Hymie transmitted a cry for help as organs dribbled through the suppurating wound in his lower abdomen. Franken did not have surplus graymass to consider further how assistance might be delivered. In the past, he had faced 00.00 per cent problems and developed solutions that expanded the parameters of the original programming. But he had not then been distracted by threats to his own survival.
Hymie switched himself off, auto-euthanasing. His doodads were smart parts; when they calculated termination was a certainty, they overruled their owner's graymass and simply ceased to function. Wastage of energy in a hopeless cause was criminally irrational.
Later, when he had survived, Franken Steinberg would calculate what had happened to the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. There were solutions alternative to belief in forces beyond the natural.
A lesson was learned. The evolution of the Next Generation must not be supervised by the meatmind. If perfection was to come, it must come from the cybermind.
V
Fifty miles past sun-up city, Varoomschka reported back that she had scoped a party of motorwagons pulled over in the Lansdale Ozoner. Jazzbeaux knew it wasn't worth a detour to the abandoned drive-in. A regiment of raggedyass resettlers could hardly offer serious scav.
The Psychopomp war convoy was spruce-goosed to make an impression, proceeding at speed and in formation. Jazzbeaux was in the front passenger seat of the lead ve-hickle, a salmon-pink Tucker Tomorrow, with Sleepy Jane Porteous at the wheel. She usually drove herself, but had to rest up for the evening's social appointment. Besides, her licence outside the city was provisional and L-plates looked sissy. The Tucker was air-conditioned to a pleasant perfumed breeze. The in-car sound system was tuned to Radio Moscow; Andrei Tarkovsky sang 'Twenty-Four Hours to Byelozersk'.
Three cars back, Andrew Jean drove a life-size version of Barbie's Dream Motor Home. The gangcult's mobile HQ had frilly curtains On all the windows, sparkly swirls of stars on the bodywork and enough deathware to fight a border war for three months.
The skeleton of the drive-in screen was visible from a long way off. Sleepy Jane, an old-timer at twenty-one, remembered the place from her wild youth.
'Back then,' she reminisced, leaning over but keeping her eyes on the road, ''afore the 'Pomps took me on, I was so numb-dumb I'd spread-eagle in the back of a flat-bed, putting out for popcorn kish or a jolt of zonk. I reckon I could juice off fifteen or sixteen grungy guys and still not miss any good parts of the
'Real lucky, fillette,' Jazzbeaux commented.
Sleepy Jane got her name when one of the grunges, a specimen named Buddy Wayne Meeker, thought it'd be hilarious to cut her eyelids with a razor-blade. His performance was so uninspiring she'd fallen asleep before the end titles rolled. Though interrupted by the Lansdale's Security Op, Buddy Wayne managed to sever a few tiny muscles, giving the ganggirl a permanently dozy look.
Nine months back. Sleepy Jane finally tracked down her amateur plastic surgeon and the 'Pomps had paid him a visit at his place of drinking. Pleased with his shaky night's work, he liked to tell the story to his beer buds, working up a fair old head of laughter as he embroidered details. When Sleepy Jane faced Buddy Wayne down, he recognised her straight off and sprouted a shit-eating grin that was practically a deformity. In the parking lot Jazzbeaux, who'd paid attention to human bio lessons, cut a few of
When Buddy Wayne told the Sleepy Jane story these days, he'd still grin but he wouldn't be laughing. That was one score evened. Jazzbeaux was making a career of settling scores. It was one of the many character traits she could backtrace to the influence of her father. Though Bruno Bonney was dead, she kept running into him.
Varoomschka called in a detailed report.
'They're pilgrims,
Without needing an order, Sleepy Jane slowed down. The Tucker crawled up to the Lansdale turn-off. Jazzbeaux saw Varoomschka standing by her cyke, the butt of her Kalashnikov perched on one hip, keeping an eye on a sober crowd of men in rough black suits. Their womenfolk and kids held back, eyeballing Varoomschka with suspicion and alarm. The 'Pomp wore a see-through jump suit over a red bikini with a yellow hammer-and-sickle motif. Spike heel go-go boots and a white fur hat made her nearly seven feet tall. She had unslung her Kalashnikov and put a hole or two in the dirt by the Josephites' feet.
Jazzbeaux watched her own back because Varoomschka sometimes gave the impression that she wondered if she could get ahead by making an opening for Acting War Chief.
The negotiation with the Daughters of the American Revolution was colossally important. Jazzbeaux shouldn't be conce with petty pickings. With two good-sized states to worry about, she should pass on by without rumbling the Josephites or just give them a light pasting to get their food and fuel. She had other
But there was a man among them who was unafraid. That was a personal challenge.
'Vroomsh, who's the preachie with the shades?'
Varoomschka pressed a Red Star throat-mike cameo to her larynx and sub-vocalised. The CB translated her swallowed words into a metallic Hawking voice.
'Elder Seth, he says. Leader of the pack.'
Sleepy Jane pulled over and the convoy slid smoothly to a halt. As she got out of the Tucker, Jazzbeaux was pleased to see the 'Pomps were still in formation as if for a parade. The chapter would make the late, genuinely lamented Ms Dazzle proud.
Elder Seth stood tall by Varoomschka, smiling just like her old man. On sight, Jazzbeaux knew she would have to take him down.
'Good ayem, preacher-man,' she said, looking at her face in his mirrorshades. Even with the eyepatch, she was doubly cute. 'My associate, Miss Porteous,' she nodded at Sleepy Jane, 'is the
The Elder showed empty hands and said, 'The Brethren of Joseph are poor. We have little money.'
'Foul hagwitch of slutdom,' protested a black-hatted pilgrim with a red face, starting forward.
Elder Seth held his arm out, preventing his follower from flying at Jazzbeaux, probably saving his life.
'Stay calm. Brother Wiggs. The sister will find her reward in Heaven.'
'Darlin' dearest,' she said, dimpling the underside of the Elder's chin with the sharpened point of her forefingernail extension, 'I'd best find my reward in your pockets, else you'll be waiting for me by the time I get to Heaven.'
'We have abjured pockets,' Elder Seth said, calmly lecturing as if she weren't an eighth of an inch away from puncturing his carotid artery. 'Pockets encourage possessions and we have abjured ownership of worldly things.'
