both of them with a felt tip pen. The three men then split up again.
Broussard walked westward, towards ground zero. He found B-3 approximately ninety meters later. The winds had split it into two pieces, one of them upside down. He found a stout piece of tree branch nearby and gingerly stepped into the ragged fringes leading to the rear of the bus, using the stick to poke and push at the pieces of solid debris that were in his path. Large sections of torn metal fanged out at him from all directions. It more closely resembled a cheap Hollywood monster than a lowly passenger bus. He slowly made his way to where the lab should have been. There, mashed in one corner was the familiar blue console with the racing stripes. He found half of it untouched and exposed. Much to his astonishment, it was the half that he needed. He pushed aside an upended bench seat out of the way. That was when his luck ran out. The console computer's keyboard had been ripped from its moorings and hopelessly wedged between a crushed portion of the console itself and a piece of the armor plating which had been bent over it at a ninety-degree angle. One or two millimeters separated the three objects, not enough space to insert a finger or a knife or anything else. He looked around for something stronger that he might use to pry the keyboard loose with. He found nothing. Something caught his attention. There were large, ugly brown stains all over the bus's walls. Something made him reach out and touch one. It was very cold and slick. Engine residue?
He worried the keyboard a little bit more and then gave up. It was hopeless. His last reserves of energy were dwindling.
His mind wandered off. For some reason it parked itself at a memory that he had not accessed in a decade. It was right after the graduation ceremony at college, and Uncle Curtis and an assortment of vague cousins were feting him at the Red Lobster. Uncle Curtis had made an awkward toast and then slipped him a wrinkled fifty-dollar bill, his large eyes full of emotion. "I tried to get the bank to give me a new one, but they wouldn't."
He could see his uncle standing there in his mind's eye, the bill in his outstretched hand, just as clearly as day.
I should just leave.
He slid down the side of a cracked wall panel to rest on the bus's floor.
I should get out of here and find my family.
The truth was that he could now really escape. Neither Hillerman nor Brady was in a position to stop him. He could simply climb out of the bus and disappear. Only he couldn't go north; Chicago, the only functioning city for hundreds of kilometers, would eventually find a reason to execute him. He couldn't go east because that would take him past Hillerman and Brady and the remaining Ranger team. If he went south, he would be in Advance South territory for the next two states. And if he dared go west, he would run smack into the remnants of a nuclear bomb. I could run away, but how would I get there? He chuckled to himself: There were no easy freedoms in anarchy. He suspected that even those casting their lots with the Jack Law were ultimately going to run smack into a similarly bitter irony.
Oh, well...
He squinted his eyes against the shards of bright moonlight bouncing off the inside of the bus, somehow making the ubiquitous splotches on the walls even darker.
He thought about calling Roger and telling him the bad news. In spite of the alcohol dump, the burning in his arm was growing in strength, and he was having to squeeze it again as tightly as he could to keep the pain down. Perspiration poured from his body.
He pulled out his radio and thumbed the TALK button. As he leaned back and waited for the connection, he happened to catch one of the oil stains detach itself from the opposite wall and float towards him.
The radio flew out of his hand, and he flattened himself. The 'stain' drifted closer and thickened, as if becoming corporeal. Alive.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Wake up! Wake up! The thought blared its way through his brain.
When did I fall asleep?
Something cool—like tree shade in a hot summer sun—brushed up against his bad arm.
He started to hyperventilate.
I have to get out of here!!! His mind temporarily went haywire.
Tip-tap-tippity-tap.
Broussard's breath froze in mid-inhalation.
Tip-tap-tippity-tap-tappity-tip-tip.
Broussard forced his eyes open. The stain now hovered over the console next to him. The keys on the keyboard were moving slowly but with infinite surety.
Broussard whimpered and cursed his own existence.
Now the upper half of the thing slowly started to rotate towards him. Broussard instinctively knew what he would see ... scary, scary red glowing eyes ... not of this world ... burning with an alien intelligence forged in the infernal bowels of some alien Gehenna ...
With his good arm, he drew his tattered shirt across his face. Reality was about to waffle again, and he did not want to be a witness.
It spoke.
As he feared, the voice was not human.
"What is the password?"
The voice was impossibly deep and grating, like two asteroids grinding against each other.
Broussard was trembling so violently that his teeth began to chatter. Thin, whining sounds escaped his parched lips. "I've gone insane."
"Be that as it may, the password, please."
As if by some unseen force, his mouth moved of its own accord. "Rosebud. All lower case."
"Thank you."
Tip-tap-tippity-tap-tappity-tip-tip.
"The command to engage seventh gear has been given and confirmed."
Broussard could no longer control himself, and he screamed himself silly.
Instinctively using his good arm as leverage, he pole-vaulted to his feet. Blood rushed from his brain and made a mad dash for his feet. His sight went completely white. The floor slanted crazily upwards at him, and he felt himself dropping out of consciousness.
There was a short time of complete void ... and then he was wide awake and on his feet and running back to the others.
Roger and Herschel were standing in front of him. The older engineer stared expectantly at him, his lips moving.
"Got it?" Herschel asked.
Broussard was confused. What had just happened?
"Neal!"
"Yeah!" he shouted back, not knowing what else to say.
Several items were on the ground: a plastic jug of water, a flashlight, granola bars, two familiar-looking notebooks. Roger nosed the items with the toe of his boot. "I found some real moonshine, too. You want I should get it?"
Herschel grinned like a banshee. "Sure. Why not?"
"Okay. Be right back." Roger ran south towards an overturned Ford pickup.
"We're making good time," Herschel said, throwing Roger's booty into a plastic bag.
Broussard felt an odd heaviness on top of his head, as if the atmospheric pressure had suddenly increased. Something made him look up. He caught a glimpse of it before it crashed. The only explanation that his brain could come up with was, "A shark is falling from the sky!"
And then the object plunged snout first into the soil with a tremendous thud, followed by the hot glow of another ignition of highly combustible gases.
Both men were knocked backwards. Broussard landed on his bad arm and howled with pain.
His ears abruptly went dead, and then his hearing returned just in time to hear Herschel screaming hysterically.
"ROGER! ROGER!"
When the main dust burst had settled, Broussard could clearly see the object. It was one of the drones. The crash must have caused a short in the electrical connection to the craft's exterior lighting system; the red, white, and blue ID lights were now twinkling on and off like faraway stars.
Roger was gone.
Herschel limped over to Broussard. He must have twisted his ankle during the explosion.
"Are you all right?" Broussard asked him.
Herschel slapped the dust from his trousers. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." He gave the speared drone a good, long look and then placed his hands on his hips. "Sonofabitch. How about that?" he asked with incongr
uous bemusement. "That was a one-in-a-million shot for sure."
Broussard heard himself talking. "For sure."
A powerful gust of gritty wind blew in, followed by a silent rain of tire and insulation fragments.
The men did their best to cover their heads from the detritus.
Herschel found his plastic bag under a thick layer of gunk, carefully knocked it clean, and then slung it over his shoulder. "I wonder where that booze stash was. I could sure use a taste now."
"Me, too." Broussard grabbed his bad arm. A nasty, metallic taste filled the air.
Herschel broke wind. "I'll be glad when this nonsense is over. I need to get back home. Wife's been blowing up the checkbook for two months now. I'm probably flat broke and don't even know it."
Herschel was known for his slow, deep baritone voice. Now, his tone and cadence resembled the high-pitched, kilometer-a-minute chatter of a schoolgirl.
Broussard nodded, noting this new development. He squashed down his concerns; he couldn't do anything about them now anyway. The specter from the bus haunted him.
Herschel pulled out his cell phone and tried it. Much to his surprise, it showed a strong signal. "Hey, the phones are back on!"
It was a heartbreakingly wonderful piece of good news in a day of nonstop disasters. "Going to call Chang. Let him know that we're headed back." The engineer then thunked his own temple. "Oh, crap. I almost forgot. Today's my mom's birthday. I'd better give her a call." He dialed a number. He waited for a moment and then said, "Dad! Hi! It's Hersh. How's it going? Great. Hey, I just remembered that it was Mom's birthday today. Yeah. Is she there? I want to wish her happy birthday ... ." A