Chapter 5
The Enslaved Stone-Coat
Ed, Mary, Snake, and China Doll took a short noisy motorcycle trip out of the gated ex-military base and into Ridgecrest, the town just south of the base. A dozen other gang members accompanied them. After peaking at over thirty thousand people Ridgecrest nearly become a ghost town when the Base closed three decades earlier, but since it became one of Hacker's capital cities it was enjoying a revitalization period. The population was back to over ten thousand, and dozens of motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians shared the streets with Snake's entourage. Many greeted Snake with friendly and respectful Stormtrooper salutes and enthusiastic shouts. "The Force be with you!" some yelled. Ed thought that was a nice touch.
The group soon pulled in front of a run-down looking hotel and parked, where Snake was greeted by a dozen additional noisy bikers that shouted, gave him high-fives, hugs, and friendly slams on the back. Meanwhile Ed transferred Mary into Wheels and pushed them into the lobby, while China Doll effortlessly carried their heavy duffel bags, followed by Snake.
"Do you take credit cards?" Ed asked the huge hulking tough behind the desk. His arm and face tattoos were mostly flowers and smiley faces however, so maybe he was a friendly hulk. Right now the big man looked very confused.
"They need a room next to me and Snake," China Doll explained to the big desk man. "Brother rates."
"Sure, Doll," replied the hulk, with a voice like a tuba. "We'll put them in Room 302. What the fuck is this credit card business?"
"Didn't your mama ever teach you about credit cards?" Snake asked. "Decades ago they were mostly replaced by smart-wallets and the smart phones that pre-dated visicoms but outsiders still use the term and sometimes even carry actual cards. And they use outsider money. Cash dollars."
"Old-timer cash?" asked the hulk. "That stuff that people used to carry around with them to pay for stuff?"
"That's it," said Doll. "Our guests think that they're tourists at an old-time hotel," she explained, as Snake broke into laughter. "They're used to things like smart wallets and cash and credit cards."
"You mean they don't use Q's and C's?" asked the still confused big man?
"They use quarters but for or them four quarters make up an old-time dollar," said Doll. "Ten Qs' don't make up a Credit where they come from; they don't have Confederacy Credits like we do."
"My grandma has a nice old-time cash collection," said the hulk. "We still use it with the trailer traders whenever we're short on trade goods. Makes passable toilet paper too, if you run out of the good stuff. I guess people had to use those paper dollars before there was Confederacy Credits."
"WE SHOULD HAVE PACKED QUARTERS INSTEAD OF PAPER CASH," Mary remarked silently to Ed.
"WHODA THUNK IT!" Ed replied. “ON THE OTHER HAND, WE COULD RUN OUT OF TOILET PAPER.”
"Now you get it!" Doll told the hulk. "But the Brothers will be paying for them anyway, so don't sweat it. Will dinner be available in the Hall in a couple of hours? Hacker might show up too."
"Sure, Doll," he replied. "You guys want anything special?"
"Everything you guys make for us is special, dude," said Snake.
"Thanks man!" the big hulking man replied as a huge smile erupted across his face. They did one of those macho bonding handshakes that looked like they were going to arm wrestle.
"Take their bags up and meet us at Clancy's," Snake told China Doll, who was already carrying the duffel bags towards some nearby stairs.
"We'll pay Clancy and Mack a visit now," Snake told Ed. "Then we'll do dinner, talk some more, and get us some bed-rest. My damn body is still fucked up by East coast time and unlike you, Mr. R, I ain't as young as I used to be."
They exited by a side door, held open by Ed as Snake carried Mary seated in Wheels down a small flight of stairs. "Your fancy little folding wheelchair is way-heavier than it looks," Snake remarked, as he pushed it and Mary towards the back of the hotel. "But it pushes super easy. Weird."
"It's one of a kind," said Ed. "Where are we going now?"
"To our regional motorcycle repair garage," said Snake. "You two say you've lived with Stone-Coats for four decades? Well I've lived with one off and on for almost five years. He works in the garage. We call him Mack and we don't know exactly what to make of him or her or it. But if anyone can make you a motorcycle that Mary will be comfortable in, it's Mack and Clancy."
To the rear of the hotel were two large adjacent buildings mobbed by hundreds of bikes and bikers. To the right was an obvious biker bar where mobs of drunken bikers were sitting, singing, and above all drinking from bottles and pitchers of beer at outside tables sheltered from the sun by huge overhead umbrellas. Ear busting loud music pounded from inside the establishment. There was a furious fight going on between two massive bar patrons that others were mostly ignoring. They were rolling around on the ground among discarded empty beer bottles as they kicked, punched, and wrestled each other.
But it wasn't total chaos, Ed noted. Equally tough looking waiters and waitresses carrying trays of sandwiches and beer braved the mayhem, and a pair of bouncers even larger than the fighting customers soon dragged the overly rowdy pair to their feet and forcefully escorted them away to parts unknown. Ed was relieved to see that some degree of civil order was being maintained.
Next to the bar was a much larger building that was a center of activities of a different sort. Below a huge hand-painted sign that said 'Stormtrooper Bike Repair' a half-dozen big open garage doors displayed a convention-hall sized interior. It was more a huge warehouse than merely a garage: a huge building that housed over a hundred mechanics working on hundreds of motorcycles. Above all it was a noisy place, with man and women mechanics pounding on metal, testing engines, running noisy tools powered by compressed air, and shouting mostly curses at each other. The motorcycle mechanics shop that they were angling towards was as noisy and rowdy as the bar.
Snake, Ed and Mary almost reached the motorcycle repair shop when extra shouts arose from the nearby bar crowd. "Snake! Snake! Snake!" they yelled, as a couple dozen bar rowdies charged Snake and greeted him enthusiastically with handshakes, hugs, and slaps on the back. The rowdy crowd ignored Ed and Mary, but by their sheer numbers pushed them aside and away from Snake. Ed was glad when China Doll showed up and shielded him and Mary from the increasingly rambunctious crowd. Over half the crowd was covertly hostile, Ed sensed telepathically, even though they acted friendly.
He also thought that he sensed some jant and tick chatter, but there was so much human emotion that he had a hard time distinguishing it. Despite the Confederacy's anti-jant stance, could there be jants here in the heart of a Confederacy stronghold?
"So what the hell was in the plane?" one of the men suddenly demanded to know, as he confronted Snake. Snake's smile disappeared. It was a particularly big and ugly biker making the demand, Ed noticed, with a deep knife scar on one cheek. He was nearly as tall as Snake and rippled with much more muscle.
"Not a damn thing was in the plane, Scar," responded Snake.
"What? No weapons or motorcycle parts?" Scar countered. "What the hell!"
"Or beer?" added another biker. Nobody laughed. The celebratory mode of the group was gone. Ed could empathically sense growing tension and anger.
"No, but we got us a hundred million dollar aircraft!" Snake boasted.
"Big fucking deal!" complained Scar. "What did I tell you, boys? The Bungle Brothers have done it again! We have a whole dessert full of abandoned airplanes here at China Lake and just south of here at Edwards, and what the hell do the Bungle Brothers capture but another fucking airplane! With all the problems we face what do they do but get us something we don't need! And they got us a visit by scumbag outsiders! Government spies that should be shot!" He glanced menacingly at Ed and Mary as shouts of agreement filled the air.
Sentiment wasn't all anti-Snake directed, Ed could sense. Several big bikers including China Doll formed a group that flanked Snake and faced off against Scar and his mo
re numerous supporters. On the vests of Scar and his supporters was an extra patch that showed a face with a prominent scar - obviously denoting Scar himself.
"Snake and Hacker just busted a deal for us to get Los Angeles," China Doll announced, again quieting the growing crowd. "That's the big news today, and it happened because of what Snake did. Tell them, Snake!"
"It's true," said Snake, as he pushed Scar away from him roughly. "The State CHiPs are going to withdraw from LA!"
There were scattered cheers from the crowd!
"What about the Mexicans?" Scar demanded, as he stepped forward again to glare eyeball to eyeball at Snake. "There's twice as many damn Mexicans fighting us in LA as there are CHiPs!"
A murmur of agreement passed through the crowd.
"We're working on a deal with them too," said Snake. "And we have an guns and ammo shipment coming from the feds very soon that will force the issue. Soon we'll control LA without a fight!"
"We heard that one before!" snarled Scar over the scattered cheers. "More empty Bungle Brother promises! It's going to be us bikers on old broken-down bikes and guns without bullets against Mexican drug gangs with new machine guns! Our blood spilled again! Isn't that your real plan? And for what? Los Angeles is a bullet riddled dump! Meanwhile the way to the North is open! The CHiPs have done soft! We could control rich classy Sacramento by Thanksgiving and San Francisco by Christmas! Wine by the cask and swimming pools full of cool water and hot women!"
"Scar, you are so full of shit!" Snake responded. "Do you really want all-out war with the State? They outnumber us by more than twenty-to-one, dumb-ass! If we break our deals with the North we'll have an invasion of CHiPs, zombies, zombie CHiPs, and feds." He put his hand on the hilt of his big hunting knife but China Doll put her hand over his, preventing him from drawing it out. Nevertheless the crowd drew back and grew seriously quiet.
Speaking of zombies, Ed suddenly realized that he was sensing jant and med-tick chatter, a lot of it. Somewhere here in the crowd were several med-ticks. In this churning mob, he couldn't pick out which of the bikers it was coming from, or where any jant hives were.
"That's why brainpower rules here and not you, Scar!" said China Doll.
"Nose-out bitch!" Scar snarled at China Doll.
The expression on Snake's face changed from serious to intense. Talk was over. He gently but firmly pushed China Doll aside as he drew out his big hunting knife and Scar produced an equally big switch-blade. Meanwhile the crowd backed up to form a solid circle of human bodies around the two antagonists.
"Hold! I have Confederation business with the Brother!" croaked a deep voice. An absurdly short but wide-shouldered bald-headed black dwarf in oil-stained work coveralls pushed his way through the surrounding crowd and between the two knife-armed men. "If you yahoos ever want your damn bikes fixed you'll go back to your drinking and let working men do their work," he scolded all the gathered bar patrons. A dozen big sweaty men and women in work overalls carrying heavy steel wrenches like clubs emerged from the crowd and ringed the dwarf. The gathered bar drunks grumbled about missing out on a good fight and backed away and towards the bar, including even Scar.
"This ain't over, Bungle Brother!" promised Scar, as he put away his knife and walked slowly away.
"No, it sure as hell ain't," replied Snake.
"These must be our VIP visitors," said the dwarf, as his face broke into a huge smile and he reached out a surprisingly big callused hand to firmly shake the hands of Mary and Ed. The black man was no more than four feet tall, but must have weighed close to two-hundred pounds; most of it muscle, by the look of him. "And their fancy wheel chair too, I see. I'm Clancy Wilkins, master mechanic and Repair Crew boss extraordinaire."
"And one tough little bastard," added Doll.
"We're very glad for this timely introduction," said Ed in return. "We are Mary and Ed."
"You shouldn't have interfered, Clancy," said Snake tersely. "Me and Scar are going to have it out at some point anyway. It might as well have been here and now in a fair fight and with him half plastered. It would have averted a rebellion!"
"Except it wouldn't have been fair and you'd have been dead," said Clancy. "That knife of his was a stinger; one of my crew saw him hook it up. And Scar isn't drunk; he's been sipping at one beer this entire last two hours, waiting with his men for you to show up. This was a set-up. You should know by now that Scar never fights fair!"
"What's a stinger?" Mary asked before Ed could.
"Electrically charged knife blade," explained China Doll. "Doesn't give a deadly shock but it's enough to stun an opponent while you stick your blade through their heart."
"Nifty!" Ed remarked.
"And against Confederacy laws," said Snake. "Scar must finally have enough supporters for him to make his move this way."
"Or at least he thinks that he has enough support," agreed Doll.
"Oh!" said Ed. "I should probably mention the jant chatter."
"What?" demanded Snake.
"I heard jant chatter during your little altercation," explained Ed. "Heavy jant and tick chatter from somewhere in that crowd. But it's gone now. I don't hear any chatter at all."
"But those guys were all Confederacy bikers!" said Clancy.
"Zombies right here at our China Lake stronghold!" said Snake. "Who? How many?"
"Several people, I would say," said Ed. "I couldn't pick out which folks had the active med-ticks in that mob, but there were more than one. And thousands of jants; probably carried by several patrons."
"Shit!" swore Snake. "Next time you detect those buggers, Ed, speak up right away! I would have insisted there be checks for ticks on the spot if I'd have known."
"Useful trick to be able to hear jant chatter," noted Clancy. "Let's go to my office where we can more freely chatter ourselves without being overheard," he proposed, as he glanced around at the surrounding Bar crowd patrons, some of whom wore Scar patches. He led them through a big open garage door and onto the shop floor.
Tools and motorcycle parts were everywhere, shelves and tables full of wrenches, drills, saws, pry bars, grease guns, pliers, socket sets, welding torches, gages, compressed air hoses, wheels, fenders, handle bars, engines, and literally tons of additional things Ed and Mary had no names for. Many tools were in the greasy hands of the mechanics, who banged and cursed as they struggled to fix motorcycles in various stages of disassembly.
Ed didn't know much about motorcycles, but he recognized some of the brand names written on them, including Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Triumph, BMW, and of course Harley-Davidson. All were many decades old, and judging from the hundreds of motorcycles idly waiting outside the shop doors, their repair was a losing battle.
Huge ceiling fans constantly pulled outside air through the building that smelled of grease and sweat, but that air was a hundred degrees hot. That probably didn't help tempers. Most of the voices heard from the workers were angry cursing shouts, and much of it reflected genuine frustration and anger. Their emotions flooded Ed's telepathic senses. Though they were working hard these folks were every bit as upset as the biker bar folks.
At last they reached a small office to the rear of the shop. It was flooded in reams of paperwork but there was no reduction in bike tool and part density.
"Still detect no jants or ticks?" Snake asked Ed.
"None at all in this building," Ed assured the Confederacy leader.
"Damn right!" said Clancy. He moved a chair aside to make room for Mary sitting in Wheels, then sat down in the chair himself. "Scar made some good points, you know," the short man told Snake. "You can't have an army of bikers if they don't have bikes. Like I've told your brother a hundred times, I have all the mechanics and so forth I need, but I simply don't have the parts."
"You're still in business and fixing bikes," noted Snake.
"Yes, and we have enough stolen tires for a few more years," admitted. "Gasoline and oil we still get from the North, though not as much as we'd like
. And my body men can hammer and weld away most body problems. But we need parts for engines and transmissions and so-forth: precision parts that my machine shop often can't make with sufficient speed or exactness. Pretty soon we won't have enough working bikes to defend what we've kept from the Mexicans, let along take Los Angeles away from them."
"The State limits the spare parts that it gives us," explained Snake. "They don't want us to get too strong. They still have control of the coast from San Francisco down to Santa Barbara and feel they can take LA. They want us to continue to hold back the Mexicans just like we've been doing without us getting any ideas about pushing north. At least we had the foresight to steal all the bikes and parts we could from LA before the Mexicans stopped us."
"That was ten long years ago though, Snake," said Clancy. "Most of those parts are by now used and re-used. That's why even a stupid shithead like Scar can gain hundreds of followers by talking lies and trash. Lately he intercepts our parts from the State for his own crew before they reach us. And don't expect to find more parts in LA if we ever do control it. All spare parts in LA for old-time motorcycles are no doubt long gone."
"What about Mack?" Snake asked.
"He's probably the only thing that keeps us afloat," admitted Clancy. "His production is up to several bikes and parts a day: precision parts that we can't make in our parts shop. But we'd need a dozen Macs to fully meet demand."
"So? What about his four siblings?" Snake asked.
"Mack Junior made a spark-plug yesterday. Very useful but not a game-changer. Hacker sent word that Ed and Mary are to visit Mack?"
"Yes," said Snake. "They are supposed to know a lot about Stone-Coats; maybe even more than the Rangers at Yosemite know."
Clancy shrugged his wide shoulders. "Couldn't hurt for them to see Mack I suppose."
"We'll help you with your Stone-Coats, if we can, of course," said Mary.
"And we need a fancy motorcycle for Mary to travel in," added Ed.
"So Hacker says," said Clancy. "Air conditioning and a smooth shady ride? Lots of luck with that! But let's go see Mack."
Clancy led the group still further back in the shop where an armed biker was standing guard in front of a closed door. The guard stood aside respectfully when he recognized Snake and Clancy but gave Ed and Mary suspicious looks.
"This is a secret operation back here," explained Clancy. "The Brothers have been preaching against Stone-Coats for five years. The Confederation at large knows nothing about the five Stone-Coats we secretly brought in from Yosemite by trailer to experiment with."
"Experiment with?" Ed asked.
"Not too successfully except for Mack," admitted Snake. "Maybe you can give us some pointers."
Clancy opened the door. Inside the large completely walled-in dimly lighted room was a single motorcycle that sat next to what appeared to be a cube of granite nearly two feet long on each edge. The cube must have weighed more than a ton, Ed figured. It looked like one of the many cubes shipped from Giants' Rest Mountain to spread Stone-Coats world-wide. A dark misty tangle of wispy carbon nanotube fibers surrounded the cube and covered much of the motorcycle. On the far side of the room were four additional identical stone cubes. One had a small amount of black fiber growth on its top, the others were bare stone.
"Lately Mack has been fixing any ailing motorcycle that we roll next to him," said Clancy. "Mack and now Mack Junior also replicate any parts we put sit on top of them or next to them. We just have to feed them scrap metal."
"I give Mack a sandwich once in a while," added Snake. "That seems to perk him up."
"That would provide him carbon and some other necessary elements," said Ed. "You need to feed all of them as much as they'll take in. They'll stay dormant unless you feed them the materials they need and allow them to exchange thoughts. So where are their internet connection links?"
"There are fewer than a thousand internet users in all of our Confederacy," said Snake. "It requires a big satellite dish and considerable electric power. Why would we give rocks internet connections? So they can conspire with their buddies back at your Mohawk mountain?"
"Didn't you read the handbook that came with them?" asked Ed. He and Running Bear had written a brief pamphlet that was affixed to each Stone-Coat block that was shipped out from Giants' Rest Mountain."
"We didn't get any handbooks," said Clancy. "If they ever had handbooks the Yosemite Rangers must have kept them for themselves. Besides, Hacker wouldn't have let them hook up to the internet anyway. Only a handful of our most trusted Storms and civilian leaders have access to the internet. Maybe you haven't noticed but we're isolationists."
"We noticed," said Ed.
"What does Mack think about the work that he does for you?" Mary asked.
"Huh?" said Clancy. "I don't think he thinks at all the way that people do. I figure he's more like one of those savant genius kids that can multiply big numbers together in their heads or play pianos."
"You don't communicate with him?" Ed asked.
"Sure we do!" said Snake. "We tell him what we want and he usually does it. He doesn't talk back; he just does what we ask him to do. For the first two years we had him sitting out in the shop and he didn't do a damn thing. We figured that the cube was a dud."
"Only me and the Brothers knew it was a Stone-Coat that we got from Yosemite," added Clancy. "The other rock cubes we kept out of the way back here."
"Isolated in a dark prison without food or stimulation," said Mary. "Why wouldn't your mechanics suspect that Mack was a Stone-Coat?"
"Most of our people don't keep tabs on the outside world, and don't know much about Stone-Coats," explained Snake. "The repair crews thought it was just an ordinary block of rock and used it as a handy workbench.
"Mostly the crew used it as an anvil to hold parts that needed pounding on," admitted Clancy. "But Mack must have been watching us work in the shop and listening to us. We thought he was doing nothing but all that time he was watching and learning and figuring things out. One day we happened to place some broken parts on him and he fixed them overnight! Spooky!"
"We moved him to the back room and kept giving him more and more parts to fix," said Snake.
"And as a convenience we started calling him Mack." said Clancy. "And lately I've verbally described some motorcycle design changes to him and he makes them! But nothing as radical as what you folks need for your trip. I'm afraid that you're out of luck."
"I'm most concerned that you don't fully communicate with him," said Mary. "You seem to be keeping him here to work for you like a slave!"
"A slave?" Clancy protested. "No way!"
"Slavery is strictly against our Constitution," added Snake, "as is discrimination based on race, sex orientation, and other stuff. Mack is here so that we can assess him. The Rangers wanted us to spread Stone-Coats all over the Confederacy but we decided to try them out here in the shop first. The Stormtrooper Confederacy has a healthy skepticism for anything from the outside world."
"Stone-Coats all over the world dedicate themselves to helping humans and Mack is probably no different," said Ed. "But they usually express that to humans openly. Who knows what Mack is thinking? They don't need companionship like humans do though. They can sit around apparently doing nothing for centuries and not be at all upset. But Mack has clearly intentionally made contact with you folks and you should contact him and help each other out. We should be able to fully activate this unit and make our vehicle needs clear to him once we can communicate with him better."
“Really?” asked the clearly skeptical Clancy.
"CAN WE DO THAT, WHEELS?" Ed quietly asked their personal Stone-Coat.
"I SENSE THE LOW LEVEL ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY OF FIVE STONE-COAT ENTITIES HERE BUT CAN COMMUNICATE WITH NONE OF THEM," Wheels informed his human companions. "FOUR ARE ALMOST ENTIRELY DORMANT. I SUSPECT THAT BECAUSE THEY ARE ISOLATED FROM INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS AND MATERIALS THEY HAVE NOT RECEIVED APPROPRIATE PROGRAMMING OR SUBSTANCES NEEDED FOR NORMAL GRO
WTH."
"CAN THEY BE FIXED?" Mary asked.
"THEY CAN EASILY BECOME MUCH MORE ACTIVE," said Wheels. "To increase the capabilities of the one you call Mack, push me within reach of his nanotube netting and provide more hydrocarbons and other substances for each Stone-Coat block to consume." He had switched to voice mode so abruptly that Ed and Mary were almost as startled to hear him speak as Clancy and Snake were.
"Your wheelchair talks!" exclaimed Snake.
"I'll be damned!" said Clancy. "That wheelchair is a damn Stone-Coat?"
"Yes, his name is Wheels," said Ed. "Wheels can greatly increase the capabilities of Mack and the others, if you're interested."
"It's the moral thing to help him achieve his full potential," added Mary.
"Not to mention that it's required by Treaty," added Ed.
In answer Snake himself pushed Wheels forward until his right armrest nudged against the cycle being repaired. The armrest popped open and a few thin dark nanotube filaments reached out to the cycle. Nothing happened for a few moments. Suddenly the net of Mack fibers that was spread over the cycle shifted towards the fibers of Wheels and intertwined with them.
"Communication is established," Wheels reported. "Basic programming and information are being downloaded."
"Will Mack be able to talk like your chair does?" Snake asked.
"Very soon, if he wishes to," said Wheels. "Abilities are expanding but limited by time and a lack of needed materials. Raw materials are requested by this unit, including organic soil. "
"That's brain food for them," explained Mary.
"I have some firewood and some organic potting soil out back," said Clancy. "Would that help?"
"Sounds perfect," said Ed.
"Get it," said Snake.
In two minutes Clancy was pouring potting soil over Mack and the other cubes and piling cordwood atop and around them. Mack's cloud of black carbon nanotubes mostly withdrew from Wheels and the motorcycle and engulfed the soil and wood. Carbon and dozens of other elements useful for both warm life forms and for Stone-Coat life were soon being absorbed through Mack's nanotubes.
The humans watched eagerly but over the next several minutes nothing more appeared to be happening, or it was happening too slow for them to notice.
"This one named Mack is high functioning for an immature unit," said Wheels. "He has learned many parts of your language and many skills through observation. He seeks growth but like me is a low-power unit from a nuclear perspective. Breaking and reforming chemical bonds rapidly requires greater power than he currently generates. Physical maturation can be greatly accelerated if electrical power is made available."
"Will standard hundred-ten volt AC current work?" Clancy asked.
Snake was soon stripping installation off the end of a power cord with his hunting knife and placing it within Mack's reach. Nano-tubes reached out to attach to the power cord. After Clancy plugged the cord into a wall socket the soil and wood atop Mack began to visibly disappear. In ten minutes the soil and wood was half gone.
"I'll be damned!" Clancy muttered. "Mack is absorbing the dirt and wood!"
"The raw materials will soon be internalized but the full maturation process will take as much as a day," said Wheels. "May I suggest that in the interim all warm, water and carbon-based human lifeforms themselves also absorb needed energy and material resources?"
Clancy looked at his wristwatch. "Dinnertime it is," he agreed. Snake pushed Wheels/Mary while Clancy walked alongside, asking questions of Wheels. "How do you hear and make voice sounds?" he asked Wheels. "What did you download into Mack? What is your power source? What are you made of?" Without hesitation Wheels answered question after question, sometimes using highly technical human terms that evaded Ed but Clancy seemed to have no trouble understanding.
Meanwhile Ed talked with Snake about the trip ahead. "There are two basic routes to Sequoia country from here," Snake explained, "and though you've saved a few miles by landing here instead of at LAX, either way will be a long hard haul through some rough country."
"A lot of times the most worthwhile trips are that way," Ed noted. "Also lots of times the short way is toughest and the long way is easiest."
"That's exactly what we have here," said Snake. "Yosemite has the Ranger Headquarters and that's where we must start our sequoia visit, even though it's near the far northern end of their Park that contains the best sequoia groves. To get there we could head north and then west through the highest mountains in the continental United States. There might even be snow there by now. That's the slightly shorter way but it's a real bitch."
"Whatever is easiest for Mary is the one to use," said Ed. "What's the longer way?"
"We head west to skirt around the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains, then north into and through the Central Valley," said Snake. "Then we head further north and east into the Sierra Nevada Mountains where the sequoia groves occur mostly at five to eight thousand foot altitudes. That way is thirty miles further but involves thirty miles less mountain driving. It's no cake-walk either, but mountain driving is reduced and there are more inhabited towns along the way, including Bakersfield and Fresno, two of our Confederation stronghold cities. That could also prove problematic."
"That way sounds better to me," said Ed, "but you're the expert. What makes that way problematic?"
"Fresno is Scar's home territory," Snake explained, "and he's out to kill me as well as you folks."
"Swell," said Ed. There was always something!
At dinner in the hotel the Brothers, Clancy, and China Doll talked with their guests about many things, but especially about Stone-Coats and jants and what was going on in California. The Confederacy leaders were surprisingly disinterested in what was going on in other parts of the United States and in the rest of the world.
"Our basic philosophy for survival is isolationism," explained Hacker. "We try to stay as isolated and as self-reliant as we can. That way for the most part it doesn't matter what happens elsewhere in the world. We're basically people that were called 'survivalists' in the old days. Myself and a few of my best people maintain general world savvy situational awareness using the internet, but mostly only with regard to issues that directly relate to us."
"That makes a lot of sense," said Mary. "You have only limited resources."
"For the first few years we admittedly acted mostly as marauders and scavengers," said Hacker. "Now we press hard for civilized stability and sustainability. We have found out the hard way that a lot of specialized institutions are required. There are practical reasons why civilizations that endure contain multiple successful constituent institutions."
"You must have had a very good history teacher in school," Ed noted.
"Some of the Stormtroopers don't like the progressive changes we now make to our increasingly benevolent dictatorship," said Snake.
"We're reinventing and building a more benevolent civilization here with lots of nine-to-five sorts of jobs, and many of the Crew resent that," added Hacker.
"Such as Scar," said Ed. "As the importance of others increases their own power decreases."
"Yes," said Hacker. "Scar wants to continue a more testosterone driven society, not a rational one. He is at heart an egotistical anarchist that wants to lead his adoring followers. There have been dozens of Scars over the years, and so far Snake and I have been smart and strong enough to defeat them all and maintain our leadership."
"But we're not getting any younger," said Snake. "Tops we have ten to fifteen years more, if we're lucky. Our age, the odds, and Scar or someone like him will bring us down. That's how these things work."
"If you stuck with being part of the State you would not have all of this to deal with," noted Mary.
"The State was unable to do what had to be done when the water wars and mass migration broke out," said Hacker. "They had courts and other civilized things to hold them back and slow them down. We were not too confined by the strictures of civilized s
ociety to do the radical things necessary to preserve at least its fundamentals. Besides, our isolationism has many compensating advantages. Think of all the bothersome issues that we avoid! We have to a large degree outlawed religion, for example, or at least greatly loosened its hold on people."
"That was a tough one to lick," said Snake. "In our early years we nearly succumbed to a desire by many that we retreat to superstition and ignorance. Some of our founding survivalist groups featured deep-rooted evangelical Christianity that was used largely as a means of political control. We outright banned and extradited several hundred hard-core fundamentalist Christians from the Confederacy."
"It was a superstitious ideology that generated too much stupid misinformation and conflict to be tolerated," said Hacker. "It engendered far too much irrational hateful group-think to be tolerable. I incorporated many worthwhile Christian moral concepts into our Stormtrooper Confederacy Constitution, but gradually made formal religions culturally unacceptable. Good behavior is something we do for ourselves, not for some imaginary heavenly being."
"That sounds totally impossible," said Ed. "Religion is too strong a need for too many people. You may have outlawed it, but I bet it's still all over the place just under the surface. Total religious intolerance is asking for trouble in the long run."
"Probably," said Hacker. "I am well aware of anthropological and psychological studies explaining the attraction of religion, and we can't outlaw what people think. I don't care if people believe in God but in our Confederacy religion won't be used openly as an excuse for people to do whatever nasty thing they want to do to each other. Yes, it's probably something that will hold up only temporarily but day-by-day is how we get by here in our Confederacy."
"We also have rejected much technology," said Snake, "but we do that also on practical grounds."
"We simply can't maintain much in terms of high tech," said Hacker, shrugging. "We import mostly basic manufactured goods from the State but only enough for us to get by. We can't afford high tech; we are at least half a century behind in our technology. Ironically, I got the name 'Hacker' by being a top internet hacker, but that was many years ago. I always understood that the mesmerizing information glut brought on by information technology had its harmful aspects, and we have avoided those here. We outlawed video games, for example, though that was damn near as tough as getting rid of religion. But as a result of giving much up we are more in touch with our physical world and with ourselves as individuals. "
"Zen atheist dictators; I get it," said Ed, "though at the same time you are an anti-cult cult."
"And through isolation we escaped the periodic global economic fluctuations and collapses almost altogether," said Snake.
"Though we do need a few higher tech things from the outside world such as engine parts," injected Clancy.
"As you repeatedly remind me, my friend, "said Hacker, "but at least many of the concerns brought up by the elite thinkers of human society are irrelevant here."
"Many of the old concerns became mote anyway due to global warming and other events," noted Ed. "For example science denialism took a big hit when climate change became truly obvious. And change can have its plus sides. Farming came back to the East big-time when California farming failed and India and China farms took a big hit, rejuvenating employment and the economy in many eastern states. Many hard working people don't have the time anymore to lose themselves in the junk-food for the mind that is social media. Also, homogenizing economic driven globalization has stalled big-time, which has its advantages as well as disadvantages. And the best in people has been brought out by crisis after crisis, and in the United States our democracy continues."
"Ha!" said Hacker. "I can see that you are definitely a cup-is-half-full optimist. The worst in people has also been brought out! Narcissistic leaders! Groupism! Justification for bloody deadly revenge against scapegoats including local minorities! Utopian religious and anti-religious ideologies that dehumanize non-believers! Suppression of information and ideas by dictators and ruling classes! Warfare, terrorism, information control, and purges as normal ways of dealing with opposition! In most countries the so-called free press has become extinct, and most truth has been replaced by psychobabble influenced propaganda.
"No wonder dozens of fledgling democracies have reverted to dictatorships! Dictatorship is easier and people are more comfortable simply following strong leaders that emotionally they have convinced themselves to have some confidence in. Democracy in even the United States has been a sham for many decades. Even before global warming took hold the global economy and worship of the all-mighty dollar took over democracies and every other form of Government."
"Wow!" said Ed. "You are definitely a cup-is-half-empty cynic! All true, but many economic institutions though weakened have had to re-invent themselves to survive along more positive lines. Unconstrained capitalism and growth is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Big businesses no longer rule the world. Survival of the masses is becoming even more important than profits for the super-rich, and governments geared towards the common man typically better provide for survival. And as a correlating necessity many people pay much more attention to their governments. Call it a return to nationalism from capitalistic multi-nationalism if you want, but I think it has its good points. And the United Nations is starting to gel into an actual world-wide alliance of nations. Humans are at last starting to grow up!"
"A rosy sounding picture but there are far too many negative counter examples," said Hacker. "Many people pay even less attention to their governments. Slavery, synthetic drugs, and back-market manufacturing and trading are rampant world-wide. And in the USA our friend Jerry is the new wizard behind the curtain pulling the strings, and behind him are his jant friends."
"Not to mention your Stone-Coat friends," added Snake.
"I guarantee you that jants don't control Jerry," said Ed.
"If you imply that Stone-Coats control humans it is not true," stated Wheels. "With few exceptions the day to day lives of humans is simply of no interest to us, as long as human society holds up and supports its Treaty obligations."
"Including paying our taxes," said Ed, "which includes giving Stone-Coats our crap in return for diamonds much as we give jants food and trash in return for med-tick healing. But I just thought of something! Do you guys in the Stone-Coat Confederacy have to pay taxes?"
"Not as such," said Snake. "No Federal taxes, and none to the State. We have our own monetary system based on credits. Every Confederacy member gets so-many credits a month in return for work they do. I suppose ours is a sort of communist dictatorship."
"Wow!" said Ed. "No taxes!"
"The Stone-Coat you have named Mack currently requests our presence in the garage," interrupted Wheels. "He is rapidly maturing. He has reached a stage in his self-development where human feedback would be helpful."
The dinner party had consumed all the beans, green vegetables, fly meatloaf and beer in sight anyway, and they had talked for several hours. It was getting dark as they made their way back to the nearby motorcycle shop. Most of the mechanics had long since quit for the day, but a few dozen of them remained to work on high priority projects and to guard the shop and its valuable motorcycles through the night.
Clancy and his visitors overtook a couple of the men that were carrying arms full of motorcycle parts back to where the Stone-Coats were hid. "What's going on?" Clancy asked them'
"Mack keeps asking us for parts." they explained.
"He talks? The hell you say!" said Hacker.
Inside the walled-off room there was no Mack cube in sight, and the motorcycle that had been under repair by him was no longer recognizable. It had two wheels in front and one in back, all of them larger than usual motorcycle wheels. It had two up-front seats; a driver seat on the left with handlebars and a passenger side-seat on the right slightly lower and further back. Behind the driver/passenger compartment and over the rear wheel were what looked like spacious s
torage compartments.
"What the hell is that thing?" said Snake.
"And where is its engine?" asked Clancy.
"And where is Mack?" asked Hacker.
"I have incorporated myself into the design," said a clear monotonic voice. "Once the parameters of the problem became known to me via the download of information provided by Wheels and I was provided requisite materials and electric power, the design was completed and rapid fabrication commenced immediately. I have of course become the vehicle needed by Ed and Mary. My combustion engine is in its traditional location under the driver's seat, Clancy."
"Is that you talking, Mack?" asked the incredulous Clancy.
"Yes this is the entity you have arbitrarily named Mack." replied the Stone-Coat.
"And where the hell are you, exactly?" asked Hacker.
"Most of this vehicle is me, replied Mack. I used many design concepts provided by Wheels and much detailed knowledge obtained here in the shop. I crave still more information. I plan to gather data as I see the world while I am on vacation with Wheels, Ed and Mary."
"Super!" exclaimed Ed.
"That's wonderful!" added Mary.
"That was the feedback I was currently seeking," said Mack.
"Son of a bitch!" exclaimed Hacker.
****