Route 666

by Jack Yeovil

  “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 Burn-side. “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 1 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.”

  VIII

  11 June 1995

  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 Gen-Tech 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 possessions, 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.

  IX

  11 June 1995

  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 deadlady 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.

  X

  11 June 1995

  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.

  ZeeBeeCee’s Nostalgia Newstrivia: The 1980s

  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.