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The Doings of Rufus Muldoon

Lou Zoo

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Part Five

The re-frothing maniacs tried to push me to my knees in the top storey of the tent, before the enthroned figure of a man wearing the most ridiculous hat I've ever seen, all covered in fairy lights an' with a way too wide brim you could grate uncut wheels of Auntie Scrotie's mushroom-milk cheese on without skinnin' your thumbs. I refused to go down, though the big one was even stronger'n he looked. Not hittin' 'em was one thing, but there has to be limits. Muldoons don't kneel just because we're tell't.

"How dare you decline to kneel before your god and salvation, infidel," Lou Zoo said with exaggerated disdain. "I should..."

"Just who in tarnation are you?" I said, cutting him off and widening his eyes. "And what the Hell are you playing at clapping me an' the General in irons like it was all the proper an' done thing?"

"Silence when you talk to me," he said and then, laughing, nodded to several burlier and more experienced frothing maniacs who shoved everyone else out of the way and forced me down with clubs to the head and the backs of my knees. He pushed himself away from the ornate wooden throne and his ridiculous hat wobbled and swayed so that he had to bob his head to the same rhythm so it wouldn't drop over his eyes in spite of the sturdy leather chinstrap, pulled what to me would be uncomfortable tight. "The initial stages of the attack on Dork's Rift are underway," he said. "The energy field has been nullified and the reactive razorwire fence is about to be breached. Then it's down to who has the most bullets, and that's me."

"That's a kinda' shitty thing you're doing there," I said, "but I don't see it's my business."

"I don't care what you see," he said, leaning his face close to mine while his personal guards kept me painfully locked in place with their clubs. "Tell me what you know about Dork's Rift. I know you've been there and any information you give me might prove invaluable in the final push." I pressed my lips tight shut and curled a nostril for emphasis. "Shorting out the energy shield, disabling the perimeter batteries, breaching the razorwire - the cost has been very, very high. But if you can tell me what it's like, if there are any secret ways in or out, any weaknesses in design or personnel?" He nodded again and his personal guards angrily twisted my bones against each other. "Last chance to get out of this with your soul," he said. "No? Nothing? No answer for Lou from the Zoo? Oh well, your choice."

He turned back to his throne and opened a hidden drawer in one of the arms. He reached inside and pulled out a red patch before turning back to me with the patch held up between his fingers. "Lou from the travelling zoo studied the animals, got to know them. Then one day a ship fell out of the sky with a dead thing in it, something neither mutie nor normie, and a very powerful cerebral amplifier, which I first adapted to the animals in my travelling zoo to make them do incredible tricks and perform incredible feats for the amusement of paying customers. The credits poured in until, one morning, I was almost shanghaied into a slave convoy and had to abandon my zoo to get away. That's when I decided to adapt..."

"Look, High Lord of Whoever You Are, I ain't joinin' an' that's that," I said. "Ain't no good gonna come from rough-housing neither. Your fight ain't my fight so just let me go on my own way and I'll let you go on yours."

Lou Zoo pursed his lips and the pressure on my bones increased until I felt sure something was fixin' to snap. "Very well, long story short. The white patch only works on some people, the red one works on everybody. He leaned forward and carefully stuck the red patch to my neck. I let the rage engulf me and the pain in my bones elate me.

"I only saw the medical bay," I spat out the words like venom, "and the gate in the wire. I was only there an hour or two." Lou Zoo nodded and the clubs were removed. He motioned for me to stand and I obeyed, a little unsteady due to the chains. Lou Zoo gestured for them to be removed and one of his personal guards, also wearing a red patch, swooped in with a key. As the chains fell to the floor like doom in a jar, I stole a pistol and shot Lou Zoo's hat off, or tried to. The bullet smashed a fairy light but the chinstrap kept it firmly in place. His personal guards paused for a moment, as if uncertain what to do, and then pounced on me to a man, getting in each other's way and making them easy to hit but increasing hard to avoid. The only ones not joining in were Lou Zoo himself and my two erstwhile companions. "Help me out, you two," I shouted. "You busted outta this once, you can bust out again." They tried to tear the patches away but the very attempt caused them intense pain and they could no more touch the patches than they could touch the belly of a lit plasma furnace.

I managed to put another bullet into Lou Zoo's ridiculous hat and this time it crackled and caught fire. The personal guards stuttered and then redoubled their efforts but the re-frothing maniacs took advantage of the stutter to tear their own patches off despite the agony. I was gettin' overwhelmed at this point but the de-re-frothin' maniacs put a passel more bullets into Lou Zoo's ridiculous hat reducing it, an' most of his head, to holes. Most of the personal quards quit fightin' then, shakin' their heads like they was waking from a whiskey sleep, but a few elected ta keep fightin' me. I guess they wuz just blowin' off steam but I was happy to oblige in helpin' to clear their heads of mad, an' nothin' clears your head of mad like a good, strong thump in the head.

The whole thing just ran out of oomph, then. Everybody just split up and went their own ways, singly or in groups. The General and I set out with a group movin' in the same direction and we didn't need to stick to the wrinkles because there was no more patrols, just random groups of confused folk trying to figure out which way wuz home. Our group passed out of Booth's Mirror and into the Shatterplains towards the southern flank of the Glasstops, growing smaller all the time as folk struck out in directions more relevant to 'emselves. The de-re-frothin' maniacs stuck with me all the way to a crossroads in the Whisperin' plains. One direction led to Bursttown, where the little one was from, another to Sandstormville, where the big one lived, and straight ahead to the distant Stunbolt Hills an' Brokendream Creek, my own neck o' the woods.

Not bein' one for goodbyes, I jest kept ridin' at the crossroads, wavin' my hat without lookin' back. Whether they lingered together or spurred their partridges on without goodbyes I've never known. The General was uncharacteristically quiet all the way home an' I didn't have to box his ears hardly at all. In rare moments of conversation, he revealed as how it was Thunderclap's demise plaguing his thoughts an' makin' him doubt what it means to be a hoss. This put me in mind of Paw and the leathering he'd give me when I told him about losing his old hoss, not ta mention all his guns and baby Gommy's scattapult.

We hit the familiar Throughchem Trail high in the Stunbolts, a day an' a half from home, before meetin' another soul. "Halt," this other soul said, "in the name of the Law!"

I reigned the general to a halt and snarled at the speaker, my hand on my gun. "An' just who in tarnation do you think you are as you can give me orders, Judge Jackson?"

The old man, his threadbare uniform mainly held together with string, tape an' good intentions, parked his awkward homespun Lawmaster and turned the engine off. "Looks like you got a couple of six-shooters there, Citizen," he said, removin' his dinged old helmet to reveal a dinged old face with righteous concern hanging off it.

"I ain't no citizen," I said, "an' my irons are my own concern. How many times we gonna' have the same conversation, Jackson? An' how many times do I have ta tell ya? I ain't joinin'."

He never showed fear or weakness, old Jackson, not once in all the years I knew him. "We're gonna' keep havin' this conversation until you realise the foolishness of carrying lethal sidearms in public, young Rufus. Guns encourage more guns, an' guns is dangerous."

I nodded. "On that last point I can agree wholehearted, havin' recently..."

"Only responsible hands should carry guns, Rufus; responsible, highly trained, official hands," he said in his steady, level growl. "Why, only days ago a small force of beleaguered judges repelled an attack by a horde of cybernetic aliens at least a million strong, freeing countless slaves into the bargain."

I frowned. "Izzat so?"

"Damn straight," he said. "They're already saying that the Battle of Dork's Rift will go down in the annals of Justice Department history. That's what happens when guns are used properly, boy, by the certified experts."

"I'm sure they did their part," I said, spurring the General back into lazy motion. "But it was me stopped the army, me an' two other guys. A big guy an' a little guy."

"An' me," said the General and then, after a beat, "an' ol' Thunderclap, Grud rest the old bastard."

"Throw them away, young Rufus Muldoon," Jackson called after us. "Leave the guns to the professionals."

I drew a pistol and fired two shots into the air before whoopin' loud and spurrin' General Leer to a gallop. The old long-walker might have shouted something about a fine after us but I couldn't hear and that night we camped in the familiar bowl of Trotter's Bilge, confident of arriving home by late afternoon the followin' day.

Mid mornin' we came on Sunnyday Trotter an' a couple of her hands drivin' a herd of force-grown clonemorks to the meat market over at Clagnuts. It wuz slow work on account of the poor beasts havin' malformed legs, eyes that pointed in different directions an' brains full o' holes an' midnight shadows. The youngest were a week old, force-grown from egg to maturity in old Magnus Trotter's clone tanks an' decanted only yesterday. The ones decanted more'n a week ago were already bulging with tumours. "More meat for the grinders," Sunnyday laughed, slapping one of the hobbling clonemorks on its rump, throwing it into a panicked, staggering trot.

"You hear about the goings-on over at Dork's Rift?"

"Some," I said.

She brought her hoss nearer to mine and fell into step. General Leer, not usually a fan of such closeness, bobbed his head and behaved hisself, meek as a lamb. "They say the judges saved the world from an alien invasion. There was a big battle, apparently. All very heroic."

"No doubt," says I, then proceeds to give her my account of the goings-on. When I'm done, she just grunts and slaps a couple of confused clonemorks into panicking in the right direction.

"I guess that might explain the rumours of a sudden bounty of birdmeat over Bane County way," she said, "an' some kinda' rash o' public ass-kickin's and recriminations over some political movement as went too far."

"I guess it might," I said.

We parted near Per Dishin's Frames and by late afternoon we were on Typhoon's Bluff, looking down on our modest homestead. The young 'uns were playing on the stoop under the eagle eye of Gramma, which flitted from book to knitting to children and back again, missing nothing. The rest were scattered about the place, tending to the fields an' seein' to the hosses. Young Gommy spotted me first while he was taking a break from half-heartedly weeding the cabbage bushes and, always glad of any distraction from his chores, began pointing and shouting and running to tell the others. I smiled and was about to spur the General onto the back path when my eye caught a detail I hadn't earlier registered: a fresh dug empty grave in the family plot.

I knew Paw was gone to his ultimate freedom then, felt it in my belly.

End of Part Five


The Doings of Rufus Muldoon

Lou Zoo

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Epilogue

The mould in Paw's leg hadn't stayed in Paw's leg, and that's what did for him.  Ma'd put the body on ice til I got home for the funeral. He died a few days ago, at the exact same time as Thunderclap, or so Gramma later calculated usin' her occult numbers an' a big spliff. "They'll be ridin' the Heavenly Plains right now, Typhoon Muldoon an' Thunderclap, robbin' God's banks an' raisin' seven shades of Heavenly hell," she further mythologised with a cackle, and it was a myth I could live with. It seemed better than a man who once took down two judges and a camel in the same bare-knuckle MMA cage fight being killed by mould.

That's why I told you this story, I guess, to set the record straight after seein' a bootleg Justice Department documentary about the Battle of Dork's Rift as was so full of rubbish it actually stank. Not for myself, ain't nothin' ta me whether you believe it or believe that Justice Department version; the totalitarian version or the uncensored version. That's for y'all ta decide fer yerselves an' ain't my business. I wanted to set the record straight for the big guy, and for the little guy, who turned out to be in deep water with their wives, who they'd delivered into the hands of the slavemasters as soon as they wuz patched. I wanted to put the record straight for all the ex-slavering maniacs and all the ex-slaves, who are still grumpy with each other to this day in certain regions. And I wanted to put the record straight for my Paw who, though he never got to leather me one last time for losing Thunderclap, all his guns, and Gommy's scattapult, hopefully took with him the sure knowledge that I'd discharge his sacred debt with true Muldoon honour.

Whether he knows I defeated a tyrant in a ridiculous hat, saved Dork's Rift and freed all the slaves I don't know, but I do know I did right by him an' his teachin's.

An' that's what really happened durin' the famous and most desperate last stand Battle of Dork's Rift. For another flagon, I'll tell you the tale of what happened when Ma learned of diamonds hidden in the very glass bubble where Lou from the Zoo pitched his tent...

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The Doings of Rufus Muldoon

Lou Zoo

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Part Four

The journey home was uneventful for nearly a day and a half. Just shy of the first fractures of the Booth's Mirror glasslands, I'd climbed a knoll to scout the road and bivvied to pass the noon when a slavering maniac riding a huge pheasant came storming to the top of the knoll, claiming it as his own. I observed the lack of any signage to the contrary and invited him to either leave or pipe down.

"But this is my vantage point," he said, his voice shrieking and flecks of foam on his cracked lips. "It's part of my patrol route! Mine! Until I see the first swarms of His Divine army on the horizon, heralding glory! Then I move forward a day and wait again! You can have the knoll then!"

"Well, says I, "I ain't stoppin' you using the place, it's plenty big enough. Just keep the noise down, okay? I like to nap at noon."

He seethed and his pheasant shifted from foot to foot and ruffled its colourful tail feathers. "Why do you not run? Why do you not flee in terror before the onslaught of the jurisdiction of His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo?"

"Friend," I said, rising to my feet and putting my hands on my guns. He gaped at me with a kind of restrained fury. He was unused to people not fleeing before him and his hands were nowhere near his own guns. "Friend, do what you want but leave me out of it." I was young, then, and didn't always think before I spoke. "Like I told the last lot, I ain't joinin'." His expression told me instantly what I'd sent wrong.

"You have information about Dork's Rift!" he screamed. "Tell me! Tell me now!"

I drew one of my six-shooters and the maniac twitched but wasn't fool enough. "I ain't sayin' nothin' about anythin'," I said. "Now back off or you an' me's gonna fall out."

"No," he said, but still didn't reach for his iron, his whole body surgin' with restrained anger. "I must detain you. Report you. Turn you in for questioning. What you know may prove invaluable and get me promoted over that bastard Leroy. Drop your gun. Do it. Drop it now. You're under arrest."

"I'm sorry, old fella," I said, and shot the pheasant twice in its head. By the time it finished kicking I had the slavering maniac on his backside in the dirt, rubbing his jaw and demanding his gun and comms back. I gave him back his gun but kept all the ammo and gave him his comm but kept its battery. "Now I can either tie you up until I've finished my nap or you can run away. That way," I said, knowing that he was shook up and pointing in the wrong direction, "is that very high god-emperor of yours. That way," I said, pointing in another wrong direction," is the way I'm going. I suggest we stick to those routes." I touched the loop of rope hanging from the General's saddle. "What's it to be?"

He ran away and I spent a relaxing couple of hours in the shade watching him fade. When I was sure he was gone, I took me forty winks then saddled up the General for the afternoon's traversin's. If the slavering maniac didn't get his bearings he'd be onto Dork's Rift by morning and those fancy Justice Department flying sensor platforms might just pick him up, giving them a fair shot at an advanced warning. Maybe making up for disappointin' Hooligan an' puttin' right my blunder. We may be rough, us Cursed Earth folk, but we try to do the right thing. The judges would want the varmint alive at any rate, for information, so that gave him a fightin' chance too. Never found out what happened to him, proper.

For the next few hours I went my own way following a circuitous route to avoid patrols of slavering maniacs, who bumbled about so bad as to be seen a mile off. I had to keep moving through the night as camping invited discovery even in this broken desert, but the patrols continued to bumble and use powerful torches so was twice as easy to spot in the dark. Even so, by mornin' there was too many of 'em to avoid any more an' the General an I concluded that a change of tactics was in order. So we found us a cave an' hid in it.

We had us a couple of close shaves before two slavering maniacs explored our bolt-hole a mite more deeply than the last lot. They pinned us down and the big one, the slavering maniac built like a bull with flaring nostrils and quivering flanks, got alongside the General and held a gun to his head. I threw down my gun and the little one, the slavering maniac built like a bundle of sticks with a look of furious glee on its face, slapped a white oval onto my neck faster'n a radtler in heat. "Be one with the Divine Army!" He looked into my eyes with furious expectation, with twitching, wide eyes and a tight elastic grin.

"I will not," I said, and ripped the patch away, threw it into the dirt and ground it under my heel.

They both gasped and shouted in unison. "Uncontrollables!" They closed in and the General and I got into it. "They must become slaves to glory of... Ow!"

The little one was frustratin' in his dexterity and speed and it took me an age to get the last word while the General had to kick the big one so many times he got a cramp but in the end we prevailed. They gnashed and spat at us but I took their guns and comms and then ripped the patches off their necks. They were instantly different men. The little one started laughing and the big one started crying. There was a long and tearful expression of gratitude and readjustment which, although no doubt a touching episode in the hands of a more romantic author, increased our chances of being discovered by the minute because they'd gone and left a giant partridge each directly outside the cave.

"We could take him prisoner," the big one said. "Both of them."

I put my hand on my gun but the little one shook his head. "Wouldn't work," he said. "We'd have to hand him over to the local slave hub immediately and return to the vanguard. It doesn't get any of us out of this, only deeper in."

"Maybe in is out," the big one said. "Go with it until we spot an out."

"I ain't bein' turned over to no slavers, an' that's final," I said, my hand on my gun.

"No, no, of course not," said the little one. He turned his head to one side and then waved his hand. "Unless," he said, "the prisoner wasn't a prisoner, but an uncontrollable volunteer? If we find one of those, we have standing orders to escort him directly to His Divine Highness."

I drew my gun but left it pointing at the ground. "I ain't bein' turned over to no emperor, neither."

The big one straightened and his nostrils flared. "But His Divine Highness is at the rear of the army."

The little one nodded with enthusiasm, and I noticed how the barely restrained, furious anger they first showed now burned less brightly but burned nevertheless, a well-tended stove in place of a raging inferno. "This will get us all the way to the back of the army, no questions asked," he said, and then looked at me. "It's up to you, but I reckon we got a better shot together. We get you through the lines, you're our excuse for doin' so."

Believin' them sincere, an' not overly terrified by their plan, while going it alone terrified the pants offa me (though I'd never say it at the time), I agreed and very soon after our ruse met its first test. The slavering maniac commander in charge of a fifty-strong forward patrol of skirmishing slavering maniacs riding ornery giant sparrows melted away at the explanation and we passed through without hardly missin' a step. We'd been keeping up a fair lick, one of the unslavering lunatics on their partridges to each side, because the standing orders stipulated "immediately" so the ruse called for speed. We galloped past the captain and the big one bellowed, "Uncontrollable volunteer!" Whereupon the slavering maniac captain, his face contorted with barely restrained rage, waved us through and continued with his forward advance as if nothing occurred.

The second test took more finesse, but the unslavering maniacs pulled through with colours, and partridges, held high. We found our way blocked by a solid wall of a thousand slavering maniacs riding hawks and their commander, a slavering maniac brigadier riding a kestrel who commanded us to halt under pain of death despite the big one's bellowing pronouncement. "You are following the standing order concernin' uncontrollable volunteers, correct?" His face was contorted with rage, as if every word he said offended his own soul and filled him with a rampant fire he couldn't use but only suffer.

The unslavering maniacs mimicked the ticks and rage. "Immediately!" The little one waved his hands. "The standing orders specifically say "immediately," sir!"

"We can't keep His Divine Highness waiting!" The big one bellowed, his flanks twitching and his partridge eager to get running again.

"Indeed not," the brigadier spat. "But the regulations also stipulate safely, so in order to facilitate that I must assign you a guard." He turned in his saddle and shouted for a sergeant, whose hawk strutted up and initially put the partridges on edge. "Assign fifty men to escort this..."

"No," the big one bellowed out the word while the little one could only mouth it. "That would draw too much attention. We two are loyal soldiers of the Divine Army, serving under the benevolence of His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, long may he cast his bounties upon us!"

The brigadier and the sergeant both repeated that last phrase with a fury that branded every word.

"The two of us are protection enough," the little one said, pretending to swell with furious pride but still the brigadier would not relent and revised his escort down to five, including the sergeant on the hawk, which was teasing the partridges by licking its lips. "The battle for Dork's Rift is about to begin. We have to assume the enemy knows this and has prepared countermeasures, which may include unorthodox tactics. Judges may have infiltrated our lines to sow chaos or execute some wider plan, and we must guard against this."

The big one grunted angrily but the little one puffed himself up even more. His partridge, becoming irritated with the hawk, snapped at it so unexpectedly that the hawk took a step or two back before it checked itself, almost throwing the slavering maniac sergeant from his saddle. "Brigadier, His Divine Highness has put you in charge of a finely calculated number of men and given you specific orders to follow with those men," the little one said, now not havin' to simulate his anger so much. "If you assign men away from the task to which His Divine Highness has set them, you may undermine the whole Divine Plan."

"For want of a nail!" The brigadier screeched, the rage in him fairly vibrating his limbs, and his kestrel screeched with him. Then he waved his hand and shouted, as if each word sliced into his gullet, "Open up there! Let them through!"

The third test fell upon me, and I did my best. A lone slavering maniac riding a cocky falcon came out of nowhere as we paused at a waterhole. "So here you are," he said, lookin' me in the eye.

"We're taking him straight to His..."

"Quiet," the slavering maniac slashed the air with his hand. "I am a member of His Divine Highness's personal guard, dispatched to find you and bring you before His Benevolent Magnificence for personal divine judgement."

"But we..." the big one said, unsure in his imitation of restrained fury. The personal guard locked his eyes onto the big one's and his protest dried up and blew away like autumn radgrass. He turned his attention back to me and the anger in this one was hotter than the rest but somehow steadier, like a solid white hot alloy compared to a furiously bubbling cauldron of glowing iron. "So you're the Uncontrollable Volunteer. Do you have a name?"

I nodded, mindful of my prior loose talk, and punched him in the face. He went down with a satisfying thump and a couple more blows yielded his gun and comms, which I gave to the unslavering maniacs. I reached down and pulled the strip from the personal guard's neck. He didn't react but continued to shield his face with his forearms for a second or two before glancing up at me. I lowered my fist but kept him pinned to the ground with my other hand. "How do you feel?"

He laughed. "I feel fine," he said. "Free of it, at last." I let him up, right fist cocked and ready, but he was concentratin' on rubbin' his chin. He nodded at me and the unslavering maniacs and said, simply, "Thanks."

"Do you know how to get out of here?" The little one leaned forward in his saddle, towards the personal guard, but the big one wasn't so sure.

"There's something wrong with him," he said, nostrils twitching, "he's too calm. I don't trust him."

"Personal guard to the most powerful man in the Cursed Earth," the personal guard said, pointing at himself. "We have to be especially resilient. And yes, I can get us out of here and away from that awful tyrant. All we have to do is get past the rearguard and the reserves, and the outer pickets, and we're home free."

"We'll need a plan," the little one said.

"As a member of the Personal Guard Unit attached to the Office of His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, I am escorting this exceptionally gifted Uncontrollable Volunteer to a top-secret training facility in Shard County." He pointed to our necks. "Well need dummy patches," he said. "The rearguard are on the lookout for unorthodox tactics more than the van, they're more likely to notice missing patches. It's a disgrace you got this far." He saw my expression darken and cleared his throat. "Professionally speaking, of course. I was on the security committee, looking out for Justice Department infiltrators. I never guessed you'd be simple deserters."

"I ain't no deserter," I said, balling my fists. "My family is where my loyalty lies, and it's to them I'm goin' with or without you. Whatever side you're on, I ain't joinin'."

The personal guard shook his head and held up his hands before pointing east. "I'm going that way," he said, "strait across Booth's Mirror."

"There's no cover out there," I said, "it's called after a mirror for a reason. It's too flat and too bright, we'd stand out for miles, even under a full moon."

"The Divine army believes this too, because mostly it's true. There's a series of ridges in the glass, smooth furrows formed when the glass cooled, nothing more than wrinkles, but some of them will hide a man in shadow to the knees and others over his head. This imperfection cuts right through the glasslands, getting us past the reserves and the rearguard, leaving only the pickets to deal with - and they'll be looking the other way."

"And you just so happen to know this way?" The big one crossed his arms.

The personal guard tapped the side of his head and smiled the smile of the crat that got the octorat. "Planning meetings," he said. "Lots of restricted recon images. The image of the Wrinkle Line was taken at noon, so they had few shadows and looked shallow and were deemed a low priority feature, unlikely to be used as an infiltration route by the judges. So they're not keeping a special eye on it." We looked at him for a minute and he shrugged. "I'm going through the wrinkles and if I'm spotted I'm going to bluff my way past. I'd like for you guys to come with me because I think it'd improve my chances. Unless any of you has a better idea?"

We didn't and were soon into the wrinkles, smooth furrows in the glass virtually invisible from any distance and deep enough to conceal us to at least head height, provided we all led our mounts on foot, which they clearly enjoyed. When the channels were too wide to conceal us, we kept to the shadows of one wall until noon the next day, when most of the shadows fled and we had to hide in a particularly resilient shade until we could switch sides. The glare and shadows of the glass, and its otherwise unbroken nature throwing back the image of the swirling skies, hid us just as well as it highlighted the few patrols that often passed within feet of us like a radrat mistaking a tasty camouflaged chembunny for a rock.

The noon wore on and I couldn't get a proper nap for the big one worrying. Wondering why the patrols hadn't seen us, why we hadn't seen more patrols nor hide or hair of the reserves, or the rearguard. He was worried about us being led into a trap but wise enough to keep his voice down near patrols. The personal guard defended himself at first but gave up after the same arguments rose again and again. The little one took the personal guard's side but I just wanted to doze and they were at least polite enough to let me try, none of them askin' after my loyalties.

When the shadows were right, we had to risk a dash across open ground, smooth and featureless and bright, to get to the shadows on the other side. The wrinkle was only eight foot deep, but a hundred foot wide. No patrol would've been able to miss us, but we timed it right and none came near so's we could get into the mid-afternoon shadows an' continue our penumbral peregrinations. As the shadows lengthened, I came aware that the wrinkle were in had become significantly deeper and significantly narrower, allowing us to pass only one at a time. The big one pointed it out first and kept on as how he didn't like it, and when the top of the wrinkle finally closed over to form a roughly circular tunnel, I was beginning to incline towards his perspective. The personal guard kept going, having made his feelings on the matter clear before we set off. We dithered, though, the big one, the little one and me. Perfect place for a trap, we agreed. Has "ambush" written all over it. We've come too far to turn back and, even if we do turn back, what then? Re-enlist? And what if he's telling the truth and this is just a happy trick of cooling glass? At least none of the patrols will see us in here. Unless they patrol in here.

We drew our pistols and strode into the dark.

After maybe half a mile, the tunnel began to widen and get brighter until we could see the personal guard walking in front of us. We lost him in the glow and then the tunnel let out all of a sudden to a great bubble in the glass, with a roof thin enough to let the last of the day's sunlight set half of it on fire. We could only stand and gawp. I ain't seen nothin' so beautiful since Chastity Lightfoot's own eyeballs. By the time I noticed the tent pitched in the middle of this crystal cathedral, it was way too late.

It was a big tent, to be sure, with a solid wooden frame. The inner parts were two stories high and in the middle a third large storey rose to an audacious point where, it seemed certain, lived Lou Zoo. By the time I realised this we had guns to our heads and were being clapped in irons. The personal guard tapped at the fake patch on his neck and smiled. "The thing about uncontrollable volunteers," he said, "is that we don't need these to be loyal. At least the real ones don't." He nodded to the other guards. "Bring him," he pointed at me. "His Divine Highness must cast his benevolence upon him. As for these two," he sneered down at the unfrothing maniacs, "have them re-patched and bring them along." They struggled but it was futile and as soon as new patches were forced on their necks they once again ignited with restrained rage, obedient as beaten dug pups, so obedient as to be released from their shackles and detailed to force me into walkin', which I allowed them to do as it din't seem right to hit 'em after all we'd bin through.

End of Part Four

The Doings of Rufus Muldoon

Lou Zoo

~~~^~~~

Part Two

I came to, briefly, a few times on the way to the research outpost. My head still swam but I could make out Miss Caddy tending to my wounds, other injured people around me, the realisation that I was lying on an agricultural trailer being towed by a tractor with General Leer trotting alongside, berating my weakness. I woke up for good at dusk but Miss Caddy wouldn't let me sit up and fussed about giving me a wet towel to suck, mopping my brow and checking my bandages. For a moment my thoughts strayed to my own true love back home and I imagined it was she tending my wounds with such devotion, forsaking her duties at the schoolhouse to nurse me back ta health. My headache eased and I discovered Miss Caddy treating the other injured people on the trailer with equal if not deeper care and the fantasy soured like nightmoth's milk in the sun.

"Back with us, then," said General Leer. "Thought you were going to sleep all the way there, lazy bastard."

I looked around at the column of people and vehicles moving with the trailer. "Where's Thunderclap?"

The General snorted to dismiss the subject. "Who cares? Inferior old nag."

"He's my Pa's hoss," I said, showing him my fist, "I care. So where is he?"

"Daft old drudge got hisself killed in the fight. Walked right into it like the moron he was. Huh. Normies."

The news came shocking hard. "That's powerful sad," I said, "Pa's gonna kill me." Before I had time to ask for details, Miss Caddy came back with a bowl of hot broth which she fed me with a spoon. She asked me how I was feeling and I said I was okay but sad about Thunderbolt.

She nodded. "I saw it. Some folk say horses are dumb, but old Thunderbolt knew the score all right."

General Leer snorted and scoffed. "He was a hoss, he knew nothing."

"He knew to kick open the door of his stall when the stables caught fire," she said.

"Sheer panic," the General said.

"And then kick the door of your stall in as well."

"Coincidence."

"So that you could run away like all the other horses whose stall doors he kicked in before the stables collapsed in a fiery ruin."

I glared at the General. "You left him behind? To die in a fire?"

The General snorted and bobbed his head. "Of course I left him, he was just a hoss. I'm a strategist, see, not a tactician. And my strategy was to save my own skin at any cost, in which endeavour I clearly succeeded."

"Besides," said Miss Caddy, "the fire didn't kill him. He got all the other horses out before the fire got too bad and then ran into the battle. What killed him was the guy on the giant rooster who almost did for you. He was gunning for your friend there," she waved a hand towards the General, "when Thunderclap kicked the rooster in a place roosters don't like to get kicked, giving him the chance to continue with his strategy."

"Preposterous," General Leer muttered.

"The officer shot Thunderclap and the rooster ripped him apart with its spurs, by which time your brave talkin' horse was hidin' behind a tractor."

The General snorted again. "Romance," he said. "In truth he was just running around in a mindless panic, kicking out at anything that moved; a giant rooster, you or me, anybody. It wasn't planned. You make it sound like he sacrificed himself to save me, which is ridiculous." He trotted along in silence for a while, my glare borin' inta him something fierce. "Apart from being mentally incapable of such a sacrifice, he hated my guts anyway," he said at length. "He would never have done such a thing. Had no reason to. Preposterous idea. Impossible."

The march continued through the night, Miss Caddy explaining that the situation warranted the risk. The medications and the well-sprung sway of the trailer lulled me to sleep as the most glorious of the night stars pierced the high chem clouds above me. My dreams were full of shadows and blurs but eventually the feel of the sunrise on my face tempted me awake.

"We're nearly there," Miss Caddy said. I followed her gaze to a Mega City One research outpost on the floor of a wide rift in the Cursed Earth, one of many such rifts in this territory. The column was nearly half way down into the rift, utilising a wide cut ridge as a snaking ramp, and the ugly plascrete outpost was easy to see on the rift floor below. It followed usual Justice Department planning regulations and was built to be easily defended. Around the perimeter a perfectly square line of scorched rock betrayed an invisible energy barrier. Inside the invisible fence was an entirely visible fence made of reactive razor wire and then a wide area of featureless sand beyond which the buildings of the outpost began. Bunker-like in appearance, the thirty or so buildings hunkered in three circles around the central control tower, the lowest on the outside like a dumpy pyramid.

I saw another column similar to ours heading to the outpost from a distant part of the rift's floor and others were arriving singly or in small groups. The place looked deserted but fer the odd shadow flashing past a narrow window. Before the sun reached its zenith, we were approaching the gates of the 'MEGA CITY ONE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LICENSED RESEARCH OUTPOST 1061b - "DORK'S RIFT" - NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY - USE OF LETHAL FORCE APPROVED.'

End of Part Two



The Doings of Rufus Muldoon

Lou Zoo

~~~^~~~

Part Three



Once inside the outpost, a fat Justice Department medic patched me up good as new. Say what you like about them there bucket-hatted fascists, they sure know how to un-broke broke bones. He even offered me the choice of leavin' no scars, but I elected to keep 'em 'cos of honour an' all. After I was fixed I went right for Hooligan Hawkins.

I found him in the wide yard just inside the razorwire fence, arguing with two judges. From what I could gather, the judges didn't want to let this here rabble in an' Hooligan believed otherwise.

"There's an army coming," was the thrust of Hooligan's impassioned argument.

"An' you're leadin' it," was the bucket-hatted paranoid response.

Hooligan spotted me and waved his gnarly hand. "Here," he said. "Come over, tell these guys what you saw."

"Why in tarnation did you send for my Paw?" I said, clenchin' my fists.

Hooligan stiffened and the two judges drew their nightsticks.

"You got all these folks," I gestured towards the hundreds of muties, normies, and groupies waiting outside the reactive razorwire gate, "to save yer damned life but you call for my Paw? What with his leg as it is?" I stepped up to Hooligan's nose, his mahogany brown eyes glowed. "I was given to understand as this life-debt was only to be called-in under direst of unjust circumstance, not as some kinda' general call to arms."

He stood his ground, I'll give him that. "This is the direst of circumstance," he said. "Lou Zoo is coming. His forces are spreading like a cancer. Those who cannot be controlled are enslaved, those who can become enforcers, conquerors. They are marching to engulf us all, including me - surely the direst of circumstance?"

"I said unjust circumstance," I said, "an' it seems ta' me that all this is your own doin', no doubt your slave-freein' activities brought about this very circumstance, which seems very just ta' me. If you poke yer finger into a whipperwasp nest an' get stung, that ain't unjust. That's just damned foolish."

He raised his hands and backed away. "Look," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "at the time I sent that note, I was in Lou Zoo's dungeon and things were looking mighty bleak. Old Typhoon, your Pa, was my last throw of the dice. Three guys died just to get the message out. And then," he gestured to the masses behind him and the relatively few of our convoy who came inside vouched for by the Nu New Crater's farmers and shrugged. "And then things kinda' took a turn."

"An' I say that nullifies the debt, calculatin' for yore changed circumstance an' the dangers I faced gettin' here and the ones to come on the way back."

"Ah," he said. "But you forget, I saved your life."

"This is irrelevant," said one of the judges. "Just gather all your people together, including this daft ox, and get the drokk out of here, okay?"

"You didn't save my life!" I laughed. "I was just about ta' twist that big chicken offa me an' pound that miscreant from here to Sunday, but you went an' ruined my fun. Ain't no debt there, old man."

The judge opened his mouth to speak but the other put her hand on his arm. "That fits with Tyler's intel."

"Tyler's still in the med-bay," the first judge snapped back. He gathered himself for a moment. "But you're right. I thought it was just... Damn it." He stroked his chin. "All right," he said. "Tell me again. Be specific."

"I can't," Hooligan said, "but I know there's mind control involved. Only about ten percent of people seem to succumb to it, but it's enough. That ten percent become cold and heartless, obedient to Lou Zoo, and he makes sure they're the only ones armed. He enslaves the rest to service himself and his army."

I adjusted my hat and interrupted, this high-falutin' talk not to my liking. "Far as I can figure it, I'm free to go," I said. The judges looked at each other and nodded. Hooligan frowned. "Good," I said. "Then I'm gonna' get the General and ride on home, an' I'd appreciate a full canteen and rations if you can spare 'em. I understand if not, an' I'm just as happy to ride off without us havin' to shoot at one another."

"My boy," Hooligan said, "in three days, maybe two, there are going to be tens of thousands of brainwashed, savage soldiers converging on this outpost because Lou Zoo wants it for his castle. Join us," he said, loud for all to hear. Even the two judges seemed intrigued. "Join the battle to destroy this evil army and free the slaves of this false messiah forever, lend your heart and sinew, your soul and your six-shooters, to the side of freedom and light!"

The judges chuckled.

"Uh-uh," I said. "This fight's all yours an' I ain't one for fallin' into no line spun by some tyrant or freedom fighter or lawman." I looked at the judges, whose expressions was suddenly harder. "So I'm goin' back home to tend the ranch seein' as Paw can't do it with his mouldy leg and needs my help more'n you do right now. So, any chance of that water and rations?" The female judge nodded and tapped her communicator to talk to the outpost's quartermaster and within a half-hour I was on General Leer's back with what little remained of my equipment, a generous supply of water and Justice Department rations and even a couple of boxes of ammo. Sometimes, those fascist bucket-hats do surprise, I can tell you that.

Hooligan tried one last time to stop me on the way out, grabbing at the General's reigns, makin' him swear somethin' so fierce as even the judges blushed. "It's not too late to change your mind," he said. "The way you fought today... We could really use you."

"Yeah," says I, "use. I ain't gettin' dragged into no war as don't concern me or mine. We Muldoons don't fight for nobody but other Muldoons. We don't get used by nobody else an' we certainly don't shoot at nobody we ain't fell out with and we never kill nobody that don't deserve it."

"But the savage army..." Hooligan said, covered in desperate before the eyes of the judges and his own army of freed slaves.

"You said they wuz mind controlled," I said. "Far as I see it, that makes 'em just victims, an' I ain't gonna' open fire on no victim, that ain't right or proper. If you wanna' do that, it's yore own damn choice. Don't drag me inta' it."

"But... but to get out of here you'll have to get past tens of thousands of vicious soldiers!" Hooligan's plea was heartfelt and clearly moved the crowd, but us Muldoons stick to our guns. "What will you do, when they find you?"

I shrugged. "I'll tell 'em the same thing I just told you," I said. "I ain't joinin'. Then I guess we'll take it from there." Then I spurred General Leer into motion and he strutted out of the gate and through the assembled throng singing filthy anthems all the way. I would've boxed his ears but I was too busy laughing. Sometimes, that old hoss judged the mood just right.

End of Part Three

The Doings of Rufus Muldoon

Lou Zoo

Part One

~~~^~~~

'Tweren't nothin' ta me as Hooligan Hawkins out of Radscar Chasm saved Paw's life once durin' some unpleasantness over in Bane County. There was a heap of unpleasantness over in Bane County twenty year ago, an' Hooligan Hawkins was generally to be found at the bullseye of most of it, according to Gramma at least. Paw said Hooligan was a monster of a man with a skeleton of teak, a skin of dino-hide an' hair like needlerose thorns, but with the heart of an old fashioned saint. Hooligan was strenuously urging slaves to freedom when Paw got caught in the crossfire and would've been perforated if not for the big man's interposition. But this is all ancient historics and, like I said, 'tweren't nothin' ta me.

What was somethin' ta me was this life-debt Paw owed Hooligan, and it was somethin' ta me because Paw couldn't help on account of his mouldy leg and sent me instead. Paw'd received a letter delivered by a fancy courier with a uniform, cap an' bow tie on a slathered hoss as said "Life in danger - come quick! HH" 'Course, I tried to argue with Paw, I'd been fixing to go with Clancy Bosseye and his gang up to Scabcrust Swamp to hunt chemigators, but when Paw sets his mind on somethin' he's immovable as a Big Meg eagle guy, mouldy leg or no. In an ucharacteristic fit o' generosity, Paw let me take all his guns (except Bessie, o' course) and most of the ammo. Ma gave me a couple of good quality knives from her prized collection an' Gramma lent me her second-best blunderbuss. My brothers an' sisters also chipped in with pistols and rifles and even our baby Gommy gave me his scattapult. All you fancy big city tycoons might look down your noses at us Cursed Earth folk, but we're just as civilized as you are, an' our families pitch in. Even cousin Boobon gave me some biscuits for the ride and two grenades.

The journey was a long one, and with all the guns an' biscuits I'd brung a second hoss, Paw's own Thunderclap, to carry it all. Thunderclap and General Leer, my own hoss, didn't get along. Leer, havin' the ability ta speak, regarded hisself as superior to Thunderclap, who was old and miserable and didn't give a rattler's spit what Leer thought anyways. Leer tormented old Thunderclap all the way by flickin' his tail in his face, suddenly stoppin' fer no good reason an' generally bein' mean. No matter how many times I boxed his ears, the General persisted. Old Thunderclap was an old hoss with old legs and he'd seen what happened to hosses with broke legs and was smart enough to be scared of fallin' over. He was also smart enough to know that he couldn't beat Leer in a fight but that din't stop him dreamin'.

One week and seven days in, near halfway there, just west of Sandstormville on the Whisperin' Plains where the razorgrass grows tall as trees, some dang reprobate shot a hole in the neb of my favourite hat and shouted, "Stop! In the name of Lou Zoo!"

"Who in Tarnation are you?" I demanded, flushin' up. "An' why did you shoot my dang hat?"

"I'm the law around here, is who I am," he said, riding out of the tall grass on the back of a mighty big cockerel, "an' I shot yer hat to get yer attention, dummy."

I bristled at that kinda' talk in those days. Still do, on occasion. "Lawman or not," I said, "if you carry on in such an unfriendly manner, dischargin' firearms when a simple 'halloo' would be more'n enough, you an' me are gonna fall out."

He reigned in his bird and dismounted, keeping a rifle on me all the while. "You stay where you are," he said, but didn't come any closer. The giant cockerel started pecking at the ground for tumourmaggots and sufferworms. "What's in all the bags?" He nodded his shiny, knobbly head towards Thunderclap. Big mistake. In that instant, I had a cocked pistol on him.

"None o' yore damn business," says I.

He turned yellow with anger in the face but his spine held a mite longer. "Are you threatening an officer of Lou Zoo's holy law?"

"Not if you go away," I said, "an' leave me to my own doin's." He gulped and put up his rifle before slippin' it back into its saddle holster and re-mounting his big rooster, which clearly didn't enjoy it. I kept my gun on him the whole time.

Once mounted, he cleared his throat. "I will have to report this," he said, "and you should be aware that all the land from Clearwater Dream to the Acidbog Range is under the jurisdiction of His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, and that you are subject to arrest if you do not produce legit-ee-mate freedom permits."

"I don't need no Papers to be free," I said, then shot his hat off. He yelped and spurred his big chicken away at an impressive rate. General Leer, who remained characteristically quiet durin' the encounter so's best to judge the wind, shouted some choice profanities after the receeding, hatless lawman. "Quiet you," I said, and boxed his ears. Thunderclap snickered and Lee tried to trip him up but instead only stumbled hisself, which din't improve his mood any. He spent the next three days grumbling about his rights an' bein' extra-mean to Thunderclap, who remained miserably aloof. I pushed 'em both pretty hard until Acidbog Range was behind us and we were all the way up into the Glasstop Hills.

You fancy city tycoons might think all you have are wonders and all we Cursed Earth folk have are ruins, but there's powerful beauty out here. Powerful beauty. Now, I ain't no poet, we got Uncle Carbuncle for that, but those Glasstop Hills sure are a wonder to see. Just the tops of the tallest hills got glassed by the bombs an' now they shine like great diamonds sticking out of an unbroke green meadow of grabweed. I had to keep stopping to pull the grabweed away from the hoss's legs until I remembered two sets of ankle-spikes one of my sisters gave me. I fitted them to the beasts, neither o' whom relished the idea, an' thereafter progress was more fraught but a lot quicker. Until the cockerel-riding officer, with a new, fancier hat and accompanied by a deputy ridin' a big duck, once again barred my Path.

"Halloo," said the officer. "Papers, please," he continued. Both had their hands on their holstered pistols.

"Ain't got none," I said. "Don't need none." They'd been lying in ambush and my hands were still on the General's reigns, too many seconds away from my own six-shooters.

The officer smirked and his deputy, a worried-looking young man trying to grow a beard, gulped. "Anyone without valid freedom permits is to be placed into the general herd immediately for assessment and duty allocation. He shifted slightly in his saddle. "Do you concur, Sergeant Branson?" The young deputy gulped again and then, failin' ta find any words in 'im, nodded. "Then, by the powers invested in me by His Divine..." The giant duck quacked, which startled the rooster. In that few seconds of distraction, I drew both my irons an' shot their hats off. They Panicked a bit so I gave 'em a few warnings, drilling a feather or two, until they ran away to a humiliatin' tirade from General Leer. This time, I didn't box his ears.

Both the hoss's moods improved once we moved beyond the Hills an' back to sand an' rock with no need for the ankle-spikes. The General recited poems about the nobility of liberty but still acted mean to Thunderclap, who remained miserably aloof. We kept up a good Pace, and the hosses were smart enough to know why.

One day out, we came upon a homestead in a crater at the edge of the Booth's Mirror glasslands and Paid a visit, hoping to trade for water. A wide road led down from the crater's lip to the sturdy buildings at its centre. On each side of the neatly gravelled road, and all around the crater walls, crops and flowers of amazin' variety flourished in neat squares. Berries and cereals and fruits and nuts. My belly rumbled but I reached for the last of my biscuits and started chomping.

The first inhabitant I met was a young boy, maybe nine or ten, who emerged onto the road with bright red lips and an armful of ripe strawberries. Strawberry juice stained his grubby white overalls and for a moment he was too enamoured of his pilfered feast to see me. When he did see me, he screamed and high-tailed it towards the houses, which by then weren't so far away. I pulled the hosses to a halt and dismounted, shifted my coat to cover but not conceal my six shooters, and waited. A woman, also in a grubby white overall, was dragged through one of the doors by the strawberry thief. She was struggling and chastising the boy, wagging a finger at the stains on his lips while he hauled at her sleeve. The strawberry thief stopped trying to drag the woman and pointed at me. She ran out of anger and looked at me. I waved.

The white-overalled woman shoved the strawberry thief back through the door and shouted something after him. Someone handed her a rifle and she checked it was loaded before turning and marching straight towards me. I kept my hands relaxed but ready and she cocked the rifle. I raised my hands, she pointed the rifle at my chest. "Speak," she said.

I took off my hat, always remindful of showing the proper respect. "Yes, Ma'am." I cleared my throat. "My name is Rufus Muldoon, Ma'am, an' I'm just on my way to the Rifts..."

"I don't care," she said. "Why are you here?"

"I was hopin' to trade for water," I looked at the strawberries scattered on the neat gravel roadway, "an' maybe a little food. I got a few silver coins, some Meg-creds..." Two men in white overalls emerged from the hedges separating the fields from the road, one to either side of me, both armed. "I ain't no varmint, Ma'am," I said, but I could see she wasn't convinced. "Your place, your rules," I said. "I need water, Ma'am, and I'm prepared to Pay for it, but I ain't prepared to just take it, either. That kinda' thing ain't right."

"Pretty words," she said. More white-overalled people began to emerge from the buildings in a practised Pattern, each of them armed, all of them focussed on me.

"I'm sorry we couldn't do business, Ma'am," I said. Not looking at the guns, I put on my hat and turned to re-mount the General.

She slapped my shoulder, spun me back around and offered her hand. "Call me Caddy," she said. "Come on, follow us back and then you can tell me all about why you're trying to get to Hooligan Hawkins." I tried not to show my astonishment but my wide open mouth gave me away. She put her hands on my elbows and looked me up and down. "My, but you are a big one, aren't you? A really quite impressive mutant." I glowered at her and she threw her hands to her mouth. "Person! A really quite... I mean, a really very impressive person. I'm sorry, I sometimes can't keep up with the... anyway," she held out her Palms, fingers stretched wide. "Mister Muldoon, would you accept an invitation to visit Nu New Eden Crater Cooperative Community Homestead?"

I nodded, "Sure thing, Miss Caddy," I said. She turned away with a wave and walked back to the farmhouse. We didn't talk on the stroll to the farm. She was too far ahead and General Leer wouldn't shut up about being hungry and kept on tormenting Thunderbolt into the bargain. Thunderbolt was finding it more difficult to remain miserably aloof and was becoming more grumpily aloof, even going so far as to blow on the General's tail to make him think he had radflies on it and make it flick. Whenever the General looked around Thunderbolt slipped back into miserable aloofness. The General couldn't imagine Thunderbolt capable of such petty torment, but I could tell from the distracted nature of his complainin' that he entertained doubts.

Back at the farm, the hosses wuz led off to stables to be fed and watered and fussed over by young grooms. Miss Caddy promised me my supplies would be safe and invited me into one of the big main buildings put together from cut stones covered in whitewash and not shy with its high, wide windows and upper floor balconies. Inside was fancy furniture and gadgets, like them Mega City Palaces you hear about. They was all from Mega City One, as it turns out, except the sprogs born here. A Helltrek that found a good spot and dug in for the long-haul. They used their technology, and a few contracted air-drops, to bring the crater to life. Miss Caddy was tellin' me all about it when the first bullet came through a window and put a hole in her second-best coffee pot.

"Freedom permits," a familiar voice shouted. "Now!" I glanced out of the window and saw the officer on the giant cockerel, his deputy on his duck, and at least half a dozen others mounted on various giant birds and pointin' harmful devices in our direction. A shot coughed outside somewhere and then others and I assumed the farmers started fighting back. The gunfire spread and an officer fell from his bird but this time they stood their ground and gunned down any opposition.

Miss Caddy screamed through the shattered window, "Stop! Stop it! We surrender!" She grabbed a white tablecloth and waved it through the jagged gash. "Please stop killing my people! Please! We surrender!" I growled and gripped my pistols in my fists but she put a hand on my arm. The officer on the rooster called for his men to cease fire and the surviving farmers, their white overalls stained with blood, threw down their weapons.

Miss Caddy told me to stay put and, leavin' her gun behind, left the house with her hands held high. "What do you want? Allies? Trade?"

The officer on the rooster drew himself straight. "His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, has claimed all the lands from the Broken Arches to the Chaos Rifts as his jurisdiction. Everything and everybody in this place now belongs to His Divine Highness and must possess valid freedom permits or be taken to..."

"And how does one obtain these freedom permits?" Miss Caddy cut in.

The officer Paused, like he'd been slapped, and said, "What?"

"These Papers of yours, how much do they cost?"

"They are..." The officer searched his memory. "A gift from His Divine Highness."

"That sounds very benevolent of him," she said.

The officer clasped his hands together and smiled like he was seeing angels. "Oh, His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, is most benevolent indeed."

"So, how do we get this benevolent gift from His Divine Highness? I imagine there are forms to fill in. Possibly interviews. What's the administrative route?"

The officer's face hardened and he said, "If His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, has not already issued your permits then He has decided in His wisdom that you are unworthy of them, and must be added to the general herd for assessment and task allocations." As he spoke, I spotted some movement in the bushes and gripped my six shooters a little tighter.

"That doesn't sound very benevolent to me," said Miss Caddy, her hands still held high.

"Enough of this," the officer said, adjustin' his position in the saddle. "Bring all your people out now and no more will die."

"What, now?" Miss Caddy spread her raised hands a little. "You mean like, 'now' now or now 'as long as it takes to gather everyone together?' We're pretty spread out."

The officer sighed. "Slave, my Patience is at an end. If you do not..."

Miss Caddy raised her hands as high as she could and called out, "Okay, okay - I'll do it now!" On her last shouted word she dived for cover and a volley of fire cut into the officers. The farmers who had thrown down their weapons to reinforce the ruse snatched them up and joined in. The officers fired back and used their combat trained birds to rake and peck at the farmers with fatal results. I thought it only polite to join in and stepped through the broken window, took careful aim, and shot the officer on the cockerel's fancy new hat off. He glared at me across the battlefield and then called into his lapel, whereupon a mass of mounted reinforcements swarmed over the lip of the crater. But the farmers had organised themselves while Miss Caddy delayed proceedings and a heavy machine gun opened up on the reinforcements from the roof of one of the farm buildings, scattering them into the surrounding fields, where they were slowed down but harder to pinpoint.

Enough got to the front line to make a Saturday night of it and everybody did their bit. The Crater was big, and some of the farmers were still coming in to defend the buildings. The rest were assigned to defend the fields and doggedly slowed the reinforcements' advance. I tried to get to the officer on the rooster but the battle kept getting in the way. I could see him but I couldn't get to him so's I could punch him fer shootin' at me. He spoke into his lapel again, pointing at the machine gun on the roof, and a sick like death come on me when I figured what he was up to. I managed to shoot three drones down but there was a swarm and it wasn't enough.

With the machine gun gone, the reinforcements regrouped and charged in. The farmers stood their ground and stuck to their defence plan. All the while the officer on the rooster barked orders into his lapel, directin' his troops. As the fighting reached a crescendo, I heard him shouting, "Send in the reserves! Send them all! Send them now!" Moments later, a mass of armed officers riding giant birds came whooping and yee-hawing over the lip of the crater and down the road to the heart of the colony. A few farmers took up positions in the hedgerows to snipe at this reserve force, but they were too few and, without the machine gun, in minutes we were outnumbered. We didn't even have time to re-load so some of us used our guns as clubs. I used my fists and the knives Ma gave me.

I rarely lost a scrap in those days, but this time there was just too many of 'em. Something like a concrete post wrapped in velvet hit me in the back of the head and then some cheeky miscreant shot me in the backside. I was forced to the ground by six of them, four by the time I actually hit the deck with another bullet and a knife in me, and then the giant cockerel clamped its foot onto my chest, digging its claws in. The officer looked down from the saddle and deliberately drew and cocked his pistol. "His Divine Highness, Lou Zoo, has no place in his benevolent heart for those who reject his benevolence," he said, and pointed the gun at my chest. The instant before he pulled the trigger, spoiling his aim a tad, a bullet slapped into his own forehead and emptied his brains out the back of his head. The officer's bullet sliced a hole in my side and ricocheted into my hand, breaking a couple of bones. My vision began to swim but I somehow took in that help was here and that the tide of the battle had turned. These new combatants, well armed and well drilled, made short work of the officers and, with the help of the farmers, were driving them away like spooked bisonoids.

A big man with dark ridged skin and thorns growing out of his head knelt next to me and examined my wounds. "Sorry we took so long, Kid," he said through a throat filled with brambles. He looked up. "Miss Caddy. I'm glad you're still with us."

I tried to focus but I couldn't see her properly, only the blur of her white overalls, with a faint nebulae o' red clouds, topped by the black smudge of her hair. "Will he be alright, Hoolie?"

Hoolie's voice came from very far away. "He'll be fine, but we have to get everyone out of here and into the research outpost. It's started, Caddy. This is it."

Caddy's answer was distant thunder blurred by the wind, then the wind stopped and night fell like a bucket of ink down an undertaker's chimney.

End of Part One

[Sa]

Being a country bumpkin of the Lancastrian variety, I always pronounced it Sa (with a flat "a" like a stereotypical Hammer northern yokel bit-player would pronounce it, or the sound Granville makes when Arkwright drags him by the ear) than-us (to rhyme with "tha' Knows"). But with fewer consonants, if you can imagine such a thing. Sommat like, Sattanus, tha' knows. But not quite that.

If you say it like I do three times while looking at the back of your own head through at least two mirrors, legend has it that you'll scare yourself sh*tless within 24 hours.

[Love, Death and Robots]

I've said it before but I think they should try for something like Love, Death and Robots and release series based on the winning 2000AD format, with several different stories. A few episodes of Dredd, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, etc with some one-off Future shocks included in the mix. They could call each series a Prog and each episode a Thrill, with say 13 thrills per prog.

I know I'd watch it.

I remember wondering how one mills pebbles. "Very strong millstones," my Dad told me.

The results:

1   - Dan Dare (A. Cow)
2   - ABC Warriors
3   - Judge Dredd (NapalmKev)
4   - Button Man (A. Cow)
5   - Droid Life
6   - M.A.C.H. 1 (wtf?)
7   - Rogue Trooper (JWare)
8   - Robo-Hunter (JWare) (I know, right?)
9   - Invasion (wtaf?)
10 - Strontium Dog (Hawkmumbler)

Score: Board 6, A.I. 4.

That was quite a good exercise, I thought. Maybe I'll do some more similar things in the future, if anybody's up for it.

The results so far:

1    - Dan Dare (A. Cow)
2   - ?
3   - Judge Dredd (NapalmKev)
4   - Button Man (A. Cow)
5   - ?
6   - ? (you've no chance with this one)
7   - Rogue Trooper (JWare)
8   - Robo-Hunter (JWare) (I know, right?)
9   - ? (this one's insane)
10 - Strontium Dog (Hawkmumbler)

For the remainder (apart from #5, which at least has a molecule of sense to it), my best advice is to more or less ignore the image and just guess...

Nope - but the first three letters are correct...

The results so far:

1    - Dan Dare (A. Cow)
2   - ?
3   - Judge Dredd (NapalmKev)
4   - Button Man (A. Cow)
5   - ?
6   - ? (you've no chance with this one)
7   - Rogue Trooper (JWare)
8   - ? (not much chance here, either)
9   - ? (this one's insane)
10 - Strontium Dog (Hawkmumbler)

The results so far:

1    - Dan Dare (A. Cow)
2   - ?
3   - Judge Dredd (NapalmKev)
4   - Button Man (A. Cow)
5   - ?
6   - ? (you've no chance with this one)
7   - ? (but fairly easy)
8   - ? (not much chance here, either)
9   - ? (this one's insane)
10 - Strontium Dog (Hawkmumbler)

You're almost there with #5, Hawkie. Nxylas, that's a great guess but the A.I. is nowhere near as sane as that...

The results so far:

1    - Dan Dare (A. Cow)
2   - ?
3   - Judge Dredd (NapalmKev)
4   - Button Man (A. Cow)
5   - ?
6   - ? (you've no chance with this one)
7   - ? (but fairly easy)
8   - ? (not much chance here, either)
9   - ? (this one's insane)
10 - ? 

#2 isn't Bad Company, Hawkie, but you're not a million miles away.

The results so far:

1    - Dan Dare (A. Cow)
2   - ?
3   - ? (but fairly easy)
4   - Button Man (A. Cow)
5   - ?
6   - ? (you've no chance with this one)
7   - ? (but fairly easy)
8   - ? (not much chance here, either)
9   - ? (this one's insane)
10 - ?

Not Mr. P, that's heartening because it demonstrates that just about everyone here is better than A.I. (although it does look a bit like my Great Uncle Bombastic).

I've been typing the names of 2000AD stories into Picsart, so I thought we'd have a spiffing A.I. Quiz...

Can you guess the names or titles I typed in to this insane A.I. to get the following images:




 
 


 













No prizes - and some of them make little to no sense at all...