Monster Nation(92)

The Space Van rolled at least once as he panicked and she screamed but she couldn't have said later how long it took for the vehicle to skid and slide and rock to a stop. She felt her soul leave her body, much as it had when she was restrained in the hospital bed, back when she thought she was still alive. She felt her soul careen back and forth inside the van, a bean inside of a maraca, a die inside a gambler's hand. She saw bits of flaming map dance in the spinning cabin, saw Mike's face turn to look at her, his mouth moving, forming words but she didn't hear them.

Go limp,she told herself. Her limbs turned to loose rubber and bounced around inside the van, her body shook like a doll. Go limp.

Then the van smacked the desert on its side and slid about a hundred feet, showers of sparks flying up every time it grazed a rock. It finally came to a stop. Nilla bounced a little inside the protective webbing of her seat belt, but she was okay.

She stared out at the starlit desert beyond the shattered windshield. Everything had stopped. She looked down, down at where Mike sat in the driver's seat. He wasn't there. She searched her memory, trying to figure out how that could happen. She remembered he hadn't been wearing his seat belt.

Carefully, trying to avoid the piles of broken safety glass that seemed to be everywhere, Nilla unfastened herself and climbed out of the wreck. A helicopter shot by overhead, very fast, while she stood there, craning her head back and forth, looking for Mike. She walked out onto the Salt Flats and the ground crunched beneath her feet.

Eventually she found him.

He had been thrown through the windshield in the crash and his body had gone skidding over the crunchy, perfectly smooth salt rime for over a hundred yards. Judging by the broken depressions in the soil he must have skipped like a stone on the top of a pond.

He wouldn't be coming back. Shards of glass stuck out of his head like a bloody crown. Nilla felt her shoulders fall, a certain tension dripping away from her.

From behind she heard the sound of heavy trucks roaring toward her. Overhead two more helicopters came in slow and circled around her, their lights stabbing the desert, missing her entirely.

Nilla was still flush with energy. She went invisible.





Monster Nation





Chapter Seven


The books I ordered from Amazon last week (on a whim, just a silly whim!) have arrived. I should just send them back, this is just dumb. 'The Lesser Key of Solomon?' The Greater Key was on back order. 'The Alchymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz?' Huh? 'Magick Without Tears?' Well, we could use a few less tears around here, though I could do without that superfluous 'K'. [Lab Notes, 1/9/04]

'I've been looking for this girl since the Epidemic began,' Clark said. 'Now you find her and you forget to tell me for most of a day?'

The Civilian stared straight ahead. He was strapped so tightly into his crewseat that maybe he couldn't turn his head. 'I can be a wrathful god sometimes, Bannerman. But sometimes I throw my favorite pet a bone. You don't ask questions, not of me.'

Clark knew to back off. This fury was new'he was used to the Civilian's cynicism but his anger was new and growing. Unfortunately that left him with his own thoughts for company.

So close'and something had to go wrong. Well, something always went wrong, that was the general rule of warfare. Clark had even made room for something going wrong in his plans, bringing along far more men and materiel than he should have needed to pick up one prisoner. Still.

This was a monumental cock-up.

The Civilian had presented Clark with the opportunity of a lifetime. An individual associated loosely with the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce had captured the girl. He was willing to turn her over to Clark in exchange for free passage east'with a military escort'and fifty thousand dollars. The Civilian had set everything up. Those were all the details Clark had'and all, it seemed, the Civilian was willing to give him. It should be enough, the Civilian insisted.

Only when they arrived the girl was gone, having apparently murdered all of her captors. They didn't know how long it had been since she'd escaped. They didn't know which way she went. They didn't know where she was headed. But she knew they were coming for her and would therefore be on her guard.

'There's two dead in here, sir,' the soldier said, leaning in through the open door of the helicopter. Clark closed his laptop with a click and nodded. He looked past the soldier and saw the entrance to a cave. An iron-barred gate swung open on its hinges. 'One of them looks like a drug overdose,' the soldier continued. 'The other body is partially consumed.'