"No-penetration piece of shit." He tossed the gun out the window.
"Boss," Porkchop shouted, "whatever they're haulin's too hard to get. Let's score something easy."
"Good idea."
Two Wyck cut speed behind the now-toothless rig, and drew up on the red van he'd chosen before. It was pulling a cargo pod on a small trailer. As the pickup came parallel, lining up for a good shot, Kyler caught a glimpse of the family inside. Two parents, two kids, and a dog. The father hunched over the wheel, focused on his driving, while the white-faced mother wrestled a SMG into firing position. The children watched with dull eyes.
"Sayonara, suckers," Two Wyck said.
Enough. Kyler reached over, grabbed the steering wheel, and yanked.
At one hundred thirty kilometers per hour, the pickup spun into a roll. It corkscrewed off the freeway like some nightmare amusement ride. Kyler had taken the precaution earlier of buckling into his four-point harness. Two Wyck hadn't. He smacked against the roof. Against the dash. The pickup lost inertia and went sliding sideways, flipped over. Dust enveloped the cracked windows.
Kyler hung upside down like a bat. Beside him, Two Wyck groaned. Blood poured from his cut scalp, adding fresh red to the makeup mess. He managed to cock his head towards Kyler. "You'll never … never get into the militia now …"
Kyler popped the harness. He dropped down and managed to land on his shoulder. An ammo box lay to one side; he grabbed it up and slammed it against Two Wyck's head with all his strength. The driver slumped. Dead or unconscious, Kyler didn't care.
He got the door open. Dust still swirled. One of Porkchop's thick legs stuck out from beneath the truck bed. He must've held on instead of being thrown. Kyler hunkered down and took a quick look at the mangled body underneath.
The dune buggy with the mortar appeared through the haze. It braked and three people got out; two men in desert camo, leading a short woman bound at the wrists. Kyler's breath caught.
It was Fischer. Dusty, with a bruise along her jaw, but still vertical.
One of the men pointed a machine pistol at Kyler. "What the fuck happened to Two Wyck's rig? And who the fuck are you?"
Think fast. "Ah, a convert? Two Wyck was going to take me to meet Father Dirac, at the rally tonight."
"So what happened?"
"He lost control of his pickup."
The man shook his head. "Bullshit. Two Wyck's one of our best drivers."
"I'm afraid he might be dead. Porkchop is for sure."
The dust had settled. Porkchop's errant leg stuck out for everyone to see. Kyler felt like he'd been caught at a crime scene. He glanced at Fischer, who gave him a slow wink.
"I'm in no mood for games right now," said the man with the pistol, "so we'll—"
Fischer swept his ankle. He went down face first into the sand, and she stomped his wrist. Crack. The second man reached to unshoulder his rifle. Her little foot found his groin, chambered back, and snap-kicked him under the chin. He toppled. Somehow she'd kept her balance the whole time.
Kyler rushed over. "He's got my flechette in his right pocket," she said, nodding towards the first man. Kyler dug the gun out and put a narco round apiece in both their backs. Paralytic toxins did the rest.
"If I'd known aikido was that effective," he said, "I would've spent more time in practice."
She managed a grin. "Tae Kwon Do, actually. Works better when you're bound."
"I've got just the thing for that." Kyler returned to the truck and took the trench knife from Porkchop's bloodied hip. The serrated blade made short work of Fischer's bindings.
"Now what?" she said.
He surveyed the highway. The convoy, with its attendant predators, was long gone. Only the smell of cordite and diesel remained. "Tell me what happened to you."
"Same thing that happened to you, it looks like. Dirac must've screwed with the Zygma projector. I appeared in the middle of the desert and wandered until these two morons grabbed me."
"Did you see any sign of Damon?"
"Nope, but if you and I found each other this quick he shouldn't be far."
A comforting thought. "The two guys I was with called Dirac 'Father.' I get the impression he's set up some sort of cult here."
"Which means we didn't appear hot on his heels."
"No. The projector sent us to the right place, but the wrong time. I'd guess Dirac's been here for months, at least." He nodded towards the dune buggy. "Let's take that and go looking for Damon. The idiot who captured me mentioned a rally tonight, where Dirac's supposed to appear. We can look for that, too."
"Sounds like a plan."
He took the machine pistol from the prone man's broken grip. Come to think of it, his desert fatigues might come in handy, too. Kyler's own Continuity uniform would stick out in a crowd.
"Ah, do you mind?" he said, loosening the buttons on his coveralls.
Fischer snorted as she turned around. "Don't worry, slim. I wasn't planning on watching."
* * *
They took the buggy over rolling hills, past the remnants of subdivisions given to sand. Stucco mansions in neat rows. They were behemoths by twenty-third century standards, and still intact. While Kyler drove, Fischer found an ample supply of bottled water and beef jerky between the seats. The jerky came in bright commercial packaging; it wasn't homemade.
"What the hell happened here?" she said, chewing. "I thought this was supposed to be the apocalypse."
"Pre-apocalypse, remember? North America hasn't collapsed yet." He turned onto a residential road. "Not completely, anyway. And what happened here is drought."
"So why are all these nuts shooting people like its Armageddon?"
"Because they want to. The survivalists of this period got tired of waiting for End Times. Plus, there's no public law enforcement left to stop them."
Fischer shook her head. "Anarchy."
"'Freedom,' the way they see it."
He slowed. Another walled subdivision was coming up on the left, but this one looked inhabited. There were metal gates and gun emplacements. Waning afternoon sun glinted off the panels of a greenhouse, tucked inside. A banner stretched across the wall read:
WARNING! PROTECTED BY THE RANCHO VISTA H.O.A. THIS MEANS YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!
A bullet kicked up sand two meters in front of them. Kyler waved to the unseen sniper and turned the buggy around.
* * *
No sign of Damon.
They drove until the fuel gauge crept towards empty. Kyler tried to avoid other vehicles, but as the sun slipped behind the horizon he spotted a line of cars and trucks threading around a small mountain, making for a concrete ring in the distance.
"I bet that's your rally," Fischer said.
"If Dirac's there, Damon might be, too. Anyways, this could be the only chance to nab our rogue."
He drove to the rear of the line. The vehicle in front was a flatbed truck hauling about a dozen scruffy men and women. They wore plastic shin guards and shoulder pads, their heads covered by hooded green jerseys. Some had a chrome emblem with archaic lettering on chains around their necks. They glared venom at Kyler and Fischer, but made no move to jump down from the truck.
"I don't think they like us," Fischer said.
"A rival militia group. Probably the 'Elko Preppers' my associates were going on about." He fished the cross symbol out of his pocket and showed it to her. "This is some kind of cult object, based on antique vehicles."
Fischer smirked. "You sound like an anthropologist."
"Not a lot of call for that in the field."
The line moved at a good pace. A little farther down, a battered sign read: LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY. Vehicles were being waved off the road to park in rows along the hard-packed sand. Kyler followed suit. A man in a brown monk's habit directed them towards a second line of foot traffic. They filed through a gate, where another monk was taking guns and exchanging them for tickets. The weapons were tagged and placed in a fortified trailer, presumably to be returned
later. No one seemed happy about the exchange. Kyler gave up his gun, but Fischer, saying nothing about the flechette in her boot, passed through a metal detector without it going off.
Inside, a massive crowd milled around an equally massive racetrack. Roaring engines competed with the hoarse voices of vendors, hawking bottled beer, bags of popcorn, and something called 'survival dogs'—rat carcasses roasted over a propane fire. On closer inspection, Kyler saw the 'rats' were actually made from pressed turkey. Or so a sign assured him. He felt no urge to verify.
Sodium lights flickered to life above. Fischer grabbed Kyler by the hand and shoved through the crowd. They reached a chain link fence encircling the track, a bowl-shaped depression with all the action going on in the center. Only two vehicles remained among a jumble of smoking wrecks, and they weren't racing. A low slung sedan circled an armored school bus painted hot pink. The sedan snapped off bursts from hood-mounted machineguns as it caught angles on the less agile bus.
Somebody nudged Kyler. "Hey pal, you need to take a leak?"
He turned to see a bald man carrying a clear plastic tank slung over his back. A hose with a broad funnel at one end connected to the tank, already full of frothy urine.
"It's for the Piss of Shame," the man said, by way of explanation. "Should be coming up real soon."
"He'll pass, thank you," Fischer said.
"Suit yourself." The man handed Kyler a sweating bottle of beer. "You look like you need one of these, son. On the house." He hurried off.
Despite himself, Kyler took a long pull.
In the arena, the pink bus was fighting back. A tongue of flame lanced from an open window and engulfed the sedan's cab as it roared past. Napalm licked away paint and primer. Blinded, the sedan struck a charred pickup, caromed off like a billiard ball, and ran headlong into the sloping side of the arena. Fans nearby shrieked approval as they bolted for cover. The resulting explosion rained hot metal into the crowd.
A tow rig came out to clear away the wreckage, while the bus spun victory doughnuts. At the far end of the track, a pair of giant digital screens flickered to life. Dirac's face peered out at the multitudes. He'd grown a full beard, and his eyes had changed from glazed to stone-crazy. At sight of him the whole raceway drew a collective breath. The bus stopped spinning.
Dirac's voice rumbled out over PA speakers.
"Far back in America's past, when the Cult of the Car was still young, Eddie Olson and Tyrone Baker raced Ford and Chevy for the first time."
Cheers from the crowd. Dirac spoke with a passion he'd never shown as a reclusive R and D tech.
"Their holy rivalry continues to this day. In these End Times, as our diseased society shudders closer to its death rattle, we enact the rites of old, not by racing, but through purifying combat."
"Yeah," someone catcalled nearby. "So get back to the combat, already."
"We want 'splosions!"
Dirac continued: "Tonight, the drivers of the Clark County Militia square off against their longtime foes, the Elko Preppers. Chevy versus Ford. So far, Elko's Pink Flambeaux has prevailed, but the final match is yet to come. And the prize …"
The rightmost screen changed view, showing a hand held shot of a small pickup. Ooh's and ahh's echoed through the crowd. A collective licking of lips. The camera zoomed in on various features as Dirac spoke. "A low pro custom mini from '22. Yes, that's purple neon on the rims. It's got Alpine full-surround, and those testicles hanging from the hitch are thirty-two ounces of pure Sterling. Will a bowtie or a Ford go on the hood? It's still up for grabs."
"But that's not the best part, ladies and gentlemen." The screen changed again, filling with a shot of a large metal statue high in the grandstands. Strangely, the statue depicted a boy with a large head of spiky hair. He'd pulled his shorts down in preparation to urinate. His penis, Kyler noted with confusion, was a spigot.
"Tonight, the Piss of Shame will not rain down on Ford or Chevy emblem alone. No. Tonight we're mixing concentrated battery acid in with the collection. Enough to melt the skin off our lovely human sacrifices, captured fresh from the wastelands this afternoon."
The screen zoomed down to show a dark-haired woman in a leather dress, manacled to a slab. Two cowled figures in monks' habits hovered over her. The screen panned left to show a similarly manacled male wearing leather briefs. Kyler recognized him even before the camera caught his bearded face.
"Holy shit," Fischer said.
"Which way will the burning Piss of Shame fall?" boomed Dirac. "Will it be Elko, and the woman? Or Clark County and the man? Ford or Chevy. Fate has yet to decide."
"It'll be neither," Kyler said.
Fischer pursed her lips, surveying the half mile of crowd stretching between them and the grandstands. "How're we getting up there?"
"We start moving, now. There might still be time."
On the giant screen, Dirac's face grew florid and spittle flew as he introduced Hung Low, the reigning Clark County champion, a black truck with tires so monstrously huge the cab rode four meters high. A long, spiked shaft protruded from beneath the chassis. A battering ram? But Kyler had to focus his attention on the crowd, slipping between bodies.
They worked their way closer to the grandstands. At midpoint Kyler stopped cold and grabbed Fischer to do likewise. His nape tingled a warning. He sensed more than saw the man staring at him from several meters away.
Two Wyck Ed gnawed a faux rat, the left side of his head bandaged. Next to him stood the badly sunburned driver of the mortar buggy.
"Move." Kyler gave Fischer a shove.
But Two Wyck was pointing now, shouting "traitor." Heads turned. Half the crowd were Clark County Militia, and they'd be swarming in seconds. Kyler turned to the closest Elko Prepper, a bearded man in a green jersey, and smacked his half-full beer against his forehead. The Prepper went careening into a Militia member.
"Free for all!" Fischer shouted. She grabbed another Prepper and hip-threw him at the charging Two Wyck. Both men went down in a tussle.
Kyler dove beneath a pair of legs and scooted behind a popcorn stand. Fischer joined him seconds later. The spectators' adrenalin, already on edge from the arena fighting, found expression as brawling erupted.
"Good move," Fischer said. "But how're we going to get through this mess now?"
Kyler pointed at the fence surrounding the track. "Climb. There's no crowd in the arena. When we get closer to the grandstands we can climb back over."
"But the cars—"
He didn't wait for her approval. All he could think of was battery acid eating his uncle's face. He reached the chain link and started scrambling up it. People shouted, but most attention was elsewhere. A thrown bottle missed his head. He got to the top, scrambled over, and started down the other side. Fischer followed, agile as a monkey.
They leapt down onto asphalt. Forty meters away, pink bus and black monster truck were circling. The bus trundled near.
"Run," Fischer said.
They raced along the edge of the track. The bus swiped past, a pink blur with faces pressed against the windows. Napalm's burnt-grease smell filled Kyler's nostrils.
They ran on, heedless. The grandstands loomed close. There was a nearby shriek of metal on metal; Hung Low had crashed into the bus from behind and rolled up partly over it, mounting it like an animal. The battering ram swung back. Pistons hissed, slamming the spiked tip through pink metal.
Fischer ignored the crowd's feral howls. "I can see the statue over there. We're close."
They clambered back over the fence. Brawling between Elko and Clark County had yet to reach the crowd here, who were too enthralled by the bus-fucking to pay much attention as Kyler and Fischer leapt down. They shoved their way up to the grandstands, past better-dressed spectators in designer camo suits.
"How do we get to the statue?" Kyler said.
"Dunno. I don't see … wait."
Kyler spotted it too, set back among the bleachers. A door marked STAFF ONLY, flanked by two cowled figu
res. The platform with the statue was directly above. Both monks clutched short carbines with bell-shaped barrels.
"Screamers," Kyler said. "Dirac must've brought those back with him. Great for crowd control."
"I brought something back, too." Fischer slipped the pistol out of her boot.
"Wait."
The monks seemed engrossed as everyone else, but the cowls hiding their faces made it difficult to tell. Below, in the arena, the Pink Flambeaux had finally brought a flamethrower to bear. Orange-white brilliance arced from a rear window and melted one of Hung Low's oversized tires.
"Now," Kyler said.
Fischer fired from the hip. On full auto, a stream of tranq darts struck the first monk, his body already slumping as she walked the burst into the second. Crowd noises swallowed the pistol's hum.
Kyler snatched a screamer from nerveless fingers, shouldered the door, and pulled Fischer through without looking to see who might've noticed. He threw the door's bolt behind them. They hunkered in a narrow stairwell leading up.
Fischer motioned. Together, they crept on either side of the stairs, their backs to the walls. Fischer burst out left and Kyler took right.
They'd emerged onto a railed platform overlooking the stands. At the center stood the giant spiky-haired boy, his metal spigot poised within splashing distance of Damon and the dark-haired woman. A trio of monks were hauling buckets up a ladder, where they dumped the foamy contents into a reservoir at the statue's back. A fourth monk holding a submachine gun looked on.
Fischer's pistol swung towards the gunner. Kyler leveled the screamer at the remaining monks and pressed the firing stud.
His teeth shivered in their sockets. A wave of sound knocked over the ladder, dropped the monks and their buckets. Blood spurted from noses and ears. He shut the weapon off before sonic waves shuddered their brains to gel.
Fischer, meanwhile, dropped her man. With no other guards in sight, Kyler rushed to where his uncle lay.
Apocalypse Soon (Kyler Knightly and Damon Cole Book 2) Page 2
