NK3

by Michael Tolkin

  The immediate group around her was spun away from the current, the central human stream to her left pushing her away to the right. She could only join that flow by kicking the legs of a Drifter in a county sheriff’s brown shirt. He hit back at her and she moved into the gap he opened when he returned the pain she’d given him. She accepted the pain and, moving on through the line, she slapped heads, pinched and twisted ears, kicked at the backs of knees to force her new enemies down. And at the gate, her feet lifted from the ground and then she was through. She was inside the Fence, and she was running forward with room around her, all the room she needed so that nothing would get in her way now.

  In the Playa, the new arrivals settled at the fringes of the seated thousands, finding their place at the end of the coil, keeping their faces turned toward Shannon like the mirrors around the solar heating plant in the desert, all the sun’s bright rays shining on the central column that turned the light to heat and the heat to steam, which spun the turbine, which generated the electricity, which Shannon didn’t need because now she was her own generator.

  When Siouxsie Banshee passed the cover of the last tall building before the Playa, the sound of Shannon’s voice hit and she lost her balance as all the music she’d ever heard came back to her like the bass sounding through the subwoofer of a car beside her at a stoplight and none of this was conscious except the flux of the way what started as pain turned into charm, and she too wanted to find her space in the curved line surrounding the woman at the center of this delivery system. But she had a lover, and the forgotten love songs contained within the waves of Shannon’s O increased her love for Frank, so Siouxsie left the line and rode on Shannon’s power toward the tower where Frank was waiting for her.

  On the condo rooftop, Redwings couldn’t get through to Gunny Sea Ray. “Frank, sir, it scares me to say this but I have to share with you my concern about Gunny Sea Ray not calling me for the last two hours, which is not like him when he’s on assignment. He’s an independent man of course but he’s also a man bound by connection to us to keep us aware of what he’s doing. Many times I’ve heard from him when he just had nothing more to say than that he was where he was supposed to be, doing what was expected of him, and that whatever the task, there was no new information except that things were steady.”

  “Call him again.”

  “It appears to worry you as well that Nole Hazard may have discovered he was being followed.”

  “And did what with that discovery? Kill Gunny Sea Ray? Anything is possible but I can’t help feeling that I’ve taken a measure of the man and that by putting Gunny Sea Ray in place to study him, I was not putting Gunny’s life at risk.”

  “Then why have him hide?”

  “I don’t have a satisfying answer for that, good Redwings, except that keeping track of Nole Hazard let me keep track of Chief without Chief seeing my deputy.”

  Redwings wanted Sinatra to say more but the word from below was that Siouxsie Banshee had been seen crossing into the Playa from the breach in the Fence, and after that was lost in the crowd.

  Chief, Hopper, Shannon Squier

  If I give up now, Chief thought, if I go to Pippi, I can’t come back to the city. Someone will replace me tonight if I haven’t already been replaced.

  He passed through a shifting series of moments of melancholy, as though he knew what he should regret, which slowed time by taking him away from his responsibility to lead a confused and frightened . . . people . . . city . . . the confused and frightened people of a city besieged by the living shrouds of its former aristocracy, called to the Playa by a song, and in the fog of the vanity of aimless sorrow he forgot that just because he was Chief, he had authority. He was one thing only now, his own distraction by a torment from Shannon that she had planned on.

  In the Playa, Shannon could feel what Chief was thinking. She could feel what everyone was thinking, a total simultaneous clairvoyance. She did nothing more than make one clear tone to release everyone from the fantasy that Shannon was important while they were nothing.

  Siouxsie Banshee cried to herself, “Will I ever see him again through all of this mess?” And she was answered by Shannon. “He’s on top of that building, on the roof, where he always goes when there’s a big event like this. Don’t cry; don’t be scared.”

  Shannon told Sinatra that Siouxsie was on the Playa.

  Sinatra sent Redwings to find her.

  Shannon told Redwings where to look. He grabbed Siouxsie’s hand and pulled her away from the crowd.

  Shannon remembered a conversation she’d had with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, about her belief in ESP and God. “Think about the freeway and all the cars going seventy miles an hour so close to each other, and that most of the accidents are caused by drunk drivers. This tells me that the roads are safer when everyone is sober because everyone on the road and in life is in psychic connection, and alcohol breaks the connection while making you feel like the connection has never been better, and that in the boozy connection, everyone on the road is giving you permission. But it’s the other way around. This is why people who drive drunk are so dangerous, because they’re disconnected from the human flow. I wish I could write a song about this, but I truly believe the reason I connect to my audience is that I never sing in any condition other than truly sober. I hope that what I’m saying makes sense. One love.”

  Colbert said, “Thank God for Uber, then.”

  And while she remembered this moment from her first life of celebrity, in the center of that coil of all those First Wavers, Second Wavers, and Drifters, Driftettes, Shamblers, Shamblerinas, and Bottle Bangers, all that remained of their human distinction was washing up on the sands of the Playa, which absorbed those distinctions like they were the last slick of the lather of broken waves.

  She wanted to wake up the world and be its leader but it was too late to wake up the world.

  She thought she was there to give them power, but they were melting.

  She would sing and they would listen to her until they all starved to death.

  Running up the fire stairs to the roof, Siouxsie Banshee asked Redwings, “Is there any food up there, Redwings?”

  “Wherever Chief goes food goes, but Chief himself is missing from the observation area. I very much hope that we can find a few old protein bars, because otherwise to my regret I am at a loss as to how to get you or any of us fed quick tonight. We were supposed to be at the big food trough on Figueroa. If you haven’t put this thought in your thought quiver, what Shannon Squier has pulled off with her strange concert this night of nights is nothing less than a profound revelation into the essence of things being sorely fucked up inside the Fence. Save your breath—it’s twelve more floors we have to go up.”

  “Redwings,” Siouxsie asked him. “What about you? Aren’t you hungry, too?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. He pushed his mind through his body, inspecting himself for hunger. It was there. “I suppose I am. This could be a problem. We were ordered to say that Vayler counted wrong and there’s plenty for years to come. But at the same time, who are we going to say that to now? The evidence is to the contrary.”

  “Is this the end of Center Camp?” asked Siouxsie.

  “Center Camp as a specific place or Center Camp as a state of mind, like being a true biker is a state of mind, a brotherhood, not a locale?”

  “As an art person, as Sonia Pryce, I would have wanted to preserve Center Camp as a construct of organization, as a subject of contemplation, as a relic, if you see what I’m saying. But as Siouxsie Banshee . . .”

  “Which is the only way I know you. And sorry for the interruption. Go on.”

  “I always wanted to see Center Camp the way I saw the hotel roof garden the night of the Burn, for the privilege of privilege. I’m really very simple, underneath the stuff that’s been left in a jumble of unrelated discernments.”


  “I regret the thought to say that you may have missed your opportune moment to have known Center Camp in its spectacular privacy before the crowds took over, Siouxsie Banshee. And the Burns were better.”

  “Oh noble Redwings, my life is one missed opportunity. Except for you and Frank Sinatra.”

  Redwings felt an old but so long unfamiliar flood of good feeling for Siouxsie; he loved her like knowing her was the same as going to the movies with your buddies not to see the movie that’s playing but only to see the first trailer for Star Wars. She was parole, she was Mendocino weed from a brother Angel in Yucaipa before he crossed the edge and hit a wall, and she was the sound of a shovel full of graveyard dirt on his casket. Only an Angel can throw dirt on another Angel and there’s a long line of brother Angels from America and not just America but the world, to pay their respects and more.

  Redwings took the woman’s hand like it was a funeral for a child.

  With his other hand he pushed open the stairwell door and they were on the roof.

  “Frank, I found her. And she’s hungry. And I’m hungry, Frank.”

  Frank couldn’t hear them, because Shannon Squier had just made contact with him. “Frank, are you sorry you found me?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m taking it all down. The world you built. Are you sorry about that?”

  “Somewhat, yes. Are you sorry I found you?”

  “I could have run. Chisel Girl was good at getting away.”

  “Why did you stay?”

  “I was hungry. The way I’m hungry now, the way they’re all hungry.”

  “You don’t have to die.”

  “Of course I do. And so do they. I’ll take them across to whatever’s on the other side, and we’ll all go gently. Wherever we go. Who didn’t have to die is Go Bruins. Chief killed him and now he’s driving north. Gunny Sea Ray died, too.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “He’s called the Teacher.”

  “Thank you.”

  The contact was over. Frank told Redwings what Shannon had just told him. Redwings said, “Then I bid that noble princess a grand sincere adios, and however you say good-bye in the mother tongue of the man whose signature of SMERSH we have inscribed in our flesh. Siouxsie Banshee, dear Siouxsie, do you know how to say good-bye in Russian?”

  “Maybe I used to, Redwings, but I don’t anymore.”

  “Perhaps we’ll have the chance to study up on it.”

  Frank kissed Siouxsie and then Redwings, and said, “We have work to do.”

  Chief

  Places have moods, thought Chief. Some things I never forget. A little more memory, a better sense of the circumstances, what surrounds the moment and the place, these things I have. What I have, am, is imperfect compared to before, but I can see just that much that others can’t, especially their need for anyone to take my position. Things I can’t talk about with anyone, although I might have with Sinatra.

  His time at Center Camp finished, Chief took the biggest car, a Dodge Ram truck, and filled the back with food and two crates of vodka. He put two rifles, a shotgun, and three pistols on the backseat, and another pistol under his seat. He expected to be followed and had no plan beyond getting to Pippi first and taking her north, no matter who was there or if NK3 was still dangerous.

  Hopper watched from the hill across from the house and while Chief loaded the truck, there was time to find a Lincoln Navigator with a full tank of fuel. When Chief drove away, Hopper followed with his lights off. Chief drove to the ridge road overlooking the San Fernando Valley, then down Coldwater Canyon, then to the freeway. Chief drove fast and Hopper followed easily. There were no other cars on the road.

  Chief turned north on the 405, toward Bakersfield.

  Frank Sinatra, Siouxsie Banshee, Redwings

  They found Gunny Sea Ray and then Go Bruins. They carried the bodies into the house and set the house on fire.

  “I was commanded by Chief to find the man who killed Tesla.”

  Redwings asked him, “What about the man who killed Go Bruins and Gunny Sea Ray?”

  “That’s two people, Redwings. Shannon told us where to look for one. Perhaps we’ll find the other.”

  They went north, as Shannon told them, in the Audi RS7 Frank kept in Center Camp. They drove as fast as the car could go.

  Shannon Squier, Erin

  Shannon felt Frank and his crew drive away, leaving the outer reaches of her awareness. Erin sent her a thought: “Do you need anything?”

  She thanked her. “No.”

  As the Drifters linked to the end of the coil, the panic from the unwelcome invasion subsided. First Wave and Shamblers together, everyone committed to their shared fate as Shannon stopped thinking about anything except her beloved audience, her millions of fans, and what they wanted from her. She raised the pitch of her endless wordless song, drawing everyone’s fragments into the shape of a sphere, and amplified her concentration until the hidden associations inside everything reached everyone at the same time, as though light had no speed limit and so all light arrived at once, and everything was like God’s face, impossible to see.

  Hopper

  Hopper, in his Navigator, saw a car in his rearview mirror, the headlights off. The car was only visible at the crest of a hill, a shadow against the stars.

  “Someone is following me,” said Hopper, hoping his Silent Voice would help him. There was no answer.

  Pippi

  She woke up when she heard the oranges chief unlock her door. She was ready to have sex with him if that’s what he wanted. It was something she missed. He asked her if she was awake.

  “You can see that I am.”

  “I’m taking off your chain now.”

  He had the key in his pocket. When he took off the padlock, he put it on a table.

  “Because it’s over. The Fence is down. Center Camp is finished. They can’t do anything for us, and we can’t do anything for them. We have no one to talk to there. Your door is open now. No more lock. You’re here now. One of us. If you want. Pippi.”

  “What are you going to do when you run out of Pringles?”

  “When I run out of Pringles, I’ll tell them that the Founders had this in their plan and that after the Pringles ran out, the Founders wanted us to take a special slice of orange. And if we run out of oranges, I’ll find something else that the Founders left for us. Maybe celery. I could cut up a stick of celery and use it for ten people. But for now come for your Pringle. You need it.”

  “The Founders were here, too?”

  “That’s the story.”

  She followed him to the church. He rang the bell and the people came from their cabins and trailers to line up for their Pringles. Pippi was the first in line. The oranges chief wore a green-and-gold shawl over a white robe. He had special Pringles today, Original Flavor, and lifted the can and opened it so everyone could see that the Pringles were fresh.

  He waved the open can in front of Pippi. “That smell was put in there before the changes,” he said. He directed this to her. “Open wide.” He brought the saddle-shaped potato chip to her tongue, and when she tried to close her mouth over it, he drew it back. “Let it sit there, feel it, taste it. They say this is what God tastes like. Have you ever heard of God?”

  She shook her head no. He lowered the Pringle to her tongue again. “This time just let it sit there.”

  The Teacher

  It doesn’t matter who was the father. That’s what he wanted to tell Robin, even though she wouldn’t know what he was talking about. And the little girl was dead. Robin didn’t have to run away from him just because he ran away from her.

  Do you remember buying the house? We wanted a craftsman house, the green bungalow with a front porch, wanted those green shutters and the stained glass, wanted the fireplace tiles of farm scenes and hay wagons, wanted the
yard with the three-legged rescue dog and the redwood swings and the swimming pool. We wanted and we had what we wanted.

  I ran away. I stayed in the desert.

  I trained the men to find you and bring you back. I could have forced myself to stop thinking about you but I kept your memory alive even if you don’t remember any of it. The bones of the little girl. That’s my last hope. That you’ll see the bones and the pink dress and remember something. She was mine, not his. We knew that. Our child.

  I trained him. He was nothing to you, only to me. I had a plan. All that remains of a civilization, human hieroglyphics, rehab, the reconstruction of manifold humanity, single-purpose entities trailing loose ends that spark when dragged across the concrete road.

  I returned to the city and walked through the world that nobody there remembered. A look in the eye sometimes, did they know? Couldn’t be sure.

  She will love me. She will remember me because I’m in there. I can show her the picture.

  He slowed down to look at the picture. That is me, that is Robin, that is our baby. Proof.

  Robin

  The Pringle was hers now and she closed her mouth over the thing. She kept it on her tongue as the oranges chief directed, and the chip softened. No need to chew. She didn’t need the oranges chief to tell her what was next, and she pointed at her chest four times.

  “Good-bye,” he said.

  She was going to tell him that she’d see him later, but the line was long and he had a few hundred Pringles to give away.

  She went back to the trailer. The padlock and key were where he’d left them. She put them in her pocket along with the empty cigarette pack and wrapped the forty feet of chain over her right shoulder and under her left arm.