Monster Nation(80)

The big man placed a hand across his belt buckle and bent slowly toward her in a graceful bow. 'I am he whose name was writ in water. I am the very model of a modern Major General. Some call me the space cowboy, while others refer to me as the gangster of love.'

Nilla squinted her eyes. 'Fuck this. I can shut you down with one phone call, jerk. In fact I might just do it on principle.'

'Then call me Mellowman, the stoned superhero. I'm here to bring a little peace of mind to these benighted people. May I ask who you are, young filly?'

Nilla shook her head. 'I'm from the Chamber. That's all you need to know. You people, get out of here now. Don't you know there's a curfew?' She leered at the scared people in the line and they scattered like pigeons. 'Now. I want to see your operation here. I want to know just what the hell you think you're doing.' The bravado act she was putting on made Nilla's nerves sing. She was no longer capable of getting an adrenaline rush but something ice cold and lethal blossomed inside of her and she liked it. Sure. For the first time in her death she actually had some power.

'Right this way, miss.' Mellowman or whatever the hell his name was gestured for her to follow him. 'Welcome to the Space Van, my home that gets up and goes when the home I got is done and gone.'

'You're selling vaccine, right? Does it actually work?' Nilla stepped around to the open back of the van to look inside. Bright red plush interior, crammed full of boxes and jars and rolled-up blankets.

'How about a free sample? Find out for yourself?' Mellowman picked up a box and slung it under his arm. Revealed below sat a jar full of the sparkling red capsules she'd seen handed out.

'Hey, dude, come on, let's not do this,' one of his associates said, the thin and twitchy one. Nilla speared him with a glance. When she turned back Mellowman had one of the capsules in the expansive palm of his left hand.

Nilla wondered what would happen if she took it. Would it kill the virus or microbe or whatever it was that had reanimated her? Would she collapse in a lifeless heap? Probably it would do nothing. She picked up the jar and shook it. The capsules inside rattled with a satisfying noise. 'Is this all you have?'

'Until we make some more. My aide de medecin over here, we call him Morphine Mike, he's the man with the magic recipe.'

Wow, Nilla thought. This was going to be so easy. Trash the pills, kill the guy who made them. Mael would be satisfied. Maybe he would even let her go. She put the jar back inside the van and turned to announce that she was going to arrest them all.

She found herself looking into the twin barrels of a sawn-off shotgun. It must have been in the box Mellowman had grabbed. The blackOO looked like the symbol for infinity.

'You stupid bitch. I'm on the steering committee of the goddamned Chamber of Commerce. I don't know who you are, thinking you can come in here and rip us off, but you have made one truly dumb mistake.'

She had time enough to turn herself invisible but she panicked. His finger jerked on the weapon's two triggers and she heard a noise like hell cracking open.

{fursuit19} is somebody there

{fursuit19} hello

{fursuit19} hello

fursuit19 HAS LOGGED OUT

[AOL Instant Message transcript, 4/18/05]

The Blackhawk came in low and slow over the juniper-studded arroyos that surrounded the prison. Clark touched the Civilian's arm and pointed out Pike's Peak. As they drew closer he said, 'Let me officially welcome you to the Big One.' He felt strangely proud of Florence-ADX'though he certainly had not built the prison, nor did he particularly like it. It had become his headquarters, however, and in a sense his home.

The Civilian looked excited. 'Is it true you've got Pineapple Face there? You know, Noriega? And the Unabomber?'

'All the prisoners were removed in the first days of the Epidemic.' The Civilian looked disappointed, yet as they circled around for final approach it was Clark whose expectations were truly shattered. When he'd left the prison had been a safe, discrete structure, hidden carefully behind its multiple layers of unimpregnable fencing.

In his absence it had turned into a shanty-town. Tents and primitive shacks of corrugated tin had been erected in a wide semi-circle around the side of the prison facing the road. Narrow alleys ran between the ramshackle housing units and these were full of people in civilian dress. More than a few waved at the Blackhawk as it roared overhead. They looked healthy enough. There were children, too, and some animals: dogs, sheep, even a few horses. A stretch of rolling hillside had been cleared of vegetation and turned into a parking lot for dozens of vehicles. Not just the buses and vans of the convoy Clark had personally lead from Denver but smaller passenger cars, too, motorcycles and bicycles and a smattering of single-engine airplanes.