by Jack Yeovil
"D'j reckon he's a Red Indian?"
"Could be."
"Freakin' commie."
"Bet I kin plug his guts from here."
"Way off, Chop-Chop. Let me try."
"Hey, no fair. You gotta ScumStopper."
"You gots the tools, Chop-Chop, you use them."
The handgun spat flame and lead. The shot resounded through the valley, amplified in its echo as it bounced off the sugarloaf mountains.
"Freak, but that's a mess you've made."
"Hell, I bet we can still lift his scalp."
"Way to go."
Duroc lay naked on the stone floor, willing his every muscle to relax. It was a trick his uncle had taught him. Sometimes, it made the fear go away. Sometimes…
4:30 AM, Western Central Time. 95 m.p.h. 'Nola Gay nudged the first Fratmobile, almost gently, and the spikes went in low. Redd veered sharply to the left and the Delta Gamma Epsilon ve-hickle lifted up off the freeway. She used her lightweight Combat Lase surgically, slicing off one of the Fratmobile's wheels. The ve-hickle spun end over end, and fell by the wayside. 'Nola Gay was three hundred yards down the road by the time the gastank blew. There were three other Delta Gamma Epsilon ve-hickles in this race, and then it would be the end of them.
The crewcut gangcult of fresh-faced fascists in letter sweaters and football helmets had been staging too many "panty raids" on T-H-R clients' holdings between Pueblo and Trinidad. They hadn't got the message after the first few T-H-R team strikes, and now they were getting the top lady, Redd Harvest. She'd picked the assignment herself, cruising down from Denver to handle it personally.
'Nola Gay, her customized G-mek VI2, held the road like a clean dream. She took out the slowest of the remaining Fratmobiles with a popped package from her grenade launcher, and upped her speed. Often, she just raced the bandits until they cracked up, not even bothering with the roof-mounted chaingun or the 15mm autocannon.
One of the lettermen fouled up, bad. A tyre blew out at 120 m.p.h, and ragged tatters of metal and panzerboy were spread over a mile or so of the blacktop. One left.
There were explosions around her, but she swerved through them, sustaining only a little singed paintwork.
She held the wheel with her left hand, and tapped keys on the dashtop board with the fingers of her right. It was like a vidgame. Get the target centre, and then blast.
"Hey, carrot-top," a pleasant voice came over the intercom, "how's about we call this chicken run a tie and cruise over to a make-out motel for some party action. We've got brews, broads and bennies to spare."
Without thinking about it, she stabbed the chain gun control, and made a pass. The entire rear section of the Fratmobile came apart.
Redd passed the wreckage, knowing there would be no survivors, and kept on speeding. She fired off her remaining ammo into the desert dark.
The chase was over, and she was coming down from it. But for now, she kept her pedal to the floor, and sped into the dark.
Some night, there would be a brick wall across the road, and that would be an end of it.
Some night, but not tonight.
Hawk-That-Settles felt emptied of his song, as if he had poured his spirit out into the sand with the ancient words. The Devil was at the door, and he didn't have the strength to wake up Jesse.
The one-eyed white girl was on her own.
"Houston, if you think I'm going to let you wake up the President with some glitches from a base we should have decommissioned in the '80s, you have got another think coming. Send a fax in the morning."
"What's that I hear, little pigs? Not on the hair of your chinny-chin-chins? Well, I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in…"
"This is Lola Stechkin, bringing you the Middle of the Night Bulletin, and informing you that absolutely nothing is happening around the world, thank God. Soon, it's back to the Late Nite Lingerie Lounge with Lynne Cramer, but first, here's a message from GenTech, the BioDiv that really cares…"
There was someone down in the courtyard. One of the men from her dreams. Jesse carefully pulled on her clothes. It would be dawn soon.
The moon was going down.
X
From the shadows, Hawk-That-Settles saw the Devil come into the courtyard of Santa de Nogueira. He looked like a man, but Hawk saw the spirit writhing inside him.
The Devil sauntered across the open space, apparently unconcerned.
This was Jesse's test. Hawk had no part in it. Although he knew that if she failed, the Devil would surely kill him too.
Again, he was an expendable innocent bystander for the one-eyed white girl's elevation to a higher plane of being. This little Indian was getting fed up with that.
"Tonto," said the Devil. "I see you."
Hawk came out of the shadows. "My name's not Tonto."
"No, of course not. You are Hawk-That-Settles, son of Two-Dogs-Dying, of the line of Armijah. You could be a Chief of the Navaho."
"But I'm not."
"No. You are not. You are just something in my way."
"And who are you?"
The Devil smiled. "Dr Ottokar Proctor, at your service."
"The killer?"
"The Artist."
They had been circling each other. The sky was getting light. The shadows were receding. Hawk could see the Devil's face more clearly now. It was quite a famous face, a television face, a newspaper face. Bland and unreadable, it concealed his horns, his forked tongue…
"Have you heard the one about Roy Rogers?"
"No." Hawk tried to remember the Song of his Dying, but it would not come to him. He could only sing it once, and he had to do it right.
"Well, Roy is coming home from Santa Fe on the stagecoach one night—he's been away on business—and he stops off in town before heading out to his ranch…"
The Devil stood in the open, hands visible, as relaxed as a professional golfer.
"'Mr Rogers, Mr Rogers,' says the town drunk, 'where are you going?'
"'Well, Gabby, I'm going out to my ranch…'”
Hawk heard Jesse coming from a long way away. She was making her way cautiously down to the courtyard.
"'But Mr Rogers, the Apaches rode through yesterday, and they burned your ranch down!'
"'In that case, I guess I'd better go look out for my wife…'
"'But Mr Rogers, when the Apaches were gone, the Wild Bunch rode through, and they whipped your wife to death."'
Hawk saw Jesse standing behind Dr Proctor.
"'In that case, I'll mosey out and see to my three children…'
"'But Mr Rogers, after the Wild Bunch were through, Mexican bandidos came up from below the border, and they took your three children and hanged them from the old oak tree…'"
Jesse was calm, ready for the move. Hawk knew that Dr Proctor knew she was behind him.
"'In that case, I'd better look after my cattle..'
"'Oh Mr Rogers, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but once the bandidos headed out of here, the rustlers came through and stampeded your herd the hell out of the valley…'"
It was the hour of the wolf, the quiet moment between nightset and sunrise. The desert was still.
"'In that case, I'll go give Trigger his oats…'
"'But Mr Rogers, when the rustlers were finished Black Bart turned up spoiling for a fight, and he shot Trigger right between the eyes, killed him deader than a skunk…'"
Jesse walked into the open. Dr Proctor nodded to her, but kept on with the story.
"And Roy looks at the ground and says 'well, I guess I'll go out to the ruins of my ranch, count my missing cattle, and then bury my wife, my horse and my kids.'"
Jesse wasn't armed, but that shouldn't mean anything. Hawk knew she was as deadly as Dr Proctor.
"So Gabby says, 'Roy, there's just one more thing…'"
In the killing game, Dr Proctor was the Artist, but Jesse was the Grand Master.
"'What is it, Gabby?'
Dr Proctor's eyes shone. Jesse's han
ds rested lightly on her hips. It was her fighting stance.
"'Roy, how about giving us a song?'"
XI
Nobody laughed.
On the outside, Seth's man was a disappointment. He looked like a prosperous accountant. He had to be more than that, of course. The Elder had sent him to do a job that an entire Agency had failed to accomplish.
He turned to look at her. She looked from his ordinary face to Hawk-That-Settles. He was to stay out of it.
"Miss Bonney, how nice to meet you."
He extended his hand. She didn't take it.
"I'm Dr Proctor."
"Your name doesn't matter to me."
"You should know it before you die. I always let them know who I am."
She had a bad feeling about this one. She closed her right eye, and studied his heat pattern. He was literally cool, with none of the orange hotspots she would have expected from a man about to fight for his life.
"I've never heard of you."
That fazed him, offended him. He pursed his lips in a tiny moue. "A shame. It would mean much more."
The sun was rising over the walls. The monks should have been at their devotions hours earlier.
"I am going to give you a species of immortality, Miss Bonney. Who would remember Mary Kelly, Elizabeth Stride or Polly Nicholls had they not been blessed…"
"I don't know who those women are either."
"They were nothings, Miss Bonney. Drab tarts. But they were killed by Jack the Ripper."
"Him, I've heard of."
Dr Proctor pulled a knife out of his jacket, and threw it. She snatched it out of the air, and tossed it aside. He smiled.
"Just testing."
"You know I'm stronger than I look."
"I know a lot about you, Miss Bonney. I probably couldn't break your bones with a sledgehammer, and your flesh is reinforced with durium thread. And you have some other surprises implanted in your body. You're a proud cyborg. Your fathers made you well. Bruno Bonney made your mind, and Simon Threadneedle your body."
"I'm unbreakable, then?"
Dr Proctor cocked his head, as if considering.
"Probably. I'll concede that."
"And yet you've come here to break me?"
A sly grin appeared. "No, to kill you."
"You 're an honest man."
"That's the first time anyone's ever said that to me, but it's a perceptive comment. I am perhaps the only honest man. I do what I want, and I'm not ashamed of it. You were much the same, Jazzbeaux. I've read your records. But you've changed."
"You've said it." She clenched her fist in the air, feeling the metal through her palm.
"Not just like that. Inside," he tapped his head and heart. "You don't do what you want any more. You do what is wanted of you. That's why you have to die. If you'd been content to be just another high-speed sociopath, you might have lived to a ripe old age, but you had to get that old-time religion, you had to save the world…"
"I'm not interested in saving the world."
"That's what you say, Jessamyn, but your actions tell a different story."
"It's me or Seth. That's it."
Dr Proctor laughed. "You can't really be that naive. Universes are grinding together to point you two at each other. You have nothing more to say about it than the sea has about the tidal pull of the moon."
Jesse's head hurt. This was worse than she had expected.
"You know, I was expecting some super Op, Redd Harvest or Woody Rutledge. You're not like that. You're like the soce workers back in Denver. You just want to talk."
"Talk is important, Jesse."
She had an urge to tear his throat out, just as she had torn her father's windpipe away. She fought it. You don't reach the Fifth Spiritual Plane without getting some control.
"In another world, we could have worked together," Dr Proctor said. "I have the brains, and you have the body…" He made his first move. "…we could have slaughtered millions of the sheep."
VII
She wouldn't break, but she could bend.
Dr Proctor got her in a sumo hold, hands clasped in the small of her back, and pushed forwards with his forehead. He didn't need to be especially strong to exert the maximum pressure this way. He felt her spinesheath shifting. It was a good product, a GenTech speciality, but it was just a jacket. There were bones inside, and a slender, vulnerable cord inside them. He found the pressure spots in her lower back, and jammed the heels of his hands into them.
An inch before his face, her teeth clenched. "Pain?" he whispered. "Remember it?" He had her arms straitjacketed to her sides. He lifted her feet off the floor. She was off-balanced. "See, no leverage. You can't kick me." She pulled her head back, and struck his forehead, twice. Blood ran into his eyebrows, but he wasn't hurt. "That won't get you anywhere."
He walked her around the courtyard in a parody dance. She was as light as any other girl. Threadneedle preferred minimum-weight technology.
She squirmed, and eased her knees up inside his bearhug, pushing them into his stomach. He felt the strain in his laced fingers, his elbows and his shoulders.
He knew she would break the hold, and decided to use it to inflict a little preliminary damage. He unlocked his fingers, made fists, and struck thumbs-first into the small of her back, then dropped her.
That should get her unaltered insides jarring, and put a bit of a crimp into her pelvic girdle.
She was up, keeping her hurt to herself, and lashing out. He backed away. For all her strength and devastating power, she wasn't an especially skilled martial artist. Streetfighting was about all she knew, with perhaps a touch of jeet kune do. Brawlers' business.
He stepped through her blows, and tapped her collarbones, hooking his forefingers into the nerve points.
Jesse yelped, and floundered. He gave her an elbow in the side of the head, and repeated the procedure three times within the space of a single breath.
"Tired? I can keep this up all day."
She still hadn't really touched him.
"You'll have had Threadneedle undermesh your stomach muscles, so we won't bother hitting you there," he said.
He saw his opportunity, and jabbed a knuckle-pointed punch at her solar plexus. It would be armoured, of course, but he didn't want to break it, just to send a shock through her whole skeleton.
"You see, all that metal inside you can rattle around. It can hurt you as badly as I can."
He pressed her ribs, his hands moving faster than perception.
"A few more of those, and all your boneshields will be loose. That'll be like having breadknives floating around the inside of your chest. You won't care for it. I can promise you that."
She stepped back, away from him. She had worked up a sweat. The sun was up there now. It looked like the thirty-nine thousand six hundred and fifteenth sunny day in a row in Arizona.
"Are you enjoying this little game of 'Sally Go Round the Roses'? I am."
"Freak you."
"Tut tut. Such language. You should gain a command of more elaborate invective."
She made a reach for his throat, which he dodged. Her fingers closed just under his jaw, nails scraping his adam's apple.
"Nice try. Your favourite move, isn't it? Your father's autopsy reports show an especially fine specimen of the throat-grab. And you did something similar to that Daughter of the American Revolution in Moroni."
He pulled out a derringer, and shot at her heart. Her jacket exploded, and he saw blackened flesh below.
"You might be wondering why I did that?"
She was snarling now, not looking like a girl at all.
"I knew it wouldn't kill you…"
She tightened her padded pyjamas, modestly shifting the hole from blueing ribs to smooth skin.
"…it didn't even hurt you, really. You've had your nerves deadened to reduce your pain perception…"
He threw the useless gun away.
"But it did some damage, Jesse. Believe me, inside, you're leak
ing a little. Nothing serious. It'll clear up on its own thanks to Dr Threadneedle's micro-organisms. But you'd be well advised not to exert yourself further."
He brushed her cheek with his toecap.
"Trust me, I'm a doctor."
His heel slammed into her jaw, knocking her head to one side.
"Of course, my PhD. is in economics, but I have an amateur's informed interest in bio-engineering."
She got a good hold on his ankle, but not good enough. He pulled free.
"Did that dislocate your thumbs? No, well I'm sure it hurt them a lot."
She tucked her thumbs inside her fists, and tried to land a couple of punches on him. If they had connected, they would have broken bones and punctured organs, but he was out of the way and had made sure there would be a stone pillar where her fists landed.
"Did you know that Dr Threadneedle's experimental subjects had a 76% mental breakdown rate when he was with GenTech? Still, I'm sure he made some startling advances before opening you up."
Jesse fell back, her knuckles bloodied, steel glinting in the ruined flesh. There were distinct imprints in the stone where she had punched.
"And that must have been very unpleasant. You know, this is an interesting approach. I'm not really killing you, I'm just seducing you into a slow, painful suicide…"
Dr Proctor knew that everyone else who had faced up to her had been too scared of her ferocity, of her bio-amendments. Too bad Threadneedle hadn't tried some of the new IQ-boost chromosomes on her greymass. If Jessamyn Bonney were intelligent, she could have been a real threat.
She went for one of his knees, and got lucky. No, he had to give her credit. She had seen an oppportunity, and taken it well.
Pain flared up, and he slowed momentarily. She got a kick into his side, and he had to dart back, out of range.
She wasn't really unintelligent, just uninformed. She hadn't even heard of him. Probably didn't follow the newsies, stuck out here in the sand. Like most of the sheep, she was going to die because she was ignorant, not because she was undeserving…
He'd been fought before. He didn't always favour helpless prey. He'd stalked and struggled with the best of them. Others had resisted more than this.
