Golgotha Run (19 page)

“We here at WWAXXZY News fully support freedom of speech and the expression of
ideas of all kinds, however repugnant they might be to right-thinking citizens
of this great country of ours.

“We have to ask, though, in the light of such an appalling tragedy—should
we not be thinking of curtailing the free expression of ideas to gatherings of
no more than, say, three men and a dog? We here at WWAXXZY News say yes, and
if Amendment 7054 is passed, you won’t be able to say anything other than yes
either.

“What makes the atrocity doubly vile, White House sources say, is that there
are strong suggestions that it can be traced to Congolese-backed terrorists
themselves, loosening the cables, as opposed to simple faulty maintenance.
Despite the White House’s statement, rumours are already circulating some of
the more scurrilous datanet sites that it may actually have been carried out
by rogue elements within our very own government. The conspiracy theory goes
that they wanted to kill two birds with one stone by inflaming the Congolese
situation and removing opposition in one fell swoop.

“The terrorists responsible are still at large. They could be anywhere. They
could be anyone, even people known to you. Stay in your homes. Stay off the
streets. Stay in your blocks. Report any suspicious activity—any activity
at all—to representatives of your local officially designated Black Squad.

“In other news, the body of controversial rap music, action figure and sex
industry entrepreneur Big Master X was found floating in New York’s Hudson
River today. Although a suicide note was found pinned to his body, the boys at
NYPD Inc. are refusing to rule out foul play. Our love and thoughts go out to
the family and friends of Big Master X during this difficult time. To read the
suicide note in full, log into the WWAXXZY datanet using the keyword
‘floatingfatboy’ and remember to have your cashplastic at the ready.

“And on a lighter note, old William Hicks is at it again. Originally intended
to address the Golden Gate rally himself, the senator was discovered last
night, wandering Times Square in New York, without his trousers and muttering
that he had seen proof that both the US Government and the Multicorps are
colluding to cover up the fact that we are all of us living in a recursive
virtual reality which vast and unimaginable Entities from outside space and time are playing like a game.

“Well, if that were true, it’s certainly game over for Mr Hicks in this
presidential race. Relentless indeed, Bill.

“That was WWAXXZY News, every hour, on the hour. And now, in memory of Big
Master X, we’re devoting the rest of the afternoon’s programming to some of
the best music released on his Big Black Beats label starting with his very
own remix of Freak-E’s ‘Be My Pimp’…”

The scope of Federal Government, as an instrument of power, might have
atrophied; the might of Multicorporations might be split as the individual
corporate concerns squabbled amongst themselves for the prize of the world—but the California National Guard (or Arnie’s Freedom Commandos, as certain
sectors of the corporate media had dubbed them) were still going strong.

Admittedly, the California state legislature had banned them from operating
within their home state but they had enough rich backers among the tech and
entertainment industries to buy themselves bases in all of the neighbouring
states, ready to strike at a moment’s notice should law and order in
California break down completely. Add this to Governor Arnie’s statewide draft
programme and the US Army spreading its forces across almost a hundred nations
worldwide, and the California National Guard becomes the most powerful
military force in North America. Only a few private corporate armies and
southern gangcults come anywhere close in terms of both man and firepower and,
the California state legislature notwithstanding, there was nobody to
challenge their military dominance.

There were any number of reasons for this. Some to do with the functions a
well-armed and well-trained military force performed and the responsibilities
it had within a chaos-bound overall social dynamic. Others to do with the fact
that the CNG’s presence in sympathetic states dissuaded gangcults, terrorists
and other assorted whackos from attacking government, corporate and private
interests there. Others still to do with their favoured status within the
Pentagon and the multitude of homeland security contracts they were awarded by
the top brass there. But chief among those reasons must be counted the simple
and obvious one that they had a shitload of heavy weaponry, and who was going
to take it away from them?

So, foreign wars were still waged and police actions still fought to protect
the interests of America but homeland security, unofficially at least, fell
under the remit of the CNG.

Johnny Raghead still got the crap kicked out of him before being shipped off
to Kandahar, Guantanamo or Diego Garcia if he even so much as looked at a
subway air conditioning unit. God-fearing patriots in the northern militias
and survivalist groups would get a jackboot up their collective asses anytime
they refrained from paying their Federal taxes. ICBMs remained maintained in
their various silos and racks. Bomb testing was still conducted—and
certain complications attendant to bomb testing, on a whole other level than
mere fallout, were still, after a fashion, dealt with.

This latter function fell under the remit of what, over the years, had come to
be called Arbitrary Base.

Colonel Roland Grist, Commander in Charge of Arbitrary Base, surveyed the pair
of GenTech so-called “civilian specialists” across the expanse of his desk. He
was not exactly impressed.

The girl was wearing something in skin-tight PVC that left nothing to the
imagination but which, even so, was strategically ripped to leave even less
so. With her bleach-blonde hair and overplayed cosmetics she looked like she’d
be more at home sliding round a pole.

For all this, she radiated assurance, a sense that if she happened to decide a
direction in which the world would go, then the world would fall into line as
a matter of suit. Grist was reminded, a little disquietingly, of a nanny
employed by his family back when he was growing up on their Cape Cod compound.
The girl had done drugs and spent most afternoons screwing his father—but so
far as little Roland had been concerned, her word had been strict and absolute
law.

The boy was just what the word “boy” implied: a kid around the age of the
youngest grunts under Grist’s command, without even the most basic of the
training that would have him straightened up and flying right.

The boy was twitchy and pale, hunched sullenly in a gangcult leather jacket
several sizes too big for him; shadowed eyes glowering up at Grist under a
straggled mass of hair that had long since crossed the border from being
merely greasy into the country of the positively matted with filth.

He looked most definitely like a drug addict, this boy—and you could pick
any drug you liked, it would probably fit.

For himself Grist couldn’t imagine this pair making it through the Base
perimeter alive in normal circumstances, let alone being allowed into the more
sensitive areas.

Pentagon orders, however, had been quite clear. They were to be given the run
of the place, given any assistance or information for which they might ask,
whether that meant launch-codes for the SNARK XIV’s in their silo-racks… or
access to the so-called “Artefact” in Shed Seven.

The bureaucrats in the Pentagon were watching him, Grist knew. They were
watching him all the time, just to see if he would fumble the ball again.
There were Special Forces operatives on the Base that he still had not
properly identified, at least to the point where he could be certain where
their loyalties truly lay.

He was not in a position, at this point, to blatantly disobey direct orders
from above.

He didn’t know how many of his men were in on the joke.

All the same, there was nothing in the orders telling him to make the job of
these two easier. If this pair wanted anything, they had to know what to ask
and then damn well ask it.

“Sir, ma’m,” he said, the honorifics of respect all-but sticking in his craw.
“Our sponsorship arrangement with GenTech Industries requires that we offer
you any assistance you might require. I can have a maintenance crew go over
your rigs, have you on your way in—“

“Any one of your guys lays a hand on our rigs,” said the girl, “at this point
and without clearance, is going to be chopped down instantly. This isn’t the
pit-stop, this is the finish line.”

Grist remained impassive. He’d guessed from when they had told him that the
convoy was coming that they weren’t going to just be using Arbitrary Base as a
maintenance way station; this was just a way of letting this pair know that he
was going do to nothing more or less than they actively asked.

“What we’re going to need,” said the girl, actively telling rather than asking
for anything, “is your tech-support team scrambled and ready to go. Nobody
under Stratum XIV clearance, and you’ll better believe we’re going to be
checking the list, and checking it twice, from our own database.

“Step up the perimeter guard, and they can be cleared to any level you
like—just keep them away from all GenTech personnel and what they’re doing.
Plus we’re going to need a squad of Special Forces Deltas as an escort while
we set up shop in the place you dammed well know that we will.”

Grist still remained impassive, biting on the polycarbon tube replacing the
cigars to which, in off hours and in the open air, he was partial.

“And that would be?” he said.

“Where do you think?” said the girl. “Shed Seven.”

“So let me get this right,” Eddie said as they headed through the Arbitrary
Base compound, watching various military personnel snapping to order in the
way that only military personnel can do. “This is what…” He racked his brain
for the half-remembered UFO mythology he had picked up growing up in New Mexico—where they had a lot, admittedly, but of a sort that set off so many bullshit detectors that you never bothered to even learn it. “This
is what they used to call Area 51 or something, yeah?”

Trix Desoto snorted. “Stop being a tool. You’ve been quite the tool for long
enough and it’s been mentioned before. Area 51 never existed. The whole idea
of it was fabricated to draw attention away from the things that were really
going on.”

“Oh yeah?” said Eddie. “So what really happened?”

“Don’t ask,” said Trix. “Just remember, some shit goes down and you hear that
things called greys are involved, be very, very afraid. Little bastards aren’t
nearly so harmless as they try to make out. This isn’t about that.”

Eddie wasn’t entirely sure that Trix was joking. She gestured to take in the
prefabricated barracks huts and storage units of the Base.

“Arbitrary Base,” she said, “is basically a moveable feast; the facilities
that make it what it is, that allow it to deal with what it deals with, move
between the existing installations, patching into their command structures…”

“You seem to know a lot about this stuff,” Eddie said. “GenTech’s really
running Arnie’s Freedom Commandos? Is that how it is?”

“We wish,” said Trix Desoto. “It’s a hangover from the whole Military-Industrial Complex thing. That whole self-perpetuating thing of selling a
bunch of arms to guys, then sending in our guys to sort out the situation
where you’ve got a bunch of armed guys, you know?

“Anyhow. The Pentagon is split up into as many factions as there are
Multicorps, these days. GenTech just happened to end up connected with the
faction running Arbitrary Base.” She smiled sardonically. “Lucky for us.”

“Oh yeah?” said Eddie. “How so?”

“How so because certain of our… associates have a serious interest in the
materials falling under the remit of Arbitrary Base. Or maybe it was the other
way around: GenTech had access to those materials, which is why our… associates made contact with us
in the first place.”

It might have been all the new knowledge downloaded into him as a part of his
induction into the Loup, but Eddie was learning to recognise an ellipse at
twenty paces.

“And so just who, exactly, are these dot, dot, dot
associates
?” he asked.

“You’ll find out,” said Trix Desoto. “For the moment, though, initially, it’s
gonna be better to show than tell. And here we are. Shed Seven.”

A squad of Deltas were waiting for them outside of an unprepossessing
galvanised steel hut.

Eddie had occasionally come across off-duty military out in Las Vitas, and so
some large part of him expected to be greeted with, at best, outright
hostility. A supercharged Testostorossa had nothing on off-duty military when
it came to assuming that people with more brains than muscle were fags.

Not that he’d had any brains to speak of in the first place, he recalled,
which had left him doubly screwed.

He assumed that Trix Desoto herself might be made, well,
welcome
, for a
certain number of reasons, but not in an entirely salutary manner.

Now he came to appreciate the difference between highly trained and not, and
off-duty and on. The soldiers snapped to instant attention as he and Trix
approached, and the lieutenant in charge of them saluted.

“Butcher,” he said, matching the name tag on his greens.

Eddie thought of several replies to that, but then discounted them more or
less instantly as either heavy handed or asinine. A guy in the CNG with the
name of
Butcher
would have heard them all in any case.

“You requested a close-order escort,” said Butcher. It came out as a kind of
completely neutral statement, requiring neither confirmation not comment.

“Yeah,” said Trix Desoto, confirming it anyway. “Don’t sweat it, There’s no
rush; we just want to check it out at this point. You’ll have time to get into
your gear.”