Dead and Dead Again: Kansas City Quarantine (63 page)

“I don’t know…this is Kansas. They don’t seem to be the type of free-thinking liberals that would allow you to whip
that out over there, Calvin,” Athena said with a naughty finger running across
her teeth.

“Why, thank you,” Calvin crowed in
return.

“Ooh, ooh, something about his
penis, no Athena just said that. The…the…something about sex!” Tripper finished
lamely. “We’re offering sex.”

“Reason,” Calvin explained,
pointing to his head.

“You’re offering them reasons for
having sex!” Tripper seemed unable to control himself. “Wait, no, that can’t be
right.”

“Nobody needs a reason to have sex,
Trip,” Sarah told him.

“Exactly,” Trip agreed.

“I’m going to reason with them,”
Calvin clarified.

“Reason? You’ve got to be kidding
me,” Athena snorted. “It’s a mob.”

“I have to try and reason with them
until we have pressure again,” he pointed meaningfully at the zeroed-out compressor
gauge, tapping it impotently for emphasis.

“You can’t talk to stupid people,
Calvin.”
Athena
reasoned with
him
. “And by definition, a mob is
generally filled with nothing but stupid people and maybe one or two
charismatic leaders.”

“I’d rather not kill living people
unless we have to,” he explained and she could tell he was once again afraid of
that possibility, but still ready to fulfill the obligation.

“With sex,” Tripper added. “We’ll
kill them with sex,” he gyrated his hips around in circles.

Calvin admonished him with a
pointed finger. “Trip, you’re an idiot. We won’t kill them if we can help it. A
few dozen nails in the extremities of some people with too much energy and too
little leadership, however…” he gave them a well-practiced wink.

“We’ve still got the portable air
packs,” he informed them.

“Not really,” Joel told him
stiffly. “The range isn’t very far on those, and they already have one of
them—”

“—what?” Trip snapped.

“Scaggs took one to cover Gus.”

“Well, Hef and Quinn will get the
compressors on soon and we’ll turn their knees into pin cushions,” Calvin
promised.

Tripper and Sarah returned a wicked
grin, and they could imagine Joel and Felicia doing so as well from the turrets
in which both were now releasing the safeties from their rifles since that’s
all they had now.

“Let’s work this through,” Calvin
suggested mildly. “We can’t just pull out; they have our friends. We have to
deal with them straight. We obviously aren’t going to turn our vehicles over to
them, nor are we letting them in. What does that leave?”

“Shooting their leader and top
lieutenants in the head,” the captain suggested with gusto, bright green eyes
shining with resolve.

“Ok, ok. We’re working the
brainstorming thing. We’re feeling it. Just shouting them out. Everyone just
shout whatever you have. Don’t hold back. But can we maybe try things a little
less bloodthirsty first?”

“I’m sorry,” the captain actually
blushed. “I just meant it as an option. I saw this in the desert. People are
the same all over, basically. Take out the leader and there will be a short
time of undirected rage and destruction and then either a lull or some extreme
stupidity during the struggle for power and an attempt to regain lost
confidence.”

“A few minutes of undirected rage and
stupidity might make them charge this train, though,” Calvin argued.

“Perhaps.” Captain Batmouche’
simply nodded.

“And then we would have to kill a
lot of them.”

This met another grave nod from the
Captain.

“Perhaps it would help the virus
clean more of the stupid ones from the Earth,” she stated flatly.

“I’d rather not have to do that.”

“I will wager this time you are
going to have to,” the captain declared confidently.

“Maybe and maybe not,” Calvin
admitted angrily. “But we’re not going to assume there is no way out. Let’s try
diplomacy first. If that fails, and only if it fails, then we take whatever
options are remaining.”

“Very well. But I believe you are
merely delaying the inevitable. And you will be leaving your friends at the
mercy of an angry mob until you reach the realization that you could have saved
them a lot of pain and maybe their very lives.”

“You don’t know that they’re going
to hurt them.”

“You’re turning down all of their
demands. What do you think the next step is?”

Calvin considered her words
gravely. Finally he sighed. “I know you are probably right, Captain. But in a
declared war those decisions are much easier to make. This isn’t war. This is
still America. And in America, out in our free society, we can’t just shoot
someone because we suspect they might not want to talk to us,” he held up his
hand to forestall a possible outraged tirade. “I simply mean that we are still
in the real world. That is a group of very scared people out there, looking for
answers and maybe some hope. The rules have been temporarily abandoned by some,
but the rules
are
still out there. They were worth following for quite a
while, even though some needed changing. I’m not ready to start declaring
anarchy just yet.”

“But that is exactly what you have
here.”

“No! No. We have to act with the
belief that this is temporary. There won’t be anarchy as long as we hold on to
what made us great, or at least really good, and the rules are part of that. Even
if we break them when we have to, we have to try our best to keep them the rest
of the time…at least as well as we can.”

“Why?”

“Because…what happens when this is
over?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a wall out there,” he
pointed west and arced his arm in all directions.

“On the other side of that wall,
nothing has changed other than some people in the rest of the nation are probably
getting some
really
good TV with the Quarantine coverage. What if we get
out of this and eventually everything goes back to normal? How would we live in
that society having drifted so far from ourselves? What if we’d killed
indiscriminately to survive or to save others, or worse to take control of
others thinking everything was doomed and we were going to start our own new
city like in
Beyond
Thunderdome
or something? Some people are
probably hoping for that, but not me. We need to keep in mind that there might
be an ending to this. If we break every rule this society has in place, and do
anything we need to do to survive, wouldn’t we be giving up our right to live
in this society again? Possibly we wouldn’t be able to dial it down again and
fit in with the others having strayed so far from the rules of a civilized world.”

“Now you’re sounding like a
soldier,” Sergeant Doogard laughed loudly, his deep, rumbling voice echoing
through the sleeper car. “Look in any career foxhole and you’ll find a
philosopher,” he added brightly. “He’s right, Captain. Best to hold on to every
bit of humanity we can for as long as we can. Hell, maybe young Calvin here can
actually get us out of this, after all.”

The captain’s eyes flashed at that
admission, but she hadn’t made captain by just being pretty. Accepting the
reasoning in his words—knowing that this would not work did not mean they
should not try—she nodded agreement. “We agreed that you make the decisions,
Calvin,” she said.

“But I still ask for advice from my
advisors,” he pointed out.

“I think in this case that you are
wasting all of our time and risking your friends’ safety. Luckily for you, the
air is out so we really have few options other than the one I already noted. You
are correct; it should be the final option. Nothing is ever easy, is it?”

Calvin shrugged. “What situation is
ever ideal?” He put the PA mic to his mouth.

“My name is Calvin Hobbes. How may
we assist you today?” he asked of the mob leader pleasantly.

My name is Reginald Smith,” an
indistinct man in the distance replied through a bullhorn. “I am alderman of
the 3
^rd
ward of Wamego…”

“Hello Reginald. How can we assist
you this fine overcast day?”

“Put down your weapons and turn
your vehicles over to us,” Reginald demanded.

“No.” Calvin replied flatly.

The man waited for more, but Calvin
said nothing. “You government and federal forces have no authority here,” the alderman
stated bitterly.

“We’re not government people,”
Calvin explained.

“We’ve seen uniforms with proper
military patches through your windows.”

“Oh, well, yes, there
are
military people
here
, technically. But you see, we’re just sort of giving
them a ride,” Calvin explained weakly. “This is a private vehicle owned by
private citizens.”
The truth sounded so much more believable in my head.

“Well, be that as it may, this is
their stop. We’re gonna need them. They’re breaking the law being deployed on US soil. We’re gonna have us a little trial and see if we can get some leverage on the
outside.”

“Actually, I’m not entirely sure
these folks fall under any of that. And you don’t look like the governor to me
and
I’m betting you don’t know what the laws regarding this particular situation
are, so you should probably rethink your position.”

“I’m thinking we’re American
citizens trying to protect our rights,” the man replied, putting his rifle on
his hip and standing proudly.

“Well we—as in America—America has military bases all over this nation. Soldiers have been deployed on
bases here for a very long time, and have nearly always been welcome to spend
their money in the local establishments and to travel to and from and between
cities and to even sightsee if they want, except in Texas for some reason, where
they always think they’re being taken over. Other than that, we have had
military exercises throughout this country without issue. As I said, this is America. American soldiers are
our
military. They are our friends and family. They
are American citizens and have the same rights as you and I…I mean, mostly.
They have some stricter rules that they have to obey, of course—but that’s not
the point.”

“The point is you’re all
our
prisoners now,” the leader inserted during the pause.

Fucking politicians,
Calvin
cursed internally. “No, we really aren’t.”

“They are here on an official
secret mission. And members of the military cannot be deployed on US soil for military purposes. Only the National Guard can.”

“While you’re welcome to your
opinion. Opinion doesn’t make fact. You do not have a clear understanding of
the legalities included in such situations.” Calvin argued, but felt he was
beating his head against a very stupid man’s skull. Suddenly he remembered
something. “You know, the Army gives orders to the National Guard,” he
explained. “So your opinion is flawed from the start.”

“I have a lot of guns that back
my
opinion,” the man threatened.

“We have fewer guns, but we’re
better armored, have trained military
and
a shitload of ammo,” Calvin
stated matter-of-factly, although nine-tenths of that shitload was currently
useless. There was, however, no good reason for Reginald know that.

“We have two of your people,” the leader
nodded and a dozen angry men dragged Scaggs and Gus roughly to the front.

Yup. You got me there,
Calvin
admitted silently
.
“I don’t suppose you’re just going to peacefully
return them and let us go our merry way?” he asked, trying to sound truly
hopeful.

“If anyone is getting out, we are,”
the man slammed the butt of his rifle into Gus’ midsection as an emphasis to
just how unlikely a release was. “One way or another.”

“No one is getting out of here,”
Calvin stated firmly.

“You all look like you were going
somewhere.”

“Only another few miles.”

“Doesn’t really look that way now,
does it?”

“Look, I get that you’re angry that
you can’t drive to Colorado or Wyoming or wherever else you would like to go today
and join a local militia and take over the government, but that doesn’t really mean
you can simply take the law into your own hands and claim private property as
your own,” Calvin explained.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing
all week?” Tripper whispered into his microphone. Sarah punched him in the arm
with the butt of her rifle.

“I think it means exactly that,”
the leader grumbled. “And here’s how much my opinion matters around here…” he
turned to his grubby henchmen.

“Show them we mean business, boys.”

“What? You want us to kill them?” asked
a tall, stocky man in dirty jeans and plaid shirt, clearly a farmhand of some
sort.

“No, you idiot. Rough them up a
little,” the leader snapped in annoyance, turning back to the train. “We’ll
stop beating them when you open that vehicle up and let us start moving in. Get
to it boys.”

The faces of the men changed from
uncertain curiosity to something far less civilized. With leering grins and
heaving chests, the small town lynch mob forcibly dragged the struggling Gus
and Scaggs into the open where their friends could watch and began punching and
kicking them both with enthusiastic brutality. Some of the men even tried out various
hand weapons upon them, brass knuckles and some leather covered floppy stick
that seemed to be filled with lead.

“Hef?” Calvin called desperately.

“We are working on it, Calvin.”

Scaggs cussed, kicked and fought through
the rough treatment for several minutes, but only until one giant skin-headed
man in a KU jersey slammed a bowling ball sized fist into her midsection,
taking the air and most of the fight from her as she doubled over in agony,
barely feeling the other men beating on her back and kicking her as her legs
gave out. The next uppercut crunched the cartilage in her nose and loosened at
least one tooth and another punch followed to her jaw that sent a sickening,
jolting crack of chain-lightning through her entire skull, which quickly
teleported into her fingers and toes and skittered inward again from there
dragging hooked chains along her nerves and muscles as it went. Certain her jaw
had broken, the pain would have forced a scream had even half of a breath remained
in her crumpled chest.