eat jerky

 

 

 

 

 

Serge is subdued in camp. Her jaw is set like somebody trying not to cry. Nobody makes eye contact with her. Klaski keeps dropping things in an effort to avoid Serge.

When Lewis wants to charge Gossamer and send the data to MF, Serge nixes it. Doesn't tell anyone why. She looks at you significantly, though, as though daring you to say something. You want to laugh: you can't say anything out loud, and even if you could, what would you say?

'I guess Machine Front are interested in all kinds of data,' Serge says, kneeling beside Gossamer on the pretext of peeling scum off her boots. 'l guess we rely on them as a matter of faith.'

Lewis is clued-in to Serge's moods enough to take a stab at the problem.

'You want me to make some kind of special report, ma'am? About what we found today?'

Serge looks at her sharp, and you realize that for a second Serge thought Lewis was talking about finding Arla and the child golems. Then Serge realizes she's talking about the altered structure in the Grid. She says, 'Not yet. We'll work up some more angles on these structural features tomorrow.'

She says it calmly, but in such a way that Lewis closes her mouth.

You wonder what she means to tell you, though. Does Serge want you to share what you saw with MF? You realize that you don't want to do that. You know what will happen. More weapons, more attacks, in an effort to exterminate the developing golems  if they are golems. In light of what Dr. Gonzalez has said, you just don't think MF need to know right now.

Serge is watching Gossamer, who lies completely inert, giving away nothing of your thoughts.

'I'm a company woman,' Serge whispers to you. 'You do what you got to do. In the morning I'm gonna let you go, and I expect you to make a report. In full. I know that's your duty. I won't hold it against you.'

Her eyes are black with conviction.

She turns to the others and says, 'Y'all need to understand something. Machine Front is all we got out here. The Grid will mess you up. It ain't just air filters you got to worry about. There's something about the Grid, something in what it does to your eyes, something in its shape and the way it sounds – you guys ever take a good listen to this thing? It does stuff to you makes you not trustworthy in your own head.That's what your Swatch is for.T hat's why we have Dante, and I don't need to remind y'all that Dante is made out of pure, hard facts. He's not a person. He doesn't have an agenda. He's a representation of the facts that we know to be true, and you got to listen to him.'

'OK, Serge,' says Lewis softly. She looks a little freaked, and exchanges glances with Hendricks. But Klaski, with her usual appalling sense of timing, chimes in with the kind of over-sincerity that disguises contempt.

'Follow procedures at all times, right, we got it.'

Serge draws a long breath.

'Goddamit, Klaski we play by the procedures because the procedures is all we got. You want to be High-Risk Betty, do it right. Take your risks intelligent. Any sh%&head can jump out a plane and pull the cord. Here you got real problems. You walk into a patch of cyanide – your fault. You ignore Dante's advice – your fault. You climb out over the well without checking storm differentials on the branch you're on, don't blame anybody but yourself if you take a couple thousand volts. If Hendricks here dies and you don't take care of business immediate-like, don't be surprised if you don't wake up in the middle of the night with Hendricks golems stealing your air kit and com link.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Klaski whispers.

'I don't care what anybody says,' Serge goes on. 'As long as we're out here. Machine Front is what we got and we better use it. I'll sit watch, Klaski.'

Klaski looks stunned and frightened by the reprieve, as though it must be a set-up for something even worse.'Get in your cocoon and get some sleep.'

 

You don't make the report. Not that it seems to matter. Because the next day Serge gets new orders, delivered via Dante.

'We're sending you reinforcements. Personnel carriers, survey equipment, and weapons experts. Your orders are to recover Gonzalez at any cost, as soon as possible. We need her alive or dead, and we need her now.'

Serge's brow furrows. Her lower lip pouts childishly. She glances at you.

'So I take it you got a report from my Gossamer.'

'No, why? What new information do you have for us?'

'Never mind. You want to play games, you're gonna find I'm up for it.'

'No games here, Captain Serge. Just an urgent mission to recover Arla Gonzalez. Isn't that what you've been campaigning for?'

'Well, then, let me do it the way I do it. I don't need no reinforcements.'

'We'll be the judge of that, Captain Serge.'

'I've got a bead on Gonzalez. She'll be in quicker than you can say Late Night With David Letterman. Don't worry about it. Nothing will compromise my sense of duty.'

She sounds a little desperate. You know she thinks you told MF about her aborted fetus and its. . . consequences. You know she thinks they're giving these orders because of her conflict of interest.

Only you didn't tell them. So what's going on here?

Klaski and Hendricks are whispering together. You can only imagine their joy at the idea of personnel carriers coming, and their horror that Serge isn't accepting the help.

Dante bulldozes on. 'Major Galante will be in charge of the unit. You'll brief her on everything you know, and then take your instructions from her.'

Serge cursed loudly. 'You got to be kidding my pants.'

'Machine Front expects your cooperation in this matter,' said Dante in a tone that was meant to be stern but only sounded nasal in the Swatch's audio processors. 'Major Galante will be with you within three shifts. Please hold your position until then, and use the Gossamer to track Dr. Gonzalez.'

Serge says something so bad-mannered it makes you cringe.

You want to tell her that the reason MF are so hell-bent on getting Gonzalez is because they believe that she has the logic bullets. Nothing to do with the child-golems, whatever they are. But you can't talk to Serge without also talking to MF, and you can't figure out how to compose a message that won't somehow compromise Serge.

She sulks for a few minutes, then sends Lewis and the others to catalog the dimensions and boundaries of the structured elements in the Grid.

'I'm going into a danger zone,' Serge says. 'lf I don't come back, wait for Galante and follow her orders. On no account does anybody come after me.'

With a martyred look at you, she sets off alone into the tangled Grid. You hang with the group for a while.

'Where's she going?' Klaski wants to know.

'None of our business,' Lewis informs her. Klaski sticks out her tongue at Lewis when Lewis isn't looking.

'She was acting weird last night, though.'

'Time you learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth,' says Hendricks.

'Oh, you too, then? Why is everybody so serious? I thought we discovered something important. And the convoy will be here soon! God, I can't wait to take a shower and play some Cyndi Lauper. Shouldn't Serge be happy?'

'She won't be happy until she gets her guy back.'

'Well, I'll be happy when the convoy gets here. We can't stay exposed anymore, five work cycles is the legal limit. It says so in the manual.'

Lewis says, 'l wouldn't put too much faith in the manual if I was you. We'll meet the convoy when the Captain is good and ready.'

'But Lewis, that's illegal. We have to go now.' Klaski's on the verge of tears.

'Can it, Klaski. Now get up there into position –I want to you to triangulate this reading for me.'

You leave them taking measurements and gossiping.

 

It takes a while to find Serge. Gossamer's eyes aren't used to picking up movement in this altered region of the Grid, and you have to pay close attention to detect her presence. She's cradled in the arms of the Grid like a guy in his hammock who's supposed to be mowing the lawn. She looks decadent, almost sensual, with her armor-clad limbs draped around the thrumming contours of the Grid. If you didn't know better you'd say she was drunk. She's talking to herself.

At first you can't hear her over the Grid interference. The Grid is humming,a slow alternation of the same two pitches, ee-oo,ee-ooh. It's like the sound of an English fire engine heard through maple syrup.

Gossamer drops lower, and you increase your receiving power on audio.

'I know y'all think I didn't care about you or I wouldn't of done like I done. See, that's just not true. I didn't want you to have some s%&t life like I did when I was little. I didn't want you growing up with no daddy in some sh%&hole apartment or trailer park and me getting a job as a auto mechanic or repairing refrigerators and us hating each other by the time you was thirteen – I didn't want that. See, I just couldn't bring myself to do that. I'd of been a failure. I should of stayed away from Six, I know that. I doubt he even remembers who I am. He's too busy getting off with some other girl wants him to love her, well, that's not me, no siree Hankie, and I'll tell you what, why should I be the one left holding the sack of potatoes? Huh?'

There is no verbal reply. But now the humming seems to divide into two strands of sound: a deep, rhythmic thrumming overlaid with a soft, uneven whine.

'Nothing personal, of course. See, what y'all don't realize yet is that I am NOT TO BE F%@KED WITH. Got that, everybody?'

Serge sits up suddenly, sticking her head way out on her neck. For a second she looks like somebody's hunchbacked grandmother. Then you see what she's looking at.

A whole collection of the child-golems is arrayed on the edge of the nearby well. They are half-in, half-out of the fluid, in various attitudes, still as garden statues. The Grid is still humming, and now another track of click-clacking kicks in, like deep swamp noises. Serge waves her hands at the girls.

'And OK, at the moment I might look like the biggest jerk on God's green— I was gonna say on God's green Earth but I can't even say that, can I? The biggest joke there is, maybe I look like a jerk but I done what I done for reasons. Maybe they weren't as good as I thought but they looked good at the time and I ain't never said I was perfect.

'I wish Jezzy was here.'

The noise is growing more complex all the time. It seems to creep into your mind through a back door. You hear elements of sound that remind you of the squeaking of fingers across steel guitar strings and frets – the incidental noises of a guitar without the music, as such.

'No, cancel that request, she'd just complain they don't got no MTV.'

Serge is starting to worry you. You have never seen her get emotional in this way. You're taking a chance routing through MF to send her a message, but you have to reassure her that you're still on her side.

LOGIC BULLETS MISSING. NOT AT MINES. MF THINK GONZALEZ HAS LOGIC. THAT'S WHY BACKUP. NO OTHER REASON.

Serge snorts, receiving this. Gives you a little salute.

'Don't f@*king matter now, does it, Goss? Don't matter why. The end product is the same old poop.' She sighs, squeezes her battleskin-clad knees with her gloved hands.

'Yup. The whole trailer-park thing is looking pretty good to me now. I could get a job fixing VCRs and we could live out near the Indian reservation, park ourselves someplace cheap. Eat jerky – God, I miss jerky. And spam. Drink Pepsi. Maybe go down to a ball game on your birthday. If you were born, which you won't be. We could shoot squirrels like them Indians. Being poor's not so bad if you don't watch TV or go to the mall. Don't know what you're missing and it's OK.

'Like not being alive, right? Don't mind losing what you never had.

'Not that I could speak for y'all.'

Serge looks at their goofy faces and their spatulate fingers, six on each hand. They say nothing back to her. But the Grid is adding weird harmonies and disrhythmias to its chorus. Serge shouts at it now.

'How dare you do this to me? To US? Jesus God, what are you that you think turning dead embryos into golems is funny? Dead people is bad enough, disgusting enough, but this, this, this is beyond shame, you S?*T.'

She pauses.

'What is this supposed to be, some pro-life Mothers of America apple-pie bullshit because I'm a soldier goddamit and what was I supposed to do? I already told you about the friggin trailer park and like how was I supposed to know? Plus, already, where was the guy in question, where was six-fingers Six, I ask you?

'Are you listening? Are you here? What is the point of being God if you turn your back on people at a time like this YOU FRIG—

'Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, JC. It's just that, well, if you really want to know it's just that here's me telling people not to contaminate the well or drop any Coke cans in it and look what I dropped in it and sacrificed, a whole person, a helpless person y'all hadn't even finished making yet and I—'

She gulped and sucked, her diaphragm spasming in tearless sobs.

'I feel like a total A-hole.'

The singing came on. Funny how Serge was talking about humpback whale song this morning. The Grid makes whales sound tonal – symphonic, even. Its repertoire of noises has a curious effect. It reaches you with pitches just on the edge of hearing. It plays rhythms that make you feel crazed. Serge doesn't pay any attention. She's talking to herself, or God, or whatever, but however you read it, she's gone somewhere else in her head.

'OK, there's only one thing I can do.'

She takes something out of her pocket that looks like a hand grenade. You haven't seen one of these in a long time; it's an old-generation robot report unit.

'This is Captain Serge. I'm calling for an emergency destruct sequence to be initiated across the Grid from the points to follow. I have identified pernicious danger to the Effort and I doubt I will be able to get out to make a report personally. I'm downloading a briefing into this probe which will back up the destruct order. Do not wait to analyze it all. I cannot overemphasize the urgency of my request. This whole sector has got to be torched by any means necessary.'

Serge sticks the probe onto her Swatch and the unit chirps a few times as data are exchanged. Then she chucks the probe in the air. It goes sailing past you at a decorous pace. At that rate, the thing will take days to reach X. Maybe weeks. What is she playing at? She could have given you a direct order.

She looks up at you.

'Sorry, bud. Don't mean to hurt your feelings, Goss, but you're indigenous and I just can't trust you to give the order to kill your own planet.'

This is spooky. How does Serge know that Gossamer would protect the children? And how can she just. . .order them to be torched?

'My uncle JJ used to say trying to know your self is like trying to read the sky backwards. There's better ways to spend your time. But I can't help thinking about it. I don't think these kids is mine anymore than the rocks on Ardent beach is mine. The Grid took the embryo I got rid of and figured out what makes it grow. It made a lotta copies and filled their heads with whatever ideas it gets out of the candy-bar wrappers that idiots like Klaski manage to drop in it. Somebody musta dropped in some weird Greatest Hits albums to make it sing like it's doing.

'Now, Goss,' she adds in a conversational tone. 'Now that I sent that order, how much you wanna bet we get a visit from a bunch of golems right about now?'

You don't understand her. Does she have a death wish?

But Serge isn't wrong. Gossamer detects movement. Something's coming.

The children react first. They sink into the well without a sound or a ripple. An instant later, Serge startles.

'Whathef%#k you doin' here, Klaski? Who told you to follow me?'

'Nobody, ma'am, only I thought—'

'You didn't thought nothing. Go back now.'

Klaski breaks down in tears.

'Ma'am, I came to tell you I got to get out of here, I can't take it anymore, I have to go home, I'm sorry, I know I'm a disappointment to you and I don't want to let anybody down but—'

'F%#king Maybelline and Sugarfree, kill the speech and get your butt back to the convoy before you get hurt. Of all the friggin' ways to behave, Klaski – Jesus, just get up and go, that's an order.'

'I can't, I can't, I'm sorry, please don't yell at me.'

'We are in a ambush position, Klaski. You sit there any longer we're both gonna be hold the pickle hold the lettuce flame-grilled meat. Now get up.'

She grabs Klaski forcibly by the arm and drags her to her feet.

'Ma'am, I can't, I can't, don't make me, don't be mean, I—'

Serge speaks in a whisper.

'Some of us don't snap, Klaski. You can't let yourself snap, not out here. Some of us are strong enough that we hold it together no matter what.'

'I don't want to be that strong, ma'am. I was brought up nice and I want to go home. I'm only here because my adviser at MIT said it would look good on my application to grad school. I don't want to be like you and if you don't like it you can go ahead and kill me.'

Serge looks up at Gossamer.

'You get that?' she calls. 'She's asking me to kill her.'

She gives Klaski a shake. 'What in tar-fu%*ing-nation good's that gonna do, princess and the pea?'

Klaski said nothing.

'Come on. Back to camp.'

'I thought the convoy was coming but Lewis said no, and rules and regs says we got to go back, it's all I could do to hang on in there this long, it's not fair, ma'am—'

'Shut up. Put your feet one in front of the other. There's a good girl, Joanne, come on, walkie-walkie, you can do it. Now we're gonna climb over this here branch and Dante are you reading me get Lewis up here yesterday with a rehab kit and a radio cloak, I got me a freaker there you go – see, that wasn't so hard, was it? I need you to climb for me, just like on the monkey bars at the playground, you go on up, I'm right behind you I got you don't worry you ain't gonna fall and if you did I'd catch you—'

'It's no use, Captain ma'am, I just can't.'

At which point Serge hefts up Klaski's body like a sick dog's, fireman-carries her at a run-stagger across the Grid's foundation—

'—come on Lewis come on where are you—'

—until, chest heaving and wheezing, Serge coughs up something purple-green that lands on the side of a Grid-arm with a splat and a sizzle. Klaski pulls out a travel-sized package of Kleenex and tries to offer it to Serge, but fumbles and drops it in the well.

Serge emits a primal roar and drops Klaski.

'—Brand-name contamination,! don't believe this, where's my flamer—'

Klaski doesn't protest. Lewis arrives, snorting and grunting, and Serge says, 'Get her back to camp, she's out to lunch, I gotta clean this sonuvabitch up before the Grid processes it—'

'What is it, ma'am, what contaminant?'

'It's a brand-name plastic wrapper, goddamit, now get the kid out of here, I'll see you in a minute.'

Lewis retreats, dragging Klaski in an improvised cocoon.

You see the children rising out of the well, in synchrony, coming up in all directions – must be seven, eight of them. And then men, battle-clad, armed, shedding Grid-fluid like boxers shed their silk robes on arrival in the ring, and you try to alert Serge but she's cut you off, she's angry, she's scraping plastic off the Grid and frying it with total intensity, total purpose, as if by eliminating them she can purify this whole situation, fix everything, feel better, and forget about it.

'Getthef%*kouttaheregossamer, and I mean NOW or sohelpmeGod I'll shoot you thefrigdown.'

You're flying straight for Major Galante, to beg for help.

But the nex cuts off, leaving you breathless.