“We had no choice. They could’ve taken America proper. Grandma wouldn’t have really launched the nukes.” The Major briefly imagined the empty movie theater filled with Allahs and shuddered.
The Collector sipped noisily on his cola. “They’re not the same as before.”
Tomas craned his neck slightly.
“They don’t maintain weapons or discipline,” the Collector continued. “That iron core of purpose is gone, except for the religious fanatics.”
“They’re all fanatics,” Stilton muttered.
“No,” he shook his head emphatically. “I live among them. I know. Some are willing to die, where others won’t. They have the Empire they always felt was promised.”
“All the more reason to defend it.”
The Collector paused. “They could be taken.”
“Militarily?” Tomas asked. The Collector nodded.
By who? Our will to fight, except for the Miners, had been broken. This was not virtual reality on some mobile device shared with people who weren’t your friends, emotional silos of fake communities. This was real and we hadn’t been ready to fight because we forgot what we were fighting for. We were tired of losing, blaming ourselves for mistreating Islam because somehow it had to be our fault for them starting the whole damn thing. Allies, friends? European whores waving the white flags and giving away the countries they stopped loving long ago under the banner of human rights. Only the Russians had really fought hard. And the Jews in that last battle of genocidal martyrdom in Jerusalem. He rubbed the Gelinium as if it stored all the dead. There would’ve been nothing left if Grandma hadn’t said enough. Time to rebuild, my darlings.
Now time to build something new. We don’t have the soldiers, planes, ships, hell, guts for anything else except peace with an enemy who wanted us dead. The realization made him sadder than he wanted to admit.
Tomas slowly returned the bag of popcorn. “Grandma wants to meet the Son.”
“I will set it up.” The man shook out the last of the snack into his palm, greedily licking the salt.
“Not yet. I want to meet him first.”
“The Son will not prefer that.”
“Grandma won’t like it, either. We’ll just have to lie to both of them.”
• • • •
FISHER PACED BACK and forth in front of his desk and then around the furniture; all that was missing were a stop light and a few street signs. He finally leaned against the wall, hoping it would collapse and take him away from all this aggravation.
“Nedick, this is not acceptable behavior. We never had an HG act like this.”
“Because they’re not real.”
“My players suffered injuries,” Boccacelli said with grave concern as if he cared. “This man must be disciplined.”
“Yes, Nedick. He must be disciplined,” Fisher added.
“I already spoke to Ty. He lost his temper. It won’t happen again.”
“Baseball players are violent.” Boccacceli straightened his tie. “There’s a reason why we have the HGs. You people are prone to this. Look at what you did the last time.”
“I didn’t do anything, sir,” Puppy said coldly.
“Your DV friends did. The Miners were mostly DVs.”
“They’re all gone. Look at the bones in the outfield.”
Boccacelli flushed. “Cobb’s your responsibility.”
“Yes sir, he is.”
The Falcons owner scowled.
“And we’re already out of toilet paper,” Fisher whined.
Mrs. Balinksi’s kielbasa hadn’t agreed with everyone. “I’ll tell them three sheets per poop, no more.”
The owners frowned skeptically.
“And then there’s these added labor costs.” Boccacelli sneered. “I see two more on the payroll. I imagine both are DVs.”
“Excellent guess, sir. They work hard and they also work cheap,” he said tightly.
“With good reason. Doing what exactly?”
“Maintenance and concessions.”
“Maintaining what?”
“The ambience so people are motivated to eat. If they eat, they pay. If they pay, you get a cut.”
Fisher moved away from the wall. “Cut like money?”
“Yes, Mr. Fisher. Fifty percent.”
The owners tried containing their greedy smiles.
“What’re they eating?” Fisher asked.
“Pierogi and kielbasa.”
Fisher tried silently mouthing the words.
“From the Polish region,” Puppy said.
“That’s Muslim Europe food,” the Hawks owner gasped.
“It was a CE Polish country which served kielbasa and pierogi long before the Allahs took over.”
“We’ll have to check,” Boccacelli warned. There were instances of vague trouble for people serving cuisine of enslaved nations. “How many of these polishey things were eaten today?”
“Thirty kielbasa. Twelve pierogi.”
The owner’s eyes widened.
“Fifty percent,” Puppy continued. “We get more food stands, you get more money.”
Fisher brightened. “Who’ll eat this foreign food?”
Puppy flashed five fingers on each hand five times to indicate the attendance. “We’re well over the cutoff.” He paused. “And if you petition Commissioner Kenuda to have the games restored to the full nine innings, think of how many more kielbasa and pierogi you can sell.”
The owners’ eyes gleamed.
20
Puppy motioned for Frecklie to stop twenty feet away. Far enough. The sun began descending somewhere over Manhattan, signaling maybe another half an hour of light. Even now, the tangled weeds along the back wall of the playground on Clay Avenue formed a canopy of shadows.
Ready? Frecklie gave the sign of impatience, up on the toes, protectively holding the side of Puppy’s old weathered Derek Singh glove as if afraid it’d get hit by a ball. Puppy used a Santo Danero model, the Cubs left fielder from the ’65 team; he’d searched his bedroom, but the Mooshie Lopez glove had fled. Hopefully Mick hadn’t sold the mitt for booze.
Puppy looked around again, expecting millions to descend from the sky in Grandma’s stealth ‘copters, brandishing cameras to project the moment into the holographic sky. Overreaching Is Not Ambition, Grow Within Yourself. A giant Grandma holding a tiny Puppy by the neck, carefully rotating his shoulder. See Grandma, he’d look up into those comforting brown eyes the size of clouds. Not a twinge. Not an ache. Nothing yet to suggest surgically repaired muscles would launch a vicious protest campaign against this lunacy. Even fools can be right. Sorry, Grandma. You never struck out fourteen batters.
He had to try. If the shoulder hurt, close the door on the past. And the future. This room is your room forever. Ty could
