59
When he awoke after another prolonged respite he was in a strange place but felt none of the warning signs that alerted him to impending threats to his safety. The humans had left him. He remembered the awful color slides all too vividly, and he saw what they'd left behind, a recorder with a cassette in it. He touched nothing.
He walked outside, feeling around for his chain, which he'd left in the pocket of his fatigues. Where were his fatigue pants and why was he wearing gray suit trousers? There was his newly appropriated Plymouth. He opened the trunk and found the tarp-wrapped duffel. The weapons case was intact. He checked his SMG, made a cursory inventory of ordnance and ammo, patted his pocket and felt the bulge of chain, and realized he'd hallucinated the gray trou, took another step backward and fell right on his vast fat ass.
The sensation of falling was heightened by a rush of Alpha Group II through his life-support system. Neurons picked up strange signals as the molecular pump that regulates dopamine gave him a flood of something that produced a floating feeling. The spark plugs of his engine misfired as he tried to zoom in on his surroundings.
He was sitting on cracked tarmac. An overgrown parking lot. No. Runway. The sign on the safe house where he'd had his little drugged briefing read Feld's Charter on a peeling board. Overgrown runways. Blue around him on three sides. The edge of the little shithole, no doubt.
Chaingang made it to his feet again, slammed the trunk, got in and started the car, drove until he found a pay phone. Looked up Shtolz, regained his senses, looked up Royal, tried both numbers. Man was gone. Looked up the Neo-Nazi security outfit and tried there, logic over discretion.
“New Agers,” a guttural voice sneered.
“Is Dr. Royal present?'
“Huh?'
He repeated the question, and some punk told him he had the wrong number, slamming the telephone receiver down.
He made a note of all three addresses and got back in the car, passed out cold, but regained consciousness almost instantly. He sat, poleaxed by the punch of the drug, and finally shook it off sufficiently to drive. The combination of the recent car mishap and now this. He was barely functioning.
He decided he'd kill for a cold one. Where was he, what was he doing? Something about a puppy, little children, open brainpans.
Numerical analysis.
Symbolic math.
Parsing of equations.
Random solution purging.
Charting abstract algebraic transformation nodes—no problem. His was a mind that could command virtually any situation, and assimilate and retain any understandable fact, but figuring out where he was had proved to be beyond his grasp.
He drove until he ran into water, turned, drove some more. Put gas in the tank. Showed the nice service station man his three addresses and inquired which was nearest. The pleasant chap pointed him toward the skinheads’ hangout.
There were four toughs lounging around the storefront office. Under ordinary circumstances Chaingang could have kicked their collective butts to Mars, asked his questions, and planted the last survivor. As it was he meekly knocked, entered, and smiled pleasantly, his attitude toward the youths rather loving and open.
“—so this fucking bear grabs the rabbit and goes, do you get shit on your fur when you wipe? And the rabbit goes no, so the bear picks him up and wipes his ass with the fucker!” The young men with shaved skulls laughed uproariously.
“Yeah?” one of the punks asked. The one who'd just told his joke sat on a scarred table piled with papers. Behind him a black, red, and white flag sported a Germanic-looking eagle and the name NEW AGERS. Boxes of white-supremacist nonsense were piled everywhere in lieu of chairs.
“May I speak with Dr. Royal, please?'
“Hey, tubby, you the guy called a while ago?” one of the others sneered.
“Yes.'
“You got wax in your ears? What the fuck's wrong with you, asshole?” He was a big one, right in Daniel's face. The skinhead didn't like the fat fuck's looks. He was old but had a haircut kind of like theirs, sort of making fun of them, coming in and asking shit about the doc when he'd done been told. “You a tough boy?'
“Yes,” Daniel said, pleasantly. The kid slapped him. Hard. Right across the face. Chaingang put a hand up to ward off further blows and that was all it took. The four of them were on him with fists and boots. One of them had recently been hurt during a ruckus after their parade, and they weren't swallowing any more redneck horseshit.
They pounded the crap out of Daniel, the second real kick-ass beating he'd had in his adult life, and when they got tired they dumped him out in the alley, which was the hard part. Beating him up was a snap, but carrying the fat son of a bitch was nigh impossible for the four of them. Bunkowski as dead weight was a pallbearer's nightmare.
Unlike the memories of the worst go-round at the merciless hands of Spanish Rodriguez, or the aftermath of the bad accident, the recollection of this ass-kicking actually had a feelgood side effect. He came to in a pulpy, turnip-headed state of joyous bliss at first, as some body chemistry unlocked by his physical defense mechanisms blended with the Alpha Group II. The end product was sort of a heroin high. Eventually, still on the nod, he found the car, managed to get in, and started the damned thing.
He wheeled out into the light traffic, his mind a whirlpool of confusion. He tried concentrating on reading signs and watching the vehicles: Gas For Less; a silver Acura; bread; cigarettes; Just Add Bacardi; a maroon Gran Prix; Burlington Northern—Hydracushion—Santa Fe; a log truck; a red Celica; Raymond Meara; a Nissan Stanza— RAYMOND MEARA cut through the junk from out of nowhere. He kicked the thing into a hard illegal U and roared back. It was Meara. From a hundred years ago in the Nam. Alive and getting into a beat-up pickup, that bastard Meara!
Only four SAUCOG survivors made it back to the world counting Chaingang: Michael Hora, a dead fucking sniper named Bobby Price, and this boy. He was sure it was Meara. If it was—there was the answer to his ordnance resupply needs. Old Ray would have some goodies stashed round and about here and there.
The last time he'd seen Meara alive and well had been back at base camp where a worthless fuck named McClanahan had briefed them down in his private trailer. The man had offered them up to the little people as a sacrifice, and his mind's eye pictured the two flags and pennant furled around the tall bamboo flagpole above the berm hole that led to his air-conditioned bomb shelter, the U.S. flag, South Vietnam's buttwipe, and the pirate skull flag of their phony recon outfit. The fucked-up monkey men playing soldier.
It took an eternity for Meara to get wherever he was headed, but Chaingang had tremendous patience and he used the time to nurture himself on the poisons that coursed through him, taking the bruises and humiliation of this latest beating and using it to forge new strength. Tailing Meara to the water's edge was child's play. Nobody could stay on a vehicle or a subject the way Bunkowski could. He lagged way back, now and then allowing the red dots or yellow headlights to wink out briefly, but the sudden stop almost made him overrun his man. He was barely able to wheel into a gravel side road in time. Meara was getting into a boat.
Chaingang was out of the ride and moving—a waddling run—surprisingly fast, faster in fact than anyone alive had ever seen him move. He could run very fast for very short distances, and his tree-trunk legs of steel propelled him down the mud road. Meara had his back to the road and was yanking on an outboard motor lanyard when he heard the deep rumble in his ear.
“Don't move anything if you want to live,” Chaingang said, puffing. The smell alone might have cut through and warned him, but Meara stunk a little himself. The voice, once heard, was not one a person ever forgot.
“Right,” Meara said, chilly.
It was a professional frisk job, and when Chaingang Bunkowski patted you down it was almost a sex act. He got the ERMA .22, the pocket knife, even Meara's keychain.
“Listen up. You know who I am?'
“Yeah. Bunkow—'
