by Nick Cole
A thundering, cobblestone-clapping monster roaring at me and I’m going to…
… step out of the way is what I’m going to do.
Crossbow bolts fly down from the tops of the walls, and a figure, a rider hidden behind the warhorse’s heaving neck until now, rises up. The guards from up the street are shooting too. Shooting at the horse and rider. Suddenly the air is filled with whistling death. Bolts are just appearing in the dirt at my feet, or flying past my head, or smashing into the brittle barn wood with thunderclap snaps of cracking ancient weatherworn boards.
And as the fear-driven beast thunders past, that figure on the horse rises up and laughs at the world.
He’s wearing black leather.
Like something out of a Mad Max movie.
And how do I know that? How do I know what a Mad Max movie is?
I just do.
His laugh is like the staccato bray of a donkey. There’s a sneer on his face. A sneer rolling across fat lips that twists half of his face into a grimace. Spiky blond hair barely moves even though the black mane of the horse ripples in the wind of its passage, undulating like tendrils of drowned sea grass underneath the armor of a dark and unknown ocean.
And then horse and rider are past me without comment, and a crossbow bolt buries itself in the barn door not inches from my head.
In that swift passing, the rider turns and fixes me with a stern gaze. There’s no laughter. Blue eyes consume me and twinkle mischievously before that twisted sneer whiplashes into a devil-may-care smile.
Then he’s gone, and horse and rider turn at the bottom of the lane heading for the main gate. Guards in chain armor, crossbows at port arms, come clattering down the street after them. But they’ll never catch that horse.
Or that rider. I’m sure of that.
Up the street I see the freckle-faced girl who carried an armload of firewood and wished me a good morning. Now she lies like a clump of unwanted rags in the middle of the street between the walls of this place. The chopped wood has been scattered out and away from her unmoving corpse.
A large man pushes past the gathering crowd, crying out, “Becca! My Beccs! No, please…” And then he’s running toward the prone figure, the girl with the smile. The horse and rider must have ridden her down in their mad flight for the gate.
A chubby guard with a kind and oafish face approaches me. He’s breathing heavily.
He stops to catch his breath, and I see he’s not all oaf. There’s an intelligence there behind his eyes. The oaf is just what he looks like. As though central casting needed such an actor to play such a part. As though anatomy truly is destiny.
“We’re in it now, sire!” he gasps.
I step from the shadows of the barn, one hand still on the wrapped hilt of the blade. I can feel a quiet confident power there, and it comforts me. It dispels the mad terror of the dark horse and the whiplash smile of the man on its back. As though those things are of no concern to the truth of the blade.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“That,” gasps the guard and rises up straight, adjusting his sword belt over a broad belly. “Why that was William Alucard. Priest of Chaos. He was our prisoner here in the keep on the borderlands.”
* * *
She’s gently shaking me hours later. The beautiful superhero Latina with the mysterious cat eyes just above a glass of cold orange juice offered out to me. The best I’d ever taste. I was sure of it.
“We’re here,” she whispers softly.
“Already…” I manage. My lips are numb because my face has been pressing against my seat. I was deep down there in the Land of Nod. Wherever that is. And I can’t remember the dream. And maybe I wasn’t even dreaming at all. Maybe I was just so tired I was out. Almost dead.
Her broad beautiful lips pout. As though she’s sad our time must come to an end. “Sí.”
“Where?” I ask, because I honestly cannot remember where I was going. Where I’m supposed to be arriving next. I’ve been “going” a lot of places lately. I’ve lost track before. It happens.
“Los Angeles,” she reminds me.
I thought I was going to Calistan. I tell her this.
“Ah…” Her eyes widen. Then, “Lo siento, señor. Calistan is currently a no-fly zone. Plus their airport was blown up by terrorists last week. The captain says we’ll be landing at LAX, and I’m sure you can take a car south into Calistan. It’s only an hour away.”
She hands me the orange juice and I sit up to drink it. It’s refreshing. I’m awake though I feel hung over, not just from the many, many mojitos I guzzled the night before in Havana, but from the games. From my life playing games for money.
I need one solid day of being not PerfectQuestion. One real day.
I need a couch. Hash browns and eggs. I make the best hash browns. And a jazz playlist. Maybe the latest Road Warrior movie. Then a long walk in some park. And a book in bed. Early. Dark beyond the windows kept at bay by the soft glow of a lamp. None of all the other stuff that’s been my life for the last nine months.
Just life. Life and nothing more.
I’m hoping for a moment to catch my breath. Somewhere in the next few days there’s got to be such a moment.
Super Latina says goodbye at the cabin door, and the wind catches a piece of her caramel-colored hair and brushes it across her forehead. She smiles. Waves. Pushes the hair back into place. And I know I’m missing out on something. Something right in a world that’s losing meaning.
Irv, my new agent, meets me inside the uber-plush private terminal. He’s an old Chinese guy dressed in a bad suit. He’s been burnt by years of sun exposure but his teeth and what’s left of his hair are perfect. He’s smoking a big cigar.
“Hey!” he erupts. “How ya doin, kid!”
He sounds like a native New Yorker. The ones that still live down in Lower New York beneath the massive arches of Upper New York.
LA’s got arches too. Massive curving bows that soar over the old city and barrios and the poor on the ground. Beautiful curving skyscrapers where the rich and the elite live. Gentle giant arcs of grace and beauty. I guess LA’s that kind of place too.
I shake his hand. We’ve never actually met. And he’s really only been my agent since about midnight. I figured I needed representation after the clip of me winning went viral on ScreamChat. Last time I checked it had over one billion hits. Endorsements got crazy, so some WarWorld exec hooked me up with Irv for representation.
“Car’s this way. You hungry, kid?”
I’m always hungry and I tell him that.
“Good. We’ll get short rib tacos in K Town and head south. It’s a long drive and the border is tight. Mexicans and all.”
I don’t know much about what’s going on here. I always figured it was dangerous. I mean LA is synonymous with crime, gangs, and private celebrity security. And when we get into his late-model Porsche Terminator, I notice the ancient nickel-plated .44 Magnum he keeps on the door.
“So… Mexicans?” I prompt a few minutes later as we hit the 110 toll highway doing close to a hundred. There’s an old highway below us and it’s jammed with every kind of vehicle. It seems like it’s in a state of perpetual gridlock. But on this private tollway above it all, we’re flying like there’s no tomorrow.
“Guns are illegal in Los Angeles,” Irv says when he notices me staring at the massive hand cannon. “But I deal with a lot of celebrities, so… when you’re on the right side of things in California you get special perks not everybody else has access to. Know what I mean, kid?” He indicates the traffic jam below. He’s shouting because we have the top down. We’re doing a hundred and thirty now, crossing under one of the arches that straddle the old city of Los Angeles, heading toward a cluster of massive skyscrapers that rise up to connect with the arches that intersect over downtown.
He shifts into sixth and I don’t even want to look at the speedometer. Everything is a blur. Including the other high-performance sports cars we’re passing like they�
�re standing still.
Chapter Six
We’re having marinated Korean short rib meat that’s been stuffed into a flour tortilla which has been charred over mesquite wood. House-made sriracha and a kimchi plate with mint and Thai basil stand watch over the rest. Hipsters and the LA elite have stuffed themselves into the small tables all around us. Everyone seems grateful to be here. As though they’ve finally arrived at the place where all good things are ultimately handed out to the if-not deserving, then connected crowd. The line of other hipsters and elites we passed on the way in, as we walked straight to the front of said line, was half a mile long. No joke.
“That’s El Lay, kid,” said Irv when we landed at the host stand in front of the tiny restaurant. “And so’s this…”
The guy at the host stand smiled and showed us straight to this tiny table near the open-grill oven. The scent of high-end wood smoke made the two Thai margaritas we polished off before our smoking meat was set out taste even better. We are like ancient Viking warlords. Or rich corporate raiders. Or that rarest of all creatures… the man with connections that transcend the monetary enough to get him a table at the latest hip eatery.
In LA that seems to be akin to some kind of royalty.
“Yeah, Mexicans,” says Irv through a more than generous bite of his Kung Pao burrito. He looks skyward as he chews. “I used to be an actor,” he says, as though suddenly inspired by the sensation of tastes. “Was on a big show before the Meltdown. Captain Dare.” He looks at me like I should know the reference. I don’t.
“Who cares.” He sighs and takes another gusty bite. “Old news is old news. Anyway… when I was an actor you could never eat like this. Best thing that ever happened to me out of the Meltdown is that I got to eat food again. This… this is heaven. Am I right?” His already bulging eyes somehow grow impossibly wider, beckoning me to acknowledge the nirvana of taste we are experiencing.
It’s good food.
“Yeah, anyway… Mexicans,” he continues after another bite of the spicy grilled meat inside the charred tortilla. He pauses to dip it in a venomously hot Thai chile chimichurri. “Well… they hate everybody down there. But the people they hate the most are the muzzies down in Orange County. Whoops—I always forget—I mean the Caliphate. Calistan now.” He rolls his eyes and takes another angry bite of his generous burrito. “It used to be called Orange County back in the day. Good times then. Was a pretty nice place, truth be told. Anyway… it’s an Islamic state now, as you well know. Went that way after the Meltdown and all. So… you’re either part of the royal family down there, or you’re poor. And if you’re a Mexican then you’re poor and pissed off.
“Anyway, they’ve been agitating lately. You don’t hear that on the news. But they have. They’d like to send ’em all back to Allah, or wherever it is they think they get their seventy-two virgins. Oy vey! Can you imagine that?” says the Chinese guy who talks like a Brooklyn Jew eating Korean short rib burritos in the power lunch spot of the moment somewhere in downtown LA.
He continues.
“So I’ll get you to Checkpoint Charlie down in Long Beach. The fruit bats that run what used to be California and is now, this week, called Pacifica, call it the Brotherhood Bridge. It’s in Belmont Shore south of Long Beach, and the Shah’s men will be waiting. Trust me… you’ll be totally safe. They have armored convoys and state-of-the-art guns. Lots of ’em. It’s how they stay in power down there. That and all that oil California could never bring itself to drill up back before the Meltdown. Things were pretty crazy then too, believe me. But none of that’s important for your gig. I’m sure you’ll be in a compound behind the line down there somewhere so… it’s really actually quite safe. Trust me. Everybody complains about the third world, but I’ve never had a problem.”
When someone tells you to trust them, you shouldn’t. It’s a rule I’ve learned a few times. So there’s that.
“The line?”
“Yeah. The old 405 freeway is their wall down there inside Calistan. It separates the super-rich Muslim families from the super-poor everyone else. Don’t worry, the Mexicans won’t get through that. It’s mined and there’re machine gun towers every hundred yards. The Gold Coast, which is the side you’ll be on, now that’s paradise. Trust me. You gonna eat that?”
He looks at the other half of my plate.
I am.
But I let him have it. He’s making me five million in gold. And for some reason, machine gun towers and mined freeways make me lose my appetite.
“So this is safe?”
He mumbles something as he chews. I think he said, “Mostly.”
“Mr. Wong…”
He looks up like a guilty child. He’s a nice guy, I can tell. He’s probably lived through a lot. My parents did too. They lived through the Meltdown. Never talked about it. Never talked about the bad times for the five years that followed. They just wanted to dance and have fun. In the end they were right. Who knows how much time anyone has left.
“Kid… it’s as safe as the rest of the world. You know that. You’ve been out there. You’ve been in some stuff. Or so I heard. I’ll be honest…” He puts down my burrito and looks around. “It’s a nightmare down there. They’re crazy. Seriously. But!” He holds up a sun-spotted crooked finger. “They take care of their toys. And you… you’re a toy, PerfectQuestion. You pick up a win for them and they’ll probably top off that bonus with something crazy-crass like a gold-plated vintage AK-47 with a diamond on the forward sight. They’ll engrave it with your name and call you…” he waves his hand in the air as he imitates a stereotypical Muslim, “my friend for life.”
I’ve seen them on TV.
He stares down at the burrito for a long moment, and he looks suddenly sad. Like he’s thinking about other times. Other friends.
Then he picks up the burrito again and says, “But you… you’ll be safe. I’ll tell you that straight, kid. It’s crazy and probably a little dangerous. But there’re big bucks and I know you can handle this. You’re PerfectQuestion. You’re a killer, kid.”
He smiles and finishes most of the rest of my burrito in one epic bite.
Chapter Seven
We make the border a few hours later. It’s a low crawl through all the southbound traffic, and the closer we get, the more security drones I see in the air. Plus lots of tactical choppers. The kind I occasionally shoot down in games. But these are real and loaded for bear.
Ahead, the massive border at Belmont Shore looms. It’s a giant wall. As in Great Wall of China–style wall. On this side, the only side I can see, it’s covered with graffiti. All the way to the top. And yeah, there are machine gun nests and towers with spotters up there.
It’s that moment. That moment when the money isn’t worth your life. And you should just walk away from the thing you’ve committed to do. That’s what the voice inside your head is telling you.
I think Irv senses me hearing it.
He downshifts and looks over at me as we come to a halt in the long line of cars struggling to go south into Calistan. Apparently Hollywood actor contacts don’t get you through this particular line any faster than trucks loaded with chickens and doe-eyed Mexican children. It seems everyone wants into Calistan, no matter how bad it is. As if beyond that wall is some fantastically green lawn that will make them finally happy.
“Listen, kid,” says Irv. “You’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on you, okay? If it gets hot… you don’t like something… I promise I’ll get you right out. You got my number. Okay?”
I smile. My mouth is dry.
Five million in gold.
Life-changing money.
But why do I want to change my life? Other than the fact that I don’t have one. So, in my case… I’d have to get a life first. Then I could change it.
“I’m good,” I croak. But both of us know I’m not. And why do I feel like a real James Bond more than when I was driving the James Bond movie product placement in the last moments of the Super Bowl? Or maybe not
Bond himself, but some kind of real-world less-glamorous spy crossing a border where the rules change with the wind. I’m probably just hung over. The latest Bond movie was all over Havana. Its marketing is like a virus inside my hard drive. All I need is some sleep and I’m sure the feeling will defrag.
“Okay,” Irv grumbles, gripping the old leather-wrapped steering wheel with both hands and staring straight ahead. “Here we go then.”
We approach the checkpoint. Guards glare at Irv like they want to murder him on the spot. All of them are Persian, or Arab, or whatever they are that made them Middle Eastern once. Muslim I guess. And all of them look roided out to combat-gorilla levels. They need to be; they’re wearing a ton of gear. Each one has a heavy automatic rifle across his back. AK-2000s. The fifty-caliber kind. If it goes down, they’re ready to make lots of big holes in everyone and everything. Never mind the accuracy.
Irv smiles and nods politely like we’re going through a car wash. Even bows a little while sitting in the seat of his Porsche. I think his English suddenly gets worse as they ask questions. Maybe that helps somehow when you’re crossing hostile foreign borders. A moment later, we’re waved through and watched with sullen contempt as we pass.
Beyond the high, almost ancient-world grandeur of the arched border gates, we enter a vast courtyard where trucks and limos wait. Streams of people are crossing on foot through roped lanes and watched by more guards with little pity and lots of contempt. Irv maneuvers through halting traffic, tapping his horn, indicating he wants to head toward a particular limo, an old-school one. Not one of the hovers you get in most cities. This one is heavy-duty though. An SUV. Armored. And very long.
It occurs to me that it’s easier to take out a hover limo with an RPG than it is to kill a ground vehicle built like a tank. A high-end tank at that.
“There’s our contact,” Irv murmurs. He beeps the Porsche’s horn twice to get us through a stream of heedless foot traffic headed back into Pacifica.
