Grand Junction (57 page)

Not yet, anyway. They are looking. Looking to understand. But to understand what? The Law of the Territory?

Farther away, near Milan Djordjevic’s and Paul Zarkovsky’s laboratory, Francisco Alpini is lovingly turning the second trailer into an acceptable library. The hammer striking nails, saws cutting metal or Plexiglas, sending up circular sprays of sparks, welding torches soldering steel in an oxyhydric blue gleam, wrenches and screwdrivers squeaking in rusty screws—the machine symphony of Heavy Metal Valley resonates from one pile of crushed metal to the next.

Yuri sees Slade Vernier silently delivering a box of tools to the soldier-monk.

He sees Erwin Slovak chatting, relaxed, near the midnight-blue bus, with the sheriff and a group of deputies—Frank Lecerf, the French sniper; Alex La Varende, an ex-cop from the Quebec Bureau of Investigation, originally from Abitibi; Scot Montrose, a veteran of Canadian intelligence; Antonio Villalobos, who earned his badge with the Colombian special police; Jane Delorette, a former member of the Ottawa SWAT; Patrick Doyle, a Nova Scotian and ex-GRC lieutenant whose career as a detective spanned Canada before the Fall; Mary-Ann Beaulieu, a cop from the old police department of the city of Montreal; and several others he knows slightly or not at all.

Killers in the service of the Law. Killers in the service of the Territory. Killers in uniform.

The most dangerous kind of all.

He sees the four representatives of the prohibited religious communities
speaking joyfully with Father Newman, as they head away from the police station, down Pontiac Alley.

He sees Milan Djordjevic deep in serious discussion with the Professor as they move toward their laboratory-in-construction.

He sees the mother of Link de Nova walking with the old witch from Deadlink, Lady van Harpel, down Cadillac Avenue.

He sees Campbell, sizing up the androids from the Ring.

He sees himself, a fragmented form in a rearview mirror smashed in some lateral collision.

Something is taking shape.

A community.

Undoubtedly the last one worthy of the name in the Territory.

That is to say, not just a simple organic mass of individuals but a specific
metamachine
, a monad, a shared space-time. A possible
world
.

It stands as the still-fragile promise of true hope.

Hope that not only will the “Thing”—which according to Link de Nova has become Humanity itself—fail at self-destructing through the humans that form it but, more importantly, that the humans who survive its undertaking will outlive Humanity itself.

“We really know only one radius that spans the Territory, including Heavy Metal Valley, which will no doubt take you weeks to learn, and weeks more to understand.”

“Can you act as our guides? There isn’t much time.”

“Yuri and I are assigned to a residence until further notice—for ‘security reasons,’ or so the sheriff says, even though we aren’t being officially prosecuted for murder. But I can tell you that there’s no point anymore in running all over the Territory to understand what’s happening. Young Link is right about that, just like his father and the Professor. This is a war between thought and the Thing that wants to destroy it. It is by thinking that we have a chance to defeat this post-human mutation.”

Yuri is shocked. What? No
deal?

“But I need to get out of HMV County. I absolutely have to save my cabin in Aircrash Circle. I’ve heard from Bob Chamberlain, who just got back from that area, that things aren’t good there; the looters will soon be at work, if they aren’t already.”

“What do you want us to do?” asks the woman from space.

Ah, okay, thinks Yuri, reassured. So there is a deal, an exchange, a negotiation.

“I want you to help me convince Sheriff Langlois to give me safe passage. You would come with me and help me, and in exchange I will show you the hidden side of the Territory, where HMV cops can’t go.
The dark side of the Earth.”

The Community of Heavy Metal, thinks Yuri, this community taking shape, superimposing itself onto old toponymies. The Territory, the county of Grand Junction, HMV.

For a very long time, Heavy Metal Valley has been a sanctuary absolutely free from any unsanctioned intrusion. But for an equally long time, the sheriff has used that freedom to his advantage in every negotiation, every policy. In exchange for ammunition, for raw materials, for machinery and fuel, the sheriff has organized a carefully planned trade in vehicles of all kinds, particularly with Junkville. Periodically, a squadron of police cars takes Nexus Road down to Autostrada, where the exchange takes place with the various techno Triads of Vortex Townships, Neo Pepsico, and Snake Zone.

The Territory has its own laws; those governing commerce are re-doubtably simple: nothing can be
bought
in the true sense because monetary standards no longer exist, but
everything is still for sale
—and more expensive than ever. The Law of the Territory is outrageously easy to uphold. What was a market before the Fall is now a hunting ground. The Territory itself is proof that
war is the pursuit of economy by the exact same means
.

“I don’t see how I can agree to your request, Campbell—it doesn’t seem fail-safe to me at all. I’ve already been very understanding with your friend Yuri about his Combi-Cube.”

A barely controlled sigh from Chrysler. The sheriff has made the superhuman effort to agree to transfer Yuri’s small house using a county patrol car.

“Will you authorize me to carry a weapon?”

A very controlled smile from the sheriff. “That isn’t the question.”

“Then what is the fucking question, Sheriff?”

“You’re going to go, you told me, to an isolated region in the south of the Territory, a region with no police force and already ravaged by this
‘mutation.’ You even said yourself that looters are probably active there already. I have to think of the safety of our guests from the Ring.”

He gestures with his chin at the two creatures who are standing together a short distance away, having already pushed their luck with the sheriff.

Yuri thinks: Campbell has proved surprisingly naïve in thinking for a single moment that Langlois would let himself be wheedled into anything by two humanoids from space. But Chrysler isn’t the type to be deterred by such details; now he has taken the situation in hand. He knows Sheriff Langlois—but the sheriff knows him, too. It is by no means an even match: the Fortress against the Trojan Horse; the Law of Bronze against the Secret Order.

“You can’t force everyone to take up residence here, Sheriff. The two androids have a mission to fulfill; they need to understand the
hidden
nature of the Territory—and, with all due respect, Yuri and I are much more competent in that area than your men.”

“Oh yes? Permit me to tell you a little story. Bob Chamberlain just came back from Monolith Hills, and he passed through Junkville early this morning.”

“I know. A veritable exploit indeed,” says Campbell sarcastically.

“Save your irony for a few years from now. Chamberlain was very clear, and several eyewitnesses are backing him up: Men are looking for you all over the Territory. Men from everywhere. A certain Johnson Belfond was mentioned—a nasty hired killer who was a cop in Grand Junction before the Fall. You can’t watch out for yourselves and the Ring androids, too. It’s as simple as that.”

“What do you propose?”

“I’m being very generous with you, Campbell. I’m assigning you an escort. What would you say to Slade Vernier and Erwin Slovak? They’ll be in a second pickup, so you’ll be sure of only having to make one trip.”

“The androids want me to show them the hidden side of the Territory. And you know very well that at the slightest glimpse of a uniform …”

The sheriff bursts out laughing.

“Campbell! Didn’t you hear what I just said? These men are nipping at your heels. You’re the one at risk of seeing the hidden side of the Territory, from very, very close range.”

“So you’ll authorize us to cross Junkville as far as New Arizona, and then come back up through Deadlink and Neon Park?”

“You won’t do a damned thing except play tour guide, Campbell. The
androids have gone all over Grand Junction with our patrols; they’ve even gone to some of the little Ontarian townships like Surveyor Plateau. Listen, I’ll give you permission to go wherever you want, but you will not leave your escort, and you will not do anything stupid trying to lose them. Am I clear?”

“As always, Sheriff.”

“And I’m going to keep your friend Yuri with me, as usual, just to help you avoid temptation.”

“I never expected anything else, Sheriff.”

“So do what you have to do, and try to get back here before nightfall.”

A generous but severe mother, giving her teenage son permission to go out on a Saturday night. Wilbur Langlois, the Mother of HMV, the Mother of the little surviving primates, the hidden Mother of the Territory.

Yuri watches as Campbell rejoins the android couple and the sheriff heads for his police trailer to fetch his two deputies.

A bit later, as the pickups, with small two-wheeled trailers attached, take off toward the Ridge on the crushed metal–paved road, raising a cloud of blackish dust, Yuri muses that this particular configuration—Campbell, the two HMV cops, and the two androids from the Ring—would not have been conceivable only a few days ago.

A sense of general order is overtaking all forms, all situations, all consciousnesses, all bodies, all places.

It is not this Third Fall they are trying to combat with all their combined strength. No—it is more like the signaling of a new ontological framework, a new nature. A new
person?

He walks instinctively down Cadillac Avenue and then cuts through a small transversal alley to Link de Nova’s hangar.

He can already feel the electric vibrations of the music, faint as a distant echo of war.

When they arrive at Aircrash Circle, Campbell immediately becomes aware of several distinct facts:

All things considered, this is excellent news. The Triads’ activities will help disguise their own. And the androids from the Ring can begin to have an idea of what he means by the dark side of the Earth. A real township. The crater of a plane crash. Aircrash Circle.

There are a few corpses scattered in plain sight, but on the whole it is clear that the township is about to be clean. The necro Triads are entering and leaving cabins; stretchers and body bags are filled with clockwork regularity.

Grand Junction, my friends, is nothing compared to what you will see in Junkville. This is just an appetizer.

They park the trucks on either side of the cabin. Campbell is particularly keen to save his form-retaining titanium-composite hangar; he programs it to collapse and fold up, and while they are waiting for the operation to be completed he enlists Slade Vernier and Erwin Slovak to help him disassemble the main parts of the shelter. The two androids ask if they can look around the township. “Stay in sight, that’s all I ask,” replies Campbell.

Then, he and the two cops stack the parts of the Airbus and the
Combi-Cube’s panels on the platform and in the trailer of the first pickup, his Ford Super Duty.

They pause and then move on to the second pickup, the midnight blue Silverado that became so familiar to Chrysler during their exploit in the Notre Dame Mountains. The titanium hangar is almost completely folded now, its mechanism buzzing like a giant insect. They turn their attention to a section of fuselage and the Combi-Cube panels soldered to it.

At that moment, Chrysler notices two new facts, separate in space but parallel in time:

They’ve been waiting for me, the fuckers. That Silverskin has enough money to hire people who can spend weeks watching my cabin—which also means that he can pay enough to hire people clever enough to track me all the way here. If that is what happened, they’re the ones who kept my house from being looted
.

“They’re going to try and follow us,” says Campbell. “I don’t think we have a lot of options here.”

“Should we lock them up?” Erwin Slovak asks.

Slovak the hunter, talking to Campbell the hunter. Two trap setters. Both men unpredictable because they predict everything.

“No,” says Campbell, “we’ll have to kill them. They already know way too much.”

Slade Vernier cracks a wide smile.

“That’s becoming a reflex with you, Campbell. A habit coming back, eh?”

“Do you see any other way? You can tell they’ve been watching my cabin for days, maybe even a month. The place is rigged; I should have known it. Now they won’t let us go. They’ve seen your uniforms and the HMV emblem on your car; they know we’re working together. And we can’t let them tell anyone about it.”

If I have to, thinks Campbell, I’ll kill them myself.

“After all, we’d just be getting to them before the Thing does,” says Slade Vernier thoughtfully.

“Exactly, Mr. Deputy. We’ll just look at it as an act of euthanasia.”