Highway To Armageddon (9 page)

           
“Soon the U.S. started building Sanctuary cities for rich people who could
afford to live there. We now have 50 Sanctuary cities scattered throughout
Canada and Alaska. This was in response to exploding crime rates all over the
country. The depression forced the country to radically slash their budgets,
laying off thousands of police officers. This allowed crime to flourish, a
problem that exists to this day.

           
“War erupted in the east, too. The Chinese Empire was reeling from the growing
Gobi Desert and receding coast lines. Their population was (and still is) much
larger than ours, so they decided to invade their massive neighbor to the
north, Russia. That’s why the news is always filled with reports of Russian
terrorists waging a guerrilla war against their Chinese overlords.

           
“The entire continent of Africa basically transformed into a giant desert,
forcing hundreds of millions of Africans to migrate up through Europe. The
Middle East became a barren wasteland as well. Europe quickly devolved into a
bastion of hatred and discrimination, as the traditionally white population
grew resentment over the influx of African and Arabic immigrants. Germany
became gripped in the same racist, fascist fever that propelled it to world war
in the 20
^th
century. Great Britain and other surrounding countries
followed suit. Immigrants were rounded up and routinely beaten, jailed, and
massacred. The entire continent of Europe is now basically a Neo Nazi-esque
wasteland cut off from the rest of the world. No one knows how many ethnic
immigrants have succumbed to this new Holocaust, but it is rumored to be in the
tens of millions.”

           
“Omigosh, that’s terrible!” Harpoon cries.

           
“Yeah, this isn’t exciting anymore,” Blade says, looking a little sick in the
face.

           
“History is saturated with such atrocities,” I say sadly. “100 years ago such
crimes would have been condemned by the international community. There was a
coalition of nations called NATO that helped overthrow genocidal regimes. Alas,
that was a long time ago. Now genocide is met with a
shrug.      

           
“Pretty soon the U.S. and China had invaded all the available arable land on
Earth, with the exception of Europe, which, like I said, became cut off from
the rest of the world. During those tumultuous years
billions
of people
perished, most of it from famine and drought. America controlled the entire
Western Hemisphere while China ruled the Eastern Hemisphere. For years it
looked like both empires were headed for war, but then Angela Klaxton was
elected the 65
^th
president of the United States during the 2128
presidential election. She knew war with China would end all life as we know
it, so she signed a peace treaty with Empress Xing’s parents a few months after
taking office. The world has been relatively peaceful ever since, save for
Russian and Canadian terrorist activity. Of course, things between the U.S. and
China have grown heated over the past several months, mostly due to Mikhail
Rasputin’s terrorist attacks, but a new war is highly unlikely. Both empires
must realize a world war would lead to the end of all life as we know it.”

           
“My teacher says President Klaxton has been in power longer than any president
in history,” Blade says. “Is that true?”

           
“Yes, it is,” I say gloomily. “She altered the 22
^nd
amendment
halfway through her second term, allowing unlimited term limits. She’s won in a
landslide ever since. I fear the days of America being a representative
democracy are over. Klaxton is more of dictator nowadays than a president.”

           
I look over to see Blade typing feverishly. “Uh, why don’t you leave out the
part about Klaxton being a dictator,” I say nervously. “I don’t want to give
the government a reason to investigate us.”

           
Blade grumbles as he deletes some of what he wrote.

           
“So what’s going on with the climate?” Harpoon asks. “Isn’t the planet getting
better? That’s what my teacher says.”

           
“Yes and no,” I reply honestly. “While a lot of the destruction to our planet
is irreversible… mass extinctions, razed rainforests, vaporized glaciers and
ice caps… a lot is being done to stabilize Earth’s fever. Millions of artificial
trees have been planted in deserts throughout the world, most notably in the
Amazon, the Sahara, and the Gobi. These trees suck carbon dioxide and methane
gas out of the atmosphere, and that gas is then injected underground in
limestone formations. We also have thousands of sunlight-reflecting mirrors
strategically placed in orbit, deflecting just enough sunlight to help lower
temperatures by a few degrees. In recent years there’s been a mass infusion of
algae in the oceans. This algae sucks even more carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere. Giant sulfur generating machines in the Arctic and Antarctic also
help put a dent in rising temperatures. And of course we’re all aware of the
artificial rainstorms the U.S. and China are continuously churning out. All of
these geo-engineering projects have stabilized temperatures
somewhat
,
but we are a long way from getting them back down to early 20
^th
century levels.”

           
“Well at least things won’t get worse,” Harpoon replies gloomily. “It still
sucks all those awesome animals died, like tigers, polar bears and pandas. We
learned about them in science class, and they look neat.”

           
Blade continues tapping away on his holographic keyboard. “Gee, thanks Boom
Boom! I’m gonna sound smart when I read this in class tomorrow.”

           
“I’ll be sure to tell Ms. Taylor that Boom Boom told you what to wrote,”
Harpoon says smugly.

           
Blade pushes her, and of course Harpoon shoves him back.

           
“Knock it off, you two,” I say curtly. “And Harpoon, don’t rat out your
brother. No one likes a tattle-tale.”

           
“Oh alright,” Harpoon grumbles. I almost feel bad for ruining her fun.

           
I try to make up for it by asking, “So what is your paper about again?”

           
“Oh, I was just writing about how bounty hunters are now being used to fight
crime, where back in the day it was left to cops.”

           
“I can actually help you with this, squirt,” Lance says. “Back in the day we
had giant police forces that were able to keep crime under control. After the
depression hit, local governments went bankrupt. Now they can only afford a
handful of cops, and since they can’t pay them well, most of them are corrupt.
The federal government decided the best way to handle the exploding crime rate
was to outsource crime-fighting to bounty hunters. The government decides who
has broken what laws and, if they can’t capture the crooks with the local
police, they put a bounty on their heads. The bigger the crook, the bigger the
bounty.”

           
“Wait a minute,” Blade says as he finishes up his report. “If the government
can’t afford to pay for cops, how can they afford to pay you guys?”

           
“Good question,” I say. “Think of it this way. The U.S. would probably need
close to a million cops to handle all the crime plaguing the nation. They would
have to pay untold billions for all those salaries, health benefits, and
pensions. Instead, they can charge $100,000 to capture say, a major drug lord,
and leave all the work of capturing that drug lord to thousands of freelance
bounty hunters.”

           
“Oh, I get it,” Harpoon says. “The government basically gets thousands of
people working for them for free.”

           
“Yep,” I say. “Sure the government has to pay a large fee when one of us
finally nabs a crook, but it’s a fraction of the cost they would have spent on
a massive police force. It’s basically a clever way for Klaxton to get the
country to police itself.”

           
I spend the next several minutes looking over Blade’s paper while Lance heads
into his room. (I don’t bother helping Harpoon, she gets straight A’s.) I just
finish fixing all of Blade’s typos when Lance walks by with a joint in his
mouth.

           
“Lance, I told you to stop smoking that crap!”

           
“Get off my back. I use this for medical purposes. I was set on fire, you
know.”

           
“You can at least not do it in front of the kids!”

           
“Fine, I’ll go up to the roof.” Lance presses a button on the wall and stairs
descend from the skylight. He jogs up the stairs, opens the window, and steps
out.

           
“I better never catch any of you doing drugs,” I say to the kids.

           
“We won’t,” Harpoon and Blade grumble.

           
I’m so furious I storm into my room and slam the door. I’m angry at Lance for
smoking, but I’m also mad at myself for being a hypocrite. He uses marijuana to
ease his pain, while I use pain pills. If Lance ever found out I was addicted
to them, I’d never hear the end of it.

           
I type in the password to the lock on my drawer and open it. Inside are several
pill bottles. I pick the strongest ones and gulp down three of them.

           
I feel myself fighting back tears. I always get like this after a big mission,
especially if we’ve all been beaten up. I don’t know how much longer I can take
this. It can’t be healthy for the average person to constantly be strangled,
beaten, and shot. If only we could find an easier way to make money. Or even
just make enough from one apprehension to take a one or two year break. Caesar
was supposed to be that break, and of course that didn’t work out.

           
I wait for the pain pills to take effect. They finally do, numbing the pain
that seems to wrack my entire body every second of every day. But even though
the physical pain has receded, the emotional trauma still lingers. Every day I
feel like I’m losing more and more of my mind. I’m not sure if it’s the pills,
our insane lifestyle, the stress of caring for Blade and Harpoon, or a
combination of everything. I do my best to hold myself together, but it’s been
so hard without Dagger. He was like a father figure to me. Whenever we had
problems, he knew how to fix them. Now I don’t have anyone to go to… no one to
ask for advice, to hold me when I’m on the brink of despair, to tell me
everything will be okay. Lance tries to fill that void the best he can, but
unfortunately the void is too large… too deep. No matter how hard I try, I
can’t stop the tears from pouring down my cheeks.

           
I’m not sure how long I sit there with my head in my hands, sobbing quietly,
but I finally look up when there’s a knock on the door.

           
I wipe my eyes and sniff repeatedly to clear my congested sinuses. “Come in!”

           
The door slowly opens and Lance’s head appears.

           
“What?” I snap. “Can’t I have a little privacy?”

           
Normally Lance would respond sarcastically. Instead he says, “You need to see
this.”

           
He then walks away.

           
Lance isn’t good at hiding his emotions. When he’s in a goofy mood, he acts
goofy. When he’s mad, he’s mad; when he’s sad, he’s sad; and when he’s serious,
he’s always serious. And this time, he’s serious.

           
I jump up and glance around the room. My heart skips a beat when I notice the
pill bottle sitting on the dresser. I wonder if Lance saw it. I shove the
bottle in my drawer and lock it.

           
I rush into the living room and almost run into Krystal, who is standing in
front of the holographic TV in her bathrobe. She has her goofy new wig on.
Blade and Harpoon are on the couch, looking bored. Lance, however, has a grim
look on his face. The live newsfeed is paused. He must have stopped it for me.

           
“I rewound it to the beginning,” he says. “It just came on a few minutes ago.”

           
Lance waves his hand and the newsfeed unfreezes. The young, blonde reporter is
sitting in front of the camera, with her finger near her ear. After a few
seconds of awkward silence she looks directly at the camera and says, “Sorry
folks, I was just being fed some breaking news. We have received word that
wanted fugitive Caesar Dominguez has released a video.”

           
The screen goes black for a few seconds, then Caesar appears. The footage is
grainy, but it’s obvious it’s him. He is sitting in a chair, and Maxwell is by
his side.

           
“Greetings,” Caesar begins. “Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know
who I am. I would hate to waste everyone’s precious time, so let me get
straight to the point. Unlike our worthless government, I understand people are
hurting. I know times are tough. I’ve done my best over the years to employ
people, but the government has made that exceedingly difficult by cracking down
on my very popular business ventures. They view me as a criminal, even though I
think most of you would agree that the
government
is far more cruel and
sadistic than I could ever hope to be. We all have had friends and family
members arrested by Klaxton’s secret police. A lot of those arrested are never
seen from again. The few that are released are never quite the same. Merciless
torture can do that to the strongest of individuals.”