The road to Spartanburg seemed quiet enough, the scenery by the side of the interstate passing from fields and cows near Columbia to dense stands of pine and poplar starting a few yards back from the Roundup zone. The edges of the highway had earned the popular appellation from the tanker truck that came through at the back of the convoy every few months with a sprayer attachment to mist the roadside with the inexpensive herbicide. Federal authorities had decided early on that it was easier, cheaper and safer than lawnmower crews for maintaining a small but adequate free-fire zone back from the road. In the spring, runners from the underbrush reached back quickly to reclaim the tempting open soil and ready sunlight — it looked like another run with the sprayer truck was a bit overdue.
The tender vegetation at the border was especially attractive to the herds of whitetail, who were no doubt accustomed to safe feeding times morning and evening when neither the convoys nor other traffic disturbed their peace. Predation by the occasional feral Posleen kept the herd barely below starvation levels. Healthy deer could usually smell, hear, and outrun a lone Posleen normal. Unfortunately for the deer, this fact failed to stop feral normals from trying. This became clear to the convoy when a yearling buck broke cover right in front of a church van from Nashville, causing it to slam on its brakes and take a bump from the semi behind it that could almost, but not quite, stop in time.
The first indication Cally had that something was wrong was the crunch of metal behind them and the chattering of a machine gun, it sounded like one of the MG-90s on top of the semis. She grabbed the .45 from the glove box while Reefer swore and swerved as the bus in front of them hit the brakes and stopped in the middle of its lane, the van coming to a more gradual stop alongside the bus’s driver. All along the length of the convoy, the approximately thirty vehicles that comprised it were pulling to a stop, the drivers and gunners first looking for Posleen, and then, seeing none, checking their detectors and getting on the radios onto channel nineteen for official convoy information.
“Front door, this is truck seventeen.” The female voice had a distinctly Texan drawl. “We got one dead Postie, one dead medium passenger vehicle, and some minor vee-hicular injuries back here. Negative on Postie emissions and high grade equipment. Negative crest. Just another feral normal. We’re gonna need a EMT and someplace to put ’em, ’cause their van ain’t goin’ nowhere, come on.” Reception was extraordinarily clear for the simple reason that there was so little to compete with it. Oh, there was a little crackle from sunspots and other unavoidable whatnot, but it was a surprisingly cheap method of keeping a convoy together. Besides, it was traditional.
“Ten-four, Seventeen. Johnny, you got your ears on?”
“Ten-four, Front Door. Got my little black bag and I am on the way, come on.”
“Ten-four. Seventeen, get the healthies squared away along the line and have Johnny call me back once he’s got the bleeders stashed, come on.”
“That’s a big ten-f — Larry, quit messing with that thing. You can load the head up after we get them church folks on the… oops. This thing’s still on. Sorry Front Door, over.”
“Hey, uh, Marilyn?” Reefer had walked around to the right side of the bus where she was standing with her back against it, looking outward. “Might as well get back in and put that thing in the glove box, man. I mean, like, I know it’s pretty bogus to have one of those Postie dudes running out on the road and all, but honest, there’s like never been more than one at a time as long as I’ve been driving.”
Cally walked back to the van, looked at the sensor on the dash and climbed back in. She didn’t put the pistol back in the glove box, but Reefer just shrugged and popped another piece of gum. Even twenty years ago the convoy would have circled up, instead of remaining sprawled out like a lunch line of gawking kindergartners. Their complacency made the back of her neck itch, but as she watched the negative sensors on the dash and her PDA screen, tied into the roadside sensor net, the combat-chill gradually leached its way back out of her system and time resumed its normal flow.
It seemed longer, of course, but it was actually only about ten minutes later that the convoy got rolling again, one van shorter but with no human fatalities. On the far side of the highway, just inside the tree line, a yearling whitetail buck placidly browsed through the fresh growth.
Spartanburg’s Trading and Bounty Station was very much like Columbia’s. The upstate city hadn’t been part of Fortress Forward and so the buildings had survived in varying states of destruction and disrepair from Posleen looting and local self-destruct systems. But vacancy during the Posleen occupation and the relatively slow pace of human reclamation had taken its toll on the prewar portions of the city. The station was not, strictly speaking, part of the original prewar city. Instead, one of the least-damaged truck stop and gas station clusters had been repaired, an incinerator and sufficient electrical generation to fuel the station installed, along with the necessary water tower and septic system. The Federal Bureau of Reclamation had walled and manned the resulting facility, along with a few neighboring buildings, hauled in a double-wide to house the staff, and called it a day.
The biggest difference in the routine at Spartanburg was the line at the pay radio as the members of the group from Nashville called friends and family back home.
The station residents were clearly used to their station being the lunch stop on the convoy route. One of the buildings inside the walls was a salvaged prewar short-order grill. Over the years, the sun had faded the plastic around the flat roof of the building to a dingy yellowish-cream. The steel pole that had once carried a lighted sign had been extended and was now home to the station’s radio antenna.
The parking lot of the restaurant had been filled with ancient picnic tables of various materials obviously scrounged locally. Perhaps a third were of clearly postwar construction, made of split and roughly sanded pine logs. A handful of teenage girls in jean shorts and T-shirts waited on the tables. Cally’s omelet was tough and overpriced, though the waitress was obviously eager to please, refilling her water frequently and offering a smile that was tacit apology for the food.
“If you want something that’s actually good to get the taste out of your mouth, try a small jar of pickled peaches from the store over there. One of our neighbors puts them up, and they’re actually good. I mean, if you like peaches.”
“Thanks, I will.” Cally smiled, noticing the girl’s wistful glances at her PDA.
“You’re a college student ain’t… aren’t you? That must be wonderful.” She fielded a dirty look from another girl who was moving a bit faster.
“Yeah, I like it. Where are you planning to apply?”
“It wouldn’t do no good.” The girl flushed. “They don’t take you if you’re out of state, unless you’ve got money.”
“I know a lot of out of state students. And there are scholarships.”
“You gotta pass tests. I checked.” She glared briefly as the other girl moving back by with a stack of empty plates made a rude noise. “I bet none of your out of state friends are bounty farm brats, are they?”
“If you can’t pass the tests, read and study until you can.”
The girl laughed tonelessly. “Library.” She indicated the bounty agent’s trailer. “Two shelves of pre-war encyclopedias and a dog-eared copy of Leather Goddesses of Phobos.”