Shopocalypse

by David Gullen

  ‘So where are we going on this?’

  ‘Crane’s daughter is ill. She has no heirs and there is no other family. If she dies intestate–’

  ‘What if she’s got a will? What if they contest?’

  ‘Who’s to contest? Her mother? She’s in the middle of the Pacific.’

  ‘Even so.’

  This was it. There was a catch in Lobotnov’s voice as he said, ‘Accidents happen in faraway places.’

  Guinevere gave a little shiver. ‘You’re very cold, Cheswold. You know that?’

  Lobotnov uncrossed and crossed his legs, more uncomfortable with his President’s reaction than the accusation itself. ‘Going after a few named individuals is easier on my conscience. We’ve just started a war in which tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people are going to die. Let’s get it over with as soon as we can.’

  Guinevere considered that. ‘I want the others back in here. Set up a virtual for Andriewiscz, max crypto.’

  As she expected, Andriewiscz was totally up for hard pacification. On screen from Mexico, the general wore field combats and a soft cap. He looked more relaxed than he ever did in Washington.

  ‘Already anticipated,’ Andriewiscz reported. ‘TacStrat have run 1.7 million plausible scenarios in three frameworks, with results as follows: Nice gives us never – we bog down and it turns to Mexi-Nam with casualties and costs through the roof; Tough gives it to us in three months and we lose Mexican infrastructure all the way. That leaves Nasty. You let me take the brakes off and Mexico is your little puppy in four to six days.’

  ‘Issues?’

  The general stuck out his jaw. ‘They’ve got great Bio. We’ll need a couple of tacticals to neutralise them.’

  Gordano was doubtful. Today he wore a dark blazer and slacks with a white roll-neck sweater. He looked like a submarine commander. ‘Don’t we want their Bio?’

  ‘It’s not as good as the Europeans’, but it is way ahead of ours. Leave it be, and it will slow us down.’

  ‘So we give them a neutron suntan.’

  Gordano was talking tough again. Guinevere was impressed. He’d turned himself right round.

  ‘Your decision,’ she told Andriewiscz.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t enjoy yourself too much, General.’

  Andriewiscz stiffened. ‘I’m happy to finally be doing the work I spent my life training for.’

  ‘Understood. Moving on, the next issue concerns financing. We have limited options but Cheswold has some ideas.’

  Lobotnov brought the others up to speed on the Crane family. Halfway through, Andriewiscz snatched up a field mic, his attention demanded by the developing war. ‘Hit them from the air then push Fourth Armoured,’ he barked. ‘Show me some goddamned guerra relámpago. Drive those sonnofabitches off the Sierra Madre and into the Pacific.’

  Satisfied, Andriewiscz returned to the conference.

  ‘Crane’s wife has a brother and sister so she goes first,’ Lobotnov concluded. ‘She’s easiest, too, travelling through nowhereseville, Micronesia, mid-Pacific, trying to find her spirituality by living on coconuts and showing the natives her titties. We can disappear her but we can’t touch Crane and his daughter, not directly.’

  ‘Terrorists?’ Guinevere interjected.

  ‘Canadian terrorists?’ Gordano said. ‘Get real.’

  ‘We’re already using them,’ Lobotnov said. ‘They did Boston for us, and some other stuff.’

  Gordano looked hurt. ‘I meant real ones.’

  The room fell silent. President Snarlow opened a bottle of mineral water, the hiss of escaping gas loud, and to Cheswold Lobotnov’s unusual mind, oddly humorous.

  ‘Guinevere, I might know someone,’ Gordano said.

  Oscar really was full of surprises today. ‘You mean you know a hitman or something?’

  ‘No, not like that.’ Gordano took a drink of water. ‘Look, we could do this with the agencies, plausible deniability and everything. I know we got good people, true patriots, men and women willing to do whatever we ask, even turn their own lights off, but why get directly involved? Something like this is going to be messy and it’s going to be big news even considering whatever else is going on.’

  ‘What’s your suggestion?’

  ‘I know somebody. Down in the Southern Littoral. He’s got people too.’

  Guinevere stared at Gordano open mouthed. ‘You got a line to Mitchell Gould? Jesus rim my pucker Christ, Oscar, you’re a dark horse.’

  ‘It’s not a bad idea,’ Lobotnov said. ‘Once this is all over there’s going to be at least one Congressional investigation. In my opinion, the cleaner the better. Keep it at arm’s length.’

  Guinevere considered Lobotnov’s advice and decided she liked it. ‘Then we have a plan. Any issues?’

  Lobotnov raised his pen. ‘Gould’s running a stateside away team. I’ve a rendition unit set to engage.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Gould’s likely to join his team. My people see him, they’ll light him up.’

  ‘Call them off.’

  ‘Not possible.’

  Guinevere turned to Gordano. ‘You’ll have to warn Gould.’

  Gordano didn’t like that. ‘These are our own people. We’re just going to sell them out?’

  ‘True patriots,’ Lobotnov said wearily. ‘That road ends one way only. If they don’t understand that, then we sold them out long ago.’

  Gordano straightened his shoulders. ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Good man,’ Andriewiscz chipped in, stern and avuncular. ‘You’re on your own with this, you know that. We got to put a fence round it.’

  Gordano swallowed hard. ‘Sure thing. It’s what I want. I’ll get right on to it.’

  ‘Spoken like a true patriot,’ Guinevere said once Gordano had left the room. ‘We could use a few more like him.’

  Reasons for owning five tons of SUV

  It’s all about street presence, plain and simple. The highway is a blacktop jungle; personality and lifestyle are reflected in the vehicle you own. Let’s look at the alternatives:

  Nimble: Small, agile and low-cost. Not much in your wallet, but you got this gamine style, and Tiffany’s has a table waiting. Colour: raspberry pink.

  Bimble: Stock-issue generic hybrid, optionless, style-free, and under-powered. Everyone’s going to cut you up. You’re a gutless wanker and you know it. Colour: puke yellow. Try changing your soap.

  Big Dog’s Cock: 2+2 fat-wheel petrol-head supercharged turbo ATV. These dudes and dudettes don’t have the time to hang around. They’ve prepaid their speeding tickets and just want to GTFOOH for their next F2F, hyper-mall spree, or random shag. Colour: Black or scarlet.

  Urban Survivalist: Be prepared. You never know what’s going to happen, or when, so you take it all with you. Kids, kit, spares and repairs, even the in-laws. Everything fits inside your eight-wheel supersolar diesel methane ultra-hybrid. My man! You can have me for a reacharound.

  Not on the list? Don’t see yourself here? Then you’re a deadbeat loser and use public transport. Take a walk. Take a walk and get mugged. Get raped. Get mugged and raped, nobody cares. Your corpse will be mulched for methane. Finally, you contribute.

  – Editor’s blog – BFBM Magazine

  - 18 -

  Novik woke to the siren whoops of a highway patrol car. Warm and sleepy, he decided to ignore it.

  He heard a car door slam and boots crunch towards him. Something hard rapped on the rear wing. ‘Wake up, sir,’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘Go ’way,’ Novik mumbled. He pulled his jacket over his head, exposing lean legs and dimpled buttocks. Josie and Benny were completely lost to sight under the heaps of clothing.

  The female cop banged on the wing again. ‘Wake up sir, this is the police.’

  Novik rubbed his face and pushed his hand through his dishevelled hair. His legs were cold. Backlit by the rising sun the silhouette of a female officer stood beside the car. />
  ‘Waaup?’ Novik pushed himself upright, the blanket over his shoulders.

  ‘Are you the driver of this vehicle, sir?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Then put on your pants, and show me some ID.’

  Now that he was fully awake Novik could make out that the figure in front of him was a highway patrolperson, her car was pulled onto the roadside some yards away, the roof lights flashing.

  Novik pulled on his jeans, boots and tee, and stumbled out of the Cadillac. He brushed back his hair with his fingers, felt the ridge of scar tissue at his hairline. Cops. Always be polite. ‘Hi. How are you doing?’

  Now she was out of the sun he saw she was leggy, chocolate-skinned, hard-eyed. A peroxide blonde afro poked out from under her cap and she wore pink lipstick that matched her long nails. Cleavage swelled in the three-button gap at the top of white blouse and Prussian blue jacket, a disconcerting power ensemble.

  Novik gave a lopsided grin. ‘That uniform really suits you.’

  ‘Do not try that bullshit jive on me,’ the patrolwoman drawled. ‘I’ve seen your skinny white ass.’

  ‘It’s cold,’ Novik grumbled. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I expect some ID, sir. I expect to see it now.’

  Novik patted his hip pockets. ‘It’s in the glove box.’

  With practiced ease, the patrolwoman flipped her holster open. Now her hand rested casually on her impressively large gun. ‘Go fetch it.’

  ‘Don’t be so twitchy, we don’t have any guns.’ Despite her jazzy style, this cop was a real ball-breaker. Novik slouched back to the car, opened the driver’s door and took out his license.

  Josie’s head and bare shoulders appeared at the open door. She shared a brief, panicked look with Novik then called out. ‘Hello, Officer. Would you like some coffee? Mr Car, can you make coffee?’

  ‘I am so sorry, no. Good morning, officer.’

  ‘Stay in the car, ma’am,’ the patrolwoman ordered. Her eyes shifted between Josie and Novik. ‘Did the car just say something?’

  ‘Indeed, I did,’ Mr Car said.

  ‘You smart?’

  ‘I solved Hilbert’s eighth problem.’

  ‘You going to be a nuisance?’

  ‘Not for a duly notarised officer of the law.’

  The patrolwoman grimaced then looked Novik up and down. ‘This is your car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Technically,’ said the Cadillac.

  The patrolwoman studied his licence, her expression a mixture of patience and contempt. ‘It just says Novik.’

  ‘That’s my name.’

  ‘You only have one name?’

  ‘I never needed two.’

  The patrolwoman’s expression hardened. ‘Family or given?’

  Novik held out his hands. ‘Officer, it’s just my name. It’s never been a problem before.’

  The patrolwoman unclipped a datapad from her belt, her painted fingertips hovered over the keys. ‘What were your parent’s names?’

  ‘Er… mom and dad.’

  ‘Don’t try and be funny.’

  ‘No, for real. That’s what I called them. They called each other things like “Sweetheart”, “Honey”, and “Diddums”.’

  The patrolwoman tried not to laugh.

  ‘Now I think of it, my parent’s names could actually have been Sweetheart or Honey. I might be labouring under a false assumption that I don’t know their names despite actually having been aware of them all along.’

  ‘Sweetheart would be a pretty unusual name.’

  ‘Hippyish, but not out-and-out weird. We’re not from Utah. Look, officer, what is it exactly that you want?’

  Benny pushed open one of the Cadillac’s rear doors. ‘That’s a Dodge Charger Redux. When did they start turning those into black and whites? Is it true they have a geomagnetic inertialess supercharger?’

  ‘Stay in the car,’ the patrolwoman snapped at Benny. ‘All right, Novik, why did you stop here?’

  ‘We were tired. What’s all this about? We’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘There’s a motel two miles down the highway.’

  Novik sighed with polite frustration, ‘I like the desert stars.’

  Bennie continued to study the patrol car. ‘Aren’t those out of state plates?’

  Hopping on one bare foot, Josie held up her hand. ‘Officer. Ma’am. I really need to pee.’

  The patrolwoman looked increasingly nervous. ‘Everybody stay where you are.’

  Shirt flapping, Benny set off across the dusty space between the cars. ‘You got funny plates, I just want to take a closer look.’

  ‘Hold it right there,’ the patrolwoman shouted. She let go of the datapad, the lanyard snapped it back to her belt. She drew her massive handgun in a two-handed grip and fired into the air.

  The boom was massively loud. Benny shrieked and flapped his hands, Novik and Josie froze. The gunshot echoed back from the distant sandstone cliffs.

  The patrolwoman herded them together with a wave of her gun. ‘Put your backs against the car, sit down and cross your legs, hands behind your heads. All of you. Do it now.’

  None of this felt right to Novik. The questioning was skewed, the officer’s equipment non-standard. Then there was the provocative way she wore her uniform. There were stories of rogue cops in out of the way places, cops who preyed on lone travellers. He’d thought nothing of the stories at the time, now he prayed they were modern myths. Mr Car said he was bulletproof, they all needed to get inside.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the patrolwoman said to Benny.

  ‘B-Benny the Spoke, ma’am.’

  ‘What’s your real name? The name your parents gave you?’

  ‘Um, I don’t have real p-parents, ma’am.’

  ‘Your fosters.’

  ‘I’m not from these parts,’ Benny said patiently. ‘We don’t have parents. I just grew, more like a seed.’

  ‘Lord, give me strength,’ the patrolwoman muttered. Sweat glistened on her brow, she looked longingly back at her car. ‘Show me some ID.’

  Benny handed over his wallet.

  ‘Benjeffre T. Spode, Junior novice apprentice to the third sub-groundsman’s second assistant’s second assistant, Herb World, Achernar.’ she read. ‘A long way from home, Mr Spode.’

  ‘F-further than you might imagine, ma’am. That’s m-my intersystem passport. Hold it beneath the harsh light of the dwarf star my home world orbits on its infinite journey through the endless, cold night of space, and you will see a four-dimensional hologram of my résumé. Or you can download it in a variety of formats.’

  Novik took a chance. ‘Ma’am, Officer, Benny’s not well, that’s why he’s stammering. He’s not from another planet, he burned his brain out with bad acid and drinking Agent Orange in some kind of messed up initiation ceremony on his tour for Uncle Sam.’

  Benny waved away Novik’s words. ‘None of that is true, I’m just concerned for my friends.’

  ‘And why would that be?’

  ‘For one thing, you have a gun.’

  The patrolwoman looked down at them uncertainly. Novik was sure she was deciding whether to shoot them, or just walk away. His hand found Josie’s and he squeezed her fingers.

  Then he saw she wore patent leather stilettos, no cop wore shoes like that. Lord, this was it. Heart pounding, Novik readied himself. He’d throw himself across Josie, he’d scramble clear. Somehow he’d tackle the killer cop.

  ‘This time, I’m going to let you off with a caution.’ The patrolwoman swung her gun across their bodies.

  Benny shook his hand as if it was burned. ‘Holy guacamole, that’s a Wolfenhorn 68-cal. When did the highway patrol get issued with those recoilless fist howitzers?’

  ‘Shut up.’ The patrolwoman’s arm trembled with the effort of holding up the huge gun.

  Benny enthused about the weapon: ‘The 68-cal is the ultimate kinetic hand-cannon for two armed primates. What I don’t understand is why–’


  The patrolwoman jerked the gun towards Benny. ‘I said shut up. All of you, get back in your car and drive away.’

  ‘You’re not a real cop.’

  She bared her teeth, a nervous grin. ‘Sure I am. Why’d you say that? This is your lucky day, so take my advice, and move it.’

  It all came together. Benny was right. Infuriated, Novik stood up. It was bad enough getting pushed around by real authority figures. Whoever this woman was, she’d scared the crap out him.

  ‘If you’re not a real cop, I don’t have to do what you say.’

  The patrolwoman backed away. ‘I’ve got a gun.’

  Novik bared his teeth in a tight grin. ‘A real cop wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘If you were a real cop, you’d want to look in the trunk.’

  ‘What?’ Josie rabbit-punched Novik in the ribs. ‘Take the hint, let’s go.’

  ‘Look in the trunk,’ Novik growled.

  The cop raised her chin. ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Take a look.’

  ‘Shan’t.’

  ‘Mr Car – the trunk.’

  The trunk lid smoothly swung up.

  A thousand dollars in loose bills spiralled up into the clean desert air.

  Despite herself, the patrolwoman peered inside. She gave a low whistle. ‘Take me back to Alabamy. How much is there?’ Moving like a sleepwalker, she grabbed a double fistful of loose notes.

  ‘About a hundred and seventy million,’ Novik said.

  Horror slowly grew on the cop’s face. She shoved the notes back into the trunk with trembling hands. ‘Oh Lord. You work for Them, don’t you?’ She rubbed her palm on her pants like she was trying to get rid of the very touch of the money from her skin. ‘Who are you? The Non-stop Jesuits, the Yoz Vo Nystavya, the Grey-Green Wolverine?’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Don’t tell me you’re in league with the COPS.’

  Now Josie was puzzled. ‘I thought you were the cops?’

  ‘She means the Chinese Octogenarian Pensioners Society,’ Novik said. ‘They took over the Triads and pushed out the Mafia. Estimated membership is over three hundred million. They’re old and they’re poor, but they’re pissed off and there’s lots of them.’