A small red flag went up in Jay’s mind, but when he thought about it, it wasn’t that big a deal. Yeah, the guy was into ELF stuff, but that’s what a lot of HAARP was about. If you were looking for a plumber, you didn’t hire a cabdriver, now did you?
“All work and no play make Jay a dull boy,” Soji said.
He smiled up at her. She stood there in a bathrobe. “Look who’s talking. You’ve been so deep into the web I haven’t been able to see anything but your back for days.”
“Want to see something else?” She undid the bathrobe and held it open.
“Oh, mama! Come here!”
Before she could move, however, the phone played the opening strains of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Unfortunately, his phone was programmed so it played that particular tune only if the call was IDed as coming from Net Force HQ or Alex Michaels’s virgil.
“Shit,” he said.
Soji closed her robe and belted it shut. “He who hesitates stays horny,” she said.
“Hey, Boss,” Jay said.
“Better get to the office, Jay,” Michaels said. “There’s been another case of collective madness.”
“In China?”
“No,” Michaels said. His voice was grim. “Closer than that.”
John Howard watched as his son came up to make his throw. The boy stopped, rubbed his fingers back and forth, and allowed some glittery dust to fall to check wind direction. He held a stopwatch in one hand and his boomerang in the other. The judges waved Tyrone into the circle.
Howard felt more tense than he’d thought he would. It was a big deal to Tyrone, of course, but it was just a game, after all. No reason to be digging his fingernails into his palms.
Off to one side and behind Tyrone, Little Nadine stood, waiting for her turn to compete. She was three contestants behind Tyrone, so she’d know what time she had to beat. So far, the times hadn’t been very good, according to Tyrone, and both kids had done better in practice.
The judge nearest the circle held up his hand in a halt sign, then called another judge over for some kind of consultation.
“Come on, come on!” Howard said. “Let the boy throw before his arm gets cold!”
Next to him, his wife said, “Asshole.”
He looked at her. “You talkin’ to me?”
“Not particularly, I was referring to the judge, but if the shoe fits…”
That pissed him off. What was she on the rag about now? He hadn’t done anything. He glared at her. She glared right back.
Tyrone stood there for another few seconds, then walked to where the judges were. Howard couldn’t hear what his boy had to say, but apparently the judges really didn’t like it.
The head judge reached out and slapped Tyrone upside the head.
“Fuck!” Howard yelled. “You see that? He hit our son!” Even as he spoke, Howard ran toward Tyrone and the judges.
The second judge must have figured the slap was rude, because he hauled off and punched the head judge square in the mouth, knocking the man down. Certainly this was justice, but that irritated Howard even more.
“Leave him!” Howard yelled as he ran. “That bastard is mine!”
Tyrone stepped in and delivered a solid kick to the fallen judge’s ribs. It sounded like somebody dropping a watermelon, thoo-wock!
Even as he drew near to the trio, Howard was aware of noises coming up the hilclass="underline" horns honked, metal crashed into metal. He slid to a stop as the second judge spun to face him.
“Get off the circle!” the man screamed. “You can’t be here!”
“Oh, yeah?” Howard said. “Hey, pal, I’m already here! What are you gonna do about it?”
Tyrone gave the fallen judge another kick. Not as good as the first one; it had a flatter sound. Weak, son, weak.
The second judge threw a haymaker at Howard, who ducked it, came up, launched a fast left hook to the face, then a right cross to the chin, bap-bap! That straightened the sucker out like popping a shoe shine cloth. The guy sailed backward and to the ground. Get off that, asshole!
The judge Tyrone was kicking got to his feet and lurched at the boy, but before Howard could get there, both Nadines arrived. His wife kneed the guy in the crotch as Little Nadine latched onto his arm and sank her teeth into his shoulder.
Irritated, Howard moved toward them. This was his business to take care of, he didn’t need the goddamned women getting in the goddamned way—!
A car came across the field, lights on and horn honking, a big, powder-blue Cadillac. It plowed into a group of five men who stood there giving the driver the finger. The men flew like dolls in all directions as the driver gunned the engine.
Not real smart to shoot the bird at a man coming at you in a car at speed.
“Eat shit and die!” the driver screamed. Then he started to laugh.
Four or five other people attacked the Caddy, slamming their fists and feet at it. The driver spun a donut in the grass, still cackling madly.
Something wrong here, Howard thought. He shook his head, then looked at the man he had just decked. What was he doing?
He looked down the hill and saw a dozen people fighting. One of them was a policeman. The cop pulled his gun, and a quick succession of shots—pop-pop-pop-pop-pop! — echoed up the hill. Gunshot victims fell, and added more screams to the din.
Dazed, Howard looked up the hill. There were people there, too, but they weren’t fighting; they were watching, staring in surprise.
Howard’s thoughts were fogged with rage, but something was trying to make its way through the anger: This was a bad place. Down the hill it was worse, but up the hill, it was better. Therefore…
“Come on!” he yelled to his family. “We have to get up the hill!”
“Fuck off!” Tyrone yelled back.
Little Nadine released her hold on the judge, who was screaming in pain. She stared at Howard. “What is going on?” she said, her voice high and frightened.
“I don’t know. Gas, maybe. We’ve got to get out of here. Help me.”
His wife kneed the judge in the nuts again. The man gurgled in agony. Howard grabbed her, pulled her off.
“Leave me alone! He hit my son!”
Howard jerked her backward. “Tyrone!”
The boy turned, and the mask of primal rage on his face slipped a little. He raised his eyebrows. “Dad?”
“Up the hill, son, up the hill. Go, go!”
Tyrone nodded. Little Nadine grabbed his hand and they started running.
Howard had to pin Nadine’s arms to her side and he half carried, half dragged her away from the meadow. She kicked and screamed at him for a hundred meters before she stopped. She was a lot stronger than he’d realized.
Finally, when they were two hundred meters away, Nadine came back. “J-John? What—?”
“I don’t know, hon. But whatever it is, the farther away we get, the better. Come on.”
They caught up to the children, and the four of them kept moving. Howard looked back as they ran. The Cadillac was lying on its side, and a mob had the driver out and on the ground, kicking him. He was a dead man. More gunshots echoed from farther below. Horns honked. Cars crashed. People screamed in voices full of incoherent fury. This beautiful park, what the locals like to call God’s country, had gone mad.