Speaker 1: What's up? Guys have a shop Aloud and I am
Speaker 1: Troy Millions and we are the host of the Earnier
Speaker 1: Leisure podcast, where we break down business models and examine
Speaker 1: the latest trends in finance. We hold court and have
Speaker 1: exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names of business, sport,
Speaker 1: and entertainment, from DJ Khaled to Mark Cuban, Rick Ross
Speaker 1: and Shaquille O'Neil. I mean our alumnilist is expansive. Listen
Speaker 1: to as our guests reveal their business models, hardships and
Speaker 1: triumphs and their respective fields. The knowledge is in death
Speaker 1: and the questions are always delivered from your standpoint. We
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Speaker 1: real estate game, unclears, how the stock market works. We
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Speaker 1: We need. Everything you've got fast. Waiting on Reparations would
Speaker 1: beat the podcast. Tune in every Thursday politics and wordplay.
Speaker 1: We fight for the people because they got us in
Speaker 1: the worst way, from the Hill Cooper, the Bombay to
Speaker 1: Kanye from the left enclave to what the neo kanse
Speaker 1: every Thursday heavy conversation and to break us off with
Speaker 1: some break because we're waiting the reparations. Listen to Waiting
Speaker 1: on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcast. Outer Space a vast
Speaker 1: unknown frontier. We don't yet know the dangers that lurk
Speaker 1: beyond the stars. But unfortunately for Captain Sidney Owens and
Speaker 1: Jenna Prescott, they're about to find out. Magmaal from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Bamford Productions. Listen to Magmaal on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcast. Chapter nine, Sasha, they unloaded her in plain o.
Speaker 1: The porters who cracked open her crate, two men in
Speaker 1: dirty jumpsuits seemed disappointed. That she wasn't food. One of
Speaker 1: the men was tall and balding, the others shorter and
Speaker 1: still fairly young. They had white skin burnt reddish by
Speaker 1: the sun, and neither of them looked like they bathed
Speaker 1: in quite some time. Their faces were gaunt. Sasha didn't
Speaker 1: see any extra fat on either of them. Add Dang,
Speaker 1: said the tall one, welcome, said the short one. I
Speaker 1: hope you're ready for what this is. They were not
Speaker 1: exactly the welcome crew she'd expected. Saul had told her
Speaker 1: a man named David would be waiting, but neither of
Speaker 1: the porters knew who David was. They seemed much more
Speaker 1: frustrated than joyous at her presence. The building wasn't what
Speaker 1: she'd expected either. It looked like an old FedEx facility,
Speaker 1: with all the branding covered by red spray paint. There
Speaker 1: was trash everywhere, mostly food waste from rates of aid
Speaker 1: supplies that had been opened too late. The spoiled food
Speaker 1: had been shoved into large piles and left to rot
Speaker 1: In one center of the large room. Sasha guessed this
Speaker 1: had once been a loading dock where delivery trucks would
Speaker 1: have dropped off and received packages. The room was filled
Speaker 1: with a mix of aid crates and miscellaneous boxes stacked
Speaker 1: into piles by a ragged army of tired looking men.
Speaker 1: Like the two men who had greeted her, they all
Speaker 1: looked malnourished and skinny. The only people not dressed in
Speaker 1: blue jumpsuits were a pair of armed guards. They stood
Speaker 1: in the back of the room, near a door that
Speaker 1: seemed to lead deeper into the facility. Both men had
Speaker 1: white paint crosses daubed across the body armor on their chests.
Speaker 1: Both carried very large black rifles. One of them ran
Speaker 1: over once he saw her emerge from the shipping crate.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the heavenly Kingdom, ma'am, the boy drawled. He
Speaker 1: looked young enough to have come from her own high school.
Speaker 1: There was a dusting of acne on his unlined face,
Speaker 1: and his round cheeks still held a bit of baby fat.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, she said, and pointed to the cross
Speaker 1: on his chest. It's good to see that. The young
Speaker 1: martyr smiled, Yes, ma'am, we wear the cross here. He
Speaker 1: glanced at the porters and narrowed his eyes. Most of
Speaker 1: us anyway. He extended his hand. Sasha took it, and
Speaker 1: he helped her take her first few steps into this
Speaker 1: strange new world. Her legs felt wobbly and unstable after
Speaker 1: so much time crammed into a crate. She was grateful
Speaker 1: for the help. I'm looking for David, she said, Do
Speaker 1: you know where I might find him? No David here, ma'am,
Speaker 1: the martyr replied, But Darrell's the team leader for this
Speaker 1: receiving yard. He'll set you to rights. They walked through
Speaker 1: the rear door and into the building proper. Sasha's escort
Speaker 1: guided her past old offices and break rooms into what
Speaker 1: looked like it had been a waiting area for customers.
Speaker 1: It had been transformed into an office. The only occupant
Speaker 1: was a single man, surrounded by four folding tables, each
Speaker 1: piled high with a mix of paper shipping manifests and
Speaker 1: folding e paper displays. He sat in the middle of
Speaker 1: it all and scrolled feverishly on a heavy government issue
Speaker 1: tablet computer. This man, dar role, was tall and broad shouldered,
Speaker 1: but stooped forward. It looked as if his spine had
Speaker 1: been bent at the mids shoulders. Sasha relished the deep
Speaker 1: lines on his face, the bags under his eyes, his
Speaker 1: receding hairline, and even the way His joints popped audibly
Speaker 1: as he stood when she entered. No man she'd met
Speaker 1: in the American Federation had aged so honestly, not even
Speaker 1: her father. Sasha realized with a start that this was
Speaker 1: the first older man she'd ever really seen. He must
Speaker 1: be fifty at least. Hello, sir, she started, ah nuts,
Speaker 1: He spat not another one? Ee you. The man had
Speaker 1: a thick drawl. He sounded country in a way Sasha
Speaker 1: had only heard in movies. Her voice caught in her
Speaker 1: throat as she tried to respond, Sir, I'm I'm looking
Speaker 1: for David. It he grunted you and every other teenager
Speaker 1: what's come through my depot? I'll tell you the same
Speaker 1: thing I told them others. Ain't no David here. Sasha's
Speaker 1: eyes widened, She squeaked, and immediately hated herself for it. No,
Speaker 1: no David. Darrel must have seen the fear in her
Speaker 1: face and taken pity, because his tone softened. Listen, I uh.
Speaker 1: He glanced at the small screen wrapped around his wrist,
Speaker 1: tapped it a couple of times, and looked back to her.
Speaker 1: I got about fifteen minutes left herefore, I got a
Speaker 1: mating downtown. I can drop you off. Folks there can
Speaker 1: help you get set up if and you decide to stay.
Speaker 1: I would appreciate that very much, Sasha said. Her face
Speaker 1: reddened again when she asked, is there a restroom I
Speaker 1: can use around here? I'd like to clean up a bit. Ye,
Speaker 1: the man grunted and nodded towards a red door in
Speaker 1: the back of his office. That's brabit no shower, but
Speaker 1: the water runs. Sasha couldn't really smell herself anymore, which
Speaker 1: she knew she probably smelled terrible. The thing she wanted
Speaker 1: most was a long, hot shower with shampoo. Holy God,
Speaker 1: she realized, shampoo is amazing. She was so preoccupied with
Speaker 1: the thought of clean hair that she didn't even chastise
Speaker 1: herself for the blasphemy. Sasha knew she wouldn't find shampoo
Speaker 1: in this restroom, but any kind of clean was better
Speaker 1: than her current level of filth. She thanked Darrell and
Speaker 1: stepped into his bathroom. Sasha told herself it wasn't the
Speaker 1: worst bathroom she'd ever seen, even though that was a
Speaker 1: clear lie. The floor, once white tile, was so crusted
Speaker 1: with black and yellow she could only tell they'd ever
Speaker 1: bin tile by the slight suggestion of squarish shapes underneath
Speaker 1: the filth. The toilet had been shattered almost completely. All
Speaker 1: that remained was a little circle of busted ceramic around
Speaker 1: a hole in the ground. It seemed to function as
Speaker 1: a squat toilet. Now. The sink was intact, but it
Speaker 1: also looked like it hadn't been cleaned at all in
Speaker 1: the last year. The metal of the faucet was green
Speaker 1: where it should have been silver. Sasha held her nose,
Speaker 1: turned the hot water on and hoped for the best.
Speaker 1: It took her a round minute to stop hoping for
Speaker 1: hot water. Of course, this place didn't have a functioning
Speaker 1: water heater. This is a war zone, you stupid girl,
Speaker 1: Sasha cursed herself. She felt tears at the edge of
Speaker 1: her vision, but fought them down. Slowly, deliberately. She pulled
Speaker 1: off her top, undid her braw and hung both from
Speaker 1: the door knob. As she did, she thought of the
Speaker 1: Book of Romans. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that
Speaker 1: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Speaker 1: And hope does not put us to shame, because God's
Speaker 1: love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit who has been given to us. The word of
Speaker 1: God gave her some comfort, but Sasha's stomach still churned
Speaker 1: as she scrubbed the grime from her body. She confronted
Speaker 1: the fact that this was all real. Now. She'd fled
Speaker 1: her home and her family, traveled to a war zone,
Speaker 1: and now she was here. It was done. Her great
Speaker 1: sacrifice was now real, not theoretical. The excitement she felt
Speaker 1: that that realization was marred by an anxious kind of
Speaker 1: horror at the things she'd never do now. She hadn't
Speaker 1: really thought about that before she'd left, but now Sasha
Speaker 1: realized that she was never going to graduate high school,
Speaker 1: she'd never go to college, she'd never see her father's
Speaker 1: face again. She started to cry. It surprised her a little.
Speaker 1: For days now, her emotions had felt stunted, buried under
Speaker 1: the very immediate concerns of escape and survival. But as
Speaker 1: soon as she had a minute to breathe, everything she
Speaker 1: hadn't been able to let herself feel flowed out of
Speaker 1: her eyes. First, she tried to fight it, but then
Speaker 1: she remembered something Pastor Mike had written in one of
Speaker 1: his columns for Revelator. Embrace your pain, for you will
Speaker 1: hurt again. Embrace your grief, for it is a gift.
Speaker 1: Lean into the wounds the world gives you. Have faith
Speaker 1: that the Lord God does not send us burdens we
Speaker 1: are too weak to bear. She'd left behind a world
Speaker 1: where people denied their age with science, saved their pain
Speaker 1: with narcotics, and fought the natural order of the world
Speaker 1: the Lord had built. Sasha had wanted authenticity. She'd wanted
Speaker 1: to live the truth of Christianity without compromise. That meant
Speaker 1: leaning into this pain and letting it lift her up
Speaker 1: into the arms of God. So Sasha leaned in. She sobbed,
Speaker 1: and sobbed and sobbed, shook and shuddered with a pain
Speaker 1: more profound than any she'd known before. And then she stopped.
Speaker 1: She dried herself off, pulled her one fresh pair of
Speaker 1: clothes out of her backpack, and got dressed to go
Speaker 1: and meet the heavenly kingdom she'd sacrificed so much to join.
Speaker 1: Darryl banked twice on the door right as she slid
Speaker 1: on her socks. Ma'am, I gotta get moving. Maybe do
Speaker 1: the make up later. Sasha shoved her dirty clothes in
Speaker 1: her backpack, zipped it up, and opened the door. The
Speaker 1: Heavenly Kingdom included rather more ship and bullet casings than
Speaker 1: Sasha had expected. She'd known, of course, that it was
Speaker 1: a war zone. The whole Kingdom was less than two
Speaker 1: years old. Plaino had been taken just days ago. It
Speaker 1: had all been won by blood and violence. She just
Speaker 1: sort of figured the Army of God would have cleaned
Speaker 1: up after itself. Darryll's truck was the oldest vehicle and
Speaker 1: the first non autonomous one she'd ever ridden inside. It
Speaker 1: was frightening to think that one person's movements were the
Speaker 1: only thing that stood between her and a grizzly death,
Speaker 1: but her fear at that soon faded into anxiety at
Speaker 1: the state of the world around them. The signs identified
Speaker 1: this as plain O. She knew the center of that
Speaker 1: city had been a stronghold for the Republic of Texas
Speaker 1: and its corporate masters. They'd been content to leave many
Speaker 1: of the surrounding cities in the hands of the Heavenly
Speaker 1: Kingdom since that had meant more work for the SDF
Speaker 1: in Austin. Despite its proximity to the front, Plano's status
Speaker 1: as a stronghold for some of the Republic's wealthiest citizens
Speaker 1: and corporations had made it seem unassailable. The notoriously stingy
Speaker 1: Republic had spent heavily on the city's garrison. Sasha still
Speaker 1: didn't know what had happened, how a Republican stronghold had
Speaker 1: fallen so fast, but she saw evidence of how the
Speaker 1: fall had gone down all around her. The city was devastated.
Speaker 1: They drove past a police station that was filled with
Speaker 1: bullet holes and burnt black around its windows. They passed
Speaker 1: an elementary school that looked as if it had been barricaded,
Speaker 1: turned into a fortress, and then blasted apart with rockets.
Speaker 1: The streets they rolled over had been cracked and broken
Speaker 1: by shellfire. Sasha stared out with wide, excited eyes as
Speaker 1: they passed mansions that had completely collapsed under the weight
Speaker 1: of heavy bombardment, and all around them the streets were
Speaker 1: filled with soldiers. There seemed to be a checkpoint every
Speaker 1: two or three minutes. The martyrs who manned those checkpoints
Speaker 1: looked impossibly young. That made Sasha feel a little less lonely.
Speaker 1: This is what it looks like when a generation comes
Speaker 1: back to God, she thought, at each stop. Darrel pulled
Speaker 1: a laminated paper id out of his pocket. The soldiers
Speaker 1: would take it, look it over, and then asked him
Speaker 1: about her. None of them met her eyes. Just arrived today,
Speaker 1: Darrell always said, she's here to help build the kingdom.
Speaker 1: Thanks be to God was the usual reply. Some of
Speaker 1: the men at the checkpoints were enthusiastic and shouted it
Speaker 1: with all the joy she'd expected to hear, but a
Speaker 1: few of them just looked at her with eyes that
Speaker 1: were half sullen, half hungry. Darrell, she asked, twenty minutes
Speaker 1: and three checkpoints into their drive, what exactly happened here?
Speaker 1: I left home the day after plain Oh fell. It
Speaker 1: felt like just such a miracle. It seems impossible for
Speaker 1: things to change so much, so fast. Darrell fixed her
Speaker 1: with a look that Sasha couldn't quite read and made
Speaker 1: her nervous. The next words jumbled up as they left
Speaker 1: her mouth. It's just I mean, I know all things
Speaker 1: are possible through God, But how how did we win here?
Speaker 1: From what I read on the news? The older man laughed, Well,
Speaker 1: there's your problem. Trust in the news. You ain't gonna
Speaker 1: read much true about Texas. There all those foreign papers
Speaker 1: love the s DF. He spat out the window for emphasis,
Speaker 1: and they treat the Republic like a real government, not
Speaker 1: like a collection of robber barons and their hired guns.
Speaker 1: Truth is, their position was always rocky. People around here.
Speaker 1: You'd rather live under God's law than the rule of
Speaker 1: the rich or those Prance and Austin faggots. He spat again,
Speaker 1: and somehow made the gesture look like an apology. Sorry
Speaker 1: for the curse, Miss Sah, It's been a minute since
Speaker 1: I spent much time around a woman. She smiled in response,
Speaker 1: because she wasn't really sure what else to do. And
Speaker 1: then they turned a corner pasted a mostly intact line
Speaker 1: of shops and a sign that welcomed them to downtown
Speaker 1: plan Oh. The wide streets had been cordoned off by
Speaker 1: sandbags and what looked like enormous fabric cubes filled with rocks.
Speaker 1: Several dozen armed men milled about, and in the center
Speaker 1: of the broad thoroughfare, Sasha saw what could only be
Speaker 1: a gallows built right in the middle of the two
Speaker 1: lane street. It was her first gallows. Capital punishment was
Speaker 1: illegal in the American Federation. She stared horrified at the
Speaker 1: way the six corpses strung up there swung to and
Speaker 1: fro with the breeze. Sasha squeaked just a bit in shock.
Speaker 1: She was glad the bodies weren't very close. Darrell seemed
Speaker 1: to notice her discomfort. He looked down at her with
Speaker 1: a mix of pity and understanding, ain't always pretty what
Speaker 1: we're doing, but it's the Lord's work. The truck rolled
Speaker 1: to a stop outside of a large red brick building
Speaker 1: that reeked of government. Sasha couldn't tell what it had
Speaker 1: once been. The sign was too thoroughly burned. A new
Speaker 1: sign made of white vinyl identified this building as the
Speaker 1: House of Miriam. This be your stop, ma'am. Darrell said
Speaker 1: thank you. She forced a smile and then asked, should
Speaker 1: I just go in? I'll walk in, how about that?
Speaker 1: Sasha nodded her gratitude. She wasn't a hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: what was supposed to happen at this point. Revel latter
Speaker 1: had claimed that every man and woman who journeyed to
Speaker 1: the Heavenly Kingdom would be given meaningful work, food, and
Speaker 1: as much shelter as the martyrs can provide. She knew
Speaker 1: that she could expect to be housed with other young,
Speaker 1: unmarried women at least until she and Alexander were finally together.
Speaker 1: But this trip and the Heavenly Kingdom was already so
Speaker 1: very different from everything she'd expected. That was reinforced when
Speaker 1: she stepped out of the truck and directly onto a
Speaker 1: pile of spent bullet casings. There were burnt cars in
Speaker 1: the street, burnt buildings all around her, and a vague
Speaker 1: but persistent smell of sour milk in the air. The
Speaker 1: feeling of dread that had built inside her since she
Speaker 1: had left the crate hit a new crescendo, and then
Speaker 1: Darrell took her inside the House of Miriam, and everything
Speaker 1: changed again. Sasha saw a middle aged woman sitting behind
Speaker 1: a desk in a big white room while younger women
Speaker 1: sat and lined the walls around her. The older lady
Speaker 1: had loose, friendly jowls and a mop of gray hair
Speaker 1: tossed into a lazy bun. She looked exhausted until the
Speaker 1: moment she fixed eyes on Sasha. At that moment, her
Speaker 1: eyes lifted, along with her lips, into a smile that
Speaker 1: was the truest thing Sasha had ever seen. Praise be
Speaker 1: to God, She cried, You've made it, and then a
Speaker 1: sea of girls rose up around her. Most of them
Speaker 1: appeared to have been sewing up military uniforms, but at
Speaker 1: the moment's call, every one of them set their work
Speaker 1: down and rose up to meet her. Sasha was swarmed
Speaker 1: by a sea of smiling faces, as girls pressed their
Speaker 1: hands to hers, or embraced her, or prayed over her
Speaker 1: and chanted in tongues. A dozen people told her their
Speaker 1: names at once. Sasha went stiff at first, shocked and
Speaker 1: a little mortified by the mass display of physical affection
Speaker 1: by so many strangers. But then the older woman made
Speaker 1: her way through the crowd and put her hands on
Speaker 1: Sasha's shoulders. She brushed a stray hair out of Sasha's
Speaker 1: face and fixed her with a smile that was more
Speaker 1: motherly than Sasha's actual mother had ever been. It's all
Speaker 1: right now, she said, in a voice that was pure comfort.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're probably feeling frightened and overwhelmed, but you've
Speaker 1: reached the heavenly kingdom. Loose yourself from the chains around
Speaker 1: your NECKO, captive daughter of Zion. Your home now. Something
Speaker 1: about the woman's voice and the way her hands felt
Speaker 1: broke through the anxious wall around Sasha's heart. She found
Speaker 1: herself in the older woman's arms. She sobbed, and then
Speaker 1: she felt the press of bodies close against her. The
Speaker 1: mingled sense of lavender, citrus and human beings filled her nose.
Speaker 1: It comforted Sasha in a way she'd never quite known.
Speaker 1: The anxiety and fear were gone now, but so was
Speaker 1: any sense of motive inspiration. She let her sisters guide
Speaker 1: her to a pillow on the ground. The room got
Speaker 1: very busy. Girls scattered. They heated up water and prepared food,
Speaker 1: and generally bothered themselves with every aspect of Sasha's comfort.
Speaker 1: Soon she had coffee and buttered muffins and a heavy
Speaker 1: jug of gatorade. A fan was moved into position where
Speaker 1: it could blow more cool air onto her face. The
Speaker 1: older woman sat down next to Sasha and started to speak.
Speaker 1: My name is Helen, she said. I watch over the
Speaker 1: newcomers here, and I helped him adjust to life in
Speaker 1: the heavenly Kingdom. The most important thing for you to
Speaker 1: know is that you are loved and wanted. Here. You'll
Speaker 1: have food and shelter into purpose. Do you understand that, darling?
Speaker 1: Sasha tried to smile, but realized her face was still
Speaker 1: stuck in the same absent grin she'd worn since the greeting.
Speaker 1: After a long pause, she managed to nod and speak, yes, er, sorry, Sasha,
Speaker 1: my name is Sasha Marian. I'm from Virginia in the
Speaker 1: American Federation, Sasha, Helen said, just Sasha, we have no
Speaker 1: last names here and no nationalities beyond our allegiance to
Speaker 1: God and his heavenly kingdom. Do you understand? Sasha nodded yes.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, I've I read every issue of
Speaker 1: Revelator before coming here. I know that nations and states
Speaker 1: are a worldly concept that only serves to separate us
Speaker 1: from God Almighty. I memorize, Pastor, It's one thing to
Speaker 1: read the truth, it's another to live it. Don't worry, child,
Speaker 1: It'll take some time to unlearn your old habits. Helen
Speaker 1: had cut her off, but she'd done it so gently
Speaker 1: that Sasha didn't even take it as a rebuke. She
Speaker 1: just nodded again, and then she remembered something. I need
Speaker 1: to find a young man. His name is Alexander. He's
Speaker 1: in a recognized infantry unit. I think he's a corporal,
Speaker 1: and I have a picture of him printed out in
Speaker 1: my bag. If it will help, Dear Helen's voice dropped
Speaker 1: an octave. I know this is hard to hear, but
Speaker 1: the martyrs have important work to do. They fight that
Speaker 1: we might build the heavenly Kingdom if the Lord sees
Speaker 1: fit to deliver him safe from the fray. Sasha really
Speaker 1: didn't like the way she said. If then we will
Speaker 1: find him and reunite you two. Re Sasha gave a
Speaker 1: nervous laugh. Oh no, we we've never met except for online.
Speaker 1: He convinced me to come. I mean, I didn't come
Speaker 1: for him, but I was really on the fence until
Speaker 1: I met him. Helen's expression shifted. She looked was that
Speaker 1: anguished or angry? But Sasha didn't detect any anger in
Speaker 1: her voice when she replied, I know it's hard, love,
Speaker 1: but you're going to need to wait to hear from Alexander.
Speaker 1: For right now, it should be enough that you're here,
Speaker 1: you're safe, You've done it. Do you know what this means.
Speaker 1: It means I didn't get caught. Helen laughed. She had
Speaker 1: a beautiful laugh. Sasha wanted to curl up and fall
Speaker 1: asleep inside it. No. I mean well, yes, of course,
Speaker 1: she said, But more than anything, it means that for
Speaker 1: all time, forever and ever, You're a person who made
Speaker 1: the choice to be brave. You took a leap into
Speaker 1: the dark and trusted that God's light would rise to
Speaker 1: meet you. There were tears in her eyes, genuine tears
Speaker 1: wrapped up in genuine wrinkles and laugh lines that had
Speaker 1: never felt the touch of a surgical laser. That's the
Speaker 1: most beautiful thing in the world, Helen said, I want
Speaker 1: you to know that. Sasha started to cry too. Helen
Speaker 1: embraced her, held her close, and Sasha was certain she'd
Speaker 1: never been happier. What grows in the forest trees, Sure,
Speaker 1: no one else grows in the forest. Our imagination, our
Speaker 1: sense of wonder, and our family bonds grow too, because
Speaker 1: when we disconnect from this and connect with this, we
Speaker 1: reconnect with each other. The forest is so then you think,
Speaker 1: find a forest near you and start exploring. I Discover
Speaker 1: the Forest dot Org, brought to you by the United
Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the AD Council. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to our show. I'm Zoe de Channel and I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to be joined by my friends and cast mates
Speaker 1: Hannah Simone and Lamar and Morris to recap our hit
Speaker 1: television series New Girl. Join us every Monday on the
Speaker 1: Welcome to Our Show podcast, where we'll share behind the
Speaker 1: scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes, revealed the
Speaker 1: truth behind the legendary game True American, and discuss how
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Speaker 1: begging us to do a New Girl recap for years,
Speaker 1: and we finally made a podcast where we answer all
Speaker 1: your burning questions like is there really a bear? In
Speaker 1: every episode of New Girl. Plus each week you'll hear
Speaker 1: hilarious stories like this at the end when he says
Speaker 1: you got some schmid on your face. I feel like
Speaker 1: I pitched that joke. I believe that. I feel like
Speaker 1: I did. I'm not on a thousand percent. I want
Speaker 1: to say that was I tossed that one out. Listen
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Speaker 1: Heard Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your
Speaker 1: podcasts from Cavalry Audio. Comes the new true crime podcast
Speaker 1: The Shadow Girls. I always wanted to know what it
Speaker 1: felt like to kill somebody and started laughing. Prosecutors described
Speaker 1: him as a serial killer, surt kicking up these girls,
Speaker 1: getting him in a position of vulnerability when he got
Speaker 1: hold of their neck. That was it. I'm Caroline Asia,
Speaker 1: a journalist and lifelong resident at the Pacific Northwest. I
Speaker 1: grew up near the banks of the Green River and
Speaker 1: in the shadow of the killer that bears its name.
Speaker 1: How many times did you bring the camera? One of time?
Speaker 1: Just want He started fantasizing about having sex with his mother,
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Speaker 1: We stayed in the woods. He always liked to go
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Speaker 1: Girls on the I Heart Radio app on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Chapter ten, Manny. It
Speaker 1: couldn't have been much past ten in the morning when
Speaker 1: they arrived at the City of Wheels. Topaz and Skullfucker
Speaker 1: Mike had helped him and Reggie into an open topped
Speaker 1: red buggy they had apparently driven out to the ambush.
Speaker 1: The old vehicle beat the hell out of walking, but
Speaker 1: it had not been built with comfort in mind. Every
Speaker 1: bump and jostle on the road sent Payne shooting up
Speaker 1: from Mannie's fucked knee to what felt like a small
Speaker 1: forest of tears in his shoulder muscles. Mike the driver
Speaker 1: kept the vehicle at a conspicuously slow pace, but he
Speaker 1: heard all the same. The ten minute drive was agony,
Speaker 1: but then Rolling Fuck came into view and all thought
Speaker 1: of pain faded from Mannie's mind. The main structure of
Speaker 1: the city had once been a colossal Bagger two eighty
Speaker 1: eight strip mining machine. It looked like a sideway skyscraper
Speaker 1: sized spider made of scaffolding and cranes. At the center
Speaker 1: of the vehicle was a four story building on a
Speaker 1: massive set of treads. Four spindley towers rose up out
Speaker 1: of that main structure and in a giant half circle
Speaker 1: in the air around it. A gantryway the length of
Speaker 1: a football field connected the spindles to a mighty steel
Speaker 1: arm at the end of the structure. It had once
Speaker 1: housed an enormous wheel bucket mining apparatus, but that had
Speaker 1: been replaced by a queer cube structure. It sat high
Speaker 1: in the air and gleamed in a shade of black
Speaker 1: that made Manny's stomach hurt. The overwhelming motif of Rolling
Speaker 1: Fuck was after market. The spindle towers had originally looked
Speaker 1: like scaffolding and mainly existed to offset the weight of
Speaker 1: that Titanic arm but they'd been built on and added
Speaker 1: to with a series of tree house looking contraptions. He
Speaker 1: saw people, hundreds of them, climbing from door to door
Speaker 1: via a series of ladders, ropes, and what looked like vines.
Speaker 1: Below the main body of the city, a series of
Speaker 1: vehicles surrounded the vast rolling building that made up the
Speaker 1: city's foundation. Many saw long haul trucks, deuce and a
Speaker 1: half army transports, and at least one old Abrams tank.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of sets of solar panels glistened under the Texas sun.
Speaker 1: Good God, Reggie whispered, aw temporarily overwhelming his pain, but
Speaker 1: didn't realize any of the road tribes with this lodge.
Speaker 1: There were easily two or three thousand people visible in
Speaker 1: the sprawling camp. Mike glanced back at Reggie, a somewhat
Speaker 1: stern look on his face. This is not a tribe,
Speaker 1: it's a city, oh, said Reggie. That's just how a
Speaker 1: lot of people back home refer to I get it,
Speaker 1: Mike interrupted, but there are actual indigenous tribes out on
Speaker 1: these roads, Comanche bands, and the Panhandle roving up from
Speaker 1: New Mexico to Colorado. We've got defensive and trade agreements
Speaker 1: with a few different groups of Apache out west. The
Speaker 1: Navajo have the only stable territory south of Mormon Land,
Speaker 1: north of Albuquerque. Mike glanced back at the road long
Speaker 1: enough to steer around a pothole and turn them in
Speaker 1: the direction of what looked to be a greater station.
Speaker 1: Then he continued, Anyway, there are tribes out west, but
Speaker 1: we're a city. The fact that we don't hold any
Speaker 1: land or control any territory is important to most of
Speaker 1: the folks here. Think of it as a kind of
Speaker 1: rebellion from people born to a settler culture. Ah. Reggie nodded,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely fascinating. I have so much I want to
Speaker 1: ask in good time, buddy, Mike said, Let's get y'all
Speaker 1: settled in first. Manny knew that every foreign correspondent he'd
Speaker 1: ever met would kill to have the opportunity Reggie had
Speaker 1: just lucked into the road. People were a popular topic
Speaker 1: in world media. He supposed that wasn't surprising. They all
Speaker 1: led visually spectacular lives. Rolling fuck was just the grandest
Speaker 1: variation on a theme. It was famous across the West
Speaker 1: for having the highest proportion of post human citizens. Something
Speaker 1: like a third of them were chromed enough to no
Speaker 1: longer fit into the Homo sapiens category. Manny had never
Speaker 1: heard of them traveling this close to Dallas before they
Speaker 1: were banned in all of the Republic cities. People with
Speaker 1: military grade mods were uncontrollable. That and cultural PTSD from
Speaker 1: the war made them pariah's pretty much everywhere. The main
Speaker 1: structure of the city was encircled by a ring of
Speaker 1: thirty ish large and heavily customed r vs. A few
Speaker 1: dozen smaller vehicles, many of them bearing sundry armaments, were
Speaker 1: scattered throughout the campground. The only thing that resembled a
Speaker 1: checkpoint was a tidy, little one room trailer with a
Speaker 1: bright welcome sign above it. Mike steered them into park
Speaker 1: in front of it. The guard who approached them was
Speaker 1: a shirtless, dreadlocked person with dusky brown skin and an
Speaker 1: automatic shotgun. Topass kissed them. Then the guard greeted Manny
Speaker 1: and Reggie, Welcome to Rolling Fuck. Rules are don't start,
Speaker 1: no ship, won't be no ship cool. Manny nodded, so
Speaker 1: did the brit All right, they said, enjoy. Manny was
Speaker 1: a little shocked by how loud it was. Several of
Speaker 1: the camps appeared to have been built mainly out of speakers.
Speaker 1: There were a handful of open air bars outside the
Speaker 1: main structure of the city, heterogeneous mixes of teaky torches,
Speaker 1: brightly colored silk shade structures, and scrap metal bar tables.
Speaker 1: Despite the early hour, quite a few people were drinking
Speaker 1: and dancing. Manny noted more people were doing the former
Speaker 1: than the latter. Most people were either naked or wearing
Speaker 1: a few pieces of light ornamental clothing. Nearly everyone carried
Speaker 1: a firearm. He looked over to the journalist and noticed
Speaker 1: that Reggie was blinking rapidly and working his jaw. His
Speaker 1: arm was still dislocated, and it seemed to pain him
Speaker 1: as much as Manny was pained by his leg. Manny
Speaker 1: sense of professional pride lit up again, and he leaned
Speaker 1: forward to speak to their hosts. I don't mean to
Speaker 1: seem ungrateful, he said, but is there some way we
Speaker 1: could see a medic? We're pretty shredded back here. Yeah, yeah, skullfucker.
Speaker 1: Mike grunted topes and I got some meta ship in
Speaker 1: our trailer. We'll get you. Just suck it up a
Speaker 1: bit longer and oh. He popped open the glove compartment.
Speaker 1: Inside it, Manny could see a handgun, a battered can
Speaker 1: of Miller High Life, and a large bottle of pills.
Speaker 1: Skullfucker Mike passed the bottle back. Oxy printed him out
Speaker 1: myself like two weeks back. Probably shouldn't take more than
Speaker 1: two or three unless you've got a robust, fucking Narco
Speaker 1: suite in your brain. Meat. Manny took two, Reggie took four.
Speaker 1: Mike guided the little buggy through the organized chaos of
Speaker 1: the encampment and towards a large silver air stream parked
Speaker 1: about a dozen feet away from what Manny guessed was
Speaker 1: the backside of Rolling Fuck. He guessed that because someone
Speaker 1: had bolted a twenty foot tall license plate to that
Speaker 1: end of the city. It said honk please in glowing
Speaker 1: white letters. The Bucky slowed to a stop, and skullfucker
Speaker 1: Mike hopped out. He put out a hand as Manny
Speaker 1: and Reggie started to stand. Hold up, guys, y'all are
Speaker 1: just covered in pieces of dead people. He went up
Speaker 1: to the air stream and came out moments later with
Speaker 1: one armful of towels and a large jug of hot,
Speaker 1: soapy water. Manny and Reggie washed their hands and faces,
Speaker 1: pulled off their shirts, and scrubbed the blood from their chests.
Speaker 1: The brit looked over at Topaz when it came time
Speaker 1: to take off his pants. Um, he said. When she
Speaker 1: made no motion to hide her face, she asked, would
Speaker 1: you mind turning around? Oh? She seemed surprised. Her face
Speaker 1: went a bit red, but not with embarrassment at their
Speaker 1: impending nudity. I didn't even think about it. You people
Speaker 1: come from the world. She turned. Reggie and Manny scrubbed
Speaker 1: most of the blood off their aching wounded bodies. Skullfucker
Speaker 1: Mike brought them a pair of fluffy white robes, buddled
Speaker 1: them up, and ushered them inside the air stream. It
Speaker 1: was tame by comparison to the grand weird wheeled city
Speaker 1: above them. The gleaming silver vehicle had been modified with
Speaker 1: a roof top greenhouse that was filled with pot plants
Speaker 1: and some squat bush with red berries Manny had never
Speaker 1: seen before. The back had been extended, and the stainless
Speaker 1: steel replaced by an enormous bay window. As he entered,
Speaker 1: Mannie was hit by a wave of cold air and
Speaker 1: the strong smell of marijuana. Roughly half the trailer's interior
Speaker 1: was taken up by a huge popissan bed covered in
Speaker 1: velvet blankets and dozens of furs. A circular table started
Speaker 1: right where the bed ended, and the rest of the
Speaker 1: trailer was a large glass walled combination bathroom bar. There
Speaker 1: did not appear to be a kitchen. Mannie's leg had
Speaker 1: started throbbing as soon as he stood up to eggsit
Speaker 1: the buggy, so he dropped into the first seat he
Speaker 1: could find, a little padded bench by the table opposite
Speaker 1: the bed. Reggie sat down on the other side of
Speaker 1: the table. Manny noticed that he looked nervous, sweaty. The
Speaker 1: journalist's hand shook just a little, his skin seemed pale.
Speaker 1: Topaz came in after them, followed by skullfucker Mike. She
Speaker 1: hopped over the table with a grace of a deer
Speaker 1: jumping a fence, and in one smooth motion, spun round
Speaker 1: and settled into a cross legged sit on the plush mattress.
Speaker 1: Skullfucker Mike walked up to the bar and pulled down
Speaker 1: a large white bottle with the words Rufies written across
Speaker 1: it in black marker. He took two pint glasses, filled
Speaker 1: them three quarters up with the white liquid, and then
Speaker 1: added a splash of cranberry juice to each glass. Scully
Speaker 1: Topaz sounded reproachful. Mike stiffened, then dropped his shoulders in contrition.
Speaker 1: He turned towards them, Sorry, guys, my manners are burnt out.
Speaker 1: Would either of you like a G teeny? Neither of
Speaker 1: them answered for a long second. It was Reggie who
Speaker 1: finally responded, gee teeny. Mike laughed, Yeah, that's what Topes
Speaker 1: and I call g HB and cranberry juice. Really, it's
Speaker 1: the spot after shooting something I can make you guys
Speaker 1: some human sized portions. No thanks, Manny, and Reggie said
Speaker 1: at the exact same time. The big man handed one
Speaker 1: glass to Topaz and belted down the other himself. The
Speaker 1: woman took two gulps to finish hers. She handed her
Speaker 1: cup to Mike, and he walked back to the bar
Speaker 1: to fill both classes again. Reggie looked shocked. I'm fairly
Speaker 1: certain you just ingested enough GHB to kill two normal humans.
Speaker 1: Top Has shrugged. Let's say what we've had so far
Speaker 1: as only se or so of a fatal dose for
Speaker 1: some one your size and metabolism and mods Skully is
Speaker 1: better at drugging people, though, skullfucker. Mike finished pouring two
Speaker 1: more g tens and nodded, She's about right. The brit
Speaker 1: drinks more, though I'd say he could take a heavier
Speaker 1: dose than what what was your name again, Manny? Manny
Speaker 1: gasped out, and would it be too much to ask
Speaker 1: for like some medical care? We are both in tremendous pain.
Speaker 1: Topaz and skullfucker. Mike looked ashamed. Cheese Topaz side fucking hell, guys,
Speaker 1: We're so sorry, added Mike. Then he grabbed a long
Speaker 1: knife from his belt and gouged it deep into his wrist.
Speaker 1: Reggie Damn near jumped out of his chair. Manny kept still.
Speaker 1: The pills had started to help, but he was in
Speaker 1: too much pain to react to anything with Gusto. It's
Speaker 1: all right, Topez assured them, and the kind of voice
Speaker 1: Manny remembered his mom using on their cat when it
Speaker 1: was sick. I know it looks weird, but he's helping, helping.
Speaker 1: Reggie gasped, a skullfucker. Mike positioned his open wound over
Speaker 1: a shot glass, jammed the knife and slightly to the
Speaker 1: left and let a thick strand of his syrupy red
Speaker 1: blood fill the glass. He filled a second one in
Speaker 1: the same manner. Then he pulled the knife free, set
Speaker 1: it on the bar counter, and handed the shots to
Speaker 1: Manny and Reggie. By the time he reached them, many
Speaker 1: noticed that the big man's wounded arm had already scabbed over.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, skullfucker, Mike smiled. My blood's pretty sterile, and
Speaker 1: it's full of good robots. They'll take care of you.
Speaker 1: Manny took the shot right away. He knew it was
Speaker 1: working when he felt pain from the wounds in his
Speaker 1: back again. That meant Mike's blood had fixed whatever god
Speaker 1: awful thing had happened to his You well enough that
Speaker 1: it barely throbbed Merta Santa, the curse slipped out. Man
Speaker 1: He felt better, great, in fact, but kind of queasy.
Speaker 1: At the same time, he felt somehow in motion, almost
Speaker 1: as if his whole body were shifting and burbling, like
Speaker 1: the contents of his gut. The fixer glanced at his
Speaker 1: journalist and nodded to the empty shot. It's a it's good.
Speaker 1: Reggie looked terrified. His knuckles were white. The journalist gripped
Speaker 1: the edges of the table like he was holding on
Speaker 1: for dear life. I am fine, he gritted out. A
Speaker 1: damn it, Scully. Topez said, you've scared the poor kid
Speaker 1: with your damned wizard blood shit, said skullfucker Mike. Sorry,
Speaker 1: we were trying real hard not to trip your head.
Speaker 1: Topez nodded. The gesture looked a little telegraphed, as if
Speaker 1: she were out of practice with making it stock Sapiens
Speaker 1: like yourself don't always do well around folks like me
Speaker 1: and Mike. We moved too fast, or we've got too
Speaker 1: many weird extra parts. I don't know. It's probably different
Speaker 1: for every one of us, but your brains definitely read
Speaker 1: monster when you see us. Oh, Reggie croaked, You're not monsters.
Speaker 1: You've both been very polite, perfect hosts, Ah said Mike.
Speaker 1: It's got nothing to do with how nice we are, aren't.
Speaker 1: It's how your brain reacts to the way we look
Speaker 1: and move. It's because we're fucking monsters, Scully. She fixed
Speaker 1: her eyes on the journalist. I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: a bad sense, but like we've taken a big damn
Speaker 1: step out of anything near to nature. Nothing is supposed
Speaker 1: to be the way we are. It's normal for humans
Speaker 1: to feel weird when they're around us for the first time.
Speaker 1: Oh well, said Reggie. Maybe don't slice your wrists open
Speaker 1: in front of company in the future, or at least
Speaker 1: do it behind a screen. Mike nodded as if that
Speaker 1: had been a profound suggestion. Then he handed Topaz her
Speaker 1: second g teeny and belted down his own. They were
Speaker 1: both visibly intoxicated now. Topas his eyes looked unfocused, and
Speaker 1: she sprawled out backwards on the bed and cuddled absent
Speaker 1: mindedly with one of the fur blankets on her bed.
Speaker 1: Mike drifted off too, tapping his foot to a beat
Speaker 1: Manny couldn't hear, and drumming his fingers on the bar
Speaker 1: top to what looked like a completely different beat. The
Speaker 1: journalist stared at his blood shot. It looked like it
Speaker 1: had begun to clot. A thin rind had formed across
Speaker 1: the top. Reggie was an obvious pain, but he was
Speaker 1: just as obviously too squeamish to drink a stranger's blood.
Speaker 1: Mannie felt a lot better, though it was weird how
Speaker 1: fast Mike's blood had worked. He found himself worrying at
Speaker 1: the scab for a gash he'd received on his forearm,
Speaker 1: only for the scab to fall away and reveal clean
Speaker 1: new skin underneath. An hour ago, it had been a
Speaker 1: bleeding wound. It really works, man, he told Reggie. Just
Speaker 1: trust me, choke it down. Reggie didn't look convinced. Think
Speaker 1: about what a story this'll make for everyone back home,
Speaker 1: Manny said, You escape to kill your drone and drink
Speaker 1: the blood of an immortal. You'll dine down on that
Speaker 1: for years. Reggie still looked pale and rather disgusted, but
Speaker 1: he put his fingers around the shot, closed his eyes,
Speaker 1: and then gulped it down. Mannie heard him wretch once
Speaker 1: and then twice. Tears beat it at the corners of
Speaker 1: the journalist's eye, but then he swallowed and slumped back
Speaker 1: in his chair. Schoffucker. Mike was hard at work mixing
Speaker 1: up another batch of cocktails. These ones seem to just
Speaker 1: be normal gin and tonics, four of them. There's not
Speaker 1: anything fucking crazy about those drinks, is there, Manny asked.
Speaker 1: Mike shrugged. Two shots of gin, splash a tonic. Nothing
Speaker 1: you norms can't handle. Neither of us. Asked for a drink.
Speaker 1: Manny said, yeah, Topas yawned from her place stretched out
Speaker 1: on the bed, But he almost died today. You should
Speaker 1: always have a drink after almost dying. Listen to Topez,
Speaker 1: said Mike as he passed out the drinks. She's almost
Speaker 1: died more than almost anyone I know. Reggie came alive
Speaker 1: as his hands touched the drink. He gulped it down
Speaker 1: faster than either of the post humans. Manny took a
Speaker 1: couple of slight SIPs of his own. It was heinously
Speaker 1: strong before he sat the glass down and asked, polite
Speaker 1: as he could manage. So why are we here and
Speaker 1: why were you there? That kind of luck doesn't just happen,
Speaker 1: And now we're just all gonna what hang out in
Speaker 1: your trailer getting lit? Would that really be so bad?
Speaker 1: Asked Mike Scully. Topaz said, in a warning tone, he's right,
Speaker 1: and it'd be rude of us to pretend we've got
Speaker 1: altruistic motives here. She looked Manny in his eyes. It
Speaker 1: was a little unnerving because her left eye was a
Speaker 1: notably different shade of brown than her right one, and
Speaker 1: then there were her metal fangs. Look kid, she said.
Speaker 1: We got a duty to help strangers in immediate need.
Speaker 1: It's rule number one for all the monsters here. But
Speaker 1: we were out there because we were looking for someone
Speaker 1: like you, a fixer. He felt dumb as soon as
Speaker 1: he asked. To her credit, Topaz just smiled. A citizen
Speaker 1: of the Republic of Texas, one who's not afraid of
Speaker 1: dangerous work, Mike added, and judging by the day you've had,
Speaker 1: I'm a guess you've a certain familiarity with danger. What
Speaker 1: about me, Reggie asked. Mike put a hand on the
Speaker 1: journalist's shoulder. Many guessed it was meant as a calming gesture,
Speaker 1: but the Brits still flinched at the contact. Don't worry,
Speaker 1: Guy said Mike. We'll get you back to Austin or
Speaker 1: wherever's got an airport that'll fly at home. Your friends
Speaker 1: the only one who's help we need. What help do
Speaker 1: you need? Manny asked. The best person to take that
Speaker 1: question is up in the city. Topas you guys up
Speaker 1: for a bit of a trick. Minnie stood halfway to
Speaker 1: test the strength of his knee. It felt good as
Speaker 1: good as new. In fact, his back and shoulders which
Speaker 1: had been peppered with shrapnel. Just itched now. He didn't
Speaker 1: even feel particularly tired. On the other side of the table,
Speaker 1: Reggie looked to be doing well too. He worked his
Speaker 1: formerly dislocated shoulder in its socket and gave Manny the
Speaker 1: thumbs up. Apparently so, he said, Rolling Fuck had not
Speaker 1: been built by the mines or for the comfort of
Speaker 1: mortal men. That much was obvious. The second the elevator
Speaker 1: doors closed, the narrow metal box launched up with the
Speaker 1: force of a rocket. It climbed six stories in the
Speaker 1: space of about a second. By the time it stopped
Speaker 1: and the doors slid open with a pleasant ding, Manny
Speaker 1: and Reggie were both on the edge of vomiting ah
Speaker 1: ship topes. Mike said, you forgot to drop the speed
Speaker 1: back down to normal. Topez looked genuinely distraught. Fuck me
Speaker 1: with a splintery dick, she cursed. I'm sorry, guys, this
Speaker 1: is the nearest elevator to our trailer. It doesn't only
Speaker 1: take humans. The city's got an elevator under each spindle,
Speaker 1: Mike explained. There's also a big lift under the main roller.
Speaker 1: That's what we call the big building on treads in
Speaker 1: the middle, and another behind the rear roller. Humans tend
Speaker 1: to stick to the rollers. It gets weird up in
Speaker 1: the spindles. Weird, Reggie asked, weird skullfucker. Mike leaned down
Speaker 1: and hissed the word into the journalist's ear. He winked
Speaker 1: at the brit in a way that somehow suggested both
Speaker 1: coitus and violence. Topaz punched Mike's shoulder and annoyance. She
Speaker 1: gestured for Manny and Reggie to follow her down the
Speaker 1: narrow metal hallway. We live life on a different scale
Speaker 1: than the rest of you, she said. We see more colors,
Speaker 1: hear more sounds. Most of us have at least a
Speaker 1: thousand times as many nerve endings, and no fear of
Speaker 1: mortality to draw the line between pleasure and pain. The
Speaker 1: kind of environments we enjoy can be intense to unmodified humans.
Speaker 1: Right as she said humans, the group emerged from the
Speaker 1: hallway into a wide, open gantry way. There were no
Speaker 1: There was no ceiling above them now, and a huge
Speaker 1: rectangular metal frame loomed over them, connected to the other
Speaker 1: spindles of the vehicle city via thick metal tension wire.
Speaker 1: The surface of the spindles had been covered in colorful
Speaker 1: bits of metal and wood welded and nailed into dozens
Speaker 1: of crude structures that stippled up the iron frames like
Speaker 1: technicolor mushrooms. Everything was covered in lights and screens and
Speaker 1: buzzed with the hum of a thousand speakers. Reggie's pace slowed,
Speaker 1: the journalist's jaw was slack. He mouthed what must have
Speaker 1: been a curse, and then asked their guides, Is it
Speaker 1: okay if I record skullfucker might grinned and clapped him
Speaker 1: on the shoulder. Of course, it's okay. If you ask nice,
Speaker 1: I might even let you film me in one of
Speaker 1: the fondel boats. What the hell is a Reggie started
Speaker 1: to ask, but then the first fondel boat came into view.
Speaker 1: At least many assumed that's what it was. A very
Speaker 1: large lifeboat hung off the gantry as if it was
Speaker 1: the deck of a cruise ship. The interior of the
Speaker 1: boat was all soft cushions, pillows, blankets, and about two
Speaker 1: dozen writhing naked people. Some of them were surely having sex,
Speaker 1: but it was hard to tell actly what was going on.
Speaker 1: Manny saw several tails curled around limbs or jerking spasmodically
Speaker 1: in the air. His eyes were drawn to one mechanical
Speaker 1: limb that looked like a large metal chicken's foot. He
Speaker 1: watched it kick repeatedly into the chest of a young woman.
Speaker 1: She cried with joy at every impact. The whole mass
Speaker 1: of coiled post humanity gleamed wet in the morning light,
Speaker 1: coated with a mixture of blood and what looked like
Speaker 1: motor oil. Christ Reggie whispered. Manny was at a loss
Speaker 1: for words. He felt a bit nauseous. He never considered
Speaker 1: himself a prude, but something about what was going on
Speaker 1: in the Fondel boat just seemed wrong in the physics sense,
Speaker 1: not the moral sense. Probably best not to watch, said Topaz.
Speaker 1: It can make humans sick er, Yeah, Reggie coughed. Is
Speaker 1: that a common sight? Mike shrugged. It's not uncommon. We
Speaker 1: try to keep stuff like that on the outside spindles
Speaker 1: away from the rollers as a courtesy. They walked on,
Speaker 1: passed the boat and through another covered section of the
Speaker 1: gantry way, surrounded by a half dozen little buildings that
Speaker 1: looked shops. Many saw fruits and vegetables hanging in one,
Speaker 1: an assortment of labeled decks and other electronic googas on
Speaker 1: tables in another. It had the look of a Middle
Speaker 1: Eastern bazaar, but with no shopkeepers present. Y'all want food,
Speaker 1: Topaz stopped and gestured at the shop filled with produce.
Speaker 1: Manny held up his left hand, which had his cash ship,
Speaker 1: and planted in it. I've got Republic of Texas currency
Speaker 1: and some Californian crypto, if you guys take either. Mike
Speaker 1: and Topaz both laughed, and then Mike grabbed an apple
Speaker 1: and tossed it Manny's way. Many caught the fruit, although
Speaker 1: it was a near thing. We don't use money, not
Speaker 1: within the city, skullfucker, Mike explained. We do sell a
Speaker 1: lot of what we grow for foreign money's, but that's
Speaker 1: mostly used to book bands or buy stuff we can make.
Speaker 1: Nothing costs anything here, not to us and not to
Speaker 1: our guests. Y'all are guests, Topaz clarified. Manny hadn't really
Speaker 1: had time to think about his stomach in the hour
Speaker 1: since their explosion he wake up call. They'd been on
Speaker 1: the run and endanger the whole time, but now that
Speaker 1: he had a moment to think, he felt a mild
Speaker 1: gnawing sensation in his gut. The journalist must have been
Speaker 1: in the same way, because He immediately set to piling fruit,
Speaker 1: bags of nuts, and a paper sack of vat grown
Speaker 1: jerky into his arms. Manny went for a bag of
Speaker 1: shelled pistachios himself, and the two munch to Skullfucker. Mike
Speaker 1: and Topaz led them across the spindles gantry and down
Speaker 1: towards the main roller. The main roller had once held
Speaker 1: the control center and engine room for the gargantuan strip
Speaker 1: mining vehicle and its conversion to rolling fuck. Two new
Speaker 1: levels built from a half dozen sorely abused airstream trailers
Speaker 1: had been added to the top four of the spindles
Speaker 1: met on the roller's roof, which also hosted a lively cafe.
Speaker 1: There were around a dozen patrons drinking at the circular
Speaker 1: center bar, and perhaps a dozen lounging on cushions around
Speaker 1: low slung Moroccan style tables. Most of the customers looked
Speaker 1: human to Manny's eye. They wore an assortment of colorful,
Speaker 1: loose fitting garments, sarongs, long skirts, and caffeia's. Most of
Speaker 1: it looked handmade, although Manny was hardly an expert on
Speaker 1: such things. As they walked past the bar, Mike scooped
Speaker 1: up four pint glasses of dark browned agger. He kept
Speaker 1: them in one hand. As he opened a metal hatch
Speaker 1: on the rooftop. Many could see a ladder that led
Speaker 1: down into semi darkness. Mike nodded towards the ladder. Down
Speaker 1: you go. Beer at the bottom. Manny and Reggie descended
Speaker 1: into a luxurious conference room. It was candlelit, dim enough
Speaker 1: to see him intimate, but bright enough for human navigation.
Speaker 1: A single redwood table dominated the space. It was twelve
Speaker 1: feet in diameter and low to the ground, like all
Speaker 1: the tables he'd seen in the cafe. Cushions and other colorful, lumpy,
Speaker 1: soft things surrounded it. One man and one woman were
Speaker 1: already seated cross legged around the table. Manny was shocked
Speaker 1: to see they were both quite old. The man was
Speaker 1: heavy set, with a lot of curly black hair piled
Speaker 1: atop his head and around his craggy lined face. Startlingly
Speaker 1: bright blue eyes stood out over the flickering candle light.
Speaker 1: He wore an old fashioned suit with a necktie and everything.
Speaker 1: It was the kind of suit a banker might have
Speaker 1: worn fifty years ago. If the old movies man he'd
Speaker 1: watched were close too accurate, He looked to be in
Speaker 1: his sixties, while the woman next to him seemed considerably older.
Speaker 1: Her face was so lying and her skin so thin
Speaker 1: she almost looked fake, like some kind of animatronic creation.
Speaker 1: No one looked that old anymore. The Austin Autonomous Region
Speaker 1: wasn't wealthy, but basic juven treatments were cheap and heavily subsidized.
Speaker 1: Even the poor could afford to combat the worst side
Speaker 1: effects of aging. Things were different in the Republic of
Speaker 1: Texas proper, but none of the poor there lived long
Speaker 1: enough to look like this woman. She wore high waisted
Speaker 1: purple yoga pants and a very tight T shirt with
Speaker 1: a faded print of a five fingered Bart Simpson flipping
Speaker 1: the bird. Her hair was completely white and bound behind
Speaker 1: her in a tight ponytail. She smiled at Manny when
Speaker 1: he looked at her. The old woman's teeth were as
Speaker 1: white as her hair. Hello there, young men, she said,
Speaker 1: in a voice that evoked the Platonic ideal of a grandma. Hello, Topaz,
Speaker 1: Mike schofucker, Mike, ma'am skullfucker, Mike corrected her. As he
Speaker 1: came down the ladder. He handed Manny and Topaz each
Speaker 1: a beer and then found a cushion large and plush
Speaker 1: enough for his bulk and dropped down. Manny took his
Speaker 1: cue and found a seat. Red She grabbed the cushion
Speaker 1: next to him. Topaz leaned against the back wall, but
Speaker 1: stood as she introduced them. This is Mannie Sanchez, he's
Speaker 1: a fixer from the Austin region. And this is Reggie Sullivan.
Speaker 1: He works for the BBC. Manny, Reggie, this is Nanna Yazzie,
Speaker 1: she's our eldest. And the less old fart is Donnie Ferris.
Speaker 1: He's a guest and a brit too. Wait the Donald Ferris,
Speaker 1: Reggie asked, the guy who made Visions of Blood. Yes,
Speaker 1: said the old man. Did you actually watch it or
Speaker 1: have you just seen a handful of ten second clips
Speaker 1: in your media feed over the years. Both actually, Reggie
Speaker 1: replied Donald grunted. Many had heard of Visions of Blood
Speaker 1: back in school. It was a documentary released a year
Speaker 1: before the Second American Civil War caught fire. It followed
Speaker 1: two Navajo Special Forces veterans as they organized a massive
Speaker 1: direct action campaign that started in Santa Fe but spread
Speaker 1: throughout the Southwest. His textbook had called it one of
Speaker 1: the major seeds of the old u s has collapse.
Speaker 1: Reggie was clearly star struck by Donald. Mannie was more
Speaker 1: curious about the old woman. No matter where he turned
Speaker 1: his head, he couldn't quite seem to escape her eyes.
Speaker 1: She had this strange way of staring at him without
Speaker 1: really staring. It made Mannie feel somehow naked and vaguely comforted,
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Nana meant grandma, which made sense,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't sure what the rest of her title meant.
Speaker 1: Exactly Are you in charge, then, he asked her. In response,
Speaker 1: every one but Reggie chuckled. No one is in charge here,
Speaker 1: said Nana Yazi. That will become increasingly clear the longer
Speaker 1: you stay. I'm the eldest, which means exactly what it
Speaker 1: sounds like. I'm old as dirt, and I'm older than
Speaker 1: any of the other dirt around here too. She eyed
Speaker 1: Donald Ferris and continued, when I give advice or have
Speaker 1: an opinion, some people listen. This is not a state,
Speaker 1: and I am not a head of state, but sometimes
Speaker 1: I play one for the folks outside, for in policy,
Speaker 1: diplomatic relations, that sort of thing, mainly because no one
Speaker 1: else can be arst by the way. She added welcome
Speaker 1: to the city of Wheels, or she ound a little
Speaker 1: rolling fuck. I argued rather strenuously against that name, but
Speaker 1: I was outvoted. I like the name, said skullfucker. Mike,
Speaker 1: it's fun, said he shouldn't take themselves too seriously. That's
Speaker 1: when the problems start. So why are we here, Manny asked.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm grateful, and all we're grateful. He nodded
Speaker 1: to Reggie. But I know y'all aren't just being nice.
Speaker 1: Mike said, you had dangerous work. Skullfucker, Mike, skullfucker, Mike
Speaker 1: insisted again. Nanni Yazzi ignored him and replied to Manny,
Speaker 1: we do have a job for you, Miho. You are
Speaker 1: not required to take it, though if you say no,
Speaker 1: we'll still return you when your journalist friend to Austin,
Speaker 1: and if you do help us, you'll be compensated. So
Speaker 1: what is it you need? The old woman snapped her fingers.
Speaker 1: A projection screen hummed to life on the wall of
Speaker 1: the room that faced Manny and Reggie. It displayed three faces,
Speaker 1: two women and one man. They all looked young, although
Speaker 1: that meant very little. One woman was white and kept
Speaker 1: her hair in a bright purple mohawk. The other was
Speaker 1: as bald as skullfucker Mike, with round cheeks, green scowling eyes,
Speaker 1: and skin a little darker than Manny's. The young man
Speaker 1: was very pale. He appeared to be of Chinese descent,
Speaker 1: and his exposed skin was covered in scarified symbols from
Speaker 1: a language Mannie didn't recognize. From left to right, Marigold, Fulton,
Speaker 1: Tooley Black Elk, and Rick Hartford. They're all citizens and
Speaker 1: they act as our negotiators when the city is in
Speaker 1: the southwest. Two days ago, they arrived in Plaino to
Speaker 1: negotiate a trade deal with the Republic of Texas. We
Speaker 1: have quite a lot of processed coffee and we were
Speaker 1: hoping to trade it for She trailed off a bit
Speaker 1: and her cheeks reddened. Manny thought she looked embarrassed. For snacks. Snacks,
Speaker 1: Reggie asked, yes, she nodded. The Frido Le Corporation is,
Speaker 1: or at least was still headquartered in Plaino. The junk
Speaker 1: food they produces harder to find out West. We mostly
Speaker 1: wanted cheeto's. Topez licked her lips. For whatever reason, the
Speaker 1: imitations we print out here just don't cut it. We
Speaker 1: barter everywhere we go, Nana Yazi continued, and since post
Speaker 1: humans aren't welcome in most populated areas, our negotiators are
Speaker 1: all pretty close to baseline. They traveled unarmed into Plano.
Speaker 1: The city fell six hours after they arrived. Reggie grunted
Speaker 1: two days ago. People were telling me the Kingdom was
Speaker 1: on its last legs. Yes, Nana Yazi said, it would
Speaker 1: appear they are not quite the paper tiger everyone expected.
Speaker 1: We're still scrambling through good data, but it's safe to
Speaker 1: say they've pilfered the majority of the Republic's heavy equipment
Speaker 1: and converted as much as half their standing army. At
Speaker 1: the same time Plaino fell, dozens of Christian militias across
Speaker 1: Texas launched fresh offensives. Galveston is still holding, but that
Speaker 1: could change at any moment. Houston blew their levies and
Speaker 1: flooded half the city in order to save the other half.
Speaker 1: But that also means the Kingdom can move on to
Speaker 1: Austin without worrying about their flank. They pushed the stf
Speaker 1: entirely out of Siada de Muerta, so there's nothing left
Speaker 1: between them and your home. Donald Ferris spoke up Grave
Speaker 1: and gravelly. We know that the offensives started with dozens
Speaker 1: of autonomous car bombings at checkpoints and fortifications. We don't
Speaker 1: know how they managed it. What's important now, Nana Yazzi continued,
Speaker 1: is that three of our people have been captured. Manny
Speaker 1: fought down a spike of anger. With all due respect, Nana,
Speaker 1: he said, in a deliberately neutral tone, they just conquered
Speaker 1: the city I was born in. I've probably lost a
Speaker 1: dozen friends in these god fascists are only what two
Speaker 1: hours away from Austin ninety minutes, Donald said. They seem
Speaker 1: to be a holding position now, digesting them meal, but
Speaker 1: they'll be on the march soon. I expect the vaunted
Speaker 1: Austin defense forces will be able to hold them off
Speaker 1: for oh a good four or five days, maybe a week.
Speaker 1: Unless he glanced over to Nani Yazzi, she nodded in agreement.
Speaker 1: Unless asked Manny, unless Nana agreed, unless our militia comes
Speaker 1: to their aid. We're not in the habit of fighting
Speaker 1: other people's battles, but we're also not in the habit
Speaker 1: of letting regressives win. I asked for a vote once
Speaker 1: we learned our people had been captured our fighters, most
Speaker 1: of them agreed to stop the Heavenly Kingdom's advance and
Speaker 1: give your people time to coordinate a proper defense. But
Speaker 1: there's a catch, ah, Manny was starting to get it.
Speaker 1: If you step in, they'll kill your people. Nani Yazzi nodded, yes,
Speaker 1: and none of our fighters are willing to risk that. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what you want from me, Manny said,
Speaker 1: I'm a talker, not a fighter. A talker is exactly
Speaker 1: what we need, Immanuel Nani Yazzi assured him. Manny winced
Speaker 1: in irritation at the use of his full name, Manny.
Speaker 1: He insisted, in the same tone, skullfucker might get used
Speaker 1: a little earlier as you say, what kind of talking
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? He asked. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've all got better negotiators than me, perhaps, but you've
Speaker 1: got something none of our people possess. You're a citizen
Speaker 1: of the Republic, and the Heavenly Kingdom has just issued
Speaker 1: a general amnesty for all citizens willing to repent and
Speaker 1: declare allegiance. You know how the people in this region talk.
Speaker 1: You won't arose suspicion if you enter, So you want
Speaker 1: me to find your people, and then what break them out?
Speaker 1: I can barely shoot straight. I don't think I'm the
Speaker 1: man to execute a prison break. They've got plenty of
Speaker 1: fight a son. Donald Ferris growled, But if two Pez
Speaker 1: and Schofucker Mike haven't keyed you in on this, the
Speaker 1: chrome don't exactly good at blending. He's right, Nana smiled sadly.
Speaker 1: We'll pare you with some one who could do the violence,
Speaker 1: but we'll need you to get them close enough to
Speaker 1: find our people. In effect an escape, You'll need to
Speaker 1: help our person maintain their cover. Manny felt a powerful
Speaker 1: anger boil up inside his belly. So basically, you and
Speaker 1: your militia are holding my homeland hostage. And if I
Speaker 1: don't risk my coulo to save your negotiators, Austin dies. Miho,
Speaker 1: it's nothing as sinister as that our people want to fight.
Speaker 1: But but Donald picked up. We're all family here, and
Speaker 1: family comes before corrupt fractious foreign militia's and equally corrupt
Speaker 1: fractious foreign cities. Old told I'd say it's a good
Speaker 1: deal for you. What was your plan before this meeting,
Speaker 1: Nani Yazi asked. Manny opened his mouth to respond, but
Speaker 1: realized he didn't have a clear answer. He hadn't exactly
Speaker 1: had much time to puzzle that out in any time
Speaker 1: he'd tried. He thought about Oscar, his missing stringer, and
Speaker 1: that made him want to panic. He's dead or worse,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing you can do about it. What you
Speaker 1: can do is by a fucking plane ticket and beg
Speaker 1: the Germans to take you in as a refugee. That
Speaker 1: seemed like a good plan, or at least the best
Speaker 1: of a bunch of shitty options. But a scornful voice
Speaker 1: rose up from the dark recesses of his semi withered conscience.
Speaker 1: What about his wife? Are you just gonna leave her
Speaker 1: broken widowed? You have to at least give her something.
Speaker 1: I'm flying to Germany, he said, or maybe France, wherever
Speaker 1: I can get the cheapest ticket, either in Austin or
Speaker 1: El Paso. How much money do you have saved up, son,
Speaker 1: Donald Ferris asked, They won't issue a long term visa
Speaker 1: unless you've got at least sixty grand Californian. Manny hit
Speaker 1: a little more than half that less once he paid
Speaker 1: off Oscar's wife widow. Fuck man, you sent him out there.
Speaker 1: The uncertainty and despair must have been obvious on his face.
Speaker 1: Both Donald Ferris and Nana Yazzi gave him the sort
Speaker 1: of looks normally reserved for wounded kittens. I may be
Speaker 1: able to help the old Brits that I do have
Speaker 1: some connections in Germany, people who might sponsor your visa
Speaker 1: if you help. The thought of a visa, the mental
Speaker 1: image of seeing one stamped in his otherwise worthless passport
Speaker 1: was intoxicating Mann. He'd never traveled outside of Texas, but
Speaker 1: he had kept at all times an active passport. It
Speaker 1: had been the physical anchor for his wildest dreams, and
Speaker 1: now Donald Ferris was telling him he could make something
Speaker 1: as magical as a visa real Manny almost swooned. Do
Speaker 1: I have to decide now? He asked, careful to keep
Speaker 1: his tone as calm as he could manage, of course not.
Speaker 1: Nana Yazi said that would be terribly unfair. You should
Speaker 1: get some sleep and then a proper breakfast. There's certainly
Speaker 1: enough time for that, and you look exhausted he was.
Speaker 1: Now that the excitement of the morning had faded, he
Speaker 1: felt gripped by a bone deep weariness that was not
Speaker 1: at all helped by the dim lighting and comfortable cushions
Speaker 1: around him. Reggie should have been even more tired but
Speaker 1: with the jet lag, but the journalist looked alert, jittery
Speaker 1: despite the bags under his eyes. If it's possible, Reggie said,
Speaker 1: and you have one, I could really use a high
Speaker 1: speed data connection. My deck's been spotty since the shooting started.
Speaker 1: I've got a lot to upload to the company's servers,
Speaker 1: and I should probably check in with my editors, let
Speaker 1: them know I'm not dead, et cetera, et cetera. That
Speaker 1: won't be a problem. She stood, and her knees popped
Speaker 1: audibly with the movement. Oh, she grunted, and then continued.
Speaker 1: Topaz and Mike Schofucker. Mike, we'll show you to a nice,
Speaker 1: relatively sound proof room. They'll help you get onto our
Speaker 1: data tower too. Reggie, thank you. She looked at Manny
Speaker 1: again and fixed him with her sad grandmother's smile. We'll
Speaker 1: give you as much time to decide as we can.
Speaker 1: We expect the Kingdom to hold for a few days,
Speaker 1: but we didn't expect them to launch an attack like this,
Speaker 1: So take that with a grain of salt. I'm Texan, Nana,
Speaker 1: Manny said, I take everything with salt. I call the
Speaker 1: Union haul as his male alife and dear, I thank
Speaker 1: these people of planning to kill Doctor King. On April four,
Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis.
Speaker 1: A petty criminal named James Earl Ray was arrested. He
Speaker 1: pled guilty to the crime and spent the rest of
Speaker 1: his life in prison. Case closed right, James L. Ray
Speaker 1: was upon for the official story. The authorities would parade
Speaker 1: all we found a gun the James L. Ray bought
Speaker 1: in Birmingham the killed Dr King. Except it wasn't the
Speaker 1: gun that killed Dr King. One of the problems that
Speaker 1: came out when I got the Ray case was that
Speaker 1: some of the evidence, as far as I was concerned,
Speaker 1: did not match the circumstances. This is the MLK tapes.
Speaker 1: The first episodes are available now. Listen on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Hay Ley, the listeners take here. Last season on Lethal Lit,
Speaker 1: you might remember I came to Hollow Falls on a
Speaker 1: mission clearing my ant festinat and making sure justice was
Speaker 1: finally served. But I hadn't counted on a rash of
Speaker 1: new murders tearing apart the town. My mission put myself
Speaker 1: and my friends in danger, though it wasn't all bad.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be real. If you Tig, I like you.
Speaker 1: But now all signs point to a new serial killer
Speaker 1: in Hollow Falls. If this game is just starting, you
Speaker 1: better believe I'm gonna win. I'm tig Torres and this
Speaker 1: is Lethal Lit. Catch up on season one of the
Speaker 1: hit murder mystery podcast Lethal Lit, a tig Tara's mystery
Speaker 1: out now, and then tune in for all new thrills
Speaker 1: in season two, dropping weekly starting February nine. Subscribe now
Speaker 1: to never miss an episode. Listen to Leave the Lit
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Look for your children's eyes to
Speaker 1: see the true magic of a forest. It's a storybook
Speaker 1: world for them. You look and see a tree. They
Speaker 1: see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms outstretched
Speaker 1: to the sky. They see treasure in pebbles. They see
Speaker 1: a windy path that could lead to adventure, and they
Speaker 1: see you. They're fearless. Guide is this fascinating world? Find
Speaker 1: a forest near you and start exploring it. Discover the
Speaker 1: Forest dot Org brought to you by the United States
Speaker 1: Forest Service and the ad Council Chapter eleven Roland Roland
Speaker 1: loved fighting men in powered armor. The increased firepower and
Speaker 1: durability gave them an outside chance, which made it fun,
Speaker 1: and the sheer expense of modern suits made it feel
Speaker 1: a little like wailing on rich kids with fancy toys.
Speaker 1: But Roland did not like fighting normal humans. He'd hoped
Speaker 1: the infantry coming up behind the armored troopers would run
Speaker 1: like hell once he popped their vanguard, but instead they'd
Speaker 1: insisted on a fight and started shooting at him with
Speaker 1: very large guns. One explosive munition had hit nine yards
Speaker 1: ahead of his position, and the other had impacted close
Speaker 1: enough to pepper Roland's torso and face with shrapnel, so
Speaker 1: regretfully he charged the enemy. The martyrs shot back. They
Speaker 1: hit him a few times, but Roland paid their bullets
Speaker 1: as much mind as he would a mild rain. He
Speaker 1: drew close enough for visual contact. These martyrs were a
Speaker 1: motley site. Several of them fought shirtless, with white crosses
Speaker 1: daubed across their chests. Most of them wore body armor,
Speaker 1: very little of it modern. Roland saw a lot of
Speaker 1: old pre war plate carriers and surplus police vests. That
Speaker 1: crap wouldn't stop military grade rifle rounds, although since the
Speaker 1: only weapon in Roland's hand was a big guess wrench,
Speaker 1: how these men were armored hardly mattered. They were mostly
Speaker 1: armed with old M fours and a smattering of newer
Speaker 1: assault rifles, probably pilfered from the Republic of Texas. Fifty men,
Speaker 1: six technicals, two drone carriers. Rowland hit their skirmishing line
Speaker 1: before the teams on the recoilists rifles. His first target
Speaker 1: could reload. Roland's wrench broke jaws and orbital bones. It
Speaker 1: cracked pelviss and shattered thighs. He dispatched the rifle teams
Speaker 1: and then danced through the on rushing mob of militia
Speaker 1: like some sort of compound fracture dispensing ballerina. And as
Speaker 1: he fought, Roland felt the familiar sunlight warmth of serotonin
Speaker 1: flowed his synapses. He remembered a little of how the
Speaker 1: army had explained the battle. Drugs now flowing through his
Speaker 1: brain a guarantee of sustained aggression. The longer he fought,
Speaker 1: the harder would be for him to stop fighting and
Speaker 1: to avoid killing Roland felt his self control begin to
Speaker 1: fade as he knocked out his dozenth martyr. He started
Speaker 1: swinging harder, his blows increasingly connected with clavicles instead of coxyxes,
Speaker 1: and jaws instead of elbows, his hindbrain warned him. As
Speaker 1: the kill likelihoods jumped from for to six percent up
Speaker 1: to twenty thirty forty, he felt his conscience fade beneath
Speaker 1: the uphoric red haze of narcotic splendor. Before he knew it,
Speaker 1: the whole platoon of martyrs was either on the ground
Speaker 1: or fleeing for the relative safety of their technicals. Roland
Speaker 1: laughed a madman's laughed, tickled that they thought a bunch
Speaker 1: of old Toyota trucks with machine guns in the beds
Speaker 1: might slow him down. He put a fist through the
Speaker 1: engine of one and ad a burst of fifty caliber
Speaker 1: fire from the other. As he pivoted and launched his
Speaker 1: wrench through the driver's side window. The improvised missile connected
Speaker 1: with the face of the driver, who spun his wheel
Speaker 1: hard to the left. The truck flipped forward onto its cabin.
Speaker 1: Something about the wet crunch had maid sounded so familiar.
Speaker 1: Oh God, Oh dear sweet Jesus, Please, sir. The National
Speaker 1: Guardsman was nineteen years old. Randall Wallace was his name.
Speaker 1: Roland knew that because his hind brain had sucked in
Speaker 1: every piece of publicly available data on the boy once
Speaker 1: it had scanned his face. It had done that with
Speaker 1: all the occupants of the humvey and the four seconds
Speaker 1: before Roland had blown it on its side. Wallace was
Speaker 1: just the only member of the crew unlucky enough to survive. Please, Sir,
Speaker 1: Roland stepped towards the broken, bloody boy. He came back
Speaker 1: to himself, a bit disoriented, but none the worse for wear.
Speaker 1: His hind brain and a lifetime of combat memories had
Speaker 1: kept his body fighting in his mind's absence. Now wrenchless,
Speaker 1: Rowland used his bare hands to tear open doors and
Speaker 1: break faces. The gunners on the remaining technicals tried to
Speaker 1: fire back, but their maneuver ability was limited by the
Speaker 1: rubble choked streets and their own fleeing infantry. One minute
Speaker 1: after first contact, the martyr contingent had been reduced to
Speaker 1: a dozen shell shocked soldiers piled hastily on to the
Speaker 1: tops of the retreating drone carriers. Roland hopped onto the
Speaker 1: last of the technicals. He disabled it by pulling the
Speaker 1: driver out through the front windshield and using the man's
Speaker 1: body to beat the gunner into unconsciousness. Roland tore the
Speaker 1: vehicle's twenty millimeter cannon free from its swivel mount and
Speaker 1: sided in on the fleeing troops. His synapses promised him
Speaker 1: more chemical rewards if only he'd pulled the trigger, but
Speaker 1: something in Roland's forebrains stopped him. Under the joyous miasma
Speaker 1: of the battle drugs, his conscience reasserted itself. He lowered
Speaker 1: his weapon and watched as his enemies beat hell for
Speaker 1: leather in the opposite direction. His hands shook, and he
Speaker 1: felt the first symptoms of withdrawal. As his heart rate
Speaker 1: dropped and the adrenaline drips stopped its flow, Roland closed
Speaker 1: his eyes. He breathed in and out, and centered himself.
Speaker 1: The crash came. Now that the fighting was done, Roland
Speaker 1: had time to process the since data he'd pulled from
Speaker 1: his enemies. He knew what the driver he'd ripped out
Speaker 1: of the windshield had eaten for breakfast. He knew which
Speaker 1: of the militia he'd crippled were fathers he knew, which
Speaker 1: had wives, or at least girlfriends. He could smell traces
Speaker 1: of football leather on some of their hands. One man
Speaker 1: he'd wrenched had smelled of rosin a violinist. Roland couldn't
Speaker 1: fight a man without learning much more about him than
Speaker 1: any killer should know about their victims. That knowledge crashed
Speaker 1: down on him in a hail storm of guilt. Roland
Speaker 1: dropped the cannon into the truck's bed. He hopped down,
Speaker 1: pulled Sardar's wrench free from the wreck of the second Technical,
Speaker 1: and headed back towards Biggsby and his squad with a
Speaker 1: heavy heart. Maadine and Asime both looked pretty seriously wounded.
Speaker 1: Biggsby was helping to carry them both back to the
Speaker 1: a PC while Will handled Overwatch with his grenade launcher.
Speaker 1: Roland caught up with them and fell into step. Biggsby
Speaker 1: looked over at him and grunted, are you gonna try
Speaker 1: to take my nipple now? Roland shrugged. He wasn't in
Speaker 1: the mood. His brain was in the dark, ugly place
Speaker 1: that always went after a bloody fight, when the raw
Speaker 1: data about all the men he killed or battered lingered
Speaker 1: in his brain. Like a fart in the back of
Speaker 1: a hum V. They reached the APC. Sardar gasped when
Speaker 1: he saw them, Pedro vomited. Roland was confused until he
Speaker 1: realized Biggsby and will had also started to stare. Roland
Speaker 1: looked down at himself and saw that he looked like
Speaker 1: a literal dead man walking. He'd been shot forty seven
Speaker 1: times by his hindbrain's best count, and peppered with shrapnel.
Speaker 1: On top of that, he had ribs showing through holes
Speaker 1: blasted in his biceps, in his belly, and the bone
Speaker 1: on his left thigh was completely exposed. It looks worse
Speaker 1: than it is. Roland said, it looks like you should
Speaker 1: be dead about five times over, Sardar replied. Roland looked
Speaker 1: Sardar up and down. His hindbrain did the math eleven times.
Speaker 1: If I were you Jesus, he handed Sarda the wrench,
Speaker 1: now dented and bloodstained. A large clump of hair and
Speaker 1: scalp was still stuck to the heel jaw. The mechanic
Speaker 1: took his tool with one hesitant hand. He stared at
Speaker 1: the gore on it until Biggsby started to yell again.
Speaker 1: OHI fucos. In case you've forgotten, there's an army breathing
Speaker 1: up our asses. Sar, you get to drive man Sardar
Speaker 1: nodded his head. Then let's get the wounded in the
Speaker 1: cab and power the funk out of here. Will stay
Speaker 1: on watch, Will grunted and jerked his head at Rowland.
Speaker 1: This funk erota cover us. He just took out half
Speaker 1: a company on his lonesome. You trust him to watch
Speaker 1: your six Biggsby, asked Roland. Only half heard them. He
Speaker 1: stared off into the distance, worked his jaw and clenched
Speaker 1: his left fist so hard his finger nails drew blood.
Speaker 1: He was lost in his head, scanning scent memories and
Speaker 1: analyzing the men he'd just beaten. He was drawn again
Speaker 1: and again to the memory of one man. In particular.
Speaker 1: He'd worn a tattered U S Army issue vest and
Speaker 1: an M sixteen that posed as much of a threat
Speaker 1: to Rowland as a drunken hornet. He'd had the scent
Speaker 1: of a woman on him. He wasn't alone in that,
Speaker 1: but the rich wave of oxytocin that had poured off
Speaker 1: him was intense and real. In his memory. The man's
Speaker 1: face kept twisting and morphing into the face of Randall Wallace.
Speaker 1: Roland started to cry. Bigsby and Sardar loaded Ryan, Nadine,
Speaker 1: and Asime into the transport. Will a stare at him,
Speaker 1: his gaze locked on Roland's tears, as if each one
Speaker 1: were the locknest monster. Roland didn't care. His hind brain
Speaker 1: kept up its glitchy feet of data, a mix of
Speaker 1: information on the men he'd just killed and the men
Speaker 1: he'd killed years ago. Once the wounded were loaded up,
Speaker 1: everyone filed into the Madis APC. Will popped the top
Speaker 1: hatch and sat Gunner with his grenade launcher. Inside the APC,
Speaker 1: Bigsby and Pedro did their best version of first aid
Speaker 1: on their wounded companions. There wasn't much for them to do,
Speaker 1: though everyone in the squad had fairly advanced healing suites.
Speaker 1: Roland trudged into the APEC and took his seat. No
Speaker 1: one made eye contact with him. Sardar kicked it into gear,
Speaker 1: and off they went. Waco had always been one of
Speaker 1: the worst cities in Texas in the late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: that had been a refuge for former Confederate loyalists. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen hundreds. It had developed a reputation as a
Speaker 1: haven for KuPS and religious extremists. Caught between the economic
Speaker 1: powerhouse of Dallas and the relative cultural mecca of Austin,
Speaker 1: Waco was a second rate college town at best, and
Speaker 1: at worst, a meth filled rest stop between Texas's good cities.
Speaker 1: The revolution had changed that. After the lake would blast,
Speaker 1: Dallas had bled sixty percent of its population. Most of
Speaker 1: those people had fled to Austin since constant flooding had
Speaker 1: rendered much of Houston uninhabitable, but half a million of
Speaker 1: them ish had swelled Waco into something resembling a worthwhile
Speaker 1: place to exist. The city had thrived in the post
Speaker 1: revolutionary years. It was nominally controlled by the Austin regional government,
Speaker 1: and so it had been spared the worst of the
Speaker 1: Republic of Texas's corruption. But now it looked like Waco
Speaker 1: would be the next city eaten by the expanding Heavenly Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Roland could smell the stink of fear in the air
Speaker 1: when they were still a half dozen miles out from
Speaker 1: the city limits. Once they hit the city proper, their
Speaker 1: convoy halted at a military checkpoint. Power armored Austin Republican
Speaker 1: guardsmen opened the side hatch of the Maddis a PC
Speaker 1: and inspected the squad Bigsby spoke for them, beamed over
Speaker 1: some credentials from the SDF, and they were waved in.
Speaker 1: They stopped at a fueling depot with the rest of
Speaker 1: the STF column, and Roland hopped out of the a
Speaker 1: PC to stretch his legs and roll another blunt. He
Speaker 1: picked a cherry apple rap he dipped in a vat
Speaker 1: of extra strength hydrocodone syrup earlier that morning. As he
Speaker 1: rolled it tight and sealed the scene with his saliva,
Speaker 1: he watched the st F unload hundreds of wounded warriors
Speaker 1: from half tracks and a PCs in the beds of
Speaker 1: flatbed trucks. Many of the walking men and women looked
Speaker 1: wounded too. Most of the vehicles were damaged. Roland lit
Speaker 1: the blunt and stared off towards Dallas. It was still
Speaker 1: early in the morning, and the sky was streaked with
Speaker 1: red and orange. On the horizon, black smoke rose to
Speaker 1: meet the sunrise. Roland was struck with a powerful sense
Speaker 1: of dejah vous. This wasn't the first time he'd watched
Speaker 1: a great city burn in the light of the rising sun.
Speaker 1: According to his hind brain, it was around the thirtieth time.
Speaker 1: He recalled a few of those cities Denver, Baltimore, d C. Richmond,
Speaker 1: but the particulars of each calamity were lost to his memory.
Speaker 1: He wondered, not for the first time, if his broken
Speaker 1: brain might be a blessing boy it was, Sardar. He
Speaker 1: approached from the rear and stepped up to Roland's right side.
Speaker 1: Rowland offered the mechanic his blunt, now half smoked, and
Speaker 1: Sardar accepted it. He drew in a deep lungful of
Speaker 1: medicated smoke, held it in his lungs for three long seconds,
Speaker 1: and then exhaled with only a small fit of coughing.
Speaker 1: This tastes like fucking cough, Sarah man. Yep, Roland agreed,
Speaker 1: there's enough opiates on that to kill a small cat.
Speaker 1: That's a weird thing to say. Yep, Roland agreed. Sardar
Speaker 1: took a second hit and then passed the blunt back
Speaker 1: to Roland. They stood in companionable silence for a minute
Speaker 1: and watched the distant smoke mingle with the morning light.
Speaker 1: Sardar spoke first, Jim's on his way out here. He's
Speaker 1: flying in with three more squads. Austin's approved emergency funding
Speaker 1: to stabilize the front. Apparently a chunk of that's coming
Speaker 1: our way. Grats, said Rowland. Then he asked, what's the
Speaker 1: money mean, do you? Sardar shrugged, Cascadia. Probably been saving
Speaker 1: for a couple of years now. Fifty grand buy residency.
Speaker 1: Another hundred grand or so to set me up for
Speaker 1: the first year while I find work. Roland finished another
Speaker 1: deep poll on the blunt and offered it to Sardar.
Speaker 1: The other man declined with a polite wave of his hand.
Speaker 1: Now thanks. Roland puffed again and asked, so, what's the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest got that you want the future? Sardar said,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what it always meant in my head.
Speaker 1: I grew up in El Paso, got trained up by
Speaker 1: that army blooded in their first little civil war, the
Speaker 1: Albuquerque Secession. Right, Sardar nodded. Didn't see much action then,
Speaker 1: but I got Jim's attention. He made me an offer
Speaker 1: when my term of service expired. The idea was I'd
Speaker 1: be with him for five years and retire with enough
Speaker 1: money to make a new start out west. I always
Speaker 1: dreamed of a life in Portland. It seems nice there,
Speaker 1: it is, Roland agreed, or at least I got nice memories.
Speaker 1: I met a girl out there when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I remember watching the fog rolland with her he ran
Speaker 1: a hand over the stubble on his head. It was
Speaker 1: weird to him that he'd been given so much control
Speaker 1: over his bodily functions, and yet he still found himself
Speaker 1: making nervous gestures. For some reason, talking about her made
Speaker 1: him want to cover his face. The impulse was wired
Speaker 1: into him deeper than the carbon fiber that laced his bones.
Speaker 1: That uh sounds tough, Sardar said. He managed to look
Speaker 1: concerned without showing pity. I can't imagine having all these
Speaker 1: memories floating around with no through line to connect them together.
Speaker 1: It must hurt. Roland shrugged. What hurts most is knowing
Speaker 1: that it should hurt more. I don't remember enough to
Speaker 1: give the pain its proper due. They were quiet for
Speaker 1: a bit. Roland finished the blunt and put it out
Speaker 1: on his right. In next finger, Sardar pulled a bronze
Speaker 1: flask out from his jacket pocket, took a belt, and
Speaker 1: then offered it to Roland. It was Lafroy whiskey. Even
Speaker 1: if he hadn't been chrome to the gills, Rowland would
Speaker 1: have recognized that smell from three feet away. He took
Speaker 1: a gulp from the flask and passed it back. Sardar
Speaker 1: broke the silence again. Look, maybe I'm reading things wrong,
Speaker 1: but we've got some tents set up near the a PC.
Speaker 1: You up for a fuck? Roland looked the man up
Speaker 1: and down again. Sardar was a good looking guy, short,
Speaker 1: broad and muscular, with a neat trimmed beard and curly
Speaker 1: black hair. Yeah, all right, it was pretty good sex.
Speaker 1: Nothing to blow Roland's mind, but the release provided a
Speaker 1: quantum of chill to calm the pangs of memory. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: Sardar fell asleep, nuzzled into his shoulder. Roland didn't particularly
Speaker 1: feel like cuddling, but he since the other man needed
Speaker 1: the human contact, so he laid there with him for
Speaker 1: a couple of hours, rolled and smoked two more blunts,
Speaker 1: and tried not to think about the lives. He didn't
Speaker 1: died that morning. A little afternoon, Biggsby came by and
Speaker 1: knocked on the tent flap zarre. Roland, l f's here,
Speaker 1: clean up your fox. Stink and meet us by the
Speaker 1: a PC. They did. Five minutes later, the whole squad
Speaker 1: had assembled around the maddis. Ryan looked more or less
Speaker 1: recovered from his injuries, as am A also seemed good
Speaker 1: as new. Nadine was still pretty bandaged and her eyes
Speaker 1: were litted and unfocused from blood loss and opiates. Will
Speaker 1: had brewed up a large French press of coffee. He
Speaker 1: busied himself pouring measures of it out into himp foam cups.
Speaker 1: Roland took one and drained it in a single mighty gulp.
Speaker 1: It was proper post human strength coffee. The caffeine rush
Speaker 1: mingled with the opiates and THHC already flooding his synapses,
Speaker 1: and brought him to a lovely, half lucid state of
Speaker 1: quasi awareness. Did you guys fuck? Pedro finally asked, after
Speaker 1: about a minute of staring at Roland and Tardar and
Speaker 1: asking the same question with his eyes. Yes. Bigsby and
Speaker 1: Nadine both replied. Sardar laughed at that, so did Roland.
Speaker 1: For one beautiful moment he felt nice, a kind of
Speaker 1: nice he was pretty sure he hadn't felt in a
Speaker 1: long time, And then came a familiar pattern of bootsteps
Speaker 1: tickling Roland's ears. Jim Roland turned just as Jim walked
Speaker 1: into view. His legs were covered by a pair of
Speaker 1: armored red leather chaps. His groin was wrapped up in
Speaker 1: a thick kevlar thong, but his penis and as were
Speaker 1: otherwise unguarded. He wore a double shoulder holster with a
Speaker 1: pair of bone handled wheel guns under his arms. The
Speaker 1: snake tattoos on Jim's chest and shoulders danced to a melody.
Speaker 1: Roland eventually recognized as La kukaracha. Your ink looks good today, boss,
Speaker 1: said Bigsby. Ass Lequer said, Sardar takes one to no one.
Speaker 1: I don't lick ass Sarda replied haughtily. I eat it
Speaker 1: like a starving hyena. More laughter and another fleeting moment
Speaker 1: of community that was broken when Jim addressed the squad.
Speaker 1: All right, so several bunks have been hummed here. This
Speaker 1: Heavenly Kingdom's got at least ten thousand effectives in theater
Speaker 1: with Almah artillery drones the works. A new employer, Austin
Speaker 1: has about three thousand fighters here in Waco, plus now
Speaker 1: the fifteen e U lot I flew in with Ajax
Speaker 1: and Florin. They have prepping their squads now, Biggsby spat
Speaker 1: Ajax fights about as well as a drunk dog in
Speaker 1: a burlap sack. Will replied, you just saying that because
Speaker 1: he choked you out in the blood Dome last year.
Speaker 1: Big responded with a middle finger. Ahem. Jim hemmed, plenty
Speaker 1: of time for Dick, measuring later, time enough for the
Speaker 1: rest of you. At least this city doesn't have a
Speaker 1: ruler long enough for my dick. He paused for a laugh.
Speaker 1: No one obliged. Jim rolled his eyes, ass holes. So look,
Speaker 1: we're in a bad position with funk All for reinforcements
Speaker 1: coming in. Austin might be able to scrape up a
Speaker 1: couple of battalions if they suddenly clear out the Houston front,
Speaker 1: but that don't look likely. Enemy has another ten thousand
Speaker 1: men there. Fuck. Sardar was the only one to actually
Speaker 1: say it, but everyone else in the group mouthed the
Speaker 1: word or some equivalent curse. How is that even possible?
Speaker 1: As Amee's voice was still a little slurred from the painkillers,
Speaker 1: but her eyes were focused now. Jim shrugged hard to
Speaker 1: say exactly masked affections from the Republic at Texas. Intel
Speaker 1: suspects the U c S probably sent in some spec
Speaker 1: ops guys. I don't know, some sort of skulduggerous bullshit
Speaker 1: went down. The how of it ain't really our problem today,
Speaker 1: but now we've got to deal with the reality. The
Speaker 1: snakes on Jim's torso stopped writhing. He locked eyes with Roland,
Speaker 1: and Roland felt compelled to meet his old friend's gaze.
Speaker 1: Can we count on your help? Jim asked, fuck no,
Speaker 1: Roland said, I've killed enough naive young men today. I
Speaker 1: don't aim to kill any more. To his surprise, Jim
Speaker 1: nodded an acceptance. Understandable. This kind of fighting was a
Speaker 1: violation of our contract. I regret that, Rowland. If I'd
Speaker 1: known this was gonna be a meat grinder, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have interrupted your retirement. Roland wasn't sure he believed that,
Speaker 1: but he kept his mouth shut as Jim continued, I'd
Speaker 1: like to propose a renegotiation of our contract in a
Speaker 1: lot of the changing situation on the ground, I'm not
Speaker 1: blowing anything else up for you. That's fine. Jim put
Speaker 1: his hands out in the sort of placating gesture. One
Speaker 1: would use on an angry dog. I don't need you
Speaker 1: killing us, I need your sneakiness. You can still take
Speaker 1: faces right. Roland's memories of his time in the army
Speaker 1: were as patchy as his memories of everything else. He
Speaker 1: didn't remember much about how they used him, but he
Speaker 1: knew that some of the wet where they'd installed in
Speaker 1: him allowed him to modify his skin and bone structure
Speaker 1: to full facial recognition scanners, thumb print readers, and of
Speaker 1: course human beings. Yes, he said, but Jim cut him off.
Speaker 1: You don't need to kill anyone. The face you'll need
Speaker 1: is already dead. And what do you want me to
Speaker 1: do with this man's face that isn't more murder? Jim's
Speaker 1: lips curled up into a grin. The expression sent shivers
Speaker 1: arcing down rolland spine. He felt like he'd seen that
Speaker 1: grin before, never preceding good things. Rolling fuck is nearby
Speaker 1: and in the city of Wheels, a six hundred or
Speaker 1: so real scary bastards. I have it on good authority
Speaker 1: that they'd be happy to throw down on our side.
Speaker 1: But it turns out some of the negotiators were captured
Speaker 1: back at the start. All this ship. No one in
Speaker 1: the city will risk fighting until they pulled out safely.
Speaker 1: Roland raised an eyebrow. So a rescue mission, then that's right,
Speaker 1: Jim grinned in a a Roland didn't quite trust you'll
Speaker 1: be saving lives. Roland's gut twisted into knots. The shades
Speaker 1: of a thousand Memories spoke up and warned him not
Speaker 1: to trust Jim at his word. But those shades also
Speaker 1: drove him to take Jim up on the offer. He
Speaker 1: wanted his memories back. Jim smiled that hackle raising smile again.
Speaker 1: You don't have to agree and come to Roland funk
Speaker 1: with me. We'll talk things over with the eildas. You
Speaker 1: can do some of the fancy space drugs, and then
Speaker 1: you can make your decision. All right, rolland side, but
Speaker 1: only because you said fancy space drugs. They flew to
Speaker 1: Rolling Fuck in Jim's hellicraft. It had been military issue originally,
Speaker 1: but the interior had been redone to Jim's tastes. That
Speaker 1: mostly meant a lot of the lure and a full
Speaker 1: wet bar. There were four beers on tap just to
Speaker 1: the right of a double barreled thirty five millimeter grenade
Speaker 1: launcher mounted beside the door. Roland drank for the duration
Speaker 1: of the ten minute flight. You know, Jim said, Topez
Speaker 1: lives there now, been with the city a while, tope.
Speaker 1: As Rowland asked, something shuddered in his gut. He felt
Speaker 1: his hippocampus flicker with the dim light of recognition. He
Speaker 1: saw that face again, the woman from so many of
Speaker 1: his dreams and a few of his shattered memories. So
Speaker 1: that was her name, it felt right now that he
Speaker 1: knew it again. Do you remember her at all, Roland,
Speaker 1: Jim asked, his voice uncharacteristically tender. Roland nodded and swirled
Speaker 1: the beer in his hands to buy some time. I
Speaker 1: remember snatches of her, he said, I remember loving her.
Speaker 1: I remember enough that it hurts sometimes. Mostly it hurts
Speaker 1: that I don't remember enough to be as sad as
Speaker 1: I ought to be. There was a spark of real
Speaker 1: sorrow in Jim's eyes. The other man's hand twitched in
Speaker 1: a way that made Roland think he might have been
Speaker 1: about to reach out to him, but Jim kept his
Speaker 1: hand to himself. I'm not sure how much I should say,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm sorry. There was something in Jim's face
Speaker 1: when he said that it resembled regret or guilt, but
Speaker 1: it passed quickly and nothing else was said. During the flight.
Speaker 1: They landed on one of the top spires of Rolling Fuck,
Speaker 1: on a landing pad that doubled as a nude bar.
Speaker 1: He and Jim grabbed another round of drinks before they
Speaker 1: proceeded down through the infinite party that was the City
Speaker 1: of Wheels and on to the top of the main roller.
Speaker 1: They grabbed another round of drinks there and sat at
Speaker 1: the bar table while Jim waited for the word to
Speaker 1: go down. It was late afternoon by this point, and
Speaker 1: the evening had started to close. In the normal boiling
Speaker 1: Texas heat was cut by a cool breeze. White clouds
Speaker 1: rolled in around them. Rollan's hind brain told him there
Speaker 1: was at best a twelve percent chance of rain, but
Speaker 1: the clouds were still welcome. He and Jim drank in
Speaker 1: silence for a few minutes until the other man tapped
Speaker 1: his shoulder and said they are ready fororus. They stood
Speaker 1: a bit unsteadily and headed towards the ladder down into
Speaker 1: the main roller. They reached the ladder just as two
Speaker 1: other people came up it, a man and a woman
Speaker 1: the man's face triggered a flurry of memory fragments, fighting
Speaker 1: back to back in the choking streets of Baltimore, drinking
Speaker 1: heavily on the edge of a canyon in the Arizona Desert,
Speaker 1: charging a riot line with pipes and hammers in their hands.
Speaker 1: A name bubbled up from inside the memories. Mike, he shouted,
Speaker 1: before he really thought about it. Hey, brother, schoolfucker, Mike Froze.
Speaker 1: Roland was already half way to a hug when he
Speaker 1: realized Mike wasn't feeling it. And then he caught his
Speaker 1: first good look at the woman coming up the ladder
Speaker 1: behind him. She had short, cropped teal hair, damascene fangs,
Speaker 1: and eyes so loud he could almost hear her thoughts. Topaz.
Speaker 1: She started to say his name, and then her voice
Speaker 1: caught He heard the ghost of tears beneath it, and
Speaker 1: then she finished, Roland, Yes, he said, not sure of
Speaker 1: what else to say. Do you remember me? No, he admitted.
Speaker 1: Part of him wanted to lie, but he couldn't. The
Speaker 1: broken scraps that remained of his love for her made
Speaker 1: it impossible. So we gave the honest answer, and he
Speaker 1: watched her die a little inside. Topez nodded, She closed
Speaker 1: her eyes for a second, bit down on her bottom lip,
Speaker 1: and then she put a quick hand on Mike's shoulder
Speaker 1: before she walked away up one of the gantries and
Speaker 1: into the chaos night of rolling Fuck. Roland looked to Mike,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, skullfucker. Mike smiled sadly back, I know, buddy,
Speaker 1: and then he left too. Roland felt confusion and a
Speaker 1: distant hurt. He had a feeling that he should have
Speaker 1: been crying, but for some reason he couldn't, and so
Speaker 1: he didn't. Instead, he took a fistful of oxycontent and
Speaker 1: stumbled down the ladder following Jim rolling Fox. Conference room
Speaker 1: was sumptuous, elegant, and surprisingly professional. Two old people sat
Speaker 1: at the far end of the conference table. Roland had
Speaker 1: a vague memory tingle of having met the man before,
Speaker 1: long ago, but neither of their faces brought a name
Speaker 1: to his mind. Jim introduced them, but their names fled
Speaker 1: his head a few seconds later. In fact, the first
Speaker 1: minute or so of conversation flowed around him in an
Speaker 1: indistinct haze that may have had something to do with
Speaker 1: a soft ball sized mass of oxycontent he'd eaten. As
Speaker 1: he'd climbed down the ladder with Jim. Rowland had assumed
Speaker 1: the drugs would help him focus through the boredom. Apparently
Speaker 1: he miscalculated. Okay, so the old lady said, with a
Speaker 1: hint of finality, that's the situation we're in. Are you
Speaker 1: willing to help us? In response, Roland blacked out, just
Speaker 1: for a few seconds. He was reawokened by the thud
Speaker 1: of his head hitting the conference room table. Fuck, that's
Speaker 1: good oxy. He wished he could remember where he'd gotten it. Oh, dear,
Speaker 1: said the lady. He's fun, Jim sighed, but we have
Speaker 1: probably gonna need to start over. The lady brought him
Speaker 1: some coffee and reintroduced herself as Nana Yazzi. Thanks to
Speaker 1: the coffee and Roland's clearing head, her name stuck. This time.
Speaker 1: It was hard not to marvel at her age, and
Speaker 1: harder still to stop his hindbrain from calculating how much
Speaker 1: longer till her human heart gave out. Roland smelled cancer
Speaker 1: on the old man. Not serious cancer, nothing basic medicine
Speaker 1: couldn't handle, but all the same, the odor that wafted
Speaker 1: off him brought Roland a sort of primal discomfort. Or
Speaker 1: maybe it was the old man's eyes that made his
Speaker 1: guts warble. It was hard to say. There was something
Speaker 1: disconcerting in the way he looked at Roland Rowland, Jim shouted.
Speaker 1: Roland shook himself out of the haze and refocused on
Speaker 1: Nana Yazzi. Sorry, he grunted. It's fine, she said, and
Speaker 1: set into her spiel again. She showed him pictures of
Speaker 1: her captured friends, explained the dire situation in North Texas
Speaker 1: and the doom that marched towards Waco and Austin. It
Speaker 1: was a sad story, but not one that compelled Roland
Speaker 1: to action. Other than Topaz and Skullfucker Mike, the citizens
Speaker 1: of Rolling Funk were total strangers to him. Austin was
Speaker 1: just another little ailing republic in a continent full of them.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for your people, he told her, And I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for Austin, but I really don't see how any
Speaker 1: of this is might am business. Jim took those words
Speaker 1: as his cue. Tullian Topaz are close, said Jim. His
Speaker 1: voice was low, his tone smooth. The silk La Sisters
Speaker 1: from what I hear, Marigold vouched for Topaz and skullfuk
Speaker 1: a mike when they adjoined the city. She's all funked
Speaker 1: up over this from what I hear, he added, so
Speaker 1: let her do some about it. Then Roland muttered, just
Speaker 1: got enough chrome to choke a river ship. The city's
Speaker 1: got enough monster people to burn the eastern seaboard. What
Speaker 1: do you need me? Because the modas aren't stupid, Jim said,
Speaker 1: They are scanning for chrome, for bile, mods for everything
Speaker 1: but the ship you've got, because no one left alive.
Speaker 1: As packing the ship you've got. Roland grunted again. His
Speaker 1: nostrils flared. There was something strange about the words Jim
Speaker 1: had chosen. No one left alive? Had there been others?
Speaker 1: He knew his mods had come courtesy of the old
Speaker 1: U S Defense Department, but he didn't remember which unit
Speaker 1: he'd been a part of, her what he'd done. There
Speaker 1: was a bit of memory, hazy and fragmented, that popped
Speaker 1: into his dreams from time to time. He was stuck
Speaker 1: inside a long, cool metal pod. The cold black of
Speaker 1: space unfolded around him. Roland felt warm bodies to his
Speaker 1: left and right, smelled the comforting sense of men he trusted.
Speaker 1: Red lights blinked above his field of vision. Something tugged
Speaker 1: at his belly. There was a powerful feeling of inertia.
Speaker 1: Roland closed his eyes, leaned forward, pinched the bridge of
Speaker 1: his nose, and groaned just a little bit. When he
Speaker 1: came back up, Nana Yazzi stared at him in confusion.
Speaker 1: Jim looked, perhaps worried. It was hard to tell with
Speaker 1: that guy. What's gonna happen if I don't do it?
Speaker 1: He asked, Nana Yazzi, to you nothing, Roland shook his head.
Speaker 1: Not to me. What are you guys gonna do if
Speaker 1: I don't help? Oh, she frowned. I suppose we'll have
Speaker 1: to mount an assault, send in a small team, four
Speaker 1: or six commandos and try to pull them out. It'll
Speaker 1: be bloody, Jim said. The old man frowned at that.
Speaker 1: He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something,
Speaker 1: but the lady put her hand on his and gave
Speaker 1: him a significant look. That's true, she said, it will
Speaker 1: be bloody. Roland felt a twinge of anger, but he
Speaker 1: couldn't blame Nana Yazzi for trying to manipulate him. The
Speaker 1: lives of her friends were on the line. Roland knew
Speaker 1: himself though, and he knew that missions like this always
Speaker 1: went wrong. If he took this job, Roland knew he'd
Speaker 1: take more lives. You'll save lives by being there, Jim insisted,
Speaker 1: smiling that fucking smile. Roland was sure that Smile had
Speaker 1: tricked him into dumb, violent things in the past. You're
Speaker 1: the only one who can handle this with a minimum
Speaker 1: of death. Roland didn't believe that, and at the same
Speaker 1: time he had to admit it was technically true. He
Speaker 1: just didn't trust himself, or reality or Jim. And yet
Speaker 1: I'll do it, he said. I'm sure I'll regret agreeing
Speaker 1: to do it, but whatever, I'll do it. Jim looked
Speaker 1: satisfied with himself. Nanayazi looked relieved. The old man looked
Speaker 1: somehow angry. Most of Roland's reason for agreeing to help
Speaker 1: came down to Topaz. He hated to admit that, even
Speaker 1: to himself, but it was true. The thought of her
Speaker 1: in pain twisted something in the center of his heart.
Speaker 1: He wasn't used to pain there, and his tolerance was
Speaker 1: pretty low. This is so dumb, he told himself. You
Speaker 1: couldn't even remember her name this morning. He and Jim
Speaker 1: and the old woman shook hands on the deal. Then
Speaker 1: they let him loosen their city to imbibe and fornicate
Speaker 1: and test the limits of his wet wear. We have
Speaker 1: things to plan, she said. Hey, I've written a novel.
Speaker 1: It's called After the Revolution. You can find it as
Speaker 1: a podcast under After the Revolution, and you can find
Speaker 1: it at dtr book dot com as a free e
Speaker 1: pub if you like it. I am crowdfunding the sequel
Speaker 1: so that I can keep making my books free. That
Speaker 1: will be it After the Revolution, the sequel on go
Speaker 1: fund me. That's After the Revolution, the sequel on go
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