Flash

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  All the streets in Fargo were numbered, avenues running east and west, streets north and south, an arrangement that dated back over two centuries, and one similar to the system used in Deseret district. Another interesting thing about Fargo was the Red River. Until I'd read the background material on the town, I hadn't realized that it ran northward into the Manitoba district, then drained north. The place had some of the best natural soils in NorAm, or the best ones remaining after the Collapse, and that had made it a center for naturally grown foods of all sorts. The place was so flat that it was always flooding, and more than half the town had been destroyed in the Great Flood of the Collapse. Fargo had never totally recovered, and held only about 60 percent of the population levels of the Commonocracy. Then, that was true of most places, even Denv. There were just fewer people.

  The carpark was right on the south side of the High Plains and was barely half full. To me, it meant that not too many people were traveling to Fargo to hear Kagnar, or if they were, they were staying in far more modest accommodations. Supposedly, the High Plains was modest, from both the price and the linkviews I'd scanned.

  I carried my overnight bag into the lobby, where a low-resolution virty checked me in and keyed my room to me. After lugging my gear up one ramp and walking to the end of the north wing, I found my room— and confirmed that it was modest indeed, if clean.

  After that, tired and hungry, I opted for the pseudo-bistro off the lobby—Chez Francois.

  A real host, a tired-looking college student, I guessed, escorted me to a table set against a faux brick wall. There were only three other tables taken, but five-fifteen was early for dinner, even on the High Plains. The plaid tablecloth was period, early twentieth century, I estimated, but the projected holo menu could have come from a dozen imitation French restaurants across NorAm, and perhaps it had. I settled on the beef and mushroom crepes with a green salad, and was pleased to find Grey tea, which wasn't period at all, hidden at the bottom of the projection.

  Then I waited, my blood sugar too low to concentrate. That was one of the areas where my genes could have used definite improvement. Before long, a server appeared and slipped the dishes onto the plain tablecloth.

  "Most business types leave Fargo over the weekend," the server noted. "You look business."

  "I'm covering the Kagnar campaign," I replied, before taking a sip of the Grey tea.

  "Someone has to." With a faint smile, she left me to the crepes.

  I ate methodically. I'd had better, but I'd had far worse and in far less hospitable locales. By the time I was finished, I felt refreshed, and ready to walk to the Fargodome. So I headed out.

  The dome was two long blocks south of the High Plains, and I didn't see another person on the winding path that bordered the street. A number of groundcars were pulling into the carpark around the Fargodome, but, even so, far less than half the spaces were taken. There were only a handful of greeters or volunteers, and none of those wore uniforms or singlesuits, just maroon jackets, with Kagnar pins on the lapels.

  "Would you like some information, sir?" asked a man who had to be elderly, or treatment-resistant, because his hair was white.

  "Yes, please." I took the trifold leaflet and carried it inside, through the lobby and into the arena section. Although the speaker's platform was not small and had been set up only five meters from the side of the arena where the doors were open, it was dwarfed by the darkened sections that rose on the other three sides. Despite using only a quarter of the space, less than a third of the seats were filled, and with fifteen minutes to go, I had the feeling that there would be a good many empty seats.

  I settled into a seat on the aisle, three rows back of the railing and wall that dropped down to the center area that could be used for anything from football to rodeos. First, I read through the trifold, but it told me nothing I hadn't already discovered. By then, my thoughts were skittering around what I'd seen and knew.

  Kagnar was only having a handful of rallies, from what the campaign schedule showed, and the link campaign wasn't that extensive. She was traveling to every hamlet in the subdistrict, as part of an effort to illustrate her interest in all the places people lived, and not just the major population centers.

  Damon Erle wasn't even doing an appearance in Fargo, or, if he had or would be, there was no record of it anywhere. I could see the reason for his rally in Jameston, since it was his hometown, but Jameston was less than a third the size of Fargo, and it couldn't have hurt to appear in Fargo as well.

  Unlike the Carlisimo rally, before Kagnar's appearance there was no music, no rez. At seven o'clock, the lights over the seating dimmed, and Kagnar appeared in a circle of light, walking forward to the front edge of the platform by herself. She was five years older than I was, not quite fifty, and even though most people that age looked far younger, she seemed like she'd barely graduated from grad school—unless you looked closely at her eyes. They'd seen far more.

  She smiled, and while she didn't project quite the radiance that Carlisimo had, there was enough energy there that I watched closely.

  "I'm glad to see you all here. Especially since it's harvest time. It's important that you are here. This election is one of a handful that will decide who controls the House. If the House falls to the PD, then everything will change. Artificial foods will take over the market. Natural foods will once more fall upon hard times. The virtues of the High Plains will be lost..." She paused. "Now ... you wouldn't want that, would you?"

  No one answered out loud, but I could sense more than a few heads nodding.

  "This election isn't about me. It's about you and what you believe in. It's about what you and your families have worked for. And, most of all, it's about your values..."

  The lights faded, and an immense image appeared right before where Kagnar was standing, effectively shielding her from the audience. The shimmering view of a stretch of open plains at sunset—a sweep of land enhanced with the crimson-highlighted clouds and an almost greenish deep-blue sky—wasn't as clear as those Carlisimo used because there was no shimmerscreen to enhance it, but it was large enough, maybe too large for those of us in the front rows. Subtly, under Kagnar's voice, music welled up, music with a sense of the familiar, with a rez undertone.

  Kagnar's voice continued. "We love the wide open spaces. They are our heritage and our birthright. But without a continent-wide policy to support that heritage in an economically sound way, all too many in Fargo and beyond will not be able to hold on to that heritage. I understand that heritage. And I will fight in the Legislature to preserve it and to improve conditions here on the High Plains..."

  The first image was replaced by a second, one showing a family standing by farming equipment beside a modest barn, and the background music changed into something both hopeful and wistful.

  "Like most of you, I have deep roots in Fargo..."

  Kagnar had a good sense of pacing, and a strong voice that radiated understanding. While her presentation didn't use commercial product placing, it definitely used a form of prodplacing, except that the product was a sense of place and heritage.

  The way Kagnar ended the rally was predictable enough. The background music and rez became more upbeat, and the projected views switched to those showing morning scenes across the subdistrict.

  "... We hold to a proud past, but we are not the past. Our virtues are based on the time-tested lessons of the past, and that is why they enable us to persevere and succeed now ... and in the future..."

  The projection switched to a brilliant sunrise, gold and orange across fields of golden grain.

  "Because we are the future that works. We ... are ... the ... future."

  The sunrise vanished, and Kagnar stood in the circle of light.

  "I've shown you all what I stand for and why I think I'd do the best job of representing you. That's why I'd like your vote. Thank you for coming."

  The entire Fargodome darkened for less than a minute, and then the lights came back up sl
owly, revealing an empty stage.

  In its own way, Kagnar's presentation had impressed me more than had Carlisimo's, but I had no doubts that Carlisimo's blatantly populist approach was pulling in more voters. Then, maybe that was why, although I liked no political party that much, I tended to favor the Laborite Republicans' position. I just didn't like their candidates much.

  The same handful of volunteers in maroon coats stood outside, smiling, with their literature. I saw no sign of security types.

  In the twilight, I walked back the two long blocks from the Fargodome to the High Plains, thinking, just trying to take in what I'd experienced, but in a more analytical way.

  Once back in my room, after I entered all my notes and observations, I clicked on All-News. The scene was of the outside of a Martian dome.

  More unrest in Serenium ... this time a series of explosions rocked the CorPak safo headquarters. Early reports suggest that at least three safos were killed and more than a dozen injured ... An untraceable message, believed to be from the BLN, to Governor General Ashley claimed that the violence would get worse if MultiCor did not accede to the demands for independence. The message also claimed that the murder of Unite Director General Forster earlier this month was one example of what would happen to the various multi directors general ... Security analysts at NorAm High Command dismissed the indirect claim...

  Dismissed or not, Forster was still dead, and whoever had taken him out had managed two attempts in high security areas and had never been caught. In my book, that meant they were not only good, but had an earthside support network and considerable resources.

  I took a deep breath. I still had to drive to Jameston in the morning.

  Chapter 32

  On Saturday morning, I had croissants and eggs lyonnaise, whatever they were, at Chez Francois, then went back up to my room. I started out by trying to complete the simplified matrix for the Kagnar campaign. It classified levels of prodplacing and compared the number of references used. I'd kept track of those fairly well at the Carlisimo rallies, and I had the linksites as well. I didn't get very far, because, once I considered Kagnar, the references were understated, only used on her main linksite, and not in her main appearance. The time wasn't totally wasted, because at least I'd ruled out one approach.

  By then it was time to depart and drive westward through a cold rain that had come out of nowhere to Jameston. Everything looked gray as I neared Jameston—because it was. Gray light, gray clouds. Even the rain seemed to come down gray. What a difference a hundred and forty kays and sunlight made.

  The Spiritwood Inn was even smaller than the High Plains, but the meeting room there was where the Erle rally was scheduled. I parked the Altus as close as I could get, and that wasn't hard, no more than fifty meters away, and hurried through the rain. I was more than damp, but it only took a few minutes before the clothes wicked away most of the dampness. I didn't even look too wrinkled.

  The time was twelve-forty, and I headed for something to eat. Certainly, an inn had a restaurant. All I could find was a small place called Eats, featuring retro twentieth-century plastic: plastic tables, upholstery, and booths. The colors were orange and avocado green. It reminded me why few people collected furniture from the period. I ordered a "natural"—natural Angus beef, and natural potatoes, baked. I wasn't about to go for the tallow-fries. The meal wasn't as good as it could have been, nor as bad as it might have been, and I finished and left by twenty to two, searching for the meeting room.

  There was only one sign announcing Damon Erle, and that was so small I'd already located the door to the room by the three people standing outside. Two were men wearing Erle campaign buttons, black on stark white, and they were talking to a tall and angular blonde. None offered me the folders they held as I stepped past them. For a hotel as small as the Spiritwood Inn, the meeting room was respectable. It might have held four hundred people in the small hotel chairs squeezed together. Even when I got there, fifteen minutes before the start of the meeting, there were only fifty people there.

  This time I sat on the outside, about ten rows back, because the chairs looked so small. That way, I could always ease my chair out, if I felt crowded. As I waited, I studied the crowd. Most of those there seemed to fit the stereotype of the left fringe of the PDs: students with stars in their eyes, poorer folks with outsized girths, poorer people who looked close to gaunt, and alternative education types in black—I'd always disliked them, because they gave wearing black a bad name, but I supposed they thought I was one of them. I could see a handful garbed in what I would have called mainstream attire and looking like it fit them.

  The only equipment I saw was a pair of enormous speakers on each side of the front of the room. There wasn't even a podium or a chair.

  By two o'clock another fifty people had finally showed up.

  At that point, a tall and wiry man with a craggy face, a square-cut but neatly trimmed beard, and black curly hair—thankfully cut short, because men with wiry curly hair who wear it long look more like dogs or mops than people—stepped out of a side door. Alone.

  He carried a rez-based guitar. He cleared his throat and waited for the murmurs to subside, before he began to sing.

  Erie's the handle and the name for playing this political game, I'm not plush, polished, or proud, and my credits don't speak twice as loud...

  I'm a hometown boy, loving the plains, taking the toil, the weather, the pains. If you want someone honest and free, Best get thinking of voting for me...

  The last chord was sharp, and rezzed into subsonic discomfort.

  Once more Erle let the silence draw out before he spoke.

  "Welcome, folks." Erie's voice was so deep it rumbled. "If I were a fancy-talking type, like Ms. Kagnar, I'd be telling you all how glad I am to see you all. Make you feel like long-lost friends. Favorite cousins. I'm not like that. Don't speak in long phrases. That's why I started with a song." There was another pause. "Folks talk about the land. They talk about traditions. About pride and their ancestors." An ironic smile crossed Erie's face, and he chuckled, a deep belly chuckle, warm, but slightly ironic. "Thing is. They live up on artificial hills, safe from the river. They work for big multis doing things that don't much help the folks who struggle on the land and on the streets."

  He lifted the rez-guitar again.

  Pretty places, pretty faces, flashing in the light, charming graces, empty spaces, flashing in the night...

  As the song went on, I couldn't help but smile. Erle certainly captured the sense of all too many ascendents, and I couldn't deny that I'd felt that way at times.

  Abruptly, the feeling left, even while the craggy-faced candidate was still singing, as my enhancements registered trouble. I forced myself to turn slowly.

  A muscular figure had entered the meeting room and was walking down the side where my chair was, counterfeiting the look of embarrassment—but cydroids don't show emotion well, not without practice, and the operator of this one hadn't had it.

  I leaned forward and put my hands on the back of the chair before me. He was less than two meters from me, when his hand eased toward his waistband. I saw the glint and moved, lifting the chair and swinging it across his hands. The weapon flew against the wall, and the cydroid looked stunned.

  I didn't wait, but brought the chair up so that one leg slammed into the V below his ribs. I tossed the chair aside, and side-kicked into his knee. It snapped, and he went down.

  At that moment, the cydroid went limp, and his eyes glazed over. Whoever had been at the other end of the shunt had broken contact. I wondered a bit at the quickness of the cydroid's collapse, but I could also see that the operator might not have wanted a tracer on the shunt freqs.

  A heavyset man appeared beside me. "I put in a call."

  I had no idea what he meant, but I nodded.

  "Dispatch said they'd be here in three minutes." He slipped a pair of restrainers out from his pocket. "You mind?"

  "You're the professional." I stepped
back.

  "You looked real professional, stranger. Never seen a man taken down that quick. Or that hard. Commando?"

  "Years back," I admitted.

  "What do you do now?"

  I had to laugh. "Communications and netlink consultant. You?"

  "State guideway patrol. Linked the locals." He recovered the neuroblaster, using nanite-film gloves. "Want to help me drag it out? Won't be any traces, and we might as well give the man a chance to talk to the folks. Local safos can interview him later."

  As we pulled the trussed and limp figure out of the meeting room, behind us, I heard Erle say, "Most excitement ever at one of these meetings."

  Once we were outside in the corridor, the heavyset man turned to me. "Wallis, Hank Wallis."

  "Jonat deVrai."

  Two uniformed safos appeared, rushing down the corridor.

  "Where?"

  "Here!" snapped Wallis.

  The two looked down at the limp form on the floor, then up at Wallis. Wallis presented budge and link-ID. They checked, then nodded.

  I could have left, but that would have caused more problems.

  "You can check it out later, but that's a cydroid." Wallis extended the filmed neuroblaster. "He pulled this and aimed it at Erle—he's the House candidate in there. Mr. deVrai saw it at the last minute and hit him with a chair, broke his knee. He went limp. I trussed him up, and we dragged him out here."

  "You moved him?" asked the taller safo. The words were accusatory.

  Wallis sighed. "No reason not to. Erie's got enough troubles. Besides, you won't find anything in there. You've got the weapon. You've got the perp, and, if you work fast, you can get the ID of everyone in the room. Might as well start with Mr. deVrai here."

  "But..." The second safo started to object.

  The first interrupted. "It makes it a bit harder, but you're within your authority, Director Wallis."