Outrider

by Steven John

  “No, thanks. But if it’s alright with you I’ll smoke a cigarette.”

  “Please, please,” The Mayor grunted, twisting to reach for a brass ashtray perched on the table behind his couch. He placed it between the two men. “That was a gift from the Prime Minister of India. See the inlay? All twenty-four karat gold.” Dreg smiled proudly at the large, gaudy object. “Sometimes I feel badly tapping ashes into it. That’s why I only smoke fine cigars. A man must be humble, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the finer things, yes?”

  “Sure.”

  Dreg looked askance at the outrider, remaining coy but inwardly angry at how under-whelmed his guest seemed to be. It was surely pride keeping this provincial fellow from marveling at the opulence around him—the artwork, the fine craftsmanship of the furniture, the collection of curios from around the world.

  Scofield lit a cigarette, exhaling through his nose. Dreg held three wooden matches to the tip of a thick cigar and puffed away until it glowed orange. He blew a perfect smoke ring into the air, watching as it grew larger and then dispersed in the gentle breeze of the air conditioning.

  “Look around this room for a minute, if you would, Scofield,” Dreg said, trying a more direct approach. “You see all these . . . these things? The paintings? That statue? The art and artifacts, if I may? These were most all gifts. Tokens of appreciation or thanks for this meeting or that deal or this trade and such. I love this room. I love it not as a testament to myself. That would be the height of hubris, and I know how it may come across, but I also know why this room is here and why it’s appointed the way it is. It’s here because of the tireless labor of thousands of men and women—yourself well counted in that number. We have built as perfect a place as human history has ever seen. I know that sounds dramatic and, well, it is dramatic. But it’s true.”

  Dreg leaned forward to set down his empty tumbler then rose, helping himself to his feet with a hand on the armrest. “Do you know what has been the one most persistent, most dominant, and most difficult challenge mankind has struggled with, Mr. Scofield?”

  “Death, I’d say.” He smiled ruefully, his eyes on The Mayor’s. Scofield crushed the ember of his cigarette on the rim of the ornate ashtray and leaned back against the plush cushions. “But that’s not what you have in mind, Frank.”

  “Power. That’s what it’s all about. Be it the oil to light a lamp, the river’s flow to move a barge or turn the millwheel, the fire to heat a home, or the electricity to run a metropolis. Such as mine. Ours. Power. And with power—the control of power, I mean to say . . . the control of the dam or the crude oil or the firewood—has come might; influence. Since time immemorial. As Mayor, the responsibility for this city rests ultimately in these two hands. It makes me proud, but it’s also robbed me of many a night’s sleep and cost me many a gray hair. The crown sits heavily, as they say.”

  Dreg paced about the chamber, silent for a while. He paused before a painting of a ship that had just emerged from a mighty storm. The Mayor studied the piece, sure that Scofield would be watching him. He leaned in toward the canvas, squinting, then backed up a few feet to admire the work as a whole. Behind him, Scofield’s lighter crackled and cigarette smoke scented the air. Franklin’s jaw clenched involuntarily. He stepped a few paces to his right and pretended to study a small vase, glancing into a silver-framed mirror hung above it. Scofield was picking at the nail of one thumb with the opposing index finger.

  Dreg wheeled around. The inch-long ash from his cigar fell to the floor. He pretended not to notice. “So power, then, Scofield. That’s the matter at hand. You know that well. You live it every day all the way out there.” Dreg rested a palm on the back of the couch before him and leaned forward. “It’s both of our lives, yes?”

  “It’s my livelihood, yes. But life? I don’t know about that. When a man starts defining himself by his day-to-day business, he starts to lose sight of himself, you ask me.”

  “That’s very wise, my friend. Sage,” Dreg nodded.

  “However,” Scofield ran his tongue over the point of his left canine tooth, “seeing as it is the business of the day—and forgive me for being blunt—can we get into it, Mayor? The sunfield is drained. Bad, I think. And I’ll wager you know the extent. My boys will be keyed up to fight back by this time tomorrow, but I gotta learn what you and your people know tonight, and what you’re ready to do in response.”

  “I admire your forthrightness. It’s refreshing. I’m so often surrounded by these goddamn politicians and bureaucrats. Bunch of bastards never saying what they mean, the lot of ’em. Yes, then. The drain. That’s the business at hand. May I offer you a refill?”

  “No. Thanks just the same.”

  * * *

  “So now you know. And you know just about as much as I do, so if you got questions, don’t make ’em damn fool questions.” Hutton looked at each man gathered around him, studying their faces.

  He’d told C. J. Haskell about the drain earlier, and the young man’s features formed a mask of resignation. Gregory White looked about ready to rip the head off a preacher; his thick jaw was grinding from side to side and his cheeks were beet red. Joseph and Eric Bay, the half-brothers separated by a good ten years, were both nodding grimly. Matching silver crosses hung from the brothers’ necks. The older, Joe, whispered something to his brother that caused Eric to cluck his tongue, eyes closing for a long moment, gently taking hold of his cross. Wilton Kretch had gone pale and was doing his best to keep his bottom lip from quivering.

  The rainfall had slackened but the individual drops were bigger. They hammered against the tin roof of the stable. The long, single-story building echoed with dull thunder. It would have been sunset out if not for the storm. Instead the evening bled from pale gray to charcoal black. The odors of damp straw, manure, and sweat mingled in the stagnant air, filling the massive stable with a musty but comforting smell. It was familiar. Now and then a horse whinnied or snorted or stamped a hoof. Somewhere a few stalls down a stable-hand cursed. None of the outriders spoke for a long while. Boss Hutton rocked back on his heels, chewing on an unlit cigar and letting reality sink in to his boys’ heads.

  “I got Ryan Cannell briefing the rest of the fellahs. And I mean brief, they won’t know as much as you, just that we got some bigger problems’n usual. So if you cross paths with any other riders in the next twenty-four hours, ask questions but don’t say much. Don’t say shit, I mean. I’ll send runners to brief you boys deeper into this mess when Scofield gets back from town.

  “For now,” Hutton paused and leaned forward, his voice deadly serious, “you five are going to be the only men in the field. Stick to the routes I assigned and do not move into the interior. At all. Just ride your perimeters and don’t stop for anything but a piss break or to water your horses. This is smoke and mirrors: we gotta make our presence known, but it ain’t time to show our hand. You see a tap line, you ignore it; you see a collector or hook-up, put a bullet in ’em and move on. And if you see a burrow, note the location and you fucking gallop.”

  Hutton fished a lighter from his vest pocket, finally lighting the cigar. He sucked at the soggy tip, chewed halfway through. “You’ll be heading out in fifteen minute intervals. Greg—you’re first.”

  “Hut?” C. J. spoke up.

  “Go ahead, Haskell.”

  “What if something happens? What if we run into someone? Do we engage?”

  “Shoot and ride. Ask questions later.”

  Scofield scratched his chin, making no attempt to hide his lack of understanding.

  “This graph tracks daily averages. You see the pale blue line? That’s the good line. All these thinner strands are outlying trends. Red is bad. Red means over-consumption and strain.” Dreg ran his thick index finger along a glowing amber trail of information. It rose and fell erratically. “Green means under-consumption, which is good in theory but means fewer billable kilowatt hours, so too much green, well, that’s bad too! It’s always a balancing act. Of cou
rse, that’s all rhetoric these days—there’s not a hint of green to be found, between the weather,” he waved his hand in a loose circle “and the rest of it.”

  The Mayor took a few steps to his right and pointed to the next screen. “I’d hate to raise the rates on my fine citizens, or on any of our many dependable client cities around the western states, of course, but you know how ‘they’ say money is power? Well, power is money these days.” Dreg chuckled at his own wit, glancing over at Scofield. The outrider’s face was implacable. “Anyway, this monitor tracks consumption in real time.”

  “OK.”

  “What time is it right now, Scofield?”

  “About seven, I guess. Not sure. I got a watch in my jacket.”

  “Don’t worry about it—just making conversation. Every one of these screens has a clock. I prefer that old girl in the corner anyway,” The Mayor hooked a thumb toward his grandfather clock without looking. “Seven fourteen, though. That’s what this monitor says. Seven fourteen and twenty-three seconds and right down to the damned hundredths. At any rate—normally at this hour this screen here would be all soft blues and greens. But it’s not. It’s mostly orange with some fucking red! Do you know what that means?”

  “I . . . well, yeah—means we’re not collecting near enough power, right?”

  “More or less. Enough,” Dreg said icily. “Yes, losing power every day, but it’s worse than that. We’re losing what we already have, too. You see, it means the bastards are into our molten salt stores. We can always stand a week or two of bad collection. We can’t stand more than a few days of the salt stores being reduced like this. They’re into the lifeblood.” Dreg took in a long, deep breath. He closed his eyes and pressed his thumbs against the bridge of his nose. His shoulders were tense, quivering. Scofield could sense The Mayor’s simmering rage. This was, for the moment, not a politician—it was a man who had been robbed. “This needs to be stopped. Fast.”

  “Agreed.” Scofield nodded, taking a sip of bourbon. Dreg had insisted on refilling their glasses. The outrider noted that on the second round Franklin had actually served himself a full pour and thus he’d allowed himself a bit more liquor as well. Scofield could hold his liquor against any man, but it was never wise to take a drink when the other man wasn’t. He knew that Dreg was trying to loosen his tongue. But that could work both ways—whiskey, after all, is ambivalent.

  Scofield had already learned enough in the half hour spent studying this bank of monitors that he had decided this would be his last drink anyway. He didn’t understand every sine curve or median usage chart, but he got the picture: the drainers were now tapped in at all times and in myriad, evenly spaced locations, and they had even begun to siphon power at night. That was the biggest issue: it meant that not only were they sucking down massive amounts of wattage, but also that they were extremely well organized and advanced in their approach.

  Any fool could hook a tap line to a QV pillar; any group of fools could hook up lots of tap lines to lots of QV pillars. It took not only manpower, but strategic thinking to siphon off as much power as the daily charts showed missing and as the salt caverns were losing at night. It meant lots of people working in concert. And what’s more, it was likely the drainers were in it for more than material gain—there was no reason to go after the salt caverns or to work in the rain unless at least part of the motivation was disruption. Or destruction.

  It was a safe bet that this drain was either about terrorism, or else about insurrection.

  Scofield wasn’t sure if Mayor Dreg knew just how serious the data were. He resolved to himself to get out of town as quickly as he could without seeming an alarmist in order to report to Boss Hutton. Had Scofield been in charge, he would have told Dreg to call out the Civil Defense Forces right then and there. He would have mobilized every martial resource New Las Vegas had at its disposal. But it was his duty to report, not to incite. So he finished his bourbon and turned to Dreg.

  “Where should I set this glass?”

  “Hmm?” Dreg leaned away from the monitor he was studying. “Empty? Need another splash?”

  “No, thanks, Mayor. Just don’t want to damage the finish on your nice desk here.”

  “Ah, yes. I got that piece custom made. It’s a mixture of cedar, mahogany, and teak. Each wood plays a specific role, you see,” Dreg took a step toward the large desk and took in a breath to continue. Scofield wasn’t looking and didn’t realize he was interrupting a monologue.

  “Yeah, I’d hate to stain it. I’ll just set the glass down on the way out. Listen, I think I have a good enough sense to get the ball rolling now. Anything else you want to make sure I tell the boys?”

  “Wait, you’re going?” Dreg fixed Scofield with an incredulous glare.

  “Yeah. Gotta get back to the fields. Where I belong. We’ll make sure to report in every time there’s something worth reporting.”

  “Mr. Scofield, I don’t think you entirely grasp the nature of your visit here . . . the nature of our relationship.” The warmth was gone from Dreg’s voice. The politician’s smile had flattened out below that thick mustache. “You and your men do what I say. I have no intention of sitting back and waiting for reports, sir. I have, on the contrary, every intention of singlehandedly directing the response to this fucking catastrophe.”

  “Mr. Mayor, all due respect, that ain’t the way to handle this. Not yet, at least.” Scofield was entirely unfazed by Dreg’s icy glare and widened stance. Only half aware of himself, the outrider did, however, casually button up his vest.

  “Oh? And why ain’t it?” Dreg asked, subtly mocking the outrider’s speaking.

  “You keep your Civil Defense boys pretty well trained? Lots of drills for the troops and such?”

  “Near constant. They’re a precision machine. Thousands of men ready at all times.” Dreg did not, in fact, know just how many thousands or know anything at all about their training.

  “Mm. That’s good. Your men got good gear? Good munitions and transports and communication gear and all?”

  “The very best this city’s rather plentiful money can buy.”

  “Course. And how much do they train without all that fancy shit?”

  “What?”

  Scofield took three confident steps toward The Mayor. His gaze was firm; his voice even; the outrider neither sought to intimidate nor to demur. Franklin took an unconscious step back nonetheless, brushing against the coat tree and steadying himself with a hand wrapped around its thick bronze pole.

  “Out there in the fields, Frank, there’s no radios. There’s no satellite links. There aren’t any transports or armored vehicles or anything. It’s just men and horses and guns, you get me? You can have the best army in the world, y’see, but if they don’t know how to fight the war at hand, it ain’t worth shit. At day’s end, yeah, we work for you. But how we do that has got to be left up to us, just like it is day in and day out. At least for now. Give us some time. Let us find out exactly what we’re facing. That make sense?”

  Dreg nodded slowly, with grudging sincerity. “It does indeed. Perhaps I was too hasty just there, Scofield. Patience is a virtue I’ve struggled with my whole life. I’m not sure if its absence has driven me farther or held me back.”

  When Scofield said nothing, Dreg sighed and turned toward the door. “Well, lend me your ear for five more minutes.”

  “Sure, Frank.” Scofield followed Dreg back into his outer chamber. The Mayor walked slowly toward the large bank of windows and flipped a switch set in the wall beside him. With a metallic whine, the steel shutters outside the glass rose, revealing the night. It was still raining and foggy. The pulsing glow of New Las Vegas painted the air a gauzy amber-gray. Rivulets of water ran down the windows, their trails orange.

  “A thousand years ago it was fire. Three hundred years back, steam. Then oil and coal. We live in the future, Scofield. The system is almost perfect; perfect because it’s endless. But it’s vulnerable. You know, even thirty years ago there
were still nuclear plants, many of them not far from here.”

  “I remember ’em.”

  “There’s a reason most every major city within five hundred miles gets its power from NLV, sir. Because we figured it out, we got the power, dammit! Photovoltaic panels have been around for years—a century!—but it was here that we first got things really right. Here. Quantum bundling. QV! Such a simple thing: just let the particles move as they want to right there in those millions of little bundles . . . and it’s solved, the riddle is cracked! Those arrays you ride beneath every day? Do you know what they look like under a microscope?” Scofield shook his head. “They look like the inside of a lung. The alveoli. Little bundles of electrophilic nodes. Every one of them . . . the billions of them . . . here we stand in the soft light of their work. They are the lungs and heart and soul. And now this . . . cancer.”

  Dreg had left his glass sitting on the desk in his office. He walked to the bar and grabbed a fresh tumbler, then selected a bottle of thirty five year old cognac.

  “I’ll drink this alone, then.” He poured an ample dose of liquor. “But remember what we’re fighting. Not men, not mere thieves—cancer. It must be stopped. It must be extinguished. However necessary.”

  “I get it.”

  “I believe that you do.” Dreg took a large sip of brandy, coughing as the liquor caught in his throat. Scofield went to the sofa and gathered up his hat and satchel. He buttoned his coat and turned to face Dreg. The Mayor was leaning down toward a shelf, inspecting several of his curios.

  “Do you know what this is?” The Mayor asked, a bemused smile tugging at the corners of his wormy lips. He held up the odd, carved staff for the thousandth time, hefting the short length of hardwood. Scofield approached and studied the object.