King's County (13 page)

"OK: aspirin, vitamins, vitamin K,
benzaprine, caffeine, fluorenol. That's a good start."

He gave me a handful of the assorted
pills, "Too bad about the chip, though. It’d make things a lot
easier on you." He watched me take them and hooked a finger into
his shirt pocket in which he had stashed some cocaine. That was for
him.

Walter led me to the end of the last
car where the loading area was. He pulled down levers on each side
of the back door and flipped a toggle switch.

The back of the train clamshelled open
to reveal BOB waiting for us, seemingly overloaded with a large box
propped on top of him.

Walter picked up and dragged away part
of the floor to expose four rows of little embedded
wheels.

"Alright. Let’s do this. Grab a strap
and pull."

The box, heavy as it was, moved easily
over the wheels. Once the box was inside the back door shut on its
own and we set to taking the quick release ties off of the
corners.

"I know what you’re thinking. Why the
hell are we doing this, right? Well, I like doing it. I even
tricked the computer into allowing it whenever there is live
cargo."

"I was really just wondering what’s
inside. Live cargo, like another tiger?"

Walter smiled. He was beginning to
sweat with the effort of disassembling the box cover.

"Goats. Yuri’s idea, sort of a weird
New England thing. You know what I'm talking about?" He
said.

"Not really. Alright - " Together we
pulled the heavy green canvas off the crate. Four healthy black and
white haired goats were staring back at us. The nearest one stomped
and scrapped his horns against the grating.

Also in the box was a lump of the green
canvas wadded up in the far corner. The lump stirred and the canvas
was flung away. A tall man got up trying to stand but was forced by
the low ceiling to stoop, bending at the knees and neck.

"Geake?"

"Hi Lieutenant. Small world, isn't it.
Can you let me out of here?"

Walter and I each pulled out a pin and
the gate dropped. Geake duck-walked out, elbowing past the
disinterested goats.

He looked different. His clothes and
hair were filthy from the crate. His eyes looked stressed but he
had a confidence about him that was not there in Alaska.

"Explain yourself sergeant." I
said.

He brushed the straw and dust out of
his hair,

"I'm not sergeant anymore, sir.
Suspended for four weeks and demoted. What about you?"

"Booted out. Why were you trying to
sneak aboard? I must have been a bad influence on you."

"No sir."

Walter piped up, "OK guys, let’s deal
with this livestock first. We gotta get them into the dining car.
From there the hologram will guide ’em the rest of the
way."

*

We were in the dining car. Geake
stuffed his face with sausage and black bread while I got the story
out of him. Walter and I drank Kölsch while grazing on a basket of
soft pretzels.

"The colonel was pretty mad about what
happened. So, I figured better get my ass home, you know, stay out
of sight, out of trouble while doing my suspension. I get back to
Kennewick and, I mean it's been ten years? And my girl’s gone. I
found her mom, though. She said it was her that had been writing
the letters all this time, like, for the last two years. Then she
told me how my girl couldn't stay at the university anymore and
that she got on a train and that was the last she'd ever heard from
her.

"I didn't know what to do. I went
walking around downtown to maybe ask around or something. Hardly
anybody there. So I went to the old station and it was empty,
totally empty, but there was this big crate sitting by the tracks.
Then the train came by – Estrella, red and white, like her mom said
- and I knew she was on it. After that this little thing came by
and started loading up the crate. I put two and two together and
jumped on top. I got myself squeezed inside just in time before it
really started moving."

"We’ll help you out, sure," Walter
said, "But there are a lot of girls on this train, Geake. How will
we find yours?"

"If you've seen her once, you'll
remember her. Gray-green eyes. Olive skin and long, curly brown
hair. Thin, lean really, with wide flared hips and big breasts.
Long legs. Long arms. She smiles a lot and she means
it."

Walter looked at me, "It sounds like
he’s talking about Penny." He turned to Geake, "Yeah, I know the
girl. Everybody knows her."

"That's her name. Do you know where she
is?"

Walter shook his head, "We’re going to
have to find her. The party's on. Not as easy as it sounds. It
might take awhile, maybe half a day, at least. Your buddy here will
explain why. I'm gonna go get Tyndall off of that broad so he can
help us, too."

*

I told Geake about the train and the
nonstop party. He still didn't understand why it would be difficult
to find Penny and I couldn't easily explain. Walter’s comment
seemed to be exaggerating the situation.

Tyndall burst through the door.
Disoriented from entering normal space, he almost lost his feet. He
was laughing, extremely high on something, and ricocheted off one
wall to plop down at our table.

“What's wrong with this guy?” Geake
said.

Tyndall held up his hand telling us to
wait.

“Take it easy, Geake.” I
said.

“OK, now...” Tyndall took a breath. His
eyes cleared;

he'd recovered,

“Walter’s checking out the first two
cars. We’ll go on from there as a group - I hear it's gotten really
wild in Miami.”

"You guys are worried we won’t make it
on our own? How bad could it be?" I said.

"Bad? I don't know, let’s wait for
Walter. He won't be long," Tyndall said and slumped, tired in his
chair.

"Sir, do you think Penny’s OK? Have you
seen her lately?" Geake said.

Tyndall didn't answer. The question
seemed to unsettle him.

Geake and I rose from the table as
Walter came in.

He was already sweating through his
shirt,

"No word or sign of her. Alright! We’re
searching car to car. We’re going to stick together. Everybody take
a length of rope." Walter passed out to each of us 3m length pieces
of elastic cord.

"Geake, tie yours around your waist and
give me the other end. We gotta do this. You’re next. Dr. Tyndall’s
last.

"When we get to Miami, everybody
remember: The next door is always directly ahead. Despite what
you're seeing, you're still in a regular old train car. Try to keep
your head straight." Walter said going around to each of us to test
the knots.

Tied together with about a meter of
rope between us, we entered the first car single file. The
courtyard was dead quiet except for two monkeys playing in a palm
tree just outside the surrounding wall. I caught myself mesmerized
by the bay glittering under the red setting sun.

"Wow, this beats any of the training
simulators. All of this in a train car - are they real?" Geake said
pointing to the tree.

"Not those, not here, but some later on
could be. Don’t assume anything, keep on task." Walter
said.

We moved on to the Bavarian castle. I
saw several party-goers had crashed, hunched over tables with a few
lying on the floor. They were refugees from the fray, ran too hard
and desperately needing a break, tending their wounded minds with
cold lager and quiet, clean air.

"Why don't they just go back to their
rooms?" I asked Tyndall, keeping my voice down.

"They're not allowed to, not until the
party’s over. Every car above the last simulation is closed off.
Our cars are forbidden to them. Only planning committee has
access."

"Who decided that?" I said.

Walter answered,

"Who? Your old buddy, Ed the Head. And
Leland signed off, no doubt."

Under the chandelier in the center of
the main room, Walter grabbed a waitress by her upper arm and
interrogated her until she got angry and pulled away.

“Sometimes you have to ask twice,
right?” he said.

We waited near the exit. To my
surprise, she returned after about a minute and spoke softly to
Walter, too softly for Geake and I to hear.

Walter was satisfied with her answer
and signaled us to go. He pushed on the iron seal set in the door
and, one by one, we were on the front step of the white
mansion.

"Stay focused, men, and don't listen to
anybody. Don't look at 'em. When we find her, Geake, you pick her
up and we’ll protect you."

The front door fell away at a touch.
Immediately every sense was pervaded and engaged to capacity. This
was the true peak of the party here, the wildness before was
nothing in comparison. The room was vibrating. The grand piano
played itself, exploding with the throbbing, hypnotic drums, bass,
horns and organs coming from the omnipotent invisible speakers. It
was as humid as a hot bath. There was a mass of tanned and oiled
humanity ahead of us and we headed into it.

Walter threw up a forearm to deflect
two dark-tanned bikini girls coming at him with handfuls of white
powder. They skittered on their spiked heels and one of them threw
her powder into Geake’s face as she fell.

Walter promptly helped Geake clean it
off,

"Watch your eyes! It's gonna be soaked
into your skin some already. Just try to keep calm. It’s OK, not
that bigga deal, probably."

"What is it!" Geake said.

Walter licked his fingers,

"Mostly cocaine. You’re lucky. Stick
with us, don't look at them."

The girl on the floor got up to her
knees and began tugging at Geake’s waistband. He stepped
back,

"Hold on, lady, take it easy." Geake
said holding onto his belt.

She picked at the knot on his rope with
her long fingers then pulled on it with her perfect
teeth.

A muscle man sidled up, dancing between
Geake and me, grinding his crotch into Geake’s arm.

"Let’s go!" Walter yelled and surged
forward yanking the three of us off balance. I slapped onto the
marble floor. Muscle men piled on. I couldn't get to my feet. We
were all slipping in grease.

Pulled down by his rope, Walter toppled
over and started dragging himself away from the scrum. He led us to
the door, army crawling, all of us still linked by the straining
lengths of rope. Bikini girls swarmed, humping Geake’s neck and
riding his back. Muscle men escorted our passage out, viciously
slapping our asses, dancing the whole time.

*

Total darkness met us with a dry dusty
smell. We gathered ourselves. No one spoke. As our eyes adjusted I
noticed a thin line of yellow light above our heads.

I put my hands up to touch the crack
and felt rough stone. Walter did the same and we pushed, not very
hard, and the ceiling moved away.

The four of us, still tied together at
the waist, stepped out as if emerging from underground.

Geake turned and grabbed my
arm,

"Do we know Penny wasn't back in that
other place?"

"She wasn't." Walter said for
me.

We all paused to take in the
surroundings. We were in an enormous space, a field of yellow and
orange stone and sand. The sky was deep indigo. It seemed
endless.

We shuffled forward. Geake couldn't
help himself,

"This is amazing, I saw the train from
the outside and..."

Tyndall explained, "They really went
big on this one. It works like this, Geake: the image is projected
from the surfaces of the walls and floors. It's all we can see and
it's capable of adjusting to us individually. Everything you see is
going to be just slightly faster, coming sooner than you're
expecting. By this it can slow your movements, bit by bit, almost
instantly.

We barely perceive the effect because
it looks and feels like you and I are moving normally. It conserves
the space. It makes its own space. The 50m we just walked was
probably around 3 or 4m in the car."

"Stay on track, everybody. You save
your questions for later," Walter said.

We walked onto the grounds of a huge
ruined temple. Sandstone pillars two meters in diameter reached out
to the open sky and stars. Far ahead of us, statues lined a sheer
cliff, carved into the face of it, the largest a sitting man’s body
with the head of a dog.

The sand underfoot became an intricate
pattern of tiles. Fires burned in brass stands illuminating our
passage between the pillars. Geake dropped to his knees and held
his head in both hands,

"Guys, please, let’s take a break."
Geake’s eyes were tightly shut, "It's gotten to me. It's too
much."

I needed a rest myself. The pain in my
heel was getting worse. The awkward gait I was forced into was now
effecting my other leg.