Grand Junction (14 page)

Jade Silverskin thinks these two things are closely connected.

And Vegas Orlando, it turns out, is easy to convince.

*   *   *

The antique 2006 Buick has managed by some miracle to reach one of the highest peaks of Carbon City. From there, it dominates the surrounding slag heaps and even the enormous junkyard of Big Bag Recyclo. It also faces the rocky butte of BlackSky Ridge. It faces the orange-colored capsule homes scattered around its heights. It faces the place where the man from Texas is supposed to turn up at any minute.

Vegas Orlando will not return to the capsule park; that would be a mistake made in panic, just as making himself known to this man, the UManHome park renter, would be. Men talk. That is what men do. And it often costs them their lives.

He will monitor the stranger’s movements from here; it is the perfect observation point. From here he has a full 360-degree view of New Arizona, the American refugees’ neocolony; of the immense north-south expanse of Vortex Townships; of the hardly smaller east-west stretch of Autostrada; and of all the other, isolated townships—Neo Pepsico, Little Congo, Tin Machine, Snake Zone, and, farther to the south, Ultrabox, Toy Division, Leatherneck Mills, Powder Station, and Midnight Oil. Everything is there under his gaze, spread out like a giant map.

The whole city is at his feet, displaying itself to him like a little whore mechanically doing her striptease act. The whole city is waiting now, waiting for the coming storm.

The sand twists in bright pointillist serpents across the earth; the sky is dirty gray overlaid with bronze. To the south, an ochre wall rises into the clouds; the storm, on its way from Pennsylvania, will cover the whole state; there is no doubt about that. It will probably not die until it reaches Quebec, north of the Territory.

All over the slag heaps and throughout the surrounding slums, men are busying themselves around the windmills and photovoltaic transducers, enveloping them in large plastic tarpaulins so that no flying sand can affect the precious mechanisms.

Dozens of micro-tornadoes whirl in the sky and whip through the town like so many ghosts made of sand and wind, quasi-ectoplasmic figures dancing on the coal heaps and in the gravel pits, on the mountains of garbage, and among the colonies of motley makeshift shelters where men cower fearfully.

Vegas Orlando feels a strange impression come over him. An oddly hard determination; a cold anger, as cold as what is driving him—that is,
the desire to survive at any cost, even at the cost of others’ lives. An anger toward all those who still have the possibility of imagining a future for themselves, an unspeakable anger, even, toward the man of whom he knows nothing except that he might, perhaps, be in a position to defeat evil itself.

It is the “perhaps” that is proving unbearable. The “perhaps” that is fueling Orlando’s anger.

Thanks to Silverskin’s little operation, his life expectancy has just doubled. He will have enough time for the androgynous doctor to conduct the biological tests necessary for the implantation of the nanoprocessor. Enough for Orlando to learn as much as he can about the man from Texas.

He has come from so far away. There must be a reason.

The man worked, before the Fall, on the vital systems of the Metastructure.

The reason for his coming must have something to do with the Metastructure. And especially with its death.

And if it has to do with the death of the Metastructure, it has to do with the survival of every human being in the territory.

In the entire world, even.

But above all, it has to do with Orlando’s own survival, his survival as the former young prince of Little Congo, and as a new member of Junkville’s community of the living dead. It has to do with his future, his past, his present. It has to do with him, more than anything else in this world. It has to do with what is absolutely essential.

Here, winter storms are the most violent. It is in winter that three opposing forces—hot, humid winds from the Gulf of Mexico, cold winds from the Arctic, and very hot, dry winds from the Midwest and central Canada—collide in the upper atmosphere to create “supercells” whose titanic storms can generate lightning powerful enough to reduce kilometers of woods to ashes.

The approaching storm won’t be on that scale, but in an hour or two it will have reached the city limits, and in three hours visibility will be reduced to nothing. And the whole town will huddle enclosed in its makeshift huts.

The whole Territory will be at the mercy of the desert’s power. Every man will be subject to the laws of the sand.

Everyone. Even them.

“How do you know this guy is from Little Congo; do you know him?”

It is Chrysler who has just spoken; he is talking to Leo MacMillan, the BlackSky renter, and he has been controlling the conversation all along.

They are here, all four of them—Yuri, Chrysler, Pluto Saint-Clair, and the Professor. Above them, the sky is deep gold. The southern horizon is filled with a wall resembling a million swarms of hornets flying in their direction. From here, they can see the entire city. To the southwest are the high black buttes of Carbon City. Yuri can still clearly discern the desert expanse of New Arizona, with its sparse dunes among the rocks, its thousands of makeshift houses gleaming like shells deposited by the tide.

They are here, all four of them, around Leo MacMillan.

Yuri contemplates the Professor, who has just gathered his things from one of the neighboring orange capsules.

They had a good amount of time to get to know one another—a few hours, this morning. He and Chrysler learned a lot. Much more than they expected.

But still not enough. Not quite enough. Just enough to convince them of the validity of what they already knew, and of the fact that they must lead the Professor directly to what he is seeking.

They must take him to Milan Djordjevic.

They must take him to the father of their secret.

“No, Mr. Campbell; I don’t know him, but he used to be a pimp in the northern part of the city. I frequented several of them, but they all look alike.”

“Can you describe him for us?”

The old man grimaces in disappointment. “I don’t see very well anymore; my optical implants aren’t operational, and my glasses only help a little.”

“Can you give us a description? Yes or no.”

“Well, he was dark—yes; black hair, very black. And a sort of beard, or maybe a mustache, I’m not sure … he didn’t stay for more than a minute; I told you—”

“If you can’t see very well, what makes you say that he’s a pimp in Little Congo?”

The old man shifts from one foot to the other, hesitating. “It’s true, Mr. Campbell; I can’t see details, but I can make out the whole. He was wearing one of those 1970s orange suits. That’s a trademark of the pimps in Little Congo. I’m almost sure of it.”

“What else?”

“He drove a goddamned huge gasoline-powered red Buick from the turn of the century. An antique. The thing was sparkling clean. Like a Ferrari. Polished until it shone like a diamond. That’s the sort of detail that doesn’t go unnoticed in Junkville.”

Yuri says nothing; does not move at all; keeps his face totally impassive.

Always keep your distance
, repeats Chrysler Campbell’s voice in his head.

A red Buick. A gasoline-powered “midsize” sedan from the turn of the century, just like the one he accidentally brushed this morning while driving at the bottom of the mesa. He’d better plan the right moment to tell Chrysler—and
only
Chrysler—about it.

“Okay, then,” Chrysler is saying at that moment. “Bright orange suit. Red Buick. That’s an excellent beginning. What did he say to you? What exactly did he ask you?”

“He asked me if the renter in Capsule 14 was at home. I said no.”

“That’s it?”

“No. He asked me if I knew when he was coming back. I said I didn’t. I asked him if he wanted to leave a message with me. He said no and turned right around. He got into his red Buick and drove away to the north. That’s how I know that—”

“All right, Mr. MacMillan. He asked for the renter in Capsule 14; is that what you just told us?”

Yuri sees Chrysler’s gaze flick for an instant to the man who just arrived, and who has already been scoped out by the local mafia. The man from Texas. The man who knows the father of Link de Nova. The man who had worked on the last, fatal update of the Metastructure.

The man who has brought chaos with him. The man who might, perhaps, be the means to recreate a World.

“Yes, Mr. Campbell. That’s what he asked me. In those words.”

“So he didn’t ask for a certain Mr. Untel, or just Untel?”

“No, sir. That would have been pointless anyway; I don’t know the man’s identity. Pluto asked me to keep it anonymous on the capsule-park register. He’s under Jack Black, and that’s the only name I know him by.”

The old man points his chin in the Professor’s direction.

Pluto had been very careful to ensure that the Professor’s anonymity would be preserved. Very astute of him, thinks Yuri.

Very astute. But not enough.

Not enough here in Junkville, where the tiniest fragment of information spreads as fast as sand at the heart of a storm.

Pluto was right to insist that the Professor move immediately, but it is already too late, he says to himself, watching the yellow-gray wave rise in the sky, looming over the Territory.

The wave will crash soon enough. It is both a sign and an event that will push them to take desperate measures.

He watches a tall black tornado growing atop one of Carbon City’s hills, just across from them. The wind is beginning to lash their faces, striking them with tiny, sharp, innumerable crystals of silica.

Chrysler continues his interrogation imperturbably. He continues to act, as is his habit, with the sangfroid of a machine. He has been well
trained by this World, Yuri muses to himself. He might even be able to fight it, as if in an MMA ring.

“Did you notice any special details about him? I don’t know, a distinctive scar or some other mark?”

“Nothing except that fucking suit and his Buick … but, wait—yes, in fact—the guy didn’t seem to be in very good shape.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hard to say. He looked feverish, and he was shivering. Looked like maybe one of his implants was breaking down. But that isn’t exactly uncommon these days, is it?”

Yuri gazes at the black mass of Carbon City, at the frozen image of the monumental advance guard that will soon rush in on the whole Territory.

“Do you have any idea of this man’s identity, other than the fact that he lives in Little Congo?”

“I know a few pimps there, I told you, that used to be on the Monolith Hills strip. They could probably tell you something.”

Yuri continues to stare at Carbon City’s inky peaks, but out of the corner of his eye he can perceive a typical change of frequency in his friend’s brain. It is their unique mutual brand of telepathy.

And he knows exactly what Chrysler is thinking, not least because he has arrived at the same conclusion himself, at the same time. At the same instant, in the same place.

If the BlackSky renter knows pimps in Little Congo, and if the man in the orange suit is really from that township, this connection might prove very useful as a source of firsthand information.

But that also means that Mr. Leo MacMillan probably talks to those pimps, too. And since all the pimps know one another, especially the ones in the same township, then everything Mr. MacMillan has just told them, as insignificant as it might seem, will have also reached the ears of the man who is looking for the Professor.

Yuri also understands that Chrysler is hesitant to deliver the death blow—to ask the old man straight out who he has told about the arrival of the man from Texas.

“What language did he speak?” Chrysler asks, hopelessly.

“He was from the south of the Territory, I’d say. A native English speaker for sure.”

The heights of Carbon City jut, black, into the exploding yellow sky.

Pure-black density. Waves of coal standing immobile against the undertow of the sandy tide.

Black, completely black. Huge pyramids slicing into the depths of this night that has fallen on the Earth.

So black. So utterly black.

No.

Except there.

Except there. On the summit just across from them, in the second of the staggered rows of peaks behind the burgeoning spiral of the micro-tornado. There, on that point that reaches as high as the mesa they are standing on.

A red spot.

Brilliant red.

Maintaining its shine even under a sky so filled with the dark clouds of the oncoming storm.

Bright red. Very bright.

Given the apparent distance, it is as big as a car.

He looks at Chrysler, careful not to let any emotion show on his face. He takes a breath and says, cold as ice:

“Chrysler, I’m going to check something in the truck.”

Chrysler throws a frigid but intense glance at Yuri.
He understands
, thinks Yuri to himself.
He understands that something has happened
.

Something that must be investigated at all possible speed.

The Schmidt & Bender binoculars are at least fifty years old, but they work fantastically. Thanks to Link de Nova, all their processors are operational; there are two day modes—full-light and half-light—and three night-vision modes. The laser range finder works as well. The binoculars are worth as much as a weapon.

A whole arsenal of weapons.

Which is exactly why they are in the truck, along with a cache of guns. Under the passenger seat in a hidey-hole made of an aluminum box, well concealed but easily extractable from their place of concealment. There is a Sig Sauer P226, fifteen-shot and double-barreled. There is the Texan Taser Yuri uses quite often. And under the driver’s seat, in a similar hiding place, there is the standard U.S. Army Beretta from the turn of the century that is Chrysler’s weapon of choice, as well as his electric billy
club and his own Taser. The two automatic pistols use nine-millimeter bullets—the same ammunition, and thus interchangeable. They are sturdy, precise, and very reliable weapons. The kind of weapons that were dismissed as antiques before the Fall, during the era of hyperkinetic micromunitions and magnetic propulsion rifles. Today, these are practically weapons of mass destruction. Not to mention the slide-action, 12-caliber, nine-round Mossberg 590 machine gun and the big-game-hunting shotgun, both also using the same type of bullets, and the Winchester SX3 Composite semiautomatic, fitted with a self-loading system, that are stashed beneath the pickup’s narrow backseat.