This Burning Man (Future Arizona Book 1)

by Kris Holt

  She grinned at me as she slipped her jacket off her shoulders. 'I need me a gimmick, right? Everyone gotta have a gimmick. That way, when the bads see me coming and they know it's me, they lose hope before I even get close.'

  She pulled her top up so only a little of her cleavage showed and wrapped a dark scarf around everything. Then she took a deep breath, pressed her hands together in prayer and gazed at me with liquid eyes. 'Yes sir, everyone gotta have a gimmick.'

  ---

  'This is literally the worst goddamn idea ever,' I said.

  Jayci critically examined the cassock I had on, pulling at seams and shifting it around on my frame. Gregor stood behind her, shaking his head. When she was satisfied, she pushed the Bible into my hands and adjusted the cardboard dog collar around my neck. 'Priests don't use language like that.'

  'You're forgetting I had a seminary upbringing. I could tell you a few surprising things about the language priests use.'

  'Save it for your confessional,' Jayci said, smiling.

  'Why do you even own these clothes?'

  'You never know when you're gonna need a disguise.'

  'If you're done here,' Gregor said, taking the bag, 'I need to get back. I was checking out the sun and it looks even worse than I thought.'

  'We'll be back once we know more,' Jayci called as he bumped away on the trike. Then she licked the palm of her hand and began flattening my hair down.

  'Is that necessary?' I asked, shrugging away from her.

  'Damn right it's necessary. You look like a pig farmer who's been getting too close to the livestock. Will you just stand still?'

  'Why are we even doing this?' I said.

  'We can't just walk up as bondsmen now. If those are Di Vio's men, the last thing he's going to want is another armed force in the city,' she said.

  'Pretty much every single person in Hole Town carries a gun.'

  'Yeah, but most of those people are more of a danger to themselves than to someone else.' Adjustment complete, she tugged me towards her gently and pecked me on the forehead. 'We need information. Try and look holy, okay?'

  ---

  Head down, Jayci approached the guards nervously and I followed her, clutching my holy book and looking solemn, a few steps behind. The guards glanced at one another, stood upright and put out hands to block her path

  'Stop right there,' one of them ordered.

  'Good morning to you, sirs. My name is Sister Pennyweather, and this here is my associate, Father Felix. We were told that a bunch of heathens had attacked the station, and one of our key duties is to attend to the spiritual well-being of our brave military personnel.'

  One of the guards said, 'This is a restricted area. You need to go back.' To his left, the other began to whisper into a radio mike, as though hoping the names he'd heard were going to turn something up. Even as he did it, his hands had a hold of the stock of his gun.

  'In the name of the Good Lord and Lady, there's nothing to worry about, sir,' Jayci continued in her most cheerful voice. 'I'm simply trying to locate the whereabouts of the person we usually meet with. Her name is Sergeant Carter, US military. She runs this very station that you're guarding right now, so if you just call in and let her know that we're here, we'll be happy to wait.'

  While Jayci was entertaining the guards, I glanced around. People were moving past slowly and I could see a few craning their necks in our direction. Others had stopped to have conversations or read the bills that were posted onto the noticeboard in the square. I also noted the shadows where absolutely nothing was moving at all. In any crisis situation, those were the ones I tended to fire into first.

  'Father.' Guard number two called me back and nodded to my dusty-looking Bible. 'Where did you say you were from?'

  Jayci wide-eyed me from under her wimple. 'Catholic Compound Twelve,' I said, as confidently as I could.

  Guard number two pursed his lips. I could tell he wasn't convinced by our getup. 'And is Compound Twelve the nearest of the churches hereabouts?'

  'I believe that the nearest church to here is Compound Ten,' I said, making my best effort not to blink. 'But between you and me, I think that the reverend fathers there have become rather hardened by years of life in the big city. They don't seem as concerned for the souls of people here as they should be.'

  'Is that so?'

  I went for broke. 'Our mission is sanctified by Padre Reyes at Twelve. He's been a serving priest under the Fallen Cross for over fifty years and is the holiest man I have ever known.' I placed my hand upon my heart in an attempt to convey my sincerity. If this turned ugly, I was going to have to shoot a man while wearing a cassock, and that would be a first for all of us.

  Guard number one balanced his gun where we could see it. 'The military has stood down for now by order of the local government. A private team has had to step in for a short while for your safety and security. If you turn around to where the crowd is gathered over there,' he pointed, 'you'll see that there's a notice about a public meeting due to take place in the canyon later today. That will explain everything for you.'

  'Thank you, sir,' Jayci said. She touched both her shoulders, her forehead and her heart. 'Blessings be with you. If either of you fine gentlemen find yourself in need of spiritual guidance, you can always contact me-'

  'Come, sister,' I said, taking her arm and guiding her away. 'Let us not disturb these good men any further.'

  When we'd gained a few yards of safe distance, Jayci whispered, 'Why you gotta do that?'

  'Because you're the least convincing nun ever, and the sum total of all the information we gathered we could have got just by reading the noticeboard in the first place.'

  'I don't know about that. We got confirmation our guys over there are private security, and ain't no-one else but Di Vio's men could be armed with those sort of guns. And besides,' she said, twinkling at me, 'dressing up is fun, right?'

  'Lord, preserve me,' I replied.

  Jayci Hail Mary'd and scattered blessings in her wake as we made our way through the crowd to where the notice had appeared. It was a simple poster, six feet wide, hand painted.

  'CITY-WIDE MEETING ON SECURITY. ALL INVITED, BY ORDER OF MAYOR BELASCO. BASE OF CANYON 6PM.'

  'That's when they're going to make the handover official,' I said.

  Jayci pulled off the scarf and the sheet, letting her braids tumble loose. 'Then we should thank the Good Lord that we've got some time to prepare, shouldn't we?'

  Chapter 20 – The Party in the Canyon

  Gregor turned up with our bags before the sun dipped close to the horizon. He was sweating like a mule and muttering to himself as he approached. A dark, wet stain filled the hollow between his shoulders and crystallised white at the edges.

  Beside me, Jayci squinted beneath her hat, looking all kinds of hot and irritated. To her front, a crowd of people a hundred bodies deep stretched from the mouth of the canyon all the way back to the ridings of Hole Town. Looking around, I could see all the kinds of people that made up a community - the mine workers with their empty eyes, the bordello girls who came in stern, no-nonsense packs. The farm workers tied cloth around their faces and supported one another with calloused hands. Street-sellers had brought their carts down the rocky path and into the canyon itself. It might not have been an easy trip, but there was always money to be made from a crowd, and it was better to have your livelihood with you than to trust it to good fortune in an empty town.

  There were even one or two seminary boys close by. Their hair was too tidy for them to have ever done useful work. They took one look at my cassock and sidled away as quickly as they could.

  Gregor offered us water bottles and then crouched down, gulping for air.

  Jayci tipped her head slowly and gazed at Gregor like she was waking from a dream. 'You okay, G?'

  The big man wiped himself down on a cloth he pulled from a pocket. 'It's too hot, I pretty much had to sprint to get here and I certainly don't like being near this many people.'
/>   Jayci patted him on the back. 'Hang in there. We're only here to see what they've gotta say, then we can get ourselves back home and come up with a plan.'

  Mayor Belasco was a weathered man but he was dignified, and he walked up to the lectern at the end of the valley with the energy of one half his age. His beard was the colour of the wind, and he'd managed to get this far out into the wastes wearing something approximating a clean shirt and tie. In his lapel he'd stuffed a clementine blossom, showing how he'd started his days working on the farms hereabouts. It ain't much, you can say, but these are the little things that matter to people. He might have been a politician, but he was also Hole Town, through and through.

  No, it wasn't Mayor Belasco that concerned me. He was just one man, making a decision that was no decision at all. It was the smirking younger man standing beside his shoulder that concerned me. Nate Di Vio.

  Belasco began. 'Ladies and gentlemen of Hole Town. Thank you for coming out here to hear about the security arrangements in our fine town. Now, it can't have escaped anyone's notice that the army have been called out at short notice to deal with operational matters hereabouts. In their stead, I've had to decide how we deal with the problem of keeping people safe - and happily, a solution has arrived that also addresses some other problems we've been having.

  'As you know, we've been experiencing issues with securing reliable sources of power to develop our industry. It's not easy to run production lines if you can't find solar tech, or the underground lines are only working four hours a day. For that reason, I'm delighted to introduce you to the man who'll be taking charge of both our power and security needs. He's the owner of the Silver Sea, which powers all of the lands north of the Sands, and he has some exciting ideas to help our town grow. Ladies and gentlemen, Nate Di Vio.'

  With his futuristic looking clothing, Nate Di Vio was something of a strange sight. He had all the time in the world as he stood forward and lifted the copper cloak off his shoulders. Two of his lackeys stepped along with him to take it from his hands. He sauntered to the lectern and once there, gripped the edges with his hands.

  'Thank you, Mayor Belasco,' he said, his voice strong and clear. 'It's great to see so many people here today, taking an interest in matters of civic importance. It speaks volumes about your town that you've made the effort.

  'Ten years ago, I came out of a tech institute with nothing more than a rapacious interest in engineering and a plan for the future. Everyone I worked alongside was interested in military applications, building vehicles, munitions, bombs, so that our armies could better fight abroad. I always had loftier ambitions - I wanted to make the world a better place. In my first year in industry, I devoted all my time to tracking down old tech - things we'd lost, things we'd forgotten after the constant civil wars of the last century. I found them, reverse-engineered them, learned the stories of our past all over again. Thanks to the work I carried out in that year, we were able to build the workshops that made it possible to mass-produce self-cleaning solar panels that are more efficient than the Old Worlders could even dream of. In the north, we now have power, so much power that we don't know what to do with it.'

  He raised his arms. 'Some of you may be asking, why are you here? Why now? Well, I'm not just a man who likes to help others, I'm a man who likes to travel. And so I came south, looking for somewhere new that I could assist. When I reached the outskirts of Hole Town, I realised that the fields here are drier and emptier than they should be. This is a harsh land, but it's rich with mineral wealth, and with my help, you could become an industrial heartland.

  'I can bring enough juice to power a thousand factories, and you have the space to build them and the people to work them. Working together, we can generate wealth and create prosperity. If you're willing to embrace me as a partner, I'll help you to make Hole Town into the new capital city of the South. From El Paso to Miami, everyone will know you, and everyone will want to come here and make their fortune. Embrace me, and together, we will build the future!'

  There was cheering then, the stunned, stilted kind that you might feel if you ever won a lottery. Even Jayci and I could have got involved, though we were both brought down when we turned to see Gregor shaking his head.

  'What do I need from you?' Di Vio continued. 'Your labour...your patience...your understanding. This is your town, and as your honoured guest, I'm keen that you're the driving force in building this great new tomorrow. Something else I need is a reasonable degree of assurance that comes with security, and in the absence of the army being here to keep people safe, I've agreed with Mayor Belasco that my own private security people will take over duties in and around the town. You might have seen them around - look out for the grey jackets. We're asking you to respect them in the same way that you'd respect any lawman, and follow their instructions to stay safe.'

  Looking around, I could see now that large clutches of Di Vio's security detail were spread out among and around the crowd, meeting stares with firm nods, each of them criss-crossed with bandoliers and weighed down with guns big enough to shoot down the moon.

  'Friendly fellas,' Jayci observed. Gregor grimaced.

  Mayor Belasco interjected, sharing a few words with Di Vio, and the latter nodded before turning back to the crowd. 'Mayor Belasco has just pointed out to me that we don't want...what we don't need right now, is to have civilians moving around, doing the work that my security team have agreed to pick up. Of course, civilians will retain their constitutional right to bear arms, but for now and the foreseeable future, we're standing down the bounty hunters. Existing bounties will be honoured, but no new ones will be offered.'

  A ripple ran through the crowd at that point. I looked at my feet, and then up at Jayci. Her lips thinned slightly, oh-so-slightly, but she made no other reaction.

  'Finally,' Di Vio said, 'necessity has meant that things here are moving at a fast pace, and it's important that you all have a chance to meet and get to know me - if that's what you want to do.'

  There were a few whistles from the crowd, and a woman in front of us yelled, 'Will you marry me?' to general amusement.

  Di Vio smiled. 'A century ago, in a desert hundreds of miles to the north, the people used to hold a festival each year to celebrate their identities. A celebration, the likes of which you've never seen before. It was a party for the ages, and we're going to bring that spirit to Hole Town. There'll be a chance for everyone to reconnect with your wild, spiritual side - to celebrate our self-reliance and our self-expression. I'm going to build you a metropolis in the desert, a new city in the Sands. That's where we'll get to know one another, and that's where we'll become friends.'

  The sun fully set at the precise moment that Nate Di Vio stepped away from the lectern. In the new darkness in the valley, the applause began slowly at first, building and cresting as even sceptics joined in, and people yelled and hooted to one another. What had started as a discussion about security had ended with the promise of the biggest party Hole Town, or anywhere south of the Sands, had ever seen.

  Torches popped up at the fringes of the crowd, bathing everywhere in dirty yellow light. I looked around through a sea of clapping, cheering bodies to a small group as motionless as our own. The pink-haired singer from the drinking hole who saved my life in the gunfight after was just a few yards away to my right, standing with a posse of her own. A group of women, aged from teens to toothless, gathered in a loose circle. One in particular caught my eye - perhaps the same age as the singer herself, short hair the colour of the sun and a hollow-cheeked face striking for its intensity. She saw me staring, and stared back for a few seconds before nudging the singer.

  Pink Hair recognised me straightaway, despite the cassock. Behind her, an impossibly tall dark-skinned woman with narrow limbs and a long rifle strapped over her shoulder gave me the coldest look I might have ever had. She moved protectively around the blonde girl, who continued to meet my eye even as the group ushered her away through the crowd.

  'Huh,' I
said, turning as Jayci tugged on my sleeve.

  'Time to go,' Jayci said, and between her, the rumbling figure of Gregor and a hundred other limbs beside, I could see the sneering face of Captain Jensen as he strode towards us.

  Chapter 21 – Cut Adrift

  You've probably had that dream, the one where you're being chased. Perhaps it's dark, confusing, with the light only touching the edges of your vision. When you look its way, it slides into the corners, bleeding around the edges, seeping back in where you least expect. Soon, every way you look, you see danger.

  Are you alone in that dream? Or is it worse somehow to know that your own are with you, and you have to make sure that you don't lose them along with yourself?

  Your friend has a hold of you and a hold of your other friend too, but you're moving this way and that, tugging at each other, and any move might be one too far, the one that separates you. You can't move too slow, because that bad behind you will catch up but you can't move too fast or you'll attract the attention of the bads in front, and they'll scream into life and bring you down. All around, people are watching. Starting to run, just because. Their knees and elbows crash into you, needle-sharp, tearing your skin and scratching at your eyes.