Speaker 1: After the Revolution. Richardson, Republic of Texas, twenty seventy, Chapter one.
Speaker 1: Manny Manny smiled the way the British journalist's face blanched
Speaker 1: as the old Toyota hit the pothole. Reggie wasn't used
Speaker 1: to bad roads, cars driven by actual humans, or the
Speaker 1: way the heavy metal of the gun mountain the truck
Speaker 1: bed made the aluminum frame groan that was all familiar
Speaker 1: to mannye He'd grown up in Siadad de Muerta, back
Speaker 1: before the lake would blast, back when people had still
Speaker 1: called it Dallas. 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 amo belt of the twenty millimeter
Speaker 1: cannon like it was a coiled snake. The gunner, Mannie's
Speaker 1: cousin Alejandro, grinned down at the journalist. The suspension's a
Speaker 1: little focked, yeh. The Briton nodded and turned greener. When
Speaker 1: the technical hid another pothole, Manny supposed he should offer
Speaker 1: a comfort in word to the man. That would be
Speaker 1: good business, but a louder part of him looked at
Speaker 1: Reggie's brand new boots and thought he can stand a
Speaker 1: little less comfort. The journalists would brag about this ride
Speaker 1: for months once he got home. Escorting reporters from the
Speaker 1: safety of Austin to the sundry hotspots of the Old
Speaker 1: Metroplex was not Manny's ideal career. Two years ago, he'd
Speaker 1: been working on a bachelor's in business administration from the
Speaker 1: University of Austin. The plan had been to get a
Speaker 1: job with Ages Biosystems, then charm his way into a
Speaker 1: working visa and a gig in the California Republic. But
Speaker 1: the fighting had started up again and ruined all that.
Speaker 1: The culprit this time was the Heavenly Kingdom, a loose
Speaker 1: assortment of Christian extremist militias. They'd boiled out from the
Speaker 1: suburbs of the Old Metroplex and all but broken the
Speaker 1: Republic of Texas. The Autonomous City of Austin had stabilized
Speaker 1: the situation with the help of an alliance of leftist
Speaker 1: Texan militias the Secular Defense forces. Beating them back had
Speaker 1: cost a lot in blood and time, and forced man
Speaker 1: to change every plan he'd ever had for his life.
Speaker 1: So he'd embraced the situation and started his own business,
Speaker 1: hiring on some friends as employees. Together they'd built the
Speaker 1: best network of stringers in North Texas. His boys fed
Speaker 1: him video contacts and news updates, and he sold what
Speaker 1: he could to the big foreign media conglomerates. In a
Speaker 1: couple more months, he'd have enough saved up that he
Speaker 1: could fuck off, fly to Europe and apply for a
Speaker 1: refugee visa. Myons are pretty good as long as the
Speaker 1: war doesn't end too soon. The technical rolled to a
Speaker 1: creaky stop in front of a checkpoint that had clearly
Speaker 1: been erected within the last few days. It was just
Speaker 1: a collapsible electronic gate and two sandbag emplacements on either
Speaker 1: side of the battered highway. A street sign nearby announced
Speaker 1: that they were on the edge of Richardson, formerly a
Speaker 1: suburb of Dallas and currently a forward position of the
Speaker 1: People's Protection Army. A local anarchist militia manny could see
Speaker 1: the p PA's red black triangle emblem stitched onto the
Speaker 1: jackets of the soldiers guarding the checkpoint. One of the
Speaker 1: p p A men walked up to the driver's side
Speaker 1: window and started chatting with Philip. The driver. Phil and
Speaker 1: Manny's cousin Alejandro were both with the Citizens Front, a
Speaker 1: more or less a political militia from the suburbs of Austin.
Speaker 1: Both militias co existed under the broad umbrella of the
Speaker 1: Secular Defense Forces. The SDF had been organized by the
Speaker 1: Canadian government to lump all of North Texas's palatable militant
Speaker 1: groups into a single package that could be conveniently armed.
Speaker 1: While the first guard talk with Philip, his partner did
Speaker 1: a circuit around the back of the truck. The man
Speaker 1: was big, bulging, with muscles so sculpted and prominent they
Speaker 1: had to be vat grown, and he moved with the
Speaker 1: twitchy ungrace of a man who replaced his nervous system
Speaker 1: with circuitry. His weapon was a very old, very battered
Speaker 1: a R fifteen with an M two four three grenade
Speaker 1: launcher below the barrel. The latter was old U S
Speaker 1: military gear. The former had been someone's toy before the
Speaker 1: revolution gave America's half billion civilian guns a new riis
Speaker 1: on debt. The man moved back to the barricades when
Speaker 1: he had finished his lap. Reggie looked up at any
Speaker 1: and asked was he a was he chromed? Many smiled.
Speaker 1: That was always one of the first questions as soon
Speaker 1: as any foreign journal saw a trooper with a large
Speaker 1: enough billed skin with an off shade, or who just
Speaker 1: moved a little too fast to seem completely right. Anything
Speaker 1: beyond basic aesthetic and medical modifications were banned in civilized
Speaker 1: countries like the UK. The real chrome, the implants that
Speaker 1: would let a man lift a truck or take a
Speaker 1: 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 vat 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 or half fats like him. The journalists 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 a chromed Reggie asked. Manny smiled, I don't expect
Speaker 1: either of us as stock Sabienah, but I doubt I've
Speaker 1: got anything you don't. Reggie seemed somewhat comforted by this.
Speaker 1: Most of what I've read about the really heavy moths
Speaker 1: says they cause a lot of well unstable behavior. That's why,
Speaker 1: that's why this city such a 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, Manny felt bad about
Speaker 1: hoping the war hung on. In 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, disaster,
Speaker 1: and poverty. Manny shrugged. It's true, though 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 check points. The Brit was excited. Now. These
Speaker 1: were 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 ah on the road in between the civilized
Speaker 1: parts of Texas and the Republic of California. Oh. Reggie
Speaker 1: looked disappointed. The truck rolled past the wreckage of an
Speaker 1: old Catholic school. It bore signs of being fortified, destroyed,
Speaker 1: re fortified, and redestroyed several times. The Brit was inches
Speaker 1: from asking another question when The gate man waved them on,
Speaker 1: and the battered Toyota farted its way into drive, belching
Speaker 1: and complaining, past a network of potholes until it hit
Speaker 1: a relatively straight chunk of asphalt. Only a few minutes
Speaker 1: now heife. Manny said, the p PA's forward position is
Speaker 1: about five minutes out. He'll be in the ship then,
Speaker 1: or at least should adjacent. The journalist's face washed over
Speaker 1: in an even mix of anxiety and pride. One of
Speaker 1: the first lessons Manny had learned at this job was
Speaker 1: that phrases like the ship made rich gringo writers unreasonably excited.
Speaker 1: An excited journalists always called Manny the next time they
Speaker 1: were in country. Giving white kids in caffie as a
Speaker 1: lifetime of bragging rights for surviving a couple of days
Speaker 1: in his home killed his soul just a little bit,
Speaker 1: But Manny pushed down the anger and told himself that
Speaker 1: a chip on the shoulder was a lot less useful
Speaker 1: than money in the bank. The Technical rolled off the
Speaker 1: old highway. Manny could see twenty three and Spring Valley
Speaker 1: Road and blasmed on a weather beaten bullets garred sign.
Speaker 1: The Technical pulled to the right. The guns swayed in
Speaker 1: its mount. Manny couldn't help smiling as the brit instinctively
Speaker 1: pulled away from it. They rolled up to what had
Speaker 1: once been a strip mall and was now a forward
Speaker 1: operating base for the People's Protection Army. An old laundromat,
Speaker 1: a bookstore, and a half dozen restaurants now had their
Speaker 1: roofs ringed with barbed wire and machine gun emplacements. Manny
Speaker 1: could see a line of bullet hole stitched across three
Speaker 1: of the shops. None of the windows were intact, but
Speaker 1: otherwise the buildings had weathered the war rather well. Three
Speaker 1: M one howitzers were parked next to a taco shop
Speaker 1: that had once served the local college, kid's beer and
Speaker 1: sheep grub. There was a flagpole out in front of
Speaker 1: the shop, and from it hung the blue and white
Speaker 1: starburst flag of the SDF. Three men in uniforms stood
Speaker 1: waiting as the old Toyota rolled to a stop and
Speaker 1: Manny and Reggie disembarked. Two of the men were officers
Speaker 1: in the p P, A Colonel Jacob Milgram and Major
Speaker 1: Deshaun Clark. Milgram was a boring, tight lipped nerdy type,
Speaker 1: but Deshaun was one of Manny's favorite sources. He was
Speaker 1: an old infantry guy, a consummate rawler with a face
Speaker 1: full of scars and three published books of poetry to
Speaker 1: his name. He actually had a base of international fans,
Speaker 1: mostly in Spain. The third man was Hamid Mohammed, an
Speaker 1: adviser from Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds had been giving aid
Speaker 1: to the Sundry militias of the Secular Defense Forces for
Speaker 1: years now. Manny considered Hamid almost a local. He shook
Speaker 1: hands with Jacob, since Manny knew De Shaun better. He
Speaker 1: met the man with a full embrace and used it
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to palm the major a packet of
Speaker 1: his favorite cigarettes. Deshaun gave him a wink and a smile.
Speaker 1: Manny shook Hamid's hand next, and then kissed him on
Speaker 1: the cheek. Hamid returned the kiss, clapped him on the shoulder,
Speaker 1: and said, Emmanuel, my friend, you really should get out
Speaker 1: of this business. One of these days you'll come up
Speaker 1: here and it won't be safe. Manny frowned a little
Speaker 1: at the use of his birth name, but he didn't
Speaker 1: make an issue out of the matter. There's still a
Speaker 1: war on right, he smiled. At Hamid. He'll get that
Speaker 1: ship under control. Maybe I'll work a straight job again.
Speaker 1: Not too soon, though, he thought. The least this work
Speaker 1: can do was last long enough to get me out
Speaker 1: of Texas. Hamide smiled back, and Manny introduced Reggie to
Speaker 1: the officers. The journalist was clearly awkward in that special
Speaker 1: way Manny had come to expect from new war correspondents.
Speaker 1: It was the norm for young writers to be intimidated
Speaker 1: by grizzled military men. Some of them got over that
Speaker 1: Manny had worked with a middle aged dr Spiegel reporter
Speaker 1: last week could probably take in as much incoming fire
Speaker 1: as Major Clark. Colonel Milgram led them into the militarized
Speaker 1: taco shop. A brief blast of nostalgia squeezed Manny's lungs.
Speaker 1: The place had obviously been closed since the revolution. The
Speaker 1: drink specials and meal prices printed on the wall were
Speaker 1: given in U S dollars, a currency as dead as
Speaker 1: the last American president. Many recognized ads for bands and
Speaker 1: movies he remembered from his childhood. The glass facade had
Speaker 1: shattered years ago. The kitchen had been gutted and replaced
Speaker 1: by wall length screens displaying maps, of the city. At
Speaker 1: least a dozen uniformed men and women milled around the
Speaker 1: space in small groups. He and Reggie sat down at
Speaker 1: a long picnic table with Hamide and the two officers.
Speaker 1: Reggie set his camera up on the table. It was
Speaker 1: just a small silver sphere, but Manny knew it could
Speaker 1: record everything happening around it at a higher resolution than
Speaker 1: the human eye, and orderly brought in three beers, shinier
Speaker 1: box from Austin and one dark brown tea and a
Speaker 1: glass cup for hamade. The brit raised his glass in
Speaker 1: a friendly salute, thank you for meeting with me, and
Speaker 1: then he started to ask questions. Manny leaned back in
Speaker 1: 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: STF 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 Guardian had gotten to him.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the Abrams Road bombing, Reggie told the colonel,
Speaker 1: and Manny'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: Ross a Front for a video of a walk through
Speaker 1: of 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: republ 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 enter our territory. The other three checkpoints
Speaker 1: border territory controlled by the martyrs. They don't see much
Speaker 1: traffic and they're all heavily manned. Reggie was quiet for
Speaker 1: a few seconds. Manny could almost hear the gears turning
Speaker 1: in the journalist's head as he struggled to find the
Speaker 1: words for his next question. Would it be fair to
Speaker 1: say the autonomous checkpoints are less secure? Then, Deshaun smiled
Speaker 1: a thin, quiet smile amid grimace. Colonel Milgram responded in
Speaker 1: a terse voice, the autonomous checkpoints have fewer defenders, but
Speaker 1: they border Republic territory. The martyrs haven't pulled off an
Speaker 1: attack on one in quite some time. Was abrams Road
Speaker 1: not on such attack. Reggie looked eager now like a hound,
Speaker 1: following assent, we don't know who bombed Abram's road. Colonel
Speaker 1: Milgram said, no one's taken credit, but we doubt it
Speaker 1: was the martyrs. Why the journalist asked, Manny leaned in
Speaker 1: a little interested in spite of himself, at where this
Speaker 1: was all going to lead, perhaps, Amid said, you should
Speaker 1: read a bit more about this heavenly kingdom. They reject
Speaker 1: all autonomous technology. They even use remote human pilots for
Speaker 1: their drones, like it's two thousand and fucking three. That's
Speaker 1: why our skies are always clear. We jammed them. Reggie asked,
Speaker 1: is it possible they found some way to hack your
Speaker 1: defense system? Amid laughed, we bought this system from the Israelis.
Speaker 1: If you're telling me one of the Martyrs brigades has
Speaker 1: a hacker who can crack that, then I'm the King
Speaker 1: of Albuquerque. But something still went wrong, Reggie insisted, amid
Speaker 1: smile turned cold. This is war, mister Reggie. It's mostly
Speaker 1: things going wrong. That's where the line of questions petered out.
Speaker 1: Reggie asked them for access to the security footage from
Speaker 1: the destroyed checkpoint, and Colonel Milgram agreed to send it over.
Speaker 1: We'd like to speak to the survivors as well, if possible,
Speaker 1: Mannie interjected, not waiting to see if the journalist would ask.
Speaker 1: He 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 Mannie 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 de Shaun, he said, and laughed.
Speaker 1: To ease the tension. The major bid them both a
Speaker 1: good day, hugged Manny, and sauntered off back to the
Speaker 1: command post. Smoke from his cigarette curled up into the
Speaker 1: air behind him as he walked. Manny's eyes lingered on
Speaker 1: it for a second before he turned back to Reggie.
Speaker 1: Ready to go, he asked Jipper as he could manage.
Speaker 1: Three hours, a handful of interviews, and one short drive later,
Speaker 1: Manny and Reggie arrived at their home for the night.
Speaker 1: The Richardson Autonomous Project, once a Walmart, now a twenty
Speaker 1: two year old experiment and sustainable urban living. The project
Speaker 1: was the furthest island of civilization on the SDF side
Speaker 1: of the front. It's militias steadfastly refused to involve themselves
Speaker 1: in the region's greater conflicts. They'd been targeted a few
Speaker 1: times by the Heavenly Kingdom. The SDF, 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 Milgrim
Speaker 1: had sent over. The journalist alternated between typing furiously scrawling
Speaker 1: notes in his lurnal, and taking huge gulps of something
Speaker 1: brown and foamy. He stopped working when he saw a
Speaker 1: Manny approach and waved him into the adjacent seat. Hey, brother,
Speaker 1: check this out. Manny 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 at. Kut'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 journalist shrugged. Maybe it's something new, is what interests me.
Speaker 1: Two years of modern them operations that all look more
Speaker 1: or less the same, and now this weird one, an
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle bomb from a group of fanatics who think
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicles of the devil. Yeah, Manny agreed, that does
Speaker 1: seem weird. The bartender walked up and offered Manny his
Speaker 1: pick of the finest liquor in this particular war zone.
Speaker 1: Manny ordered a Shiner. It was the one beer drinker
Speaker 1: could find across both the Republic of Texas and the
Speaker 1: Austin Autonomous Region. He looked back at the looping footage.
Speaker 1: They 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 his 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: gond 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: Reggie 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 of everybody, but this
Speaker 1: continent has been torn apart and bleeding for the last
Speaker 1: twenty years. A lot of people hate Christians. The ones
Speaker 1: that don't hate Christians hate leftists, and everybody outside the
Speaker 1: American Federation hates capitalists, hate, hate hate. Manny took a
Speaker 1: gulp of his beer and set it down a little
Speaker 1: harder than he'd intended. He looked Reggie in the eye
Speaker 1: and finished, There's exactly one thing all the broken bits
Speaker 1: of this continent have in common. Hate. The journalist arched
Speaker 1: an eyebrow at Manny and returned the gaze. He had
Speaker 1: the look of a man peering into the enclosure of
Speaker 1: a particularly exotic zoo animal. Manny wanted to resent it,
Speaker 1: but he'd been doing this job long enough to know
Speaker 1: this was just how journalists looked at people. Reggie downed
Speaker 1: his drink. He reached a hand up to signal the bartender,
Speaker 1: and then looked back at Manny. Can I buy you
Speaker 1: another round? Manny shook his head, no, thanks, I'm tired
Speaker 1: and I don't want to drag us at the front tomorrow.
Speaker 1: He downed the last of his beer, bid Reggie a
Speaker 1: good night, and headed over to the spot of turf
Speaker 1: where he'd set up his sleeping bag and gear. He
Speaker 1: popped off his shoes, his pains in his shirt, and
Speaker 1: rubbed himself down with a handful of wet naps. Then
Speaker 1: he grabbed a night shirt and swept pants from his
Speaker 1: bag and slipped them on. Manny considered clean pajamas a necessity.
Speaker 1: He fired up his deck again. Once he was swaddled
Speaker 1: in his sleeping bag. There was a juttering start, and
Speaker 1: then the corners of his vision were populated by a
Speaker 1: series 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're a very stable chunk of the front,
Speaker 1: but this far out, almost anything could happen. Many 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 banking app and check on the status of his
Speaker 1: savings account. The numbers glowed fat and happy, and the
Speaker 1: space in front of his head another five months in
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: well until the first mortar landed. Chapter two, Rowland. He
Speaker 1: woke up suddenly aware of two equally pressing problems. The
Speaker 1: acids worn off and eight people are here to kill me.
Speaker 1: Both of these facts concerned him equally. He couldn't remember
Speaker 1: his name or where exactly he was, which made the
Speaker 1: impending kilty all the more concerning. He opened his eyes.
Speaker 1: His vision was blurry and unfocused. His head felt filled
Speaker 1: with sand Roland, Oh ship, that's my name. Roland wondered
Speaker 1: how long he'd been asleep. He reflexively triggered his deck
Speaker 1: before the dim firing of a synapse reminded him that
Speaker 1: he'd 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 cold in a matter of seconds. Asked,
Speaker 1: had softened the world around him. His hindbrain's running commentary
Speaker 1: faded into a sort of generalized hyper awareness of the
Speaker 1: world around him. He sighed, relaxed, and remembered a woman
Speaker 1: hovered over him, her hands on his shoulders, her knees
Speaker 1: on either side of his body. Sweat dripped down from
Speaker 1: her short black hair onto his face and chest. Her
Speaker 1: pupils were the size of dinner plates. She smelled like
Speaker 1: acid and desire. She smiled, revealing a row of damascus
Speaker 1: steel teeth. Roland pulled himself out of the memory. He
Speaker 1: felt the strike team advance. His hindbrain generated a map
Speaker 1: of the approaching assassins. They were still a solid minute
Speaker 1: from his hovel. There were six men and two women
Speaker 1: on the team. If he'd wanted. A micro second's focus
Speaker 1: could have told him which members of the group were vegetarians,
Speaker 1: where two of the team were on their minstrel cycles,
Speaker 1: and how recently each of their firearms had been cleaned
Speaker 1: and oiled. But Roland didn't care about that information. He
Speaker 1: was trying to remember where he'd left his gun. The
Speaker 1: one room hut Roland occupied was best described as squalid.
Speaker 1: He knew he'd lived there for quite a long time,
Speaker 1: although he wasn't sure if the home was his in
Speaker 1: any legal sense of the word. It's one room held
Speaker 1: a filthy mattress, a hot plate, several dozen empty bottles
Speaker 1: of liquor, and a tinkling carpet of spent whippets. A
Speaker 1: large knife was embedded in the door. Roland couldn't remember
Speaker 1: why he knew he'd had a gun at one point,
Speaker 1: even though he couldn't currently find it. He stood up,
Speaker 1: still wobbly from the massive dose of g h B
Speaker 1: he'd taken with his nightly tequila, and started kicking at
Speaker 1: the piles of bottles and drug paraphernalia in the hope
Speaker 1: that one of them might contain his gun. He found
Speaker 1: some bullets. After a few seconds search at the bottom
Speaker 1: of a folger's coffee tin that was half filled with marijuana.
Speaker 1: Next to the tin was a large metal bowl of
Speaker 1: stagnant water. Roland glanced in and caught sight of his
Speaker 1: own reflection. His black skin looked ashen and clammy, unusually pale,
Speaker 1: he thought, but he didn't recall enough about himself to
Speaker 1: know if that was really true. His face was long
Speaker 1: and drawn, with wide, jutting cheekbones and apache uneven beard.
Speaker 1: His head was covered in stubble. The center of his
Speaker 1: face was dominated by a crooked, heavily scarred nose. Roland
Speaker 1: had no recollection of why it was scarred, but he
Speaker 1: knew the injury must have happened back before the army
Speaker 1: filled with chrome. He turned away from his reflection and
Speaker 1: continued to search through the house, scattering food and crusted plates,
Speaker 1: empty coke bags, an old fashioned print pornography into even
Speaker 1: less 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 hovel. 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 over watch for the Llahan team. He carried a
Speaker 1: two bore Ruger Fauscion anti vehicular rifle. The mingling odors
Speaker 1: of fierce sweat and baby formula wafting off him triggered
Speaker 1: since memories of someone holding a newborn infant, Roland guessed
Speaker 1: the man must have a kid back home, a kid
Speaker 1: he's scared of leaving fatherless of some chromed out asset
Speaker 1: had phileas 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 writing
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 height and
Speaker 1: weight 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 Killed 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 hind brain, he would again. Roland
Speaker 1: finished searching the apocalyptic ruin that was his kitchen sink.
Speaker 1: The pile of plates had been large enough to hide
Speaker 1: a short barrel, a R ten, but his gun wasn't
Speaker 1: there either. Fuck nuts, he cursed. The profanity brought a
Speaker 1: tiny serotonin spike, and Roland felt himself calm down, even
Speaker 1: as the noose tightened around him. His combat wet wear
Speaker 1: did most of its work in the moments before meat
Speaker 1: met metal, so Roland closed his eyes, slumped his shoulders,
Speaker 1: and relaxed while it cross indexed his memories of past
Speaker 1: firefights with his current sensory data. A moment later, Roland
Speaker 1: was presented with three potential counter assault strategies. He selected
Speaker 1: the one that sounded like the most fun. The Callahan fired,
Speaker 1: blanketing his home and much of the area beyond it
Speaker 1: in a web of noise designed to assault and eventually
Speaker 1: fry the synapses of anyone dumb enough to stand too
Speaker 1: long in its wake. Payne lashed from Roland's inner ear
Speaker 1: and arked out to every nerve in his body. It
Speaker 1: would have been enough to leave a strong man curled
Speaker 1: on the ground, shifting his guts out, but Roland just
Speaker 1: felt a distant ache. His experience of the damage was
Speaker 1: more akin to seeing the check engine light on a
Speaker 1: car than true agony. He was aware that if he
Speaker 1: waited too long, the sonic weapon would blow out the
Speaker 1: pain dampners on his spinal nerve gates. Lucky for him,
Speaker 1: the assault team didn't wait that long. Roland felt the
Speaker 1: big man arc his leg up to kick in the door.
Speaker 1: He crumpled in and Roland lunged left. This helped him
Speaker 1: avoid the first spray of covering fire. As the chrombed
Speaker 1: man and both women barreled inside, Roland flung himself into
Speaker 1: the hovel's main structural support beam, which ran up the
Speaker 1: building's left wall. He hit it with the rough speed
Speaker 1: and force of a light truck going twenty miles an hour.
Speaker 1: His momentum carried him and half the left wall into
Speaker 1: the rocky ground outside. Roland's filthy little home tottered and swayed.
Speaker 1: It collapsed, first on the left side and then on
Speaker 1: the right. As the whole structure failed. Roland was already
Speaker 1: up with a jagged piece of two by four in
Speaker 1: his hands. He the Ephedric's addict holding down the left flame.
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: antihimiragic 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 hipocampus vine
Speaker 1: slashing his face, boiling jungle heat in his is connecting
Speaker 1: with the face of a heavily armed young woman. Her
Speaker 1: orbital bone broke into the blow. He smelled her blood
Speaker 1: meat the air, and she dropped, dropped, dropped. The memory
Speaker 1: flashed by, free of context, and the time it took
Speaker 1: the other man to hit the ground. It was frustrating
Speaker 1: to only remember the what of an action, and not
Speaker 1: the why or the after. It was like knowing how
Speaker 1: to ride a bike without remembering who taught you and when.
Speaker 1: Only for everything. Roland found it somewhat unsettling. A twelve
Speaker 1: gage slug hit him in the first It dug deep,
Speaker 1: hit reinforced bone, and stopped. The little machines in Roland's
Speaker 1: blood were already cutting it apart by the time he
Speaker 1: stopped musing and bounded over to the other flank man.
Speaker 1: Roland chucked the two by four hard as he ran.
Speaker 1: The wood impacted above the assassin's temple with an audible crack,
Speaker 1: shattering the man's sphenoid bone. The battle drugs started to
Speaker 1: trickle into Roland's synapses. Now a cocktail of endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin,
Speaker 1: and epinephrin concocted to make violence as addictive as a
Speaker 1: fat rock of crystal meth, Roland instantly wanted more. He
Speaker 1: knew he could trigger a greater dose by stomping on
Speaker 1: the downed man's skull and ending his life. He fought
Speaker 1: down the arge and instead grabbed the man's a a
Speaker 1: thirty two combat shotgun, and rolled for cover behind a
Speaker 1: red rock boulder. He was almost fast enough, but either
Speaker 1: the overwatch man had some aftermarket parts, Roland hadn't smelled,
Speaker 1: or all the hardcore drug abuse had done long term
Speaker 1: damage to his reflexes. Maybe no more crack binges. Roland
Speaker 1: fought as a massive two bore slug to most of
Speaker 1: his left shoulder out into the desert behind him. Roland
Speaker 1: belted out several funkwords as pain flooded the banks of
Speaker 1: his dampners, and just that second, with truly exquisite timing,
Speaker 1: the Callahan crew swiveled their weapon round and poured sonic
Speaker 1: fire at him from above. For refraction of a second,
Speaker 1: everything went dark. Roland's world was riotous, red pain, and
Speaker 1: little else. If his body had required the input of
Speaker 1: his conscious mind, he would have been in a real pickle.
Speaker 1: During the milliseconds it took for his dampners to cut
Speaker 1: through the pain hayes, Roland's body dove ten feet to
Speaker 1: the left enough to take him out of the Callahan
Speaker 1: spray and behind and outcropping of rocks. Two rounds cracked
Speaker 1: into the rock above his head. Roland came back to
Speaker 1: himself as the shards cut into his skin. He glanced
Speaker 1: down at the ruin of his shoulder. His little blood
Speaker 1: 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: of seconds more and the limb would be usable again.
Speaker 1: But Rowland had a better idea. He used his intact
Speaker 1: arm as a flesh catapult and flung himself up over
Speaker 1: the boulder towards the callahan and its three guardians. The
Speaker 1: man with the two boar fired again. Roland had known
Speaker 1: he would, and his hind brain had already calculated the
Speaker 1: ideal emotions to avoid the dozen most likely shot patterns.
Speaker 1: He sailed over the half pound bullets with ease and
Speaker 1: used the hand of his intact arm to rip his
Speaker 1: wounded arm free at the shoulder. Roland landed hard in
Speaker 1: front of the callahan. He swung his own severed limb
Speaker 1: like a club and knocked the barrel to the left.
Speaker 1: Then he laid into the gun's crew with a mix
Speaker 1: of pounding swings from the arm and stomps to the
Speaker 1: other men's knees and ankles. Bone shattered assens screamed the
Speaker 1: man with the two boar and the newborn child at
Speaker 1: home wavered and broke. Roland had expected this. Many normal humans,
Speaker 1: even hardened veterans, found it nauseating and unsettling to see
Speaker 1: a man move as fast as he could move, add
Speaker 1: beating their friends half to death with a severed limb,
Speaker 1: and well, he'd predicted the guy would break. It's not
Speaker 1: your fault, buddy, Roland thought, as he watched the man run.
Speaker 1: Don't feel bad. He'd wanted to say that out loud,
Speaker 1: but he was having trouble working his vocal cords. In
Speaker 1: roughly seven seconds, Roland had eliminated five out of eight
Speaker 1: threats in the killed team. His hind brain predictions had
Speaker 1: given him six more seconds at least before the entry
Speaker 1: team cleared themselves from the debris of his collapsed hovel.
Speaker 1: But the other post human, the man who'd shown blank
Speaker 1: on most of Roland's senses, had freed himself faster. Roland
Speaker 1: realized this when a trio of fifty caliber slugs burst
Speaker 1: into his chest cavity. He dropped, avoiding the last three
Speaker 1: rounds of the burst, and rolled behind another pair of
Speaker 1: boulders with his severed arm in hand. The two female
Speaker 1: assassins were close to freeing themselves now Roland could hear
Speaker 1: them struggle out through the vibrations of their bodies in
Speaker 1: the red sand. He couldn't see the other post human,
Speaker 1: but he'd triangulated his most likely location. Unfortunately, the other
Speaker 1: fucker had him dead to rights. If Roland broke cover,
Speaker 1: he'd be shot to pieces, maybe more pieces than his
Speaker 1: trauma organs could put back together. All right, Oh boy,
Speaker 1: do eat a bunch of lead and charge the bastards
Speaker 1: to play the meat rockets and run for a gun
Speaker 1: while they're blind. He suddenly remembered the spring loaded assault
Speaker 1: razor embedded in his left forearm, and then the twenty
Speaker 1: two millimeter grenade pistol buried in between his small intestine
Speaker 1: and his sigmoid colon. Did I remember to load it
Speaker 1: before shoving it in there? But before he could take
Speaker 1: any action, the firefight was interrupted by an oddly familiar voice. Hey, Roland,
Speaker 1: has its swinging. Roland hadn't smelled or heard this new
Speaker 1: man coming. The voice was very familiar. Roland felt a
Speaker 1: name on the tip of his tongue, but it just
Speaker 1: wouldn't come. Weapons down, lads and lasses. I've seen enough
Speaker 1: to guess the end. Roland smelled frustration. Waft off. The
Speaker 1: two women, now free and angry. The other post human
Speaker 1: smelled like nothing, but Roland felt him lower his weapon.
Speaker 1: Some gray, dead strand of memory pulsed in the back
Speaker 1: of Roland's brain, and he guessed that it was safe
Speaker 1: for him to stand up now. So he did and
Speaker 1: put eyes on the mystery man. The fellow had a lopsided,
Speaker 1: squarish jaw with a very deliberate five o'clock shadow. His
Speaker 1: nose was thick and bulby. His red hair was tangled
Speaker 1: into dreadlocks that were more the result of inattention than
Speaker 1: stylistic choice. He was tall, muscular, but lean, with a
Speaker 1: bare chest that was covered in tattoos of black snakes.
Speaker 1: They writhed in time with the beating of his heart.
Speaker 1: He wore nothing but a pair of red leather chaps
Speaker 1: and a broad, calm smile. His bare penis swung pingulous
Speaker 1: in the breeze. Both of his palms were extended out
Speaker 1: front and visible. It was the kind of gesture one
Speaker 1: used to calm an animal. Roland synapses fired and misfired,
Speaker 1: and a string of fragmented memories ran through his mind.
Speaker 1: He recalled a really good hot dog on a sunny
Speaker 1: day push ups in the mud, searing pain in his genitals,
Speaker 1: and the taste of shitty ditchweed. These memory fragments were
Speaker 1: all somehow tied to the man in front of him.
Speaker 1: It took Roland a moment, but as soon as he
Speaker 1: got a full look at those cold gray eyes, the
Speaker 1: man's name clicked into place. Oh ship, he croaked, Jim.
Speaker 1: Roland hadn't spoken to a person in months, at least
Speaker 1: maybe longer. He sounded more like a suffering cap than
Speaker 1: an English speaking human, but Jim understood him. Yep, he said.
Speaker 1: Roland's sighed, looked at his separate arm and crudely shoved
Speaker 1: it into place. It had clotted a bit, and his
Speaker 1: stubb burned as the tiny robots in his blood got
Speaker 1: to work reattaching his once in future limb. Jim, he
Speaker 1: said again, sounding a bit less like a frog after
Speaker 1: a six day coke bench. You fucked up my house man.
Speaker 1: That's not cool. Roland didn't know how long he'd known Jim.
Speaker 1: He couldn't even pin down the man's last name, but
Speaker 1: he was pretty sure they'd fought together back before the revolution,
Speaker 1: and he was certainly had had a threesome with a
Speaker 1: devilishly handsome spet s nas man. He couldn't remember that
Speaker 1: guy's name or why they'd all been in Panama, but
Speaker 1: he didn't expect that was the sort of experience past
Speaker 1: him would have shared with someone who wasn't a friend.
Speaker 1: You remember me, Jim asked, basically. Roland answered, good, because
Speaker 1: I got a favor to ask. Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here.
Speaker 1: I hope you just enjoyed the chapter you listen to.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed the chapters to come. If you
Speaker 1: would like to read the text version of this book
Speaker 1: either on the web or on your e reader as
Speaker 1: an e pub, you can find those on the website
Speaker 1: a t r book dot com. So again, the free
Speaker 1: ad free e pub and the text of every chapter
Speaker 1: will be on a t r book dot