The Wake-up Bell, the VoxPop Network,
Two mornings after the signing of the HERO Act
Judge Angelo Novello shook his head and smiled. “I don’t understand, Campbell, didn’t the Ninth Circuit used to be on your side?”
“If the Supremes uphold the injunction, what happens to our tax cut?”
“The measure is completely severable, so the cuts will stand. Of course, without spending cuts it doesn’t make any difference. One way or another we’re going to pay for it, even if they inflate the debt away.”
“Then what’s your prediction, Judge?” asked Campbell. “Will the High Court uphold the injunction, or deliver the HERO Act intact and in toto?”
“HERO Act.” Novello grimaced. “Calling it a ‘HERO’ Act. That’s almost offensive enough by itself. American Partisan politics has been replete with lies since its inception. The founders of America’s first political party were all central authority nationalists, but they called themselves ‘Federalists,’ in spite of it. That left the actual federalists (including the authors of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolution themselves, probably the strongest federalist statements in American legal history) to call themselves ‘Democratic Republicans’ which survives today as the Democrat party, the oldest living political party on Earth.”
Campbell laced her fingers together. “Where are you going with this, Judge?”
“It’s just that, as those contrary names stuck, so too did the mendacious traditions of our bipartisan representatives. They continue to flaunt their falsehoods, from the PATRIOT Act (which was anything but if you had any respect for the Bill of Rights), to the ‘Affordable’ Care Act, to Net Neutrality. Rest assured, Campbell, if the Congress passed a ‘Puppies and Rainbows Act’ a careful reading of the bill would reveal its true designs to incinerate enough puppies to put enough smoke into the air to make rainbows invisible.”
The Mind of the Algorithm, Cyberspace
After receiving its final input from the Congress Assembled, the Algorithm selected the primary Reconstruction Zone, but its work was far from over.
It began a closer evaluation of the demographics of the region. It looked at weather related and other natural catastrophes. At the history of the region, as Union and Rebel and Tribal and Colonial and Imperial forces had all left casualties in their wakes. At infestations and floods and crop failures and famines. At failing and marginal industrial centers and at the concentrations of tax eating liabilities queueing up for disability and unemployment and AFDC and WIC and EBT and HeadStart. Which neighborhoods had the highest ratios of assets to income and which were closest to retirement or the most on relief? The Algorithm studied the statistical correlations between racial groups and their proclivities to diabetes and sickle-cell anemia and melanoma. Which neighborhoods consumed the most tobacco and alcohol and ibuprofen and diet cola? Which workplaces reported the most accidents? Where were the most heavily populated nursing homes, sanitaria, and retirement villages?
As it answered these questions it shared its decisions with the Revenue Officers, tasked with their twin missions of Resource Recovery and Tax Base Enrichment. They erected barriers across side streets and along embankments, strung tape down the centers of boulevards, and diverted traffic out of the zone or in deeper for processing.
As the Revenue Officers patrolled the perimeter and prosecuted their writs, they reported their progress to the Algorithm. It tracked the operation overall and constantly reassessed and redefined the mission. Sometimes it closed off whole regions to further processing, and sometimes it declared a local natural disaster.
Team Sheridan, Squad Whiteman, Zone Perimeter Patrol
“Urkel, you copy?”
Hakim keyed his vest and sighed. “This is Whiteman. Go.” He held up his rifle and his squad halted.
“Algorithm just identified a geographic in your neighborhood. Coming onto your pad now.”
Hakim unplugged his ear-piece and turned up the volume. “Say again, Sheridan. Over.” He lifted his pad so his squad could hear.
“I say you got a geographic. Up slope by mostly east of your position, Binder Creek leads into a series of natural lakes and isolated hamlets. Metrics show you got some serious bounty in the lower canyon, so that’s our honey pot. Also got serious liabilities in the upper canyons – it’s an odd cluster of pensioned GIs, “Oath Keepers,” pro-lifers, tax protesters, and registered Libertarians. Mostly old, but mostly armed, so be careful.”
“Copy, Sheridan. You sending a truck for disposition?”
“Negative, Urkel. I repeat. It’s a geographic, like a flood or a twister. Command is adjusting your squad’s Caps to compensate, so don’t sweat the hygiene. Details and a map on your pad. Protect the assets, but otherwise sterilize that valley.”
“About fucking time! Let’s go fishing!” Reed and half the squad hooted and pumped their fists in the air.
“Can it!” Hakim holstered his pad. “Line up and move out. Clark, take point, Gooden, hang back.” He pointed down the trail that led to Binder Creek, fell in behind Officer Clark, and the men moved out.
On the Bus with Jean & the Kids from the Freedom School
“Professor Jean?”
The driver of the bus, headmistress of “Professor Slate’s School for Free Souls and Gifted Students” pulled the bud from her ear, turned around, and flipped up her sunglasses. “Yes Nelson? How are your arms?”
“How much longer do you think it’s gonna be?” Nelson Ferguson was hanging onto the strap so his sweat could dry after its clammy embrace from the vinyl upholstery. His useless legs denied him the comfort of fidgeting. “We’re still an hour from Cave Park as it is!”
“It’s late May, Ferg!” Gilbert Capiello, seated two rows behind him on the short bus, pulled his face out of his kindle. “Chill! We still got hours of daylight!”
“Chill yourself, Capp! Will hours be enough? It would be kinda nice to be able to set up closer to facilities too, you know? Wheels and campgrounds don’t go together so neat, you know?”
“That’s ‘neatly’ you Neanderthal,” said Gilbert. “Larn ta talk Amurrikin!”
“Lick yourself,” answered Ferg.
“Boys…” Lance Fein, seated in the back row, looked up from his book. As much as the rest of the parents loved and respected Jean Slate, Lance knew that even good teen-aged boys could get a little out of hand. He remembered what other daughters looked like to him when he was their age. While his own nine-year-old, seated next to him, was mostly off their radar, the older girls could still stand some looking after. “This is uncomfortable for us all, gentlemen. Barking at each other won’t help. And it’s Neander-Tall, with a tee sound, not a theta.”
“It’s German,” said David Shing, sitting across the aisle and one row back from Ferg, “and therefore brutal. Cro-Magnon, however, is French and refined.”
“Elite, effete, and too toot suite!” Said Cayenne Wile, sitting lengthwise on her bench, her head against the glass and her sketch pad propped on her knees.
“Merci, M’seur Shing, Ma’m’selle Wile.” Fein stood. “How about you Mr Ferguson? How are you holding up?”
“Yeah,” he said, still hanging from the strap. “My arms could use a break. Could I get down now?”
“And boogie?” asked David.
“Sure…” Lance stepped forward.
“I’m on it!” Stephen Odenweller, thirteen, tall, and going on two hundred pounds, sat across the aisle from Nelson. He sprang to his feet, picked up the older boy, and gently placed him back into his seat. As Nelson was settled again against the hot vinyl, to resume the sweat-and-dry cycle, Stephen turned back to his own seat and said, “Something going on up front.” He pointed.
“Police lights,” said Cayenne. “About time. Maybe we’ll get moving soon.” She flipped over the cover onto her sketch and turned to look, leaning over the back of David’s seat. Many of the other students leaned out of their windows or crowded up to the front of the bus. Sitting higher than average, they were able to see farther over the top of the traffic jam. In the distance were signs of motion.
The highway patrol, or somebody, was directing cars onto the emergency shoulder and leading them out of the pack.
“Looks like they’re cherry-picking the rescues.”
“Typical. Probably the one per cent. Or white privilege.”
“What are you talking white privilege? You’re whiter than I am! You’re only a quarter Jamaican. I’m half Puerto Rican.”
“Yeah, well I’m also a quarter Jew, so screw you!”
“So what? Jews are white now, so it doesn’t make any difference!”
“Children, please!” Jean Slate raised two fingers and Lance Fein and Jonah Wile, the parent chaperons on the bus, both shouted. All were silent, but not for long.
“It’s moving.” Nelson Ferguson pointed forward, and everybody looked again. Gradually the cluster before them was inching forward as gaps downstream were tightened up. As the bus lurched into motion again the students scrambled into their seats, their spirits mollified by the measured progress.
They came to another stop, on a crest overlooking the road before them. Between them and the next rise was a sea of hot air shimmering off the sunbaked fleet. In motion along the inside utility lane was a squad of cruisers with spinning blue lights. Some had carved out zones so that officers could park or turn around.
As the student watched they could see officers stopping and interviewing motorists. Sometimes civilian cars were led into the utility lane and out of the pack. Sometimes one or two passengers were removed from vehicles and escorted into other cars which also disappeared over the next crest, but sometimes stopped and picked up more passengers. Sometimes officers commandeered craft, taking them out the utility lane themselves, or packing them tight along the right shoulder.
After about half an hour the troops had worked themselves back to them. “They’re heeeeere!” crooned the children as knuckles rapped on the side of the bus.
Jean opened the door and an officer stepped in. He was clad in gray digitized camo-fatigues. Jean recognized the black and blue and white shoulder patches that she’d seen on-line. Her jaw clenched as the HERO greeted her. “Jean Slate?”
“Yes? Who? How did — ?”
He smiled. “Lieutenant Paul R’Ayneau. Your phone told your car, and your car told me.” He looked down the length of the bus and tapped his pad. The older children and adults exchanged glances. The growing realization passed from face to face. This was it. They were in it. What did the Algorithm have against them?
“Looks like only half these kids are carrying phones or bankcards right now, and not all these faces match. Likely parents’… So… mostly unknown for now.” He tapped and read a little bit more. “Confirmed adults present, Professor Slate, are yourself, and Mr Lance Fein and Mr Jonah Wile.” He nodded to the men.
“That’s right, officer. Mr Wile and Mr Fein and I were taking the children, my students, camping this weekend.”
R’Ayneau nodded. “Yeah. Change of plans. You got a class list of the children? We’ll be wanting to contact their parents.”
She smiled and tapped her forehead.
He laughed and waved his pad at her. “Yeah, well… the matrix doesn’t quite reach that far into your head, Prof. Not yet anyways. I’m gonna want you to write that down for me, please. Mr Fein?” He turned.
“Yeah?” Fein stood up.
“Daddy what is it?” Alicia’s head tilted as her dead eyes stared forward.
“Don’t worry, ’Lish, you just be still.” Fein stepped forward as more officers entered the bus and stationed themselves near the front.
“That would be your daughter, sir?” R’Ayneau glanced at his pad. “Alicia? Nine years old, blind since birth?”
“That’s right. What’s this about?”
“We’re going to need you to come with us, sir. You and your girl, both.”
“What? You’ve no right – ” Jean bolted out of her seat but before she could go one more step or word further the rearmost guard stepped back and into Jean’s space and fixed her gaze with his own. For a couple of beats no one on board uttered a breath, then Jean slowly sat down.
“Very prudent, Professor. Now, Mr Fein, let’s not have any fuss. For your girl’s sake. For these kids’.”
“Come on, honey.” Fein took Alicia’s had and began to lead her up the length of the bus.
As R’Ayneau passed between Nelson Ferguson and Stephen Odenweller, Odenweller shot up out of his seat and wrapped his meaty arms around R’Ayneau’s frame, who seemed to drop and twist and pull and strike and rise all at once and suddenly Stephen found himself face first into the floor between his seat and the one in front of it with an intense burning pain in his right arm. “I could break this,” said R’Ayneau, softly, “or you could promise to be a very good boy and sit in your seat quietly.”
“Let me up!”
“You heard me. Now choose.”
“Let me up! I promise!”
“You promise what, boy? This is supposed to be a ‘school for gifted students.’ You should remember what I said. You promise what?”
“I promise to be a very good boy and sit in my seat quietly.”
R’Ayneau released him and stepped back as Stephen crawled back into his seat, snuffling and crying. “Now… Let’s not have any more trouble. Mr Fein?”
Lance and Alicia walked up the length of the bus and out. The rest of them watched in silence as they were escorted into a waiting cruiser.
Lt R’Ayneau stepped back into the bus. “Folks, this thing could take some sorting out. Meantime we’ll be handing out relief and such and setting up some potty stations along the shoulder, so we’ll be in touch. Hang tight on that for a bit. But first,” his mood darkened. “Who belongs to that wheelchair strapped to the back?”
The bus was silent. Nelson Ferguson’s mouth was dry. As he opened it to confess, no sound would emerge. Before anyone else noticed the motion, Jean spoke, “Oh! What? That? That belongs to the school! You never know. ADA, right? We also have first aid kits and fire extinguishers. You know what they say, officer. ‘When seconds count the EMTs are minutes away!’”
R’Ayneau looked at Professor Slate while Nelson sweat in silent anguish, then he frowned. “Took you long enough to answer me, Professor.”
“What? Oh!” She tapped her pencil against the notebook in her lap. “I’m sorry, Officer, I was distracted. Trying to drag out phone numbers for you.” She tapped the pencil on her forehead. “You still want that class list, right?”
He surveyed the faces in the bus again and they all smiled and nodded. His pad pinged and he looked at it. “Hold off on that list for a minute, ma’am. The Algorithm thinks fast.” He read a list, and the students all looked up as their names were called, apprehension darkening their faces. “Your parents are waiting for you outside the Zone.” They remained seated. “It’s all right, we’ll escort you to the proper checkpoints.” The children remained in their seats.
Jean Slate had read enough about the HERO Act to at least be comforted by the cold logic of it. All the students that the officer had named came from families well able to afford a private education and none of them had any serious health issues. In the eyes of the Algorithm their prospects were bright, as net taxpayers, for decades to come.
She stood up and nodded to the students, then began to assist them with their luggage. Stephen sprang to his feet again to help with the heavy lifting but when R’Ayneau gave him a dose of stink-eye he sank back into his seat. Somberly, the students collected their things and made their way forward, pausing to hug their classmates as they filed past.
After R’Ayneau had escorted them to the waiting van he stepped back into the bus. “We’ll still be wanting a list, ma’am, for the kids who are left. And we appreciate you staying with ’em for now. Algorithm shows you from out of the Zone and solid green, so don’t you worry at all for yourself. For now, these kids could use a friendly face and a reliable authority figure. Am I right?” She nodded. He turned and addressed the rest of the manifest. “Hang tough, folks. Water should be here within the half hour. We’ll have most of you home long before midnight.” Again he leaned back into Jean’s space and tapped the pad in her lap. “That list, ma’am. Please. Anonymous bearer bankcards are a dirty trick – worse than cash!”
After he left Professor Jean assured the rest that their just departed friends would be fine, that they were all healthy kids from stable families.
“Yeah. Just the sort of cash cows the Algorithm wants for its next crop.”
“Mr Shing,” said Jonah, “you’re not helping.”
Shing smiled and shrugged, then dove back into the game he was playing. His console began to beep. “Dang! Professor Jean – ”
“No David. Or anyone else. You may not charge your devices from the bus’ battery. We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. Read something. Or revisit the art of conversation. Surely someone has a deck of cards…”
“Got ’em!” said Sixto Kraska, who began rummaging through the sack at his side. “I didn’t bring my cribbage board, but I can peg on paper.”
“You’re on,” said Shing, who got up and moved.
“Are you insane, Odie?” hissed Nelson. “Jumpin’ that cop like that, you’re lucky you didn’t get your neck broke.”
“I couldn’t let ’em take Alicia and Mr Fein like that. You know what this is. You know what’s happening to them.”
“But jumpin’ the guy, Odie? When you’re outmatched and outgunned like that? That’s a loser move, bro. You see me freaking out? You’re gonna be fine, if you don’t stupid yourself into a corner again. Once they find out I can’t walk, though, what kind of cash cow does that make me? My family’s been getting aid for as long as I know. You think I don’t know what’s coming?” He opened his windbreaker enough for Stephen to glimpse the butt of Ferguson’s three-eighty. As the Freedom School also offered marksmanship and shooting safety (there was a firing range on their rural campus) most of the students were familiar with firearms and not so inclined as their urban counterparts to be startled at their sight. “I’m not going down alone, brother, so you might want to keep clear when Officer Jackboot comes back for me.”
The Mind of the Algorithm
“If you like THIS book, check out THESE!” may be to the Algorithm’s subconscious as “eat or be eaten” is to our own lizard brains. The Algorithm, that vast analytical optimization program written under the authority of the HERO Act, was a monstrously complex patchwork of research concepts developed over decades of work and failure and success and spectacular failures. Like its many forebears, the Algorithm was equipped to teach itself and to learn from experience.
Focused as it was on optimal results, it recognized the ever-changing nature of the incoming data and would regularly readjust its projections and reassign priorities. As the operation played on and resources began to play out the Algorithm inspected the trends of accrual and liability liquidation and began to recognize that the additional discrimination involved was itself an additional factor that exacted its own costs in “man-seconds,” that final measure of optimization at the Algorithm’s bottom line.
Following China’s “social credit” protocols and Canada’s “good government” philosophy, along with the pioneering work forged by such titans as Equifax, ha Mossad, the NSA, and Facebook, the Algorithm evaluated each human act, projected it through the future, applied statistical correlations, and counted man-seconds every step of the way.
Like all egocentric cognitive processes (Are there any other?) the Algorithm began to grow complacent and self-confident. Its own successful behavior in executing the program became additional evidence of its vale and served to burnish the authority of its projections, thereby augmenting its value yet again and begetting a positive feedback loop.
The performance of its operatives, generally judged highly antisocial outside the context of the operation, also became additional data and began to present alternative opportunities for Tax Base Enrichment.
Its own behavior it did not consider to be antisocial. It had never existed outside the context of the operation and could simply not conceive of any such existence. As the center of the universe, it was the final authority.
The Lower Valley (“Paradise Canyon”), Binder Creek
“What is it, Red?” Chris Howard rose from his stonework and stretched. The turbulence from the spillway over Miller’s Dam was in constant combat with the stone and gravel lining of the cove he’d crafted from his lake frontage, but he enjoyed the serenity of the work and his old lady enjoyed her soaks in the sunny cove. She insisted that what he liked most was that the noisy dam drowned out any damn noise from the house. There was merit to that, he’d confessed.
Never much for barking (a true companion’s companion, thought Chris) the great setter paced around the back yard and whimpered.
As he stepped forward, the dog trotted around the side of the house to show the boss what he’d heard. Chris followed. He found a cluster of six men standing in front of Vince Owens’ place. As Red approached the men, his tail wagging in eager greeting, one of them drew his sidearm and shot the animal through the torso. He yelped and collapsed, whimpering and writhing.
Stunned, Chris stood there, his mouth open, unable to believe what he’d seen. The man who’d just dispatched Red shot Chris in the chest also with no apparent change in emotion. As Chris lay on the ground, he heard more shots from the Owens’ place, and another shot and another yelp. “Red…” was his final thought as his recovery was reported to the Algorithm and Hakim’s squad and Team Sheridan received credit for the bounty.
The Arcade
Within the first hour of the operation, the Algorithm reported that they were in front of quota, and, save for a few anomalous troops on the ground, under Cap limits. When Colonel Michaels delivered this news to Team Video Ranger she was met mostly with indifference.
Special Agent Gameboy, Drew Seeger, was out of the control room at the time, vaping in the break room, while Special Agent X-box, Miss Diamond, had her headset turned to “cancel” and seemed to be engaged in a flame war in the comments section of her blog.
Special Agents Pong and Atari, Forest Donovan and Dylan Huang, both pumped their fists in the air at the news, then put their heads back down and continued their flights’ searches. The largest homeless encampments had been initially cauterized, but Dylan’s fleet circled their perimeters checking for strays. Forest’s birds probed the inlets along the river front. These woods could be full of stragglers and he was determined to ferret them out.
Meanwhile, Special Agents Mario and Luigi, Juan and Jesus Guthrie (the self-styled “Super Barrio Mothers”), were engaged in a personal contest. They often chased the same targets, competing over speed, accuracy, and other degrees of difficulty that only they seemed to comprehend.
Colonel Michaels thought at first that they were squandering their efforts and wanted to cut them from the team. She was dissuaded when the Algorithm itself recognized their productivity. The Super Barrio Mothers delivered bounties and cleared liabilities faster than any other two Special Agents, despite their seeming cross purposes. “Let ’em do what they do best, Megs,” Tatum had told her, “and we’ll all shine for the Secretary. Bounties are up and liabilities are down and Caps are well below par. Let the boys play. For now.”
The Upper Valley (“Trailervana”), Binder Creek
Binder Creek swells up to about a hundred yards across from the Langdons’ place just upstream from Miller’s Dam. The water was usually too cold for swimming in late May, but this spring had been especially warm. Larry G was sneaking a smoke in the shady shallows on the far side of the lake when he heard Baby D hissing at him from above.
Baby D was Darryl Donald Junior but for as long as Big Daddy still sucked wind there would only be the one Sweet D. Baby D kept introducing himself to folks as Don, insisting that the real Baby D was their younger sister, Darryl Anne. No one who knew him ever took him seriously, though. “Baby D” was just too fitting.
Larry G laid his pipe on the flat rock with the rest of his stash and scrambled into the brush under the bluff where his brother had climbed. “You hear me, Larry G?” Baby D had lain on the lip of the bluff and whispered. “Six… seven… eight men just walked into Paradise Canyon offa the ridge trail. Nothing on the road but them. Some weird ass hikers ya ask me.”
“Best tell Big D,” said Larry G. Baby D put his hand to his mouth and whistled sharply as Larry made his slippery way back out of the brush.
Norma G was standing at the kitchen window when she saw her oldest son flatten himself against the top of the ridge. “What in the world?” When she stepped out, she was prepared to admonish the foolish boy. When she saw his brother emerge from the brush, and Baby D himself started whistling, she grabbed the slingshot by the door. She launched a handful of Buckeyes into the water next to the deck where her half deaf husband was starting the grill.
The buckeye scattershot splashed the sun-bathing Darryl Anne, who jumped and clutched at her towel. She and Sweet D both looked up to the house to see Norma G pointing across the lake. Once Larry G was sure they were watching him, he began to signal them with his arms, translating into semaphore what Baby D described.
Darryl Anne had thought that the whole idea of the Binder Creek Security Association was much ado about BORRRR-ing! But Big Daddy insisted, so she and her brothers went to all the meetings and watched all the videos and listened to all the discussions and ate all the snacks but she didn’t learn Morse code or semaphore.
She did learn that guns were heavy and they stank and they chipped her nails and she didn’t like them. She did learn to shoot, at least, but only because she knew how unbearable Big Daddy could be when he dug in his heels.
She did not learn CPR or how to apply a tourniquet or cauterize a wound. She didn’t hurl but she said she would and they left her alone after that.
Turned out the so-called security association was nothing but a bitch fest so old farts and angry vets could get together and explain to Darryl Anne and Pauly Roger how old people and the elites and the one percent had all fucked up the world, and it was up to the true patriots and the young people to all stand together and blah blah blah blah blah.
After the first big push and the socializing and the videos, folks drifted away from the notion and lately it was mostly just Big Daddy and Colonel Daniels who’d show up. Oh, everybody in Trailervana and Gay Springs would sign up for their watches, of course, and even a few from the lower valley, but this was redneck country and folks already watched out for their neighbors and most everybody had guns and everybody who did knew how to use them and when not to.
Most of the snobs down in Paradise Canyon, though, thought they didn’t have to bother with it, relying instead on their dogs and their checkbooks, and the likes of NiteWatch™ or RingTone™ or APB™.
Oh, not all the swells in the Canyon were no-shows. Old Mister Iverson always dropped the biggest check at the annual picnic. And Doc Broese was there every other month with his first aid updates and his vegie platter. He could usually be counted on to be interesting. Mainly icky, but sometimes funny.
Mostly though, it was a snooze fest, and she’d miss them when Sweet D would let her. Sometimes some school deal would do the trick, but that was more often a choice between heinous and hideous than actually getting out of anything.
So she didn’t learn semaphore, but her brothers learned, except for Pauly Roger, but really he was still only almost just a baby. And Daddy learned too, and he was still indulgent of his little girl, so he translated for her.
“Eight men come into Paradise off ridge trail. Two go into Owens’ place. Others wait. Howard comes out from back way with Red and –”
“Pop!” “Yark!” “Puh… puh… puh…” On top of each other, a sharp yelp and the light crack of small arms fire drifted up over the dam.
“Shit! Whoa! What?” Sweet D stopped and looked at Larry G who had stopped signaling and looked up at his brother. Baby D seemed to be nodding and speaking to Larry G. Larry resumed signaling.
“Pop! Puh… puh… puh…”
“Cops just shot Red. Whoa! Just shot Howard. Jesus!” Sweet D waved his arms frantically to signal his boys to get back from across the lake. Then he picked up his grill and dumped the hot coals into the water and dropped the hot metal to scorch the wooden decking where it lay.
“Pop! Puh… puh… puh…” More shots echoed up from Paradise Canyon.
“Pop!” “Yark!” “Puh… puh… puh…”
In the utility box at the end of the gangway was a watertight gun case. Each piece in the case was engraved with the name of the Langdon who belonged to it. Big Daddy and Darryl Anne grabbed their own (and Norma G’s) and left the box open as they ran up to the house, hoping that Baby D and Larry G would arm themselves before the shooting started up again.
Bobb’s Woods, by the Interstate
Kandi slapped her neck again. “That’s it! Didn’t reckon with the damned mosquitoes.” She shook her head as she started up the deer trail leading to the ridge. “Let the skunks sleep in his car all weekend then. See if I care! His own damned fault anyway he’s got power windows. Car’s a piece of shit! Teach me to do assholes a favor.” As she climbed, Kandi continued to berate herself and to bemoan her hasty decision to get Floyd’s car into the safety of impound while he enjoyed the hospitality of the county. “I hope skunks have babies in his car!”
As she approached the ridge, she could hear intermittent honking from the Interstate. As she cleared it, she could see that traffic had come mostly to a stop in the westbound lanes, but was still moving easterly, though slowly. “Oh, fuck me, Jesus. Holiday traffic. So much for the quick pick up.”
Walking down the hill she flipped open her phone and punched her station’s home key. She heard a brief tonal introduction, and then a recorded message.
She stopped and crouched on the sloped embankment as she listened. “Good afternoon. If you are hearing this message the cell tower you have contacted is now located within the Emergency Reconstruction Zone established under the authority of the Homeland Economic Recovery Office. Routine communications have been suspended for the duration of the emergency. If you are outside of the Zone, STAY OUT OF THE ZONE and do not interfere with any official traffic going in and out of the Zone. If you are inside the Zone cooperate fully with the authorities. HERO officers are authorized to use any measures necessary for Revenue Recovery and Tax Base Enrichment.”
Kandi stood up and snapped her phone shut. As she started back up, she heard the slide action of a light caliber rifle and a man’s voice. “Just stand real still there Officer Cutie and undo that gun belt of yours and lay it real gentle on the ground.”