by Rob Buckman
“What was that you were pointing at me?” he asked, after he regained his nerve.
“Nothing for you to worry about, sonny. You just drive, and be a good little boy and I won’t hurt you,” she answered, looking out the passenger-side window. Scott couldn’t help seeing the smile on her face, though she was carefully hiding it from the driver.
“Janet’s having a little fun today, isn’t she?” Scott whispered in Kat’s ear.
“You could say that.”
“When you get the chance, ask her not to lay it on too thick. We want to attract people, not scare them to death.” In answer, Kat squeezed his thigh.
As the limousine passed through the canyon-like streets, Scott looked at what was, in his own time, a city of four and a half million people. All of the old buildings were gone, and sometime in the last three hundred years they’d rebuilt it. The streets were wider, and new high-rise buildings stood in place of the old buildings, some twice as tall as the old skyscraper in New York, the base covering hundreds of old city blocks. From the look of it, the new order didn’t have much liking or interest in preserving the old historical buildings, and they’d simply erased the past. The only constant in all this was the ever-present mosque every few blocks. The streets and store signs made little sense to him, and in many cases, they went block after block without seeing one sign. He tapped the button on his comm unit.
“Janet, ask the driver how you know what these building are for, or how you find a particular place,” Scott said, and watched Janet repeat the question to the driver.
“He said it’s all in the traffic computer, sir. You just punch in where you want to go and it gives you the best route, and beeps when you’re there.”
“Thanks, makes sense to me.” It was a crazy way compared to the twenty-first century when outdoor advertising was rampant; now it was a trend the other way.
They cruised for miles, across the river into the more residential areas. His glimpse of the wide river showed barge traffic similar to his own time moving up and down the river, or loading and unloading cargo at docks and wharfs. Some things never changed. At some point, Scott noticed they had changed direction and were heading back toward the center of the capital.
“How come we’re heading back?” Janet looked at the driver without repeating the question.
“There is nothing to see the other way, honored, ah, sir,” the driver announced over his shoulder, glancing sideways at the woman in the passenger seat. She was frowning.
“I see buildings the other way, and I’d like to see them,” Scott ordered.
“No, sir, that is not possible. I am instructed to show you only the city.”
Scott smiled, and sat back, humming to himself.
Janet kept her face blank. “Sonny, you were told to drive us where we wanted to go, weren’t you?”
“Um … yes.”
“And the man in the backseat wants to see what is over there, so I would strongly suggest you go there.”
“But …”
Janet keyed her comm unit. “Hang five everyone,” she snapped, and turned to the driver. “Pull up!”
“I will not, woman!” he said, losing his temper at last. If he thought this would intimidate the woman beside him, he found out his error two seconds later, when she reached over, shut the power unit down, and jerked the key out. All three limos came to a sudden stop in the middle of the street amidst a lot of honking and hooting from vehicles behind them. Janet got out and walked around to the other side, where she jerked the door open.
“Move over or get out, dickwad!” she said, pulling the driver from his seat and getting in when he didn’t do either. “You want to come, or walk?” she demanded.
Torn between outrage and fear, he scampered around to the passenger side and got in. The female was a head shorter than he was, but she’d practically lifted him out of the seat as if picking up a child.
“Please … you can’t do that! It’s not permitted for women to drive!” he spluttered, powerless to stop her from switching the drive unit on and putting it in gear, no matter how much he protested.
“Want to bet?”
“Switch drivers, people,” she snapped into her comm unit. Fore and aft of them the same thing happened, in one case the driver having to be bodily removed from his seat and deposited beside the road.
The convoy started again, heading for the city’s outskirts. Slowly the neighborhoods changed, and started to look less respectable and seedier. Now they could see the minarets of the mosques that the taller building of the capital had obscured. Throngs of people crowded the narrow streets, all dressed in dirty robes, many sitting listlessly on street corners. Trash and construction debris piled up here and there added to the overall look of poverty, and it wasn’t surprising the drivers were told not to bring them here. In many places, Janet had to dodge around holes in the road where the manhole cover was missing. This was the dirty underbelly of the capital, where the disenfranchised found their way to, or were forced to live out their lives. There was nothing clean and futuristic about this part of the city, just people without hope living in filth and squalor.
“The haves and have-nots,” Janet muttered just as the limo came to a halt as traffic ahead slowed down. “Now what?” Their captive driver immediately exited the vehicle and stood on the running board to see ahead.
“An accident, honored …” He wasn’t sure how to address her.
“Oh great, just what we need.”
He looked pleadingly at Scott, then Kat. “Please stay in the vehicle, honored sirs and madam, it is very dangerous here.” That didn’t stop Janet from getting out to look.
“It looks like a donkey and a cart got into an argument with what looks like a local bus,” she announced, sticking her head back in. “Looks like we might be here a while.”
Scott turned and looked over his shoulder. A long line of honking cars and trucks had piled up behind them, the drivers leaning out their windows, shouting and honking their horns. “Yes, I guess so. We can’t back up here, either.”
Saying that, he got out and looked around. The smell was the first thing to hit him, the odor of squalor and decay. This was overlaid with the sweaty stench of unwashed bodies, excrement, dust, and urine. Piles of rotten garbage littered the streets; people pushed past holding their noses. In between all this, stray dogs and dirty children ran, playing children’s games as they did all over the world, no matter what condition they lived in. Overall, it was a depressing picture, and something Scott hadn’t seen since his last tour of duty in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
“How the hell did they get from being the most powerful force on Earth to this?” he muttered, shaking his head.
By now, everyone had exited the vehicles, migrating to stand around him. The local men looked at them as they walked, or shuffled past, some in open admiration of the bare faced females. Others spat carefully into the street, looks of anger on their faces. What the females were thinking was unknown, since they were blank lumps of humanity under the stifling black hijab and chadors.
“So, what do we do, Scott?” Brock asked, looking around, concern written across his face.
“Not much we can do right now. Let just hope they get the street open soon. This street is too narrow for us to turn around.”
“Give it a few minutes. If we’re not moving by them, we’ll try backing up to the last turning.”
“I get a nervous feeling standing around like this, maybe we should get back in the limos and wait.”
Scott nodded at Janet’s suggestion. “That might be best under the circumstances….” Just then an old man hobbled up, leaning heavily on a cane. He looked at them with watery, apathetic eyes, first Scott, then Kat. His heavily lined face became animated and he lifted a trembling hand as if to touch Scott.
“Are you real?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Yes, we are real,” Scott answered with a smile, attempting to reassure the man. The dirty fingers reac
hed up to touch the ribbons on Scott’s chest as tears ran down his dirty, lined face. Janet took a step forward, but a slight movement from Scott’s hand stopped her.
“Thank god!” the old man sobbed, slowly drawing himself up in a parody of coming to attention. He lifted a shaky hand to his forehead in what Scott could only think of as a salute. Without thinking, he returned it.
“You know what these mean?” he asked, touching his chest.
“Yes, sir. You are a soldier.” His eyes traveled to Kat, moving up and down her body. There was nothing sexual in his look, just pride, shining out of his eyes as if he’d seen a vision.
“How do you know this, old-timer?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Once, long ago, in my youth, I was a soldier.” He let out a soft sob. “That was just before they disbanded the last of us. Said we were no longer needed.”
“How old are you, Grandfather?” Scott asked.
“I’m …” His face pulled into a puzzled frown. “I’m not sure,” he muttered, looking down at the dirty pavement. Just then a small shrouded figure moved up beside the old man, grasping his hand.
“Please, honored sir. Forgive my grandfather for speaking to you.”
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“He is very old, and sometimes says things that aren’t true.”
“He has said nothing to offend me, child.” Scott realized this was a child, even through the muffling shrouds of her hijab.
The head under the robes turned toward Kat. “You … you are female, yes?”
“Yes, I am female.”
“And your man permits you to dress like that, and go out barefaced for all men to look upon?”
“Yes, but he does not permit me, this is my choice.”
“How can that be?” The bundle shook its head. “Your husband and master, or your honored father would not permit this.”
“I have no master, and my father is long dead.”
“But … but, the police wou—” Someone started screaming over a loudspeaker, drowning out her words.
“What on earth is that?” Kat asked, looking around. People all around her were getting down on their knees, facing northeast. Scott looked at his chronometer and nodded, as did a few of the others.
“That, my darling, is the call to prayer,” he answered, gritting his teeth. It was the last thing he wanted to hear just now.
“Shit!” Brock spat on the ground. Scott sighed and looked around as the people in the street faced toward Mecca and began to pray.
“Let’s get back in the cars, people. We don’t want to cause trouble here.” The limo windows were tinted dark enough so people outside couldn’t tell if anyone was in there or not, or what they were doing.
“What the hell!” Janet said, pointing back up the street.
Brock gasped. “Shit! Get in quick, and hope to hell they haven’t seen us.”
A group of bearded men in dark robes came toward them, beating people as they came. Scott watched as one of them went into a shop and came back out dragging a woman with him. He began to savagely beat her to the ground while the rest of the group watched.
“Scott! Who the hell are those people, and why are they beating that poor woman?” Kat yelled as he pushed her into the back.
“SSP … State Security Police … or religious police, unless I miss my guess.”
“The what?” she asked in outrage.
“You don’t want to know, Kat, believe me,” Brock added.
The driver looked distraught, and pulling some papers out of his pocket, ran toward the group. He didn’t get far with all the bodies in his way, and before he’d only gone a few feet they reached him. Before he could say anything, they began to beat him, knocking him to his knees. Two of the men came up to the limo, one on each side, and started beating on the roof. “Out-out-out, everyone out!” one screamed, jerking the door open.
“Oh shit! Here we go,” was Janet’s contribution. The man reached in, grabbed Kat by the arm and pulled her out. The moment her head cleared the doorway, he let go and stepped back in shock, his face a mask of horror and hatred.
“Harlot!” he screamed, and raised his stick.
“Get your hands off me, asshole,” Kat snarled, pushing his away. Even as she did, the rest of the man’s group rushed up, all looking equally shocked.
“You dare!” one of them sputtered. “You dare to dress in that manner and come into the street, harlot!”
“Please, honored sirs,” their driver crawled up, tugging on the hem of the leader’s robe.
“Silence, dog!” he snapped, smacking the driver’s arm away with his stick.
“Honored sirs, they are visitors to our city.…” That got him another beating, but he didn’t stop. “They are here to see the president.”
“It matters not who they are, or here to see!” The leader of the group clubbed him again. By this time, everyone was out of the limos, and for a moment, the religious police just stood there and stared in disbelief. Janet and her security team were dressed in pants, and from the look on the group’s face, this offended them even more.
“I can explain,” Scott said, but before he could finish, one of the men swung his staff. His intent was to smash it across Scott’s face, but it never landed. Scott caught it in his open palm in mid-strike. “That’s not exactly a smart idea, dickhead!” Scott jerked the staff out of the owner’s hand and calmly broke it in half, dropping it to the ground.
“You are all under arrest!” the leader screamed.
“Fuck you, asshole!” Janet spat, walking toward the leader. Another jerked around, swinging his staff. It never landed. Janet simply ducked under the swinging stick and snap kicked the man in the crotch.
The man croaked something and fell, clutching himself. That started a melee of waving arms and sticks. It didn’t last long before all six were on the ground, writhing. By now, most of the people around them were on their feet, looking on in horror. To them the impossible had happened. Someone had dared to hit one of the religious police, and they wanted to be as far away as possible before more turned up. That wouldn’t be long by the look of it: more bearded men came running down the street.
“I guess we’re in for a street fight, Scott. Isn’t that wonderful?” Brock chuckled.
“Fucking wonderful,” Scott growled.
“Look on the bright side, Admiral,” Janet chuckled.
“And what might that be?” he asked, stripping off his dress uniform jacket.
“At least we know they don’t have guns or knives.”
“That’s a comforting thought.” Leaning into the back of the limo, he placed his neatly folded jacket on the rear seat, kicking out with one foot at the same time. He caught a man in the gut as he was attempting to grab him, driving the man back into his fellows.
“Oh goody, morning exercises,” Kat cooed, spin kicking another one running at her.
Then the fight was on in earnest as over twenty men joined the fray. Not that twenty, or even a hundred would have been sufficient. They had no organization, or training to take on eight combat-trained soldiers. It was like children fighting adults—adults who didn’t mind hurting the children one bit. In less than ten minutes it was over, but other than the downed men and Scott’s group, the street was empty, and a strange silence hung over everything. It was as if the entire place was holding its breath.
“Well, I guess that takes care of that.” Janet carefully straightened her uniform and tucked a stray hair back into place.
Scott walked over and picked up their errant driver, and helped him to the car, while his security cleared the man out of the street in front of the limo, sitting him in the driver’s seat. “I think you might want to get hold of someone in charge before this gets out of hand,” Scott told the driver.
“Yes, sir.” He wiped blood from the side of his face and picked up the comm unit. His expression was one of bewilderment, never in his life having seen anything like this.
“That wa
s fun while it lasted,” Brock laughed.
“I don’t think the president will be laughing when he hears about this,” Scott said, shaking his head.
“No, can’t say that he will, not very humorous from his point of view.”
“True, but I’m not sure I give a shit at this point. These people have got me pissed off to the point I want to kick some ass.”
“Yeah, this place is starting to depress me as well,” Brock growled, and spat on the ground as he looked around. “Is this the world we made after our trip to Iran?” He asked.