by Gary Ballard
A not entirely inviting picture of a Ranger pointed out at the passersby with an expression that was half-friendly smile, half-interrogatory warning. His uniform was paramilitary SWAT gear littered with corporate logos, topped by a cowboy hat bearing the new state flag. Rather than the red “C” on a field of blue and white, the flag bore the stylized red “L” of the Legios logo over the typical colors.ght="ence that
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Bridge asked.
“Yep. That shit’s new since the last time I was through here. Like within the last month new.”
Aristotle’s voice betrayed a growing nervousness. “I thought this car was clean.”
“Oh it’s squeaky clean anywhere west of the Mississippi, except apparently Colorado. I’d heard these Legios pendejos were puckered tight, I just didn’t know how tight. Their troopers are… let’s just say before the riots, their troopers were probably stockpiling guns and canned goods in some remote compound bunker.”
“Great, redneck militia with corporate gear and license to pull over anybody they want. Fuck.”
“We can get off the highway; try to work the back roads.”
“Let me think for a minute.” Bridge pondered the situation and immediately hit upon something of a solution. He dropped down into a link up with Angie, thanking the Legios Corporation for its commitment to keeping the interstate’s cell connections pristine. “Angie, we got a problem.”
Her voice was a welcome tonic, a calming agent to the growing ball of nervousness in his stomach. “Yeah, baby, I’m with you. What do you need?”
“We just crossed into Colorado. Apparently the Legios LGL is super paranoid, scanning every car entering the state. Any chance you can work us up some clean Legios paperwork?”
A pause. He could tell Angela had dove into the vast expanses of emptiness between data locations, skidding through the GlobalNet’s ocean at the speed of thought. “DMV is fucking gigantic. There is no way any motor vehicle bureau should have this much security. Fuck!”
“What is it?”
“Just dodging some roving ice. The whole fucking state’s buzzing with security drones. I can beat it, but it’s going to take time.”
“How much time do you think we have, Stoney?”
“I’d say about three minutes based on those lights I see up ahead.”
“Three minutes, Angie. What can you do for me?”
“Not fucking much, Bridge. You think you’d have researched this shit beforehand, huh?”
“Last minute, babe, you know the drill.”
“Yeah, I got… motherfucker!” Bridge tried to keep his anxiety down, to not scream out with each exclamation. He was just as worried for her as he was for himself and his companiod h face="Timns. “Sorry, just had to gank a robot. The whole goddamn state is on high alert. It looks like they’ve shutdown most Net communications in and out except on authorized channels. The news says they think some kind of Net virus is being broadcast from Boulder… whoa.”
“What whoa?”
“It’s gorgeous. I never imagined…”
“Ange, you’re going space cowboy on me. What’s gorgeous?”
“Boulder. The whole fucking city is sealed off in a giant dome, just like in real life. There’s something being built in here, something fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole thing is crawling with builder bots.”
“Can you admire it later?” He could see the flashing blue lights ahead, the trooper’s headlights filling the front windshield. “We got company.”
“Ok, I’m going. I think I’ve got an opening into the comm channel for the trooper’s cars. Can you get me a trooper badge number or a car number?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” The trooper’s cruiser had passed them and turned around in the median, roaring up behind them with lights ablaze. The car’s satnav screen flashed to the Legios logo, its cold computerized voice informing the passengers that the Legios Corporation requested the car pull over to the shoulder at the earliest convenience. Stonewall eased the car to a stop. Bridge heard the hammer of a pistol clicking into place.
“Bridge, whatever your girl is doing, she better do it quick.” The nervous tension had dissipated from Stonewall’s voice, replaced with the hard steel of a killer prepared to do what he must. “There’s plenty of books that still got me wanted as a cop killer, you know.”
“I know, brother. Keep it holstered and give her a minute.”
The ominous crunch of gravel under the trooper’s boot heels sounded deafening in Bridge’s ears. He peeled his eyes for any identifying number on the trooper’s person.
“Welcome to Colorado, friends,” began the trooper in a steely tone of faked hospitality. “Would you like to tell me why you’re entering our fair state without proper authorization?”
*****
The Legios Ranger was immense, a swaggering picture of the bubba sheriff stereotype made real, wearing mirrored sunglasses despite the darkness, thumbs hooked in his belt. The glasses were likely a non-implant HUD interface connected to the database itheearn his cruiser. The preponderance of corporate logos all over the uniform and the paramilitary style gear juxtaposed with the affected drawl made for a strangely unsettling picture. Bridge immediately prepared himself for a shakedown.
Stonewall began as calmly as he could. “I’m sorry, officer, this is a new car. Just got it off the lot yesterday, eh? The dealer told me it was clean in all 40 LGL’s and Mexico too.”
The trooper did not look amused. Bridge began to remember some of the stories he’d heard out of Colorado. Most of it was GlobalNet scuttlebutt more than any actual news. After all, the LGL-controlled news nets in Chronosoft’s LGL would be reluctant to talk smack about a fellow LGL for fear of creating a negative perception about the LGL program as a whole. Barely a year old, the program still faced an uphill battle gaining public acceptance, along with the very real threat that the whole thing could be scrapped by regular federal audits built into the LGL bill. Chronosoft had barely passed one hurdle with their sham of an election two months ago.
Legios was known to operate quite differently than the professionals at Chronosoft Law Enforcement Division (CLED) Bridge was used to. CLED was composed of ex-LAPD and corporate security. The Legios Rangers seemed more like a well-financed survivalist militia given authority. The gigantic sidearm on the trooper’s belt and the grenade magna-locked to his vest did nothing to dispel the myth. The entire time the trooper spoke with Stonewall, he rarely moved his right hand far from the hand cannon.
“Son, it might have been clean over in that fancy pants Califurnya Chronosoft rat hole, but this here’s Colorado. We don’t just let everybody run around free as you please in our fair state. Especially not since some terrorists decided to blow up one of our cities.”
Bridge cringed as Aristotle asked, “Terrorists? I didn’t know the news had said anything about terrorism. Did they definitively establish that it was an attack? My grandmother is in Boulder. We’re going to take her somewhere safe. Can you tell me if she was a casualty?”
“Grandmother, eh?” The ranger’s skepticism was written all over his face. “We don’t just hand out that kind of information to strangers driving through in unlicensed cars. You… fellers will have to accompany me to the station. We’ll sort out this whole license issue and see about your… grandmother.” Bridge could tell the trooper was a second away from calling everyone in the car ‘boys’ but thought better of it. Corporate culture had made even the most Neanderthal of police sensitive to the nature of bad PR.
Bridge whispered into his phone, trying to be as quiet and invisible as possible. “Angie, what have you got for me? Badge number 4A598D4832.”
The ranger must have heard Bridge, or seen his lips moving. “What the fuck are you doing back there? Are you talking on the phone? What are you whispering about?” His hand was firmly on the butt of the pistol now, his hackles up. Bridge tried to protest his innocence, but the trooper wasn’t having it. “Al
l right, all three of you, out of the car, let’s go, right now. Get out of the goddamn car.”
Bridge tried to take control of the conversation. “Whoa, officer, it’s ok, I was just talking to my girlfriend back home. She’s worried…”
“I’m trying to break through, Artie, but I can’t. There’s some serious interference going on. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” Her shout was so loud it rang about inside Bridge’s skull painfully, making him cringe visibly.
Bridge forgot the trooper for a moment, Angie’s tone of pure panic overriding his normal instinct for self-preservation. “Angie! Are you ok? Angie!”
“All right, put your hands up, son!” The trooper’s gun was out in a flash and pointed directly at Bridge. “I don’t know what conversation you got going on, but we’ll just settle that down at the station. Hang up the phone and put your hands up!”
“Artie, I found your trooper’s car and… I don’t know how to describe it. This thing has wings… giant golden wings. I can’t even see all of it. Red eyes. It’s… it’s beautiful. I can’t even tell if it’s digital or real. I think it’s doing something to the trooper’s car.”
“What? His car?” Bridge noticed the flashing lights of the cruiser were shifting. They seemed to be rising, as if the car itself was being lifted off the ground. Turning his head to look, the headlights blinded him momentarily. Shading his eyes, the headlights shifted, moving downward towards the ground as if pushed. He became aware of a sound, the sound of rending metal twisting and bending like paper. The headlights were pointed down at the ground now, and he could finally see what was happening. The car was reshaping itself, its frame twisted, manipulated into a different shape by invisible hands. The windshield flattened and splintered. The roof lights formed a glittering forehead. The doors opened and were twisted into makeshift limbs, the back tires into stubby feet and legs. The whole time the car was bathed in a faint golden orange light, and the light seemed to twinkle in tiny runic shapes as it danced around the deformed car. “What the fuck is that?” was all he could think to say. Bridge’s interface jack itched.
The trooper turned to see what was transfixing Bridge. At first, all he could do was whip off the sunglasses and stare in awe, his gun held aimlessly away from Bridge. He regained some of his composure, directing questions at the car. “What the fuck did you do to my car?” he stammered.
“I didn’t do anything!” He leaned up to whisper in Stonewall’s ear. “Stoney, when I give the word, get us the fuck out of here.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice, Bridge. Angie doing that?” he whispered back.
“No way in hell.”
The cruiser bot began to walk, awkwardly putting one twisted tire foot in front of the other. The cop cursed loudly and pushed away from their car, aiming the gun and firing. The hand cannon made an impressive sound, its .44 caliber shells booming in the still night air. The bullet lodged harmlessly in the splintered windshield. He fired again twice, trailing bullets down the car’s bothe interfdy. A headlight, located somewhere around stomach level, shattered in a shower of sparks.
“Punch it!” Bridge screamed. Stonewall obliged, turning on the car and gunning it down the shoulder, spitting gravel with a shrieking of tires. The trooper screamed at the car fruitlessly, refusing to divert his attention from the lumbering metallic threat. Bridge heard a few more booming shots and screamed curses before they pulled out of sight around the corner.
“Bridge, what in the world was that?” Aristotle asked frightfully.
“Don’t look at me. I’m as shocked as the rest of you.”
“Somebody out there must really want us to get to Boulder,” Stonewall said, and the unsettling truth was that Bridge couldn’t disagree.
*****
Chapter 8
November 2, 2028
7:20 p.m.
It was a full five minutes of uncomfortable silence in the car before anyone would dare to speak. Stonewall was the first to work up the courage. His voice sounded strained. “All right, Bridge, you want to try to explain to me what the fuck that was?”
Bridge focused a stare on the back of the Mexican’s head, absentmindedly examining the tightly curled blonde knots of the footballer’s hair while pondering the question. He finally answered. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“You sure Angie didn’t do that?”
Aristotle interjected with surprising calm. “I am certainly no hacker, Stonewall, but it seems to me that display would be light years beyond what even a programmer as capable as Angela could achieve. Isn’t that right, Bridge?”
“Goddamn right. Let me ask her about it. Angie, are you ok?”
She had been sitting on the line in silence, and he felt a pang of regret for having left her so long. “Yeah, Artie, just trying to take it all in. That thing… I swear, I’ve seen avatars shaped like dragons in here, you’ve seen ‘em. Dragons, hydras, every mythical beastie you could think of. They all have that shiny, liquid-y mercury look. This thing isn’t like that. It’s solid, I swear, like I could reach out and touch it. It was gold, and glowy. It’s wrapped itself around that cop car’s net nnt faode and just crushed it, then reshaped it. It’s not a virus, at least not a remote one. I swear it’s being deliberately controlled, but I can’t even get close enough to see a connection. What happened out there?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, baby. Think robots in disguise. Be careful.” He turned his attention back to the car’s passengers. “Guys, Angie’s never seen nothing like that. Nothing. I’ve never heard of nothing like it in all the time I’ve been dealing with hackers. That wasn’t a virus, and it wasn’t anything she would know how to do.”He could hear her occasionally gasping in appreciation of the digital masterpiece.
Aristotle announced gravely, “I’m not one to believe in coincidences of such startling synchronicity as this but... didn’t the reporter on CNN talk about a dragon flying over Boulder?” Bridge nodded. “So we can safely assume that this has some tenuous if indecipherable connection to our destination, then?
“Logical assumption,” Stonewall affirmed.
“And one wouldn’t be taking too further a leap of logic to say that the incident we just witnessed was a conscious effort on something or someone’s part to ensure that we were not delayed from reaching Boulder. Correct?”
“Maybe a bit more of a leap, but I can’t say the thought hadn’t occurred to me. It could be that whatever’s out there is attacking any authority in the state, but it could have targeted us as well. So the question is who wants us in Boulder and why?” Bridge was reminded of his dream, the words echoing throughout his mind with chilling clarity. The dead eyes of coal-skinned angels made him shudder a little. The interface jack on his neck began to itch again. He chose not to tell the others about it just yet. One bit of craziness per day was his limit.
“More pressing question,” Bridge said, shifting the conversation away from the speculative. “How much information about this car did that cop relay back to HQ before his car got turned into a fucking Transformer?”
Stonewall and Aristotle looked at each other with concern written all over their faces. “That’s a good point, brau. We need to ditch this car, or at least find somewhere to hide it before we pull into the area.” He puzzled over the problem for a moment. “I know the place. I hid out there right after I left LA.”
“Where?”
“Little Naturalist commune up in Boulder Mountain Park.”
“You want to hide us with a bunch of hippies?”
“These hippies are hardcore, brau. Guy that runs the place is a real honest back-to-nature millionaire, negotiated with Legios and the Feds right after the LGL’s to buy up a bunch of the state parks. The Feds didn’t have the money to spend on fixing the place up and Legios was more than happy to take the cash instead of having to maintain it. State parks ain’t profitable or some shit. Bud may practice that hippie live-off-the-land shit, but he most certainly ain’t a pacifist. Mor pat’s a goe like the
general of a private army.”
“So we’re going to hide with the hippie army in the mountains of Colorado while investigating the magic dome world of the Net dragons? Fantastic.”
“Hey, that hippie army kept me out of jail, homes. You got a better idea?”
Bridge shrugged. He had no better idea, and was really starting to feel the sinking despair of being disconnected from the local scene. “Let’s go hug some trees.”
*****
Once their course of action was set, Bridge plugged himself into the news feeds to catch up on the situation. He needed to know as much of what was going on in the area, if for no other reason than to try to cook up some cover, some plausible if far-fetched reason to be in the area. He would need to brief Aristotle on the lies to remember as well. The well-meaning lug had been entirely too forthcoming to that cop. There were a few scary moments along the road as more Legios Ranger cruisers went blazing past in the other direction, but they paid no notice to Bridge’s car. Probably too busy worrying about the giant killer car robot attacking one of their own.
The news was all Boulder, all the time, filled to the brim with eyewitness accounts, user-submitted video, audio and photos, but most was little more informative than the previous night’s coverage. Bridge pieced together a timeline from the various mainstream sources. Around 1:45 a.m. the previous evening, an explosion occurred, possibly centered on the University of Colorado campus. All cell phone, GlobalNet, video, radio, all electronic communication channels with the city were immediately cut off. Within 30 minutes, some type of dome had surrounded most of the city, a perfectly solid, opaque sphere covering around three square miles. All roads leading into the area had been closed. Both local Legios officials and federal agents were on the scene investigating. Despite multiple rushed interviews and televised press conferences, neither offered any explanation. Of course, that didn’t stop the media’s talking heads from bringing in every kind of talking head expert they could find, from terrorism wonks to physics geeks, meteorologists and emergency management authorities. The Feds were there in a merely advisory role, as the terms of the LGL gave Legios emergency management authority until such time as they surrendered that authority upwards. Bridge’s contact Tom Williams of CNN tried to make an early controversy over images of idling FEMA trucks lined up in Denver, unable to move into the area without proper authorization. One commercial break later and that story had disappeared from the network’s archive footage.
