[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
indicator on the dash. The red cruiser blip was dead centre of the mapscreen,
green-lines scrolling past. The ve-hickle's inboard computer hooked up with
Gazetteer, the constantly updated federal map and almanac. Geostationary
weather and spy satellites downloaded intelligence into the electronic notice
board.
The patrol had just crossed the old state line and was heading up to a ghost
place that had once been called Kanab. Through the armaplas sunshade
wraparound, the rocks and sand ofKanab ,Utah , could as well be the sand and
rocks ofBoaz ,New Mexico ,Shawnee,Oklahoma or most anywhere in the Des.
Yorke's own reflected vizz, dreadfully young under his forage cap, hung in
the windscreen, superimposed on the roadside panorama.
The Big Empty stretched almost uninterrupted from the foothills of the
Appalachians toWashingtonState . Rocks and sand. Sand and rocks. Even
Gazetteer could not keep straight the borderlines of theGreatCentralDesert ,
the Colorado Desert, the Mojave Desert, theMexicanDesert and all the others.
Page 23
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Pretty soon, they'd have to junk all the local names and call everything
theAmericanDesert . By then, they'd all be citizens of the United States of
Sand and Rocks.
The two outrider blips held steady. Tyree and Burnside, on their mounts,
would be getting hot and sticky. You couldn't air-condition a motorcyke like
you could the 4x4 canopied transport Yorke shared with Sergeant Quincannon.
That would be rough on Tyree and Burnside.
Yorke liked the feel of the wheel in his gauntlets, liked the feel of the
cruiser on the hardtop. He appreciated a beautiful machine. The Japcorps could
put heavy hardware on the roads and Turner-Harvest-Ramirez were known for
impressive rolling stock. But the US Cav had access to state-of-the-art
military and civilian tech. On the shadow market, the ve-hickle was worth a
cool million gallons of potable water or an unimaginable equivalent sum in
cash money.
He thought of the cruiser as a cross between a Stealth Bomber, the Batmobile,
Champion the Wonder Horse and Death on Wheels. All plugged in to the
informational resources ofFortValens and, through the Fort, into the
interagency datanet whose semi-sentient Information Storage and Retrieval
Centre was in a secret location somewhere in upstateNew York .
Ever since the Enderby Amendment of 1985 opened up, in desperation, the field
of law enforcement to private individuals and organisations, Yorke had wanted
to be with an agency. Sanctioned Ops were the only non-criminal heroes a kid
from the NoGo could have these days. T-H-R's Redd Harvest, who dressed for
effect, got the glam covers on Road Fighter and Harry Parfitt ofSeattle 's
Silver Bullet Agency was always being declared Man of the Month by Guns and
Killing, the nation's best-selling self-sufficiency magazine. It was the Wild
West again. Heat went down all over the country: card-carrying Agency Ops out
for the annual arrest record bonus and stone-crazy Solos who brought in Maniax
for bounty.
But Yorke knew the only agency which guaranteed Ops a life expectancy longer
than that of the average mafioso-turned-informer was the Road Cav.
Quasi-government status bought better hardware, better software, better
roadware and better uniforms. He'd joined up on his sixteenth birthday and
didn't plan on mustering out much before his sixtieth. He wasn't ambitious
like Leona Tyree. In a world of chaos, the Cav offered a nice, orderly way of
doing things. He liked being a trooper, liked the food, liked the pay, liked
the life.
He even liked Sergeant Quincannon.
Yorke reached up to the overhead locker and pulled a pack of high-tars down
from the Quince's stash. The flap was broken and wouldn't stick back. The
sergeant stopped pretending to be asleep, and commented, "I knew that gum-wad
wouldn't last."
The flap fell down again.
"Wonderful," Quincannon commented. "They can whip up a machine so tough it
can take out Godzilla and so smart it can play chess with Einstein, but they
still can't get one itty-bitty little catch to stay stuck where it damn well
ought to be stuck."
The sergeant accepted one of his own Premiers. He used the dash fighter and
sucked in a good, healthy lungful. Quincannon held it in for a few seconds,
then coughed smoke out through his nose. He hacked for almost a minute,
Page 24
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
cursing between choked gasps as Yorke lit up.
"You jake. Quince?"
"Yeah, boy, fine," he said, refreshing himself with another drag. His face
had gone even redder. "You know, back when I was young, there were damfool
eggheads who said cigarettes caused all sorts of disease. Heart trouble, the
cancer, emphysema."
"I've never heard that," said Yorke, who'd smoked since he was ten. He
dragged on his own Premier. "Dr Nick on ZeeBeeCee says nothing's better for
your lungs than a Snout first thing in the ayem."
"It was a big flap, but it died down. Some say it was the tobacco companies
bought or scared off the eggheads."
"Dr Nick says nicotine prevents Alzheimer's," Yorke said.
Like a lot of people his age, the Quince was paranoid. He was full of stories
about the government and the multinats, and the sneak tricks they'd pulled.
Yorke didn't believe a tenth of them. If he had a few snorts of Shochaiku in
him, Quincannon would start claiming the President was mixed up in underhand
arms deals. Yorke was used to the ridiculous fantasies the Quince picked up
from those mystery faxes which spread malicious rumour and gossip.
Quincannon choked again but kept on dragging. Hell, if smoking were
dangerous, the sergeant would be mummified in a museum by now.
Yorke stowed the pack of Premiers and shut the locker. The flap fell loose [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szkicerysunki.xlx.pl
indicator on the dash. The red cruiser blip was dead centre of the mapscreen,
green-lines scrolling past. The ve-hickle's inboard computer hooked up with
Gazetteer, the constantly updated federal map and almanac. Geostationary
weather and spy satellites downloaded intelligence into the electronic notice
board.
The patrol had just crossed the old state line and was heading up to a ghost
place that had once been called Kanab. Through the armaplas sunshade
wraparound, the rocks and sand ofKanab ,Utah , could as well be the sand and
rocks ofBoaz ,New Mexico ,Shawnee,Oklahoma or most anywhere in the Des.
Yorke's own reflected vizz, dreadfully young under his forage cap, hung in
the windscreen, superimposed on the roadside panorama.
The Big Empty stretched almost uninterrupted from the foothills of the
Appalachians toWashingtonState . Rocks and sand. Sand and rocks. Even
Gazetteer could not keep straight the borderlines of theGreatCentralDesert ,
the Colorado Desert, the Mojave Desert, theMexicanDesert and all the others.
Page 23
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Pretty soon, they'd have to junk all the local names and call everything
theAmericanDesert . By then, they'd all be citizens of the United States of
Sand and Rocks.
The two outrider blips held steady. Tyree and Burnside, on their mounts,
would be getting hot and sticky. You couldn't air-condition a motorcyke like
you could the 4x4 canopied transport Yorke shared with Sergeant Quincannon.
That would be rough on Tyree and Burnside.
Yorke liked the feel of the wheel in his gauntlets, liked the feel of the
cruiser on the hardtop. He appreciated a beautiful machine. The Japcorps could
put heavy hardware on the roads and Turner-Harvest-Ramirez were known for
impressive rolling stock. But the US Cav had access to state-of-the-art
military and civilian tech. On the shadow market, the ve-hickle was worth a
cool million gallons of potable water or an unimaginable equivalent sum in
cash money.
He thought of the cruiser as a cross between a Stealth Bomber, the Batmobile,
Champion the Wonder Horse and Death on Wheels. All plugged in to the
informational resources ofFortValens and, through the Fort, into the
interagency datanet whose semi-sentient Information Storage and Retrieval
Centre was in a secret location somewhere in upstateNew York .
Ever since the Enderby Amendment of 1985 opened up, in desperation, the field
of law enforcement to private individuals and organisations, Yorke had wanted
to be with an agency. Sanctioned Ops were the only non-criminal heroes a kid
from the NoGo could have these days. T-H-R's Redd Harvest, who dressed for
effect, got the glam covers on Road Fighter and Harry Parfitt ofSeattle 's
Silver Bullet Agency was always being declared Man of the Month by Guns and
Killing, the nation's best-selling self-sufficiency magazine. It was the Wild
West again. Heat went down all over the country: card-carrying Agency Ops out
for the annual arrest record bonus and stone-crazy Solos who brought in Maniax
for bounty.
But Yorke knew the only agency which guaranteed Ops a life expectancy longer
than that of the average mafioso-turned-informer was the Road Cav.
Quasi-government status bought better hardware, better software, better
roadware and better uniforms. He'd joined up on his sixteenth birthday and
didn't plan on mustering out much before his sixtieth. He wasn't ambitious
like Leona Tyree. In a world of chaos, the Cav offered a nice, orderly way of
doing things. He liked being a trooper, liked the food, liked the pay, liked
the life.
He even liked Sergeant Quincannon.
Yorke reached up to the overhead locker and pulled a pack of high-tars down
from the Quince's stash. The flap was broken and wouldn't stick back. The
sergeant stopped pretending to be asleep, and commented, "I knew that gum-wad
wouldn't last."
The flap fell down again.
"Wonderful," Quincannon commented. "They can whip up a machine so tough it
can take out Godzilla and so smart it can play chess with Einstein, but they
still can't get one itty-bitty little catch to stay stuck where it damn well
ought to be stuck."
The sergeant accepted one of his own Premiers. He used the dash fighter and
sucked in a good, healthy lungful. Quincannon held it in for a few seconds,
then coughed smoke out through his nose. He hacked for almost a minute,
Page 24
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
cursing between choked gasps as Yorke lit up.
"You jake. Quince?"
"Yeah, boy, fine," he said, refreshing himself with another drag. His face
had gone even redder. "You know, back when I was young, there were damfool
eggheads who said cigarettes caused all sorts of disease. Heart trouble, the
cancer, emphysema."
"I've never heard that," said Yorke, who'd smoked since he was ten. He
dragged on his own Premier. "Dr Nick on ZeeBeeCee says nothing's better for
your lungs than a Snout first thing in the ayem."
"It was a big flap, but it died down. Some say it was the tobacco companies
bought or scared off the eggheads."
"Dr Nick says nicotine prevents Alzheimer's," Yorke said.
Like a lot of people his age, the Quince was paranoid. He was full of stories
about the government and the multinats, and the sneak tricks they'd pulled.
Yorke didn't believe a tenth of them. If he had a few snorts of Shochaiku in
him, Quincannon would start claiming the President was mixed up in underhand
arms deals. Yorke was used to the ridiculous fantasies the Quince picked up
from those mystery faxes which spread malicious rumour and gossip.
Quincannon choked again but kept on dragging. Hell, if smoking were
dangerous, the sergeant would be mummified in a museum by now.
Yorke stowed the pack of Premiers and shut the locker. The flap fell loose [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]