That very evening, while Belfond and his little entourage search the Territory for Vegas Orlando’s trail, one of Jade Silverskin’s friends from Autostrada visits him.
Sometimes it is necessary for a man to die so that victory can be assured. Vegas Orlando showed the way and blazed the trail; now someone is needed to follow through. To put death on his side. And his friend from Autostrada is in contact with just such a someone. It is so extraordinary, so unusual, that Silverskin instinctively senses that a new opportunity, a bearer of true hope, has come to replace what the vanished man represented.
His friend doesn’t come free, certainly. He is leaving the Territory to try to return to the west coast of Canada. He needs a lot of gasoline and working fuel cells. Silverskin immediately writes him a certified voucher for two hundred liters of octane from Reservoir Can, and promises him formally that hybrid technology will be provided to him within forty-eight hours.
That is what is called a deal. An act of willpower. A miracle. His friend from Autostrada is leaving Grand Junction, but in exchange he is sending in the future. Silverskin’s future.
Vegas Orlando is the past, in every sense of the word.
Maybe the old bastard simply double-crossed me and fled the Territory, immunized against mutations of the virus. Maybe he’s dead, buried somewhere. Maybe someone’s forcing him to talk at this exact moment, just like we tried to force Pluto Saint-Clair.
What counts is that I have enemies in the Territory, people protecting the boy and the Professor. And if I have enemies, not only do I need allies, I need to become the pitiless enemy of anyone keeping me from being immunized.
And what the man from Autostrada has brought with him is of inestimable value. It is from New Arizona, from the Midwestern desert, from even farther away than that. It is rare. Incredibly rare. And as such, it is worth a veritable fortune. But its value comes from its very nature. It is a holdover from the Metastructure. A holdover from the Metamachine. It is a being from the World Before the Fall.
It is a machine.
Even better, it is an android.
“Very few androids survived the Death of the Metamachine. You’re a sort of miracle, if I understand correctly, Mr. Alan Cortek-Cybion 3222,” Jade Silverskin says.
“Call me Alan. Humans didn’t do much better; there were just more of you to begin with, that’s all, and it’s true that as bioartificial machines we were connected to the Metastructure.”
“How have you survived, then?”
“Like some of you. I don’t know. For now, other than a few minor problems, I haven’t been affected at all, and it’s been more than twelve years now.”
“You really don’t know why? Or how? You must realize that the answer to this question is valuable. It could command the very highest price.”
“I know that very well, which is why I’m here.”
“In Junkville? The rare androids that survived the First Fall all died during the Second. You can still find some of their biocomponents in Vortex Townships; that’s all that’s left of them.”
“No.”
“What do you mean? If there was a living android in Junkville I’d be the first to know about it. The Triads go in for some of their organs. The necros are very patient; they can wait for months, once they’ve scoped out a potential target. …”
“Maybe not in Junkville itself, but somewhere else in the Territory. Latest-generation androids like me are capable of ‘sensing’ at a distance the presence and location of their fellows; it’s a quantum correlation effect.”
“In plain language, what does that mean?”
“That there is at least one other surviving android in the Territory. And that I need to find it.
“As you know, all first-generation androids were destroyed in the space of a few weeks after October ’57. The second generation, from the ’30s, suffered pretty much the same fate. Only third-generation and especially fourth-generation androids—like me, and we’re very rare—had a somewhat acceptable survival rate, lower than that of humans, but still …”
“When does the fourth generation date from?”
“You won’t believe it, but it was one of the Metastructure’s last projects. At Cortek, the first Cybion models were created in 2052. I’m the very last one.”
“The very last android?”
“Yes—at least, the last one produced in the biotech labs of the Cortek Corporation.”
“You were manufactured in the Ring?”
“Yes. Well … until the final shaping, which was done here on Earth. That was common procedure for the Cortek Corporation. Can you guess?”
“Guess what?”
“My place and date of birth.”
“You were born in Grand Junction?”
“No; no, not at all. There weren’t any android builders in the Territory, if I recall correctly. You’re missing the important point.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was born in Hong Kong, in one of Cortek’s main final-assembly centers, near a huge health safety camp, called Health Containment Camp 77.”
“Okay, and …?”
“Some people think the ‘entity’ that destroyed the Metastructure came from that camp.”
“That’s just one rumor among thousands. Other people say it happened here in Grand Junction.”
“All right; we’ll talk about it again later. The date might interest you, though.”
“Your birth date?”
“I was born on October 4, 2057, Mr. Silverskin. I was conceived at the very moment the Cataclysm happened, or very nearly. Have I made myself clear?”
“You’re the very last artificial human. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Probably, but that’s not the most important part.”
“You’re immunized? Naturally immunized?”
“If the word naturally can apply to me, then yes, that’s it.”
“And do you think there are other androids in the same situation? Other fourth-generation androids among the last to be created?”
“Now you’ve got it exactly, Mr. Silverskin.”
“And this android, that you think lives in the Territory—you think it’s like you, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to find it. Right?”
“Yes, Mr. Silverskin.”
Silverskin gazes his world-weary entomologist’s gaze at the artificial man.
“I’d like to help you, but on one condition.”
“What’s that, Mr. Silverskin?”
“There aren’t many people with my network of influence and information in Junkville, I warn you. To be honest, there aren’t any.”
“I know; otherwise I wouldn’t have come to see you. But I have much to offer you in exchange; you’ll see. What is your condition, Mr. Silverskin?”
Silverskin does not blink. He simply says: “If you want me to help you find this android, you’ll have to tell me why you want to kill it.”
33 > SPACE ODDITY
Link tears his gaze away from Judith to look at the sky. The young woman points her telescope confidently toward a region in the northeast.
“I’ve got them,” she says after a moment. “The orange speck they told me about. They’ve entered the high atmosphere; there will be several hours now when communication is totally cut off.”
“It isn’t like they communicate much anyway. How long before they land?” he adds quickly, before Judith can respond to the first remark.
“They told me it would be variable according to weather and how the flight goes. They’re going to execute a complete revolution before entering the stratosphere. Oh—I didn’t tell you; the sheriff decided that the cosmodrome is out of the question, because the landing would be seen by the whole population of Grand Junction. So he told me to send them another GPS location.”
“Where?”
“Napierville, in the extreme north of the Territory. The sheriff is gathering some men to welcome the orbiter.”
“Yes, a low plain in the former Quebecois county of the Gardens of Napierville; it’s still called that. It’s near an abandoned city called Hem-mingford.”
Link does not reply. As always, the sheriff knows what to do. As far as the Law of Bronze goes, it is impeccable. But as far as the Shield, as far as what will soon be directly in the line of fire, there is no doubt, but a deep, parallel certainty.
The cosmodrome is also a key. A key to the sky. A key to escaping the Thing.
That is why the Thing is attacking the Territory so ferociously. It must be acting the same way everywhere in the world where there are potentially usable astroport facilities.
One of the first goals he will apply himself to once he has confronted the Thing will be the cosmodrome—restoring the cosmodrome to working order.
Yes. The certainty is there, as perfectly implanted as if it were injected by one of Yuri’s hypodermic syringes.
One day he will turn the cosmodrome’s lights back on, but not to welcome men desirous of returning from the Ring. He will restore everything to working order, including the rockets stored in their hangars.
Of this museum half buried in sand, he will recreate a launch point toward the America of the sky.
The sun is low on the horizon as they near the Ridge. The sharp, fiery light causes points and lines of brilliance to glint on the metal of the police car. Campbell does not even turn his head.
“They’re expecting us.”
“Normal. The sheriff keeps a close eye on every damn Triad in Grand Junction.”
“Yeah, but I called Link and told him according to standard procedure, so Langlois knows about it, too.”
“That won’t stop them from monitoring our entry, Chrysler. That’s just how it is.”
Heavy Metal Valley is the Fortress of the Territory. Its sanctuary. Notifying the sheriff of your arrival doesn’t guarantee you automatic entry into the area; it just keeps you from finding yourself cornered by several patrol cars, with big, nasty cops holding electric billy clubs reminding you how to spell R-E-S-T-R-I-C-T-E-D A-R-E-A, idiot.
“The two French guys,” notes Campbell, stopping in front of the patrol car barring the road.
“Exactly,” replies Yuri, “and it’s going to be day and night.”
Lecerf shared the adventure of the Convoy with them; they have tested each other; the young sniper knows that Yuri and Campbell are capable of killing, and vice versa. He knows they are men, and vice versa. He knows they are ready to die for the Library because it is their mission, just as they know he would die where he stands to defend the Convoy of the Territory, for the same reasons.
The other Frenchman is the one who made it possible for Campbell to make contact with the sheriff and Link de Nova a little more than two years ago. Chrysler’s father knew him before Chrysler was born, when the man was still just a teenager newly arrived from Europe. The Frenchman’s father also worked for the cosmodrome at the time, and Campbell’s father had more or less been friends with him, apparently.
Schutzberg. An Alsatian. They say he hates Muslims ferociously, and that when Wilbur Langlois decided to have the throats of all their Muslim prisoners cut after the attack on the cosmodrome, Schutzberg had been the first one to volunteer for the job. They say he took care of fifty men by himself, and took evident pleasure in the task.
He is worse than all the other cops in HMV put together. He is not violent; he is violence. He is not the Law like Sheriff Wilbur Langlois is; he is the shadow cast by it on the blood-soaked earth.
“He’s a fucking bastard,” says Yuri, “but he’s a Territory cop. The fucking bastards are the ones you have to be nice to, especially when they’re cops. And especially in the Territory.”
“So keep the smile on your face and be nice. We are the Territory,” says Campbell just before he opens the car door.
Later, Yuri will tell himself that the problem is not so much knowing how to be nice to the last cops in the Territory as knowing what to do when the biggest bastard of them all acts somewhat friendly toward you.
Later, Yuri will tell himself they should have been more careful.
“You’re late,” Schutzberg says. “The sheriff wants to see you, urgently.”
“We’re five minutes late,” replies Campbell, “and I’ve already arranged things with the sheriff. We need to see Link de Nova urgently, and Professor Zarkovsky.”
“Five minutes or five hours, I don’t give a fuck. And the sheriff wants to see you urgently before you see Link de Nova and the Professor urgently. Am I making myself clear?”
Campbell glances at Yuri out of the corner of his eye. This guy really is a fucking bastard. But yeah, he’s a Territory cop.
“Okay,” he says, with a sigh of resignation. “Lead us to the sheriff’s office.”
“No,” Schutzberg replies. “We’ve got to stay here. Do you remember the way, or do I need to draw you a map?”
“Are you guarding HMV?” asks Campbell, careful to keep the impertinence out of his voice. “New orders from the sheriff?”
“The only one authorized to answer any questions is the sheriff himself. Actually, I’m not even sure you’re authorized to ask him any.”
Florian Schutzberg really is a fucking bastard, but he’s a true Territory cop, thinks Yuri again. He, too, would sacrifice himself without the slightest hesitation to ensure the success of his mission, to protect Heavy Metal Valley, to obey the Law of Bronze, to cast his shadow on the blood-soaked earth.
They all belong to this land; their blood has flowed here for thousands and thousands of years. But soon there will be no human blood left to spill to quench its thirst; they will all have lost not only their lives but their deaths.
Who would have thought that this just-ending day would be another of the majestic and terrible “Turning Points” that have been ceaselessly occurring in his life for months now? He had said to Link de Nova, after one of those cataclysmic days, that it might be the first but it wouldn’t be the last.
In fact, he thinks, as they face a new and sudden change of situation, it is like the whole business of false numerical infinity and true ontological infinity; nothing can be added. There is no succession of turning point days. There is really only one event, even if it seems divided into a series of repetitions. There is only a single day, a single turning point, and he is only just now reaching the curve.
At very high speed.
The total and sudden change of situation is happening before his eyes and, strangely, he is hardly surprised. The Turning Point Day is continuing; that’s all. The Great Day/Night of Change. The Daynight of the Territory.
And this is what is happening at the moment:
The sheriff’s office, the midnight blue police trailer, has swallowed them like a huge rectangular whale.
Inside it, Wilbur Langlois is waiting for them with Slade Vernier, Erwin Slovak, and a third deputy, a man originally from Ottawa named Bob Chamberlain.
Campbell asks the reason for this mandatory, unplanned visit. He begins to explain that the situation in the Territory is worsening fast; that they are overextended; that the Triads are now keeping them from doing their work correctly, but that they have compiled all the data in their possession and they need to get it to the Professor as soon as possible. …
The sheriff replies with the machine smile of the Law of Bronze. The Law smiles like a gun at the moment it shoots a bullet, with fire, powder, and steel. And it is with great calm that he explains to them that the entire situation changed, suddenly and completely, the moment they set foot in his territory, in the county of Heavy Metal Valley, and in the sheriff’s office itself.
“I can’t place you formally under arrest, but I have the right to put you in a monitored residence within Humvee.”
“The right?” repeats Campbell sarcastically. “The right to act like the Great Mogul? You’d better tell yourself this is only a dream; you’ll wake yourself right up.”
&nbs
p; Yuri smiles. The good old Territory joke.
But the sheriff is not joking.
“I’m going to confiscate all the firearms that are probably still hidden in your pickup—and the pickup, too. You cannot leave HMV—and I mean Humvee, the city itself—without my permission, nor can you cross the borders of the county.”
“I hope you’ve got some very good reasons for acting illegally this way, Sheriff.”
Wilbur Langlois’ smile does not alter; it seems suspended for eternity, with the Law, above the blood-soaked earth.
“I am the Law, Campbell; and beyond that, I have excellent reasons for my actions. To start, what would you say to a very strong suspicion of murder in the first degree, with the complicity of your friend here?”
Campbell knows every ruse in the Territory, thinks Yuri; he won’t flinch at this one. Maybe they found the body of the man with the red Buick. Maybe I didn’t do enough to make sure it would disappear at the bottom of the lake.
“Murder? The last time I committed a ‘murder,’ as you say, Sheriff, we were together in the Notre Dame mountains, and if I remember correctly you would have a lot more charges to answer to than my ‘acolyte’ and I would.”
“You’re a good one, Campbell. I want you to know I respect both you and your young friend. I know a lot about you in particular; I only met your father after he left the county, when you were born and they moved to Omega Blocks. But he came back here when I took over after the death of John Winston Lagarde, the previous sheriff, who was killed when an operation went wrong in the northern part of the strip. After that I didn’t see him much, but we’d cross paths from time to time at the cosmodrome when he became head of security for Platform 1. He was a good man, your father.”
“Are you arresting us because of my father’s career, Sheriff? I hope you’ve got a better argument than that.”
“I told you, you and Yuri are probably going to be accused of murder. I’m simply handling things for the short term. It’s unexpected and … let’s say, a little complicated to manage, let alone to explain, but I can assure you, Campbell, that if I tell you I’m looking at the possibility of accusing you of murder, you can bet I’ve got a few cards up my sleeve.”
Grand Junction Page 42