential campaign took on the good-humoured air of a festival? In Chicago, the Democratic Convention was invaded by pranksters of the "Why Bother?" faction, encouraging delegates not to tinker with success and admit that the party of opposition could not hope to compete with the administration.
Even losing candidate Hubert Humphrey, polling proportionately fewer votes than any second-placer in history, was able to laugh off defeat with an admission that he didn't envy Barry Goldwater the job of following a fighting Quaker saint in the White House.
That year, John Kennedy, the forgotten man of American politics, remarried, not to the blonde goddess whose wiles had ruined his chance for the presidency in 1960, but to Mia Farrow, youthful star of the summer's heart-warming hit motion picture, And Rosemary's Baby Makes Three.
Amid the hilarity and fellow-feeling, one should remember Nixon the Statesman. The triumphs of the Nixon Presidency were epitomised by his swift intervention in Cuba in 1962, providing air support for democratic rebels who overthrew the short-lived regime of the mad tyrant, Fidel Castro. Here we see American offshore interests triumphant in 1963 as businessman Samuel Giancana reopens the Club Whoopee, Havana. That noise you hear has been identified as the happy popping of champagne corks.
Also, Secretary of State Hoffa presided over the removal of many restrictions which threatened to impede the progress of American industry, granting rich government contracts to the technocrats who steadfastly worked in the space programme. Here, reactionary Ralph Nader slinks away from a congressional committee after the decisive defeat of his Slow Down Emissions recommendations, which would have cut American output by up to 50 per cent.
After deliberating the findings of a committee chaired by Governor George Wallace, the president adopted the policy of Separate But Equal Development in education, housing and employment, ensuring unprecedented racial harmony in the South. The amusing shoeshine boy seen here 'accidentally' spilling polish over Governor George's white pants-cuffs has been identified as a Mr Malcolm Little, who seems, quite sensibly to judge by that grumpy look on George's face, to have disappeared from history soon after this candid footage was shot.
In 1961, everyone went to the movies and saw Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Dolores Hart in Where the Boys Are and Kirk Douglas in Spartacus; in 1970, it was Richard Beymer and Katharine Houghton in Love Story, Julie Andrews and Rock Hudson in Darling Lili and John Wayne as John Glenn and Clinton Eastwood Jr as Wally Schirra in The Right Stuff. In 1961, the top TV shows were Bonanza, The Lawrence Welk Show and Dragnet, in 1970, they were Bonanza, The Ken Dodd Show and Star Trek. Hair went up and skirts came down. The biggest hit show on Broadway throughout the '60s, so closely identified with the Nixon Era that Pat Nixon took to calling her husband's cabinet "the Twilight of the Gods", was Lerner and Lowe's Ragnarok, adapted from Wagner's Ring cycle. Here's Rex Harrison as Wotan, to sing us out of our moist-eyed nostalgia with the song President Nixon was reputedly humming throughout his eight years in office…
"The darkness is descending all around us
The world, they 'say, is ending on this spot
Those monsters from the underworld have found us …
It's Ragnarok…"
Thank you, Lola. We'll look forward to seeing more of your past in the future. Those who took advantage of our full interactive function are advised by ZeeBeeCee's Dr Nick to light up a Snout, the high-tar cigarette that tastes like tobacco and smells like smoke.
Now, it's back to the '90s for an all-new episode of that show that started in the '60s and was featured in our nostalgia binge. Star Trek: The Golden Generation. William Shatner returns as Captain James T. Kirk, with Don Ameche as Mr Spock, George Burns as Bones McCoy and Jessica Tandy as Lieutenant O'Hara. In tonight's episode, "The Syndrome Factor", the USS Enterprise visits a parallel universe in which Richard Nixon was assassinated by Klingons in 1963 and the future has become a living hell…