by Blake Banner
We were entering the town, passing a magnificent, Georgian building that claimed to be the Spirit Bank, and she suddenly gripped my arm tight and gave a little hop, grinning up at me. It made me laugh. This was not the firebrand senator I had seen so often on TV. This was an excited teenager in jeans and a leather jacket three sizes too big for her.
“Hey! You know where we are?”
“Bristow? The Spirit Bank?”
She stopped dead and pointed at the road. “You are on hallowed ground, my friend. This here is the legendary Route 66.” In a flash her expression had changed again. She took hold of my arm and gazed down once more at her feet, taking one step after another. Unexpectedly she said, “Humanity’s last cry of ‘Freedom!’ before the darkness began to close in.”
“The sixties?”
She nodded. We were quiet then for the rest of the way, until we came to a small, two-story red brick building with a parking lot on one side. For some reason, in that limpid light from the streetlamps, with the vast sky overhead, it reminded me of an illustration from an early 1960s science fiction comic. And inside, the 1960s theme continued. It was like Carlos Castaneda meets Happy Days, with Formica tables and burgundy vinyl seats, Mexican blankets and walls painted in yellow and lime-green chalk. It was warm, and almost full, and the smell of cooking meat and chili made me realize I was hungry. We found a table at the back, out of sight of the window, sat where I had a view of the entrance, and ordered two beers, a fajita salad to share, and beef and chicken tamales.
When the waitress had gone, Cyndi gave me a peculiar smile. “Thanks for doing this, Lacklan. I appreciate it. You’re a beast, but you’re a good man.”
I gave her a peculiar smile back. “Hey, the country needs you, but it needs you sane.”
She snorted. “That ship sailed!” The waitress came with our beers. Cyndi took a swig from the bottle, then became serious. “Tell me about Omega.” She hesitated, frowned. “Not just facts and figures, your thoughts and feelings.”
I leaned back in my chair and studied the dark brown glass of the bottle in my hand. I took a swig and gave my head a small shake. “That’s not easy.”
“Why not?”
I sucked air through my teeth. “Because what they are trying to do makes sense.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What? I don’t follow you, Lacklan. You telling me you’re with them?”
I gave a small laugh. “I hope for their sake that I’m not. Nobody on Earth has caused them more damage than I have. No.” I thought a little more, wondering, not for the first time, exactly what it was about Omega that I hated so much. “What they are trying to do makes sense in as much as, we have passed the point of no return.” I looked into her face. “We have nearly eight billion people on this planet. The planet can sustain nine. But to house, clothe and feed this many people we need mass production and mass distribution, and whatever Elon Musk may say, that requires the massive burning of fossil fuels…” I smiled and shrugged. “And that reduces our capacity to produce food. So as far as that goes, they are right. Somebody has to address this problem, and there is no painless way out. It’s the Malthusian nightmare meets Frankenstein’s monster on steroids. We need to reduce the population of the planet to pre-Industrial Revolution levels.”
Her frown had deepened. “So you do agree with them…”
I raised an eyebrow. “I agree with their statement of the problem. I don’t agree with their solution.”
“What is their solution?”
The waitress brought our salad and Cyndi stabbed into with her fork. I took another pull on my beer and tried to set it down precisely on the ring it had left on the table.
“Their solution comes in two parts. First, let the problem play itself out: droughts below the fifty-second parallel, food shortages, famine, hurricanes and eventually the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and half of the Antarctic. They figure that will account for most of the overpopulation. It’s ruthless, but I am not necessarily opposed to ruthlessness.
“The second part of the solution focuses on the aftermath of what they call ‘catastrophic change’. They figure climate change and overpopulation will reach a critical mass sometime in the near future, and then there will be a catastrophic event, or series of events. And they want to be in a position to pick up the pieces and be top dog in the new world, to create some kind of new Eden. And to achieve that they want to exercise control over people’s minds and emotions.”
“What kind of control?”
I smiled. “I guess it’s nothing new. We’ve been doing it for at least ten thousand years. There is an elite that enjoys a degree of freedom through power, and then there is the great, gray mass, whose purpose in life is to sustain the elite. The difference is that until now that control has been exercised through fear, through the threat, express or implied, of violence. But what they have controlled has been not so much thought as behavior. What Omega wants is to take it to the next level. They want their populace to be happy. They want their subjects, their servants or slaves, to be content with their lot. And that…” I looked at her and realized it as I said it, “That is what I hate about Omega. We were brought up to think of Hell as a place of conflict, torment, pain and struggle.” I gave a small laugh. “But that’s just life. Hell… hell is where you lose the capacity, even the desire, to fight. Hell is not fire and brimstone. Hell is a world of social media, two-line thought-bites of inoffensively potted wisdom, and armies of people in standard uniforms of sneakers, jeans, anoraks and small rucksacks, each armed with a plastic bottle of water, because a benign government has legislated that water, unless packaged in sterile plastic, is dangerous.”
She stared at me a moment, then burst out laughing. “My goodness! You are a dangerous man! You are a true subversive. How on Earth did you survive in the army?”
I smiled, thinking of comrades like Bat Hayes and my mentor and guide, the Kiwi Sergeant Bradley. Each one a quirky, anarchic individualist. I shook my head. “The Regiment isn’t like the regular army.”
“Crazy Brits, huh?”
“Something like that.”
She was thoughtful for a while. Then she said, “I’m a politician, Lacklan. You are an anarchic soldier of fortune. You can afford to have radical ideas about freedom. But every politician knows that, in the words of the song, freedom is just some people talking. It doesn’t exist. If we want to stay out of the caves and live in a comfortable, safe society, we need rules, laws, some kind of government control.”
I leaned forward, with my elbows on the table. “Sure, but that has to come from agreement, not from threats of violence, and certainly not because I have adapted your brain so that you don’t want to fight me.” I shook my head and looked deep into her eyes. “We have nothing in this world, Cyndi, nothing at all—impermanence will take everything—except one priceless treasure: the freedom we have in our minds, our freedom to be ourselves. Nobody can ever take that from us, and if they try, then we must fight to the death to preserve it. It is the only thing that gives life any meaning.”
She nodded a few times, but not necessarily in agreement. Finally, she said, “Boy, you are passionate about this.”
“Yeah. I am. There is no greater crime, in my mind, than when one human being makes a slave of another.”
“And that is what Omega aims to do.”
“Allow the surplus to die, and rob the rest of their will and their individuality, that pretty much sums it up.”
The waitress brought our tamales and told us to enjoy. I ordered two more beers and she went away. When she’d gone, Cyndi shook her head. “It sounds like science fiction. If it weren’t for what happened at the UN, and last night, I’d have trouble believing any of it.” She picked up a roll in her fingers and bit into it. As she chewed she asked me, “How, and when, do they plan to exercise this mind control?”
I watched her chew, keeping her chin over her plate, dabbing at it with a paper napkin and licking the fingers of her left hand.
I said. “You were right. The 1960s was the last cry of freedom. It will not be heard again.”
“What do you mean?”
“You asked me when it would begin. When they would start to exercise their control over people’s minds and emotions. Look around you!” I laughed a dry, unhappy laugh. “Orwell predicted a screen watching every person. He never foresaw that each person would voluntarily carry a screen with him everywhere he went. This isn’t the zombie revolution, it’s the zombie involution. It’s already begun.”
SEVEN
After the meal Cyndi wanted to hit the tequilas. I knew she was going to get drunk. I knew she needed to, and there was nothing I could do about it. If I got serious with her it would make the problem worse. If I gave her free rein, maybe tomorrow I would have a cooperative ally—albeit one with a big hangover. So I ordered a glass of whiskey and nursed it while she gave the tequila bottle a hard time. I told myself the restaurant closed at ten, and however stressed out she was, there was a physical limit to how much she could drink in an hour.
Still, she gave it her best shot, and by the time we stepped out and they flipped the ‘closed’ sign behind us, she found just about everything in the world hilarious, and I was her best buddy in that world: “Lacklan, we have not known each other long, but man! We had been there! And we have done it! Together! Am I lying? I mean, tell me if I am lying, ’cause I think we are friends, and we can be honest with each other, right?”
I couldn’t disagree with her and I didn’t, mainly because I didn’t know what the ‘it’ was that we had been to and done together. But it was good to see her happy, so I laughed along with her and told her we certainly had been there, and done it, together, and we were certainly friends.
It was icy cold. I was exhausted and needed to get at least four hours good sleep before we set off on the last leg of our journey. The cold, the alcohol and the after effect of the shock were making Cyndi sleepy too. So we walked quickly, huddled together, with her clinging to my arm, giggling and talking incessantly, mainly about what her husband would think if he could see her now.
As we came to the parking lot at the motel I turned to her and put my finger to my lips. She made an ‘O’ with hers and nodded. We approached the back of the building quietly, and when we had reached the corner I told her to wait. I scanned the cars. There was nothing new. They had all been there when we went out. The drapes were as they were, and when I listened I couldn’t hear anything. My gut told me something was wrong, but my brain couldn’t detect what it was. So maybe it was natural caution. I pulled my Sig from my waistband, crouched down and slipped the key into the lock by very slow degrees. I turned and pushed gently. The door swung open, stretching a dull oblong of lamplight across the foot of the nearest bed. Nothing happened.
Cyndi was still seven or eight feet away at the corner of the building, motionless, watching me. I was still crouching. I half closed my eyes and focused my mind on the sounds I could hear: the far off, sporadic hiss of tires on blacktop. Nearby, in the trees, an owl. Closer, the soft creak of the hinges as the door finished its swing. The silence in the room. The silence in the bathroom. Soft breathing.
There would be one facing the door, waiting to shoot at our silhouettes as we came in, another behind the door in case we rushed. Maybe more, but at least two. I stood, keeping away from the portal, and hissed in a loud, drunken stage whisper, like I didn’t want the neighbors to hear, “You think I drove you half way across the goddamn country so we could sleep in separate beds? What kind of a schmuck do you take me for?” I saw Cyndi gape. I went on. “Why don’t you get your goddamn husband to drive you if you’re so damn in love with him?” She was still gaping. I continued as though she had answered. “I don’t give a damn if the guests hear! I’m sick of doing what you want all the time and not getting a damn thing in return. I’m a man. I have needs like any guy! You’re always showing me your damn cleavage, flirting with me, coming on to me, but when the time comes to pay up, you tell me you’re still in love with your damn husband! Well maybe I should…”
The click silenced me, as did the pressure of cold steel against my ear, and the harsh rasp of a voice that said, “Shut up and step inside, both of you.”
I raised my hands and allowed my voice to tremble slightly as I said, “OK, I don’t want no trouble. My wallet’s in my back pocket. Just take what you want. I don’t want any trouble.” I looked at Cyndi. She had gone very pale. I mouthed, ‘Stay there’ and said, “Cyndi, honey, just do what they say, whatever it is, and they won’t hurt us.”
The voice rasped again, “Get inside and shut the fuck up!”
“OK, OK, I’m doing what you say, just don’t hurt me…”
I turned. The figure stepped out. He was dressed in black with a ski mask over his face. He was holding an automatic out at arm’s length, pointing it at me and then at Cyndi by turns. “Inside. Get inside, both of you.”
I knew if she went inside she was dead. He was six, maybe seven feet from the door, at an angle where he could cover us both. I couldn’t hear anything inside, but that didn’t mean a thing. Cyndi still hadn’t moved. She was paralyzed by indecision and fear. I knew the guy would be reluctant to shoot outside. He wanted to make his kill in the room, where it wouldn’t attract attention. He said again, “Inside!”
I stepped toward him with a pleading face. “Can I go to the john? I been drinking and the cold…” It was a fraction of a second. He looked at me like I was crazy. I took another step. “Man, I am pissing…” My next step was slightly to my left. My left hand slapped the barrel of the automatic and gripped it hard as my right hand slammed into his wrist. In an instant the gun was pointing at him. A fraction of a second after that I pulled the trigger. It was a 9 mm and blew a plume of brains and gore out the back of his head.
I knew what would happen next, and it would be immediate. I turned and dropped on one knee with the weapon held out in front of me. Whoever was inside was going to come charging out. They could not now afford to be trapped in the room if somebody called 911.
Sure enough there was a scrambling of feet and a large body, dressed in black with a ski mask over his face came barreling out. I double tapped to his chest. He tripped over his feet and fell face down.
I waited. Nothing. A team of two? Did they think, like the thugs the night before, that it would be just Cyndi, and perhaps ‘some guy’?
I stood, moved forward to the wall, held the gun six inches from the door at chest height and put two rounds through it. I heard a voice say softly, “Oh Jesus, oh no…” The door swung toward me and there was a dull thud.
The switch was just inside the door at shoulder height. I slid the barrel of the gun in and flipped on the lights. Then eased open the door. It was stopped by the weight of the body on the floor. I spoke softly. “This goes down one of two ways, pal. I call the Feds and you get driven away in an unmarked car to give evidence before a select committee about the activities of your employers, and you hope and pray that Omega never catches up with you. Or you lay down your weapon, we have a talk, and then you go on your way. You choose, pal.”
He did neither. He wrenched open the door, seized the barrel of my gun in his left hand, shoved it to one side and smashed a fist like a concrete block into my face. Then he grabbed the scruff of my neck, dragged me inside the room and threw me against the wall. Blades of pain shot through my lungs, my legs gave under me and I fell to the floor.
To my surprise he didn’t try to finish me. He went outside. As I struggled to get to my feet, I heard a muffled cry, and a moment later he came in holding Cyndi, with his right hand over her mouth and his left arm crushing the air out of her lungs. He closed the door with his foot and dropped her on the floor. She was half unconscious. He turned to me with the air of a man who’s had enough of wasting time.
He was big. Six foot six with a barrel chest, huge shoulders, and arms like a weightlifter’s legs. He was wearing a ski mask too, but you could still see the rage
in his eyes. He bore down on me and grabbed my neck in his left hand, pressing his thumb against my trachea. I couldn’t breathe and I knew that in a second or two he was going to crush the cartilage. Then I would die a particularly agonizing death.
I couldn’t reach him with my hands. His arms were longer than mine, and he was turned sideways to me, staying out of reach. He began to squeeze. For a moment I saw Sergeant Bradley glaring at me with his huge, Kiwi face, snarling in his weird Kiwi accent, “Nivah stop moving! Be fuckin’ aggrisive, and move! Move! Move!”
I swung my right arm over his wrist, pressed savagely down and at the same time smashed my right foot in a vicious kick hard into his nuts. He wheezed painfully and let go, staggering back. I couldn’t follow up because I was choking. I dragged air into my lungs, wondering if he had crushed my windpipe. He stumbled, reaching for the door, and fell on his knees, clutching at his groin. I gasped again, feeling my throat easing. I would live, which was more than this guy could say. I stepped toward him with my left foot and kicked him hard in the head with my right. It was like kicking a mature oak. He grunted but didn’t go over. I pulled my Fairbairn Sykes from my boot and rammed the tip of the blade two inches into the back of his neck, between the vertebrae, severing the spinal cord. He shuddered and twitched, but remained kneeling.
I opened the door, went out into the lot and dragged each of the bodies inside. By the time I’d pulled the second one in, Cyndi had got up from the floor and was looking in horror at the four dead men. I ignored her and stood on the threshold, listening. There was no sound of sirens. Nobody had heard, or nobody had bothered to call. I closed the door. Cyndi was pointing at the big hulk. She looked as though she might start crying.
“Why…? Why is he kneeling? Is he…”