Route 666 Anthology

by David Pringle

  The screen finally went blank. Bob turned pale. Dolly looked no better. Members of the audience were beginning to murmur to one another.

  Steve Yonoi continued in his relentlessly good-natured manner. “Bob, we wondered long and hard about the best way of punishing you for your terrible hypocrisy. First off, our Business Manager, who you can’t see because he’s in the Producer’s Box, suggested a little hacking. Our Business Manager, Mr Pereira, is the best in the business, and he managed to break into the Divine Purpose Mission’s mailing-list. Taking that, and quite illegally gaining authority to some of your bank accounts, he’s sent back all the money that people have sent you in the last four months or so.”

  Isolated applause in the audience began, in a few seconds breaking into something much more enthusiastic.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you,” said Steve, knowing that the hard work of getting the audience onto his side was now almost over. “I know that many of you have been sending Bob and Dolly your money for much longer than four months, but I’m afraid there was no way we could access all of it. I just hope that we have, in our little way, managed to repair some of the damage that Bob has done to your lives.”

  Steve Yonoi mentioned nothing about the hundred million’s worth of stock, bonds and holdings that Pereira had managed to liquidate and which the team planned to keep for their own purposes just as soon as it had finished running around the world along Pereira’s labyrinthine trade routes.

  “But losing a few looies is hardly enough punishment, is it Bob? We’ve got a problem here. You need to be punished, but we don’t want to take the law into our own hands and act like we were the judge, the jury and—heh-heh!—the executioner as well. So it’s time for a little interactive television. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for you, the viewing public across the world, to decide what we should do to Bob.

  “You have three simple options. Option One is to let him off the hook with a warning and leave him and Dolly alone. Vote for that if you think that being exposed as a crook, a cheat, a murderer and a slave-trader has been punishment enough. Option Two is nonviolent punishment. Vote for that if you think we should send all our files and vid footage to the FBI and other interested parties. Option Three is Death. And vote for that one if you’d like to see Bob being executed live in the studio here right after the commercial break. Ladies and gentlemen, please choose an option and key the correct number into your zapper, minitel, remote control, transputer or whatever system you have in your country. Please vote now. The codes should be at the bottom of your screen. Meanwhile, stay with us. We’ll be right back with you after these important messages.”

  In the Control Room Pereira cued in the scheduled commercials and waited by the terminal of the studio’s comms computer, though it would be four minutes before the vote results came through. Actually giving the millions of viewers they were picking up by the minute a vote was a little academic. They’d vote for death. They always did. None but the tiny minority of good Christians watching would actually be surprised or shocked by Bob and Dolly’s behaviour. But most other people would vote for death just for the fun of seeing it on live TV.

  On his own computer, he noticed an intruder trying to crunch his access codes. It was a powerful machine, judging by the speed at which it was trying different options, probably a corporate mainframe somewhere, with some lonely night-operator who fancied himself as an ace trying out his hand. Pereira was tempted to try his new invention, a self-replicating biochip facility that could keep on adding to the access code up to infinity and race against anything trying to crack it. He would dearly have loved to key himself into the system and face up to the booger. But there was no time and too much at stake. Maybe next time. Pereira pulled the plug on the modem. It was time to re-programme Dolly’s musichip.

  On the camera monitors, he could see everyone waiting through the break. Once it had finished, Steve Yonoi apologized for concentrating too much on Bob’s sins, so they would show some film of Dolly’s as well. Pereira hit a button and the video screen one again came into operation.

  “As you’ll remember, ladies and gentlemen,” said Steve Yonoi, “Dolly has always backed up her husband’s hatred of Asiatics and Arabs and everyone else who isn’t born-again and American, but here in this footage she is in bed with a young man who is clearly of non-European origin. And here she is again with another! Japanese, I’d say. And another! And another (oh, but he’s white)! And another… Okay, most of you will think so what? What’s the big deal about seeing other guys, specially when she’s got a dork like Bob for a husband?—but here are some recent clips from the show…” Dolly is claiming never to have had eyes for anyone but her husband, that adultery is the most mortal of sins. She is claiming that white women should not sleep with Asiatics and Arabs. Cut back to footage of her lying in bed. A handsome Arab boy is getting dressed. She leans over and gives him a handful of credit cards. (That’s the money you’ve sent in, ladies and gentlemen!’)

  “Well, friends, we can once again assure you that what you have just seen was the plain truth. Dolly was real, and so were those young men. It looks like Dolly is a little on the two-faced side, don’t you think?” said Steve Yonoi. “What are we going to do with you, Dolly?”

  Dolly squirmed in her seat. Bob gave her a filthy look, clearly unaware of her record of infidelities.

  “Well, friends,” said Steve. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. Nothing much. Bob’s the real bad guy, not Dolly, and after all, she has now lost everything. There is one little thing, of course, and that’s that our Mr Pereira should be just about now hitting a switch that will re-programme Dolly’s musichip implant to play ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ into her head very loudly right around the clock to remind her that she’s not ashamed to be a Christian. Course, as all you good people will know, it’s the easiest thing in the world to get an implant re-programmed or removed… if you can afford to pay the bill.” The audience laughed.

  Steve’s earpiece buzzed with information coming back from Pereira in the Control Room. Worldwide they’d had 5 million votes for clemency, 158 million votes for nonviolent punishment, but 556 million votes for death.

  He announced the result. The studio audience broke into wild cheering, the faces of many contorting into an ugly blood-lust born of the delicious sensation of righteous anger. That and the fact that most of them had given money to the Divine Purpose Mission and wouldn’t be getting much of it, if any, back.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Steve as the cheering began to fade. “The verdict is death, and now I’d like a member of the studio audience to volunteer to carry out the sentence.” About sixty members of the audience raised their hands eagerly. Steve Yonoi picked the same little old lady who’d earlier been telling Bob how much she hated Muslims. She came forward.

  “Well good evening to you, Ma’am, and what’s your name?” asked Steve.

  “Good evening sir. My name is Gretchen Sandino and ah’m not ashamed to be a Christian.”

  “Awww, ain’t that nice?” grinned Steve. “Well Gretchen, in a minute we’ll probably be asking you to execute Bob for us.” Applause, hooting, cheering. “But first, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got to be Christian about this. We’ve got to give Bob just one last chance to save his hide. Bob, come forward please.”

  Bob stayed where he was, seated next to his wife who was staring catatonically ahead of her as “Onward Christian Soldiers” played unceasingly in her head. Eitan walked over to Bob, pulled him out of his seat by the lapel of his jacket and brought him to Gretchen and Steve at the front of the stage. Gretchen tried to hit him with her handbag, but missed.

  “Okay, Bob. We’re gonna give you just one last chance to live. It’s very simple. All you have to do is answer three little bitty questions. If you get the answers correct, we’ll let you live. Is that fair?”

  Bob said nothing.

  “Okay Bob, first question. Bob, has the Almighty ever told you that the world i
s about to end?”

  Bob, very quietly: “No.”

  “Is the correct answer!” A triumphant fanfare played on the studio PA. Steve continued. “Second question, Bob. Have you ever received any personal messages of any description from the Lord?”

  Bob, very quietly: “No.”

  “Two correct answers!” Another fanfare. “You’re doing real good so far. Okay, Bob, now to save your life, concentrate real hard. Bob, what is the capital of Venezuela?”

  Bob turned white, looking pleadingly at the audience in the hope that someone might shout the answer. Nobody did. Gretchen smiled broadly. She’d never done an execution before. And she knew the correct answer to the question.

  “C’mon, Bob! It’s an easy question. What is the capital of Venezuela?”

  No answer.

  “Oh, Bob! C’mon! At least make a guess. I’m going to count to three then I want some kind of answer from you. One… Two… Three! Time’s up, Bob! What’s the answer?”

  “Bogota?”

  “Is the wrong answer!” Cheers from the audience. “Gretchen, do you know the answer?” asked Steve Yonoi.

  “Yes, Sir! It’s Caracas. That’s where my son lives.”

  “Awww! Ain’t that great? Okay Gretchen, you’ve gotta kill Bob for us now. How d’you feel about that? Looking forward to it?”

  “I certainly am,” enthused the little old lady. “I’ve been adding it all up, and I guess that I must have given this wicked man about half a million dollars over the years.”

  “So I guess he owes you, huh?”

  “He sure does. What we gonna do then? String ’im up? Blow his brains out? Cut him into ittle-bitty pieces with a blunt knife? Peel off his skin and drop him in a vat of salty water?”

  “Whoa, Gretchen!” laughed Steve. “I can see we’re gonna have some big fun here! Ladies and gentlemen. The time is almost upon us for Bob’s execution. But first, we have to give him the chance to do something he probably hasn’t done for real for a very long time, and that’s pray. So start praying Bob, there’s a good feller. Seek the Lord’s forgiveness, and ask if he can see his way through to not sending your miserable ass straight to hell.”

  Though he couldn’t put his cuffed hands together, it was clear that Bob was praying.

  Steve pulled out a GenTech Panther pistol from an inside pocket, took off the safety and handed it to Gretchen. “Gretchen, I want you to stand behind Bob and hold the pistol to the back of his head, about here. It’s got blowback vents so there won’t be too much recoil, but you better hold it with both hands. That’s it, you’ve got it. The safety’s off, so all you have to do is wait for my say-so and then gently squeeze the trigger. Got that? Good… But first, ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a minute’s silent reflection. You may wish to pray for Bob’s soul, or simply think on some of the things you’ve seen tonight. In sixty seconds’ time, Gretchen here will pull the trigger.”

  Pereira flipped the control console onto autopilot for the last time and closed his briefcase. Picking it up along with his SIG, he was about to leave. He then remembered the sleeping Producer in the corner and went over, bent down and rifled through his pockets. “Easy come, easy go,” he muttered as he helped himself to the man’s wallet containing cash, security passes and credit cards. He left, closing the door behind him, walking down the side of the studio to the stage.

  Bob was kneeling tearfully at the front with a little old lady gleefully holding a pistol to the back of his head. Next to them stood Steve Yonoi, head bowed, hands together. At the back of the stage was Eitan, clutching the Murphy rifle to his chest and looking suspiciously around him, as always. Dolly sat on the sofa, staring straight ahead. The studio was in complete silence, though he could swear he could hear faint strains of “Onward Christian Soldiers” coming from somewhere.

  Silence.

  “AWWWWWWWLLLLLL-RIIIIIIIIGGGHHHHHHTT!” shouted Steve Yonoi suddenly. “Bob, the minute’s up, you’ve gotta die now. C’mon ladies and gentlemen. Let’s help Gretchen along with a countdown. Gretchen, we’re going to count down from ten. When we get to zero, pull that trigger, okay?”

  Gretchen nodded vigorously.

  Steve began the countdown. The entire audience joined in. So, too, Pereira observed curiously, did Dolly. “TEN… NINE… EIGHT… SEVEN… SIX… FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE… ZERO!!”

  Gretchen tensed and pulled the trigger. Bob tensed and closed his eyes.

  Click. Click. Click.

  “Hey, this thing ain’t loaded,” complained Gretchen. Bob fainted.

  “Yes, Gretchen, that’s absolutely correct. The pistol was not loaded. That’s because ah’m not ashamed to be a Christian. At the end of it all, we decided we really didn’t have the heart to kill Bob, even though he’s such a scumball. See, there’s nothing in the Good Book says thou shalt not scare evil men shitless, but it does say quite clearly that thou shalt not kill (commandment number six, ladies and gentlemen). Which means that if we did shoot the bastard, you and me would be up on murder charges. And what would your son in Caracas think of that?”

  The audience was silent again. “I guess you got a point,” said Gretchen. “I also guess there’s nothing wrong with this,” she picked up her handbag and began hitting Bob with it. He came round, but made no attempt to defend himself.

  “Well, friends,” said Steve Yonoi, stepping forward as behind him Gretchen Sandino belaboured Bob with her handbag, “that’s about all we’ve got time for this evening, so it’s God bless all of you from the three of us. You all take care now! We’ll be seeing you again, sometime real soon.”

  Only in the Twilight

  by Brian Craig

  In that chaotic cloud of intellectual flatulence which comprises the works of G. W. F. Hegel there are only two statements which warrant the attention of the eclectic plagiarist. The first, couched in a quaintly poetic style, alleges that “the Owl of Minerva flies only in the twilight”—which, roughly translated, means that only when the human story approaches its climax can we really hope to understand what the plot was all about. The second is usually rendered down by translators into the terse aphorism that “the only thing we learn from history is that no one ever learns anything from history”—which means that the men whose actions comprise the story of mankind keep repeating the mistakes of their predecessors. Whether either statement is true is highly dubious, but either might make a useful hook to hang a story on. (Homer Hegarty, Ideas Worth Stealing, p. 157)

  It began with a poker game in the Twilight.

  The Twilight was a sleaze-joint on the edge of the NoGo south of Memphis. Because it was run by the Mob, a lot of pretty heavy guys used to hang out there, which made it almost as safe as a PZ for the right kind of people—or the wrong kind, depending on your point of view—so it was pretty popular.

  Most nights at the Twilight you could find twenty or thirty poker tables on the go. They were mostly small-time stud or hold’em games, but the main feature was always the screened-off section where the real pros like Pop Sayers, Eddie Mars and Minnie Verne whiled away their time, waiting for a sucker to blow in, or for some chancer who’d been winning regularly in the little league to figure that the time had come to graduate. The screens were a nice affectation, making it absolutely clear that it was a privilege to play in that game; the kibitzers were kept out, though the small-timers could sneak a peep now and again over the top, provided that they showed proper reverence and discretion.

  The hold’em game which kicked off this particular story started off small enough, but eventually got heated up to the point where the pros were peeping over from their own side to see what was going down—which was the next best thing to the gods descending to the earth, down Memphis way.

  It was a grudge match from the start, because Perry Prime—who was number three in the Prime Cuts, a biker gang up from Alabama—already had some history with Manny Lee, who was number two in the Unruly Members, a similar outfit with a local base. The two gangs had clashed
several times, sandside and dirtside alike, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that both Perry and Manny were out for fun, with only a handful of soldiers and their old ladies in tow, they’d have been ripping up the streets instead of sitting down like gentlemen for a game of cards.

  There were five other guys in the game, but everybody knew that it was really Perry against Manny—they both fancied themselves as real good players, each one figuring that he might one day earn a seat behind the screens, if he didn’t get killed on the road.

  The money went everywhichway for a while, but as the game developed, Perry began to pull steadily ahead. It was an education for the boys who were watching, because Perry and Manny had completely different styles. Perry was flamboyant, always ready to run the big bluff if he smelled chicken; Manny was dour, playing the value of his hand with absolute precision. The bluffer can usually pull ahead in a game like that because he keeps forcing out the other guy’s average hands, but if it goes on long enough, the game usually reaches the situation where the big bluffer gets conned, and goes in with everything against a real good hand. That was what Manny was waiting for, and every time he got forced out by Perry’s money he looked just miserable enough to make Perry think that all he had to do to clean up was to keep throwing in the big bets.

  They’d been playing about five or six hours straight when Manny figured Christmas had arrived. He got dealt two queens, and the flop in the middle had another one, along with a five and a nine—hold’em, in case you don’t know, is seven card stud in which each player has his own two hole cards and the other five are dealt three, one and one into the middle, face up and common to all the hands. When Perry raised into him, Manny just called and let him make the pace, waiting for the crunch.

  The fourth card in the flop was a two, same suit as the nine, which meant that Manny had three chances to fill a full house on the last turn-up and nobody else could have anything better than a four-flush—so when Perry raised again, Manny called again, trying to look like a man being dragged along.