Krokodil Tears

'Mama,' said a high-pitched voice from the landing.

Herman staggered in, his apron on again, a tray of breakfast things in his hand. He shook, but didn't spill the milk.

'Mama…'

Jazzbeaux looked at the long-gone creature on the floor, and across to her son. Herman had no adequate response in his emotional repertoire. He set the tray down gently by the bedside, and picked up what was left of the mummy. It came apart in his arms, but he bundled it onto the bed.

'You've hurt mother,' he said.

Jazzbeaux tried not to look him in the eye.

'Once I tried to hurt mother, but she got better. She'll get better this time, won't she?'

'Yes, Herman,' Jazzbeaux lied. 'Everything will get better.'

She left him there, and went out into the desert, not knowing where she was headed, or what she was going through. Inside her head, the lights went out one by one, systems shut down. She walked towards the west, towards the point where the moon had just set. The sand began at the edge of the property. She walked out onto it, her boots sinking in with each step, and left the Katz Motel behind her.

Dead women didn't walk. Dead women didn't talk with the voice of Elder Seth. She knew that. But Ma Katz had got out of her rocking chair, and the preacherman had stared at her through the mummy's glass eyes.

Jazzbeaux walked, trying to reconcile what she knew with what she had seen, what she had felt. As the sun rose higher into the morning sky, circuits went inside her greymass, flaring up and dwindling to ash. She ignored her hurts, and kept walking, dragging her feet a little, but still walking…

In Spanish Fork, the fires began to burn themselves out.

PART TWO: THE SANDRAT

I

In his isolation tank in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle of Joseph, naked but for his mirror shades, Nguyen Seth sampled Jazzbeaux's memories. He had access to portions of her mind she herself was losing. He could not tell why he was fascinated with this girl. It had happened before, down through the centuries. He would join in battle or in love so closely with a human that a link was established that worked both ways. Usually, it was a woman or a very young man. Sikander the Greek, Kleopatra, the Maid of Orleans, Aphra Behn, Emily of Haworth, Lizzie B, Rupert Brooke…It took a peculiar collection of qualities to catch his mental eye. It was a weakness, he supposed, but not one he could do anything about. Especially vivid was the period in Jessamyn Bonney's life between her first meeting with the Josephite motorwagons and the burning of Spanish Fork, when she had worn his spectacles. She had left her imprint upon them, and now her mind overlapped with his whenever he wore the sacred lenses. He felt himself sinking into one of the familiar vignettes…

The Daughters of the American Revolution had been racking up a heavy rep in the past few months. They had total-stumped some US Cav in the Painted Desert, and some were saying they had scratched a Maniax Chapter in the Rockies. But after tonight, their time in the sun was Capital-O Over. And the Psychopomps would rule!

Jazzbeaux pushed a wing of hair back out of her eye, and clipped it into a topknot-tail. She took off the snazzy shades she had taken from the preacherman they'd jump-rammed this morning, and passed them back to Andrew Jean. No sense getting your scav smashed before it was fenced. She beckoned the Daughter forward with her razorfingered glove, and gave the traditional high-pitched 'pomp giggle.

The others behind her joined in, and the giggle sounded throughout the ghost town. Moroni it was called. The War Councils of the gangs had chosen it at random. It was some jerkwater zeroville in Utah nobody gave a byte about.

The Daughter didn't seem concerned. She was young, maybe seventeen, and obviously blooded. There were fightmarks on her flat face, and she had a figure that owed more to steroids and implants than nature. Her hair was dyed grey and drawn up in a bun, with two needles crossed through it. She wore a pale blue suit, skirt slit up the thigh for combat, and a white blouse. She had a cameo with a picture of George Washington at her throat, and sensible shoes with concealed switchblades. Her acne hadn't cleared up, and she was trying to look like a dowager.

More than one panzer boy had mistaken the Daughters of the American Revolution for solid citizens, tried the old mug-and-snatch routine, and wound up messily dead. The DAR were very snazz at what they did, which was remembering the founding fathers, upholding the traditional American way of life and torturing and killing people. Personally, Jazzbeaux wasn't into politics. She called a gangcult a gangcult, but the Daughters tried to sell themselves as a Conservative Pressure Group. They had a male adjunct, the Minutemen, but they were wimpo faghaggs. It was the Daughters you had to be conce with.

'Come for it, switch-bitch,' Jazzbeaux hissed, 'come for my knifey-knives!'

The Daughter walked forward, as calm as you please, and with a samurai movement drew the needles out of her hair. They glinted in the torchlight. They were clearly not ornamental. She grinned. Her teeth had been filed and capped with steel. Expensive dental work.

'Just you and me, babe,' Jazzbeaux said, 'just you and me.'

The rest of the DAR cadre stood back, humming 'America the Beautiful.' The other Psychopomps were silent. This was a formal combat to settle a territorial dispute. Utah and Nevada were up for grabs since the Turner- Harvest-Ramirez and US Cav joint action put the Western Maniax out of business, and Jazzbeaux thought the 'pomps could gain something from a quick fight rather than a long war.

This was not a funfight. This was Serious Business. Jazzbeaux heard they did much the same thing in Jap corp boardrooms.

The Daughter drew signs in the air with her needles. They were dripping something. Psychoactive venom of some sort, Jazzbeaux had heard. Hell, her system had absorbed just about every ju-ju the GenTech labs could leak illegally onto the market, and she was still kicking. And punching, and scratching, and biting.

'You know, pretty-pretty, I hear they're talkin' about settlin' the Miss America pageant like this next anno. You get to do evenin' dress, and swimwear, and combat fatigues.'

The Daughter growled.

'I wouldn't give much for your chances of winning the crown, though. You just plain ain't got the personality.'

Behind her patch, the implant buzzed open, and circuitry lit up. She might need her optic burner. It always made for a grand fight finisher.

Jazzbeaux held up her ungloved hand, knuckles out, and shimmered the red metal stars implanted in her knucks. Kidstuff. The sign of The Samovar Seven, her fave Russian musickies when she was a kid. She didn't freak much to the Moscow Beat these days, but she knew Sove Stuff really got to the DAR.

'You commie slit,' sneered the Daughter.

'Who preps your dialogue, sister? Neil Simon?'

Jazzbeaux hummed in the back of her throat. 'Unbreakable Union of Soviet Republics…' The 'pomps caught the tune, and joined it. The Daughter's eyes narrowed. She had stars on one cheek, and stripes on the other. The President of their chapter wore a Miss Liberty spiked hat, and carried a killing torch.

'Take the witchin' slag down. Jazz-babe,' shrilled Andrew Jean, her lieutenant, always the encouraging soul.

The DAR switched to 'My Country 'tis of Thee.' The 'pomps segued to 'Long-Haired Lover From Leningrad,' popularized by Vania Vanianova and the Kulture Kossacks.

The Daughter clicked her heels, and made a pass, lunging forwards. Jazzbeaux bent to one side, letting the