Road Rage

by Paul Tomlinson

  “It’s a terrible idea,” Harmony said.

  We were at a crossroads. Literally. We’d stopped the truck and the Trekker at the side of the highway and were stretching our legs and easing our aching backs. Or doing the robot equivalent, which seemed to involve standing still and looking bored. We had to decide which way to go – and I had just suggested taking a shortcut.

  “We’ve lost too much time,” I said. “If we stay on the highway, we’ll never reach New Grimsby on time. Unless we strap a jet engine to the back of the truck.”

  “I like that idea better,” Harmony said.

  I understood her concerns. I shared them. The city lay due east along Route Nine, the highway following a steep arc in order to miss the Badlands that lay to the south of our present position.

  “It’s a straightforward choice,” I said. “We can give up and tell Crawford he’s won. Or we can cut through the Badlands. It cuts five days off our journey.”

  People often referred to the Badlands as a ‘forbidden zone’, but there was nothing to stop you going there. Except good sense. It was a vast area of poisoned swamp that had once been a battlefield. All of the planet and the star system around it had been a warzone – one of the last places where the conflict between humans and Gators had taken place. Most of the fighting had been between rival warships out among the stars. But here on Saphira there had been a ground battle.

  I didn’t know the name of the battle. There weren’t any references to it in the official accounts of the war. Not that you can trust those anyway. History is edited by the victors and a lot of truth ends up on the cutting-room floor.

  The conflict had ended almost forty years ago but the Badlands still looked like a battlefield. The weapons used – by both sides – meant that nothing would ever grow. Officially, the Saphiran government tells us, there is no radiation and no biological weapon residue. But I’m not sure that any of their civil servants have ever set foot there. What few images of it there are show black mud, poisoned water, and a thick spooky mist that makes the sky look green.

  Harmony had wandered away from the parked vehicles. I could guess what she was thinking. Despite official assurances, there could still be radiation. And that makes you worry about losing your skin, hair, and teeth. Then there are the biological weapons that we know the Gators used. Most of their tech was biological. It wasn’t just the viruses, which are bad enough, there were also actual living creatures that hunted and eliminated human soldiers. And finally, there was the spectre of nano-weapons – which our side swore they never used. Invisible swarms of things that could rewrite your DNA – or worse.

  Even if the battlefield weapons were long gone, modern-day legends had grown up about the Badlands. It was home to giant monsters and zombie-like mutants that had originally been bred as cannon-fodder. Whatever your deepest, darkest fears, the Badlands had something to offer you.

  “Do you want me to talk to her?” Floyd asked.

  “Yeah, right,” I said. He’d only said it to spur me into doing something. I went over to where Harmony was standing.

  “You don’t have to come with us,” I said. “Take the Trekker, follow the highway and meet us later on the other side.”

  When she looked at me I could tell that she wanted to accept this offer. But she shook her head.

  “I’m part of this now,” she said. “I have to see it through.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I wanted to reach out and hug her, but I was afraid that might make her change her mind. Maybe a near-death experience in the Badlands would be just the thing to bring us back together. I felt selfish about wanting to take her with me.

  “What news?” Floyd asked when we returned to the vehicles.

  “Harmony is coming with us,” I said.

  “Oh, good,” he said flatly. “I have some more good news.”

  “What?”

  “The road through the Badlands is so dangerous that you can’t get through the swamp without an experienced guide,” he said.

  “How is that good news?” Harmony asked.

  “It isn’t,” Floyd said. “I thought that was the game we were playing.”

  “Floyd...” I warned.

  “The good part is that I managed to book us a guide,” he said. “His name is Kumar and he’s going to meet us at the border.”

  “We’re lucky that he was free to take us at short notice,” I said, hoping that this signalled a new upswing in our fortunes.

  Harmony’s expression said she didn’t agree with my definition of ‘lucky’. “I can’t imagine that he’s overwhelmed with offers of work,” she said.

  I looked at the road that sloped southwards towards the Badlands. It didn’t look well-used. The sign pointing that way didn’t say ‘Badlands’ or ‘death swamp’, the sign-painter had apparently been feeling ironic and had written ‘Elysian Fields.’

  “That’s where dead heroes go,” Floyd said, “in Greek mythology.”

  In case the irony was lost on you, someone had made later additions to the sign. A biohazard symbol had been spray-painted on it in red and a smaller board underneath said ‘Road Unsuitable for Heavy Vehicles.’ I glanced towards the truck.

  “There’s one more good thing,” Harmony said. “If we go that way, no one is going to be mad enough to follow us.”

  Floyd nodded in agreement. “Flint will probably pay up on the debt. He’ll assume we won’t make it out alive.”

  “You can die from too much encouragement, you know,” I said.

  I got into the Trekker with Harmony – I’d seen enough of the truck for a while. She let me drive.

  “Why was there a battle on Saphira?” Harmony asked. “There’s nothing here to fight for.”

  “Apparently, a human diplomat insulted a Gator senator’s wife. He said she had a face like a dead snake’s haemorrhoids.”

  “You made that up,” she said.

  “It was either that or it started over a game of cards,” I said.

  “That’s much more plausible. Do you play cards, Quincy?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And no, I’m never going to play against you.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because you’re a bigger cheat than I am.”

  She looked at me. “Sometimes you say the sweetest things.” She smiled – for the first time in what seemed like months. “When we get to the border zone truck stop, we should take showers,” she said. “It might be our last chance for a while.”

  She was right – we were going to have to rely on the water we were carrying with us once we crossed into the Badlands and that might mean rationing. My big regret at that moment was that the shower cubicle in the truck was only big enough for one person at a time.

  Chapter Thirty

  “What do we know about the Badlands?” I asked.

  “The clue’s in the name,” Harmony said.

  “The section we will be travelling through is predominantly swamp,” Floyd said.

  “Hence ‘swamp road’,” Harmony said.

  “Aside from the obvious,” I said, staring at Harmony, “what else can you tell us?”

  “It is essentially a flooded forest with areas of more open ground,” Floyd said. “Slow-moving water and wet soil. Temperatures can reach thirty-eight degrees centigrade and humidity levels are very high. This results in low-lying mist and patches of thicker fog.”

  “Fog makes my hair frizz,” Harmony said. Her hair was almost as short as mine – I don’t think either of us needed to worry about frizz.

  “This is a wetland habitat,” Floyd said. “The trees are a variety of cypress, there is trailing moss and several types of thorny shrub. Invertebrate life includes spiders, mosquitoes, and leeches.”

  “My three favourite types,” I said.

  “Scientific data is lacking but there are anecdotal reports of water-dwelling snakes and crocodiles.”

  “Hence Badlands,” Harmony said.

  “W
ill you stop that,” I said. But she was right. In the stories we hear as children, swamps are always home to the nastiest creatures. Our real-life one seemed intent on living up to this reputation.

  “The area has not been officially surveyed, so maps are almost non-existent,” Floyd said. “A perpetual layer of fog means that satellite photographs aren’t particularly useful.”

  “There would be more data if anyone actually wanted to go there,” Harmony said.

  “The absence of reliable mapping means that navigation is difficult,” Floyd said. “Atmospheric disturbances, which may or may not be the result of weapons used there during the conflict, mean that accurate positioning using satellite signals is impossible and other technologies are also unreliable.”

  “Are you reading that?” Harmony asked.

  “Much of the terrain looks similar, meaning it is easy to become disoriented,” Floyd said. Or read. “Experienced guides can recognise semi-permanent features in the environment to use as waymarkers.”

  “I’ll take the first shower,” I said. “Then we’ll go and look for this Kumar.”

  “Kumar Dhenuka,” Floyd said.

  “It looks pretty grim,” I said.

  We weren’t even in the Badlands yet. This was the border zone, a five-mile wide strip between the land that was good and that which was bad. The mist here was pus-yellow rather than the full snot-green of the Badlands. It drifted around us in long sulfurous tendrils. There wasn’t much to see. The ground was dark and lifeless and a few skeletal trees stood like shadows in the mist. It was eerily quiet.

  “What is that smell?” I asked.

  “Burnt flesh,” Floyd said. He stepped aside so I could see what he was looking at.

  Human remains, charred black. A thick stake had been forced down the corpse’s throat and down out through his rear end. Or perhaps it had been inserted in the other direction. The stake had been stuck into the ground and was holding the corpse in a sort of standing position. I felt the urge to puke but took a deep breath and fought it down.

  “What’s that on his chest?” I asked.

  “A rat.”

  “Below that – carved in the flesh.”

  “It’s a sigil,” Floyd said. “This symbol is used by the Skullbusters to identify their territory. And their handiwork.”

  “I’m guessing the Skullbusters aren’t the local glee club,” I said.

  “According to the Anarchipedia entry, they’re a gang of rapists and cannibals who mutilate their victims and create bizarre artworks from their dead flesh. Though most gangs write their own entries so you have to allow for a bit of exaggeration.”

  “This isn’t very artistic,” I said.

  “Maybe we have to follow the entrails to find the good part,” Floyd said.

  I covered my eyes with my hand. “I don’t want to see it!”

  “Okay. But be careful where you tread – they look slippery.”

  I took a step back, still hiding my eyes.

  “You know I’m kidding, right?” Floyd said. “About the entrails...”

  I uncovered my eyes and glared at him. “Not funny.”

  “I snapped an image of your expression, do you want to see it? You were this close to vomiting.”

  “When we get back to civilisation I’m taking you to a robo-psychologist.”

  “Please! As if a human could fathom how my mind works.”

  “All that time alone in the jungle warped you somehow,” I said.

  “This isn’t a human corpse,” Floyd said, “it’s an android. And if you say ‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ I’m going to punch you.”

  “I would never say that,” I said. I was pretty sure Floyd would never punch me, but why take the risk? I knew how touchy he was about humans abusing robots.

  “I’ve heard they do this to people too,” Floyd said, indicating the stake.

  “Are you trying to frighten me?”

  “Is it working?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “They do it to you while you’re still alive.”

  “I hope they grease it first. Let’s go and find our guide.”

  Harmony was back in the truck trying to take a shower in the tiny cubicle. I thought about warning her about the fake corpse – but she wasn’t anywhere near as squeamish as me so I didn’t bother.

  “The Badlands Bar and Grill,” I read off the sign. “Last beer for two hundred miles.”

  It looked like the post-apocalypse equivalent of an old-fashioned gas station and diner. It must have been built pre-War, before the highway had been rerouted to the north of the Badlands.

  “There’s no one here,” I said. I think I wanted this to be true.

  “The light’s on,” Floyd said.

  A dull red gleam said VACANCY.

  “Twenty minutes back we wandered into a horror movie,” I said.

  “The nightmare started long before that,” Floyd said.

  “It did? When?”

  “You remember that day on the battleship Celestia...?”

  “You’re not funny.”

  I pushed open the door and a little bell tinkled to announce our arrival. “I hope there are no roaches.”

  “There’s probably killer cockroaches,” Floyd said.

  The lights inside were some sort of greenish-blue fluorescent gas tubes and they made the place too bright. It looked like a theatre set. Not quite real. Booths and tall stools with chrome legs and cracked red vinyl cushions. Black and white chequerboard floor. It was a grotesque caricature of a greasy diner. Grime seemed to have been etched into every surface as if someone had tried to fake the patina of age. But the stale reek of old grease told you it was all horribly real. The place was empty except for a single figure – a hobo slumped on a stool with his head on the countertop.

  “Is he dead?” I whispered.

  A brief pause while Floyd ran his sensors over the man without touching him. “Inebriated,” he said finally, “sleeping it off.”

  “See if you can wake him,” I said.

  Floyd picked up an empty tequila bottle from the bar and dropped it behind the hobo. Glass shattered loudly and the startled man sat upright.

  “I never touched it, it was someone else,” he said.

  The man had sandy hair that stuck out in wild clumps like a clown’s. He’d been drooling while he slept so one cheek was shiny wet. His eyes were bright blue, the whites bloodshot, and there was a film of dirt over his face that looked like a bad fake tan.

  “Who are you?” Floyd asked loudly as if he was talking to an idiot.

  “Is that a trick question?” the man asked. He blinked up at Floyd, trying to focus his eyes. “Hey, you’re a robot!”

  “What?!” Floyd gasped. “Why did no one ever tell me?”

  “Is he trying to be funny?” the man asked looking over towards me.

  “He’s definitely trying,” I said. “You’re not Kumar Dhenuka are you?”

  If he was, we were in deep squit.

  “I don’t know, what does he look like?” the man said, straining to see his own face in the mirror behind the bar. He seemed to recognise himself. “My name’s Skeeter K. Beta, you’ve probably heard of me.”

  I looked at Floyd and he just shrugged.

  “Er...” I said. “Not the Skeeter K. Beta?”

  “The one and only. You can call me Skeet.”

  “Do we have to?” Floyd said.

  “You want to call him Mister Beta, you go right ahead,” I whispered. “Help me out here – tell me who he is.”

  “I’m checking the databases,” Floyd said quietly. “The only thing I can see is that he was once fined for urinating in the doorway of a sheriff’s office.”

  “What does it say under ‘occupation’?” I asked.

  “Indigent.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “If we don’t get that truck to New Grimsby, you’ll find out.”

  “What’re you two doing way out here in the middle of...
wherever this is,” Skeet asked, waving his arm and swaying around on top of the barstool.

  “We came to meet our guide,” I said.

  “Kumar Dhenuka,” Skeet said, nodding sagely. “He was here earlier. Bought me a drink.” He raised his glass and downed the shot. His eyes bugged out and he blinked a few times to make sure they didn’t pop right out of his skull. “Man, that stuff’s rough,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked. I wanted to make sure I ordered something different.

  “Scrack knows,” Skeeter said. “I think they syphon it out of the generator.”

  “Is Kumar still here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, was he here before?” Skeet asked. “You should probably ask Daisy-Mae.”

  “Daisy-Mae?” I said.

  “You’ll have to shout louder than that,” Skeet said. “Daisy-Mae! Customers! Daisy-Mae’s the best cook for miles around and my favourite barkeep.”

  “That’s not much of a recommendation,” Floyd said.

  “Shush,” I told him.

  The bell over the door tinkled behind me and I turned. Harmony entered looking refreshed and wearing a clean outfit.

  “I hope you didn’t dress up specially,” Floyd said.

  “Did I miss anything?” she asked brightly.

  “No, the floor show sucks,” Floyd said.

  “I hope you didn’t order the stake,” she said to him.

  “Ah, here he is,” Skeet said.

  I turned, expecting to see Kumar Dhenuka. But it wasn’t him. This was a giant soft-boiled egg squeezed into a stained undershirt and an even more stained apron. There was thick dark hair on his forearms and blue-black stubble covered his chins. The top of his head was poking up through his hair, pink and shiny, and a film of sweat covered his face. He scowled at Floyd but didn’t make comment.

  “Daisy-Mae Diefenbacher,” he said. He wiped his palm on his apron and held out the massive hand for me to shake. Daisy-Mae had very hairy knuckles, I noticed, and a strong grip.

  “Quin Randall,” I said. “This is Harmony and he’s Floyd.”

  “What can I get you folks?” Daisy-Mae asked.

  “Don’t eat anything,” Floyd whispered. “We’re a hundred miles from the nearest hospital.”

  “Just coffee,” I said.