Fables of Failure

by Gregory R. Marshall

  I was done being quiet and taking orders. I was going to ask this pompous fuck every single question I could think of. “You said ‘apprehend.’ I’m supposed to bring him back alive? What if he resists?”

  “One way or another, he needs to be stopped from reaching and joining the Ignobles. You are permitted to use deadly force if necessary.”

  “This man has never been anything but kind to me. He mentored me and literally saved my life several times over. You’re asking me to kill him?”

  “The Dry Men hold dangerous secrets that cannot be compromised. You’ve killed before, and you will kill again if you wish to maintain your good standing in the Order.”

  “How did you place that red dot? How do you know where he is?”

  “It’s common practice to put trackers on the vehicles of Dry Men, especially those who frequently undertake dangerous missions. We would want to help our own if they were kidnapped at gunpoint, or if they were carjacked.” The idea of anyone managing to do either of these things to Mission Creep was ridiculous. They bugged him because they didn’t trust him. They must have worried that he was wavering for a long time.

  “How big of a head start does he have?” If the mission to influence the Gild administration was what set him off, he could have put in days on the road in that fast jingomobile of his.

  “You’ll be pursuing him from the air in a POGO craft, so you will easily catch up.” He passed a suitcase across the table to me, probably hoping that I’d get to work and stop plying him with questions. I flipped it open. It was a treasure chest of gear; pepper spray, clubs, a taser, bullets, a compact tire deflation tripwire. I held up the Opus Magnum.

  “I recognize this piece. It belonged to that plug-headed snuff director on that botched mission. You gave me a job and I didn’t do it. Why are you trusting me now? What do you hope to gain? What am I supposed to get out of it?”

  “You know the target. You’ve been in Mission Creep’s ego. You’ve done your penance and you’re in good standing. As for what you get out of it, that’s up to you. But it’s time to get started.”

  3

  On the Launchpad, I loaded the suitcase into the POGO craft and climbed in. These things were a great deal better than EgoCones in my book. They were spacious and comfortable. I thought that maybe I could scrap the mission and fly this thing someplace remote, start a new life. But this was sloppy thinking. If they were tracking the Creep, they were tracking me too.

  I keyed it up for high-speed autopilot, another beautiful feature of this machine. I hadn’t been in one since I had tried to rig the Provisia World Series. That misadventure had marked the end of my career in journalism, and one could only hope that this chase would not also end in a disaster. The canopy flipped closed, and I punched in some final instructions. I needed high altitude. I had first-hand knowledge of Mission Creep’s arsenal and his skill with fire arms. It was not a day to be shot down.

  After the initial thrust and hurtle of lift-off, the ride became smooth as I cruised over the Trash Junction Superhighway at 39,000 feet. I was making steady progress on the little red dot. I thought about the road below in amazement. Down there was a snaking monstrosity of wrecks, road rage, and mutilation. For many travelers, it would be a blessed day if they only had damaged vehicles and car insurance migraines as their battle scars. It was as good a metaphor for the gaping chasm of wealth and power in Provisia as any. I was so high up they couldn’t even see me. I really had to consider investing in one of these POGO crafts.

  It took only two and a half hours to catch up to Mission Creep. He was pulling off the highway onto a backroad. It was time to strike. I pulled in, dropping altitude for a smooth landing well ahead of the jingomobile. It was a lonely stretch of road, baked and shining in the late afternoon sun. On one side, there was a vast expanse of desolate and dried-out badlands, the kind of uninhabitable stretch that would kill you from heat in the day and cold at night. A breeding ground for mirages. The other side was craggy and uneven desert wilderness; brutal, but more survivable. I finally settled on a stretch of road that was level enough that the Creep wouldn’t be able to see the tire deflation line, especially if he was driving at a good clip. I laid it down and took cover. I drew the Opus Magnum, and crouched in wait.

  A roaring parade of dust and dirt appeared on the horizon, kicked up behind Mission Creep’s ride. I flipped the chamber of my gun open, checking to make sure it was loaded. The jingomobile rushed across the line, hollow spikes embedding themselves in the tires. Someone driving at remotely sane speeds would have just needed new tires, but I watched as the jingomobile spun out and crashed with a crunch on its side.

  I heard a feminine scream and smiled at the thought of blackmailing the Creep with it later. Then I remembered that this was almost certainly the end of the road for the two of us. I was standing at the mouth of an abyss, and with the Creep gone, no one could keep me from falling in. How many friends did I have left? I didn’t seem to see eye to eye with anyone anymore. It didn’t matter how many ‘brothers’ people like Dr. Tower insisted that I had. I felt a further pang of sadness as I looked at the Creep’s wrecked hot rod. Everything was so lonely and such a waste.

  I crept up to the car. With its undercarriage facing me, I could clearly see the tracking unit the Dry Men had planted sitting in the hollow of the driver’s side wheel well. I started pulling myself over the side, and then lurched up the rest of the way, jamming my gun under the jaw of the driver.

  It wasn’t Mission Creep. The kid looked like he was about nineteen or twenty. He was sweating and crying, raising his hands in surrender. His girl was next to him, her blood lacing the star of the side window where her shoulder had smashed into it. I was too impressed to curse. I should have known that he would never make a rookie mistake like letting himself be followed all the way to his destination.

  I helped the two of them out of the totaled car. “Thanks, man.” The kid said. He hadn’t put together that I had made him crash, even as he walked over the line of spent road spikes.

  “I need answers, kid. Time is of the essence. Why were you driving this car? Where did you pick it up?”

  I was hastily bandaging his girl, trying to fish splinters of glass out of her shoulder. “A guy gave it to me about half an hour ago, near exit 42. I picked up Jenna and we went for a ride.”

  I lifted my shades, squeezing the bridge of my nose. “Did you just say that ‘a guy’… ‘gave’ it to you? Who drives around handing out corvettes? Are you…what were…” I gave up. What kind of addled heep was I living among? Was I that stupid when I was his age? It looked like I was heading for a black hole of dumbness, so I changed course. “Look, I can’t stop now and help you. Head north. Find what shade you can. Don’t believe anything that seems too good to be true.” Gods. Time to go.

  4

  I doubled back to exit 42 and hovered for a bit, studying the maps on the monitor. It looked like it was most likely that he had ditched the car with the kid near a sketchy residential park and gone it on foot. Otherwise, he would have had to get another car and started curving his way back up into central Provisia. Was that his intention? I looked at the map again. There was no doubt at all that Mission Creep could last in that wilderness. It was an unforgiving mix of mountains, trees, and desert, but the man was a survivor. What was down there?

  I zoomed out on the map again, trying to get a lay of the land, and then I was struck by how obvious it all was. He was headed for Mutant Mountain. The fabled battle that had taken place there had shaped his political consciousness, his love of soldiering. That was no doubt where he was going to collect his thoughts, to regroup. It would be a fool’s errand to try to track him on foot. He had the upper hand in his head start, his experience covering his tracks, his knowledge of the area. There was one way to do this thing, and that was to try to anticipate his position and meet him there.

  Mutant Mountain is a misnomer. It’s a mountain range, an ugly raised welt dividing Provisia and Burial. Of
ficially, the Burialists live south of the mountains, but legends of fabled bases above the clouds and under the sea persisted among a certain crowd of people at gun shows and pool halls. What was true was that Burialists were still known to make incursions across the mountains, which would always be angrily denounced as ‘invasions’ by hardcore nativists.

  It was not hard to find the fort where a hundred and eighty-eight Provisian nationals died fighting the Burialists in the early days of the Republic. A lonely stone building sat at the foot of one of the mountains, surrounded by the walls of a protective compound. It was a lost cause, a paroxysm of senseless bloodshed, but it did hammer out the border between Provisia and Burial once and for all. I landed the craft near the northeast corner of the compound. It was time to load out what supplies I could and see if I could find him.

  Walking out the front gate, I was startled by an enormous skull sitting at the foot of a hill. Sometimes rock formations will play tricks with the light, and push an otherwise rational mind down a stairwell of childlike terror. This was not such a case, though the skull was made up of gathered rocks. I walked closer to it. Someone had spray painted the rocks with sutures and stitches, an obvious example of Ignoble iconography. A rickety wooden sign below it read “Mutes and Traitors, Tread Not On Us.”

  I shivered. Night was falling and it was getting cold. I was a fool to think that Mission Creep would come here to brood and nostalgically lick his wounds. He was doing what was tactically smart, which is what he always did. He had known that his best bet would be to try to make contact with the Ignoble-connected border militias. They would welcome him, give him safe passage, and help him join up.

  5

  Hours of walking did me no good. My feet ached and a stitch bit into my side. A part of me was relieved that I had found no trace of the Creep anywhere, though I did find more eerie Ignoble markers. I was gagging on the choking shame, realizing that I had totally lost my bearings; I was in enemy territory and I would be hard pressed even to find my way back to my craft.

  I came upon a stretch of road that led to the TJSH. It was dark but I could see the lights and hear the rage and noise from a mile away. Had I gone in a circle? I thought wistfully about trying to hitch a ride. Sometimes things in Provisia came down to a dice roll or a coin flip. You could get where you needed to go or you could be dismembered and buried by a maniac. Perhaps that was what the kid was thinking when he took Mission Creep’s car. Life was short and his desires were long, and he wanted to impress his lady in that hot car, and who really cared where it came from?

  A rattlesnake crossed my boot. I decided that I had better try to double back and find my craft at least. I could radio for help now that I had narrowed down a rough area where he could be hiding.

  When I turned, I was somehow not surprised to see him. He was reclining against a bedraggled ledge of rock. “Ev’nin’, Forres’.”

  I walked closer to him. “How are you, Creep? I haven’t seen you for a while. It’s been tough without you.”

  He chuckled. “Well, when th’ goin’ gets tough…” He smiled. “You hungry, boy? When th’ last time you eaten?” I had to think about that. It had not been a day for regular meals, and the panic of being lost among hostiles at night had crowded out my hunger. Mission Creep produced a miniature loaf of bread. He tore off a chunk and ate it, and tossed the rest to me. I admired the social grace of the motion, the way he could effortlessly prove that the bread wasn’t poison and that there were no hard feelings for my thinking it might be. I started eating. “Les’ go for a walk.”

  We started along, making a shortcut towards the highway. “They say you defected. Is it true?”

  “I love me that. ‘D’fected. Shit, like I’ma broken sprocket. They’s the one’s with a d’fect. Did they go an’ tell you what it was I lifted offa ‘em?” We had found our way onto a high ridge, where we could look down at the clogged artery of the highway and the sad and atomized slums that dotted it. He produced a large vial from his coat, glowing with orange fluid. “Yuh done know wha’ this is, boy?”

  “No. I only know that they’re eager to get it back.”

  He regarded the vial briefly, bathing in the orange glow. “This here’s th’ anti-dote for the flag-a-sucker plague.”

  “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You done met th’ flag-a-suckers before. You wrote your bit about it, Com-mander Choke an’ all.”

  “I made all that shit up to get an article. You’re telling me that there’s really an antidote? Why isn’t it being circulated?”

  He lowered the vial, regarding me from behind his dark glasses. “Dem questions a’gin. They don’t admit there’s an anti-dote ‘cause they made the virus. They want ev’body asleep. The flag-a-suckers just folks that get too big a dose. Maybe they gots a low tol’rance, maybe they lives by a res-voir…” I thought about those bags I had hauled during my penance. I had been a part of this. “Shit, Forres’. Don’t people seem more like zombies to you these days? Th’ Dry Men cain’t be bothered to make folks inta real patriots. They gotta go an use poison. Ah well.”

  He made a motion to hurl the antidote towards the highway. “No! Don’t!” I shouted, before I knew what I was doing. Mission Creep chuckled and tucked the vial back in his pocket, patting it.

  “S’matta, Forres’? Don’t think th’ angels gone catch it? Let’s go onna bit further.” We climbed, reaching a crest of rock where we could look out over a vast panorama of southern Provisia. The violence and clamor of the highway was silent from up here. We looked down at flowing, silent streams of car lights mirroring the stars, a patchwork quilt of farmland. This far removed from the cacophony and stench, it was beautiful.

  “It’s about time fo’ the moment a truth, boy.” He said. “Most Dry Men don’t even make it above third degree. You what now, seventh?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “We know for sure what most folks can’t imagine. That done make us valuable. You best side with me, Forres’. You take my side, we kin rule this here land, and rule it better’n those Dry Men sonsabitches. They’ll jus’ sac-fice you the second it please them. What you say?” I looked out across the land. What did I say? I was no friend to the Dry Men. I hated that they had me by the balls. I hated them, their power, their rituals, their sickness. But the Ignobles were an undiscovered country. They seemed to be men with just as much to prove, if not more. Their way was violent, reactionary, endlessly bitter about past grievances. Both sides were dangerous. I couldn’t chuck one master for another. “We both know what’s gone happen if’n you reach to your back’n pull that there Opie Magnum. I done trained you, boy. I’s beat whole gangs uh Levellers and Panarchists all by my lonesome. Shit, I done Selectman West that day on the grassy knoll. You cain’t beat me in no showdown. So what’s it gon’ be?”

  He must have read the answer on my face. He pushed me, and I clawed at the jagged rock face as I tumbled down the ridge. My hands finally found purchase. “Jes’ let go, Forres’! It’s gone be eas’r if you die quick like a man ‘steada draggin’ this out!” I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but it looked like I had the better position for the time being. The stone stripped the bark from my palms and I struggled to maintain my grip, but Mission Creep had no angle for seeing or shooting. He had made a mistake, and I saw that he must have realized it. I scanned the dim surfaces of the rocks in the moonlight, carefully making my way down hand-over-hand. This would be a dangerous climb in daylight, even with a harness and someone to belay you. Now it was downright suicidal. I fought the panic. Mission Creep had blundered by pushing me and failing to kill me. All he had to do was run down the way we had come up and slap on a pair of night vision goggles, which he was sure to have. He’d down me in one shot, and if I was lucky the last thing I’d ever feel would be my back breaking as I hit the ground.

  I had never faced a fight like this. Somehow a part of me knew that resignation in the face of death was as bad as death itself, so I quieted my mind and kept climbing. I sa
w a yawning gap in the face of the rock twenty feet to my right. Could that be what I thought it was? I made my way towards it, walking the tightrope between the need for speed and the necessity for absolute caution. I had almost made it to the opening, when my hand slipped. I felt electrified with absolute terror. My hands and feet scrambled, trying to regain their grip. I was clinging to the lower lip of the opening. When I pulled my way up and in, my arms were so weak I doubted I could hold my gun up with both hands.

  I breathed relief. I was in a tunnel three quarters of the way up the climb. I figured it must have been put there by Ignobles or Burialists. It looked like I had climbed in through some lookout point. I had to see if I could find my way back to the ground. Hopefully it didn’t branch into some vast and confusing network.

  I ran where I could, crawled where I had to. The tunnels were uneven and treacherous, but impressive for something that must have been dug over years with shovels and pickaxes. Sometimes it branched off into small cells and caves. A few dirty sleeping bags were stretched out in one. I passed one room that was definitely a latrine. It was going to make an already too interesting night even more fascinating if I bumped into any residents on my way down.

  Luck was on my side; I had no company except for rats and roaches. The tunnel finally opened at the ground, the exit obscured by a thorny bush that I had to fight my way through. I had to think. I had drawn my gun without even realizing it. The snaking tunnels had somehow deposited me on the opposite side of the TJSH. I could see the late-night traffic roaring and zooming past about a quarter mile ahead of me. I was beginning to get my bearings. Following the road west was the only thing to do; I was pretty sure that this would put me on my way back towards the fort. If I could get back to my craft, I could level the playing field again. I could radio for help, maybe even hunt the Creep from low altitude and shoot at him from the air.

  A bullet zinged just in front of my knee, shattering the skull of a long dead flaff. I dove for cover behind a boulder. Mission Creep was on the other side of the highway. He rarely missed, so I breathed thanks to the Gods. I scanned the area. A dark, open plane, dotted here and there by boulders and rock formations. Was he using a sniper rifle? This was going to be a turkey shoot. I cycled through my options. Running away wouldn’t work. His piece had good range, and the rock cover just got sparser further back. Well, what then? I couldn’t just stay hiding behind this rock. I decided that my best move was to try to make my way closer to the road. At least that way I’d be able to see him, to shoot back.