The land changes before we see anything. The roads get noticeably better than the usual left over path of burnt concrete Ruby vaguely follows. Missing are the usual refugee altars lining the road — stones stacked, ribbons tied, names carved into metal scraps. Or the dead. Who was sacrileges enough? Would consider the last testament of the dead an eyesore? Celebs? Here?
This is a slave pit. They are gathering slaves for Eliison Security, for Scum filled assholes, so to speak.
Dust thickens. Wind dies. The column slows. Ruby whispers:
We are being approached by various civilians. All in high states of emotional agitation. Extreme agitation. Do i need to report the starving on this mission?'
‘That many?'
Ask Maya, she knows. Or, let the spy slowly give her spin on why we have to pass by a thousand plus starving people being kept, for better words, in a slave pit. These are human slavers, working for Ellison. Her orders are to by-pass. I say they are just soldiers you will fight another day, after the concentration camps. Free them while you can. Elias is talking to the new people. He is becoming highly agitated as well.
Stopped we can usually see dead cars rusted into skeletons. Billboards peeled into strips. Here someone has cleaned this away, along with the ubiquitous dead. Kids go quiet in the trucks around us. There is something soothing in moving toward the sanctuary. Something very disturbing in stopping..
Gangs stop joking. Even the engines seem to hold their breath as they go into idle.
Maya hops out and walks ahead, jaw tight. I follow her, turning on my waist holo.
“I don't know what is going on?” she says.
"We're close to the slaves. But we're passing them by."
People are leaving their cars and going up to where a crowd is developing.
"That is classified. Ruby?"
"She makes her own decisions, I don't always agree like people think. Best to let them underestimate me as some AI Head who couldn't wash dishes without going on auto."
"Don't get involved Juan. Remember your place. Your job is too important to end up in the middle of a gang fight. No one would be safe if we splintered like that."
People are shouting and crying, not in angry, they are pleading. Skinny, probably hungry. We get closer and I realize they are pleading for help to free the slaves.
I tell Maya, "Put away the gun. I will go along, with what they want. Okay?"
Ruby is not supposed to be able to do that? This is her comeback to your pouring out what little fucking bit of soul you have?
'You're trying to hide this, but we will come back here, when I am done with Maya. Suggest whatever I need. Too important for my brain alone, I agree for once.'
'Too important for my brain alone.' Ah, if only you were always this sane all the time, dumb ass.
We find a scene already embroiled in conflict. Just as we walk up into the middle, she shows me the gun, now loaded with bullets.
A woman is talking when she see's us walk up,. She stops in mid-sentence when she see's me, " ... Juan, is that you? You can help us. You will. No one passing would do anything more than run, or speed up. I know we look like we want hand outs, but we are beyond hunger here, Starving out here is better than getting that slop to stay alive until the sales. We can't leave them. The Sales are coming soon, Celebs come in to get workers for their shelters. Buyers for them, still... high up enough to get new roads."
"Sales?" Jake is upfront on this, surrounded by Odin's looking for a fight. "Who do they sell white people to?" He looks back at the Adam and shrugs, like he can't believe he is the one out front?
Maybe he isn't going along with Maya? His men sure as fuck aren't. They want to free their Aryan Brethren from being slaves.
The Sons are painting their faces with mud. One cuts his arm, uses his own blood to write war symbols on their bodies. Today I am just as angry as the Odins. Understand wanting to die even to stop this hsit. Why be out here with an army, and not use it? Even I can tell this is an easy win. Shoot a few guards, they run inside for shelter, we get the slaves out.
War is never easy. War never goes the way you want. Maya has the gangs split and now she is asking for my opinion.
Maya is standing beside me calmly looking at me with disgust and anger, and has a tranq pistol aimed into my gut.
"Juan, you would be brainwashed into looking, as your favorite album called them, 'reflective.' Remember?"
"Talking heads. These people are too reflective. True Stories. My second is And she was."
"I don't remember that one."
"Right, I sent it to you when you announced to me you were leaving journalism for the war."
"Objectivity was gone by then. You take sides when Hitler's rise. You were a romantic. As they say, only a true Romantic can be a true cynic."
"You sound like Ruby, is she in your ear now jabbering away?"
"She knows when to stay silent, by reading my brain... she knows I prefer privacy most of the time, though she is a good companion, so what?"
"IF us spies had not intervened more times than you want to know, to stop Koch from making you into a brainwashed Celeb. Why? Because of our side, the actual good part of the government, what was left after Ellison made his move. He'd already hired the shit heads who started this by letting the multi-trillionaires do what they wanted. The government made private armies above the law hundreds of years ago, with Blackwater... Above the law. Enough sell outs let them change the laws,"
'That crowd is gone. Sanctuary 6 is a government all its own now. You would like it. Let me get these people here. Help me, or... I do not need you. In fact, you will be in the way of my mission."
I don't believe her for a second. Barely listen. She and I both are noticing the Panthers. The crowd around the Escaped Slaves is broken mostly by race, birds flocking together. Reminds me of the Kosinski book. Paint red on a crow, then let go back to its murder, and it is attacked and killed, suddenly made a stranger by blotch of paint. Same thing works with chimps comes back.
I notice Panthers talking like they are pissed at the slave sellers, act like they a ready to join the Sons. Then Adam walks into the group off Panthers, looking particularly tall and muscled like a gladiator in a sleeveless Kaftan; a mix of spirituality and bad ass which tells me again, against all hope, this man could general them home. The Panthers go quiet to a man. They knew the board better than Ruby ever could; she had never lost her freedom, never felt the offer of freedom after learning what it means to lose it. A chance to meet up with families, instead of being stuck on the Ellison side of a war; brainwashed into shock troops or worse to some, becoming someone's fetish. Either way who they would become would go along with frequent back up's rather than risk any slips. And could change in three blank days. Eventually ending up as food for slaves like himself. They believed the deserter's, my broadcasts. All of the gangs did. This was never dreamed of by me, but all my supposed allies knew. I had forgotten they considered me a part of their plan, a mouthpiece, nothing more. More importantly to what I am about to do, they forgot.
Maya handled you personally to have that at the ready. The night she sent Elias out, he was going to die to get you free. They need a Celeb. You have more leverage than they give you credit for. They NEVER considered you wouldn't go along.
'Why' I ask but I know and usually this would feel complicated but now it makes me want to go along with her, exactly as they planned. Time to fuck some shit up, old lady.'
"Slave pits?"
I stay back and let her perform. She goes to the slaves with food and water, just enough they will not be sick. She stands in the middle of the crowd, listens with the utmost concern, looking surprised in all the right places. I watch Jake turn away from her, then next Jorge, soon even Theo is embarrassed by being on the wrong side, again. They were supposed to be the heroes on this trip not the fucking villains again, I guess. Maya talks about time spent here, as opposed to safe in Sanctuary 6. Here they endanger themselves by poking a hornet nests for no reason. A crazy phrase when they have been extinct for a hundred years.
I cannot tell what the quiet Adam is doing, he just stands outside the crowd listening quietly, stroking the small beard on his chin. The quiet Panthers around him, to a man, tells me enough. He is following Maya. He has a family up there. Married her in prison, three kids. Sent them away years ago to Sanctuary 6.
Adam is going to work the gangs, once Maya quits embarrassing them. The Odin's have gone back to preparing themselves for battle, no longer even pretending there is not going to be war, and Valhalla was the goal, dying in a glorious battle. Any God who only accepts dead soldiers sounds like an old man lie to get young kids to fight. Most things do lately.
This is not going to end right. I am noticed. A woman and her children see a Celeb, she leaves Maya and runs into my arms. She is trembling a bit less than me. I am not used to letting people hug a Celeb. She is one of those 'Celeb's can do anything people.' "You have to get them out. Tell the people what is right, Juan! You have enough men here to free them all. There are children down there."
"Mam, I am not in charge." Adam is watching me closely. Elias stands off to Adam's left, in his blindspot, ready to change the odds with violence if it comes to violence. Maya has her hand in her pocket, pistol at the ready, aimed at me. Empty threat. I learned long ago, if someone is going to try to kill you, they don't advertise the fact, they smile and they hug ya, just to get the knife in your back.
What would I do to get revenge for what has happened to those around me, let alone stealing any life I might have eked out in this mes, if s had I gone to live in Sanctuary 6 like most reporters with any integrity. I was proud of staying with the grunts. Though really thinking now I was just afraid to leave them, these people, alone with no one to tell their stories to,,, to believe in for a bit. Walking hope dope. The Celeb who convinced himself he wasn't?
The slaves are in deep trenches carved into the earth — long, narrow, packed with bodie People standing shoulder‑to‑shoulder, pressed together, barely able to move. The sight of hardened gang bangers leading them out of the trenches as quickly as possible, carrying two of the weak and I am in tears at the sight of them slowly making their way up to freedom. I stop the tears quick. People know celebs can cry at will and never take you seriously. Maybe that is part of why I don't cry? I never was one to cry, though I miss it now. Never know what ya got til it's gone.
Some sit. Some lie. Some cling to the walls. Some stare blankly at nothing.
Ellison’s guards walk the edges — rifles slung, boots kicking dust into the pits.
I reach under Ruby's front-seat for a self-aiming pistol filled with hollow points, crawl up on her hood and examine the slave pits again, the Guards walking the perimeter looking bored. Those in the pits were the real psycho shows, beating people to get more people in where none would fit without crushing some in the back. I can see people starting to put children, and each other, on their shoulders to get a break. The Guards walk around yelling or beating slaves who move too slowly into the packed trenches. They are separated by the walls of dirt, set up for the sale. Older people like me in one pit, the women, men, the young. The sound of crying children can only reach us through the holo. I aim for the closest guard's head. He is dressed in the gold and black outfits of the Ellison Security, no patches or names or rank. I look through the scope at the side of the head of the Guard, pull the ai-aiming trigger and see a zoomed in view of an explosion of a living, breathing head into blood and brain and bone into a red mist. I aim at the next guard, fire again. And again.
I use the hollow points for maximum horror show effect. I want to inspire some, terrorize others,and force the hands of the rest to take up arms. The other guards look stunned by the unexpected attack. I fire on the other side of the compound so they all see, taking down a guard who was beating the prisoners. The bullet transforms his black haired head into a cloud of blood and brain and skull. Headless from the back , his face exploding and blowing into a cloud of blood, before his body crumples slowly down to the ground. An alarm sounds.
Killing the guards feels good. I have seen the faces of men in battle enough to know the come down afterwards involves remembering whoever you killed had a holo-wallet full of pictures of loved ones at home, just like they did. I shake off the thought as the Panthers fire expertly over and over. The guards toss down their rifles and make a dead run toward the closing doors of the Celebrity Sanctuary. I notice they let the guards get to the door.
Around me, plan B is taking place. The Panthers have sniper rifles they'd had at the ready -- none use AI.
They take down guards with kill shots to the neck, like deer hunters used to use, opening the same veins that I watched Ellison Security use for four days on a hill somewhere back in one of those levels of Hells I traversed. Probably learned the technique from their deserters. Now here they are.
The gangs and soldiers on our side become reluctant to kill the retreating motherfuckers. They may be unarmed but I know they were not in the past, or will be in the future. Better to kill them now. I aim my pistol again, and take out the guard closest to the door. Feel the triumph of killing one of those bastards I watched chop up the last off my platoon. I shoot the ai-aimed pistol at anyone nearing the door.
I feel the sting of a tranq hit me in the fat of my left love handle. I fall to the hood, catching a glimpse of Maya already barking orders to someone following her with a walkie. Elias is with her, leans down closem tells me, "I'll put you in Ruby to sleep this off. They're free because of you. Not me."
I wake up slowly, wanting to sleep just barely less than I wanted to be awake. Three hours and forty three minutes have passed. Three hours later, on the road again, moving significantly slower now as the caravan absorbs more people, fixes more trucks found alongside the road with parts scavenged easily from the lines of abandoned cars, gets food to the three thousand we ended up adding to our group. We were able to take plenty of trucks from the lot outside the slave pit. The same trucks that were there to take them to slavery took them to freedom, I might have cliche'd out on some holo. The path to the Sanctuary had been in operation 25 years, even before the east coast made refugees a curse word in ignorant pockets, or trampled pockets, raped and murdered and eaten up pockets.
Elias is sleeping beside me, obviously dreaming of some hell, moving around in his sleeping moaning.
'Iced coffee.'.
Sure. He has been like that the last hour. Before that he seemed to be worried about you. Kept whispering me questions, I answered since you were out and he is, whatever he is. I could give a diagnosis, but you are right, I have no feelings. It does encumber my understanding. I knew this, by the way, but I am glad you figured it out.
"Wake up. You're having a nightmare. To be specific."
He is instantly awake and happy to see me, from the smile he flashes me. Or maybe just happy to be away from whatever hell-dimension his nightmares rode him into? The first smile I had seen from him.
"I take it things went alright back there?"
"You inspired a lot of people to do the right thing. You figured out by now I did a job like that... worse. Can't explain beyond the four seconds that made you puke."
Ruby drives us through a narrow road between two ravines, reminding me again of the great forests that once filled Southern Illinois. How gorgeous in the AD era's.
"How did the battle go."
"So far, the board getting us to Chicago is perfect planning. Plan B was fine. Plan three was to kill the slaves, so they could hurt the enemy. Better than lives of slavery they said. I doubt they ever consulted an actual slave about that at Sanctuary 6, elitist fucks. Sorry to sound like Koch, but they need some field training. And those who have it, get like Celebs, they want nothing to do with the outside world."
"You don't seem like any spy I have ever met."
"I was kind of drafted, after Koch got ahold of my brothers. I wanted to do anything. And I told them anything. They gave me a lot of tests that said I would finish my mission, then kill myself. As long as I finished the mission. I read that, it was like, no way in hell am I killing myself. Besides, I have family there. As long as I'm alive, there's hope. However false,"
The battle goes as I figure it would. They followed plan B on the board, like I knew they would. Elias lets me know, than adds, "My place was to secure you. They did not peg you for a shooter, but they planned for everything else. Dead guards sniped from a distance, and the rest running for the door. Pretty basic. They were letting them live, then they made the mistake of trying to throw down their guns and out run the gangs. They died quick, or gave up. None did. We heard from deserters they would have been tortured, along with their families, for a month if they surrendered."
"So we won?"
"They won."
"Yeah."
You like this kid and he is driving four hundred miles an hour toward a brick wall.
'Yeah, I realize that.'
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