Tropic of Kansas

by Christopher Brown

  He couldn’t see Clint, or Clint’s truck.

  76

  Tania secured passage on one of the big barges headed south.

  She had been out there for four hours in the dark, carrying her shit around on the river wall like some crazy bag lady, waiting for daybreak, watching for danger. She got a feel for the water traffic, watching and listening as the leviathans trudged along. On some the cargo looked bigger than the boat.

  When the sun came up she had walked down to the dockmasters and asked around, looking for passage to New Orleans on account.

  She had the credentials Odile had gotten her. JoAnne Martinez, Contracts Administrator, Cavalier Robotics.

  Her fraudulent employer, it turned out, was the developer of the system that ran the ship on which she got a berth. Kentucky computers were the new kings of the river. She wondered if this one would check her cousin’s personnel files. Who knew where Odile got this from.

  The human captain, who really just assisted the robot brain, was a porky smiling fellow named Herman. He was excited to have a woman on the ship, and said that means you get your own room. His crew were two, a burly black mate named Leathers and a skinny white engineer named Edwin.

  The Roger Kozlovsky was an old river barge retrofitted for semiautonomous operation by its current owners, Choctaw Logistics. Two hundred forty feet long, deck and quarters at the rear, long fore loaded with big containers stacked three high.

  Captain Herman hadn’t been lying—Tania was the only woman on the boat. The other two dozen passengers were employees of Choctaw in charge of parts of the cargo, a few lone travelers from other companies, and a big contingent of Royal Petroleum roughnecks heading back to base. All the kind of corporates who rarely warranted airfare.

  They looked as excited as Captain Herman to see Tania on board for the cruise. Tania wished she had a gun, but was stuck inventing nonlethal strategies for safe passage.

  At lunch after they put out, Captain Herman sat with her and two of the Choctaws and asked Tania a lot of weird questions about her work and background. Tania wondered if the Captain was asking or the Kentucky Cavalier he reported to. Tania left half of her barely edible turkey sandwich and chips and said she wasn’t feeling that great.

  She decided she would hide in her cabin as much as she could. Claim she was sick, which always worked with guys, especially stupid ones. The cabin was made for two. Still small, but comfortable enough. The light was crappy, but enough to read by. And there was a power outlet.

  The problem was there wasn’t any way to lock the door.

  She tried to chill, see if she could take a nap, but the noises outside prevented her. So she looked out the very tiny window, watched the river roll by, and wondered what it looked like before all the big concrete, and all the foam in the water.

  77

  The current was strong. It was a big river. It took Sig a long time to cross, and a lot of energy.

  He followed the channel of a small boat moving across with a single truck tied down on its deck, up a canal that cut into the city on the north side of the river. He swam out when he saw the burnt-out hulk of an old military truck sitting in shallow water off to the right. He crawled up into the cab of the truck and lay out on the bare rusty seat springs, catching his breath while his clothes dried a bit and he thought about what was next.

  He pulled out the map, and it fell apart in his hands.

  He tried to find the pieces he needed, but all Clint’s marks had washed out.

  He looked around, listened, tried to remember what he had seen before.

  He stood up on the roof of the truck but couldn’t see the antenna anywhere he looked.

  So he guessed, and set back out in what he thought was the general direction. Maybe he would find some food along the way.

  He waded through the fetid shallows of the canal, then clambered up the concrete wall onto the beat-up old road that ran parallel. There was a big tank farm off to the right. He heard the sounds of machines working but saw no people, just a couple of boats working their way up and down the canal. To the west, across the canal, he could see the high-rises of the business district.

  He found an improvised trail that ran along the fence line of the tank farm, through cover of scrub trees. He followed that until it opened up on the right of way for a row of power line towers that cut between the industrial estates. The way was overgrown with tall grass, and you could see the fresh paths of small mammals who used it as their freeway.

  A wild dog was there, staring at him before he noticed it. Mottled coat like a tiger that had been through the wash, burly lean, with a face like a pit mix and the eyes of a coyote. It was wary but followed him a few beats behind as he set out down the long weedy avenue under the big tower frames that looked like lanky robots marching off to fight.

  A pair of dark green helicopters flew over low, headed toward the central city, staying clear of the power lines. The second chopper had its cargo door open. Sig saw a soldier sitting there manning a big pivot-mounted machine gun, staring down at him through a mirrored helmet visor.

  The dog was right on his heel now. Maybe it could tell Sig was looking for food. Maybe it thought Sig already had food.

  Sig walked east, looking for landmarks, trying to intuit his way. At one point the path was blocked by a new section of fence, but the dog showed him a spot where the chain link had been pushed through along the bottom by animals, drifters, or kids, and he was able to squeeze under.

  They came out onto a flat old road that ran along the edge of an industrial bayou. They followed the overgrown edge of the road, past piles of demolition debris and abandoned shipping containers marked with the stencils of faraway lands.

  Sig heard more helicopters and wondered if they were circling back around.

  A big green truck approached from down the road, rumbling on the wobbly waterlogged pavement.

  There was a bombed-out old house off to the right. Sig ran for the shelter. The dog chased after him. They ducked under past the stilts that held the building up above the ground. The staircase was gone but Sig was able to jump and grab the lip of a hole in the floor and pull himself up into the inside.

  The dog looked up at him with a sad, puzzled face.

  He was in an old kitchen. There were newspapers all over the floor. A ratty mattress in the corner cluttered with cheap blankets and a bedsheet printed with some cartoon character. A stove that looked older than the house, with the oven door open and signs of rats inside.

  He looked out through the haze of a broken window and watched the truck bounce on toward its destination.

  Then the building started shaking with the sound of the helicopters coming in close. They chopped up the wind and threw it hard against the rickety wood-frame structure. Sig could see the shadows of giant metal bumblebees passing across the floor through the holes in the roof. The building throbbed with the premonitory rhythm of imminent machine death.

  The dog was out in the open field in front of the house, barking its brains out at the choppers.

  Sig imagined the gunner looking at him through whatever enhanced feed displayed on the inside of his helmet visor. Seeing Sig as a red ghost against a blue background, and waiting for a good shot.

  He heard an explosion. Far away, but still loud. A faint blast echo washed over the building, mixing with the rotor throbs.

  The choppers pulled away.

  Out the window, Sig could see them flying off toward the west, in the direction of a column of thick black and orange fire rising up over the roofline a mile away.

  Watching the plume, he finally saw the antenna. It was two antennae, one a lot shorter than the other, way north of where he was. He hadn’t gone entirely the wrong way, but close enough.

  He kept moving.

  Sig and the dog were both exhausted by the time they reached the antenna site. There was no sign of Clint. Just a quartet of armed guards at the front gate, a sliding metal slab built into the masonry wall that encircled t
he installation, which took up the entire block. There was no sign, not even a number.

  Sig decided to keep clear of the guards. Across the street from the north wall was an empty lot with more stacks of abandoned shipping containers. The dog found a satisfactory puddle in the dimpled pavement, and Sig found a container with an open door where he could get out of the sun and keep an eye on the main gate from the safety of shadow.

  The main antenna was incredibly tall, supported by long metal guylines. The wall that wrapped around the base was ten feet high, with barbed wire along the top, the exterior surface covered with layers of old posters advertising beer, tobacco, forgotten bands, and failed revolutions.

  Sig planted his butt on the beat-up wood floor of the container, leaned his back up against the cool metal wall, and watched the shadow of the antennae slowly work its way across the street.

  The container smelled like the sea.

  He drifted into a dream of water. The big cold lake of the north, surface like glass, as still in the morning as a block of ice about to form. The loons were there, and the ship from that song Merle used to sing after dinner when he was a kid and they’d all go camping at the protest sites. He remembered the lament of that song, about workingmen losing their lives out in the elements far from home.

  He swam in the dark, and came up on a different shore. He smelled rich fresh food, spices, fruit, and fried meat. He heard festive music with drums and horns. He heard people talking in upbeat voices, doors opening and closing, birds singing in the trees.

  He dreamed he was a raccoon, sneaking around the human city, feasting on the bounty of bottomless dumpsters full of the half-eaten meals from expensive restaurants.

  He heard the dog barking its brains out again.

  78

  The first night on the barge they had a party.

  They told Tania she had to come.

  They made a pig for dinner. Beer and bourbon flowed, releasing stories about big machines, fierce rivers, the broken people of battle zones, the dangers lurking in the earth, and the sort of women who cavorted with men like these.

  After dinner the party moved outside onto the forecastle, and the fights began.

  The first fight was between the captain’s little dog and three big rats, inside a wooden box. It was a close one. The sound the rats made, in fighting and in dying, stuck with Tania.

  The next fight was between two pipefitters. They were friends. Colleagues, at least. She had seen them together at dinner. They took off their shirts and revealed their tattoos, arcane annotations of the hard, wandering lives of combat-ready wage laborers. The taller one had a buzz cut and robot bulldog on his breast. The shorter, harder one had a kind of mullet and a big letter Z on his shoulder.

  Another of their colleagues explained that Bulldog had borrowed Z’s pocket music player in the field, and when it was returned, it no longer functioned.

  We have our own way of settling stuff, said the colleague.

  Z threw the first punch, and they were quickly on the deck, ringed in by the crowd of others, who threw beer and spit and expletives on the fighters.

  Tania had never heard sounds like the slaps, blows, and grunts of two big men fighting up close like that.

  Then Bulldog was on his feet, with a knife. A weird-looking knife, DIY. Foot-long, single-edged, fat at the back, and tapered into a spiky point. Held like a sword, or a meat chopper.

  Z produced his own knife, smaller, a folder.

  The crowd of rowdies got rowdier.

  Captain Herman stepped in and bellowed, like he was going to stop them, then quickly dodged Bulldog’s swinging rebuff and backed out. Wise move—it was like stepping between two trucks about to crash.

  Tania could see every move, but she couldn’t follow all the motions—no one could. These guys were so fast, and so practiced. It was beautiful, in a sick way, like a savage dance.

  It couldn’t have lasted a minute, though it seemed a half hour. Bulldog faked like he was going for Z’s head, then changed directions as he stepped in, aiming a big chop at the left side.

  Z parried with a downward stroke. Tania swore she saw sparks. Then he swung his arm around into a weird backhanded slash at Bulldog’s jugular. Bulldog deflected it, but instead drove the point to where it peeled off a big slice of his salty scalp.

  That’s when Herman and the others grabbed the guys and stopped the fight, just as the pair had broken each other’s guards and were ready to kill.

  It turned into scrum for a minute, and Tania was ready to run, but then Herman fired off his pistol in lieu of a whistle.

  The colleague who told Tania the scoop earlier called the fight for Z, and they made Bulldog pay out a hundred bucks in reload chits.

  Later, as they sat drinking beer, Tania caught the captain and two of the Choctaw managers talking and staring at her from the other side of the deck.

  The thing Tania always hated about parties on boats was you could never leave when you wanted.

  79

  Sig opened his eyes. A figure stood framed by the hatch and backlit by the afternoon sun. The dog was behind her, hollering as she ignored it and walked on by.

  “Hey, buddy.” A woman’s voice. “You need to come with me.”

  She stepped into the container. Blond, thirties, athletic build, dressed for the office.

  Sig shushed the dog.

  “I’m Paula,” said the woman. “From across the street. Nice nap?”

  There were two men with guns standing behind her. They weren’t the guys from before, the skunk hunters. They looked more corporate.

  “My client says he knows you. Wants to have you over. And your buddy the armorer is here, too. Just showed up twenty minutes ago.”

  Sig stood slowly, sizing up the trio.

  “Relax, bud,” said one of the gunmen. “You’re cool. Boss is having a party. Come on.”

  “Nice dog,” said Paula. She squatted down and ran her hand over the mutt’s crazy cranium. She made a weird smile. She looked up at Sig.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Now I recognize you! You’re that guy.”

  Sig grumbled.

  “Come on, I’ve seen your clips! On the network. It’s totally you. What are you doing here? Come on.”

  Sig followed them, hoping there would be food.

  The guards were still there but the front gate was open now. There were a bunch of cars parked along the street, and more lined up to pull inside, clearing security one by one.

  The guards waved Paula and Sig through. The dog followed them in.

  Inside, they were indeed having a party. There was music, food, and a bunch of people standing around chatting and drinking under the shadow of the antennae. There were a dozen cars parked just inside the fence, expensive cars—big English Rovers, German luxury jeeps, and tricked-out shiny Detroit pickups. Clint’s beat-up VW truck was there, too, kind of off by itself.

  Sig looked for Clint but didn’t see him.

  The setup looked even bigger than Sig had imagined from the outside. Like a secret ranch, out of time, here in the middle of the half-ruined port city.

  The base of the antennae was on a pad next to a two-story house of painted cinder block. Flat roof, walls faded to fungus, windows filled with old fog. There was a weathered sign by the door.

  X-WFL

  CHANNEL 13

  There was an old camping trailer parked on the side of the station.

  Back behind that was a metal prefab building, almost as tall, that looked like it ran to the back wall.

  The weirdest thing was the big crater in front of the buildings, right there inside the gate. It was full of water, and on one side they had dumped a truckload of sand. Some beach. The partiers were clustered around there.

  The crowd was a weird mix of suits and street fighters, including a few street fighters in suits. Bullets and bling. Cowboys and insurgents. And lawyers. Even the suits were carrying. There were women dressed for urban combat and young dudes not much older than Sig
holding the keys to all those exotic cars. There was a guy going around taking pictures, and another one with a video camera, like it was some kind of fashion shoot from the end of the world.

  There was a DJ over by the house playing upbeat music, not far from the table full of food they were grilling on the steps. And there was Clint, looking stressed and worn out, talking to one of the suits. Sig was wondering who the hell would wear a necktie in a place like this, when the guy turned and looked at Sig.

  The guy was bald, with sunglasses, a mustache, and a cigarette dangling from the same hand as the glass he raised to Sig. Then he said something to Clint, and Clint looked over shaking his head.

  “That’s Walker,” said Paula. “The boss. Come on, you look thirsty.”

  “Hungry,” said Sig. “What is this?”

  Paula handed Sig a beer from the cooler. “Kind of a combination meeting and celebration,” she said. “Those guys can fill you in. Grab a burger if you want, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Sig was washing down the last bite with a swig of his second beer when Clint walked up with a bottle of his own tucked under his stump.

  “Where the hell did you go?” he asked.

  “Swam,” said Sig.

  “I figured those fuckers popped you. Guess the nephew was right about you.”

  “Any word?”

  “On him? No. Waiting to talk to the man about Xelina.”

  “So this guy is your investor?”

  “Yeah. He’s out of Houston, or was. Into all kinds of weird shit. Calls it investing in the future. Talks a lot, but mostly delivers. Says he knows you?”

  “I don’t know him,” said Sig.

  “Uh huh,” said Clint. “Come on, help me unload.”

  They pulled Clint’s truck around back to the Barn. The Barn was an armory, but it was still loud with the noise of generators and big fabricators running jobs. There were rows of vehicles on the floor, a small aircraft, and racks of light artillery under production. The fabbers were along the far wall—laser cutters, water jets, and 3-D printers, all cranking. There was an open mezzanine packed with computer workstations. There was just one guy working up there, in a black T-shirt and glasses, watching jobs on three monitors. The rest were at the party.