trash filled those streets, sometimes narrowing the strip to a single lane, and gangs of armed men and women inhabited the great husks of theme parks and casinos.
In front of a replica of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomph, the street narrowed again, and iron gates spanned between the piles of rubble, blocking the road. Men flanked the gate, armed with machine guns, dressed in berets and lacy, puffy, beaded coats that looked like they'd been designed during the late Bourbon dynasty, just before its bloody, frilly end.
Lucia slowed as several of the longhaired, unshaven men stepped forward, signaling with velvet-gloved hands for Ruppert and Lucia to stop.
“This is not good,” Ruppert said.
“Don’t worry,” Lucia said. “I doubt they’re Terror informants.”
“That hadn’t occurred to me yet, but thanks.”
A bearded man approached Lucia’s window, and she reached for the handle to roll it down. Ruppert wanted to tell her to stop, but what could they do? Two rough-looking male faces appeared outside his own window, their hostile glares a steep contrast to their puffy silk apparel.
“Toll gate,” the bearded man said through Lucia’s open window. “Ride the king’s road, pay the king’s taxes.'
“What's the toll?' Lucia asked him.
“Depends what you carry,” the bearded man said. “Got drugs? Ammo?”
“Sorry,” Lucia said. “We have a little cash, that’s it.”
“Cash?” The bearded man looked to his comrades, who laughed. “Cash doesn’t buy around here. We wipe with cash. Get out of the truck. Your man, too.”
The armed men directed Ruppert and Lucia out into the dusty air and stood them against the grill of the truck. Two of the bandits patted them down and searched their pockets. More searched inside the truck. They unrolled two tarps stored in the back of Archer's truck, one printed with forest camouflage and another with desert camouflage, but were disappointed that nothing was hidden inside them. The bandits dug out the paper bag holding their food and water, Lucia’s worn, patched duffle, Ruppert’s embossed leather suitcase.
“This one looks expensive,” one of them muttered, stroking his fingers across over the suitcase.
“You’re welcome to the suitcase,” Ruppert said. “But the clothes inside are all I have.” He didn’t realize how true those words were until he said them aloud. He was even traveling in a stolen truck.
“We got a million suitcases,” said the bearded man, who seemed to be the group’s leader. “People left quick, back during the riots.”
The men had no interest in Ruppert’s thrift-store clothes, but the contents of Lucia’s duffle drew their attention.
“What’s this here?” A bandit held up her modified remote control, the colored wires tumbling in every direction.
“It’s for housebreaking,” Lucia said, surprising Ruppert with her bluntness. “Really only works on residential systems. Some liquor stores.”
The man snorted and laid it on the truck’s hood. He lifted out a blue data disc the size of a silver dollar, one of fifty in her bag.
“What are all these?” he asked.
“It’s fifty copies of the same video,” Lucia told him.
“Starring you?” he asked, drawing snickers and leers from the others.
“I doubt it would interest you,” she said. “Just a historical document, really.”
“If it’s so not-interesting,” the bearded man asked, “Why you smuggling fifty copies?”
“Why do you assume we’re smuggling?” Ruppert asked.
“You’re driving through Vegas, ain’t you?” the bearded man said. He looked back to Lucia. “What is it?”
“It’s restricted information,” Lucia said. Ruppert wished she would stop there, but she continued. “Letting people know about some covert operations, state secrets, that kind of thing.”
The bearded man stared at Lucia, then gave her a wry smile. He gestured toward one of his men: “Rico, let’s have a look at the lady's data.”
The man named Rico was short and dark, his skin weathered by long exposure to the desert, though he looked no more than twenty. He wore data goggles over his eyes and assorted plastic and metal components strapped to his arms and belt. He took the disc in question, ejected it from its transparent case, and popped it into a console on his arm. Rico then pointed his arm at an empty, sandy patch of road beside the truck. Ruppert and Hollis Westerly appeared in a life-size hologram.
As the interview played, the bandits ceased talking among themselves. Ruppert and Westerly’s voice echoed through the quiet streets, bouncing off the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Sphinx. More bandits emerged one or two at a time for a better look at the video, leaving their hidden guard posts, including two who’d been hiding behind the Eiffel Tower.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ruppert whispered to Lucia.
“Did you have a better one?” she whispered back.
When the entire video had played, the men stood in silence. Finally, Rico flipped off his projector and spoke up.
“Terror would pay a good bounty for these two, I bet,” he said. “Whatever we wanted.”
A couple of the men grumbled what might have been agreement, but they looked at their shoes as they spoke. To Ruppert’s surprise, most of them remained quiet, their eyes distant. Gradually they turned their attention to the bearded man, who continued to stare at the patch of road where Westerly’s image had been.
“What are you planning to do with this?” he finally asked.
“We’re going to distribute as wide as we can,” Lucia said. “There are others doing the same. Lots of others.” Ruppert found this to be an exaggeration, but said nothing.
The bearded man released the disc from Rico’s arm, returned it to its case. “You have fifty copies. I’m keeping one.”
“Of course,” Lucia said. “Make as many copies as you can, too.”
The bearded man looked south along the strip, possibly checking whether any other cars were approaching. None were.
“Let them go,” the bearded man said.
“But there could be a bounty-” Rico protested.
“Shut up.” One of the older bandits cut him off.
“We at least oughta siphon some gas,” another bandit said.
“Quiet,” the bearded man said. “I served four years in the Marines, in the old world. We talked about something called honor. You brats don’t even know what the word means.”
“Sure,” Rico spoke up. “My uncle told me, greed and honor. Greed is killing someone else for your own profit. Honor is when you kill for someone else’s greed, and they keep the profit.”
“Nobody wants to hear your bullshit, Rico.” The bearded man turned back to Ruppert and Lucia. “This is treason, and people need to know it.” He shook his head. A waxing moon was rising behind him. “We used to be a country.”
He turned his back to them and walked towards Paris, his head low, saying nothing. The other men began to peel away. Ruppert and Lucia gathered their belongings and loaded them back into the truck, then climbed up into the cab. Ruppert started the engine, but the sentries at the gate ahead of them didn’t move.
Ruppert leaned out the window. “He said we could go.”
“One minute,” a sentry said, and nodded towards the Eiffel Tower. Rico was returning, holding some kind of large, red container in one hand. He wore a broad, clearly false smile as he approached Lucia’s passenger window.
“I don’t like him,” Lucia whispered. “Tell them to open the gate.”
“Just wait.”
“He’s coming towards me.”
“Have your blade ready.”
“I do.”
Ruppert studied the length of black obsidian resting in her fingers. Not for the first time, he considered how
