by David Gullen
President Snarlow pushed between them. ‘I can do it. I’d be great.’
Husqvarna and Gordano exchanged a worried look.
‘Guinevere, I’m sure you would, but don’t you feel a little tired?’ Husqvarna said.
‘I’m absolutely fine.’ Guinevere flourished a large hip flask, took a deep swig and wiped her mouth. Lipstick smeared across her cheek. ‘I want to do it. I’m the President so I can do whatever I want.’
Husqvarna snapped his fingers. ‘Makeup!’
A few minutes later Gordano and Guinevere knelt at the edge of the vegetable patch on green vinyl weeding mats. Facing them, Husqvarna stood beside his camera ready to pan and zoom through rows of beans, lettuce and sweet-corn.
‘Three, two, one, and action,’ Husqvarna said.
Gordano grinned cheesily at the camera, ‘Guinevere, you know this is actually fun. I haven’t done this since I was a kid.’
Guinevere dug her hands into the earth. ‘I’ve always enjoyed getting dirty on my hands and knees.’
Inwardly Gordano groaned in despair. She was going to ruin this, it was going to go out across the nation, across the world, and it would be a disaster. Somehow he would get the blame and once again he would be the stupid Vice President, the laughing stock.
On the other side of the tomatoes Husqvarna twirled his finger – keep going.
Gordano pressed on. ‘Fresh vegetables are a great source of vitamins and they taste good too.’
Behind him came the sound of sniggers and muffled laughter. Gordano saw three or four of the road crew had retrieved their cameras and were surreptitiously filming Guinevere’s backside.
‘Give me that.’ Gordano seized the wrist of a heavily tattooed man and prised the small camera from his grip.
‘Hey,’ the roadie objected. ‘Be careful with that.’
‘You were warned not to do this,’ Gordano told him. ‘You’re in deep trouble.’
The roadie laughed in Gordano’s face. ‘Not as deep as the President.’
Gordano pressed ‘Play.’ Guinevere’s rump filled the screen, her short, pleated skirt barely covered her full and shapely buttocks. A gust of wind lifted the hem and Gordano nearly dropped the camera. Today it seemed Guinevere wore no knickers. Unable to stop watching Gordano saw her look round, blow a kiss to the camera and shamelessly wiggle her backside.
‘Cut! Stop filming now. Oh dear God, cut!’ Gordano’s hand spasmed and the camera crumpled. Metal, circuitry, plastic and glass shattering in his grip. He flung the wreckage aside.
Still on her knees Guinevere groped for her flask, lost her balance and rolled onto her back. Her skirt rode up to her waist to reveal her shaven pudenda.
All around them mobile devices were filming, streaming data into the air, the massive bandwidth of his house meant near-realtime uploads. Only Husqvarna was not filming. Then Gordano noticed that he too surreptitiously held a small device in his palm. They were completely and utterly screwed.
‘You stupid, foolish woman,’ Gordano shrieked. ‘What’ve you done?’
Guinevere looked down at herself and giggled. ‘I’ve been a naughty girl and shown the boys my front bottom.’
Appalled, Gordano hauled her to her feet. This was the woman he had sworn to serve, the person he had chosen to dedicate his career to. ‘I used to admire you, Guinevere, but this? You’re not fit to lead this country.’
Crestfallen, Snarlow sagged against him. ‘You’re right. I never wanted to be President. Now my alcohol-fuelled nymphomania is impossible to control. Oscar, I resign in your favour. You take over, show the world how a real man does the job. Just promise me this: let me be your lowliest intern. Let me see how a man of genuine courage and real integrity leads our nation to glory.’ She slid down onto her knees, her head on his hip, her mouth close to his groin. ‘I’ll blow you every day, I’ll worship you and be your bitch, I’ll take it in the dirt-box. Let me serve the nation by serving you however I can, no matter how degrading. Oscar, you can do whatever you want.’
Husqvarna filmed with the main rig. Roadies, drivers and sound engineers stood at a respectful distance and politely applauded. ‘We’re right behind you, Mr Gordano. We only voted for her because you were her running partner.’
This is unreal, Gordano thought. It also felt right, the way things ought to be. Finally he was being recognised as the leader he truly was.
A telephone rang. Guinevere dug around in her bag and extracted her mobile. ‘I’ve resigned,’ she slurred and passed the handset to Gordano.
‘Yes?’
‘This is Andriewiscz.’ The general’s voice was clogged with emotion. ‘We’ve won.’
‘Well done, general.’
‘Congratulations to you too, Mr President. If you still want me on your staff I’d be honoured.’
‘Of course. And General, I’m authorising immediate release of all military back pay with a twenty percent bonus for all combat troops.’
‘That’s fantastic news, sir. I can guarantee the total loyalty of the armed forces.’
As soon as Gordano broke the connection the phone rang again.
‘This is Ahmed Hirsch, President of the European Union.’ Hirsch’s heavily-accented English sounded timorous, ‘First, let me offer my sincere congratulations, Mr President.’
‘What do you want, Hirsch?’
‘Your decisiveness is intimidating. There is little point confronting a man of your calibre so we are prepared to return to Free Market economics and accept American goods without tariffs.’
‘I demand reparations,’ Gordano heard himself saying.
‘Agreed. How does one hundred quadrillion Euros sound?’
Gordano didn’t know there was that much money in the world. As if he was reading his mind Hirsch said, ‘Palfinger Crane has been our stooge for years. His wealth is but a tiny fraction of what we can put at your disposal.’
Text and voice messages flowed in from all over the world: congratulations, pleas for American leadership and promises of friendship. Pride swelled Gordano’s chest, he had showed them all, every single one. All it had taken was a few decisive words and a bold attitude and in just a few minutes the world was a better place. America was saved. With immense satisfaction Gordano watched two FBI agents cuff a crestfallen Guinevere Snarlow.
‘Where shall we take her, sir?’
‘Lock her to the radiator in my basement,’ Gordano said.
‘Thank you,’ Snarlow grovelled pathetically. ‘Just give me a doggie bowl to eat from.’
The agents saluted and led her away.
Gordano grinned at the film crew. ‘That went pretty well.’
‘Hell, yeah,’ the crew agreed.
‘Absolutely, Mr Gordano’
‘You showed them, sir.’
The circle of men and women fell silent. It seemed they breathed in and out together, and swayed gently from side to side. It was uncanny.
A figure in a rust orange sweater and brown slacks approached from the house. With calm detachment Gordano recognised it as himself.
‘Hi there,’ said the new Oscar Gordano. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘What’s going on? I don’t understand,’ the original Gordano said.
‘I’ve run your free-form fantasy as far as I can, now I need direction. Do you want to take the camera girl thing further, or go with Snarlow?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am your Meeja console. 2.0.1.3 at your service.’
Gordano sat in his office. His hands trembled as he removed the headset and turned off the console. For a while he looked into nowhere. Contradictory feelings of disappointment and relief vied with the sense of empowerment from the simulation. He laughed ruefully and shook his head. It had been too good to be true but what an incredible piece of fakery that machine was. Once again Guinevere was right and he was out of the loop. Even so… His hand strayed back to the console.
Then he started out of his chair. Husqvarna would be going insane. Gordano lo
oked at his watch and stared in disbelief. Less than two minutes had passed by.
– BREAKING NEWS – BREAKING NEWS – BREAKING NEWS –
Snarlow deploys National Guard in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, and Vermont.
‘I am no longer prepared to tolerate the continued territorial infringements by armed militias in the north-east,’ said President Snarlow. ‘We have a duty to protect our citizens and their possessions from harm.’
Secretary of State Cheswold Lobotnov dismissed criticism that federalising the State Militias was unconstitutional. ‘Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 of the Constitution permits the President to call upon the Militia to suppress Insurrection and repel invasion. That’s what she’s doing.’
In a separate statement, Vice President Oscar Gordano called for vigilance along the border and described Canada as a ‘terrorist state run by eco-gangsters’.
Canadian government sources described the accusations as ‘beyond belief’ and ‘incomprehensible’.
– Slobodan Jones, KUWjones.org
- 35 -
They were an hour out of Winnemucca, cutting north-west on State 140. Masters had the car on full manual, driving very fast, relaxed and confident as she steered the vehicle through the local freight and inter-state bulktrans.
She swung out to overtake a pair of body-and-six road-trains, nose to tail. ‘This Manalito is a real pain in the ass. If he’d been dumb enough to fly we’d have him by now.’
Oncoming traffic flashed their lights, Masters accelerated hard, the turbo kicked in and they surged forwards. The cheerful pastel geometries of domestic logos sped by, the distance to the oncoming traffic shrank at an alarming rate.
Wilson tensed, swore under his breath, his right leg instinctively pushed down into the passenger foot well.
Master pulled in. Horns blaring, oncoming traffic hurtled past. She looked at Wilson dispassionately. ‘I don’t get off on backing down.’
‘Toilet paper. You nearly got us killed overtaking five hundred cubic metres of ass-wipe.’
‘You panicked,’ Master bared her teeth, ‘I had one point three seconds clear air.’
They drove into an emptier landscape. Active billboards scanned the vehicle, passenger ID requests were rebuffed by the vehicle’s firewall and the hoardings fell back to default adverts.
‘Guns, talent contests and peanut jelly. What kind of lives do these people live?’ Wilson said.
‘American ones,’ Masters said. ‘This is what it’s all about.’
She was serious; she had been brought up to believe these were important choices. More real than avenging the death of a loved one.
‘So you guys don’t like high-end technology.’ Wilson said. ‘What about your FaF guns? They’re pretty damned smart.’
‘Smart but not bright.’ Masters concentrated on the open road. ‘We like kit that does what it’s told. Field tech should be push-button clever, it shouldn’t make decisions on your behalf. That’s what gets you lit up. It especially shouldn’t rely on outsourced infrastructure.’
‘The FedMesh?’
‘Exactly. The Feds made some bad choices, saturated themselves with bleeding-edge cloud tech and got burned to the bone. The Mesh is totally compromised but they’ve got to use it because there’s nothing else and they can’t afford to set up again from scratch.’
‘Just another dirty web.’
‘It’s more of a meta-Cloud.’ Masters frowned then trilled with laughter. ‘It occurs to me that maybe it was a smart move after all. The Feds’ original infrastructure no longer exists, it was overrun by bot-nets and effectively dead in the first week.’ She slapped the wheel and laughed, short and hard. ‘I love that idea. They set it up, waited for it to get hacked, spoofed, and cloned, then took the original one away. All they needed was kit on short rental and now the perps are actually running the system for the Feds, for free.’
‘I got about half of that,’ Wilson said. ‘You make me feel old.’
Master’s mouth twitched with amusement. ‘That’s so cute. Have we got a father-daughter thing going on here?’
Wilson looked down at his paunch. ‘It’s a feeling obsolescent and bypassed thing.’
‘You’ve got some relevant skills. It’s why you’re here.’
‘That so?’
‘Sure.’
Wilson looked at her profile, her dark lashes and grey eyes, the clear line where the top of her upper lip met her philtrum. Her skin was pale and perfect, as if she’d stayed out of the sun or worked underground. She had probably never worn makeup in her life.
‘What’s your first name?’ he said.
Masters took her eyes off the road. She looked disconcerted, puzzled. ‘Do you really want me to call you Jerry?’
Out in the middle of nowhere they passed an enormous mall. Brand new, it dwarfed the stadium church beside it. Logos fifty feet high shone across a vast and near-empty parking lot, the gigantically enlarged faces of this month’s celebrities gazed down on the flawless tarmac, sliding travellators and rows of new-planted trees.
Five miles further on was Bog Hot Reservoir, a one-road strip town of bleached-out storefronts, yellow-eyed dogs and no children. Toxic scrubland stretched east, blighted tussock grass and ragworts grew and died beside rust stained pools in a wasteland of rotting brickwork and corroded machinery.
The smart money trackers pinged.
Masters swore, broadsided the car to a halt and pressed her hand to her earpiece. The car sat in the middle of the potholed road. Hot metal ticked. Nothing stirred.
‘What is it?’ Wilson said.
‘We just passed Manalito.’ Masters unclipped her seat belt slammed the car into gear and accelerated back the way they had come. ‘They were in the damned mall.’
A mile from the mall Masters slowed down and cruised into the parking lot at a legal twenty. A few cars dotted the acres of clean tarmac: abandoned break-downs, joy-ride burnouts and stolen commercials. Most of the white and yellow bay markings were unblemished by tyre marks.
A neat line of modest cars huddled against the mall walls beside the loading bays and staff doors, the compact electrics and D.I.Y. hybrids of low-income workers.
A sparse scatter of customer vehicles had parked in front of the huge revolving doors leading to the air-conditioned interior of the gigantic mall. Masters drove past the saloons, 4WD pick-ups and smoked-glass SUVs and parked fifty yards to the right of the main entrance.
‘Manalito’s inside, we’ll take him when he comes out, before he reaches his vehicle,’ Masters said as she got out of the car. She opened up the back, dragged out one of the cases and opened it to reveal a triangular-barrelled pistol similar to her own.
‘This fires .22 low-V sedative darts of d-rotated curare. It puts them down but doesn’t stop the diaphragm. Head shot’s a killer, anywhere else and they’re Jell-O in two seconds.’ Sliding the bolt, Masters flipped the gun round and presented it to Wilson. ‘Think you can handle this?’
As Wilson took hold of the bulky gun his pulse began to race. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘Sure.’
Masters looked him in the eye, Wilson looked steadily back. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘My weapon has smart munitions, yours does not. Mine keys to the optic nerve, yours does not. It’s just a gun that fires bullets.’
Wilson was both disappointed and relieved. ‘Right.’
‘It’s a bloody good gun.’
And then Wilson saw Manalito exit from the mall. The big man was dressed in tan knee boots, denim jeans and a red check shirt. Loose black hair hung past his collar, he carried a green holdall over his shoulder, another in his hand.
‘Jeez, he’s big,’ Wilson said. He started forwards, Masters’ hand brought him up short.
‘Hold here,’ she said. ‘Stay out of sight, back me up if I need it.’
Then she was gone, walking smartly towards Manalito along the service pavement beside the wall of the mall.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ Masters waved her
left hand high in the air. ‘Excuse me, is that your car?’
Manalito hesitated, taken in by her grey trouser suit and brusque, business-like walk. Then he shook his head and walked away.
‘Hold it!’ Masters pulled her gun and fired twice, not bothering to aim. The bullets leaped up, spat white fire and buzzed towards Manalito like hornets.
Manalito dropped his bags, snatched a heavy knife from his boot and threw.
The bullets swung down and slapped into Manalito’s chest.
Masters swayed to one side, the knife flashed past her shoulder and skittered across the tarmac.
Manalito staggered, pulled another knife, took a single drunken step and crumpled to the ground.
Morgan and Black exited from the mall and stared at Manalito’s sprawled form. They drew their own guns and broke for cover among the vehicles. Masters fired four more times. The bullets arced away, darted around the parked vehicles and struck the running men.
Masters stood over the paralysed Manalito. He watched her with cold and murderous eyes.
‘You are disappeared,’ she told him. ‘You have no rights. The only way to avoid capital interrogation is to sing like a fucking canary.’
Masters holstered her gun, rolled Manalito onto his stomach and cuffed his wrists and ankles.
As she did so, Wilson saw the rear doors of one of the SUVs kick open and two people run out. ‘Masters! Incoming,’ Wilson yelled.
Masters snatched out her gun. A man appeared in front of her, hands raised. ‘Don’t shoot me,’ he said. ‘Please.’
He was tall, slim, athletic, with bleach-blond hair. Crouched behind his car Wilson gaped in astonishment. It was Gould. Mitchell Gould stateside, out of his lair in the southern literal. Wilson found his hand was shaking. He braced his arm on the car’s hood and took aim. Before he could fire, a lightly built Asian woman walked behind Masters and emptied her gun into Master’s back.
Changing aim, Wilson fired at the woman. His bullets zoomed away on flat trajectories, impacting on the car behind her. The woman rolled behind a red compact and returned fire. Gould picked up Masters’ gun and fired at Wilson. The bullet slapped harmlessly against the windscreen. Gould frowned, made an adjustment on the gun and fired again.