Highway To Armageddon (29 page)

           
“What the hell?” I grumble, sitting up. Dorothy slides off my chest and jolts
awake. She rubs her eyes and mumbles, “Is it morning already?”

           
I look up at the sky. It’s still pretty dark, but I do detect a soft, gray
light off in the distance. Dawn is slowly yet surely shedding light on the
darkened world.

           
“Arrow and Machete ditched us!” Boom Boom shouts in a near panic. “We’re
stranded!”

           
I jump up and grasp Boom Boom’s trembling shoulders. “Okay, Firecracker, calm
down. You freaking out isn’t helping matters.”

           
Boom Boom’s eyes are wide with fear, and her face is ghostly pale. She’s not
herself. She’s been a little off the past couple days now. I have a sinking
feeling I know why.

           
I give Boom Boom a gentle shake. “Focus, Firecracker, focus! Where did you and
Arrow go last night? Do you know where he and Machete might have gone? Maybe
they just went to go get some supplies.”

           
I don’t believe that, of course. I agree with Boom Boom; they deserted us. But
I need her to calm down.

           
My ploy doesn’t work, though. She pushes past me and screams, “I can’t believe
the bastard deceived me! I poured my heart and soul out to him!”

           
Boom Boom gasps and steps back, nearly stumbling over a tree root. “My God! He
couldn’t have… he didn’t!”

           
“He couldn’t have what?” I ask.

           
Boom Boom ignores me. Instead she puts her goggles on and logs onto the
internet. I can tell from the green light shining out of the sides of her
lenses.

           
Boom Boom bites her lip as she looks for something. A few seconds later she
screams, “No… NO!!”

           
I grab Boom Boom shoulders once again and lift her goggles. Her eyes are filled
with tears.

           
“Boom Boom, listen to me.”

           
Boom Boom’s wavering eyes finally focus. I take a deep breath and calmly say,
“What’s going on? I want to help you, but I can’t unless you tell me what’s
wrong.”

           
Boom Boom shivers, almost like she’s going through some sort of withdrawal.
I’ve encountered enough drug addicts over the years to know what it looks like.

           
“He hacked into our database, Lance. He logged into our database and changed
the password! We’re locked out!”

           
“Wait, what?!”

           
Boom Boom starts rambling again. “He only pretended to care about me so he
could learn the password! The lying dog!”

           
Boom Boom kicks the burnt remains of our campfire, spraying a cloud of ash into
the air.

           
I grab Boom Boom’s shoulders for the third time. “Boom Boom, how did Arrow find
out what our password was? Did you tell him?”

           
Boom Boom puts her head in her hands. Buried under a series of sobs is the
answer I dread.

           
“Yes.”

           
Now it’s my turn to get angry. “Damn it, Boom Boom! Why would you do that? We
never give out the password!”

           
“I know! I know I shouldn’t have, he just knew how to get it out of me… I’m
sorry!”

           
I struggle to contain my volcanic anger and fail miserably. “Sorry doesn’t cut
it! Do you have any idea how much time and effort Dagger put into that
database?”

           
“I put a lot of time into it, too,” she snaps. “You didn’t contribute crap!”

           
“All of that is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is
you
gave away our
database and we’ll probably never be able to access it again!”

           
I pause for a moment, then blurt out, “Did you sleep with him?”

           
Boom Boom gasps at my blunt question. “Talk about something being irrelevant.
That’s none of your business! Besides, what would it matter if I did? You were
sleeping with Dorothy!”

           
Dorothy jumps in between us. “Nothing happened, Boom Boom, I swear! We just
fell asleep!”

           
“And besides, Dorothy’s not a traitor like your douchebag lover,” I say. “She’d
never stab us in the back like he did.”

           
Dorothy steps back as Boom Boom and I continue shouting and jabbing our fingers
in each other’s chests. The argument gets pretty heated. It only stops when
Krystal gets up and hollers, “I didn’t ask for an annoying wakeup call!” 

           
“Sorry, Krystal, but we’ve got bigger things to worry about than you not
getting enough beauty sleep.  Boom Boom gave Arrow our database while they
were getting their freak on in the woods, and then he and Machete ditched us!”

           
Krystal grins. “You and Arrow did the nasty, Boom Boom? Nice!”

           
I wave my hand in front of Krystal’s face. “Hello, Earth to Krystal! Did you
not hear that last part, about Machete and Arrow flying off in the middle of
the night in the Moon Cruiser, leaving us stranded in the middle of the
Canadian wilderness?”

           
“Holy crap!” Krystal cries. “What are we supposed to do?”

           
“I guess we’ll have to hike to the nearest town and get a car.”

           
“But I hate hiking!”

           
Boom Boom sits on a log and lowers her head. Her body quivers as if she’s got a
fever. She almost looks as bad as she did when we all got sick last spring.

           
A loud gurgling noise causes me to spin around.

           
Krystal pats her tummy. “I am starving! Can we at least eat before we go
anywhere?”

           
“Sure,” I grumble, pointing to a small sack of trail mix and dried fruit
sitting next to the smoldering campfire. “Machete and Arrow were ‘kind’ enough
to leave us some food.” I’m using the word
‘kind’
very loosely, of
course.

           
“And they did leave us our weapons and goggles,” Krystal says, patting her
utility belt. “See, Arrow isn’t that bad.”

           
“Yeah, he’s only a major douchebag instead of a total one,” I say.

           
We all plop down on the grass and dig into our meager breakfast. It won’t last
us more than two days, so I try not to eat a lot. Unfortunately, my rumbling
stomach compels me to eat a bit more than I intended. Krystal, Boom Boom, and
Dorothy start scarfing down as well.

           
I slide on my goggles and look up the nearest settlements. I know right off the
top of my head there aren’t any Sanctuaries for at least several hundred miles.
I quickly find the two nearest towns. One is a hellhole called Dresden, about
sixty miles northwest of our location. The other is a small Mormon settlement
called Brigham Young County. That’s only 30 miles southeast of us.

           
I tell the girls my findings. I’m not at all surprised when Boom Boom says, “There’s
no way in hell we’re going to Dresden.”

           
“But why would we go to Brigham Young?” Dorothy asks. “We’ll be backtracking.
Dresden is on the way to Alaska.”

           
“I take it you ain’t never heard of Dresden, huh?” Krystal asks with a mouthful
of dried apricots.

           
“Not really,” Dorothy says coolly. “We didn’t learn a lot of geography while
working our corners.”

           
I cringe at Dorothy’s remark. It makes me so sick to think of all the abuse she
and others like her have endured over the years. It almost makes me want to go
on a pimp killing spree. Maybe I’ll do that after we nab Mikhail. I know Boom
Boom will want to tag along.

           
“Dresden is a settlement full of evil, racist Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen,”
I explain to Dorothy. “A lot of the people who live there are sympathetic to
the Neo-Nazis that rule Europe. It’s a horrible place. Every non-white person
unlucky enough to stumble through Dresden’s gates is brutally lynched.”

           
“Oh my gosh, that’s horrible,” Dorothy says. “I can’t believe the government
would allow such a place to exist.”

           
“It’s not quite that simple,” Boom Boom says. I’m glad to see her talking
again, even if it is just so she can show off her smarts. “The government leaves
Dresden alone to keep the peace with America’s blossoming Neo-Nazi movement.
Just like what happened in Europe, a lot of white Americans are feeling
threatened by the large number of non-Aryan immigrants flooding into Canada and
Alaska. The Neo-Nazis hate the fact that all these darker-skinned people are
‘stealing their jobs’ and ‘taking their land’. Klaxton feels it’s best to allow
all the Neo-Nazis in Dresden to live as they please. It’s a way for her
administration to keep their vitriolic, genocidal views contained to the
smallest space possible. If she were to crack down on them, that would ignite a
devastating racial civil war. Allowing Dresden to exist is considered the
lesser of two evils, basically.”

           
“That still doesn’t make it right,” Dorothy protests. I notice everyone has
stopped eating, even Krystal. Something about genocide causes people to lose
their appetite.

           
“I mean, they just lynch people and the government lets them get away with it?”
Dorothy asks, still trying to wrap her mind around such an injustice.

           
“It’s not that far-fetched of a concept,” Boom Boom says, assuming her
slightly-annoying ‘professorial’ tone. “There was widespread lynching in the
United States during the early 20
^th
century. And of course lynching
was wide-spread throughout Europe during World War 2, the era that today’s
Neo-Nazi celebrate and revere. It’s rumored thousands of non-Aryans and
so-called ‘undesirables’ have been murdered in Dresden over the years,
including Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, blacks, homosexuals, people with mental
disabilities, gypsies…. The list goes on and on. The government turns a blind
eye and feigns ignorance on the genocide, all in the name of keeping peace with
America’s massive racist population.”   

           
“But where do the Nazis find all these people to lunch?” Dorothy asks. “Surely
no non-white person would visit Dresden.”

           
“I sure as hell wouldn’t!” Krystal hollers.

           
“Dresden will occasionally send hunting parties into the surrounding woods,”
Boom Boom explains. “Except these hunters don’t hunt animals… they hunt
people
.
More specifically, non-Aryans. Usually they track down immigrants on their way
to Northern Canada and Alaska. Most of the immigrants are simply fleeing the
deserts of the South. The hunters bring the non-Aryans back to their settlement
and lock them in internment camp until it’s time for a ‘lynching party’. It’s
brutal, it’s horrific, and unfortunately it’s passively endorsed by our very
own government.”

           
Poor Dorothy looks like she’s about to puke. Boom Boom surely doesn’t help
matters when she says, “As bad as Dresden sounds, it’s nothing compared to the
holocaust going on over in Europe. It’s rumored
tens of millions
have
died over there. Entire nations of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East,
wiped off the face of the Earth because of the color of their skin and their
religions. It makes the genocides of the 20
^th
century pale in
comparison.”

           
Dorothy’s face turns sickly green. She gulps several times, I guess to keep
down the bile rising up her throat.

           
I stand up and stretch my aching back. “Well gang, we’ve wasted enough time. We
have a long hike ahead of us. I checked the forecast and it’s supposed to storm
later. The sooner we reach Brigham Young, the better.”

           
Everyone gets up and grabs their things. I make sure to sling my blanket over
my shoulder. I highly doubt we reach Brigham Young before nightfall, especially
since we’ll be hiking through rugged terrain. I would bet we’ll be spending
another uncomfortable night outdoors. Hopefully we can at least find a cave or
some abandoned hut to protect us from the coming rain.

           
Before we leave, Dorothy stops to kiss Sally’s grave. “Goodbye, old friend,” she
whispers.

           
Boom Boom stops to touch the cross. “We will never forget you, Sally. Never.”

           
She wraps her arm around Dorothy’s trembling shoulders and leads her out of the
campsite. Krystal and I follow after them.

           
The hike is tougher than I expected. We have to navigate steep hills and travel
around winding streams. By the middle of the afternoon my goggles say we’re
still 24 miles away from Brigham Young, even though we hiked way more than six
miles. The harsh terrain is forcing us to go two steps to the left in order to
take one step forward. I feel bad for Krystal; she’s sweating and cursing up a
storm, talking about how this is not worth $25 million. I’m beginning to agree
with her.

           
The most hair-raising part of our odyssey occurs about an hour later. We just
finish hiking up a pretty steep hill when a low, feral growl freezes us in our
tracks.