TekWar

by William Shatner

  Jake asked him, “Why—do you have some reason for believing otherwise?”

  “And you, Señor Cardigan, are a convicted criminal who purports to be an employee of a North American detective agency which itself has a highly unsavory reputation.” He shook his head even more vigorously. “You also have a most unfortunate attitude.”

  Swires gave an exasperated groan. “Oigame, por favor—my interview with Warbride was set up by your own publicity rep,” he informed the small captain. “I sat around on my toke in Cuidado for days waiting for all the damn rigmarole to get itself—”

  “You’re in a war zone here,” reminded Aguilar. “What some effete public relations person may have promised you back in the safety of—”

  “What’s the hacienda for?” Jake pointed at it with a thumb.

  Captain Aguilar said, “Señor Cardigan—if indeed that is who you really are—por favor, don’t interrupt me again.”

  Jake was looking him up and down. “I think I used to know you, Aguilar,” he said thoughtfully. “Sure ... you used to be a pimp for rebuilt andy hookers up in Tijuana back about—”

  “That will be enough—basta!” The captain raised his hand to strike Jake, then decided against it. “You’ll all remain here, under guard, until certain officials in Warbride’s provisional government arrive to take over your questioning. The hacienda, señor, is for that purpose.”

  “When will they get here?” asked Swires.

  “Quién sabe?” Shrugging, Captain Aguilar walked away. The four others stayed where they were, ringing them, with lazrifles in hand.

  Beth leaned close to Jake. “Was he really a pimp?”

  “Yep, he was. As I recollect—and this was quite a time ago—I arrested him at least twice.”

  “That sure isn’t,” complained Swires, “going to help our case.”

  The gleaming black landcar came driving into the field late in the afternoon. Its windows were blank and there was not a single speck of dust on its entire bright surface.

  Captain Aguilar and the four other soldiers snapped to attention.

  Jake was squatting near the believable projection of a brick pathway. Beth was sitting, legs crossed, right on the path itself, and spoiling a portion of the illusion. Swires was spread out on the ground and resting on one arm, his back to the flowering shrubs that bordered the front of the hacienda.

  Rising to his feet, Jake watched the long dark car roll to a stop some thirty feet away.

  Aguilar moved toward the rear of the vehicle. He clicked his heels and bowed as a blind door hissed slowly open. “General Ribera, sir, welcome.” Bowing once more, he then stepped back to salute again.

  A tall, slender man in a cream-colored suit emerged from the car.

  “These three are the suspected assassins,” explained the captain, gesturing at them.

  Ribera was staring right at Jake. He started laughing. “What the hell are you up to now, Jake?”

  “Eddie ... How long have you been a general?”

  Swires popped upright. “Things are looking up,” he remarked.

  The general and Jake were in what appeared to be a large, wood-paneled living room. Ribera was perched on an upturned plascrate. Jake was pacing.

  “Quit wandering around, Jake. You kick up dust and shatter the illusion.”

  “You set up one of these hologram haciendas wherever you go?”

  “No, but Aguilar likes to. I find it best to humor him in small things,”

  Halting, Jake asked, “When did you quit being a lawyer up in the Borderland?”

  “Nearly five years ago,” answered his friend. “Then—it happened while you were away—I decided to join with Warbride. You haven’t kept up with the political situation here in the country, but things have been growing much worse. President Romero is a charming lady—though nowhere near as tough or practical as Warbride—but she’s allowed those around her to step up the oppression and ... Ah, but there’s no need for an oration. Tell me what brings you here?”

  “I came to see Warbride.”

  “To rekindle your former—”

  “Jesus, Eddie, just about everybody in Mexico seems to think that she and I had one of the great romances of the century.” Jake spread his hands wide. “But it wasn’t that at all. I have to see her now because of a case I’m working on.”

  “Police business?”

  Grinning, Jake replied, “I’m out of the Freezer, but not off the shitlist. No, I’m a private operative now—working for the Cosmos Detective Agency in GLA.”

  Ribera said, “Not a bad outfit. Bascom isn’t exactly honest, but he’s not a rascal like some of his competitors. What does our mutual friend have to do with the case?”

  “Cosmos was hired to locate Professor Kittridge and his daughter.”

  Slowly General Ribera stood. “That’s who the young woman outside is—I thought I recognized her,” he said. “Doesn’t she know where her father is?”

  “Nope. Do you?”

  Ribera turned half away from him, watching Jake through narrowed eyes. “What is it—you suspect Warbride is involved in the professor’s disappearance?”

  “There was apparently a crash and it took place in the Selva Grande, which she now controls.” Jake started to pace again and yellow dust swirled up through the floorboards. “And among the several attempts to knock me off that have occurred since I crossed the border—at least one was arranged by people close to her.”

  Ribera held up his right hand, palm toward Jake. “No, that isn’t true. There’s been no order to harm you or anyone around you.”

  “Does Vargas need her okay to try something like that?”

  “Ah—Vargas ...

  “I’m pretty certain he gave orders to have me killed, Eddie.”

  “My relationship with Warbride is not without problems,” admitted the general. “One of them is Rafe Vargas. She and I don’t agree as to his worth or his loyalty.”

  “So he could be behind the attempt?”

  “Most certainly, sí.”

  Jake stopped close to his friend. “You have no idea what happened to Professor Kittridge?”

  “None whatsoever, no.” He put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “But I’ll arrange for you to get safely to Warbride’s camp.”

  Jake said, “Bueno.”

  26

  AT DUSK THEY REACHED the Great Forest. The huge trees rose up hundreds of feet and stretched away ahead of them like endless rows of giant pillars. Darkness was slowly starting to fill in the spaces between the trees, and their high, distant branches seemed to be fading.

  General Ribera, who was driving the black landcar, stopped at the edge of the wide roadway that went cutting through the Selva Grande. “Yet another checkpoint,” he remarked.

  Three uniformed men, each armed with a lazrifle, had been leaning against the trunk of a single immense tree. They snapped to attention and one of them came trotting over to the halted car.

  “Buenas noches, General,” the soldier said after looking in at the open window.

  “We’re heading for the central encampment, Corporal,” Ribera informed him.

  “You can pass on, General Ribera.” Stepping back, the man saluted.

  “That’s Carlos Troxa, isn’t it?” Jake inquired as the window hissed shut and the landcar began moving again. He was sitting in the passenger seat next to his friend.

  “The corporal’s name is Troxa, I believe, yes. Why?”

  “I remember him from the Borderland—used to be a pickpocket. Not a major one.”

  Ribera smiled. “A cause can reform a man, Jake.”

  “Maybe. Sometimes.”

  “You’re even more cynical than you used to be.”

  “I probably am, yes.”

  From the backseat Ogden Swires said, “Tyranny has an uplifting and ennobling effect. It turns thieves and ne’er-do-wells into patriots in the service of a worthy cause.”

  “Beg pardon?” said Ribera.

  “He’s only dic
tating something for his story,” explained Beth, who was sharing the backseat with the reporter.

  Swires asked, “When am I going to be allowed to take some pictures, General?”

  “When we reach the base.”

  “But I’d really like to get some shots of this forest. The trees are really quite—”

  “That isn’t possible, señor. We don’t want any specific details of the route to the camp appearing.”

  “I can be very discreet in snapping the—”

  “It’s not permitted.”

  Sighing, Swires returned to talking quietly into his recorder-mike.

  Jake asked, “What exactly have you heard about Professor Kittridge’s crash, Eddie?”

  “Nothing beyond the fact that a crash apparently occurred.”

  They were surrounded now by the giant trees, and the day was moving rapidly toward night.

  Jake said, “But their skycruiser came down fairly near here.”

  “Supposedly, yes.”

  “Supposedly? Do you have doubts?”

  “I mean only that I was away at the time, Jake. Therefore I possess nothing but hearsay information.” Ribera glanced briefly back at Beth. “Surely the señorita can provide you with all the details, since she was with her father.”

  “Actually I wasn’t,” she said.

  “I heard that—”

  “She wasn’t,” Jake interrupted. “Is there anything else you can add?”

  Shaking his head, Ribera said, “No, nothing ... nada.”

  “You know Bennett Sands.”

  “Of course. Though I’m not overly fond of him,” the general admitted. “I must mention, however, that he’s been most helpful to us.

  “How so?”

  “He’s given Warbride considerable financial aid.”

  “To make certain,” Beth said, resting her hand on the headrest of Jake’s seat, “that his own holdings hereabouts don’t get damaged or nationalized.”

  The general said, “That may well be his motive.”

  “Then Warbride might,” said Jake, “do Sands a favor.”

  “She might. What sort do you have in mind, Jake?”

  “Don’t know. Something to do with Kittridge, probably.”

  Ribera nodded. “Sí, that’s possible.”

  “But she wouldn’t necessarily confide in you if she had?”

  Ribera laughed. “You know her,” he said. “Warbride is not the confiding type—not with her lovers and not with her generals.”

  The noise came rolling through the night forest, hundreds of voices shouting and one amplified voice booming out above them. There was a glare, too, starting to show up ahead.

  Landcars were parked at the side of the wide woodland road, landvans as well, and even some jetcycles.

  Pulling off the road, Ribera said, “I’d forgotten about this. We’ll stop here and go the rest of the way on foot.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Jake.

  “A sort of rally.” The general got out of the car. “Warbride’s addressing her followers—and the event’s being vidtaped.”

  “Propaganda, huh?” Jake joined him at the side of the road.

  “Copies of the vidtape will be circulated.”

  Swires asked, “Can I use my camera now?”

  Smiling faintly, Ribera replied, “No one will object, señor.”

  Beth took Jake’s arm. “Vargas is likely to be here, isn’t he?” she asked quietly.

  “I sure hope so.”

  She tightened her grip on his arm. “I don’t think this is the ideal location for confronting him.”

  The shouting from up ahead grew louder, and then there was a sudden and abrupt silence.

  Five seconds passed.

  The amplified voice of a woman came echoing through the great trees. “Who am I?”

  “Warbride,” answered the as-yet-unseen crowd.

  “I cannot hear you.”

  “Warbride!”

  “Once again, please. I still can’t quite hear you.”

  “WARBRIDE!”

  “I have been called Warbride since I was seventeen. Since my brother and father vanished. Since they were made to disappear because they believed in freedom—not just freedom for themselves, but for all of Mexico. They vanished because they opposed the ruthless tyrant who then ruled our country ...

  With Ribera in the lead, they made their way toward the rally. There were more cars now, more landvans, more jetcycles, all crowded at the sides of the roadway. The bright white light coming from up ahead made the parked vehicles gleam and glow.

  “ ... and that man, that despot, was not as bad as the whore who occupies our capital now. I have been called Warbride since the day I was raped by federal soldiers. Raped by five men who served a tyrant. I have been Warbride since that day. Since that dark day when I swore that I would marry not a lover, not a good man who wanted me—I would be married to war! And I shall remain the bride of war and revolution until my country—until our country—is free. Tell me my name.”

  “Warbride!”

  “Warbride!”

  “WARBRIDE!”

  Gigantic trees had been cut down, at least two dozen of them to make a large clearing. There appeared to be well over a thousand people, men and women, in uniform and out, seated on the bare ground and all staring at a wide, raised, wooden platform. On each side of the platform stood a huge vidscreen, each one twenty-five feet high and twenty-five feet wide. A dark-haired woman, wearing tan trousers, highly polished black boots and a blood-red sleeveless tunic, stood alone on the stage. On both screens there showed an enormous image of her. She wore her hair cut short, and there were traces of weariness and strain showing in her tanned face. She was a pretty woman, with an intensity in her dark eyes. She raised her right hand and her arm flashed and glittered in the spotlights aimed at her. It was chrome-plated metal to just below the elbow.

  Beth leaned closer to Jake and whispered, “She looks a lot older than I expected.”

  “Careful where you step,” Ribera cautioned as he led them up to the bright-lit clearing.

  “Holograms,” realized Jake, scanning the rear rows of the audience.

  “It helps make for a more convincing propaganda vidfilm,” the general said. “We actually have only about four hundred in attendance, but a thousand looks better and—ah, señor, I’d prefer if you didn’t photograph this particular aspect of our rally.”

  Swires, crouching slightly, was about to use his small pixcam. “These projected people’ll come out looking nearly real in my—”

  “Even so.”

  Reluctantly, the reporter lowered his camera. “I’m going to have to sacrifice my reputation for bringing my readers nothing but the truth,” he complained.

  Ribera said, “We can sit back here, Jake, until Warbride’s finished speaking. Then I’ll take you to her.” He squatted on the ground, just behind a very believable row of holograms.

  Jake sat, beckoning Beth down next to him. “Warbride’s a good five years younger than I am,” he told her.

  “That doesn’t exactly make her a teenager.” She settled cross-legged beside him. “You’ve held up a lot better.”

  “Been getting a lot of rest lately.”

  Up on the platform Warbride was saying, “We must be loyal not just to the flag and the other beloved symbols of our country, we must be loyal to the idea of Mexico. And that idea cannot be the idea of one person, nor of a dictator or of that bitch who calls herself president. Mexico must be the idea of all of us. Mexico is what you think and feel and what you want for yourselves and for your children. Mexico is all of us—all of the fifteen hundred loyal warriors, men and women, who’ve journeyed here tonight, and all of you who will hear my words and see my image.”

  She raised her metal arm again, and for several seconds a gigantic image of it flashed on both the great screens.

  “There is no room among us for anyone who is not loyal,” she continued. “Our cause is too important for t
hat. Anyone who is disloyal to me—and, therefore, to you and to Mexico—must die.”

  “Damn,” said Ribera. “She promised me there’d be no more of these.”

  “A public execution?” asked Jake.

  “Yes—and that makes us no better than President Romero.”

  Someone was being led out onto the stage now. His pale blue suit was tattered, splashed with blood. His face was bruised and cut.

  But Jake recognized him. “That’s Globo.” He got to his feet.

  “Jake, stay here,” urged Beth, reaching up and grabbing his sleeve.

  “Globo, poor bastard, was disloyal to me if anybody,” he said. “He’s being killed now to keep him quiet.”

  “But you can’t go—”

  “Sure I can.” Shaking free of her grasp, Jake started walking through the crowd toward the platform.

  27

  THE CROWD BECAME AWARE that Jake was striding toward the platform. They grew silent for a moment, then began murmuring.

  One of the small botcameras that was hovering over the clearing came gliding down to get a look at him.

  The murmuring of the several hundred real soldiers grew louder. But since they were uncertain as to whether or not Jake was part of the show, no one made a move to stop him.

  When he was still about a hundred feet from the bright-lit platform, Warbride came to its edge and, shielding her eyes with her flesh hand, stared out at him.

  It took her another ten seconds to realize who he was. Then she smiled in recognition and the smile was flashed large on the screens. “Jake, cariño,” she said, laughing. “It’s been a very long time.”

  “It has,” he agreed, stopping a few feet short of the platform and looking up at her.

  She pointed skyward with her metal thumb. “You were away—and frankly I didn’t expect you’d be out this soon. Nor, mi alma, that you’d show up here.”

  “I’ve been trying to see you,” he said to her. “But apparently that news hasn’t gotten to you.”

  “No, no one told me that—”

  “We have business to attend to,” cut in a harsh, grating voice from Jake’s right.

  From behind one of the huge picture screens stepped a tall, wide-shouldered man. He wore a tight-fitting uniform, and spread across his broad chest were dozens of medals and ribbons. He was about forty and a little more than half of his face was handsome. The rest of it had been replaced by silvery metal. His left hand was metal, too, of the same gleaming silver.