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Speaker 1: After the Revolution. Richardson, Republic of Texas, Chapter one. Mannie
Speaker 1: Mannie smiled the way the British journalist's face blanched as
Speaker 1: the old Toyota hit the pothole. Reggie wasn't used to
Speaker 1: bad roads, cars driven by actual humans, or the way
Speaker 1: the heavy metal of the gun mount and the truck
Speaker 1: bed made the aluminum frame groan. That was all familiar
Speaker 1: to Mannie. He'd grown up in Siodad de Muerta, back
Speaker 1: before the lake would blast, back when people had still
Speaker 1: called it Dallice. The truck's driver veered around the bloated
Speaker 1: corpse of a large dog lying in the middle of
Speaker 1: the road. Reggie gripped the truck bed with white knuckles
Speaker 1: and eyed the swaying ammo belt of the twenty millimeter
Speaker 1: cannon like it was a coiled snake. The gunner, Mannie's cousin, Alejandro,
Speaker 1: grinned down at the journalist. The suspeneon's a little fockt
Speaker 1: ye eh. The brit nodded and turned greener. When the
Speaker 1: technical hid another pothole. Mannie supposed he should offer a
Speaker 1: comforting word to the man. That would be good business,
Speaker 1: but a louder part of him looked at Reggie's brand
Speaker 1: new boots and thought he can stand a little comfort.
Speaker 1: The journalist would brag about this ride for months once
Speaker 1: he got home. Escorting reporters from the safety of Austin
Speaker 1: to the sundry hotspots of the old Metroplex was not
Speaker 1: Manny's ideal career. Two years ago, he'd been working on
Speaker 1: a bachelor's in business administration from the University of Austin.
Speaker 1: The plan had been to get a job with Ages Biosystems,
Speaker 1: then charm his way into a working visa and a
Speaker 1: gig in the California Republic, but the fighting had started
Speaker 1: up again and ruined all that. The culprit this time
Speaker 1: was the Heavenly Kingdom, a loose assortment of Christian extremist militias.
Speaker 1: They'd boiled out from the suburbs of the old Metroplex
Speaker 1: and all but broken the Republic of Texas. The Autonomous
Speaker 1: City of Austin had stabilized the situation with the help
Speaker 1: of an alliance of leftist Texan militias, the Secular Defense Forces.
Speaker 1: Beating them back had cost a lot in blood and
Speaker 1: time and forced Manny to change every plan he'd ever
Speaker 1: had for his life. So he'd embraced the situation and
Speaker 1: started his own business, hiring on some friends as employees.
Speaker 1: Together they'd built the best network of stringers in North Texas.
Speaker 1: His boys fed him video contacts and news updates, and
Speaker 1: he sold what he could to the big foreign media conglomerates.
Speaker 1: In a couple more months, he'd have enough saved up
Speaker 1: that he could fuck off, fly to Europe and apply
Speaker 1: for a refugee visa. My ans are pretty good as
Speaker 1: long as the war doesn't end too soon. The technical
Speaker 1: rolled to a creaky stop in front of a checkpoint
Speaker 1: that had clearly been erected within the last few days.
Speaker 1: It was just a collapsible electronic gate and two sandbag
Speaker 1: emplacements on either side of the battered highway. A street
Speaker 1: sign nearby announced that they were on the edge of Richardson,
Speaker 1: formerly a suburb of Dallas and currently a forward position
Speaker 1: of the People's Protection Army, a local anarchist militia. Manny
Speaker 1: could see the p PA's red black triangle emblem stitched
Speaker 1: onto the jackets of the soldiers guarding the checkpoint. One
Speaker 1: of the p PA men walked up to the driver's
Speaker 1: side window and started chatting with Philip, the driver. Phil
Speaker 1: and Manny's cousin Alejandro were both with the Citizens Front,
Speaker 1: a more or less a political militia from the suburbs
Speaker 1: of Austin. Both militias co existed under the broad umbrella
Speaker 1: of the Secular Defense Forces. The SDF had been organized
Speaker 1: by the Canadian government to lump all of North Texas's
Speaker 1: palatable militant groups into a single package that could be
Speaker 1: conveniently armed. While the first guard talk with Philip, his
Speaker 1: partner did a circuit around the back of the truck.
Speaker 1: The man was big, bulging, with muscles so sculpted and
Speaker 1: prominent they had to be vat grown, and he moved
Speaker 1: with the twitchy ungrace of a man who replaced his
Speaker 1: nervous system with circuitry. His weapon was a very old,
Speaker 1: very battered a R fifteen with an M two four
Speaker 1: three grenade launcher below the barrel. The latter was old
Speaker 1: U S military gear. The former had been someone's toy
Speaker 1: before the Revolution gave America's half billion civilian guns a
Speaker 1: new riis on debt. The man moved back to the
Speaker 1: barricades when he had finished his lap. Reggie looked up
Speaker 1: at Manny and asked, was he a Was he chromed?
Speaker 1: Manny smiled. That was always one of the first questions.
Speaker 1: As soon as any foreign journal saw trooper with a
Speaker 1: large enough billed skin with an off shade, or who
Speaker 1: just moved a little too fast to seem completely right.
Speaker 1: Anything beyond basic aesthetic and medical modifications were banned. In
Speaker 1: civilized countries like the UK. The real chrome, the implants
Speaker 1: that would let a man lift a truck or take
Speaker 1: a rocket to the belly that ship was locked up tight.
Speaker 1: A few national militaries even used the stuff these days,
Speaker 1: not after the revolution. He's got some fat, grown muscles,
Speaker 1: Manny said, in an off handed way that suggested such
Speaker 1: things were common aftermarket nerves too. Probably his stuff is
Speaker 1: low grade, that's why it's so visible. Reggie nodded, his
Speaker 1: eyes stayed locked on the big man. He was quiet
Speaker 1: for a while before he spoke again. You just live
Speaker 1: right alongside them, don't you. Manny shrugged. Everybody's got something
Speaker 1: out here and the wet wears, but lets us hold
Speaker 1: back the martyrs. They own the whole city if it
Speaker 1: weren't for half fats like him. The journalist nodded, and
Speaker 1: his gaze stayed fixed upon the militiaman until a troubled
Speaker 1: look crossed his face. He glanced back to Manny. Are
Speaker 1: you all chromed, Reggie asked. Manny smiled. I don't expect
Speaker 1: either of us as stock sabien eh, but I doubt
Speaker 1: I've got anything you don't. Reggie seemed somewhat comforted by this.
Speaker 1: Most of what I've read about the really heavy mods
Speaker 1: says they cause a lot of well unstable behavior. That's
Speaker 1: why that's why this city such as ship Hole, Manny asked.
Speaker 1: The journalist had the grace to blush. Manny looked away
Speaker 1: for a moment. His eyes landed on the bones of
Speaker 1: three large public housing buildings. A barrel bomb had detonated
Speaker 1: in the center of the courtyard. All three shared. It
Speaker 1: had peeled away the walls, some of the floors, and
Speaker 1: the resulting firestorm had burned up everything that wasn't concrete, steel,
Speaker 1: or rebar For just a moment, many felt bad about
Speaker 1: hoping the war hung on. At other six months, the
Speaker 1: old government blamed a lot on roided up veterans with
Speaker 1: military grade mods. He told Reggie. Most was just propaganda,
Speaker 1: fear mongering. People were pissed after twenty years of plague,
Speaker 1: disaster and poverty. Manny shrugged, It's true, a lot of
Speaker 1: chromed up vets turned on the government. You can't make
Speaker 1: men into gods and expect them to keep fighting from men,
Speaker 1: Reggie pointed back to the bolding militiaman, I take it,
Speaker 1: muscles there is pretty far from a god, nah, Manny laughed.
Speaker 1: He's just a guy with too much meat money. Gods
Speaker 1: don't man checkpoints. The brit was excited. Now. These were
Speaker 1: the questions he'd wanted to ask since they met yesterday.
Speaker 1: Do you know where some of those people are. Reggie
Speaker 1: couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice. Could we
Speaker 1: talk to them? Manny didn't have any of those contacts,
Speaker 1: nor did he know any other fixers who did. He
Speaker 1: tried to let the Brit down easy. Most of those
Speaker 1: folks live on the road in between the civilized parts
Speaker 1: of Texas and the Republic of California, oh. Reggie looked disappointed.
Speaker 1: The truck rolled past the wreckage of an old Catholic school.
Speaker 1: It bore signs of being fortified, destroyed, refortified, and redestroyed
Speaker 1: several times. The Brit was inches from asking another question
Speaker 1: when the gate man waved them on, and the battered
Speaker 1: Toyota farted its way into drive, belching and complaining past
Speaker 1: network of potholes until it hit a relatively straight chunk
Speaker 1: of asphalt. Only a few minutes now. Hef a. Manny said,
Speaker 1: the p PA's forward position is about five minutes out.
Speaker 1: He'll be in the ship then, or at least sit adjacent.
Speaker 1: The journalist's face washed over in an even mix of
Speaker 1: anxiety and pride. One of the first lessons Manny had
Speaker 1: learned at this job was that phrases like the ship
Speaker 1: made rich Gringo writers unreasonably excited. An excited journalists always
Speaker 1: called Manny the next time they were in country, giving
Speaker 1: white kids and keffee as a lifetime of bragging rights.
Speaker 1: For surviving a couple of days in his home killed
Speaker 1: his soul just a little bit, but Manny pushed down
Speaker 1: the anger and told himself that a chip on the
Speaker 1: shoulder was a lot less useful than money in the bank.
Speaker 1: The Technical rolled off the old highway. Manny could see
Speaker 1: twenty three and Spring Valley Road and blasmed on a
Speaker 1: weather beaten, bullet scarred sign. The Technical pulled to the right,
Speaker 1: the guns swayed in its mount Manny couldn't help smiling
Speaker 1: as the brit instinctively pulled away from it. They rolled
Speaker 1: up to what had once been a strip hall and
Speaker 1: was now a forward operating base for the People's Protection Army.
Speaker 1: An old laundromat, a bookstore, and a half dozen restaurants
Speaker 1: now had their roofs ringed with barbed wire and machine
Speaker 1: gun emplacements. Manny could see a line of bullet hole
Speaker 1: stitched across three of the shops. None of the windows
Speaker 1: were intact, but otherwise the buildings had weathered the war
Speaker 1: rather well. Three M one ninety eight howitzers were parked
Speaker 1: next to a taco shop that had once served the
Speaker 1: local college kid's beer and cheap grub. There was a
Speaker 1: flagpole out in front of the shop, and from it
Speaker 1: hung the blue and white starburst flag of the SDF.
Speaker 1: Three men in uniforms stood waiting as the old Toyota
Speaker 1: rolled to a stop and Manny and Reggie disembarked. Two
Speaker 1: of the men were officers in the p P, a
Speaker 1: Colonel Jacob Milgram and Major Deshaun Clark. Milgram was a boring,
Speaker 1: tight lipped nerdy type, but De Shaun was one of
Speaker 1: Manny's favorite sources. He was an old infantry guy, a
Speaker 1: consummate brawler with a face full of scars, and three
Speaker 1: published books of poetry to his name. He actually had
Speaker 1: a base of international fans, mostly in Spain. The third
Speaker 1: man was Hamid Mohammed, an adviser from Syrian Kurdistan. The
Speaker 1: Curds had been giving aid to the Sundry militias of
Speaker 1: the Secular Defense Forces for years now. Manny considered Hamid
Speaker 1: almost a local. He shook hands with Jacob since Manny
Speaker 1: knew Deshaun better. He met the man with a full
Speaker 1: embrace and used it as an opportunity to palm the
Speaker 1: major a packet of his favorite cigarettes. Deshaun gave him
Speaker 1: a wink and a smile. Manny shook Hamed's hand next,
Speaker 1: and then kissed him on the cheek. Amid returned the kiss,
Speaker 1: clapped him on the shoulder, and said, Emmanuel, my friend,
Speaker 1: you really should get out of this business. One of
Speaker 1: these days you'll come up here and it won't be safe.
Speaker 1: Mannie frowned a little at the use of his birth name,
Speaker 1: but he didn't make an issue out of the matter.
Speaker 1: There's still a war on, right, he smiled at Hamid.
Speaker 1: He'll get that ship under control. Maybe I'll work a
Speaker 1: straight job again. Not too soon, though, he thought. The
Speaker 1: least this work can do was last long enough to
Speaker 1: get me out of Texas. Hamid smiled back, and Manny
Speaker 1: introduced Reggie to the officers. The journalist was clearly awkward
Speaker 1: in that special way Manny had come to expect from
Speaker 1: new war correspondents. It was the norm for young writers
Speaker 1: to be intimidated by grizzled military men. Some of them
Speaker 1: got over that Manny had worked with a middle aged
Speaker 1: der Schpiegel reporter last week, could probably take in as
Speaker 1: much incoming fire as Major Clark. Colonel Milgram led them
Speaker 1: into the militarized taco shop. A brief blast of nostalgia
Speaker 1: squeezed Manny's lungs. The place had obviously been closed since
Speaker 1: the revolution. The drink specials and meal prices printed on
Speaker 1: the wall were given in U S dollars, a currency
Speaker 1: as dead as the last American president. Many recognized ads
Speaker 1: for bands and movies he remembered from his childhood. The
Speaker 1: glass facade had shattered years ago. The kitchen had been
Speaker 1: gutted and replaced by wall length screens displaying maps of
Speaker 1: the city. At least a dozen uniformed men and women
Speaker 1: milled around the space in small groups. He and Reggie
Speaker 1: sat down at a long picnic table with Hamid and
Speaker 1: the two officers. Reggie set his camera up on the table.
Speaker 1: It was just a small silver sphere, but Manny knew
Speaker 1: it could record everything happening around it at a higher
Speaker 1: resolution than the human i and orderly brought in three beers,
Speaker 1: shiner box from Austin and one dark brown tea and
Speaker 1: a glass cup for hummade the brit raised his glass
Speaker 1: in a friendly salute, thank you for meeting with me,
Speaker 1: and then he started to ask questions. Manny leaned back
Speaker 1: in his chair and enjoyed a long gulp of cold beer.
Speaker 1: If he wasn't needed to translate, he generally checked out
Speaker 1: during interviews. He used the free time to activate his
Speaker 1: deck and check in on the two stringers he had
Speaker 1: working right now. David Allenby was up in Addison today,
Speaker 1: taking a Californian documentary crew on a tour of an
Speaker 1: SDF training facility. He'd messaged Manny to let him know
Speaker 1: they'd gotten through the checkpoints without any issue. Oscar Martinez
Speaker 1: didn't have any journalists with him. He was embedded with
Speaker 1: a Republic of Texas police unit getting footage from inside
Speaker 1: a neighborhood that had recently been liberated from the Heavenly Kingdom.
Speaker 1: There were no new messages from Oscar. His last check
Speaker 1: in had been the night before. It was probably nothing,
Speaker 1: but it concerned Manning. Nonetheless, what if Oscar got a
Speaker 1: better offer for his footage. He'd always been loyal before,
Speaker 1: but if that funk from the Areadian had gotten to him.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the Abrams Road bombing, Reggie told the colonel,
Speaker 1: and many's attentions swung back to his reporter. That's an
Speaker 1: odd thing to ask about. The bombing had occurred two
Speaker 1: weeks back. It had been big news for a couple
Speaker 1: of hours. Manny had paid one of his contacts and
Speaker 1: rossa front for a video of a walk through of
Speaker 1: the wreckage. It had brought in about three grand profit.
Speaker 1: The Abrams Road bombing was not a martyrdom operation. Colonel
Speaker 1: Milgram sounded almost angry, terribly sorry. Reggie said, you're right,
Speaker 1: of course, there was no driver, so no martyr right right,
Speaker 1: Deshaun Clark said. He pulled a folded piece of white
Speaker 1: paper out of his pocket, opened it up, and smoothed
Speaker 1: it out on the table. It was a map of
Speaker 1: the df W area, color coded to show the positions
Speaker 1: of the various militias in the region. We operate eight
Speaker 1: checkpoints on that part of the Richardson line, DeShawn said,
Speaker 1: as he pointed to each one. Five of them border
Speaker 1: Republic controlled territory. The traffic from there is mostly autonomous,
Speaker 1: and those vehicles slaved themselves to our traffic management system
Speaker 1: before they can in our territory. The other three checkpoints
Speaker 1: border territory controlled by the martyrs. They don't see much traffic,
Speaker 1: and they're all heavily manned. Reggie was quiet for a
Speaker 1: few seconds. Manny could almost hear the gears turning in
Speaker 1: the journalist's head as he struggled to find the words
Speaker 1: for his next question. Would it be fair to say
Speaker 1: the autonomous checkpoints are less secure? Then, Deshaun smiled a thin,
Speaker 1: quiet smile. Amid grimace. Colonel Milgram responded in a terse voice.
Speaker 1: The autonomous checkpoints have fewer defenders, but they border republic territory.
Speaker 1: The martyrs haven't pulled off an attack on one in
Speaker 1: quite some time. Was Abrams Road not on such attack?
Speaker 1: Reggie looked eager now, like a hound, following assent. We
Speaker 1: don't know who bombed Agram's Road, Colonel Milgram said, No
Speaker 1: one's taken credit, but we doubt it was the martyrs. Why,
Speaker 1: the journalist asked, Manny leaned in a little interested, in
Speaker 1: spite of himself, at where this was all going to lead. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: Amid said, you should read a bit more about this
Speaker 1: Heavenly Kingdom. They reject all autonomous technology. They even use
Speaker 1: remote human pilots for their drones like it's two thousand
Speaker 1: and fucking three. That's why our skies are always clear.
Speaker 1: We jammed them. Reggie asked, is it possible they found
Speaker 1: some way to hack your defense system? Hamid laughed, we
Speaker 1: bought this system from the Israelis. If you're telling me
Speaker 1: one of the Martyrs Brigades has a hacker who can
Speaker 1: crack that, then I'm the King of Albuquerque. But something
Speaker 1: still went wrong, Reggie insisted. Hamid smile turned cold. This
Speaker 1: is war, Mr Reggie, It's mostly things going wrong. That's
Speaker 1: where the line of questions petered out. Reggie asked them
Speaker 1: for access to the security footage from the destroyed checkpoint,
Speaker 1: and Colonel Milgram agreed to send it over. We'd like
Speaker 1: to speak to the survivors as well, if possible, Manny interjected,
Speaker 1: not waiting to see if the journalist would ask. He
Speaker 1: knew those men were all stationed behind the line now,
Speaker 1: which would make for a safer, easier rest of the
Speaker 1: day than heading up to the wire, of course, Colonel
Speaker 1: Milgram said, with a smile to Manny. They said their goodbyes,
Speaker 1: and then Major Clark walked them out to their waiting Toyota.
Speaker 1: The Texas heat hit like an oven as they exited,
Speaker 1: and Manny was glad they'd be spending most of the
Speaker 1: rest of their day in doors. Deshaun clapped a hand
Speaker 1: on Manny's shoulder as he lit one of his new cigarettes.
Speaker 1: It's good to see you, Emmanuel, he said, and then
Speaker 1: he smiled at Reggie, and it's nice to meet you,
Speaker 1: my British friend. I'm sorry you've come to the front
Speaker 1: at a boring time. Why, Reggie asked, Because this Deshaun
Speaker 1: gestured at the gun emplacements and loitering militiamen of the
Speaker 1: command post. This is not war, not really. Your job
Speaker 1: is to help your people, children of peace and plenty,
Speaker 1: understand what is going on here. You must teach them
Speaker 1: the language of war. And to paraphrase a dead poet,
Speaker 1: the language of war is a language made of blood.
Speaker 1: To be spoken, it must be earned. There was an
Speaker 1: awkward pause, a little of the blood drained from the
Speaker 1: journalist's face. Hugh Nutty, Old fuck, Manny thought, with more
Speaker 1: amusement than fear. Classic DeShawn, he said, and laughed to
Speaker 1: ease the tension. The major bid them both a good day,
Speaker 1: hugged Manny, and sauntered off back to the command post.
Speaker 1: Smoke from his cigarette curled up into the air behind
Speaker 1: him as he walked. Manny's eyes lingered on it for
Speaker 1: a second before he turned back to Reggie. Ready to go,
Speaker 1: he asked Chipper as he could manage. Three hours, a
Speaker 1: handful of interviews, and one short drive later, Manny and
Speaker 1: Reggie arrived at their home for the night. The Richardson
Speaker 1: Autonomous Project, once a Walmart, now a twenty two year
Speaker 1: old experiment and sustainable urban living. The project was the
Speaker 1: furthest island of civilization on the sd F side of
Speaker 1: the Front. Its militias steadfastly refused to involve themselves in
Speaker 1: the region's greater conflicts. They'd been targeted a few times
Speaker 1: by the Heavenly Kingdom. The sd F, by contrast, left
Speaker 1: them alone, so when a fixer like Manny found himself
Speaker 1: on the wrong side of the L B J Freeway
Speaker 1: after dark, he could usually trust the project to provide food, booze,
Speaker 1: and shelter for a price. Of course, sleeping arrangements in
Speaker 1: the project were broadly communal. The bulk of the old
Speaker 1: Walmart had been converted into an indoor meadow with grow
Speaker 1: lights hanging from the rafters and a wide, lush field
Speaker 1: of native grass sprawling across most of the inhabited space.
Speaker 1: Fruit trees, bushes full of berries, cannabis, plants, and copses
Speaker 1: of bamboo lined the edges of the space. The center
Speaker 1: of the field was dominated by a large circular kitchen
Speaker 1: surrounded by a handsome oaken bar. Table tables, gazebos, and
Speaker 1: sundry personal structures dotted the field, along with a pair
Speaker 1: of dance floors. Reggie's face lit up when he saw
Speaker 1: the bar. By the time Manny had dropped off their
Speaker 1: bags and paid Charlie and the driver for the night,
Speaker 1: the journalist was already three beers in the brit wasn't
Speaker 1: precisely drunk or sober, but at that productive twilight in between,
Speaker 1: he'd unrolled a portable screen and had a holographic display up,
Speaker 1: looping four separate sections of the security footage Colonel Milgriman
Speaker 1: sent over. The journalist alternated between typing furiously scrawling notes
Speaker 1: in his journal and taking huge gulps of something brown
Speaker 1: and foamy. He stopped working when he saw a Manny
Speaker 1: approach and waved him into the adjacent seat. Hey brother,
Speaker 1: check this out. Many pulled up a seat, and the
Speaker 1: journalist directed his attention to a six second loop of
Speaker 1: footage from immediately after the bombing. It showed two man
Speaker 1: size silhouettes standing on top of an old garage. Many
Speaker 1: remembered the building. It stood maybe two hundred meters from
Speaker 1: the Abrams Road checkpoint. One of the silhouettes had a rifle.
Speaker 1: The other held a short squat tube that Manny recognized
Speaker 1: as a camera lens. Notice anything, spotters, Manny said, probably
Speaker 1: trying to get a kill. Count. No, man, look at
Speaker 1: where he's pointed. That Count's not looking at any post.
Speaker 1: He's looking straight back deeper into the old town. And
Speaker 1: I'll bet you he's high up enough to be staring
Speaker 1: right at Colonel Milgram's command post. Manny looked again. He
Speaker 1: thought about the angle. Okay, so what, he asked, You
Speaker 1: think this was a probing attack for some big action.
Speaker 1: The journalists shrugged. Maybe it's something new, is what interests me.
Speaker 1: Two years of Modytem operations that all look more or
Speaker 1: less the same, and now this weird one, an autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle bomb from a group of fanatics who think autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicles are the evil. Yeah, Manny agreed, that does seem weird.
Speaker 1: The bartender walked up and offered Manny his pick of
Speaker 1: the finest liquor in this particular war zone. Manny ordered
Speaker 1: a Shiner. It was the one beer a drinker could
Speaker 1: find across both the Republic of Texas and the Austin
Speaker 1: Autonomous Region. He looked back at the looping footage. They
Speaker 1: both watched it twice more. Then Reggie spoke up again.
Speaker 1: What have you heard about Pasta Mike, he asked. Manny
Speaker 1: stiffened a little bit at the name. He had heard it,
Speaker 1: of course, vague stories of rioting in Kansas, a fundamentalist
Speaker 1: uprising inside the southernmost territories of the United Christian States.
Speaker 1: He hadn't thought much about it at first, but two
Speaker 1: years ago Pastor Mike had moved to Texas, shortly before
Speaker 1: the Heavenly Kingdom had declared itself. It was hard to
Speaker 1: say what role exactly the preacher played in the organization,
Speaker 1: but he was certainly its most visible face. I know
Speaker 1: who he is, Manny said. I know the Republic led
Speaker 1: him in because they thought as followers might provide a
Speaker 1: buffer against Austin's influence. I know that blew the funk
Speaker 1: up in their faces. Manny took a long drink and continued,
Speaker 1: that's an old story around here, the Republic using those
Speaker 1: gone fondling nut fucks to push back against the leftists.
Speaker 1: The journalist raised an eyebrow, and Manny instantly regretted his
Speaker 1: crude response. He didn't really care about religion one way
Speaker 1: or the other, but whenever he came out to the front,
Speaker 1: it was hard not to get a little angry, especially
Speaker 1: after a drink. Sorry, he said, it's been a long day.
Speaker 1: Viggie looked down, coughed, and took a sip. He looked
Speaker 1: back at Manny, took another sip and said, you know,
Speaker 1: that's another subject I'd rather like to cover. What Manny asked,
Speaker 1: anti Christian sentiment in North America. Manny grunted and looked
Speaker 1: down at his drink. The brit barreled on, You're not
Speaker 1: the first North American I've heard express anger towards Christians,
Speaker 1: he said, in California, Cascadia, the North American Federation. I've
Speaker 1: just seen a lot of hate. Look, Manny interrupted me.
Speaker 1: I'm a man of piece. I love everybody, but this
Speaker 1: continent's been torn apart in bleeding for the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: A lot of people hate Christians. The ones that don't
Speaker 1: hate Christians hate leftists, and everybody outside the American Federation
Speaker 1: hates capitalists. Hate, hate, hate. Manny took a gulp of
Speaker 1: his beer and set it down a little harder than
Speaker 1: he had intended. He looked Reggie in the eye and finished,
Speaker 1: There's exactly one thing all the broken bits of this
Speaker 1: continent have in common. Hate. The journalist arched an eyebrow
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Speaker 1: been doing this job long enough to know this was
Speaker 1: just how journalists looked at people. Reggie downed his drink.
Speaker 1: He reached a hand up to signal the bartender, and
Speaker 1: then looked back at Manny. Can I buy you another round?
Speaker 1: Manny shook his head, no thanks, I'm tired and I
Speaker 1: don't want to drag ass at the front tomorrow. He
Speaker 1: downed the last of his beer, bid Reggie a good night,
Speaker 1: and headed over to the spot of turf where he'd
Speaker 1: set up his sleeping bag and gear. He popped off
Speaker 1: his shoes, his pants and his shirt and rubbed himself
Speaker 1: down with a handful of wet naps. Then he grabbed
Speaker 1: a night shirt and swept pants from his bag and
Speaker 1: slipped them on. Manny considered clean pajamas a necessity. He
Speaker 1: fired up his deck again once he was swaddled in
Speaker 1: his sleeping bag. There was a juttering start, and then
Speaker 1: the corners of his vision were populated by a series
Speaker 1: of small, partly translucent screens. Each one bulged with updates,
Speaker 1: friends asking about his weekend plans, spam from his college,
Speaker 1: notifications about the new video uploads, and headlines from the
Speaker 1: local news. David had messaged him twice more to let
Speaker 1: him know he and his journalists were headed back to Austin,
Speaker 1: and then that they'd arrived. Oscar still hadn't responded. Manny's
Speaker 1: initial concern was over his loyalty. I got that fucker
Speaker 1: started as a stringer. If he sold that video and
Speaker 1: cutting me out of the deal, I'm going to going
Speaker 1: to But the longer he thought about Oscar, the more
Speaker 1: Manny worried something might have happened. He'd been working in
Speaker 1: Plano today. You were a very stable chunk of the front,
Speaker 1: but this far out almost anything could happen. Manny closed
Speaker 1: his eyes, sighed, and tried to purge the anxiety from
Speaker 1: his mind. There was nothing to do now other than
Speaker 1: get to sleep so he could wake up tomorrow and
Speaker 1: make more money. That thought prompted Manny to pull open
Speaker 1: his Bank King app and check on the status of
Speaker 1: his savings account. The numbers glowed fat and happy, and
Speaker 1: the space in front of his head another five months
Speaker 1: in the field, maybe six, then I buy that plane ticket.
Speaker 1: He started to think about the pictures he'd seen of
Speaker 1: Dublin and Berlin and Barcelona, all the places he thought
Speaker 1: he might live if this war would just hang on
Speaker 1: a little longer. He soon fell asleep and slept pretty
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Speaker 1: get your podcast. Chapter two, Rowland. He woke up suddenly
Speaker 1: aware of two equally pressing problems. The acids worn off
Speaker 1: and eight people are here to kill me. Both of
Speaker 1: these facts concerned him equally. He couldn't remember his name
Speaker 1: or where exactly he was, which made the impending kill
Speaker 1: team all the more concerning. He opened his eyes, His
Speaker 1: vision was blurry and unfocused. His head felt filled with
Speaker 1: sand Roland, Oh ship, that's my name. Roland wondered how
Speaker 1: long he'd been asleep. He reflexively triggered his deck before
Speaker 1: The dim firing of a synapse reminded him that he'd
Speaker 1: permanently disabled his data connection well a long time ago,
Speaker 1: five million, two or twenty six thousand minutes. His hindbrain,
Speaker 1: what Roland called the acres of microscopic processors and data banks,
Speaker 1: spun into his blood, spat the knowledge out, unbidden into
Speaker 1: his conscious mind. Roland tried to curse, but wound up
Speaker 1: spitting out a wad of brackish flim instead. His eyes
Speaker 1: settled on a quarter full bottle of fungus whiskey. He
Speaker 1: grabbed it, drained it, and rooted around on the table
Speaker 1: where he'd found it until his digging turned up a
Speaker 1: sheet of acid. He ripped the sheet in half, ate
Speaker 1: one half and pasted the other on his sweat damp chest.
Speaker 1: Roland's brain didn't wait for the acid to do its job.
Speaker 1: Nanomachines couriered the lysurgic diethyl acid directly to his synapses.
Speaker 1: The drugs took hold in a matter of seconds. Acid
Speaker 1: softened the world around him. His hindbrains running commentary faded
Speaker 1: into a sort of gym roalized hyper awareness of the
Speaker 1: world around him. He sighed, relaxed, and remembered woman hovered
Speaker 1: over him, her hands on his shoulders, her knees on
Speaker 1: either side of his body. Sweat dripped down from her
Speaker 1: short black hair onto his face and chest. Her pupils
Speaker 1: were the size of dinner plates. She smelled like acid
Speaker 1: and desire. She smiled, revealing a row of Damascus steel teeth.
Speaker 1: Roland pulled himself out of the memory. He felt the
Speaker 1: strike team advance. His hindbrain generated a map of the
Speaker 1: approaching assassins. They were still a solid minute from his hovel.
Speaker 1: There were six men and two women on the team.
Speaker 1: If he'd wanted a micro seconds focus could have told
Speaker 1: him which members of the group were vegetarians, where two
Speaker 1: of the team were on their minstrel cycles, and how
Speaker 1: recently each of their firearms had been cleaned and oiled.
Speaker 1: But Roland didn't care about that information. He was trying
Speaker 1: to remember where he'd left his gun. The one room
Speaker 1: hut Roland occupied was best described as squalid. He knew
Speaker 1: he'd lived there for quite a long time, although he
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if the home was his in any legal
Speaker 1: sense of the word. It's one room held a filthy mattress,
Speaker 1: a hot plate, several dozen empty bottles, of liquor and
Speaker 1: a tinkling carpet of spent whippets. A large knife was
Speaker 1: embedded in the door. Roland couldn't remember why he knew
Speaker 1: he'd had a gun at one point, even though he
Speaker 1: couldn't currently find it. He stood up, still wobbly from
Speaker 1: the massive dose of g h B he'd taken with
Speaker 1: his nightly tequila, and started kicking at the piles of
Speaker 1: bottles and drug paraphernalia in the hope that one of
Speaker 1: them might contain his gun. He found some bullets after
Speaker 1: a few seconds search, at the bottom of a folger's
Speaker 1: coffee tin that was half filled with marijuana. Next to
Speaker 1: the tin was a large metal bowl of stagnant water.
Speaker 1: Roland glanced in and caught sight of his own reflection.
Speaker 1: His black skin looked ashen and clammy, unusually pale, he thought,
Speaker 1: but he didn't recall enough about himself to know if
Speaker 1: that was really true. His face was long and drawn,
Speaker 1: with wide, jutting cheekbones and apache uneven beard. His head
Speaker 1: was covered in stubble. The center of his face was
Speaker 1: dominated by a crooked, heavily scarred nose. Roland had no
Speaker 1: wreck election of why it was scarred, but he knew
Speaker 1: the injury must have happened back before the army filled
Speaker 1: with chrome. He turned away from his reflection and continued
Speaker 1: to search through the house, scattering food, encrusted plates, empty
Speaker 1: coke bags, an old fashioned print pornography into even less
Speaker 1: organized piles. No dice that I pawn it, he wondered,
Speaker 1: as his machine assisted adetic memory ward with his profound intoxication,
Speaker 1: Roland was now conscious enough to remember that not remembering
Speaker 1: much was pretty normal for him, and he should really
Speaker 1: worry more about the assassin's coming to kill him. Oh
Speaker 1: shit right, the strike team was just fifty meters out now.
Speaker 1: He felt a gust of wind, and in the same
Speaker 1: way felt as two of the men began to assemble
Speaker 1: a large sound cannon behind a rocky hill that faced
Speaker 1: his novel. He guessed it was a Callahan Mark thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Roland didn't know how he knew the weapon's name, but
Speaker 1: he knew it could burn out even his armored synapses
Speaker 1: with a few seconds of continuous fire. One man was
Speaker 1: on overwatch for the Callahan team. He carried a two
Speaker 1: bore Ruger Fauscion anti vehicular rifle. The mingling odors of
Speaker 1: fierce wet and baby formula wafting off him. Triggered since
Speaker 1: memories of someone holding a new born infant, Roland guessed
Speaker 1: the man must have a kid back home, a kid
Speaker 1: he scared of leaving fatherless. Of some chromed out asset
Speaker 1: had fillets him that was useful data. He filed it
Speaker 1: away in the chunk of his brain least likely to
Speaker 1: lose that information. Over the next four seconds, Roland's memory
Speaker 1: was real good in four second chunks. Over the next
Speaker 1: pico second, he caught equally informative whiffs of the others.
Speaker 1: It was enough to suggest that two of the women
Speaker 1: in the main assault team were lovers, and they'd both
Speaker 1: had Millspeck's subdermal armor implanted recently. The acrid scent of
Speaker 1: fresh suitures hung heavy in the air around them. Roland
Speaker 1: could also tell that one of the men in the
Speaker 1: assault party took heavy testosterone supplements, either because of a
Speaker 1: genetic abnormality or because he'd been assigned female at birth.
Speaker 1: The fourth man was moderately addicted to ephedric's and riding
Speaker 1: into battle on a high stimulant wave. The last member
Speaker 1: of the assault team was the only one to give
Speaker 1: Roland any pause. He could guess the man's heightened way
Speaker 1: eight six ft five hundred and forty pounds from the
Speaker 1: sound of his footfalls. Roland could smell the sig Sour
Speaker 1: five hundred submachine gun in his hands, but otherwise the
Speaker 1: man was a sensory blank. No sweat, no hydraulics, and
Speaker 1: black to thermographic sensors. The man was chromed, not so
Speaker 1: heavily as Rowland, of course, but the competent and well
Speaker 1: armed squad he led might be enough to narrow the gap.
Speaker 1: We're in the shooting shit, shit, shit, did I leave
Speaker 1: that gun? The static balance in the air changed as
Speaker 1: the overwatch team warmed up their sound cannon. The assault
Speaker 1: team was close, now barely a hundred feet out, waiting
Speaker 1: in the cover provided by several large bowlders at the
Speaker 1: base of the rise that held Roland's ramshackle home. He
Speaker 1: knew how this fight would go. They'd unleashed the Callahan
Speaker 1: for a good five seconds while the killed team moved
Speaker 1: into position and kicked in the door. Next the big
Speaker 1: bruiser and the two women would enter, while the remainder
Speaker 1: of the assault team fanned out to cover the sides.
Speaker 1: Textbook post human kill team tactics. He thought he didn't
Speaker 1: actually remember any of the fights this conclusion was based on,
Speaker 1: but he'd clearly lived through similar encounters, and if he
Speaker 1: trusted his body and hindbrain, he would again. Roland finished
Speaker 1: searching the apocalyptic ruin that was his kitchen sink. The
Speaker 1: pile of plates had been large enough to hide a
Speaker 1: short barrel, a R ten, but his gun wasn't there either.
Speaker 1: Funck Nuts, he cursed. The profanity brought a tiny serotonin spike,
Speaker 1: and Roland felt himself calm down even as the noose
Speaker 1: tightened around him. His combat wet wear did most of
Speaker 1: its work in the moments before meat met metal, so
Speaker 1: Roland closed his eyes, slumped his shoulders, and relaxed while
Speaker 1: it cross indexed his memories of past firefights with his
Speaker 1: current sensory data. A moment later, Roland was presented with
Speaker 1: three potential counter assault strategies. He selected the one that
Speaker 1: sounded like the most fun. The Callaghan fired, blanketing his
Speaker 1: home and much of the area beyond it in a
Speaker 1: web of noise designed to assault and eventually fry the
Speaker 1: synapses of anyone dumb enough to stand too long in
Speaker 1: its wake Payne lashed from Roland's inner ear and sparked
Speaker 1: out to every nerve in his body. It would have
Speaker 1: been enough to leave a strong man curled on the ground,
Speaker 1: shifting his guts out, but Roland just felt a distant ache.
Speaker 1: His experience of the damage was more akin to seeing
Speaker 1: the check engine light on a car than true agony.
Speaker 1: He was aware that if he waited too long, the
Speaker 1: sonic weapon would blow out the pain dampners on his
Speaker 1: spinal nerve gates. Lucky for him, the assault team didn't
Speaker 1: wait that long. Roland felt the big man arc his
Speaker 1: leg up to kick in the door. He crumpled in,
Speaker 1: and Roland lunged left. This helped him avoid the first
Speaker 1: spray of covering fire. As the chromed man and both
Speaker 1: women barreled inside, Roland flung himself into the hovel's main
Speaker 1: structural support beam, which ran up the building's left wall.
Speaker 1: He hit it with the rough speed and force of
Speaker 1: a light truck going twenty miles an hour. His momentum
Speaker 1: carried him and half the left wall into the rocky
Speaker 1: ground outside. Roland's filthy little home tottered and swayed. It
Speaker 1: collapsed first on the left side and then on the right.
Speaker 1: As the whole structure failed, Roland was already up with
Speaker 1: a jagged piece of two by four in his hands.
Speaker 1: He rushed the ephedric's addict, holding down the left flank.
Speaker 1: The man got two shots off, and to his credit,
Speaker 1: both hit right where Roland's original heart had been, and
Speaker 1: then Roland was on him. He shoved the wood into
Speaker 1: the meat of the man's face. It gouged off enough
Speaker 1: flesh to Philippine glass and shattered the poor fellow's jaw.
Speaker 1: He went down hard. Roland smelled the familiar scent of
Speaker 1: antihemiragic nanomachines as they rushed to save the man's life.
Speaker 1: He caught a slight sour whiff of the cheap clotting
Speaker 1: agents in the man's blood. Roland guessed it was Traumax brand,
Speaker 1: which was convenient. Traumax had based their whole line off
Speaker 1: a piece of Brazilian military wet wear that itself was
Speaker 1: based on a crude synthesis of horseshoe crab blood. The
Speaker 1: organs worked well enough unless you happen to be an
Speaker 1: amphetamine attitude suffered massive tissue damage, then your Traumax unit
Speaker 1: would flood your synapses with adenocene to knock you out
Speaker 1: rather than risk pushing more amphetamines on your stressed heart.
Speaker 1: Something in the smell of the man's blood set off
Speaker 1: a powerful sense memory buried deep in Roland's hippocampus vine
Speaker 1: slashing his face boiling jungle heat, and his fist connecting
Speaker 1: with the face of a heavily armed young woman. Her
Speaker 1: orbital bone broke un to the blow. He smelled her
Speaker 1: blood meat the air, and she dropped, dropped, dropped. The
Speaker 1: memory flashed by, free of context and the time it
Speaker 1: took the other man to hit the ground. It was
Speaker 1: frustrating to only remember the what of an action, and
Speaker 1: not the why or the after. It was like knowing
Speaker 1: how to ride a bike without remembering who'd taught you
Speaker 1: and when only for everything. Roland found it somewhat unsettling.
Speaker 1: A twelve gage slug hit him in the first It
Speaker 1: dug deep, hit reinforced bone, and stopped. The little machines
Speaker 1: in Roland's blood were already cutting it apart by the
Speaker 1: time he stopped musing and bounded over to the other
Speaker 1: flank man. Roland chucked the two by four hard as
Speaker 1: he ran. The wood impacted above the assassin's temple with
Speaker 1: an audible crack, shattering the man's sphenoid bone. The battle
Speaker 1: drugs started to trickle into Roland's synapses. Now a cocktail
Speaker 1: of endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and epinephrin concocted to make violence
Speaker 1: as addictive as a fat rock of crystal meth. Roland
Speaker 1: instantly wanted more, and he knew he could trigger a
Speaker 1: greater dose by stomping on the downed man's skull and
Speaker 1: ending his life. He fought down the urge and instead
Speaker 1: grabbed the man's a a thirty two combat shotgun and
Speaker 1: rolled for cover behind a red rock boulder. He was
Speaker 1: almost fast enough, but either the overwatched man had some
Speaker 1: aftermarket parts Roland hadn't smelled, or all the hardcore drug
Speaker 1: abuse had done long term damage to his reflexes. Maybe
Speaker 1: no more crack binges. Roland fought as a massive two
Speaker 1: bore slug drew most of his left shoulder out into
Speaker 1: the desert behind him. Roland belted out several fukwords as
Speaker 1: pain flooded the banks of his dampners, and just that second,
Speaker 1: with truly exquisite timing, the Callahan crew swiveled their weapon
Speaker 1: round and poured sonic fire at him from above. For
Speaker 1: refraction of a second, everything went dark. Roland's world was riotous, red, pain,
Speaker 1: and little else. If his body had required the input
Speaker 1: of his conscious mind, he would have been in a
Speaker 1: real pickle. During the milliseconds it took for his dampners
Speaker 1: to cut through the pain hayes, Roland's body dove ten
Speaker 1: feet to the left, enough to take him out of
Speaker 1: the Callahan spray and behind and outcropping of rocks. Two
Speaker 1: rounds act into the rock above his head. Roland came
Speaker 1: back to himself as the shards cut into his skin.
Speaker 1: He glanced down at the ruin of his shoulder. His
Speaker 1: little blood robots were already hard at work rebuilding the muscles, bones,
Speaker 1: and sinews blown out by the giant's slug. A couple
Speaker 1: seconds more and the limb would be usable again. But
Speaker 1: Rowland had a better idea. He used his intact arm
Speaker 1: as a flesh catapult and flung himself up over the
Speaker 1: boulder towards the Callahan in its three guardians. The man
Speaker 1: with the two boar fired again. Roland had known he would,
Speaker 1: and his hind brain had already calculated the ideal emotions
Speaker 1: to avoid the dozen most likely shot patterns. He sailed
Speaker 1: over the half pound bullets with ease and used the
Speaker 1: hand of his intact arm to rip his wounded arm
Speaker 1: free at the shoulder. Roland landed hard in front of
Speaker 1: the callahan. He swung his own severed limb like a
Speaker 1: club and knocked the barrel to the left. Then he
Speaker 1: laid into the gun's crew with a mix of pounding
Speaker 1: swings from the arm and stomps to the other men's
Speaker 1: knees and ankles. Bone shattered, assassin screamed. The man with
Speaker 1: the two boar and the newborn child at home wavered
Speaker 1: and broke. Roland had expected this. Many normal humans, even
Speaker 1: hardened veterans, found it nauseating and unsettling to see a
Speaker 1: man move as fast as he could move, ad beating
Speaker 1: their friends half to death with a severed limb, and well,
Speaker 1: he'd predicted the guy would break. It's not your fault, buddy,
Speaker 1: Roland thought, as he watched the man run. Don't feel bad.
Speaker 1: He'd wanted to say that out loud, but he was
Speaker 1: having trouble working his vocal cords. In roughly seven seconds,
Speaker 1: Roland had eliminated five out of eight threats in the
Speaker 1: kill team. His hind brain predictions had given him six
Speaker 1: more seconds at least before the entry team cleared themselves
Speaker 1: from the debris of his collapsed hovel. But the other
Speaker 1: post human, the man who'd shone blank on most of
Speaker 1: Roland's senses, had freed himself faster. Roland realized this when
Speaker 1: a trio of fifty caliber slugs burst into his chest cavity.
Speaker 1: He dropped, avoiding the last three rounds of the burst,
Speaker 1: and rolled behind another pair of bowlders with his severed
Speaker 1: arm in hand. The two female assassins were close to
Speaker 1: freeing themselves now. Roland could hear them struggle out through
Speaker 1: the vibrations of their bodies in the red sand. He
Speaker 1: couldn't see the other post hum, but he'd triangulated his
Speaker 1: most likely location. Unfortunately, the other fucker had him dead
Speaker 1: to rights. If Roland broke cover, he'd be shot to pieces,
Speaker 1: maybe more pieces than his trauma organs could put back together.
Speaker 1: All right, oh boy, do eat a bunch of lead
Speaker 1: and charge the bastards to play the meat rockets and
Speaker 1: run for a gun while they're blind. He suddenly remembered
Speaker 1: the spring loaded assault razor embedded in his left forearm,
Speaker 1: and then the twenty two millimeter grenade pistol buried in
Speaker 1: between his small intestine and his sigmoid. Colin did I
Speaker 1: remember to load it before shoving it in there? But
Speaker 1: before he could take any action, the firefight was interrupted
Speaker 1: by an oddly familiar voice. Hey, Rowland has its swinging.
Speaker 1: I call the Union Hall as his male alife, and dear,
Speaker 1: I think these people of planning to kill Doctor King.
Speaker 1: On April fourth night, Doctor Martin Luther King was shot
Speaker 1: and killed in Memphis. A petty criminal named James Earl
Speaker 1: Ray was arrested. He played guilty to the crime and
Speaker 1: spent the rest of his life in prison. Case closed right,
Speaker 1: James L. Ray was upon for the official story. The
Speaker 1: authorities would parade all we found a gun that James L.
Speaker 1: Ray bought in Birmingham that killed Dr King, Except it
Speaker 1: wasn't the gun that killed Dr King. One of the
Speaker 1: problems that came out when I got the Ray case
Speaker 1: was that some of the evidence, as far as I
Speaker 1: was concerned, did not match the circumstances. This is the
Speaker 1: MLK tapes. The first episodes are available now. Listen on
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Speaker 1: is a weekly conversation that revolves around underworld, the criminals
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Speaker 1: from motilicit that empties. We discussed the ramifications and repercussions
Speaker 1: of the Exemptieppe wall. She played gamester games through an
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Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast. Roland hadn't smelled or
Speaker 1: heard this new man coming. The voice was very familiar.
Speaker 1: Roland felt a name on the tip of his tongue,
Speaker 1: but it just wouldn't come. Weapons down, lads, and glasses.
Speaker 1: I've seen enough to guess the end. Roland smelled frustration,
Speaker 1: waft off the two women now free and angry. The
Speaker 1: other post human smelled like nothing, but Roland felt him
Speaker 1: lower his weapon. Some gray, dead strand of memory pulsed
Speaker 1: in the back of Roland's brain, and he guessed that
Speaker 1: it was safe for him to stand up now, So
Speaker 1: he did and put eyes on the mystery man. The
Speaker 1: fellow had a lopsided, squarish jaw with a very deliberate
Speaker 1: five o'clock shadow. His nose was thick and bulby. His
Speaker 1: red hair was tangled into dreadlocks that were more the
Speaker 1: result of inattention than stylistic choice. He was tall, muscular,
Speaker 1: but lean, with a bare chest that was covered in
Speaker 1: tattoos of black snakes. They writhed in time with the
Speaker 1: beating of his heart. He wore nothing but a pair
Speaker 1: of red leather chaps and a broad, calm smile. His
Speaker 1: bare penis swung pingulous in the breeze. Both of his
Speaker 1: palms were extended out front and visible. It was the
Speaker 1: kind of gesture one used to calm an animal. Roland
Speaker 1: synapses fired and misfired, and a string of fragmented memories
Speaker 1: ran through his mind. He recalled a really good hot
Speaker 1: dog on a sunny day, push ups in the mud,
Speaker 1: searing pain in his genitals, and the taste of shitty ditchweed.
Speaker 1: These memory fragments were all, somehow tied to the man
Speaker 1: in front of him. It took Roland a moment, but
Speaker 1: as soon as he got a full look at those
Speaker 1: cold gray eyes, the man's name clicked in the place.
Speaker 1: Oh ship, he croaked. Jim. Roland hadn't spoken to a
Speaker 1: person in months, at least maybe longer. He sounded more
Speaker 1: like a suffering cap an English speaking human. But Jim
Speaker 1: understood him, Yep, he said. Roland's side looked at his
Speaker 1: separate arm and crudely shoved it into place it had
Speaker 1: clotted a bit, and his stubb burned as the tiny
Speaker 1: robots in his blood got to work reattaching his once
Speaker 1: in future limb. Jim, he said again, sounding a bit
Speaker 1: less like a frog after a six day coke bene,
Speaker 1: you funked up my house man. That's not cool. Roland
Speaker 1: didn't know how long he'd known Jim. He couldn't even
Speaker 1: pin down the man's last name, but he was pretty
Speaker 1: sure they'd fought together back before the revolution, and he
Speaker 1: was certain they'd had a threesome with a devilishly handsome
Speaker 1: spet SNAs man. He couldn't remember that guy's name or
Speaker 1: why they'd all been in Panama, but he didn't expect
Speaker 1: that was the sort of experience past him would have
Speaker 1: shared with someone who wasn't a friend. You remember me,
Speaker 1: Jim asked, basically. Roland answered, good, because I got a
Speaker 1: favor to ask. Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here. I hope
Speaker 1: you just enjoyed the chapter you listen to. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the chapters to come. If you would like
Speaker 1: to read the text version of this book either on
Speaker 1: the web or on your e reader as an e
Speaker 1: pub you can find those on the website a t
Speaker 1: r book dot Com, so again the free ad free
Speaker 1: e pub and the text of every chapter will be
Speaker 1: on a t r book dot After thirty years, it's
Speaker 1: time to return to the halls of West Beverly High
Speaker 1: and hang out at the peach pit. On the podcast
Speaker 1: nine O two one o MG, visit Jenny Garth and
Speaker 1: Tory Spelling for a rewatch of the hit series Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills nine O two one oh. From the very beginning,
Speaker 1: we get to tell the fans all of the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stories to actually happen, so they know what
Speaker 1: happened on camera obviously, but we can tell them all
Speaker 1: the good stuff that happen off camera. Listen to nine
Speaker 1: O two one o MG on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: the host of s i s new podcast, Sports Illustrated Weekly.
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated has delivered some of the best storytelling in
Speaker 1: sports for seven into years, and now that continues. On
Speaker 1: our show. Each week, we'll dive deep into the best
Speaker 1: stories from around the sports world. Sports Illustrated Weekly is
Speaker 1: available every Wednesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple
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Speaker 1: Black Effect Presents features honest conversations and exclusive interviews, a
Speaker 1: space for artists, everyday people, and listeners to amplify, elevate,
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