Route 666 df-1

by Jack Yeovil

  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.

  THE BOOK OF BLOOD

  I

  12 June 1995

  In the quiet of the morning, Judge Thomas Longhorne Colpeper uprolled the blinds and took a look at the peacability. From the window of his study, on the top storey of the clapboard courthouse-cum-town-hall, he could survey the Main Street of Spanish Fork, Utah, and be satisfied with the world he had made.

  Everything was still except the creaky sign of the Feelgood Saloon, which was electronically jiggered to waver as if in a breeze even when the wind was down. The town slowly came to life. The scissor-legged shadow of Christopher Carnadyne skittered across the street like a stick insect as the undertaker took his morning constitutional. Carnadyne doffed his crepe-ringed top hat to Mrs Dolley Magruder as they met in the street and exchanged pleasantries. Cash crop farmhands with a bellyful of big bean breakfast broke out of the Chow Trough and headed off to the fields for a hard day cultivating the Whoopee Weed. Small children played with dogs. Honest traders opened for business. O'Rourke's Security Goods offered a special summer price on Kevlar.

  The judge was proud of the town. His town. He liked to think of Spanish Fork that way. It was certainly the way most folks had come to think of the old place. The judge was a contented man. Spanish Fork was a peaceful community, a friendly town like they weren't supposed to be any more. They had some laws, but not so many a man couldn't cut loose a little. They had a deep-water well which still ran pure and was under 24-hour guard. Murder wasn't necessarily a capital offence in Spanish Fork, but stealing from the well was.

  The town had a few deputies who had made names for themselves and decided to settle down. Job Fiske had been with T-H-R until they'd parted company over his disrespectful treatment of a Japcorp oyabun, and Matthieu Larroquette had made the cover of Guns and Killing when he'd brought in the serial killer Hector "Chainsaw" Childress in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

  Nice, regular, deputy-type guys, they made sure the peace was kept, or at
least as much of it as the town decreed desirable.

  The sun was high already and Main Street baked. Without the well, Spanish Fork would have parched up and blown away like all the other towns hereabouts. The place had once been called New Canaan – it was in the county records – and the sand had flowered through the miraculous agency of that deep water. Then, the fruitfulness had excited envy and a parcel of no-good Josephites and Indians had fallen upon New Canaan, massacred everybody and razed the place to the ground. There was an ugly memorial by the old corn exchange. Judge Colpeper had learned the lesson of history. This time, Spanish Fork was ready for whatever varmints came out of the Des, sniffing after the precious nectar.

  From one end of the street, a figure strode on powerful legs. It was Matthieu Larroquette. In town, he walked everywhere, tireless. The first biker who thought the pedestrian deputy would be easy meat soon learned about the kick Larroquette packed in his amended arm. Things were so quiet, the judge could almost hear the jingling of Larroquette's spurs. Carna-dyne raised his hat and stepped aside, letting the Deputy past; the undertaker's toothy grin suggested Larroquette was good for his business.

  You could tell it was a civilised community. Colum Whittaker had a 25-foot polished wood bar in the Feelgood Saloon, the Reverend Boote kept a nice little church nobody shot up too much, Chollie Jenevein ran a world-class auto repair shop with spare parts for everything from a '55 Chevrolet to an orbital shuttle, Dolley Magruder's sporting gents and ladies entertained nightly at reasonable rates at the Pussycat Palace on Maple Street, and Judge Thomas Longhorne Colpeper was in charge of a picturesque gallows with facilities to handle five customers simultaneously.

  Just now, Colpeper only had one set of guests to be bothered with and he had a sense that they could be handled.

  When the Psychopomps hit Spanish Fork late the night before and headed for Colum's 25-foot bar, Job Fiske had made a personal call to inform the judge. Colpeper considered things a moment and looked up the rap-sheets on the interagency datanets. He didn't consider crimes committed outside the city limits much to do with him, but he liked to keep abreast of things. There was a girl with the 'Pomps, Jessamyn Bonney, who was earning herself a rep. Twenty-three semi-confirmed kills, starting with her own father, and some interesting black-market surgical amendments. She would be a Guns and Killing pin-up within the year.

  The judge told Fiske to keep a watch for a girl with one eye, and make sure her lieutenant Andrew Jean wasn't too enthusiastic with the beehive-hairdo-concealed slipknife. A solo Op in Montana had got a nasty surprise from ignoring the orange-haired 'Pomp with the eye make-up and there hadn't been much left to bury afterwards. Otherwise, if the 'Pomps were content to be good customers, and pay for their food, drink, gas, auto repairs and party favours, the judge was content to let them be. The secret of the town's survival was that folks that other communities saw as threats, Spanish Fork treated as customers.

  By now. Colum's bartender down at the Feelgood would have told the ganggirls all about him, and maybe, if they were lucky, they'd respect his rep. It had been a while since he'd officiated at one of his special quintuple necktie parties.

  Things were pretty quiet. A recorded note from Fiske on his oak desk reported that the Psychopomps had enthusiastically partaken of the fare at the Feelgood and broken a little furniture. Nothing indispensible. Then they'd rented cabins over at the Katz Motel and broken some of Herman Katz's ugly tables and chairs while passing round the glojo Ferd Sunderland mixed up in the back of the drug store. A couple of the hardier boys and nancier girls from the Pussycat Palace had gone back to the Katz for a little Strenuous Recreation with the ganggirls.

  The judge had a warm glow as he imagined the fun the boys and girls must have had and still be having in and around the shower units, hot tubs and water-beds of Herman's Party Cabins. They wouldn't be too competent at trouble-making, at least until suppertime.

  Judge Colpeper fastened his bootlace tie and put his big silver-banded black hat on his flowing silver locks. He felt his inside vest pocket for the derringer dartgun he habitually carried and slipped polished Colt .45 Pythons into his hip holsters. The guns were satisfyingly heavy, fully loaded with ScumStopper explosive rounds. The weight dragged his pelvis down and back, inspiring him to puff out his chest and walk tall. He settled into his long black frock coat, ensuring the skirts hung properly over his guns. Scanning himself in the mirror, he was well pleased.

  Descending from his study to the courthouse steps like God from heaven, he was ready when Larroquette came by to accompany him on his regular tour of the town.

  "Good mornin', judge," the deputy said, taking off his Cyberfeed stetson. The sockets on his shaven head stood out raw. He had been scratching them again.

  "Good morning, Matthieu. Thank you for the report on the Psychopomp situation."

  "Weren't nothin', Judge. Just keepin' tabs, like you always say."

  The judge joined Matthieu in the street. Job Fiske, quiet and compact, ambled out of the shadows to join them. Fiske hefted a robobit arm, replacing the one he lost in action against the Clean, and clacked his claws encouragingly. Behind his back, some of the Feelgood boys called him Deputy Lobster, but a nip from the doodad discouraged disrespect.

  "Any strangers to report, Job?"

  Fiske stood straight, "There's some old cowpoke, judge. On a horse, if you can credit it. He's been seen a couple of times on the outlying spreads. Nowhere near town though."

  "Not messing with our weed?"

  "Not as far as I can tell."

  "There's no trouble from one lone ranger, then. Still, if you can find anything out about him, do so. A man on a horse is unusual round these parts. A man without wheels under him has got to be some sort of weirdo."

  "Herman Katz says he passed by the motel two, three days back. Herman says he thought the cowpoke had been out on the trail a long, long time. Covered in white dust, like a ghost."

  Colpeper grinned. "Well now, Herman's been a mite touched since that sad business with his mother. It's a shame, but you shouldn't take much account of what he says."

  The judge looked up and down Main Street. Ferd was sweeping up out front of the drugstore. Colpeper returned the druggist's wave. The man was a world-class pharmaceutical whiz but he had opted to retire to Spanish Fork for his health and tinker away with his chemistry set. His special Candy Z mixes attracted a lot of customers.

  Accompanied by his deputies, the judge walked his rounds. Every day, this gave him a sense of his power, his stability. He knew the solids could set their clocks by him. If they saw him about, they knew the town was still safe.

  Kids played by the gallows, throwing stones at the head of the car thief the judge had sentenced yesterday. Damfool had been caught with electronic keys lodged in the shock alarm of the Magruder station wagon. He'd been too stunned shaken to say anything during trial or execution. They never did found out his right name, though he looked a bit like Burt Reynolds. The Judge hated the way the Smokey and the Bandit movies made rural law-enforcement officials out to be pompous martinets; probably been a contributing factor in the severity of the sentence.

  Colpeper smiled as the children ran up to him, hands open. He found the bag of Ferd's jujubes he always kept for the little 'uns and passed them out. They ran off again, 'jubes popping as they pressed them to their tiny, happy nostrils.

  "You see, Matthieu, Job," he declaimed. "You see what this is all about. What we're standing up for here in Spanish Fork."

  Larroquette pulled his Cyberfeed down over his head and drew in his breath sharply as its terminal plugs slid into his sockets. The stetson hummed and the deputy held up his amended arm. Electricity crackled between his fingers and he primed the pump action. He saluted, ready for work.

  As they walked down Main Street, the judge bid good morning to various citizens who passed by. Carnadyne lurked by his coffin shop, nodding in thanks for the county fee on the car thief; he'd have the whelp off the gallows and into a lime-pit by
nightfall with no ceremony at all. Colpeper bowed to Miss Dolley and told her to report any undue wear and tear on her folks before the 'Pomps left town.

  Larroquette's stetson downloaded information.

  "Anything new, Matthieu?"

  "We got some Josephites coming into town, with United States Road Cavalry escort. It's a motorwagon convoy. They'll be passin' through on the road to Salt Lake City."

  The judge pondered and his hand just happened to end up resting on the pearl-inlaid handle of a Colt Python.

  "Josephites, huh? This town's got good cause to care very little for Josephites, Matthieu. Too much like Mormons for my taste. All that hymn-singin' and holiness. Mormons used to think they owned the State of Utah, Matthieu. I hear tell that damfool in Washington DC says these Josephites can have it now."

  They were passing the Corn Exchange Video Arcade. A wind-worn cross stood, its base bearing a plaque that listed the names of the settlers killed by Josephites and Indian in the Massacre of 1854. You could hardly read the names any more and one arm of the cross was bent since some unwise Maniak used it for target practice. A mangy cat, nesting under the monument, took fright at the approach of the law and slank off towards some shadows.

  Colpeper looked at the monument and thought back. Utah folks didn't need to go as far back as 1854 to have a reason not to like Josephites; President North's declaration of last month was enough to set the blood a-boil. When it came to turning over an entire state of the Union to an outside authority, Ollie North claimed he had consulted authorities throughout Utah, but nobody had asked Judge Thomas Longhorne Colpeper anything. And the judge did not much cosy up to the idea of living along the Path of Joseph.