“That was WWAXXZY News, every hour, on the hour. And now, in memory of Big Master X, we’re devoting the rest of the afternoon’s programming to some of the best music released on his Big Black Beats label starting with his very own remix of Freak-E’s ‘Be My Pimp’…”
17.
The scope of Federal Government, as an instrument of power, might have atrophied; the might of Multicorporations might be split as the individual corporate concerns squabbled amongst themselves for the prize of the world-but the California National Guard (or Arnie’s Freedom Commandos, as certain sectors of the corporate media had dubbed them) were still going strong.
Admittedly, the California state legislature had banned them from operating within their home state but they had enough rich backers among the tech and entertainment industries to buy themselves bases in all of the neighbouring states, ready to strike at a moment’s notice should law and order in California break down completely. Add this to Governor Arnie’s statewide draft programme and the US Army spreading its forces across almost a hundred nations worldwide, and the California National Guard becomes the most powerful military force in North America. Only a few private corporate armies and southern gangcults come anywhere close in terms of both man and firepower and, the California state legislature notwithstanding, there was nobody to challenge their military dominance.
There were any number of reasons for this. Some to do with the functions a well-armed and well-trained military force performed and the responsibilities it had within a chaos-bound overall social dynamic. Others to do with the fact that the CNG’s presence in sympathetic states dissuaded gangcults, terrorists and other assorted whackos from attacking government, corporate and private interests there. Others still to do with their favoured status within the Pentagon and the multitude of homeland security contracts they were awarded by the top brass there. But chief among those reasons must be counted the simple and obvious one that they had a shitload of heavy weaponry, and who was going to take it away from them?
So, foreign wars were still waged and police actions still fought to protect the interests of America but homeland security, unofficially at least, fell under the remit of the CNG.
Johnny Raghead still got the crap kicked out of him before being shipped off to Kandahar, Guantanamo or Diego Garcia if he even so much as looked at a subway air conditioning unit. God-fearing patriots in the northern militias and survivalist groups would get a jackboot up their collective asses anytime they refrained from paying their Federal taxes. ICBMs remained maintained in their various silos and racks. Bomb testing was still conducted-and certain complications attendant to bomb testing, on a whole other level than mere fallout, were still, after a fashion, dealt with.
This latter function fell under the remit of what, over the years, had come to be called Arbitrary Base.
Colonel Roland Grist, Commander in Charge of Arbitrary Base, surveyed the pair of GenTech so-called “civilian specialists” across the expanse of his desk. He was not exactly impressed.
The girl was wearing something in skin-tight PVC that left nothing to the imagination but which, even so, was strategically ripped to leave even less so. With her bleach-blonde hair and overplayed cosmetics she looked like she’d be more at home sliding round a pole.
For all this, she radiated assurance, a sense that if she happened to decide a direction in which the world would go, then the world would fall into line as a matter of suit. Grist was reminded, a little disquietingly, of a nanny employed by his family back when he was growing up on their Cape Cod compound. The girl had done drugs and spent most afternoons screwing his father-but so far as little Roland had been concerned, her word had been strict and absolute law.
The boy was just what the word “boy” implied: a kid around the age of the youngest grunts under Grist’s command, without even the most basic of the training that would have him straightened up and flying right.
The boy was twitchy and pale, hunched sullenly in a gangcult leather jacket several sizes too big for him; shadowed eyes glowering up at Grist under a straggled mass of hair that had long since crossed the border from being merely greasy into the country of the positively matted with filth.
He looked most definitely like a drug addict, this boy-and you could pick any drug you liked, it would probably fit.
For himself Grist couldn’t imagine this pair making it through the Base perimeter alive in normal circumstances, let alone being allowed into the more sensitive areas.
Pentagon orders, however, had been quite clear. They were to be given the run of the place, given any assistance or information for which they might ask, whether that meant launch-codes for the SNARK XIV’s in their silo-racks… or access to the so-called “Artefact” in Shed Seven.
The bureaucrats in the Pentagon were watching him, Grist knew. They were watching him all the time, just to see if he would fumble the ball again. There were Special Forces operatives on the Base that he still had not properly identified, at least to the point where he could be certain where their loyalties truly lay.
He was not in a position, at this point, to blatantly disobey direct orders from above.
He didn’t know how many of his men were in on the joke.
All the same, there was nothing in the orders telling him to make the job of these two easier. If this pair wanted anything, they had to know what to ask and then damn well ask it.
“Sir, ma’m,” he said, the honorifics of respect all-but sticking in his craw. “Our sponsorship arrangement with GenTech Industries requires that we offer you any assistance you might require. I can have a maintenance crew go over your rigs, have you on your way in-“
“Any one of your guys lays a hand on our rigs,” said the girl, “at this point and without clearance, is going to be chopped down instantly. This isn’t the pit-stop, this is the finish line.”
Grist remained impassive. He’d guessed from when they had told him that the convoy was coming that they weren’t going to just be using Arbitrary Base as a maintenance way station; this was just a way of letting this pair know that he was going do to nothing more or less than they actively asked.
“What we’re going to need,” said the girl, actively telling rather than asking for anything, “is your tech-support team scrambled and ready to go. Nobody under Stratum XIV clearance, and you’ll better believe we’re going to be checking the list, and checking it twice, from our own database.
“Step up the perimeter guard, and they can be cleared to any level you like-just keep them away from all GenTech personnel and what they’re doing. Plus we’re going to need a squad of Special Forces Deltas as an escort while we set up shop in the place you dammed well know that we will.”
Grist still remained impassive, biting on the polycarbon tube replacing the cigars to which, in off hours and in the open air, he was partial.
“And that would be?” he said.
“Where do you think?” said the girl. “Shed Seven.”
“So let me get this right,” Eddie said as they headed through the Arbitrary Base compound, watching various military personnel snapping to order in the way that only military personnel can do. “This is what…” He racked his brain for the half-remembered UFO mythology he had picked up growing up in New Mexico-where they had a lot, admittedly, but of a sort that set off so many bullshit detectors that you never bothered to even learn it. “This is what they used to call Area 51 or something, yeah?”
Trix Desoto snorted. “Stop being a tool. You’ve been quite the tool for long enough and it’s been mentioned before. Area 51 never existed. The whole idea of it was fabricated to draw attention away from the things that were really going on.”