40 Omega Switch

The bomb doesn't sound like a bomb at all. It sounds like a drinking glass dropped on a hardwood floor, except this glass is twenty feet long and full of fish. White water shot out at the VIPs. A wave follows, spills down from the tank's pedestal all at once, blotches of red and streams of silver inside the wave. Greenies grab at Ludovic, try to shield him with their bodies, but all they get for their loyalty is wet salty feet.

Ludovic is beside himself. He's convinced the tank had simply failed, and he would have someone's head for it. Maybe mine. Maybe the 'expert' who installed the tank. Maybe everyone's. His entire head turns purple with rage. Everyone is shouting. They're high-stepping through the water, trying to grab fish, but don't know what to do with them when they get one. Roger is still working. He's trying to describe it all, but he can't really keep up. A lone greenie tries one of the doors and realizes it's shut tight. He points at us, an accusatory finger from the other side of the room, but nobody payings him any mind. He reaches for his gun.

"Omega," I sa;y, and Sandy closes another switch with aloud spark. For a moment there was nothing. And then, true mayhem breaks out in the VIP car.

The first flash strikes us blind and deaf, lightning too close for humans to bear. Sudden shadows flick in all directions, strobes of white and blue light cast shadows hard and fast. Orange and white sparks dance on table tops, fall to the ground but don't touch it, hover and burn just above the water while, pushed up by intense head steam. The carpet is boiling.

Ludovic's special viewing platform is scourged while our eyes and ears adjust. The searing lights resolve into people. Most are on the floor convulsing, some of them face down and liable to drown. A few remain standing, glued to stanchions, dancing in place, heads wheeling wild. I see one minister with his hair on fire thrash his head so hard his neck breaks. Two greenies were smoking from the eyes. Roger Dane and one of the fatter ministers bubbled where they touched brass.

There is a noise, a note, a thousand lightning strikes at once, almost musical but too terrifying for earthly song. Beneath the thunder is a cry of a people seizing, cramping, shocking, convulsing, burning. They have no choice but to sing. Their bodies are not their own.

Some fortunate VIPs are wearing boots with rubber soles and waterproof construction. They could have survived, but they all made the mistake of climbing onto tables. To do that, they touched the brass and fry. Burnt hair, bubbled flesh, cooked eyeball, and ozone assault our noses. As more and more of them fall, the ones left standing take an ever greater share of destruction. Roger and two ministers' assistants I don't know are the last ones standing, but only because their muscles won't relax enough to let them fall over.

The lightning stops. For a few seconds it's too dark to see, but we can hear the whimpers. As our eyes adjust we get a view of bodies everywhere, fingers turned to blackened sausages, tongues swollen until they choke their owners. The carpet glows in spots, where steam rises from it. At least half the VIPs are alive, twitching and writhing on the floor in Pentecostal ecstasy.

We can sense pounding on the door near us. Alvarez's face is at the window, shouting at us, but we ignore him. We don't have much time, but we do have one more surprise. I nod at Sandy and pulls the perimeter toggle, the one connected to all the zombie attractors on the car's roof. Soon Alvarez won't be thinking of us any more.

I pull on Sandy's arm and we get moving. We each take guns from the nearest greenies, the Sig Sauers they liked so much, plus extra magazines full of ammunition. We go from one person to the next and put bullets in their heads. We spare the servers and the courtesans. Everyone else will die.

Panic fire erupts from farther down the train. They've noticed a large chunk of the horde has left the parking area and are headed this way. The army will expend all its available ammunition on the zombies if someone doesn't get them under control. Alvarez stops pounding on our door.

Greenies get two bullets. The first to the neck, to kill them without having to get too close. Then we open the visor for the second shot, to the head. We walk down the car like that, working fast. Pop. Pop. Pop. We ignore the servers and the courtesans but kill everyone else. The water turns red in our wake, and stinks like boiled blood and piss.

We find Dragon Ball near the end of the car, and I leave him to Sandy if she wants him. He's one of the live ones, still convulsing, but he tries to reach for his gun. Sandy shoots him through the hand. With her foot, she pushes open the visor. He looks like a kid, a teenager too big for his age, with blue eyes and features that look exactly like Ludovic's, except he's thirty years younger.

"Huh," I said, "I didn't even know he had a son."

He's trying to laugh, but he can't get his diaphragm to work right. He gets some words out, though. "I should have fucked you, prego."

Sandy puts a bullet right through his eye. He deserves worse, much worse, but it's all we have time for.

After Sandy does Dragon Ball, I find Ludovic laying under two dead greenies. He's not even conscious, and I'm disappointed I don't get to lecture him. He gets no last words or lame excuses for his years of oppression. No self-justification. I put two bullets in his head to make sure, and reload my pistol.

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Zombies are closing in on the VIP car from the south side of the tracks and the panic fire is increasing. The other passengers are going to be fine. The zombies can't get in, and as soon as we drive away in Fan Girl the power will be disconnected from the attractor arrays. The horde-control system will grab their attention again, and they'll all go peacefully back to being obedient, parked zombies. Alvarez has stopped trying to get to us, because he needs to get control of his men.

Sandy pulls a powerful magnet from her bag and presses it against the forward door, and the bolts release. It's a hilarious exploit for a billionaire's high-tech security system, one we discovered while rigging the car. We exit out onto the knuckle that connects the VIP car to the gas cars, hop to the ground. We close the angle cock, that's the air line that controls the train's brakes, throw the cut bar, then race for the locomotive. I lead with my gun as I enter the control room, but the room is empty. I never would find out who was driving that day, but they apparently bailed on the kingdom before we could, even though it was our escape plan.

Sandy eased Fan Girl's throttle forward and she started to move east, pulling nothing but two gas cars behind us. Soon the demo area was well behind us.

"Look!" Sandy pointed at the runner. He had crossed to the north side of the tracks and was following them east, his hands still tied together in prayer. We slowed the engine and tried to wave him on board, two well-dressed if somewhat blood-spattered people inviting him for a ride, but he just kept running.

I thought he stumbled, but no. He crouched by some metal debris on the ground and rubbed his wrists against it. He was free, and paced alongside us, grinning and waving with his hands high in victory.

The runner shouted, loud enough for us to hear over the engine, "Fuck the Kingdom!"

"The king is dead!" I tried to shout back.

"Fuck the Kingdom!" screamed Sandy, and she blew him kisses.

The runner turned north towards Strasberg to find water, a car, or anything that would let him run for another day.

"I guess he's going his own way." I would have liked to meet him, and I like to think he's still out there, running just because he loves it.

Sandy opened Fan Girl's throttle wide to take us east. "How far to go?"

"Ten miles," I said. The tracks go as far as Abeline but we want to go to California, not Kansas.

A man's voice, one I don't expect, shouts, "You're turning this around and going back!"

Hector was at the door, gun in his hand.

"You scared me, Hector! What the heck are you doing here?"

"I'm taking you in. I said, turn this thing around and go back!"

I had my own pistol in my waistband, the one I took from a greenie and shot so many greenies to death with, but I kept my hands safely in the air.

"Keep going, Sandy." I put myself between her and Hector. "First, Hector, congrats on getting onto this train. Did you jump on while we were moving?"

"Yeah," he seemed real proud of himself, "just like the movies. Had to climb over two gas cars to get here."

"Cool," I shrug, "wish I could have seen it. Second, this is a train, it doesn't turn around."

"Well put it in reverse then! I'm not an idiot! I know these things run backwards."

"They do, but we're not going back. Where is Alvarez? He sneaking up the other side? Like the movies?"

"No! He said I had to catch you myself! He said, 'go catch up to your friends.' You see? It's a test! If I bring you back then it proves my loyalty!"

"Or maybe," I offer, "he wanted you to leave with us. It's a pretty open-ended statement don't you think? He didn't say what to do when you caught up to us." Hector was grimacing and shaking his head, but I kept at him. "Alvarez knows the kingdom is evil. He's letting you go, don't you get it? There's nothing there for you. What is there to go back to? The king is dead! It's not like the greenies will take you in, you're not white enough! Alvarez wants you to escape!"

"You have to come back!" His eyes were rimmed red, and his hand shifted on his gun, unsteady. "You did your best work there! You owe them! It's civilization! It's the future! You'll be a traitor if you don't come back!". He's crying as he says these ridiculous, stupid things. He believes the kingdom is some kind of good. He still thinks there's a kingdom to go back to. He won't listen.

"We're already traitors! We're not coming back, Hector. Come with us! Be done with this place! It's evil! Make a better choice!"

To my everlasting astonishment, Hector pulled the trigger. The kid I taught numbers to was willing to kill me, rather than see me run free. His sig's hammer dropped with a dull click, and nothing happened. His face, so tortured a moment before, went slack in surprise.

"You chose poorly," I said, and kicked him in the chest. He was as surprised that I kicked him as I was that he tried to shoot me. He fell away, backwards and down, limbs swimming, until he touched the ground and tumbled. We leave him behind.

Sandy sounds mad. "Please tell me you knew his gun wasn't loaded! Or I'm going to tell Rachel, and she's going to be so angry!"

"They don't give liaisons real bullets." I had noticed that both Psi and the greenies treated liaisons with contempt. Their job was a way to sideline people who weren't trusted by the army. And the army didn't give out free ammunition.

Sandy had a blast running the train: she even blew the horn a few times. But it didn't last long enough. Soon we came to a crossing where a four-wheel drive waited, three people around it: two were the Ecklunds, Jaida with her half-shaved head and Alfred with his cane, plus a man in the driver's seat I didn't know. Sandy stopped us smack in the middle of the road crossing and removed the control key, kept it for a souvenier. They kingdom would have some extra trouble retrieving their train.

We and our bags jumped off and ran for the Ecklunds. Handshakes and hugs all around.

It's Alfred who asks, "Hector didn't make it?"

"He chose the kingdom over us. I tried to talk him out of it but … he's alive at least. Maybe someday he'll change his mind. He knows the Sojourners were aiming for Xanadu, but he doesn't know what it means. Who's the new guy?"

"Name's Fern," called the driver, "NKA deserter, but a big fan of yours Mr. E. And the pretty lady, of course! If you don't mind my saying so, we should move along!"

"Fern's right," said Jaida, "let's catch up on the way." We piled in with Alfred riding shotgun and the rest of us riding in back. By the time New Kingdom recovered Fan Girl, we were lost to them among the vast American plains.