Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End (13 page)

It almost had them. She
closed her eyes, tears leaking from between her eyelashes. What
would it be like to be gored to death, impaled through the cavity
of her chest on one of those rusted horns?

“
Look,” Dionysus said again, gently this time.

She did. Everything seemed
to slow and turn to white, a warm snowstorm that blotted out
everything save the feeling that she was going to be
alright.

There was little movement in the desert
during the day, aside from the rustling of dried brush in the wind,
or the occasional Imperial woodpecker, hacking a home into the side
of a bloated saguaro. Artemis paused to survey the girls, all of
them dutifully repeating the Xing-Yi form she had just
demonstrated. The sun scoured their skin, cooking out weakness.

She caught Ariadne making a common mistake.
The power in the first strike in the form came from an isomorphic
pull, part of the body pushing forward, the other, twisting back.
Torque. “Ariadne, hold on.”

The others hesitated mid-movement.

“
What are you stopping for?” Artemis asked. Loki chuckled to
himself. He was huffing and puffing below, fighting gravity in an
endless series of pushups, a cigarettes clutched between his
teeth.

Ariadne walked over to Artemis, leaning down
on her knees. Her cheeks were rosy.

Putting her hand in front of Ariadne's face,
Artemis said, “Stand up, and hit my hand. Just like you were
doing.”

Ariadne stood up and hit her hand. It didn't
move much.”

“
You see what you did? You hit my hand. You didn't drill
through it. My hand is an object between you and your target. It is
something that's
in your
way
.”

Dionysus stopped practicing the form. “If an
opponent advances with force, yield by rolling around the perimeter
of that advance. Retain contact, retain control. Your opponent
winds up over-committed. If we match force with force, we
lose.”

Loki stopped for a moment, at the apex of a
push-up, and cocked his head in Dionysus' direction. “You like
talking just to hear yourself speak, don't you?”

“
And you like doing pushups while you smoke. Don't harsh my
mellow. Reality is what we can get away with. We've dropped that
rhetoric before, probably between essential oil rubdowns at Burning
Man. But this isn't just goofy post-hippie bullshit. Let's consider
the tactics of those that are likely to oppose
us
– OW.” Dionysus was stopped mid-rant by
a speeding pebble.

Artemis laughed and reached
for a larger stone. “Let's consider the tactics of shut the fuck up
and get back to work.”

Another day, another
show.

“
Buckle your seat belts, boys!” Jesus yelled, an unlit joint
flapping from her lips, as the wheels spun and a cloud of dust shot
out the back.

Dionysus’ knuckles whitened
on the seat beneath him, but he kept his mouth shut simply because
he hadn’t seen Jesus so playful since before they’d been
hospitalized. She was reckless when she was happy.

Deciding Jesus was probably
best left alone in this mood, he turned his attention to Lilith.
She was sitting across from him and sipping on cold green tea,
gazing introspectively out the window. Amidst all the motion and
noise around her, she seemed very still, even delicate. Of course
she looked beautiful, she always did, but for once it wasn’t
controlled and calculated.

Hopping across the cabin,
he landed next to her roughly. Luckily the seats were well
cushioned. He draped his arm over her shoulder.

She smiled, but didn’t turn
towards him.

“
What’s going on in there?” he asked.

“
This is the point of no return,” she said
cryptically.

“
For the band?”

She shook her head, her
bangs dancing across her forehead. “No. There are many paths we can
take. Some bring us closer to ourselves. Some farther away. It’s
rare that one of us stumbles on a path like this one. I can be
completely what I am. I was at that crossroad, when I met you. Now
we’ve taken that step, and there’s no turning back.”

He nibbled her ear. “Thank
God.”

“
Boys! Jesus.” She rubbed the back of his head affectionately.
“Oh, this isn’t going to make any sense to you yet. We could have
been like everyone else, but we would have never been able to
become who we really are.”

“
You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

She finally turned towards
him with a devilish smirk. “Just the way I like it.” She grabbed
the back of his head and kissed him unexpectedly.

“
Are you kissing my man?” Ariadne stood in front of them with
her arms crossed, but couldn’t maintain the facade when they turned
to her with expressions of mock shock.

“
Yeah. Wanna fight?” Lilith asked.

In reply, Ariadne took a
swing. Lilith caught it, and pulled her in for a kiss. Green tea
splashed all over Dionysus’ lap.

“
Want to finish this for me?” Lilith asked, handing him the
mug. “I need to teach this girl how to fight. That was a
terrible
left
hook.”

Dionysus got up to
follow.

“
Private lessons this time, sorry.”

Chapter Six

It was business-as-usual
inside the studios of the Conservative News Network.
In the minutes before they went on air, Melissa
Allbright, their star talking-head of the hour, strutted around
backstage yelling at her personal assistant (the coffee was cold,
and too bitter), popping pills (Prozac 25 mg, Ultram 50mg, Adderall
10 mg, Xanax 1mg, Calcium 500mg), and throwing pencils at the audio
tech (menopause was a bitch).

Despite all the medication,
it wasn’t until the camera-man reached the silent two...one...of
the countdown that Melissa smiled for the first time that
day.

“
Good morning. We have a special show for you today. The
members of the controversial rock group Babylon have agreed to join
us live via satellite. They have been blamed with a rash of
domestic terror incidents. I’m going to get some straight answers
out of them about this disturbing new trend. Lilith, Dionysus,
Jesus, and Cody. Welcome to the show.” Melissa’s worn, makeup-caked
face took up the screen. She seemed composed of equal parts botox
and conservative indignation.

The feed showed the faces
of the group seated inside the Behemoth. Jesus was putting on
lipstick in her reflection on the camera, smearing it around a bit
for effect.

“
Happy to oblige,” Lilith said, smiling sweetly.

“
I understand that you are entertainers. Shock rockers like
Marilyn Manson have been scaring money out of audiences for years.
But what you do is different. Don’t you feel any responsibility for
the safety and security of your country?”

Dionysus jumped in. “I
don’t understand what you’re getting at when you say ‘safety and
security.’”

“
Look. We are a country at war, and for you to spread your
message of anarchy and sexual perversion – there are real stakes,
here. We need to stand united in defense of freedom.”

“
I think freedom is doing just fine without our support,”
Dionysus said.

“
I’m sure many of the viewers today would tell you to get out
of our country, then.”

Dionysus nodded. “Well, I’m
a musician, not a politician. It’s not my place to create public
policy. But I am still entitled to an opinion, right?”

Melissa turned to camera 2.
“The Concerned Christian Parents League has charged you with
converting children to Paganism. They’ve accused you of sexual
deviancy with minors. These accusations have teeth. We have managed
to secure a video of your singer having sexual relations with a
fan...”

A web-cam video played in
the feed, partially blurred. It showed several seconds of Lilith
and Amber’s bath-time.

“
Yeah. I’m bisexual. Sorry you had to find out like this,
Mom!” Lilith said, still wearing that girl-next-door smile. “By the
way, if any of you want to see the full video without those
annoying blurred areas, there’s a version available on our darknet
site. WWW dot join my cult dot org.”

“
No, that’s...” Melissa sputtered.

Lilith reached out towards
the screen. “Thanks for talking with us, Melissa!” She cut the feed
suddenly. For a moment there was just dead air. Melissa blinked in
shock.

“
Well, that was what we’ve come to expect from this sort of
fairy-tale anarchist liberal agenda.”

“
We’re out,” Camera one said, shaking his head and chuckling.
A bunch of the guys around the studio were already using their
mobile devices to hunt down that video.

Trevino was pacing
back-stage with his cell phone to his ear. The coffee-inept PA,
trying to be helpful, asked him “Did you find them?”

Trevino continued pacing
for a moment. He stopped suddenly, and smashed his cell phone on
the ground.

“
Guess not.”

“
And you just gave them a free ad spot on a national network.
Can you at least rework it for other time-zones?”

Melissa frowned. “I hate
that they made an ass out of me too, but that piece is going to be
great for our ratings.”

Trevino stomped on his
phone again one more time for effect and marched out of the
room.

Loki sat at a workbench
surrounded by electrical components and miscellaneous tools. His
face was obscured by a Hazmat respirator and reflective goggles. A
GLOC stuck out of his shoulder holster. A flag with Babylon’s
symbol hung behind him.

“
Welcome back, friends and neighbors! In previous episodes
we’ve covered comms, tactical planning, ran some practice ops – now
it is time for a little theory. And to help us with this, I’d like
to introduce you to a little friend of mine.”

A sock puppet dressed as a
jihadi and branding a miniature AK-47 popped up from below the
bench.

“
Hello, sock puppet jihadi, how are you today?” Loki
asked.

“
Fight them in the streets! Death to the infidel!” it screamed
in Loki’s falsetto.

“
Just take a look at this poor bastard. He wants to get
himself killed, and if he starts popping that thing off in public,
he will. His fight stems from a basic misunderstanding of what a
State is, what it’s designed to do.

“
States are protective rackets. The Invisible Hand needs a
visible fist. It keeps the streets clean enough to keep the cash
flowing. Those nasty
other
guys, with the ugly flag or no flag at all, the
State exists to murder them and their whole fucking tribe the
moment they fuck with what’s yours.

“
Pay your taxes, don’t dodge the draft, you get to walk the
streets unarmed. Go around shooting people and blowing up police
stations, you’ll get what you get.

“
You don’t arm wrestle Leviathan, and you sure as Hell don’t
come at him with a cap gun. Not more than once, not if you want to
win.

“
What you do is, you make him look like a bully and an idiot
to his own people. You poke him into blind, violent over-reaction.
You trap and confuse him, mock and bleed him. Money. Markets.
Security. Identity. Legitimacy. These are your targets. Your every
action should be considered to create the widest possible
disruption with the least effort and the least violence. Leave
Leviathan stomping his own people in idiot rage. Confiscate their
bottled water while Rome burns. And when he hurts his own people,
you’ll be there with a kind hand and a comfy couch. And your
recruiting pitch.

“
He’ll be blind, broke, and friendless, with blood on his
hands. You’ll be alive to build your new world.”

“
Cut,” Dionysus said.

“
Hey, that was great,” Artemis said.

“
I hope it doesn’t matter that it’s all bullshit,” Loki said,
pulling off his goggles. He blinked, staring up at the ceiling.
What the motherfuck were they doing?

The Behemoth huffed up to a
derelict gas station in the middle of nowhere. Broken cars and
tractors encircled the attached garage. Crickets, a pregnant
moon.

Loki and Dionysus hopped
out.

“
I’ll pay. Fill her up,” Loki said.

“
Sure.”

“
Diesel, remember. I don’t much care what Derrida and Buddha
have to say on the subject. I don’t want to drain and flush a fuel
system tonight.”