The Big Bang (8 page)

It would be the last good night's sleep she'd get for a long time.

Molly, 2009

Molly would never forget her first execution. She'd had plenty of chances to attend them in Texas, naturally. In the Lone Star State, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some poor soul who was related to another sad sack whose dance card was already filled up for the Brownsville Boogie.

She had never gone to that dreary little town, at least not so she could watch some product of crap parenting and stupid life choices breathe his (or, on occasion, her) last. She knew it was simply a stupid macho rite of passage the old typists who called themselves journalists were running on her. She refused to be drawn in. She'd taught herself a long time ago that when people were playing games, the only way to win was not to play.

But in Texas, at least, she'd had a choice about whether or not to take part. Just one more thing she'd taken for granted, she realized: that whole “choice” thing.

The Big Bang caught her in San Francisco, visiting her sister. It was a joyful reunion, as Molly had only a year before dodged her own death sentence: a bout of cancer that nearly killed her. She was in town on a “book tour.” It was really a chance for her to be a little bit of a rock star, newly triumphant and well enough to be Molly again. The book signings were always packed with true believers, and her canned speech, the ham liberally salted with her trademark pungencies, always brought down the house. It was like preaching to the converted. She was their cheerleader, and they loved her for it. Most towns, there was a gathering afterwards, with good booze, and who knows, some earnest young lads who might be interested in a more intimate encounter with the legend. The legend, so recently reprieved from being executed by her own body, was in the mood for some adulation. Sure, it was shameless, but nobody's feelings got hurt, and as long as it was for fun and for free, whose business was it?

In the chaos and confusion after the Bang, with the bridges blown, and then the smallpox and typhus epidemics, Molly had not been able to get out. She'd caught the typhus herself and had been nursed by her sister back to something near to health. Then Ginnie, bless her soul, had come down with whooping cough, and through that cold San Francisco winter, Molly had cared for her little sister. Molly had been an optimist before the Big Bang. During that winter, it was one damn thing after another, until Molly had taken to comforting herself with the thought, “Ain't ever so bad it can't get worse.”

First, the Emir Ali bin Sadur had been assassinated. He was a decent guy, actually knew his Koran and Islamic history, and was smart enough to ignore a lot of it. He'd bypassed the Imams and issued edicts respecting the worship of other religions and protecting other faiths. He'd been killed when a contingent of his personal bodyguards had been replaced by more ideologically pure men who promptly machine-gunned him and his two favorite Labradors to death while they were walking in Golden Gate Park.

The Caliban said it was the Zionist plotters who had killed Ali, and they just as promptly beheaded the killers while promising to search for the hidden hand behind the treacherous deed. Any American citizen in California with a minute or a thought to spare from fighting disease or malnutrition mourned bin Sadur, however briefly. For a warden, he'd been a decent sort.

He was replaced by a much less pleasant and less reasonable fellow named Ghasoub Ghalyoun, whose strict Imam-inspired interpretation of the Koran would have made bin Laden smile. Of The Gasbag, Molly quipped, “He's the only Muslim who'd get his seventy-two virgins and complain if they weren't wearing a veil when they went down on him.” That was the kind of talk that could get your tongue removed with pliers in the Caliphate of California, if one were impetuous enough to utter it in the wrong company.

Then the Caliban grabbed Ginnie. The sisters had both gone out for groceries; the queues for inadequate or bug-ridden food were always insanely long, so they usually went shopping separately, hoping to achieve at least the illusion of efficiency. Molly guessed Ginnie had been waiting in line at the produce stall in the Golden Gate District, right when the Hummers full of troops had appeared outside the open-air butcher's shop in Chinatown. As best Molly could tell, the Caliban had been on the lookout for violators of
hijab
, or “modesty,” but that, like so many things in life, was in the eye of the beholder. To Molly, it was a Purity Patrol ordered by The Gasbag, and Ginnie was one of the women who had been apprehended for not wearing a niqab.

The niqab was like wearing a gunny sack over your head. It was a total face cover imported courtesy of those fine gentlemen of the Taliban who thought dynamiting one-thousand-year-old statues of Buddha was an equally good idea. An upper band tied around the forehead, with a long wide piece attached that covered the face, leaving only a slit for the eyes. The gunny sack of enforced modesty was only one of the many actions required of the dhimmi under the new Caliph.

Ginnie had hated the niqab. It rubbed a raw place in her scalp and gave her a headache. Whenever she thought she could get away with it, she'd slip it off, as she did at the butcher's shop. Either someone had informed, or it was just bad luck for Molly's little sister.

The raid would never have happened under the late bin Sadur. He had been a man of some education and travel and a rather more sophisticated understanding of how to win the hearts and minds of a colonial population. The Gasbag was not burdened by anything as tedious as doubts or learning.

Molly didn't like to think about what happened to Ginnie after she was arrested. Once in custody of the Caliban, her sister was probably beaten with wooden rods, especially on the soles of her feet. Her head was shaved, and she was probably raped by all the members of the patrol. The rape, Molly knew, would have been long and brutal, and would have left her sister with severe internal injuries. It would also have been a reward to the members of the patrol and was one of the perks of membership. Molly didn't like to think about what happened to Ginnie, but she
made
herself think about it. She carried the knowledge close and hard, whetting it regularly until it was razor sharp.

She was waiting by the window, staring out at the street in helpless resignation. It was the third day since her sister disappeared. In the old days, Molly worried about kidnapping, serial killers, gang members using her sister's ATM card…and she would have badgered the police with each of these concerns. In this new San Francisco, it was possible that her sister had fallen prey to any one of these evils, but not very likely. When the black Humvees rumbled up the street, it was all the confirmation that Molly needed.

The Hummer doors creaked open, and the members of the Prophet's Chosen hopped out. They were physically unremarkable, this militia of fanatics. Most were of average height for men from the Middle East. She guessed the next generation would be taller, having the nutritional bounty of the United States on which to feast. In her heart, she was glad they were all Arabic in appearance. She wasn't sure she could maintain the Face if she were confronting an American collaborator.

The Face. Just as in feudal, pre-industrial Japan, it was the mask most people wore to avoid calling attention to themselves, a look of blank resignation. No irritation to be shown, no defiance; nothing that would risk a reprisal from the Caliban. The reprisals against dhimmis (the Christian and Jew infidels, don't you know) had been horrific: elementary schools burnt (while class was in session), people massacred, crucifixions. The property of the dead was always claimed by the Caliphate afterwards and sold to the faithful. Molly, along with millions of others, had learned that the storied Islamic tolerance was something of, well, a fiction. Every time she went out and saw the Face among the crowds, Molly would think,
We look like goddamn cows
.

With Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, the Chosen kicked open the cast iron gate and tromped across the yard to the front door. Kalashnikovs. Christ on a motorbike, these idiots were Palestinian. You could usually spot them by those rifles, an homage to their beloved Fallen Leader, that rapacious thug Arafat.

Piss on it
, Molly said to herself.
I'll be damned if they're going to kick my door in
. She reached the door and pulled it open just as the lead fanatic was drawing his leg back with practiced skill.

“Kin I help y'all?” she asked sweetly, reaching back into her past and dredging up the thick Texas Panhandle accent she'd worked hard to moderate for television all those years ago. She doubted any of these sons of the desert spoke more than rudimentary English. The Irish in her was up now. She would have to watch what she said or she'd end up in a cell like Ginnie.

The alpha Palestinian gave her a dismissive look. Molly knew what that look meant. She was an infidel in this city of the damned and worth less to him than a bag of rice back home. He was a Yasser-Be, with the rifle, the stubble, right down to the kaffiyeh, that versatile Arab head scarf, complete with the checkered pattern that had been favored by Arafat. “You know this woman?” he said, shoving Ginnie's old California driver's license at Molly.

“Ah do,” Molly replied, still doing her hillbilly routine. She forced herself to keep smiling, even as she noticed bloody fingerprints on the laminated surface of the license.

“Purification tomorrow,” the Palestinian said in the harsh cadences of a man who only learned his second language to command the infidels. “Candlestick. You be there.” Molly's Face must have slipped a little, because the Palestinian leaned in close for emphasis. “You be there. I be looking. You not there…we purify
you
.” One of the other Chosen was already spray-painting a red X across the stucco beside the front window of the small row house. With a final proprietary glance around, the Yasser clone marched back to the Hummer.

Molly closed the door and released the death grip she'd kept on herself. Her hands shook as she locked the door and tears started in her eyes. She was surprised at how the tears burned. A Purification. Her sister was as good as dead. The red X told her the Caliban would be claiming her home. The neighbors would be lucky not to be targeted for reprisals. Molly angrily swiped at her eyes with the backs of her wrists, which only smeared the tears and made her eyes feel mushy. “Thank God for no makeup,” she said to the empty house. “I'd look like a raccoon.”

There was whiskey in the house, somewhere. She found the bottle in a sideboard, behind her sister's china plates. Wild Turkey. The seal wasn't even cracked. Ginnie might've been saving it for an emergency. A good bottle of whiskey was worth something these days. Molly dried her face on a dishtowel, grabbed the nearest container, which turned out to be a coffee mug, and poured three fingers of Wild Turkey into it.

She took a strong belt of the whiskey and sat at the metal table in the tiny kitchen. The whiskey had that familiar burn down her throat, followed by the aromatic ripple past her palate and up through her sinuses and nose. She banged the cup down on the table, and listened to it clang.

Well, she wouldn't be coming back here. Nothing for her, now. Ginnie was the last family she had, the only reason she'd stayed as long as she had. To stay here, mourning her sister, was to invite insanity, or worse, futile plans for revenge. Molly had prided herself on being a realist: what could she, one woman on the wrong side of fifty, do against the forces of the Caliban?

It was time to go home. Go back to Texas. She took a slower sip of the whiskey. She had no idea how she'd get there. She might even die on the road. She didn't much care, right now. But she would be damned if she'd stay here, under The Gasbag's rule, wearing the Face with the rest of the goddamned cows. She took the final swig of whiskey and reminded herself that she was from tough pioneer stock. Her people had come from back East in the late 1800s, crossing the country with kids and livestock and everything they owned in a Conestoga wagon. If they could do that, she could damn well walk back to Texas on a mostly paved highway.

She lingered over the final swallow of Turkey, savoring it. She suspected it would be a coon's age before she had anything as good again.

It didn't take her long to get ready. While her hips had gotten a lot bigger than Ginnie's, a marked change from high school, when they'd been able to swap clothes back and forth, their feet were still the same size. A dusty pair of hiking boots was on a shelf in Ginnie's closet, an expensive backpack hanging on a hook to one side. Molly stuffed the pack with what she hoped were essentials: thick socks, sweaters, a tightly rolled poncho, extra jeans, two flannel shirts, tee-shirts, two pairs of Ginnie's jeans, some expensive running shoes. The jeans didn't fit her now, but they were practically new. She might be able to trade them, or if her weight continued to drop on her dhimmi diet, she might well be able to use them herself.

There was still room in the pack when she finished her first sweep. She didn't need any “feminine protection,” thank Christ. At least one thing good came out of menopause. She looked around Ginnie's room one more time. No sense in carrying any of the jewelry…probably wouldn't trade for much, and it had no sentimental value for her. She could use a weapon, though. Chivalry was in short supply among the American cattle; it wasn't even a word in the vocabulary of the average Calibaner.

She began a more thorough search of the bedroom. She was briefly embarrassed, as if she were snooping through her sister's things. “Not anymore,” she said firmly. “My sister's dead. The Gasbag killed her.”

Molly wasn't surprised to find some self-defense items in a drawer beside the bed, next to a couple of adult toys. Ginnie had been single for a year before the Big Bang, and, well, the nights got cold and lonely fast in San Francisco. Molly understood the impulse to keep the shameful stuff all together. She pulled the drawer out and set it on the bed. Trying not to touch the especially intimate articles, she removed a canister of pepper spray and a strange, heavy cylinder of metal about as long as her hand, with foam padding around it and about as thick as a roll of quarters.