"Nine ve-hickles, camped off-road in a box canyon," Burnside reported. "Place used to be a drive-in movie theatre, the Lansdale Ozoner. Maybe thirty, forty citizens. Repeat, citizens, not gang personnel. No deathware in sight. All in black, like our flat friends two days back. They don't scan hostile, but they don't scan too healthy either."
Quincannon spoke into the communicator. "We'll be along directly, trooper. Do not establish contact until we're with you. The DAR didn't scan too hostile either, then they slaughtered F Troop with hatpin missiles."
"Check, sergeant."
Yorke had been driving since they broke camp at sunup. They were well into Utah. Quincannon was keeping watch on the scanners as the cruiser took in the view. The roads here wound through canyons and passes. Road Runner country. It was ideal ambush territory and you had to keep a camera-eye on the horizons for sniping points. There had been no trouble but that didn't mean there wouldn't be. Up on the root swivel-mounted sensors swept the landscape.
"So, what are we doing, Quince, rescuing or policing?"
"Could be either one, Yorke. Either one."
The cruiser blip joined the Tyree and Burnside blips on the mapscreen. The troopers were off their mounts, waiting for the heavy brigade. With assumed solids, procedure was to approach as a unit. Only certified gangcults warranted the surprise sneak-up. Quincannon signed for the troopers to saddle up and follow the cruiser. It was the regular formation again.
"Just slide 'er into the canyon, Yorke. Don't make too much of a noise but don't be too stealth-oriented either. We don't want to provoke any trouble. People in situations are liable to get panicky. Even decent folks have big guns and hair-triggers these days. And, believe me, my favourite song is not 'I Love a Massacre'."
Yorke took the cruiser off the road and the suspension had to do extra work as it bounced over dirt track. The cruiser was so well-sprung, you could put a shot glass of whiskey in the cup-cradle and not lose a drop over the brim.
There was a bunch of wheelmarks in the dust. They hadn't bothered to cover their trail. Therefore these were more likely to be victims than violators. The cruiser was gearing up for a fight, just in case. Yorke was still rattled from the patrol's brush yesterday with Boris freakin' Karloff and the Spidercopter of Doom. A row of lights on the dash went green one by one, and flashed regularly. The laser cannons were primed, the mortars ready to slide out of their holes, the directional squirters keyed up for tear gas, the maxiscreamers humming.
If Custer had had just one of these babies, he would have come back from the Little Big Horn a live hero.
"You hear that?"
Yorke strained his ears and Quincannon twiddled up the directional mikes, homing in on a noise.
"Singing?"
There was a faint, reedy whine. Voices joined, none too professionally, in song.
"A hymn?"
"It's a psalm, Yorke. 'How Amiable Are Thy Tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts'. You should have paid more attention in Sunday school."
"My parents are secular humanists, sir."
Quincannon mimed spitting.
Hymns gave Yorke a bad feeling. "What do you reckon, Quince. The Bible Belt?"
"Could be."
Yorke's hands were sweaty on the wheel. He had bad memories of the Bible Belt, a motorised gangcult of Old Testament fundamentalists. They wore spade beards, linen robes, open-toed sandals and "Jesus Kills" tattoos. Their kick was doing the Lord's work, but they were more inclined to Smite the Unrighteous and Put Out the Eye of Thine Enemy than Turn the Other Cheek or Love Thy Neighbour. They had moved into a couple of wide-open townships in Arizona, Welcome Springs and Buggered Goat, and renamed them Sodom and Gomorrah. Then they had razed the places to the ground and righteously slaughtered everyone in sight in the name of the Lord. They could easily have moved this far north.
Yorke had been captured by the Bible Belt three patrols back, and sentenced to die by the sword for having an ungodly Richard Clayderman chip in his walkman shades. He still owed the Quince for pulling him alive out of Gomorrah, Ariz. And he still owed the Bible Belt for the three plastik and steelspring fingers he was toting on his left hand.
The cruiser quietly approached the drive-in. There was a camp at one end. A group of people stood together as if at a meeting, scanning up at where the screen used to be. They were the ones singing. Someone with a bigger, blacker hat than the rest stood on the hood of a motorwagon, leading the congregation. The only one who could see the Cav coming, he kept waving his arms, keeping the psalm going.
Yorke let out a breath. The preacher was not Hezekiah Tribulation, messiah of the Bible Belt.
"Time to break up the sing-song," Quincannon said.
He turned on the outside hailers and spoke into the mike.
"Attention. This is the United States Road Cavalry. We mean you no harm."
He was obliged by law to say that before he shot anyone.
"We are here to offer assistance."
Yorke pulled the cruiser over and saw the blips converge as Tyree and Burnside parked by them. He still had the wheel and was supposed to stay at it in case the hymn-singers proved dangerous. It was the spot he liked. It felt a lot less exposed than getting out and talking to strangers in the Des.
The lights stopped flashing and glowed steady. The weapons system was waiting for the touch of a switch to cut loose. Yorke wouldn't even have to aim anything, unless he wanted manual override. The cruiser was ready to put a hole in any moving or stationary blip on its sensors without the photoactive Cav strip down its pantslegs.
The hymn ended and the singers turned to look at the newcomers. One or two went down on their knees and prayed out loud. They were either thankful for the rescuers or making their peace with God before they got killed trying to kill someone else. The Bible Belt went in for praying in a big way. And torture. Somehow, the two always seemed to go together.
"See you later, Yorke."
"Sure thing. Quince."
Quincannon stepped out of the cruiser and walked up to the choir, empty hand outstretched.
There was something strange about the preachie's shades. Jazzbeaux had worn them on and off for nearly a day. They were clearer than regular dark glasses and had a queer effect. She was used to the more-or-less flat, one-third obscured panorama of monocular vision augmented by an optic replacement Once or twice, she thought she scanned things in the periphery that couldn't be there. Indistinct, but unsettling. Sometimes it was like seeing in 3-D again. The disturbing presences hovered in the extreme left field, where she could usually see nothing.
"Whassamatter, Jazzbie," Andrew Jean asked, "you a loca ladybug? You're spookola in spades this ayem …"
The Psychopomps were grouped outside Moroni. The convention was that everyone parked neatly like solid citizens and walked into the arena like old-style gladiators.
Jazzbeaux sat on the hood of the Tucker, dangling the shades from her mouth. It occurred to her the glasses might be some new type of "safe" psychoactive. The lenses might convert light rays into optical illusions. It was possible. She'd read such things in magazines.
"No probs, Ay-Jay," she said.
This was important. Some liked a little high before a negotiation. It made them loose, less concerned, more daring. Jazzbeaux preferred going in straight. Back in her warehouse gladiatrix period, she always saved the Kray-Zee pills for after the bout.
Winning still hurts, she had learned.
So Long was running through stats on the DAR. In the chapter they were dealing with, there were a few well-known scrappers but no clear contender. That gave the Daughters the advantage; going in, the rep would know exactly who the 'Pomps would put into the ring. Jazzbeaux was facing some unknown.
"If t'were me picking the negotiator," So Long mused, "I'd go for this fillette, Valli Forge. She's got more confirmed kills than anyone else in the chapter."
"Bio-amendments?"
So Long made the shaky sign. "None on record. Interesting chemical dependency, but she's not likely to be in withdrawal crisis when you do the dance."
Jazzbeaux liked high-fliers. They didn't know when they were damaged. The whole point of pain was to tell you when to protect yourself. Anyone with smacksynth or zonk in their system would stumble around on two broken legs until it was over.
Impulsively, Jazzbeaux slipped on the shades again. Last night, in the dark, she had scanned too many things. In daylight, they should be safe. The view seemed to ripple and voices whispered in her head. She swore she could hear the preacher man fuming.
"Best of luck, suestra," Varoomschka said, lying. If Jazzbeaux came out of this badly, Vroomsh would be the obvious candidate for Acting War Chief.
Jazzbeaux looked briefly at her, and flash-saw a jewelled skeleton wrapped in crinkled plastic. All the 'Pomps looked briefly shrivelled and dead. Then there was a shift and things settled – Varoomschka filled out her see-through jump suit properly.
Sweetcheeks stuck a wet kiss on her face, leaving a lipsticky heart. Jazzbeaux rubbed the girl's back affectionately, taking in a lungful of the scented air around her.
After only seconds in the shades, migraine sprouted. A hot nail drove between her eyebrows. Jazzbeaux took off the glasses and thought of throwing them away. She could drive a cyke over them and the distraction would be over. But she just slung them around her neck.
From inside the Tucker, Sleepy Jane reported the seismograph had picked up ve-hickles on the other side of Moroni. "Company's here," she said.
The world looked real again but Jazzbeaux found herself wanting to put the glasses back on. It was like when she was eight and Dead Daddy put her on Hero-9 to keep her under control. She'd had to wean herself off the dope over a period of years and still felt the occasional urge for a H-9 hit. She knew a lot of addicts – there were dotted blue bruises behind Sweetcheeks' plump knees and Andrew Jean kept a powder compact filled with zonk – and even more people who were just more comfortable facing the world in an altered state.
It was reversed for her, like a negative picture. As a child, she'd been drugged for annos on end and never had a say. She remembered her first straight hours, when Officer Harvest put her in solitary after a juvie bust; that experience had been like the revelation some get the first time they go out of their skulls. Since then, she'd become more and more hung up on her straight spells, taking fewer and fewer drugs, spending longer and longer with only her unaugmented senses. One day soon, she would be hooked on reality.
Unless the shades scrambled her brain.
It was an irrational longing but after minutes it became irresistible. She fought it for as long as she could, but it was such a silly thing. She was Acting War Chief. She wasn't afraid to wear a pair of glasses.
"We don't go into town until nightfall," Andrew Jean said. "That's the arrangement."
"That'll make for a long, dull afternoon," Jazzbeaux replied. "Oh well, que sera, sera ..."
She fiddled with the shades, tapping her teeth with an arm. She knew she should eat but didn't feel hungry.
Sweetcheeks was absorbed in a tiny game console; she was hung up on a scenario called "Perfect Date", but hadn't yet made it to the senior prom, let alone gone all the way with the class captain. The one time Jazzbeaux played the thing, she wound up being gang-banged by the football team and dismembered by a serial killer.
Varoomschka unshouldered her boom-box and slotted in 'Tasha's Ancient Mariner Mambo album. It had never been one of Jazzbeaux's favourites. Tasha had been married, at different times, to Petya Jerkussoff and Andrei Tarkovsky. Moscow Beat said she represented a fusion of Glit and Glum. Jazzbeaux just thought 'Tasha was a pretentious whiner.
Maybe she was growing up.
Finally, she snapped, and – trying not to look desperate – casually slipped her head into the glasses, shaking back her hair at the same time. As the bridge settled against her nose, she kept her eye shut.
She heard Tasha singing,
"It is an Ancient Mariner
Who stoppeth one of three,
And by your hairy tangle beard and that glitter in your eye,
keep his filthy rotten hand off of me..."
Jazzbeaux opened her eye.
This time, the effect was different. Colours were brighter, but less sharp. There were shadows where there shouldn't be. It was a little like a Hero-9 or Method-1 buzz, but without any elation. Somehow, with the glasses on, she felt compelled to look back over her shoulder all the time.
"Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
She couldn't stop herself turning and looking back over the roof of the Tucker. Out in the Des, sands shifted. The sky was featureless, without even any birds.
She couldn't see the frightful fiend but that didn't mean it wasn't there. A strange shadow crept across the sand like a pointing finger. She had to hold herself to suppress a shudder.
Beyond the Des, she imagined a lone figure, advancing steadily with long-legged strides, face in the dark under his hat-brim. The preacherman was coming after her, coming for his property. That shouldn't have scared an Acting War Chief. But it did.
Brother Wiggs watched with suspicion as the cavalryman walked towards the faithful. He logged the sergeant's side arm, but noted the buttoned-down holster flap. The man didn't need to draw his weapon; there was enough rolling death in his machine to level the Lansdale Ozoner and anyone in it.
Why could Gentiles not leave the Brethren of Joseph alone? Must there be nothing but trial and blood along the road to the Shining City?
The cavalryman put his gauntleted hands on his hips and looked the congregation up and down. Under his hat-brim were sharp eyes.
"You folks having a church service?" the sergeant asked.
"A funeral service," Elder Seth replied. "For those lost along the road."
The Elder's voice, heavy with sorrow, carried across the drive-in. There was a muttering of amens.
"I think we found a couple of those souls a way South of here," the Sergeant said. "Sort of spread out across the road."
Elder Seth bowed his head and stretched out his arms. It was as if he were hanging from a cross of pain. "Brother Hooper and Brother Lennart."
"This wake for them?"
"Amongst others." The cyke troopers had dismounted and joined the sergeant.
One was a woman, provocatively dressed in indecently tight pants; the other was a black man, the type Wiggs' Daddy would never have let onto his police force.
"How many more pilgrims have you lost?"
"Brother Akins, Brother Dzundza, Brother Finnegan."
"Seems to me you've been mighty careless with your brothers."
A spurt of anger shot up from Wiggs's belly. How dare this Gentile address himself so facetiously to Elder Seth? From a dozen yards away, Wiggs recognised the red blossoms of alcohol abuse on the sergeant's face. The cavalryman stank of sin.
The Lord knew, with women and nigras and who-all else knew what, the US Road Cavalry was mightily degraded. Wiggs saw them as no better than the other motorised killers, the resettlers. The girl-witch who had taken the Elder's shades had been indecently dressed too. "Let's scan your dead," the sergeant said. Elder Seth had laid out the brothers lost to the murderous harlots on the road beyond the drive-in, where their martyr's blood had been spilled. The sergeant glanced over the three, who were concealed by a bloodied sheet. "Traffic accident?"
"Murder," Wiggs shouted. "Foul, bloody murder." A look from Elder Seth stunned him into silence.
"Someone will have to tell me what happened," the sergeant said. "If people are killed, you have to report it. That's the law. We can't catch killers if witnesses don't come forward."
The sergeant was lecturing them as if they were children.
"They were painted women," Sister Ciccone said. "Evil spirits in female form, wallowing in the lustful filth of their fornications, drinking deep of the cup of depravity."
"That pings the timer, Quince," the cavalrywoman said. Her voice rasped through her helmet, like one of the godless cyborgs who slew Hooper and Lennart. "We had a report from T-H-R that the Psychopomps were raising their profile sandside. With the Maniax out of the pool, you expect smaller fish to flood in."
"We'll need to take statements," the sergeant said. "From all of you."
Elder Seth was unconcerned. "Earthly wrongdoers will receive their just reward on Judgement Day. It should be no concern of thine."
"Tell that to your perforated brothers."
Without his dark glasses. Elder Seth looked no different. In most lights, his eyes themselves were mirrors.
"This pilgrim seemed upset earlier," the woman said, indicating Wiggs. "Perhaps we should start with him."
Wiggs bowed his head in shame and silently prayed for guidance along the Path of Joseph. He had journeyed far from his sinning days, but was constantly reminded of the long, rocky road he had yet to travel.
The woman stood close to him. As she breathed, the front of her tunic swelled and shifted her yellow US Cav suspenders. She was a shapely woman, the Devil's worst temptation. She still wore her helmet, and her faceplate was opaque. Wiggs imagined an angel's eyes and a harlot's mouth, with a length of flaming hair confined in a tight clip.
"Brother…?"
"Wiggs," he admitted.
"Will you give a statement?"
He looked to Elder Seth who did nothing to suggest he should not cooperate. Wiggs knew it would go easier if they tried to help the officers. If some innocent bystander gave him trouble when he was a deputy, he always found a way to slow them down. His daddy had a saying, "Nobody's innocent, but some folks just ain't been found out yet". Cornered by the police, everyone had something to feel guilty about. Wiggs more than most. Guilt was his constant companion. "Whatever thou wish," he told the cavalrywoman. The helmet nodded. Wiggs recalled situations when he would take advantage, pressing unwelcome attentions on a witness, approaching a crime scene with shameful desire in his heart. Was this hussy looking at him with lust?
"Scans like we'll be visiting with you folks a spell," the sergeant said. "Any chance of a meal and a drink?"
"Thou art welcome to share whatever we have," Elder Seth declared.
Tyree thought the Josephites were damfool cracked, but they still seemed confident about their jaunt. Despite the dead-folks they had left along the way. They just took it all, kept singing their hymns and following their damned yellow brick road.
Surprisingly, the Psychopomps had left them with all their food and water. Elder Seth must be a persuasive fellow, to convince a gangcult to leave supplies. And to get this crew out on the road in the first place.
It was just one freaking miracle after another with him.
It was nearly nightfall now; the patrol had spent the afternoon processing statements. Tyree had started to tape and annotate an account of the gangcult incidents from that strange, squeaky little Southerner, Wiggs. He was a soul in torment who hadn't quite abjured all he should, to judge from the way his eyes roved up and down her body. He was the type who meets a woman and can describe her bra size but not her eye colour.
The statements told them nothing they couldn't have guessed. When they learned what happened to the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, the Josephites didn't even gloat. The general mood was sorrowful, that lives were ended before errors were recognised. Tyree couldn't understand that degree of forgiveness and wondered if the dead brothers would have gone along with it. If she got pancaked by bad guys, she'd expect her friends to be angry about it, and maybe even hit the old vengeance trail. It might not make a dead person feel better when their killers were zotzed, but it sure couldn't make them feel any worse.
Quincannon had downloaded a precis to Fort Valens. Apparently, the Psychopomps had been sighted – by Ms Redd Harvest, no less – at some mall and there was a black flag by their file. The gangcult were climbing the hit parade towards the Most Wanted top twenty.
If the Josephites were annoyed with anyone it was the 'Pomp who had stolen Elder Seth's mirrorshades. All the statements tallied on the detail, though they varied on everything else. What sort of a person finds scavved sunglasses more memorable than a triple murder?
The women were preparing an evening meal. Burnside had hoped they'd brew up a couple of pots of coffee – some rich folks could still get the real stuff brought in from Brazil or Colombia, and the Brethren must be pretty well set up to mount such a damfool expedition – but it turned out that coffee was one of the sinful, worldly things they abjured. Even recaff was off their diet sheet, and that bore about as much relation to good coffee as a flea did to a dog.
Without meaning to, Tyree drifted in with the womenfolk and found herself helping out with KP. As she opened packets, Sister Maureen told Tyree all about abjuration and all the things she didn't miss, Tyree thought Sister Maureen was cracked. Hell, without coffee, carnal relations and a good clean gun, life wouldn't be worth living. As the woman ticked off each new thing the Josephites had given up, her sisters sighed with happiness. Sister Ciccone, whose pureness of mind and body suggested a lobotomy, was especially joyful at her abandonment of the pleasures of the flesh. Tyree wondered if the Brethren of Joseph reckoned smugness was a sin. Nobody in the congregation seemed keen on giving up that.
The Quince was face-slapped to learn the wagon train was dry. Back in Valens, the Sergeants' Bar would be opening up about now, and Quincannon would normally be in his corner with his bottle of Shochaiku, yarning with Nathan and the others. Tyree preferred to spend her downtime jacked into combat simulators, bringing up her points average to impress the promo board. That was one of the things that was curtailing her on-off relationship with Nathan; come the next round of exams and advancements, she'd outrank him. He was enough of an old man to find that insupportable.
Being around these people, with their fixed smiles and damfool passivity, made Tyree edgy. They didn't display grief for their dead friends, just smiled and said the departed were in a better place. The only thing these Josephites seemed good for was singing psalms. That might prove useful, though. The way they were headed meant they would be going to a lot of funerals.
The Quince was still talking with Elder Seth, recording notes on his cyberfax. Tyree, bored now her interrogation quota was used up and unable to listen to Maureen and Ciccone any longer, wandered over to the lean-to by the main motorwagon, where the two men were doing their business.
"So," Quincannon said, "let's get this clear, you're …what did you call yourselves?"
"Resettlers, sergeant We are here to reclaim the promised land."
Quincannon was having trouble with the word. "Resettlers?"
"Like the original pioneers, we are proceeding to the appointed place."
"Salt Lake City?"
"The flower of the desert. The Shining City. It is the Rome of our faith."
Quincannon whistled, not complementarily.
"I know Salt Lake. Used to be a Mormon hang-out. But it's a big ghost town now. The lake dried up when everything else did, and the solids died off or moved out. All there is now is the salt. Maybe a few scumscavengers, a gangcult hideout or two, but that's it. There's nothing for anyone in that hellhole. The Cav don't even bother to patrol the place."
Elder Seth smiled the insufferable smile of someone who knows something he's not telling. Tyree's preachie father had been shaky with doubts all his life, but this God-botherer was certain he knew how the universe was ordered.
"It will be resettled, sergeant. The deserts will bloom again."
"Are you some kind of irrigation expert?"
Elder Seth smiled again. The sunset caught in his eyes, giving him burning pupils like the Devil. Tyree couldn't tell, but she thought the Elder's eyes were silvery.
"That too. Mainly, I am a guide. I am just here to show these benighted people the Way…"
"The Way to what? A dusty death out here in Nowhere City, Utah?"
"Forget that name, sergeant. The Brethren of Joseph have changed it. By presidential decree, this territory is called Deseret now."
"Desert?"
"No, Deseret. It is an old name. A Mormon name, as you said. The Mormons were, in many ways, a wise sect…"
Tyree knew that was an unusual thing for a Josephite Elder to say. They didn't usually have a good word for any other brand of Christian.
"The whole state, and more, is legally the property of the Brethren of Joseph. You will not be surprised to learn no one else wanted it. The purchase price was one dollar. This will be where it all starts."
"What?"
"The reseeding of the Americas. The Great Reversal."
Tyree felt tingly up and down her spine when Elder Seth spoke. His calm, even voice carried the unmistakable fire of truth. She didn't understand him but she could understand why people followed him. In some circumstances, she would have considered banging a tambourine in his backing group. Sister Maureen brought him a cup of some unsweetened chocolate drink, and he smiled upon her. If the Josephites hadn't abjured carnal relations, Tyree would have sworn Sister Maureen had itchy drawers for Elder Seth. The preacher was handsome in a cruel son-of-a-bitch sort of way, and his sombre sobriety suggested the sort of challenge any real woman would relish. If Gary Cooper had a mean streak a yard across, he would have been ideal casting for Dead in the Des: The Elder Seth Story.
"We will make a difference, sergeant. We will found our Shining City."
"That's your right, elder," said Quincannon, turning off his cyberfax. "But you're certifiably insane to come out here with no weapons. This is wild country."
There was a move in Washington, championed by Senator Manson, to amend the Constitution; outside the Policed Zones, the right to bear arms might well become an obligation to bear arms. The reasoning was that anyone who made easy meat of themselves was wasting the time and budget allocations of law enforcement agencies.
"We have our arms, sergeant. Faith and righteousness. Nothing can stand for long against them."
Though she didn't talk about it with Cav personnel, Tyree had signed a petition against the Manson Amendment. The reasoning that any man not in possession of a gun was begging to be murdered was too close to the infuriatingly popular reasoning that any woman in possession of a vulva was begging to be raped.
"You might try explaining the faith and righteousness deal to the fellas Leona buried klicks back. Hooper and Lennart, wasn't it?"
"Our brothers understood. They went to glory joyous in the knowledge of the Lord. They forgave their tormentors."
Quincannon was exasperated. He got up, and walked away. The Elder watched him off; from the rear, Quincannon's manly stride looked uncomfortably like a fatty's waddle.
"Sister," Elder Seth turned to Tyree, "was there something you desired?"
He was a tall man and must be well-muscled under his preacherman's suit. She could imagine him bending an iron bar into an oval without raising cords in his neck. She had no idea how old he was. His hair was as black as his hat and there were no lines on his face and neck, but a depth to his voice, a tone to his skin, suggested maturity, even venerability. When he smiled, he was careful not to show any teeth.
She had the most peculiar, not unpleasant, squirm inside her abdomen. Indecent ideas came to her.
Follow me, the Elder's eyes seemed to say.
She wanted to answer.
Suddenly, she was nervous again, watching the sun go down in Elder Seth's eyes. He drank his chocolate.
"No, sir," she said, "nothing."
The DAR had been racking up a heavy rep in the past few months. They had total-stumped some US Cav patrol in the Painted Desert and some were saying they had scratched a Maniax Chapter in the Rockies. After tonight, their time in the sun was Capital-O Over. And the Psychopomps would rule!
Jazzbeaux pushed a wing of hair back out of her eye and clipped it into a topknot-tail. She took off the shades and passed them back to Andrew Jean. A wave of slight sickness passed from her mind and she felt stronger, closer to the edge. Later, she'd think it through; now, she had busyness to bother with.
Moroni was a typical Irving's Intermediaries arena, some jerkwater zeroville nobody gave a byte about. They could rumble on Main Street without fear of interruption. The DAR clustered around the bank building, while the 'Pomps hung back by a deserted virtual arcade.
Buildings here were on raised wooden porches, Old West style. Tumbletrash blew through, skipping over the dusted and cracked road like crippled birds.
Jazzbeaux, still feeling the hugs of her girlies, stepped off the porch and into the street. Torches in the broken street-lamps and at points along the roofs cast firelight onto the street arena. After negotiations were over, the town could burn for all anyone cared.
She beckoned the Daughter forward with her razorfingered glove, and gave the traditional high-pitched 'Pomp giggle. The others behind her joined in, and the giggle sounded throughout the ghost town.
The Daughter didn't seem concerned. She came out from her corner daintily and used the bank's front steps.
Jazzbeaux got a first good look at Valli Forge, the girl she would probably have to zotz. She was maybe seventeen, and obviously blooded. There were fightmarks on her flat face and she had a figure that owed more to steroids and implants than nature. Her hair was dyed iron-gray and drawn up in a bun, with two needles crossed through it. She wore a pale blue suit, skirt slit up the thigh for combat and a white blouse. She had a throat-cameo with a hologram of George Washington and sensible shoes with concealed switchblades. Her acne hadn't cleared up yet, but she was trying to look like a dowager.
More than one panzer boy had mistaken the Daughters of the American Revolution for solids, tried the old mug-and-snatch routine, and wound up messily dead. The DAR were very snazz at what they did, which was remembering the founding fathers, upholding the traditional American way of life, and torturing and killing people. Personally, Jazzbeaux wasn't into politics. She called a gangcult a gangcult, but the Daughters tried to sell themselves as a Conservative Pressure Group. They had a male adjunct, the Minutemcn, but they were wimpo faghaggs. It was the Daughters you had to be conce with.
"Come for it, switch-bitch," Jazzbeaux hissed, "come for my knifey-knives!"
The Daughter walked forward, as calm as you please, and with a samurai movement drew the needles out of her hair. They glinted in the torchlight. They were clearly not ornamental. She grinned. Her teeth had been filed and capped with steel. Expensive dental work.
"Just you and me, babe," Jazzbeaux said, "just you and me."
The rest of the DAR cadre stood back, humming "America the Beautiful". The Psychopomps kept quiet. This was a formal combat to settle a territorial dispute and shouldn't be queered by kibitzers. No matter what happened here, the 'Pomps could gain something from a quick fight rather than a long war.
This was not a funfight. This was Serious Business. Jazzbeaux heard they did much the same thing in Japcorp boardrooms.
Valli Forge drew signs in the air with her needles. They were dripping something. Psychoactive venom of some sort, Jazzbeaux guessed. Her system had absorbed just about every juju the GenTech labs could leak illegally onto the market, and she was still kicking. And punching, and scratching, and biting.
Still, she meant to keep straight. The shades-shadow in the back of her head was bad enough.
The Daughter was obviously pumped up on something. Conservatives abhorred recreationals but they went in for short-term enhancements the way newstrivia anchors went after facelifts.
"Steroid suestra, I hear they're talkin' about settlin' the Miss America pageant like this next anno. You get to do evenin' dress, and swimwear, and combat fatigues."
Valli Forge growled. Her shoulders bulged with boosted meat.
"I wouldn't give much for your chances of winning the crown, Valli Girl. You just plain ain't got the personality."
Behind her eyepatch, the implant buzzed open, and circuitry lit up. She might need her optic's burn function. It made for a grand fight-finisher.
Jazzbeaux held up her ungloved hand, knuckles out, and shimmered the red metal stars implanted in her knucks. Kid-stuff. The sign of The Samovar Seven, her fave Russian musickies when she was a kid. She didn't freak much to the Moscow Beat these days, but she knew Sove Stuff really got to the DAR.
"You commie slit," sneered Valli Forge.
"Who preps your dialogue, sister? Neil Simon?"
Jazzbeaux hummed in the back of her throat. "Unbreakable Union of Soviet Republics…" The 'Pomps caught the tune and joined it. The Daughter's eyes narrowed. She had stars on one cheek, and stripes on the other. The president of their chapter wore a Miss Liberty spiked hat, and carried a killing torch.
"Take the witchin' slag down, Jazz-babe," shrilled Andrew Jean, always the encouraging soul.
The DAR switched to "My Country 'tis of Thee". The 'Pomps segued to "Long-Haired Lover From Leningrad", popularised by Vania Vanianova and the Kulture Kossacks.
Valli Forge clicked her heels and made a pass, lunging forwards. Jazzbeaux bent to one side, letting the needle slice air over her shoulder, and slammed the Daughter's midriff with her knee. The spiked pad ripped through Valli Forge's blouse and grated on the armoured contour-girdle underneath. The Daughter grabbed Jazzbeaux's neck and pulled her off her feet.
Jazzbeaux recognised the move. Her daddy had tried it on her back in the Denver NoGo when nine-year-olds were worth a gallon on the streets. One thing she had to say about Dad, at least he had prepped her for the world she was going to have to live in. Other girls graduated from the Policed-Zone high schools, but she knew she was a woman the day she ripped her old man's throat out. If she was lucky, she might live to see twenty-five. She didn't believe she'd marry Petya Jerkussoff and move to a dacha on the steppes any more.
She bunched her fingers into a sharp cone and stabbed above Valli Forge's girdle-line, aiming for the throat, but the Daughter was too fast, and chopped her wrist, deflecting the blow.
Just what her dad used to do – "Jessa-myn, cain't you be sociable?!" The low-rent ratskag. She danced round the bigger fillette, getting a few scratches down the back of her suit, even drawing some blood. Valli Forge swung round and Jazzbeaux had to take a fall to avoid the needles.
The 'Pomps were chanting and shouting now, while the DAR had fallen silent. That didn't mean anything.
She was down in the dirt, rolling away from the sharp-toed kicks. The DAR had good intelligence contacts, obviously. The girlie had struck her three times on the right thigh, just where the once-broken bone was, and had taken care to stay out of the field of her optic burner. Of course, she'd also cut Jazzbeaux's forehead below the hairline, making her bleed into her regular eye. Anyone would have done that.
But Jazzbeaux was getting her licks in. Valli Forge's left wrist was either broken or sprained and she couldn't get a proper grip on her needle. There were spots of her own blood on her suit, so some of Jazzbeaux's licks must have missed the armour plate. The hagwitch was tiring, breathing badly, sweating like a sow. That armour must be feeling mighty heavy and mighty confining. Her daintiness was gone, and she was flailing.
Jazzbeaux used her feet, dancing away and flying back, anchoring herself to a broken lamp-post as she launched four rapid kicks to Valli Forge's torso. The fillette was shaken. She had dropped both her needles. Jazzbeaux caught her behind the head with a steelheel, and dropped her to the ground. She reared up but Jazzbeaux was riding her now, knees pressed tight. She got a full nelson and sank claws into the back of her neck, pressing the Daughter's face to the hard-beaten earth of the street. Blood welled up around her nails. Jazzbeaux touched it with her tongue and caught a thrill from whatever was circulating in Valli Forge's system.
For a wavering moment, she thought the girlie was going to throw her off. A shadow seemed to fall over them, a shadow with silvery mirror-eyes and a fringe of horns.
This was no time for a delirium flash.
Finally, Valli Forge stopped moving and lay still in the dirt, and Jazzbeaux stood up. Andrew Jean rushed out, and grabbed her wrist, holding her hand up in victory.
"The winnnnerrrr!" Andrew Jean shouted, sloppily kissing. Sweetcheeks was crowding in, and the others. Only Varoomschka, sardonically impressed but certain she could have ended it in half the time, held back.
None of the Daughters made an effort to fetch their champion. They stood before the bank like American Gothic statues.
Jazzbeaux pulled her eyepatch away and scanned the DAR. They were impassive as the optic burner angled across them, glinting red but not yet activated.
"Is it decided?" Jazzbeaux asked, wiping blood out of her eye.
An older Daughter, with a pillbox hat and a grey-speckled veil, came forward and stood over her sister. The girlie on the ground moaned and tried to get up on her elbows. The veiled Daughter kicked Valli Forge in the side. The poison blade sank in. The fallen Daughter spasmed briefly and slumped again, foam leaking from her mouth.
"It is decided," said the veiled Daughter.
The DAR picked up the deadmeat and faded away into the darkness.
The Psychopomps pressed around her, kissing, hugging, groping, shouting.
"Jazz-beaux! Jazz-beaux! Jazz-beaux!"
The Psychopomps howled in the desert.
"Come on, let's hit somewhere with intelligent life," Jazzbeaux shouted above the din. "I'm thirsty, and I could use some real party action tonight!"
"Sergeant," shouted Yorke. "Incoming from Fort Valens."
Quincannon jogged back to the cruiser, belly bobbing between his suspenders. His placket shirt was undone and his yellow bandana was unfolded into a lobster bib.
Night had come down hard on the drive-in and the Josephites were at a trestle table, singing all 48 verses of "The Path of Joseph" before launching into supper. They offered to share their meal with the patrol. The invitation was not mandatory, which Yorke considered a mercy; he'd rather eat K-rations than chow into the gray gruel the sisters were serving up. He could understand why a body would want to think up extra verses of the anthem to put off that first fateful mouthful. Maybe if you wore your mouth out on the hymn, you couldn't taste the gunk.
The sergeant squeezed himself into the cruiser and keyed in his reception sign. The two-way screen irised open and Yorke saw Captain Julie Brittles at her desk, fussing with her waves of hair and the two rows of buttons down the front of her tunic. Brittles was always fidgeting with something.
"Quince," she said, "we've got your report. Good work. Nice and concise. No words surplus to needs."
"Thank you, ma'am. It's all cleared up here. Burnside has done his best with the Josephite mechanics and I reckon the motorwagons will roll out of here come tomorrow. Not much else we can do. Just add the charges to the warrants out on the identified Psychopomps, especially this Bonney fillette."
"Quite. Ms Redd Sainted Harvest has put a bee on our tail about that specific individual. She makes it clear that she doesn't want a lacquered hair on her pointy head hurt in the arrest process."
Quincannon whistled. Brittles gave a captainly shrug.
"My guess is that Ms H wants to do all the hurting in this instance. I understand there is personal business between them…"
Yorke understood it was not a good idea to interfere in Redd Harvest's personal business. The Op was almost as fond of violence as the sort of gangfilth she tracked.
Brittles kind of smiled and said, "Also, Quince, we have polite E-mail from GenTech BioDiv, with regards to an incident in the vicinity of Canyon de Chelly."
"It's in the report, Captain. I've made suggestions as to further investigation. Those 'bots had run into something strange we haven't seen before. We should get a team out there."
Brittles's smile got tight. "GenTech respectfully request we keep our noses out. They'll do the follow-up. The remains of the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots have been officially labelled property of BioDiv. We're soldiers, not scientists. No side issues, Sergeant. Remember the Thin Blue Line."
Quincannon didn't argue. He didn't talk a streak about the boiling point of water either. Rule One of the Cav was to bitch down, not up; that wouldn't be affected by alterations in the fundamental nature of the universe.
"My suggestions are in the report already, Captain."
"We'll handle the deletions, Quince. No need to bother yourself with keyboardwork. We need you in the field, not at a console."
"Yes ma'am."
Brittles wasn't saying something. Yorke saw the shifty look in her eyes. The captain was the kind of old girl who wasn't happy unless she had a long-tongued trooper under her desk working up a shine on her boots. Yorke could tell when she was gearing up to dish out a zeroid assignment nobody in their right mind would accept. Like now.
"Permission to circle back to Valens, ma'am? We've been out for five days now."
"Denied, Quincannon."
Her slight smile had a nasty twist in it. Yorke wondered if there had ever been anything romantic between the Sergeant and the Captain, and whether that had anything to do with the way Quincannon's troop, of which he was a fully paid-up member, got all the scut details. Like checking out Sodom and Gomorrah, Ariz., or escorting the Dirty Protest Skunx chapter of the Maniax to the Alcatraz Express.
"You have fresh orders coming in," Brittles said. "The cruiser will print them out directly."
Captain Brittles cut out and Quincannon said "goodbye" to dead screen. The dashprinter gurgitated a strip of paper. The Quince and Yorke looked at it curling out of its slot. The orders ended and they both sat in the cruiser, putting off the moment. Finally, with a protracted sigh, Quincannon tore the paper free and scanned it, face falling.
He swore, crushed the paper into a ball, dropped it on the floor, swore again, got out of the cruiser, kicked some sand, swore extensively – affrighting a pair of Sisters who happened to be passing – and walked off, muttering thunder and fire.
When the Quince was gone, Yorke picked up the paper, uncrushcd it. and got a sneak preview of the troop's orders. He swore too.
You could burn up by day and freeze to death at night in the desert. The Josephites built a cooking fire but let it go out. They kept warm by going to bed early, though Tyree was damned if she could see what for.
"No carnal relations," Yorke kept chuckling, "it hardly seems like living at all."
Back at Valens, Yorke had come on to her a couple of times when Nathan was out on patrol. She hadn't let anything develop as long as they were in the same troop. She didn't want to divide loyalties. Still, once she got her cruiser and had maybe a stripe or three on her shoulder, things might change, especially if Nathan dropped out of the running.
She looked into the fire and thought about the future. Everybody seemed to think it was all used up. Even the Josephites were convinced these were the Last Days.
Kirby Yorke was sort of appealing, with his fair hair and crooked smile. But he kept making remarks about the way she filled her Cav pants, and she was bored with that. Every woman in the service got fed up with cracks about her ass. Tight pants were about the only thing you could wear on a mount without risking a stray fold of cloth getting caught in the workings and causing a flip-up crash. Nobody ever passed remarks about the way sergeants and troopers of the male persuasion strained the seats of their uniforms with that species of elephantiasis of the butt so common in Americans of a certain age.
Quincannon had detailed Burnside to requisition firewood and get a pot of recaff going. He'd nastily offered a cup to Brother Bailie, but the man virtuously resisted the temptation. Tyree could tell Bailie missed recaff and probably other things too. You didn't yank out your taste buds and hack off your primary sexual characteristics when you converted to the Path of Joseph, though there were sects which went in for that sort of thing.
And there was that creepy Wiggs weaselling around. From something Sister Maureen had said, she understood he had gone for a dick-ectomy. The snip explained a lot. She wouldn't have liked to meet W. Bond Wiggs before he took the drastic surgical option. He must have been a pedigree hound.
She wondered if it was a good idea to check warrants on the Brethren. Elder Seth quite likely specialised in recruiting former sinners. Poor souls might earn the forgiveness of the Lord before troubling themselves with earthly obligations like prison sentences.
Wiggs would look mighty cute in stripes and she just bet his unusual genital arrangement would be boffo in the showers.
"Are we really stuck with these damfools, Quince?" asked Burnside.
Quincannon swilled the last of his recaff about his tin mug and threw it in the sand. "I'm afraid so, Wash. Orders from on high."
"General Haycox?"
"Higher." Quincannon stuck a Premier in his mouth and swivelled eyes to heaven. "The Prezz himself is behind Elder Seth. Hell, he practically gave away Utah. Can you imagine what'd happen if he tried that with New York? He thinks resettlement is a jim-dandy idea and is backing up the Brethren of Joseph in their scheme to rebuild Salt Lake City."
"Why didn't he send the army out to guard this wagon train instead of letting 'em get cut down like dogs by every freakin' stray comes by?"
A match flared and the Quince sucked smoke. "I said North was backing the Josephites, Leona, not that he wanted to spend money on them…"
Everybody laughed. The federal government was reputed to be bankrupt after the last round of trade incentives. Ottokar Proctor, the famous free-market economist, had prodded President North into a policy, endlessly announced in TV ads, called the Big Bonus. Its planks seemed to be high public spending, high unemployment and massive tax cuts. Tyree wasn't a genius-level economist, but it sounded like a Brink-of-Doom spree to her and she wasn't surprised now that it had fallen apart. There was something about Dr Ottokar Proctor that made her skin crawl; he had tiny eyes, like a mean cartoon character.
The Cav were still being paid in scrip, redeemable only at the fort's authorised stores. Valens scuttlebutt was that the government even planned withdrawal of its portion of the US Road Cavalry funding next season, and that private individuals and companies were invited to step in. The rumour mill suggested, the best tenders so far had come from GenTech, Winter Corp and Walt Disney Enterprises. They could be wearing Mickey Mouse shoulder insignia next year.
Tyree would be a lot less happy having to do or die for faceless corporate creeps than for John Taxpayer. The corps owned enough of the world as it was. Somebody had to be on the side of people.
"Ollie made a snazz speech about the resettlement drive last week and swore to cash in on any good publicity there might be if Elder Seth doesn't get himself killed. But he hasn't got his neck stuck out so far he'll look a bozo if the Brothers and Sisters disappear in the Des."
"Why are we along for the ride?"
Quincannon exhaled a cloud of smoke. "We're wagonmasters, Yorke. We're protecting the wagon tram from injuns and varmints and outlaws. Like in the first pioneer days, when the West was a virgin wilderness waiting for the farmers to cultivate it."
"But that was then…"
"It wasn't so long ago. I was born down in Wyoming. Pretty good country it was before it stopped raining and all the grasses dried up and blew away."
"There weren't never no freakin' grass in Wyoming, Quince. I been there. It's worse than here. Just sand dunes."
"It wasn't always like that, Yorke. The Midwest used to feed the world. We had enough for ourselves and some over to spare for other country's needy folks. Not now, though."
"More of your UEs, Quince?" Yorke said, grinning crooked.
"Nope, don't need paranormal phenomena to explain that. We can't blame this on the universe, it's our own sweet fault. It's to do with the freakin' pollution. Back when Trickydick was boosting American industry in the Golden Days of the '60s, Congress squashed a whole raft of laws which regulated where the factories dumped their trash. A man named Ralph Nader poured pollution over himself outside the White House and lit up a match as a protest, but nobody paid any attention. The idea was supposed to keep America competitive with all those hellholes like Poland and Indonesia where eight-year-olds with kleenex masks work in sulphuric acid fumes for ten cents a day. The corps pumped their waste sludge into the rivers and the oceans and the water don't evaporate no more. So it don't rain, and we ain't got no grain nor grazing land. That's why there's a big desert filling up the map of the United States. Funny what folks will do for cold money, ain't it?"
Burnside listened intently to the old man. "Is that why the seas are rising?"
"I suppose so. I was in N'Orleans once, when I was a kid. Right pretty city it was too. Now, I hear it's half-underwater and all the houses are on stilts. Crazy. My daddy fought in Europe in World War II. I was born the year that one ended. He used to tell me he'd taken up arms to make a better world, but I guess this ain't the one he meant."
"They say things are better in Russia."
Quincannon laughed so hard he started coughing, and coughed so hard he brought up a mouthful of brown spit that hissed in the fire.
"Oh yeah, Russia. Boy, that is a good one."
Yorke was hurt. "What did I say?"
Quincannon wouldn't tell him.
"Quince, did you ever see the Mississippi?" asked Burnside. "Back when it was a river, I mean, before the Great Lakes dried up?"
"Yeah, I scanned the Missus-hip, and the Missouri, and Niagara Falls – that's Niagara Muddy Trickle these days – and I remember when you could swim in the sea off Monterey without wearin' a self-contained environment suit and when New York didn't have that damn wall to keep out the stinking water. I remember all those things. But when I die, that'll be it. You can all forget those days and get on with what's here and now. At least Elder Seth is doing that, coon-crazed as he is."
Tyree recalled the sunsets in Elder Seth's eyes and the iron in his voice. She would not have called him crazed. He was too resolute, too scary for that. She supposed it took more than a nice guy to lead a wagon train.
"Do you believe in what he's doing, Quince?" she asked. "In the resettling?"
"Hell, Leona, I wish I could. I hauled in a drunken Comanche from that war party who took on the Bible Belt last month. He said his people have returned to the old ways because the buffalo were coming back. They were going to cover the land like a thick rug. That ain't never gonna happen. And the wheat ain't coming back neither. Just sand, like Kirby Yorke here says. That's what America's gonna be. Just sand. Over a hundred years ago there were people in uniforms just like these helping to build a new nation, to create something. We're here to stand back while it falls to pieces. Not a thankful task, but someone has to be mule-headed enough to do it, and I guess we elected ourselves."
The fire burned low. Out in the Des, something was howling. It might have been the thing from last night, loping along in the hope of mating with Burnside's flute. Tonight, it was louder and hornier and angrier.
"And that," said Quincannon, "sure as hell ain't a freakin' buffalo."
Quincannon had a Sons of the Pioneers CD on and hummed along to "Bold Fenian Men". The cruiser was at the head of the motorwagon train as they passed through a place called Moroni. It was just a ghost town. Yorke, out of habit, was about to log it as still unpopulated.
Whenever they scanned signs of new habitation, they were supposed to call in so Valens would schedule a check-out sometime soon. It wasn't exactly illegal to move into a ghost town, but most of the people who thought that sounded like a good idea were into practices that were.
"See up there, Yorke, the roofs."
On Main Street, the frontages were topped with soot, where fires had once been. There was still a little smoke. Some of the charred boards were rimmed with glowing edges.
"Looks like we missed a party."
There had been torches in the streetlamps. Yorke scanned the buildings with the cruiser's sensors. There were no body-heat blips.
"Whoever it was, they're long gone. Quince. Want to stop and do a recce?"
The sergeant pondered.
"Nope, just log a note. It's another information bit. You never know, maybe it's the piece someone somewhere is looking for to complete his puzzle."
Yorke made the notation and transmitted it into Gazetteer. Anyone on the system would be forewarned upon entering Moroni.
"This patrol is dragging on, Quince. Do you reckon we'll ever get back to Valens?"
Quincannon grunted and shrugged. None of the troop were happy with this detail. Playing nursemaid to the Josephites seemed too much like walking through downtown Detroit or Pittsburgh with a "Shoot Me" sign picked out on the back of your jacket.
The Prezz might have given Elder Seth Utah to play with, but he hadn't guaranteed to clear out the former owners or any gun-toting vermin that might be left behind. The truth was that the President of the United States of America was only something like 112th Most Powerful Individual in the World these days. He ranked somewhere below most GenTech mid-management execs and could probably put less soldiers in the field of combat than Didier Brousset or the fabled Exalted Bullmoose. Corporate smoothies and psychotic punks ran the world and the Cav was one of the few hold-outs against any and all factions.
Admittedly, it had been quiet so far today. Quincannon pretended to be asleep in the passenger seat, but kept stirring to check the scanners and change the music. Burnside and Tyree were talking back-and-forth on open channels and Yorke was getting just a little jealous listening in. Guys in cruisers were supposed to pull all the tail, not guys on the mounts. It was a Cav tradition. Yorke felt he was letting the troop down by allowing Burnside to make time with Leona. She had cold-shouldered him so far, but he knew he was well in there. Nathan Stack was more or less definitively out of the picture. After this patrol was over, he would be making some definitive moves, and then he would have some stories for the bunkhouse. If this patrol was ever over.
Tyree was telling Burnside about a vacation she'd taken in Nicaragua with Nathan Stack. She was full of praise for the Central American Confederation, and said the people were less personally hostile to Norteamericanos than you'd think. And they had the real stuff, coffee. Yorke worked up a little jealous glitch, imagining Stack sharing a pot of coffee with Leona Tyree. He couldn't remember ever seeing her out of uniform. In Managua, she might even have worn a dress. It was hard to imagine, but pleasant…
The Josephite convoy moved slow and steady out of Moroni like an old-time wagon train, ve-hickles piled high with personal posessions, the furnishings of lives soon to be recommenced in the promised land. The motorwagons even looked like prairie schooners, with their tented canvas covers and roped-on barrels.
In the rearview dashscreen, Yorke saw the Elder sitting in the Edsel next to his driver, Wiggs. Elder Seth's shaded eyes fixed on the road ahead as if he could see destiny on the horizon. He didn't move much, like the figurehead of a ship, or one of those wooden Indians you see outside small town stores. The heat didn't bother him any more than the cold had done last night.
"What do you think of that Elder Seth, Quince?"
Quincannon grunted. "That's a man who certainly seems sure of himself, Yorke. Scans like he's never had a doubt in all his years. There's a name for religious folks like that. Folks who never doubt. Fanatic."
"But he's church folks, like a priest or the Pope…"
Quincannon mumbled "Secular humanist" disparagingly.
Suddenly, with the sun overhead, there was a commotion back in the convoy. Burnside and Tyree left off crosstalk and simultaneously signalled halt. Quincannon pushed his hat back and sat up. Yorke stopped the cruiser and Elder Seth's Edsel braked, lurching a few metres too close to the cruiser than suggested by the highway code. Elder Seth was out of the cab and back with his people, who congregated in the middle of the convoy.
As usual, Yorke got left in the cruiser while Quincannon went to see what the trouble was.
Sister Maureen was nearly dead and Brother Bailie was hysterical.
"She fell…fell…"
Tyree held the woman, trying to stop her shaking. Her right hand was a bloody smear on the road and most of her face was gone. There was no hope.
"I didn't mean…"
Burnside grabbed Bailie and took him away. The Quince had his medpack out and was squirting the bubble out of the hypo.
"Morph-plus," he said. "It'll stop her kicking long enough for us to see if there's anything can be done. Give me her arm, Leona."
Tyree grabbed the flailing left arm by the elbow and held it fast as Quincannon tore Sister Maureen's sleeve open. He swabbed the patch over the vein with a dampragette and took aim. Tyree gripped the elbow fast, and cooed soothing platitudes into the woman's ear.
"No," said Elder Seth, calmly, taking Quincannon's wrist. "No drugs. She has abjured them."
The Quince stood up and turned angrily on the Elder. "I ain't about to hop her up full of juju. I'm just tryin' to save her pain. Ain't that what your God would want us to do?"
Elder Seth didn't back down. He took the syringe away and laid it down on the hood of Bailie's Lada. Tyree briefly wondered what a Josephite was doing with an expensive imported automobile. There was a red splatter across the bodywork and the hubcap was still dripping.
"My God is merciful, Mr Quincannon."
The Elder knelt down and took the woman from Tyree. She was unwilling to give the wounded sister up, but she sensed Elder Seth's touch and struggled to press herself to him.
Tyree was pushed back.
Sister Maureen moaned as she was shifted but settled in Elder Seth's arms. Incredibly, given that she barely had cheek muscles left, she smiled and seemed to sleep. She was still breathing. Her hoodlike bonnet had been scraped away by the wheel and her hair was free. It was long, blonde and must have been beautiful.
Tyree pulled away and stood up. Her shirt and pants were bloody. Quincannon was still angry but kept quiet.
Elder Seth brushed Sister Maureen's hair away from the ruin of her face and wiped some of the blood off with his hand. More welled. Tyree scanned bone shards, and was sure the oozing pulp was graymass, brain tissue. She had never seen anyone hurt this bad still alive. Elder Seth was praying silently, lips working, tears coursing from his reflecting eyes.
The other Brethren gathered around and joined in prayer. Bailie was back under control, praying hard with the rest. Sister Ciccone supported him.
Elder Seth finally shook his head. Sister Maureen's breathing stopped. He laid her on the roadway and stood. The dead lady continued to leak, rivulets of red following the cracks in the neglected asphalt, spreading out from her head in a spiderweb pattern.
Elder Seth gave Quincannon back his hypo and the sergeant looked as if he wanted to use it. On the Elder or on himself It didn't matter.
Tyree realised she had been praying hard with the best of them. Somehow, she knew the words.
The Summoner rejoiced, as more blood was spilled, soaking into the stony ground.
It had been easily accomplished, leading the sister to the asphalt altar and allowing the sacrificial wheel to break her. There was little pleasure in the killing part of it, little novelty.
The blood spread, sinking in. Each drop was a beacon, lighting the way to the achievement of the dark purpose. The ritual progressed well. The Dark Ones were imminent.
The 1980s was the decade when America woke up and smelled the coffee…only to find you couldn't get coffee any more. It was a time of crisis and change. In these bloody years, armed criminal factions known as gangcults carved out fiefdoms, fought wars, levied taxes. Weakened law enforcement agencies struggled ineffectually with groupings like the Maniax. Emerging from an unholy marriage between the Unione Siciliane and the Hell's Angels, the Maniax combined the high organisation of an established nationwide crime syndicate with the savage brutality of the worst motorcycle gangs.
The government recognised a wholesale breakdown of law and order and took measures to check the tide of anarchy and violence raging throughout cities and towns. After the Enderby Amendment to the United States Constitution of 1985, the field of law enforcement was opened to certain private individuals and institutions, bringing new firepower to the war against crime and a new expression to the language, the Sanctioned Operative, or Op.
In tonight's Newstrivia seminar, ZeeBeeCee's Brunt Hardacre, co-host of Snitchwatch USA, reminisces about the lawless days of the so-called Death Wish Decade with Mr Tad Turner, of the nationwide Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Agency, Mr Elvis Presley, an independent Op whose Hound Dog Agency is based in Memphis, Tennessee, and Senator Robert Redford of California, recently a stern critic of the Enderby system.
Hardacre: Hi guys, this is a manly news show for manly men, so kick that goddamn bitch into the kitchen where she belongs and pop a tube of ice-cold Pivo. Pull up your Lay-Zee-Boy lounger and open the front of your pants if that belt buckle is cutting into your gut. Feel free to scratch that itch. Go on, get your nails into it until your balls feel good. I know the bitch says it's disgusting, but she don't understand the itchy balls phenomenon on account of because she's a chick, right? Anyway, it's not like you got the preacher or the goddamn bank manager coming round to save your soul. Just get comfortable. You finished that first brewski? Hey, have another. I bet you're drinkin' Pivo, the high quality beer brewed from artificial hops by authentic Czechs in the Minneapolis vats of GenTech BevDiv.
You know what would go great with that Pivo? A big plate of Meskin Tortilla Chips slathered in guacamite. Remember, unless it has the GenTech ChowDiv logo, it's not real Meskin food. Sounds good? Well, give that troublesome female a yell and clout her until she dang well brings you a plate. Remember, to the moon, Alice! You're a guy, you work hard all day so she can put her feet up and watch all the ZeeBeeCee soaps, so the least she can do is bring you some dang chips when you're havin' a brewski or eight. Am I right or am I righteous? You surely, purely know I am.
Tonight's rap session is going to incite controversy, so feel free to yell at the teevee if what someone says riles the bejesus out of you. Direct your aggression at the rubberised punching patch to the side of your screen. Of course, for a monthly surcharge of only $3.50 at 14 per cent interest, you could order the new GenTech non-shatter screen. Made of high-quality porous plastic, this scans like your regular boob tube but gives like a punchbag. No longer need you restrain yourself when a whingeing geek comes on to whine that layabouts on welfare need to be re-educated rather than cattle-prodded. You can let fly with a good old guy-style haymaker and have the satisfaction of feeling face crunch under your fist without fear of damaging your knucks or your teevee set. Maybe you've always had a hankering to stick a couple of good right hooks onto one of those stuck-up Miss Priss newstrivia babes who you just know would spread 'em for some guy in a thousand-buck suit with a faggy haircut but would ignore a real man like you as if you were scumdirt in the sewer. Now you can bebop a Lola on that expensive nose without fear of personal bankruptcy. Call the toll-free number flashing on the vid right now for three months' free trial period of an abusable screen. If feelings of hostility last for more than 48 hours after you've hit the teevee, consult your family psychiatrist.
Hell, that's the goddang plugmercials out the way, let's get on with the freakin' show. We got three real guy-type guys up here today. If the boom mike gets in close, you'll be able to hear their balls clack even when they're sitting down. First up, is Mr Thaddeus Turner, a founding director of the Turner-Harvest-Ramirez Agency, the best-known and probably most effective Sanctioned Agency in the United States. And soon to become international, Tad?
Turner: Yes, indeed. We're opening T-H-R depots in London, Karachi, Tokyo, Moscow, Paris and the Antarctic.
Hardacre: So, foreign felons will soon fear the ScumStoppers of your legendary partner, Redd Harvest?
Turner: Yes, indeed. Ms Harvest intends, once she's cleared up outstanding business in the States, to do a tour of duty supervising the establishment of justice T-H-R style throughout the globe. Incidentally, Brunt, she sends regrets that she couldn't be here tonight, but she's out tracking down the last few stragglers of the Southwestern Maniax.
Hardacre: That's the feared gangcult you and the United States Cavalry just totally decimated?
Turner: Yes, indeed. We were proud, as Senator Redford will note, to work closely with federal agencies on this large-scale, supremely successful action.
Redford: Hrrmph grrmph frrmph.
Hardacre: I'm sure the senator has a deal to say on that point later. But not all Ops work for Agencies like T-H-R, with their luxury expense accounts, top-of-the-line equipment, vast infonet resources and a huge staff of back-up personnel. Many Ops have one- or two-man companies and go it alone against crime and criminals, like the gunfighters of the Old West or the private eyes of the '30s. One such is our next guest. Colonel Elvis Presley.
Presley: It's a pleasure to be here, suh.
Hardacre: Thank you. Colonel. Some of us have parents who remember your name in a different context, that of a popular entertainer in the '50s. How did you get from there to here?
Presley: I figure no one really recollects the old days, Mr Hardacre. It was a world of time ago. I went in the army and turned my thinking around, came out after my hitch was up, didn't like what I saw back in civvies, and went in again for a 20-year spell. I saw action in Central America. When I retired, I started up the Hound Dog Agency. I figured things had changed a whole bunch more, not for the better, but one man could make a difference. That's what I see as the job of the Sanctioned Op, making a difference.
Turner: Yes, indeed. I'd like to put in that I agree with Colonel Presley. In troubled times, Joe Citizen rests easier knowing Sanctioned Ops are out there, guarding the walls of civilisation against gangcults at the gates.
Hardacre: The client list of the T-H-R Agency is a mite different from the sort of folks who go to Hound Dog. You mainly represent multinats for fat fees or go after fugitives with big bounties on their heads, while Hound Dog advertises its services to folks with no other resources, widows and orphans and such.
Presley: I'd like to bet a dollar Mr Turner is going to say "yes, indeed".
Turner: Yes, in…ulp. Actually, it's true we service a different sector of the market. Diversity is what caring capitalism is about, Brunt.
Hardacre: And our third debater is Senator Robert Redford of California, the Golden Boy from the Golden State.
Redford: Good evening. Brunt.
Hardacre: I hope the camera crew remembered to take the glare off that grin. Senator. I've a nasty feeling your teeth just blinded a fourth of our viewers.
Redford: Very amusing. I was led to believe this would be a serious debate.
Hardacre: That's how we are at ZeeBeeCee, Bobby. We're funny as all get-out on a Tuesday afternoon, but we get to the heart of the issues and dig around until we're comfortable. Since this is supposed to be Nostalgia Newstrivia, we should start by reminding ourselves what all the fuss was about back in the '80s. I think it's fair to say the first four or five years of the decade just saw everything in America going all out to hell in a steam-powered handcart.
Turner: Yes, indeed.
Hardacre: I knew you'd say that, Tad. We hit 1980 with Spiro Agnew in the White House and the beginnings of heavy environmental problems. For reasons no one has got around to explaining, the whole of Middle America was seriously turning into the blighted desert we have these days. Some loons say it's all uncontrolled emissions from industry and toxic wastes from polluting plants, but that seems mainly to be anti-corp propaganda spread by dissatisfied eggheads. Others are suggesting that perhaps the climatic changes are more likely to be caused by uncontrollable cosmic forces. UFOs or whatever. Maybe even a sneaky plot by the Pan-Islamic Congress or the Central American Confederation to wreck our glorious ecosystem by pumping in desert germs. A lot of folks at the grassroots believe things like that, though there are less grassroots around these days.
At the same time, our country's law enforcement infrastructure was showing all the gumption of a dried-up cow turd. Tribalism became a force in American society and gangcults sprang up all over the place, at first mostly founded on religious or political splinter groups or simple style decisions. Old gangcults – like the Ku Klux Klan, Satan's Stormtroopers, the Sons of the Desert, the Los Angeles Crips, and the Amboy Dukes – became street-corner superpowers and began to run communities for their own profit and amusement. In 1984, gangcult-related violence was a bigger killer in America than lung cancer. New names blazed into the headlines in bursts of semi-automatic gunfire: the Virus Vigilantes, the Psychopomps, the Frat Boys, the Flying Circus. And the Maniax, a loose confederation of motorsickle crazies who rapidly absorbed lesser groups and became a bigger, better-equipped, more dangerous outfit than any other armed force based in the Americas. In 1985, it was estimated the average family spent as much on self-defence as on food, either by purchasing more of the weaponry that flooded the market or by subscribing to one of many protection-insurance schemes.
When Spiro Agnew – whose name, incidentally, is an anagram for Grow A Penis – left office in '84, it was obvious the Prezz no longer ran the country. Big Charlton Heston, who took up the reins, announced recovery programmes and moral drives and vowed in his inauguration address to retake Washington State from the Maniax. We all remember how the Navy seals got whupped by the Grand Exalted Bullmoose in the Battle of Seattle, the most humiliating defeat suffered by American troops on American soil since the Brits burned the White House in the War of 1812. At this time, history called. A true hero emerged from the dust of disgrace to make this country a place you could again be proud to call your own.
Turner: Yes, indeed.
Redford: Hmnpph grnnpph.
Hardacre: I mean, of course, Senator Thomas J. Enderby. A man of vision, a man of courage, a man of spirit…
Redford: A man serving twenty years in a re-education programme for gross corruption.
Hardacre: Still a controversial issue, Senator.
Turner: Yes, indeed. I firmly believe Senator Enderby was the victim of a liberal-anarchist conspiracy to discredit the Enderby System. The Filipino houseboys who brought the accusations against Tom were never proved…
Hardacre: That case is still under appeal. Tad. We really can't allow you to comment further.
Redford: The only real discredit to the so-called Enderby System is the bloodthirsty kill-crazies who call themselves Sanctioned Ops. Let's face it, most agencies are licensed gangcults. Take the Good Ole Boys of the South, whose affiliation to the outlawed Knights of the White Magnolia has been proved by independent investigation…
Hardacre: Mighty controversial there, Bobby. You're getting ahead of yourself. I reckon from the feedback in my ear that a fair portion of viewers just bounced a Pivo can off abusable teevee monitors. Our Death Threat Switchboard is jammed.
Redford: Believe me, I'm trembling with fear. The agencies are so used to gutlessness they always resort to facile intimidation like this. It underlines my point about the interchangability of the average Op and the average gangcultist.
Hardacre: You've made your point, I reckon. Tad, could you tell us a bit about how T-H-R got into the Sanctioned Op business.
Turner: Yes, indeed.
Redford: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. It's like a broken doll.
Turner: …Yes, indeed…To answer your question, Brunt, we were aware the Enderby Amendment was on its way to becoming law. We sought financing from insurance companies, pension funds and other conservative investment groups. Our reasoning was that most agencies would specialise in local and specific problems, so we should look at the macro-picture and be an interstate, even international, organisation. Mr Ramirez and I both had a background in law enforcement; when I was its financial comptroller, the Cincinatti Police Department showed a profit for the first time in fifteen years, and Mr Ramirez supervised the re-establishment of the penal colony on Alcatraz Island. We were fortunate, of course, to land Redd Harvest so early in her career. She was a solo, very much like Colonel Presley, but we persuaded her of the benefits which would accrue if she worked with a big outfit. She was on the board almost from the first.
Hardacre: Some say she's just a glamour figurehead. She gets on the cover of Guns and Killing every month. Since Delia Sheppard played her in that miniseries Redd Dust, she has been the most sought-after Op of all.
Turner: Yes, indeed. Though I know for a fact that she's not personally a fan of this publicity flack, it's certainly raised the profile of T-H-R in, uh, unexpected ways.
Hardacre: Actually, Ms Harvest doesn't seem keen on the fuss at all. She's been getting snazz at shooting the lenses out of those flying spy newscams. Homer Hegarty, the gorenews commentator, has brought a personal injury suit against her after a recent injury, has he not?
Turner: Yes, indeed. I have to accept Ms Harvest is certainly more, uh, newsgenic than Mr Ramirez or myself.
Hardacre: You guys, you're basically Desk Ops?
Turner: Yes, indeed. I'm sorry…what I mean is that it's vital T-H-R have a strategic force. Ms Harvest is a hands-on Op, which means she gets photographed for magazine covers or sound-bitten for newstrivia bulletins. Her skills are certainly as valued in the boardroom and on the field. But you shouldn't forget the importance of such unglamorous number-crunching aspects of the job as accountancy.
Presley: Man, I wish I made enough to be able to afford an accountant. I just have to help people and hope to get paid off in home-grown produce. Say, anyone here wanna buy a truckload of powdered rutabaga?
Hardacre: Do you admire Redd Harvest, Colonel?
Presley: We've met. She's a right purty lady. And a mighty competent Op. Can't say much for her taste in company though.
Turner: Yes, indeed. While she's out there, ordinary people are safer. That's what woolly headed politicians never understand…
Redford: At this point, I feel I have to state that I have never brought specific charges against the individual under discussion. I understand cases are pending with regard to some of her actions, but no conclusions have been reached.
Turner: Yes, indeed. That's because the scumbags Redd zotzes are usually too dead to complain to mommy.
Redford: I hope viewers paid attention to the last comment from Mr Turner, because I think they'll find it revealing about the attitudes of the agencies. As a breed. Sanctioned Ops take to fighting fire with fire so enthusiastically that we may not have an unburned inch of America left by the turn of the century. Faced with a genuine problem, the gangcults, we chose not to examine our society to find out why people allowed gangcults their power but to create a bunch of semilegal vigilantes and turn them loose. Naturally, the results have rather resembled all-out war than social reform.
Hardacre: Bobby, you say we should send nuns and social workers against Maniax and Psychopomps?
Redford: No, I say we should send nuns and social workers, as you put it, into the NoGos to reach the kids before they join the Maniax or the Psychopomps. The Policed Zones of our cities have shrunk and comfortable people have built higher, thicker walls. Things have got unbelievably rough out there. I say we should extend the basic rights and protections our country used to offer to all its current citizens. We have to make our own society a thing people want to be a part of because it is fine and just. We cannot terrorise the people into wanting to be with us. We cannot make the children of the NoGo solid citizens by pointing guns. Eventually, the "innocent bystander" may go the way of the dodo and America will be one huge warzone with an entire population of combatants.
Hardacre: And you blame the Ops?
Redford: No, I blame money-minded munitions manufacturers who, deprived of international markets in the '70s, flooded America with cheap weaponry, then set about creating stresses in society which increased the demand for deathware. Now I blame the media, the agencies and the multinats who keep this intolerable situation running, as the kill-count gets up there with a World War, simply so they can keep showing a profit. Every corp on the big board has semi-legal subsidiaries which filter product through to the big customers in the black economy. So-called commentators like Homer Hegarty and, with the utmost respect, you yourself Mr Hardacre, actually encourage gangcult depradations simply so you can fill up airtime and shove photogenic explosions between the ads.
Hardacre: Harsh words, Bobby. Colonel, do you have anything to say to refute the senator?
Presley: Gosh, um, uh, a lot of what he says makes sense. If he can make a decent world, I'd be the first to turn in my gun. I'm getting on in annos and I'd appreciate sittin' on a porch in peace, strummin' a guitar for the rest of my days. But till then, there's people who need help and can't afford the fancy fees Mr Turner levies. I'm an independent Op, and I'll stay that way.
Redford: Colonel, you have my word you are not one of the villains I'm aiming to bring down.
Hardacre: That's touching. What about Mr Turner?
Redford: Brunt, as I'm sure you are aware, there are laws of slander.
Turner: They'll only take my guns away from me by prising them from my cold, stiff, dead fingers. Yes, indeed.
Redford: The only things your fingers ever touch are computer keys, salary-man. My guess is you've never been shot at in your air-conditioned office.
Turner: Umph grumph…
Hardacre: Hold on guys, let's keep our sleeves down. There you have it, a regular rough-house debate just like in the old days. Mr Turner thinks the Ops are doing a fine job keeping the filth in their place; Senator Redford thinks Mr Turner is full of bullstuff; and Colonel Presley is just trying to keep his customers satisfied. Me, I sleep better knowing my blonde-haired little nine-year-old is protected by Estevez and Blunt, who have a 100 per cent kill-rate in kidnap cases. If this debate has worried, disturbed or upset you, get that bitch to haul another six-pack out of the icebox and suck down a couple more Pivos until the pain goes away.
Next week on Nostalgia Newstrivia, in our "Living Memory" slot, we look back with misty eyes to last year, 1994. Liz-Beth Hickling, the look of last year, brings back the people, the places, the faces, the fashions, the music, the massacres. You haven't yet had time to forget, but we'll remind you all the same.