by Jack Yeovil
He took some time to assess the health of his business ventures. WLBS was still the top-rated televangelical crusade, beaming the Word of the Lord into perhaps seven hundred million homes worldwide. Royalties were still coming in for his best-selling testaments How to Get Through the Eye of the Needle, Checking Into Motel Heaven, and My Pal, Jesus, not to mention the popular gospel hits he had had ghost-written for him in the ’60s by a talented but otherwise unsuccessful young man called Paul Simon, “Little Bitty Orphans in Africa,” “Jesus in Blue Jeans” and “I’m Not Ashamed to be a Christian.” He had diversified into the stock market, foods, theme parks, computer software, motion pictures, armaments manufacture, law enforcement, pharmaceuticals, energy resources, marital aids and souvenirs. He was in the Top Forty of the World’s Richest Men, and climbing…
Still, there was nothing that could be done for his body. He had been able to pay for a half-hour of Dr Zarathustra’s time at GenTech BioDiv, and the Doc had assured him that no amount of bio-implant and replacement doodads would do anything to help. Muscles, nerves, individual organs, limbs, eyes and skin, you could do something about. And you could replace individual bones—even your skull if you so wished—with durium robo-bits. But you couldn’t dispense with your whole skeleton and still survive. It had something to do with blood. Powell didn’t understand, but Zarathustra had patiently explained it all to him as if guesting on a kidvid teevee show before returning, substantially wealthier, to his important research.
Powell’s body was out of the business. But he still had a brain.
Zarathustra had referred Powell to W.D. Donovan, BioDiv’s top brain-man, and, eager to be divested of his deadweight walking corpse, he had submitted to the Donovan Treatment. He had joined the other disembodied brains in their tanks, thinking their deep thoughts, sinking into their pools of biofluid. Unfortunately, while Donovan could take your brain out and keep it alive, he hadn’t yet perfected the technique for putting it back into another body so it worked. That, presumably, was what all the other multi-billionaire prisoners on GenTech’s Cerebellum Row—Nelson Rockefeller, Howard Hughes, Charles Foster Kane, Walt Disney, Ken Dodd, Don Michael Corleone—were waiting for. And that was what Powell was expecting, a few years of contemplative thought and resurrection in a young, fresh, ready-to-wear body.
However, his lawyers had not considered the legalities of the Donovan Treatment. Once his brain was slipped from its cranial cradle, the Reverend Harry Powell found himself declared legally dead, and his assets devolved to the Word of the Lord Mission for Christ, parent corporation of the Word of the Lord Broadcasting System, and also of the Word of the Lord Electronic Information Service, the Word of the Lord Chain of Christian Health Food Restaurants, the Word of the Lord Summer Camps, the Word of the Lord Law Enforcement Agency (‘Let Christ Be Your Cop!’), the Word of the Lord Publishing Consortium, the Word of the Lord Moral Reassertiveness Centres and the Word of the Lord Graveyard Redevelopment Conglomeration. The board of directors found themselves rather embarrassed to have on their hands not only the worldly wealth and temporal holdings of Harry Powell, but his still-functional brain as well.
It might not have gone so badly for the late Reverend if he hadn’t made the cardinal error of appointing Genuine Christians to executive offices within his organization. Anyone else might not have been quite so upset to discover that the Word of the Lord Drug Rehabilitation Program was actually a highly successful franchised operation peddling narcotics, hallucinogens, psychoactives, and other forms of ju-ju to teenagers, or that the popular Word of the Lord Crusade for Morals Drop-In Centres Powell had set up in the NoGos surrounding several major PZs were actually omnisexual brothels staffed by runaway youngsters Powell had, in many cases, personally welcomed into the fold.
Once Powell’s yakuza-trained accountants had been eased out of the boardroom, only the Genuine Christians—the Honest-to-God Suckers, as he had been wont to call them in life—remained. They had sat around the oval table, looking at the preacher bubbling away in his Self-Contained Environment, and had pondered the ethics of pulling the plug and burying the gray matter along with his literally rotten bones in the gaudily ostentatious cenotaph Powell had designed for himself.
But there was always a use in the church for brains.
V
“… SAVED BY JEEEY-ZUSS! SAVED BY THE LOWWW-UD! SAVED, SAVED, SAVED!”
Chantal braked to avoid slamming into the tanklike vehicle blocking the road. She’d have swerved off into the sand to get round the obstacle, but she didn’t want to gum up Federico’s wheels without checking the terrain. It didn’t matter what kind of hot machine you had, if you tried to drive on soft sand you’d bog down. The desert was full of abandoned vehicles slowly sinking in alkali pits.
“HAVE YOU SINNED? HAVE YOU BEE-YUN SINFUL? HAVE YOU TAKEN CARNAL LUST, BODILY FILTH AND THE DAY-UW-VILLE INTO YOUR HEART?”
She tried to turn down the volume, but the broadcaster had a lock on Federico’s soundsystem. It was coming from the machine up ahead, that much was certain.
“Do me a search,” she said. “Find out what that thing is.”
Federico hummed as it went through the files. The voice changed pitch, was joined by a kitschy angelic choir and the kind of string backing the British ’60s pop star Ken Dodd favoured on his more unbearable singles, and began to sing.
“Little bitty orphans in Africa
Need a heap of change from you,
Little bitty orphans in Africa
Make ole Jesus feel downright blue
Skies may be gray, skies may be sunny
But them pore little orphans need all your money…”
Her central screen lit up, and flashed at her. MINIMUM DONATION: $1,000. THE PREACHERMOBILE WILL ACCEPT CASH, CASHPLASTIC, NEGOTIABLE BONDS, GOLD, SILVER, RADIUM, PRECIOUS AND SEMIPRECIOUS STONES, VALID STAMPS, ELECTRICAL GOODS, MOTOR VEHICLES, STOCK TRANSFER CERTIFICATES, VALIDATED WORKS OF ART, SIDE-ARMS, MILITARY ORDNANCE, DRUGS, WATER AND REUSABLE HUMAN ORGANS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CHRISTIANITY.
The singing stopped.
“PRAISE THE LOWWWUD! HALLELUJAH! CLEANSE THYSELF OF THY SINS BY DONATING THY WORLDLY GOODS TO THE CHOW-UCH! HELP THE CHOW-UCH HELP THE LITTLE BITTY ORPHANS IN AFRICA!”
Federico had taken stock, and gave her a read-out on the vehicle. It was built like a tank, with ten-inch armour plating and caterpillar tracks. There was a miniature power plant in there somewhere and, in all probability, a human brain.
That was good news. Whoever the machine had been, it was a cinch that he wouldn’t be a match for Federico’s cerebral capacity if it came to a shooting war. Even Israel had stopped putting Donovan brains in its military hardware five years ago. They might have the initiative a machine lacks, but their reflexes are slow. Plus, they tend—as was now obvious—to crack up and go crazy.
“I HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH A MISSION FROM GOD! I AM REQUIRED TO RAISE THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS TO EXPIATE MY MANY SINS! YOU WILL KINDLY MAKE A DONATION!”
“What if I don’t?”
“YOU WILL BE SMOTE AS THE LOWWW-UD SMOTE AGAG! THY BODY WILL BE RENT INTO THREE PIECES, AND THY UNHOLY MACHINE WILL BE BROKEN DOWN FOR SPARE PARTS AND SCATTERED ACROSS THE FACE OF THE LAND!”
“I gave at the office.”
“MAKE THY DONATION WITHIN TEN SECONDS, LEST THOU SUFFER THE WRATH OF THE LOWWWUD!”
Federico was scrolling through the specs. It had located the three prototypes on which the Preachermobile was based. An Israeli tank, a GenTech Undersea Explorer and a Saisho Warrior Robot. The car suggested thirty-seven points of weakness.
“THY TIME IS UP, HEATHEN HARLOT! DOST THOU WISH TO REPENT, AND MAKE A CASH OR CREDIT DONATION?”
“I’m on urgent government business…”
“THE LIGHTNING OF THE LORD OF HOSTS WILL DESCEND FROM THE SKIES AND BLAST THEE WHERE THY FOUL AND PESTILENTIAL FOREIGN-MADE AUTOMOBILE DOST STAND ON GOD’S OWN AMERICAN HIGHWAY!”
An electro-cannon crackled. Chantal reversed Federico, and withdrew
five hundred yards instantly. The Preachermobile’s arcs fell on the road, cracking the hardtop. The electrical discharges left streaks on her retinas.
“HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE WILL REIGN DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS AND THOU SHALT BE CONSUMED BY THE FIRES WHICH BURN NOT WITH THE CLEANSING HEAT OF THE LOWWW-UD BUT WITH THE ICY COLD OF THE DAY-UVV-VILLE!”
Canisters of napalm exploded in the air. Chantal took the chance and drove off the road. The surface of the desert was rocky enough to get a grip. Part of the hood was on fire, but the windshield squirt took care of that. The paintwork would heal overnight.
“THE UNRIGHTEOUS WILL BE SMOTE UNLESS SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE MADE TO THE WOWWW-UD OF THE LOWWW-UD MISSION FOR FAMINE! THANK YOU FOR BEING A CHRISTIAN!”
“Federico,” she said, “no more messing about. Take him down.”
“Molto bene.”
The car took out the Preachermobile’s treads first, exploding an armour-piercing shell in its side. Now, the thing could only go round in circles. Then, it located the weapons guidance computer, inadvisably placed at the rear under a flap for easy manual reprogramming. A surgical lase burn put it out of commission, and the cannonades stopped.
Chantal drove back to the crippled hulk.
“ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ARE ACCEPTED IN HEAVEN, SISTER! THY WORLDLY RICHES MUST BE PASSED INTO THE HANDS OF THE LOWWW-UD! MAKE THY GENEROUS DONATIONS, LEST THE GODFEARING CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD VANISH UNDER A TIDE OF HEATHEN PAPISTS, RAGHEAD MUSSULMEN… GODLESS COMMONISTS, INSCRUTABLE ORIENTALS… GRASPING JEWS… MELON-EATING… NIGRAS… AND…”
The voicebox was running down.
“Intolerant bigots,” she suggested.
“REPPPPPPPPP… ent… rep…”
She got out, and walked over to the Preachermobile. It was quiet. The lases had opened it up like a tin-can, and the jerrybuilt robo-innards were spilling out. It was constructed like a centaur, with a robotic torso and head protruding from a conning tower. Its arms were still waving. The head was a sculptured, stylised representation of a handsome Nazi, with blue eyes and a blonde helmet of hair. She didn’t recognize it. The face was cracked, and biofluid was dribbling from one cheek.
“Are you in there?” she asked.
“Rep… ent?”
“So long, preacher.”
“REPENT! THOU ART ACCURSED OF THE LOWWW-UD, JEZEBEL OF THE INTERSTATE! THOU SHALT BE BURNED ALIVE FOR A THOUWWW-SUND YEARS! THY CHILDREN AND THY CHILDREN’S CHILDREN SHALT BE AFFLICTED BY A PLAGUE OF MUTANT BOILS!”
She got back in Federico and drove round the thing in the road. It continued to shout. The voicebox would be the one thing unaffected by their showdown.
Within half an hour, the predators emerged from the desert with their spanners and minilases, and, while it raved against them, the Preachermobile was stripped for parts. Then, the coyotes, alerted by the whiff of biofluid, came for the brain.
VI
Tiger Behr’s wasn’t the worst place Stack had seen in his days on the road. The Roach Motel outside of Austin, where the US Cav had busted The Cannibal Cookpots, was several degrees seedier, and he still sometimes had nightmares about the dead and dusty things they had found in the fruit cellar of the Bide-a-Wee Nook in Medicine Bend. Great. That made Tiger Behr’s the third grungiest, most disgusting, least comfortable, most infested deathhole in the South-Western States.
The former gangcultist—did he think of himself as a Fallen Angel?—gave Stack the pick of the chalets, and raised an eyebrow—his only remaining eyebrow—when he asked for a place with a shower. “You must be a wealthy dude, Trooper,” he had said. “The State pays,” Stack had replied, pretending not to be uncertain about it. “You understand,” Behr had told him, “that the management is not responsible for any loss of personal property, life and limb or mental stability you might sustain while on the premises.” That told Stack all he needed to know about Tiger Behr’s.
There was piped-in Mexican porno on the teevee, but the central dish was skewed and the participants in the current orgy were stuttering visually. Pornovideo was the Gideon Bible of the ’90s. No hotel or motel room came without one. He looked at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out the plot. From the clothes on the floor, he guessed it was a period piece, but they had modern leather underwear. A wrestler in a full-head mask and nothing else was trying out some interesting holds on a wild-haired vampire woman whose plastic teeth kept coming out of her mouth, while a creature with huge breasts and male genitalia sang of the Revolution. This must be an Art Movie, Stack figured. Occasionally, a pirate station would cut in with foggy black and white picture of an endless sermon from a man in combat fatigues and a dog collar who called himself a Survivalist Preacher, tapped his Bible with a Magnum .44 and called upon the Faithful to a) give all their money to him and b) skin a commie for Jesus. The Survivalist Preacher’s backing group knew only two tunes, “Gimme Dat Ole Time Religion” and “The Horst Wessel Song,” and sometimes got them confused. The offswitch was gone, and so Stack had to turn the set’s sound down and picture to the wall before he could get any sleep.
He dreamed about Leona. How she had been when they had been Troopers together at Fort Valens, how they had been together on their trip to Nicaragua, how they had broken up, how he had watched her die…
Waking up, sweaty and disoriented, he found it was after nightfall. The ju-ju he had popped earlier had completely worn off. His chest ached where the cruiser had electroshocked him, and the crinkled, red patches on his legs and forearms from the explosion at Slim’s were still raw. Someone had been in while he was crashed out, of course, and gone through his things. They hadn’t gone for the gun, knife, cashplastic and medkit he had laid under his pillow, but they had taken the kish, the dead cykeman’s stash and the walletful of assorted business cards and receipts he had left out on the bureau for the Tooth Fairies. If he hadn’t made some kind of offering they would have tried to cut his throat and he’d have had to kill them. Right now, he didn’t need the paperwork.
Stepping carefully around the dead bugs on the floor, he made his way to the en-suite bathroom. He didn’t know whether Behr used some extra-strength poison or whether life in this place was so damn unhealthy even scorpions couldn’t stick it, but there were plenty of chitinous little corpses on the carpet. In the bathroom, water dripped steadily from the showerhead and discoloured the enamel tub. Cigbutts floated in the John. There was no soap, no towels, no toilet paper and the mirror had bullet holes. He put his key into the wallhole and turned on the shower, tested the water—some places out here had an intolerably high radiation level—and stepped under quickly. It was over in thirty seconds, and would cost him more than a week’s stay in this dump, but it helped a little. He rubbed the water that clung to him into his body, paying especial attention to his wounds. The red badges of courage smarted. He took a tube of salve, and smeared the worst of the burns and abrasions. There were a few morph-plus poppers, but he resisted the temptation. He might need them later, and he might need a clear head soon.
He checked his watch. It was nearly eight. His priority now must be to find a phone or a radio and call his position in to Fort Apache. He didn’t want to risk his Overdue turning into an AWOL. Also, he still hadn’t got round to sampling Armindariz’ chilli.
He pulled on his thermal union suit, and climbed into his uniform. In the wonky mirror, he looked like he had taken a walk through an active volcano.
He shifted the bed over, skinned back the carpet and pulled up the loose floorboards he had prised free earlier. In the cavity under the floor, he had stashed the two pump shotguns from the motorsickle and his US Cav tracer. He hoped someone was homing in on him, but he was taking no chances.
He left the chalet, and found the cyke chained to a post. He had rigged the battery to give a nasty shock to anybody who tried the chain. There were blackened fingerprints on the durium links.
Score one for caution.
He deactivated the joy buzzer, holstered the pumpguns, and straddled the hog.
>
Then he headed back to the Silver Byte Saloon.
VII
It was a shame the ossobuco would have to be put off until Ms Juillerat had finished her sandside mission, but Brevet Major General Younger could wait to try out the recipe. He was in the nerve centre of his gleaming, white-surfaced kitchen now, directing the preparation of fillet of sole crepes with lemon-parsley butter. Everything in the room was top-quality GenTech standard, requisitioned through his government contacts. The toasters, blenders, ovens, freezers, creamers, processors, burners and broilers shone like brass buttons. Younger observed his reflections in the row of dangling blades that hung before him like a deadly percussion instrument. Straight-edged, curved, serrated, two-action, spiked and plain knives were there, each in place, each ready for use.
He overrode all the hardware and took a whisk to his batter himself. No machine could get the precise texture he favoured for his crepes. The fish-head, its backbone and tail still attached, stared at him from the work-surface. Fish always looked surprised when you were about to cook them. Younger hadn’t served on the roads since his days with the highway patrol in the ’60s, but he remembered seeing that expression on men’s faces. Just before and after they were shot, they got exactly the same round-eyed look.
He ran his fort like he ran his kitchen, Younger hoped. Eternally vigilant, eternally in a harmonious balance, ready for anything.
His computer-assist menumaster gave him a choice of peppers with this dish. The list of appropriates came up on his terminal screen. He selected cayenne, which ranked fairly low but which he hadn’t used recently. He couldn’t remember exactly what cayenne pepper tasted like. It was always human touches like that which made for a great dish.
