. A few minutes of
relative quiet might pass between one squall and the next, but then it will start
pouring, many times hailing. It goes on for a spell, maybe ten minutes, maybe
half an hour, then quiets down as the storm, racing overhead like the sky in one
of those old video games, takes another deep breath in preparation for another
go.
He’d been through
half a dozen to this point and was quickly approaching fed up. He glanced up in
the middle of hail that made the forest sound like it was ablaze and pressed
Shirley on. She nickered in protest and trotted onto the trail, which,
thankfully, hadn’t yet become completely muddy. Some of it was cracked patches
of old asphalt. He made for them when they appeared, spurring her to hurry up.
Lightning. Directly
above. He pushed the rim of his hat back just as thunder cracked and boomed.
From what he could tell, the flash was white. He’d have to keep an eye out.
That was the
trouble with squalls. The real
trouble.
Shirley was
concerned as well. She gave another, stronger nicker as she gained a bit of
asphalt.
“Good girl,” he
said, leaning forward and giving her neck a quick pat and rub. “Good girl.”
Another flash.
Definitely white.
Which was good.
Because the worst thing that white lightning could do was kill you.
The trail thinned as it clung to the mountainside. To the immediate
left it ended abruptly, falling in an unseeable sheer face a hundred feet to
the black and swollen Rogue River. Its voluminous
roar complemented the rain’s soft sizzle. This wasn’t a squall, merely another
inhalation. Drizzle with no wind. The wind would come later and announce itself
many seconds before it arrived as it roared up the valley. He was used to the
routine.
The brim of his hat
dripped, but the hat was great at keeping his head dry. So too his clothes,
which he had been smart enough to grab from General 2202 before hopping
through. A real hassle, that. Many times you didn’t get to haul anything through. But he’d sandwiched
the blastic bag between himself and Shirley’s saddle and dug his spurs in
before the frickin’ ball dissolved. She’d whinnied, scared (she hated those
damn things), and rushed forward like someone trying to get something over with
before their brains tried stopping them. Violà!
the bag got through too.
Good duds, these.
They looked and felt like normal clothes, from his time, but were woven with
some sort of wiz-bang threads that shed rain and dried within minutes. Moisture
never got to his skin.
Ahead was a small rock
slide, just big enough to be tricky getting around. As he drew near he noticed
that someone already had gotten through it—a car. Three-wheeled.
He glanced up ahead
at the trail, then behind. Besides Shirley’s hooftracks, there were no others.
It was as if the car had materialized right there, on top of the slide, or had
caused it. Ahead of the debris pile, three distinct parallel tire tracks led on
towards Agness. Towards the General.
“Yeah, okay,” he
grumbled. “Nice trick, fellas.”
He gave Shirley a
pat. “It looks like we’ve got no choice, girl. Don’t worry. They’ll have laid
traps there, not here. C’mon …”
He spurred her
gently. Like the intrepid beast she was, she obeyed instantly, high-stepping
through the pile.
Yep. No traps.
Which definitely meant they were waiting to spring them on him up at the
General, or held him in such contempt that they didn’t care about his presence
one way or the other. They were gonna try to kill him and there wasn’t a damn
thing he could do about it.
“I thought this
storm came a little quick,” he groused, listening to the wind as it roared up
the valley. He was in for another squall yet, maybe two, before he got to the
General.
“Two … two … two
miles. Two squalls, two miles. One way or another, at the end of it we’ll be
dry … or dead. Probably both.”
The General came into sight around the bend. He didn’t
attempt to hide. There was no point in hiding. They’d probably been tracking him
all the way here. It would be foolish to assume otherwise.
No sign of the car.
It was probably cloaked.
Rain—this time
straight down and heavy. He could barely see the big, faded white letters
spelling AGNESS on the sign over the store.
Tommy was inside,
judging by the soft yellow glow showing through the front windows. She’d pulled
the drapes … or they had.
Shirley approached
slowly. She was such a good animal, so well versed with this crap, that she
probably knew exactly what was coming. Even her footfalls seemed quieter. He
pulled back on the reins, halting her. Rain pounded down.
Lightning—the pink
variety. Too far away to be dangerous. Too far away to be helpful. He wondered where the ball was, if it was accessible. He might
need it sooner than later.
“Crap. Crap, crap,
crap. Crap with Hollandaise sauce.”
Another flash. Not
pink.
Thunder rumbled
through the meadow.
He spurred Shirley on.
He tied her up at the post fronting the old flagpost thirty
feet from the porch. The rain had eased up a little. “The corral is too far
away, and I need you here. Sorry, girl. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
He normally loved
the feeling tying Shirley to this post gave him. He had done it a jillion times
now. It felt like coming home.
Not this time.
He made for the
covered porch, kicking mud off his boots as he mounted the stairs.
The front door was
closed. That wasn’t odd. It was, after all, raining like goddamn Noah. What was odd were the muddy tracks on the
porch shaped like small shoeprints, and the big glob of mud on the handle of
the screen door. Both looked fresh. The smear mark was from a hand the same
approximate size of Tommy’s, who would never allow mud on the porch, let alone
the door, and wouldn’t even serve those who treated her place so poorly.
Yep. Contempt.
He grabbed the
handle and pulled it open. He reached for the smeared doorknob, twisted it, and
pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Tommy stood behind
the counter. Behind her, with an electric gun to her neck, was a one, bright
white and pathetic pink. Sitting at a table in front of the glass display
cabinet were three others, electric guns pointed at him.
“Boys,” he said calmly, slowly holding up his hands after
closing the door. He glanced at the one menacing Tommy. “I take that
personally, friend. She isn’t part of this. Let her go and we can talk.”
“To what end?” it demanded.
Its voice was a mix of electronic and real. Its skin seemed whiter than normal,
and was partially translucent. The weapon it held to Tommy’s neck could easily kill
him at this distance.
The left one at the
table waved its gun at him.
“We are not boys. Do
you have it?” Its voice was higher than the one behind Tommy. He guessed that
at one time she might have been thought a female.
He thought he might
dissimulate, then vetoed it. They probably had internals on him. He wasn’t
about to give them additional excuses for mayhem—or murder.
He glanced at
Tommy, then the one holding the piece to her neck.
“I told you,
friend, I take that personally. Let her go and I’ll give you what you want.”
“Probability?” the middle
one at the table demanded. Its voice was considerably deeper and more menacing.
The left one’s face
went blank for a moment. “Indeterminate.”
“In which direction?”
“No direction. The
computation is perfect to twelve decimal places.”
“What can I say,
boys?” he said. “Oh—” he glanced at the left one—“and girls.”
The left one’s face
colored to a mild pink. “You will refrain from assigning a sex to us.” The
electronics in her—its—voice made her—its—anger sound silly.
He shook his head.
“Sex? Sex? I didn’t get what you muttered, sorry.”
“A ploy,” said the
right one. “Eighty percent. Shoot the female.”
“If you do that,”
he spoke up, glancing over his shoulder at the one assaulting Tommy, who looked
as terrified as he’d ever seen her, “you’ll walk away from here empty-handed,
and you’ll never get it. That I promise.”
Lightning flashed.
Pink. Close by. The windows of the General rattled.
“That’s not good,”
he said. “Sooner or later that lightning’s gonna get you. If you kill her what
you came for is as good as ash, and to hell with you. In fact, if you don’t
release her this instant, you can just wait for that pink zigzag shit for all I
care.”
“Probability?”
demanded the one holding the weapon to Tommy’s throat.
“One hundred
percent,” said the left one. “The primitive is speaking the truth.”
“Primitive?” he chortled. He grabbed the
lapels of his coat, which were already almost dry, and pulled them out,
released them. “I’ll have you know these duds are just as modern as the
nanobots lifting your bony butt cheeks. Well, give or take eleven hundred years
...”
His hat was dry. He
pushed the rim of it back.
“Enough of this
nonsense,” the middle one barked. It looked at the one behind Tommy. “Release
her. Join us.”
The one behind
Tommy gave her a contemptuous push and came around the counter, weapon trained
on him.
He glanced at her.
“Get in back and cover up. That pink is just as dangerous—”
She nodded before
he finished and scurried into the back kitchen, falling into a corner chair and
pulling a shiny, thick silver blanket over her herself.
He gazed at the
ones, who were seated together and facing him. The one who had come around the
counter sat with its comrades.
“Aren’t you boys a
sight?” he grumbled disdainfully, shaking his head.
Lightning. White.
Thunder. Almost
immediate.
“They alternate
like that when it’s getting close,” he said before they could respond, gazing
up at the ceiling. “You little boys are in some serious danger …”
“ENOUGH!” shrieked the
leftmost. The sound was thoroughly unpleasant, like an electronic voicebox
being tortured. She—it—thrust her weapon at him. “The Catalyzer. NOW!”
He stared, then
shrugged and pulled out a small, thin rectangular box from his coat pocket. “Got
it right here. No need to get huffy …”
“Place it on the
table and step back,” growled Tommy’s assailant, motioning with its weapon.
He did as told.
The leftmost one stared at the box, then took
it and inspected it. The box had an intricate blue design on it, one that
seemed to fascinate them.
“What is this?” it finally
demanded. “Where is the Catalyzer?”
“It’s in your wiry
little fist! Open it and see for yourself!”
“If he so much as
takes another step in any direction, terminate him.”
He snorted. “A bit
cliché, don’t you think? ‘Terminate’?”
It didn’t respond.
It stared at the box, as did the others. They seemed quite reluctant to open
it. He glanced around.
Where were the
traps? He should’ve been snagged in a force field the instant he handed the box
over, or been reduced to ash by a disruptor beam.
Ah.
They couldn’t get
one through! The ball they jumped into wasn’t large enough, or they came through it too late, or the damn storm was naturally spawned
and therefore was a surprise, and they had to hurry before it dissipated. The
pink lightning still wasn’t all that close, which meant these bozos had come
through just ahead of him, no more, say, than an hour or two, tops.
He snorted.
“What is so funny?”
demanded the middle-right one.
He motioned at
them. “Look at you! You’re terrified of a stupid Catalyzer! Go on, open it
already!”
“Why can’t our
sensors confirm its existence?” the one next to it demanded.
“How the hell
should I know? Open the damn thing up already! I’m hungry and you skinny zits
need to get gone!”
The leftmost opened
the box after several more seconds of staring angrily at him. It pulled the top
open after putting the gun down, shaking the contents to get them out.
The playing cards
came out in a single bunch. When they struck the table they spread and fell on
the floor. The ones, surprised, all tried to get away by hurriedly pushing
their seats back.
“What is this?” the
middle-left one demanded. Two trained weapons on him while the other two gawked
at the cards.
He chuckled. “Haven’t
you bozos seen a pack of playing cards before?”
“Where’s the Catalyzer?
Where?”
“It’s in there!” he yelled, pointing. “It’s
called the jack of hearts. Go on, look for it!”
“It is supposed to
be small and rectangular!” one shrieked.
“It is!” he laughed. “Here—”
He grabbed a chair
at the table to his right and swung it around and sat. “It really chaps my ass
that you idiot-bots are a possible branch of humanity.” He reached for the few
cards remaining on the table. The ones did not attempt to stop him. “Not that
my branch is any great shakes … You mind?”
He pointed at a one
and motioned at the cards on the floor. It glanced down at them, then back up
at him.
“C’mon, friend, I
don’t have all day!”
“We are not your friends, Paul Hewson.”
“No, you’re not. I’m
not friends with piles of alternate-reality crap. You! Get those cards up here
already!”
The ones eventually
did as told. He snatched them impatiently away when they handed them over. They
were in a mess, so he faced them and shuffled them. The ones watched,
suspicious and fascinated.
“Ain’t you lugs
ever played a goddamn card game before?”
None of them
answered.
“The jack of hearts
is the Catalyzer. Tell you what. The first one to draw it wins. If I draw it, I
keep it, and you fatuous farts leave with no trouble. If you draw it, you keep
it, even though it’s not yours, it’s mine, and you four are just squingy little
dick parasites. Deal?”
They stared at one
another, then engaged in an animated conversation of Computer. It sounded like
a jumbled bunch of beeps, burps, zzzzzz
noises, and soft whirring. When it concluded, the leftmost one glared at him.
“We have no time
for this,” she (it!) hissed. “If you do not hand over the Catalyzer this
instant, we will kill you and torture the girl!”
“No you won’t,” he
shot back. His temper was slipping.
“You will. You have
informed us that the ‘jack of hearts’ in these plastic-covered paper rectangles
is the Catalyzer. We have them. We need merely have you identify it and we will
leave.”
“The Catalyzer will
identify itself once it’s drawn. Those sensors or whatever passes for your
nerves will detect it.”
“We are not
interested in games,” the one on the right said. “You are attempting to trick
us.”
He shrugged. “So I
am. Don’t you zits come out of the test tube with genius IQs? I’m a nobody hick
who doesn’t even know his IQ. I
wasn’t predesigned! My mother and father were human mutts—no preprogramming, no
nanotech, no gene selection, nothing! This should be simple for you! C’mon!
Where’s your spirit of adventure? Oh, that’s right. You don’t have spirits.”
When they only
stared, he shook his head. “It just doesn’t compute
with you digital numbnuts, does it? Look—” he took the cards and fanned them
while they gawked—“there are fifty-two cards in a deck. There are four of you,
one of me. Do the damn math!”
This they did,
going into a long-winded breakdown of probabilities, including a statistical
analysis that even ended up including the storm outside, which was becoming
fierce, and his own history, which they knew some of, and Tommy’s as well,
which they knew almost nothing of. He understood only the occasional word or
two; much of it was in Computer.
“The Catalyzer—this
‘jack of hearts’—will identify itself once picked?”
“That’s what I
said,” he grumbled.
“If we pick it, you
and the female live,” the left one declared. “If you pick it, you die and the
female suffers while we take pleasure watching her. Those are our terms. They
are final and nonnegotiable.”
“Shuffle the cards,
skeeziks,” he growled. White lightning flashed and the thunder boomed
instantly. Shirley whinnied.
“Get on with it!”
he yelled, staring at the one with the cards.
“Randomize them,”
said the one next to it.
He watched as they tried
shuffling the cards. They finally settled on a soft shuffle that did little to
the order.
They set the pack
down. The leftmost one picked up a card: the jack of spades.
“What is this one?”
it demanded.
Lightning flashed.
Pink. Not too far away. He could hear Tommy whimper from the back kitchen.
“It’s the jack of spades,” he snapped.
“May we assume the
jack of hearts is similar to this one?”
“Assume all you
want. You’re already an ass.”
“What?”
“Just draw a goddamn
card!”
The next one drew:
three of hearts.
The next drew: six
of diamonds.
The rightmost drew:
ten of hearts.
It was his turn.
He reached for the
deck and lifted the top card and without looking at it tossed it face-up on the
table.
The jack of hearts.
The ones drew their
weapons, pointed them at him, and fired.
Nothing happened.
As one, they stared
at the barrels of their weapons and then tried firing again, then again.
“One more time,
boys n’ girls!” he shouted, leaning back with a grin and adjusting his brim.
“Maybe you’ll get lucky a third time!”
That’s exactly what
they did. The leftmost one, furious, kept its finger on the trigger, thrusting
the gun at him like it would do something useful.
It did.
A glowing see-through
man coalesced into being behind them. It looked just like a life-sized hologram.
The ones gaped.
“It’s active!” a middle one shouted,
standing and staring at it as it backed away. “It’s active! We must escape!”
They stood and went
to run at the same time the jack of hearts tossed an object in his direction. It
solidified in mid-air. He caught it and pulled back the hammer and fired once,
twice. The bullets tore into the floor at their feet, abruptly halting their
progress.
“You don’t want one
of these primitive lead projectiles in your genetically perfect brain-pans
burstin’ with those genius IQs, so I suggest you stop!”
Lightning just
outside. Pink. Shirley whinnied again. He felt sorry for her, and was concerned
for her safety. There would be a pink ball close by. Maybe on the goddamn road
for once—?
The leftmost one
shrieked in girlish rage and came at him, useless electrical gun raised—
He caught her out
the corner of his eye. Without turning his head he pointed and fired at her
left knee.
She fell sprawling,
her deafening shrieks instantly transmuted to agony. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Hurts like a … well, like a you,
doesn’t it?”
He waved the barrel
at the rest, who stared with horror at their fallen accomplice. “It’s time for
you to go.” He motioned impatiently at the one on the floor. “Take the shrew
with you.”
Its blood, though
red, was streaked with orange and glittered oddly. Its nanotech probably wasn’t
used to lead bullets, certainly not in a kneecap, and so wasn’t healing
properly.
One of them picked
the shrieker up as more lightning flashed. White this time. Right on top of
them.
“You know what
happens if white lightning hits a pink ball, don’t you?” he demanded as they
hurried for the door. He followed closely behind. They didn’t answer.
They opened the
door. He gazed over their shoulders.
A pink ball glowed
large and ominous across the road.
“There’s your transportation,
boys!” he called. “Move!” He thrust
the muzzle into the nearest one’s back.
“Without the Catalyzer,
we cannot control where we—”
He fired over their
heads. They cowered as hard-driving rain spattered them. Shirley whinnied when
she spied him.
Two of the ones
linked arms. One swept an arm out to the one carrying its injured companion.
They scurried across the road and hesitated a few feet away from the ball.
“Oh hell no!” he shouted, following, and
fired again. They gawked.
“One by one,” he ordered.
“But—!” the injured
one protested. “But we may not end up—”
He fired again.
Its companion
jumped backwards, enough for the pink light to “snatch” it and its burden. Both
gaped at him in horror, then faded out of existence. The others had jumped to
the edge of the ball, and that was enough.
He waved his weapon
at the next one. “You’re next—”
—FLASH!—
Blinding, close, white,
and deafening. He was suddenly in mid-air and then bouncing hard on his ass.
Ozone up his nose,
in his brain, burning his lungs. Ones were screeching. They sounded far off, like
a distant car crash in progress. Abruptly, the screeching stopped.
He blinked his eyes
open, coughing uncontrollably. The afterimage of the strike was branded there,
forked and deadly, just feet away.
“Shit!” he shouted
between hacks.
White lightning had
struck the goddamn pink ball!
“Shit! Shit! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”
He tried getting to
his feet, but it was too late. The pink ball, expanding angrily, swallowed him
up.
Chapter Two
