I wasn't sure what to think when the hookers came back to Hollywood. It happened fast, even for this town; one day there weren't any and the next there were three or four on my stretch of Sunset. I thought they were mostly wiped out in the Occupation and then, when the cash system crashed, there was only so much they could barter for sex. They starved, were murdered, or died of disease. Many people died this way due to the Federal ban on birth control, the ensuing AIDS epidemic, and the "anti-bioterrorism vaccination" program that caused brain damage.

I was too busy with my own post-Occupation survival to worry about anyone else. While I was looking for Fydor Chandler and the renegade linguists of the Dissident Superior League (DSL), and getting put on disciplinary leave from the CIA for a few honest mistakes (they sent me too much C4, dammit, it wasn't my fault Cheney was in the building when it blew up), Los Angeles staggered up to its commercial feet. With an online debit card system in an economy and infrastructure the Department of Water and Power (DWP) ran in conjunction with AT&T and the Metro Transit Authority (MTA) the city ran badly, but, miraculously, the lights were on, most of the heavily rationed water supply was potable, and the buses kept order on their routes. We Angelenos, what was left of us, had enough to survive on, but hardly flourish, let alone afford hookers.

Gradually things got better for me. In the course of saving the city from the Ulluminati and the Militias for Christ, the DWP and the MTA took me on as a security consultant. As part of my fee, I also got the building on Sunset near Vine that I worked in as a data entry clerk. I moved my scene from East Hollywood; the Limo Brothers Burgers and Recycling, and Arlo, the late frutas guy who kept me in carrot juice, came with me because I offered them low rent and protection.

I was offering a lot of protection these days; somehow this part of Hollywood had become my turf. Through no effort on my part beyond defending my home and carrot juice supply, I'd become a sort of Warlord, and my several square miles were some of the safest in the city. This, I supposed, was the main reason the hookers were operating here. Julia Limo, who'd taken over for the late Arlo, thought they brought down the tone of the neighborhood. She was able to overlook the streets the MTA's fortress buses chewed up, the decaying buildings, the thrashed sidewalks and trash-strewn gutters beyond the neatly-kept storefront café she defended with her brother Jim and an impressive cache of automatic weapons. Julia was able to overlook all that as long as she could look down her nose at the women, girls really, who sold their bodies to survive, whereas she and Jim didn't flinch at killing a customer who ran out on a bill for a small orange juice. Survival was all the hookers and everyone under twenty knew of the ugly world they inherited from the Bush family and their mafias.

Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember before the Rebellion and Federal Occupation. When I was a would-be historian and my brother, Larry, was a Berkeley linguist. Before we were shanghaied into the Company, and became operatives Fydor Chandler and Nellie Gail. I could even remember a little of the Clinton administration, but that seems like a dream now. I read about it, but it's like reading about a paradise we lost to greed, hatred and fear, and being too lazy or stupid to fight back until the fight was already lost.

Anyway, the hookers were back singly and in skittish pairs shortly after some tacky beige scrip calling itself currency started circulating around town. I was still using my debit accounts for everything, but I noticed Julia was grudgingly accepting script in her café. She said it made her nervous because it didn't feel real, but she'd used it to buy some produce, so it must be okay. I asked her why she couldn't use her debit account, and she said the produce guy in question was only taking barter or scrip.

Not being an economist, I didn't know if the (re)-emergence of an underground economy was good or bad. The only economist I knew well enough to ask was liberating the southern U.S. from the Christianist Republicans with Fydor Chandler and the DSL. Before I met my idol, he used to have a show on the Internet Broadcast called "Dr. Max's Live Nude Economics!" I loved that show; I always felt so smart watching it. Well, of course it went off the air, but only because the Bush permanent administration chased Max into Mexico, which had been bought by Soros and Gates, and was being extremely well run by Dr. Krugman and Dr. Sachs. Max had a lot to be bitter about, but he never had time for it, so he was cheerfully busy wreaking havoc wherever he went. I hadn't seen him in a year and a half and I was glad.

It gets really fucking cold in LA in January. So I had to wonder why the little girl in the alley by my building was half naked. Then I wondered why the skinny young Asian guy slapping her with a stack of beige scrip was screaming at her. In Ebonics, I think. Young people today, I just can't understand them, even when they stick to languages I know.

It had been a long and frustrating day of ambushing MTA buses to test their new security features, so I was not in a great mood. Furthermore, I hadn't pointlessly killed anyone that day and short daylight gives me Seasonal Affective Disorder if I don't pointlessly kill someone every day. I didn't know if this would fix my SAD, but I stuck my gun in the pimp's face.

"I think she could tell you why she's a stupid fucking ho better if you stopped hitting her in the face."

"Miss Gail..." he sputtered, backing away. He let go of the girl and she dropped to her knees between us. "Please..."

I pulled the trigger and then, according to my deeply ingrained Company training, walked over to put one in his heart. "Happy to oblige, asshole."

I'd kept an eye on the girl while I was doing all this, so I stepped out of her way when she scrambled over to the stiff. I didn't know what I was expecting -- tears, rage, screaming -- but all she did was roll him; scrip, jewelry, whatnot, all went into what was left of his hat. I caught her by the arm as she was about to run and dragged her into Julia's juice bar.

"We don't let hookers in here, Miss Gail," Julia called from behind the bar.

"Then bring us two carrot juices and she's a customer," I said. "Jim around?"

Julia's brother Jim stuck his head out of the kitchen. "Yes, Miss Gail?"

"Got a recycler in the ally," I said. I nodded as he thanked me on his way out. "Julia, bring me a damp towel with the juice."

I turned the girl's head up to the light. Her nose and lip were bleeding and she'd be bruised up tomorrow. There was a hank of hair missing near her temple, but I couldn't tell if that was recent or not. She was young, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but her eyes were hard and wary. She kept jerking her head away from me as I cleaned her up.

"Hey, luchune, querro? Querro?" she spat at me, clutching her dead pimp's loot laden hat.

"I querro you to sit still."

She did for three seconds. "What you want, lady? Two girl action?"

"No."

"Then what?"

I held up two fingers. "How many fingers?"

"Dos."

"Yeah, take your juice and get out." She grabbed her glass and skittered back into the night on her high heeled sandals.

"Luchune?" I thought, wondering why a street kid was using the suffix for Armenian abstract nouns like a verbal shrug. Not only was society breaking apart in the U.S., so was language. Or maybe language was just doing the best it could under the current circumstances. I'm not a socio-linguist so I wouldn't know. I noticed some blood on one of Julia's surgically clean café tables and wiped it with the towel.

"Here," I handed the towel and my debit card over the counter. Then Julia, member of the Limo Brothers Recycling and master recycler in her own right, wrinkled her nose at the towel and tossed it into the trash. She charged me for two carrot juices and the towel.

It had been a long day, I was too tired to argue about it, and if I could be bothered, I'd buy a fucking juicer and make my own carrot juice. So I just went up to my third floor lair, checked my email, and fell into bed. Killing the pimp had lightened my mood, so I slept well that night.

***

Two mornings later I was drinking carrot juice and eating the pathetic mango I'd been able to wring out of Julia for an exorbitant amount. She was having mango supply problems, she said. I'd originally asked for cucumber salad, but she was having cucumber supply problems, too. Or it was too early for her to have made any salads. So I was stuck with a puny, pulpy mango. I would have just stuck to carrot juice like usual, but I had a meeting with some suits from the Metropolitan Transit Authority that morning and I needed more calories to think on.

As much as I enjoyed my security consultant job with the MTA, I was rapidly putting myself out of business. Every bus I ambushed, hijacked, blew up, or up-ended simply made it harder to do so the next time. Thanks to me, MTA fortress buses were nearly assault-proof, or at least Nellie Gail assault-proof.

The MTA had never asked for a meeting at my office before. Characteristically, I assumed the worst and prepared for it: they were coming to fire me, try to kill me, or renegotiate my contract in some other unacceptable way. There had been a few stray words about "training drivers," and this was out of the question. Well, if I lived, I still had my Department of Water and Power security consultant contract. They always had new facilities that needed to be secured and neighborhoods that needed to be pacified so they could keep the lights on and the water running.

My new status as a Warlord made this easier than it had been. I just had to show up with the DWP crews and stand around. Entire blocks were pacified, if not mellowed out, for weeks afterwards.

"And the fuckers are early," I snarled to myself when the downstairs door buzzed. I leaned over my half-finished unloved mango and clicked on the surveillance camera. But it wasn't suits, it was the little girl from the alley, from... when? The night before last? I'd totally forgotten about her. At least I thought it was her; she looked different in the daylight, but who does not?

I should have told her to fuck off, but curiosity got the better of me. I buzzed her in. She passed the metal detectors and Tres MicroREM scan without a blip. I put my Mauser in my lap and buzzed her into the second floor hallway that lead to my office.

She marched right into my office and up to my desk. Like last night, she was underdressed for the weather. The jeans were okay, but the tank top was thin and tight; her nipples stood out in high relief. Not that I was staring at her tits, except to notice she wasn't wearing a bra and didn't need one. Ah, youth!

Dismissing her chest, I stared at her face. It was my experience that if a visitor was going to lunge over the desk for my throat or tits, something usually crossed their face seconds before they did. Those seconds were enough for me to shoot them. But she just stood there, staring back at me. She was as young as she was last night, somewhere in her mid-teens. She had the same hard look, but the fear was gone. I knew this look; I saw it in every mirror I passed. Except I didn't have that look until I was in my late twenties and everything I ever cared about was gone. But that was where the resemblance ended. She had lank mousy brown hair, washed out green eyes, a round face, with a few fading bruises and few new ones, and she was built like a fire-plug.

She tossed a bundle of grubby-looking scrip on my desk. "I told a trick you'd kill him if he didn't pay me," she said, jutting her chin out. "This is your cut."

I wondered what she charged; it couldn't have been much, that pile of scrip wouldn't keep me in carrot juice for more than a day. But I decided to overlook that. "I'm not your pimp," I said. "Don't take my name in vain, kid."

She shrugged. "They know you killed Ming," she said. "They think it was for his ho's."

"Ming was the guy in the alley?" I asked, mainly to remind myself. He'd been several kills ago.

She nodded. "He was patho-loco, but he'd off a trick what didn't pay. Everybody paid. I said your name, and he paid."

It crossed my mind that killing her would solve the problem my reputation might have in the near future, but rescuing her from a beating only to end up killing her seemed patho-loco even to me. I sighed heavily. "I don't want that," I said, pushing at the scrip with a pencil.

"It's yours."

"I don't want it."

"But it's yours."

"But I don't want it."

"But it's yours."

I considered shoving it down her throat, but it looked like too much effort. And I was running out of time to argue. "Look, this is your money, I'm just going to keep it for you." Keeping one hand on my Mauser, I reached for an envelope. Canada and Mexico were making paper goods again and competition was making them affordable. I had a nice assortment of stationery, which was useless without a postal service, but still nice. I tossed a pen and an envelope across the desk at her. "Write your name on there and I'll keep it in my safe for you," I said. I don't have a safe, but my desk locks. She didn't move but mumbled something. "What? Look at me when you're talking to me, gal."

"I can't write," she spat. "I read un poco, but not writing."

I clasped the Mauser between my thighs and reached for the envelope and pen. "What's your name?"

"Wilshire."

"Like the street?"

She nodded and watched me like a hawk as I wrote her name in block letters on the envelope. "Can you...?"

I looked up. She was scared again. I relaxed my hands on the desktop and waited.

"Can you do that on something else?" she whispered. She was poised for flight and trembling.

It took a second for the penny to drop, but drop it did. Moving very slowly so as not to spook her, I tore two sheets off an amarilla abogado pad and wrote her name in block letters, using three lines for each letter. The first stroke of the "W" slanted down all three lines, the next went up and touched the middle line before shooting back down to the bottom line and then whipped all the way up to the top line. I marked the body of the "i" clearly between the middle and bottom lines and the dot hovered perfectly between the top and middle lines. I held my head so I could watch her in my peripheral vision. She was rigid with concentration, barely breathing, as if any movement might stop me.

I'd broken a light sweat by the time I finished the "e." "Here," I said, pushing the paper at her. "Take the pen, too." She gathered them up and held them like treasure. "Now blow. I've got an appointment."

She looked at me really hard and grunted, "Comsa," and left. I buzzed her out of the building.

"Comsa?" I thought. "Not 'shnor-aha-ga-lu-chune' or 'gracias,' but 'comsa'?" I ran my mind east along the street she was named after, slowing at Normandie and stopping at Vermont, or what was left of it. "Korean?" My Korean sucked, but I did know how to be polite in stores and restaurants. "'Com-sa-mi-da,' thank you in Korean, but not really the word, just the meaning." I pulled my amarilla abogado pad toward me and in my half-assed phonetic shorthand jotted down all the weird words I could remember her saying. Someday I might run into a socio-linguist and I could get swanky about the new slang in the City of Angels.

The front door buzzed and it was my suits. Two middle-aged guys in suits, in fact. I'd only been expecting Mr. Compton, the security liaison, and one of his endless rotation of wide-eyed interns who didn't last very long. Or perhaps they were promoted to other departments. The inner workings of the MTA were a mystery. But today Mr. Compton had a grown man in a suit with him. They both looked like they had some miles on them, especially under the clothes-defying Tres MicroREM scanner. The guy with Compton had some meat and muscle to go with the fat on his bones. Only the powerful could afford to be fat these days. That meant high, and I mean stratosphere high ranking MTA, DWP, or even... AT&T. I'd never seen an AT&T employee; they never got this far down the food chain.

Whatever he was, the new guy had too many electronics on him. I pushed the button that slid the armored drawer out on the landing and flipped on the intercom. "Unload, gentlemen." I switched on the camera over the drawer as they dumped cell phones, pagers, BayaNegras, PDAs, and a slim white contraption with an earpiece plugged into it into the drawer. "Excuse me, what is that white thing?" I asked.

Mr. Compton glanced at his pal and got a nod. "It's an iPod, Miss Gail," Compton said.

"Ah yes," I thought. "I remember those." But I kept my mouth shut and buzzed them in.

Compton introduced me to Mr. Kern, who was representing AT&T on this visit. Kern didn't speak; he just nodded politely at me.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" I asked when they had their overfed asses settled into my intentionally uncomfortable chairs.

"Mr. Kern contacted the MTA in connection with a matter we believe you've, ah, had some experience with, Miss Gail," Compton said, looking very uncomfortable.

"Which is?" I asked, staring at Kern, who was staring at me.

Compton cleared his throat. "Interrogation."

"Of whom?"

"Um, I'm not entirely sure," Compton said, looking nervously at Kern. "As you know, we've been having more eastern border attacks lately. They're not organized or professional guerrilla attacks - those we can handle - they're more like little bands of stragglers who look harmless and then one of them knifes a security guard and the rest slip into our territory. I understand AT&T has been, ah, collecting the more interesting ones lately, and they were wondering if you could ask a few questions. So..."

"Just 'ask a few questions,' huh?" I directed this at Kern. "I'm sure AT&T's been asking plenty of questions."

Compton cleared his throat again, but if AT&T was going to ask me to torture detainees, the AT&T guy was going to have to ask. "Is Mr. Kern a mute or a mime?"

"Neither, Miss Gail, I just find talking a waste of time." Kern had a low rough voice that was not a pleasure to listen to.

I bit back a sharp remark about wasting my time and merely folded my hands in front of me. I smiled in what I hoped was a pleasantly menacing fashion, while looking encouragingly at him.

"We've been asking questions, but we're not getting many answers and we've lost several promising detainees," he continued.

"Lost?" I asked.

"They died during interrogation."

"What methods are you using?"

"Low tech. Sleep deprivation, stress positions, high volume noise, extreme cold and heat. We've tried needles under the finger and toe nails, careful beatings, electrodes on erectile tissue, water boarding-"

I cut him off. "And you lost your subjects in water boarding, didn't you?"

"Yes, how did you know?" he asked.

"Because it's the one chance for suicide," I said. "Where are these people coming from?"

"Hard to say..."

"But they're religious fanatics, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"So inhaling filthy water for Jesus is the best thing they can do," I said. "The next best thing is enduring their torture, like Jesus endured His. So, that's why you're not getting anywhere."

"That seems to be the case," Kern agreed.

"Or they simply don't know anything," I said. "As Mr. Compton said, these are not commando units or mercenaries; they might just be trying to get out of harm's way."

Kern gave me a long appraising look, and seemed to come to a decision. "We believe they are part of a larger force massing on the Nevada border."

I looked at Compton. "Stragglers?" He nodded, so I looked at Kern.

Kern folded his hands in his lap and did something with his mouth that almost looked like a smile. "Miss Gail, I understand you're a historian of sorts," he said.

"Of sorts, yes," I said, wondering what this was about.

"Then you might have read about the Children's Crusade, I don't know the number or the year," he said.

"It was in 1212, and there was no Papal Bull issued for it, so it didn't have a number," I said. "Many of the children died on the way to the Mediterranean, and then what was left of them were offered free passage to the Holy Land 'for God' once they got there. The story goes that seven ships departed: two were shipwrecked, and the other five went to Africa, where the little crusaders were sold into slavery. However, this very strange crusade did inspire the Fifth Crusade in 1218, also a disaster, and cranked up the Crusader mania again."

"Yes, the Children's Crusade was a disaster," Kern said, nodding approvingly at me. "But if it had been better orchestrated, it could have served as a major diversion for the real show, whatever that might have been."

"They were religiously insane teenagers," I said. "How can that be orchestrated?"

"That was then," he said. "Religion in America has become more, oh, let's say, directable."

"I see," I said. "And this directed religion we have now is being used to mask something else, that's what you're saying, Mr. Kern, isn't it? There's a bigger show than what you've seen so far."

"Yes," he said. "Our thinking is that this is a Crusade against the infidels of the West Coast, but directed by pros."

"Who?"

"That's what we want you to help us find out," he said. "We'd like you to have a try at this one last detainee we hope will yield the location of the main invasion group, if not the leadership."

I looked at Compton and than back at Kern. I only had one more question: "What does it pay?"

We haggled a bit, payment contingent upon results, as usual, but the fee was three times what MTA paid me to successfully ambush a bus. I phoned down to Julia's for a carrot juice for me, and orange juices for Mr. Compton and Mr. Kern. It was my treat. I got my guns, purse and ti-tandex jacket and went down to the waiting armored car, flanked by machine gun trucks and motorcycle outriders, that Mr. Kern was chauffeured around in. He must be pretty far up the food chain to have this kind of escort.

Mr. Compton excused himself, saying he had other pressing business. He got into his own heavily-armored vehicle, which had a fortress bus escort, impressive in its own right.

We were driven way far out into the San Fernando Valley. I didn't annoy Kern with small talk on the way to what I think used to be called Calabasas. It was still pretty much wasteland. The DWP had only recently been able to re-establish lights and water after the hard fighting here ten years ago. We drove into a secure building complex, mostly warehouses with a few office buildings and some rubble neatly piled up next to them. The place looked deserted; it was supposed to look that way to the casual observer, but it was teeming with activity in the warehouse structure we debarked in.

On the mezzanine, I was introduced to Mr. Augora, the technician on the project. He was very pleased to meet me.

"Your reputation gives us much hope, Miss Gail," he said.

I smiled politely. "What's the subject?" I asked, getting right down to it.

"Caucasian female, between twenty-five and thirty-five," Augora said. "Won't tell us her name, so she's Prisoner 365."

"What have you done to her?" I asked.

"Well, we started with sleep deprivation and stress positions," he said consulting a chart. "Then some electric shocks. We tried water boarding, but she spooked us by almost drowning. We had to use the paddles to revive her.

"Any of this on video?"

"Yes, but..." Augora trailed off and looked at Kern.

"Yes, but we don't think we'll get anything from her," Kern said. "We do have her children in custody. Or the children she had with her when she was picked up."

"And you want me to torture her children in front of her."

They nodded.

"Let me see a few minutes of video," I said.

Prisoner 365 was a scrawny dull looking woman. I couldn’t tell if the dullness was natural or the product of the "smallpox" brain-damaging vaccine the Bush administration had tried to give everyone. Under the electric shocks, she was a normal subject: stoic at first and then screaming in pain later. Calling on Jesus to save her and eventually passing out. After she was revived it was the same. She either didn't know anything or she just wasn't going to tell. This was not toughness on her part, but the incredible resolve some subjects have... unto death.

"Can you show me her kids without them seeing me?" I asked.

After some fumbling, they found the camera in the kids' cells. The boy looked about seven or eight; the girl around ten. They both had the vaccinated look. Or maybe they were just bored in their separate cells.

"What have you got for me to work with?"

Augora gestured at a tray of what looked like dental instruments and household tools. "No drugs?" I asked.

"We wouldn't know what we were doing with drugs," Augora admitted. "Frankly, I'm an electrical engineer, or was. This is all new to me."

Amateurs. Oh well. "I won't be needing any of this," I said, waving the sharp objects away.

"What do you need?" Kern asked.

I gave him a hard look. "A clipboard."

I cooled my heels on the other side of the interview room's two-way mirror while they fetched Prisoner 365 into it. I watched her sit there at the white table in the empty room for a while. She was as dull there as she was in the video. AT&T finally found a clipboard for me and I rolled on in with Augora in tow. Mr. Kern would be watching from the room I'd just left.

"Aaaah, let's see," I said, consulting my clipboard. "Mrs., uh, Mrs. 365, I guess is what we're calling you for this interview. I'm Gail Nelson from Los Angeles Child Protective Services." I stuck out my hand; she just stared at it. I sat to her right and Augora sat next to me. "I'm here about the children you were brought in with. You see, we can't allow them to stay here and we'd like to know if there's next of kin we can give custody of them to. Ah, here they are now."

The kids, Prisoners 366 and 367, rushed up to 365, who tried to push them away. Then she gave in and hugged them fiercely. I figured they were her kids, but I'm not an expert on these things. And not being a parent, I've also never understood why parents put their children in so much danger.

"So, as I was saying," I continued over the hug-fest. "We'll need to place them and we prefer to place with family, if possible."

The 365 family simply stared at me like I'd just landed from the moon. They were as pale as death, but it was only prison pallor. I had plans for it.

I turned to Augora. "Excuse me, but when was the last time these children were outside."

He said never.

"How unhealthy," I said, all business. "Do you have a yard they could walk in?"

He said yes.

"Then I suggest you let them out for an hour or so," I said, rising. "My business can wait at least that long."

Augora called in two security personnel and they escorted the 365 family into a fenced yard. 365 cringed then stretched under the weak winter sun. The kids stuck close, but, being kids, eventually started to hop around the yard. It almost looked normal, except for the chain-link fence and the machine-gun-toting, uniform-wearing guards.

365 strolled around the yard, occasionally having a huddle with either 366 or 367 or both. Watching her, I decided she was closer to the boy than the girl, so he was the one we'd use second. The girl looked a little brighter and tougher; she'd be my Plan A operator.

Back in the interview room, I said, "Ah! Much better! Put a little color in your cheeks. Now, Mrs. 365, where can we take these children?"

No answer. I tried for about 30 minutes. "Well, I see this is not going to happen today," I said. "We'll let you sleep on it and try again tomorrow."

Augora had the guards take them back to their cells. I took myself and my clipboard back to the room Kern was watching from.

"Well?" he asked.

"We use the girl," I said. I looked up at Augora coming in. "Did your people plant the transmitters in their clothes?"

"Yes, ma'am, and we're assembling a tracking team," he said. "Hope this works, Miss Gail, it's a damn clever plan."

"If it doesn't," I said. "I'll be back to work on the boy for you."

Kern claimed he had work to do and left while Augora arranged my ride home.

It wasn't a bad ride. I got to sit in the back of an armored Cadillac Coupe de Ville while a duo of motorcycles and a machine gun truck rode along to protect the AT&T property, and, by extension, me. The Caddy was a vegetable oil/petroleum hybrid, so it was fast. Since the DWP and some refugee ex-Red Stater wildcat oilmen got a few of the offshore oil derricks pumping again and gasoline prices were down around $20,000.00/liter, we were seeing more, and more powerful, petro hybrids. Hell, even I could afford to gas up the hybrid BMW and Triumph motorcycles I'd inherited over the past few years.

But I wasn't thinking about this on that ride home. I was allowing myself to be relived that I hadn't tortured a child. I'd never done it, but as part of my training, I had studied it in action.

When Larry and I were first recruited, even before we became Fydor and Nellie, we were trained in terror by a guy named Milton Keynes. He made us call him Uncle Milty, even in bed, which was as sick then as it sounds now. I never asked Fydor, but I think he nailed us both. I know he fucked me on a number of occasions. It was never a pleasure with Uncle Milty, sex with him was all control (his) and obedience (mine). The only relief was when it was over. But that wasn't the worst thing about him.

Fydor summed it up once, before he disappeared for a few years. He said that Uncle Milty had no "resonance." When he was torturing a subject, Milty was "in tune" with the ebb and flow of pain and relief, but nothing penetrated beyond his intellect. In later years, I discovered that poor torturers hate or love their work and this destroys them. I myself felt a certain pride of accomplishment in breaking a subject, but only if it yielded real information. But Milty... it was odd; he was so detached from everything, even when he came, he was nowhere near his body or his pleasure and certainly nowhere near mine.

So watching him torture a seven-year-old boy should have been a soul-killing horror, but I was so numb by then, it was merely interesting. The subject was given increasing electric shocks for three hours. It took three hours not because the subject was holding out, but because it took that long for Milty to work through the immature labyrinth of logic and memory to get the information he was after. Eventually he got it and the subject was returned to custody. I don't know what happened to it. Milty later said to us observers that working with children under twelve was difficult; it was necessary to break them, but one was always skirting the edge of destroying them before they yielded the information. They required more patience than subjects over twelve who might be susceptible to pain, fear and humiliation, which gave the operator another lever to push. Under twelve years of age, there was only pain and fear. And hope, which is always the greatest tool in any successful interrogator's tool box.

Hope. Hope that the pain will end, hope that when they next wake this will all have been a nightmare, hope for freedom, hope for... for anything, but their current reality. That child had looked to a monster for mercy and Milty the Merciless had given him none, but just tiny spaces where he could hope for relief. It was a delicate dance of pain/despair; relief/hope Milty led him, and led him right up the abyss, and shook him over it until in one last hysterical rush, the child's mind spit out what we wanted. It was an address, if I recall correctly, many people died at that address that very night.

I wasn't sure I still had a light enough touch to torture a kid. That and I'd never done it before, let alone done it in front of the child's mother. Would they give each other hope? Or courage to endure? Could I use either of those to break the kid, without shattering him before I had what I, or rather AT&T, was after? Perhaps we'd make mom watch through a two-way mirror in a sound proof room. Ah well, no point in thinking about this too much. I was hopeful my ruse would work and the girl would lead them to whatever they were after.

There was no way for Mrs. 365 to do her children any good in this situation. If she told them the location of their base, we'd torture it out of them or torture them until she told us. Don't tell them, and she still wouldn't talk, we'd torture them until... until it would be useless to continue to do so. I hoped I'd avoided all that, for all of us; the AT&T techs didn't look like they had the stomachs for watching me work on a kid, either.

Back in the bad old days, I was, unfortunately, reunited with Uncle Milty during the Los Angeles rebellion and occupation. They sent us to interrogate prisoners at Dodger Stadium. Uncle Milty did some of his best work there; so did I, but I also watched my hometown being destroyed. And, though I hid it, it hurt a little. By then I didn't "resonate" any more than Milty, so I was surprised to feel anything for this fucked up City of Angels.

During the Occupation I stayed close to the stadium. Milton Keynes was restless in the warm weather, and when he got bored with his version of sex, he wandered farther and farther into the city. One night he never returned. A search patrol came back empty handed; it was assumed he was dead.

I had a different theory; I believed the city consumed him, changed him so he just wanted to be in it peacefully. Los Angeles is a strange place: you can struggle against it, hate it, and ultimately be crushed by it, or you can make peace with the dissonant, fragmented city that seems to have no center, but really has one every few miles. If you learn to see it. I think Milty saw it, and wanted to stay with it. There is a story in Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" where new settlers on Mars turn into Martians from exposure to the Martian elements. I think that's what happened to Milty: he became an Angelino. Gracious, stoic, patient, wry, and capable of rolling with any punch: this is how the people of Los Angeles, the ones who can cut it, survive the myriad riots, fires, floods, earthquakes, and long hot summers year after year. We have nerves of steel because we need them, and we love them, too.

So Milty disappeared into my town while I cowered in the stadium, afraid of the pain of connecting with the bombed streets and the starving citizens. We were occupied once before by Marines: after the Rodney King rebellion, Bush I brought combat Marines up from Camp Pendleton to "keep the peace," but really to show us he could. Those of us not cowed by this act thought Bush I was overplaying his hand by sending the Marines, our own Marines, to occupy the city after the riots had burned themselves out, with no help from the gutless LAPD. But the message was clear: annoy the Bush family, and your own soldiers paid for by your own tax money will kill you.

At the time I thought that was a little hysterical; I could not possibly have predicted the destruction and occupation of my city by Federal troops. And when it happened, it wounded me. A small wound no one could see, but a wound that bled steadily for years, and so bled a lot. I was sent back East eventually and was even more detached in my work. And I worked steadily until I blew up the right building at the wrong time because the Company sent me too much C4. I love plastic explosives, so I'll lavishly use whatever I'm sent.

I was put on disciplinary leave from the CIA. I always felt slightly sorry for the CIA having to take the responsibility and blame for me, Fydor and our fellow sociopaths when we only worked for Rumsfeld's Stasi part of the CIA called the Company. I think even he disowned us shortly before his mysterious and fatal car accident in a parked car. Very mysterious, but very effective.

So I came home to LA and have never tortured anything since. I have killed a lot of people, but I'm very quick and efficient at that. Successful torture requires a certain kind of patience and people skills, and I was in short supply of both. I could ambush buses for the MTA and breach fortifications for the DWP 'til the cows came home, but deep down, I wanted people to stay away from me. And I from them.

"It's in the next block, driver," I said as he slowed on Sunset, east of Vine. "Yes, just here, thank you."

I was glad to be home and have the afternoon off. I was reading "Gunfighter Nation" about the myth of the frontier in the 20th century. I was having trouble getting into it because, even though I agreed with Slotkin's thesis, as a historian of genocide, history has few heroes for me.

For most people the West, including Los Angeles, starts with the Frontier. But Los Angeles is older than that, even older than the Missions. Maybe even older than the Gabrileno Indians who lived in this basin before the Missions assimilated them with even easier food and shelter. Our city wells up from the Gabrileno myth of Wyott, the first man, murdered by Frog, who was talked into it by Coyote, and this brought death into the world, where there had been no death before. Los Angeles, as we know it, is built on a firm foundation of raw deals. We might not like it, but we know how to make it work for us.

I got home and found a testy note from Julia taped to my door. According to her, the hookers were back looking for me and bringing down the tone of the neighborhood. They'd gone so far as to actually buy orange juice in her establishment and drink it while waiting for me.

Julia and her attitude were starting to annoy me. However, I was disinclined to kill her, not because I'm ever disinclined to kill anyone, but because I didn't want to piss off the huge, lethal and highly useful Limo family. We had a good relationship, the Limos and I; they'd done me a few good turns for a high price and I'd sent quite a bit of business their way over the years. But they might forget all that if I killed one of their daughters, especially Julia, to whom they pointed with some pride as a restaurateur, conveniently forgetting I was the one who originally set her up.

My snit lasted as far as the first landing and was forgotten by the time I was settled behind my desk with "Gunfighter Nation." The genocide against Native Americans was approved of by Theodore Roosevelt, the man who wanted to preserve the wilderness for white people, and only white people, preferably white male people. When one group decides another group is less than human is when the killing begins in earnest. The process of that decision has always been interesting to me. Much was written about the sanctity of the Frontier when the railroads had already destroyed it. Therefore, much had to be written to prop up the murder and pillage still in progress. The same props would later be used in the slaughter of the Chinese who built the railroads. The White Man must prevail... especially when he's wrong. Ah well.

Slotkin's writing bored me, so I was less annoyed than I might have been when the downstairs door buzzed. "Never a moment of peace..." I thought, adjusting the monitor. There was either something wrong with the monitor, I was seeing double, or Wilshire was standing on my doorstep with a girl who looked exactly like her. And not wearing much more clothing on this chilly January afternoon. I buzzed them in; the Wilshire look-alike was carrying a shiv, which she left in the weapons tray before I let them into my office. "We're seeing a lot of you today, Wilshire," I said.

She smiled and looked at the other girl, who said, "I'm Wilshire. This is my sister, Alvarado."

I looked from one to the other and could not tell them apart. "Wilshire and Alvarado," I said. "That's quite an intersection."

"We were born there," Alvarado said. She had a softer voice than Wilshire and smiled more. I wondered if that was usual or just for this situation. Wilshire was wearing the same scowl that I'd seen soften into wary curiosity once or twice.

"What can I do for you two?" I asked. They were kind of interesting to me, but being interested in people wears me out these days.

Alvarado cringed a little, but Wilshire dove right in. "Alvarado has some money for you to keep for her," she said. "It's your cut, but you don't want it, so -"

"Girls, I am not a bank," I said firmly.

"What's a bank?" Wilshire asked.

"A place to keep money," I said to cover my... what? Shame? Sorrow? Anger? That they'd been born into a world without anything as normal as a bank? What did I care? They were alive, they survived by selling sex, they were not much more than children, it was all their bad luck. And yet I was furious about... because... of something. I let out a long breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. "Okay." I found another envelope. "Can you write your name, Alvarado?"

She shook her head and, as intently as her sister had earlier in the day, watched me write her name on the envelope. Without being asked, I wrote her name on the same pad, tore out two pages and gave her a pen to go with it. Nellie Gail Banking and Office Supply, that's me. I stuffed her wilted pile of scrip into the envelope and tossed it on the credenza next to my desk. I was beginning to hate the sight of that frowsy, crumpled scrip; I could only associate it with these hookers and it made me sad and angry in ways I chose not to think too hard about. "Anything else?" I asked sharply.

"No, no, gracias luchune," they chirped on their way out. "Comsa luchune. Bye-bye."

I bit back the words "Be careful" and merely buzzed them out of the building. "What the fuck is wrong with me today?" I said out loud. At least the day was ending and after dark I could work off a little of my frustration hunting scavengers in the hills.

Of course when I got back, they were huddled in my doorway and it was raining. Wilshire, I suppose because it sounded like her, informed me that it was safer to stick close to my building. As an after thought, she mentioned that it was cold, too.

I was freezing my ass off in my thermal ti-tandex catsuit and jacket; I couldn't imagine how they felt in their little tank tops and jeans. I must have gone insane, but I offered to let them sleep on the fourth floor.

I had my office on the second floor and lived on the third floor of my eight-story building and rented the rest of it to the Universal Life Insurance Company. But there was some space that wasn't rented on the fourth floor. I used it to store old office furniture and other junk. They got right to work making a bed out of some broken furniture. This caused me to cave a little, and I got them some blankets, a couple of homeless couch cushions, dried fruit and bottled water out of my supplies. I told them I was locking them in. I could tell one of them, probably Wilshire, didn't like it, but she just scowled a little more as I closed the door.

Downstairs, I periodically found myself listening for noise from the fourth floor that wasn't there. Wilshirado, as I'd already come to think of them, were very quiet. Or they were just dead tired and sound asleep in a safe-ish, warm-ish, somewhat comfortable place. I imagined they didn't get that very often. This made me irrationally angry and sad and something I couldn't figure out, so I immediately stopped trying to figure it out.

I let them out the next morning. They could have climbed out the window and gone down what was left of the fire escape if, for some reason, I had not let them out, but that was not necessary. They said "gracias luchune" on their way out.

That day I successfully blew up a bus and unsuccessfully stormed a power plant. Wilshire and Alvarado were on my doorstep again that night. I let them stay on the fourth floor again. The blankets, neatly folded, were still up there anyway.

The next day I spent the day carefully explaining with small words and in writing to the numbskulls at the MTA why I was able to blow up their fortress bus. It seems to hurt their feelings when I, or anyone, can get past their bus defense systems. They need to get over that. This is exactly why they hire someone like me to punch holes in their impenetrable buses.

I was in the house most of the day, but made a point of going to Julia's to get juice when I thought Wilshirado might be on my doorstep. I made several trips, and finally Julia said she'd phone me if they showed up. They never showed up that night. This bothered me; and then it bothered me that it bothered me.

I spent the next day chasing DWP trucks that were driven by their advanced defensive driving teams. Not bad; I only caught nine of the ten trucks with my paint gun. I prefer live ammo, but the DWP was trying to economize.

Of course the minute I wasn't busy, Wilshirado's whereabouts were on my mind. To try to get my mind off it, I went scavenger hunting in Pico Union. Nothing focuses the mind like being in a kill-or-be-killed situation and on unfamiliar turf. And I needed some release after my day of wimpy paint guns. But I was bothered all over again when Wilshirado wasn't on the doorstep when I got home, and more relieved than I wanted to admit when Julia telephoned to tell me they were there now, and she'd put their hot cocos on my tab. A font of humanity, that Julia Limo, I must say.

On my way downstairs, I boiled my problem down to two solutions; one was I could kill them and be done with it. The other was... oh fuck it.

If only for my own peace of mind, I caved. I went downstairs and brought them in and told them they could stay on the fourth floor until the weather warmed up as long as they used to the back door and didn't annoy the paying tenants. I dug up a set of keys, a space heater, and laid down the law:

"No tricks anywhere near here," I said handing them keys, bottled water and a space heater. "Don't annoy Julia, she doesn't like you very much. Stay away from the other people in the building. Piss me off and I'll kill you."

"Yes, Miss Gail. Good night, Miss Gail. Comsa luchune, Miss Gail!"

I went downstairs and washed the blood off my boots and jacket. Dead tired, I fell into bed. I was asleep when I hit the pillow.

Wilshirado were good, or at least smart enough to obey the rules and not annoy me or anyone else around me. They asked if they could cook, and I said they'd have to use my jerry-rigged kitchen on the third floor. They did and they insisted I have some of their food. They were pretty good cooks, so I set up an account with the Limo Brothers for food and they did their shopping there. They also, very stealthily, moved into a vacant space on the fourth floor, which was, even I had to admit, more comfortable than the closet. I didn't really mind; all my guns were in the room I slept in and it had a steel-reinforced door with the toughest Mexican locks money and muscle could buy. We kept our distance from each other, too, until they asked me to teach them to write.

I'd been a student most of my life, so the urge to learn was strong in me. But the urge to teach was there, too, although it was so buried it almost didn't sound like me when I said, "If I can find the right book, I'll teach you."

I think Wilshire started to ask "Why do you..." but Alvarado made her shut up. I still couldn't tell them apart just by looking at them, but they spoke and behaved differently enough that I could tell. For example, Alvarado had better manners and more sense than her hothead sister. On the other hand, without Wilshire's fire, they'd probably be dead by now. She'd certainly taken a big risk barging in on me.

And it had paid off for all of us: I liked their cooking and I'd stopped waking up when they dragged themselves in after a night turning tricks. Their profession didn't bother me; it was that they did it at night that bothered me. Night was dangerous in Los Angeles, especially when I was out in it. I was fairly sure they weren't turning tricks in my hunting grounds up in the Hollywood Hills: nothing but scavengers up there anyway.

Of course now that they had my roof over their heads and access to my Limo Brothers account, they could stay home a few more evenings. Free time is a luxury and if they wanted to spend it learning to write, I would teach them. If I could.

After not finding what I wanted on the Internets. I sent an email to Madeline the Librarian, asking if she could dig up a writing primer or whatever it was to teach writing from scratch. Mad was a clever little woman who had a well-guarded bunker full of books over on Hollywood near Highland, on the extreme edge of my so-called Warlord turf. Maybe a little out of it; she'd annexed herself to me when she moved in from Malibu after the last big fire scared her enough to get the fuck out of that wilderness. Those fires were scary when we had a Fire Department; they're doubly so without one. There was also more food in Hollywood, so she could keep her student muscle fed on more than learning. She'd done some research on me and then made me an offer I couldn't refuse: all the books I wanted to borrow or buy and decent history conversation because she had a doctorate from Stanford in Chinese history. She once said she might read twenty hours a day for the rest of her life and only make a tiny dent in the literature. There was a mountain of books in her field and a score of years after she'd been hooded, she was still in the foothills.

I didn't envy her her area of research; mine was much more manageable and less intimidating. I once asked her about genocides in China. She said there was no such thing because genocides make a dent in populations and that was impossible with the Chinese. Also, the Han Chinese outnumbered everyone else and they were too homogeneous to start killing each other. She thought she might possibly make an exception for Tibet during the Cultural Revolution. But, after doing a little research, she rejected the idea the next time I saw her. "Not enough killing and only a small, very focused population," she said. "Only killed those in religion who objected to their monasteries being blown up. Doesn't qualify."

I could not disagree, but I thought it was a shame that there was no word for murdering a culture or religion.

She said there was a word for it. "The nice word is 'imperialism,' but the reality still just brute force."

Mad fired back an email that she would look into a writing primer for me. Could I come by the following afternoon or the next day? I wrote that I'd shoot for tomorrow afternoon, but there was no answer. She was probably running her mind over the miles of bookcases in her place. I never knew where she got them, but she was constantly bartering (sometimes raiding) to add to her collection, so maybe she started out small and ended up big. That's how it is with books: you move in with one box and move out with thirty.

Anyway, I'd done my part; I went to eat corn chowder with Wilshirado with a clear conscience. They squinted curiously at me, but didn't ask any questions. They served the chowder with tortillas and white rice, but I didn't ask any questions. They served everything with some kind of rice, but the tortillas puzzled me as I had no idea what they were for.

Later that night I got an email from Augora of AT&T asking for a nine AM meeting with me at my office. He said he would be bringing a Mr. Harve de Grace with him. Harve de Grace could be nothing but a Stasi or CIA name, albeit one I'd never heard before, and this made me a little nervous and curious. However, the last AT&T job paid remarkably well, so I emailed back that nine AM was fine with me.

They were prompt. Augora was the same tall glass of water as I recalled, exuding the same thoughtful competence, if distaste, for whatever he was doing.

The other guy, de Grace, was short, dark and scrawny. He had a friendly, but bookish look to him, which made me wonder what kind of desperate barrel Rummy's successor was scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep the Stasi staffed back East.

Introductions were made and we got right down to it. Or at least Augora did while de Grace and I sized each other up.

"As you might have realized, Miss Gail," Augora began. "AT&T doesn't like being in the torture business. However since the breakdown of other forms of government, we feel there is a void that must be filled. And we feel we need to protect the areas and people in our service area. Therefore we must do, and ask you to do for us, what is in the best interest of that."

"Since the end of democracy on December 12, 2000, we've just moved from one form of dictatorship to another," I thought, but Augora was going on again.

"As you also know, we don't know jack about torturing information out of people," he said bluntly. "We've subcontracted that to Mr. de Grace and he's been doing a fine job for us. However, he's asked to consult with you on a particular case, and I shall turn this over to him now."

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Gail," de Grace said smoothly. "You're something of a legend at the Company and when I was told of your brilliant play with the mother and child, I felt you were the one person who could help us. I'm so glad to find you still alive."

"Me, too," I said. "What's up?"

"AT&T and the other institutions in Los Angeles have made this one of the more stable and pleasant places to live in these chaotic times," de Grace told me. "I don't know if you've been in any of the Christopias in the Southern U.S., but they are hardly as well run or, well, enjoyable."

"Enjoyable?"

"Well, I found the restrictions on certain behaviors unpleasant."

"What behaviors?" I asked, wondering if he was gay

"I'm not anti-religious, Miss Gail, but I prefer to believe in some kind of future here on earth, not solely in heaven," he said.

"How decadently sybaritic of you, Mr. de Grace," I said. "Having a little trouble breaking one of the hyper-religionists?"

"They have nothing to tell us, Miss Gail," he said. "In the raid you were so instrumental in obtaining the intelligence for, some of the leadership was captured." He paused. I waited. "We feel that this is not some random migration of displaced citizens trying to get out of harm's way, but a more organized flight west to the Pacific."

"They'd be mad to try to go through LA," I said, dismissively.

"But I suspect these are people with connections to call ships to any deserted stretch of coastline," de Grace said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Maybe what's left of the Cheney family, maybe the remnants of the NeoCon mafia, maybe..."

"Maybe the Bush family and their mafia?" I asked, when he trailed off for good. He nodded. "How bad are things east of the Rockies, Mr. de Grace?"

"Complete chaos," he said. "The Mexican and Canadian forces are sweeping everything before them. They've split the country along the Mississippi river and are spreading east and west faster than anyone could imagine. There's no resistance, Miss Gail; prior to the invasion, our own people had either killed or vaccinated anyone with any fight in them out of existence. No one could have foreseen-"

"Could have foreseen that the Bush family was ultimately going to lose and they'd need sane foot soldiers." I cut him off. "Most of the Red Staters running for the Pacific are idiots, except for a few of their leaders. That's what you think you've got out there in the Valley at AT&T's warehouse, isn't it? One of their leaders."

"Not the very top leadership, Miss Gail, but I'm sure he has more information than the others," de Grace said. "No, and that's why I asked to bring you in. He's going to be tough to break, and I have less experience than you do."

"And we need this information, Miss Gail, and need it badly," Augora said.

I'd almost forgotten Augora was in the room, but didn't jump as badly as de Grace did. Where did Rummy's people get this kid from anyway?

I have one more question for Mr. de Grace, if I may." They nodded. "What are you doing on the West Coast?"

"The Company no longer exists, Miss Gail," he said. "I was swept in with the rest of the refugees."

"And where were you before that?"

He sighed. "My first mission was looking for nukes in the Midwest."

"Nukes?" I'd totally forgotten about those. "Find any?" I asked.

"Yes and no; we found missiles, but no warheads," he said. "We think the DSL nuclear scientists or Canada took them. Or both; you know the DSL, Mexico and Canada are working together now. What's left of the Military is in such disarray, anyone could have taken them, but we think anyone else would have used them by now."

"How interesting. And after that?" I asked.

"I was trying to rally the militias in the Northwest," he said.

"And you couldn't rally them against the freaks and perverts of Los Angeles?"

"I think I could have," de Grace said thoughtfully. "Except there's nothing left to work with up there. Too much vaccination, AIDS, malnutrition, and the break-down of the medical system have wiped them out."

"So much for self-reliance and rugged individualism," I thought. De Grace looked shaken by these memories; I can't say I blamed him. Life outside Los Angeles was too nightmarish for me to even consider thinking about. "Tell me about this subject you want my advice on."

"We'd like more than your advice," Augora said, handing me a file and a portable DVD player.

I opened the file and looked at the photo first: white male, overweight, somewhere around fifty years old, arrogant, bordering on mean-looking. There were few details because he wasn't talking. The location of his confiscation... I looked up at Augora. "'Confiscation?'" I asked.

"We're the phone company, Miss Gail," he said patiently. "We don't arrest or imprison people."

"No," I thought "That's what the State used to do." I flipped on the portable DVD and watched a few minutes of the intake interrogation. "What did you do with him, Mr. de Grace?" I asked.

"Just questions, Miss Gail, we wanted to wait for you for the..." he cleared his throat. "For the heavy lifting, so to speak."

I watched more DVD; Mr. X was not cooperating, he was refusing to talk, but not saying they had the wrong guy, just that it was an outrage that he was being held. Bluff and blustery, he had the AT&T questioner on the ropes and de Grace's questions were brushed off as well.

If de Grace was really a Company man, he should have been able to handle this. Unless he was brand new and poorly trained, like he said, which I was beginning to wonder about. "How long did you question him?" I asked.

"Several hours over the three days we've had him," Augora said. "We were very glad when Mr. de Grace offered us his services. We were over our heads. At least he was able to separate the ones who didn't know anything from the ones who might know something."

"How did you two find each other?" I asked de Grace.

"I found the AT&T brass, Miss Gail, everyone knows who's running LA," he smirked a little at his own cleverness.

Just to be polite, I smirked back. "So, you, ah, confiscated this Mr. X guy in Oxnard, is it?" I asked, flipping through the pages. "Who else was there?"

"I'd have to look at the database, but there were several hundred people confiscated in the raid," Augora said. "Mostly women and children, but a few men like Mr. X."

"Any equipment? Weapons? Vehicles?" I asked.

"Not much," Augora said. "Again, I'd have to check the records, but I believe there was very little equipment or other things at the location. We looked a the computer we confiscated, but there was nothing but a few emails."

"Then what makes you think this is the guy?" I asked.

"He had a cell phone and a top of the line PDA," de Grace said when Augora deferred to him. "And he was making more sense than anyone around him."

"You mean he wasn't religiously insane." de Grace nodded and fell silent. "Okay," I said, turning to Augora. "What is AT&T's deal this time?"

We haggled a little, just for the sake of form, and got the deal authorized via email before we left. I sent Augora and de Grace downstairs to wait for me while I slipped into my working clothes. I strapped on my Mauser, Titanium Colt, and Berretta, brass knuckles, and slid a sheathed stiletto into my right boot, as well as one into the cleverly sewn sheath at the back of the neck of my ti-tandex catsuit. I was ready for anything as I slid into the armored limo beside de Grace.

Half way there, de Grace asked me if I'd known the previous Harve de Grace.

"No, I'm afraid not," I said. "I never worked with any of the East coast names, they mainly worked the Caribbean and the southeastern U.S. I was always in D.C. or on the West Coast." I couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed. "Did you ever know a Company blond named Laguna Woods?" I asked.

He said no, she must have been before his time.

"How long have you been with the Company, Mr. de Grace?" I asked.

"Less than two years," he admitted. "And a very chaotic two years at that."

It must have been indeed because unless the Company no longer existed, there would have been a new Laguna Woods five minutes after the other one's termination was confirmed. But I just smiled and acted nice, making small talk about militias, terrorists, torture, and subjects like that. Augora cringed politely next to us and kept quiet. Civilians will never understand the joys of scaring the hell out of the innocent as well as the not-so-innocent. However, in the course of talking to me, de Grace confirmed what I had begun to think: that he was either not Company or such a greenhorn, he didn't know up from down. No one in the Company talks so freely with an outsider present. We never even talked this freely to each other, and once he got talking, he kept talking.

Listening to de Grace and watching Augora also dispelled any fears that I was walking into a trap. Unless it was a trap for all of us, which made me glad I had as many guns on me as I did.

We made good time out to the AT&T compound and ended up in the same observation and interrogation suite. On the other side of the glass, Mr. X was brought in and left there to think it over. He looked comfortable; annoyed, but not alarmed. Mr. X was old, old people are hard to work on because they have nothing to lose.

"He's been in there before," I said flatly, not bothering to turn my head for Augora's nod. "We'll do this somewhere else, what have you got?"

Augora rattled off a few locations; I stopped him when he got to a conference room. Mr. X had probably been in a lot of conference rooms; this would up the humiliation factor.

"I'll need whatever you're using for electric shocks," I said, shedding my jacket. I couldn't tell if de Grace cast an appreciative glace at my tits or my Titanium Colt. "I will need a PC with a spreadsheet program, and some pages of numbers for data entry-"

Augora squeaked up, "Wha-?"

"And I will need a stopwatch."

AT&T is fast and efficient when they want to be; twenty minutes later I strolled into an equipped to spec conference room. At one end of the table some video equipment was set up, at the other end was a battery with electrodes, a stopwatch, a PC, a typing easel, and a rather nervous looking Mr. X, or Prisoner 12584.

"Ah, to work," I thought, settling into the chair on his right. "So, Mr.... Mr... " I made a show of consulting his chart. "Well, we don't know your name, so let me just call you Mr. 12584. My name is Nellie Gail, I'm going to be the last person to ask you questions."

"The last? Will I be let go?" he asked, or rather demanded.

"Depends."

"On what?"

"On the answers." I consulted his chart and ran though the battery of questions:

Why are you in the Los Angeles area? Who are your contacts here? Where is your funding coming from? Who sent you here? What is your mission here? Who else is coming to Los Angeles? And variations on these questions. As I expected, he brushed them off so I ran through them pretty quickly.

"Okay then, we will move to the next stage," I said. I picked the restraints on the credenza; nothing fancy, they were like the straps one puts around luggage or packages to carry them. They were just as effective for restraining humans as they were for parcels. Mr. 12584's eyes widened and, with a outraged snort, he started to rise when I approached. de Grace and Augora held him still while I tightened a strap around the chair back and across his chest and upper arms and another one around his calves and the chair legs. "You see, Mr. 12584, we need these questions answered and we have more than one way of asking them."

The wires leading from the small battery had alligator clips on the ends. I have always been of the gradualist school of thought, so instead of hooking them up to 12584's genitals or nipples, I simply laid them on his thighs, near his knees. He was old, too, and I wasn't sure how much he could take, so I would start with educational pain and work my way up to effective pain.

"This hurts, Mr. 12584, it's supposed to hurt," I said, settling back in my seat. "So, before I hurt you, let me ask you again: What is your name and why are you and the people you were with here on the west coast?"

"That's no concern of yours."

I set the meter at 25 volts and looked up at Augora, my hand hovering of the switch. "Do you have this set for one pulse or does it run current until the switch is flipped off?" I asked.

"The latter," he said.

"Ah!" I gave the switch a quick on and off, and made a few notes on 12584's clenching and grunting. In my experience, subjects that try to maintain a level of dignity under torture are the easiest to break. The ones that scream and flail from the gitgo tend to wear everyone out quite quickly. It seems like they're breaking, but in fact they're stalling and sometimes they simply don't break. I didn't feel that was going to be the case with 12584 here. "So, that hurt, eh? And that's just the beginning," I said, staring blandly into his angry, but determined face. Determined to do what, I had no idea. The ones that got that look were easily, but painfully convinced that I had all the cards.

I ran through the questions over and over, increasing the duration of the shock, but not the voltage. When I smelled his pants burning, I moved the wires farther up his thighs. After this, I gradually increased the setting to 40 volts. Five hours later we got his name - Matt Black - and where he was from - Enterprise, Kansas.

As focused as I was on Black, I was keeping half an eye on de Grace. He looked uncomfortable with what I was putting Black through, and yet strangely relieved by the paucity of answers I was getting. I thought this was interesting; either de Grace knew what Black knew and didn't want that information out, or de Grace needed me to determine that Black didn't know what de Grace knew. Whichever way it was, I was now interested in more than the guy tied up in front of me.

Around midnight, I stood and stretched. "I need a break," I said. "How about you Mr. Black?"

He glared at me. Sweaty and red-faced, but asked to use the bathroom. I thought it over and granted permission.

I caught up with Augora in a quiet corner. "I'm going to need your help later on," I said.

He looked dubious, or maybe he was just tired, but told me to name it. I expressed my doubts about de Grace. It turned out that Augora was wondering a few things, too. Like, where did this guy so conveniently come from out of the blue?

"Let's find out," I said, and outlined my plan. Augora went off to find the equipment we'd need.

Back in the conference room, I turned on the PC and pulled up a blank spreadsheet. "Let's do something different, Mr. Black," I said confidently. "I'm going to give you a chance to work your voltage level down. With data entry."

I strapped his legs and chest to the chair, leaving his right arm free. Just to break up the burn pattern, I moved the wires down to his ankles. Pulling the keyboard in front of him, and adjusting the computer print outs on the typing easel, I continued, "Here are some accounts," I said, waving my hand before the rows of numbers. "If you correctly enter these amounts so they cross-foot and answer my question, I won't shock you. However, if you correctly enter these amounts so they cross-foot, but refuse to answer my question, I will lower the voltage on the shock by five points. So, depending on your data entry skills, you might earn zero shocks and your secrets remain your own. Now, these is a small hitch; if you incorrectly enter the data, I shock you. And I'm going to time you, so if you correctly enter the data, then I'll shave five seconds off your time, and if you go over your time, I will shock you. How does that sound?"

"Complicated and stupid, like all of this," Black said, trying to sound tough.

"Oh, come now, Mr. Black, I'm giving you a sporting chance, here," I said. "Would you rather just answer more questions?"

"No."

"Okay then, let's go."

He balked, frowning, but a few jolts got him moving.

He was pretty good. He couldn't do 10-key by touch, but he had a good visual memory, so he was fast-ish, but not very accurate.

"Well, doesn't cross-foot, what a shame," I said. "But if you tell me what you're doing here on the west coast, I won't shock you, how would that be?"

Black just stared at me. I extended my arm very very slowly to the controls, hovered my hand over the switch, flipped it on then off, and ignored Black's anguished sputtering. "Let's try it again, shall we?" I said, resetting the stopwatch.

He did better the next time, the columns cross-footed in 2 minutes and 10 seconds. I asked my question; he was silent. "Okay, I'll keep my end of the bargain." I turned the setting down to 35 volts and hesitated. "You know, if you tell me what you're doing here on the west coast, I won't shock you." Silence. "I mean, 35 volts hurts less than 40 volts, but they both hurt a lot more than no shock at all. Just letting you know." Silence. I shocked him.

Black was very red faced and breathing raggedly, so I let him sit for a while. I asked Augora to hold his free arm while I gave him some water. "You're not a young man, Mr. Black, but not even young men hold up well under this procedure," I said. "Why not come clean? What have you got to lose?"

He just stared at me like I was some kind of giant cockroach talking to him. One gets used to it in this line of work.

"Maybe it's the question that's the problem," I said, when he'd correctly entered the data in under 2 minutes. "Let's try these questions: What is your mission here? Why did you come here?"

Silence. I lowered the setting to 30 volts and asked again. Silence. I shocked him. I smelled the flesh on his ankles burning, so I pulled the wires away. "This is stupid, Mr. Black," I said, when he'd stopped shaking enough to hear me. "The shocks are bad enough, but you also have burn marks on you that are going to hurt for days." I turned to Augora. "Do you have any Bactine or Neosporin?"

"I'll go look," he said, and left the room. He came back with a spray bottle of Bactine.

I put it on the table where Black could see it. "If you answer my questions, I'll spray this on your burns."

Silence. I had a pale and exhausted-looking de Grace hold his free arm while I wrapped the wires around his left foot. I waved the stopwatch at him. "You have to beat the spreadsheet in one minute and fifty seconds. Go!"

He finished but it didn't crossfoot. "Well, I can overlook this if you tell me why you're here and what your mission is here."

Silence. I shocked him, and he made more noise than usual. Pain is cumulative in some people. We ran the spreadsheet again, he was fatigued so he blew it again and again until he was finally begging for mercy, always a good sign (for me).

"If you would just tell me-"

"I CAN'T!"

"Why not?"

"I can't betray my people."

"What people? The ones already locked up here?" I asked, slapping him across the face. "I'm tired, Mr. Black, we've been at this for too long, I just want to know what the fuck you're doing in LA." I reached for the stopwatch.

"I... I'm trying to get my people out..."

"How?"

"A rumor..."

"About?"

"Ships... thousands of ships... come to rescue the believers..."

De Grace tensed across the table, but I'm the only one who noticed because I'd been looking for it.

"Whose ships?"

"I don't know."

"Are you sure?" I asked. He nodded. "Are you really sure?" I said, shocking him.

"I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW!"

"Really?" Shock.

"I DON'T KNOW!"

"Really?" Shock. Shock.

"I DON'T... KNOOOOOOOOOOOOW..."

This sounded true to me. And the fact that the panicky look left de Grace's face confirmed my opinion.

I gave Augora the high sign. I shoved Black away from the table so he banged into the credenza; de Grace was distracted and didn't see Augora behind him with a set of restraints. I had my Titanium Colt on him by then, so he sat still while Augora wrapped the strap around his chest and another around his legs.

"What the hell are you doing?!" de Grace screamed in panic.

Oh yes, this was going to be a cakewalk. "I'm getting a few answers for my client, AT&T," I said, shoving his chair against the wall behind him. "What's behind this wall, Mr. Augora?"

"Nothing."

"Good." I took aim and blasted a hole beside de Grace's head. "Who do you work for, kid?"

"I told you-"

"I don't believe you." I shot the wall on the other side of his head. "Who are the ships coming for?" I was yelling because the shots were deafening even me.

"I can't-"

"Oh, c'mon, asshole! Who are the ships coming for?" I shot along his left side. I glanced at Black; his mouth hung open in shock and he was breathing hard.

Colts make a lot of noise, that was part of their effect. Augora was at the door, telling people those gun shots were nothing, just ignore them and get back to work. I didn't envy his job. Or the janitors; the wall was a mess.

"Okay, new question: who sent you here?"

"I told you, I came from the northwest b-b-because-"

I shot the right side of the wall. "No, de Grace, who really sent you here? Rove?"

"No, I-"

"Hughes?"

"No, I told you, it-"

I shot in front of his feet, kicking up carpet and padding. I spun the chambers in my gun and strolled up to him. "That's five, de Grace, I have one bullet left in here. Ever play Russian Roulette? It's an interesting game; you hold a gun with one bullet in the chamber to your head and maybe when you pull the trigger it will be an empty chamber and so you give the gun to the next player. Maybe you'll blow your head off. But this is a variation, because I'm pulling the trigger, and maybe I'll blow your knee off or maybe I'll blow off an elbow. There's a lot of body I can shoot before I kill you. Or maim you beyond hope." I watched him pant and sweat for a moment. "Who are you working for?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"They'll kill me."

"Not if I kill you first." I turned my back and, in the few steps I took away from him, palmed the one bullet in my gun. "So, who are the ships coming for?" I asked turning.

"I can't tell you."

I spun the chamber and aimed at his right knee. Click.

He flinched hard, his whole body tensed for the impact that never came.

"Who are those ships coming for?"

"Please, Miss Gail..."

I spun the chamber and aimed at his left knee. Click.

He made choking noises and peed his pants.

"Whoever it is and whatever your mission is, they've given you up, de Grace," I said, spinning the chamber. "Who are you working for?"

"AT&T."

I aimed at his left arm. Click.

He started to cry.

"Don't fuck with me, de Grace." I walked over and slapped him twice. "What are you doing in LA?"

"They sent me..."

Slap. "Who sent you?"

"...Bush family..."

"To do what?"

"Make a path..."

"To what?" I leaned over to hear him better.

"To the coast..." He heaved a sigh. "The Carlyle Group ships are coming for them... and for the gold."

"The what?"

"The Bush family gold... it used to be Hitler's gold, but Prescott Bush took it into safe keeping..."

I stood upright so violently I almost overbalanced. Hitler's gold! Of all the fucking- Mr. Kern and two techs were standing next to a very nervous-looking Augora. "So, Mr. Kern, I understand de Grace works for you," I said. "Is that true?"

"Yes, Miss Gail, it is." He told the techs to take Mr. Black back to his cell. We were silent while they did so. No one moved to untie de Grace. "We, ah, contracted with Mr. de Grace to determine the level of threat in the rumors we'd been hearing," Kern resumed. "We did not realize that he was part of that threat. Until now, Miss Gail, thank you so much for your very perceptive assistance. We will of course be adding a bonus to your compensation for the past 24 hours." He headed for the door.

"It was more like 32," I said, following him. "What rumors?"

"Oh, silly rumors about thousands of ships coming to rescue the faithful from these sinful shores, riches beyond compare that would be loaded into them, angels at the helm," he said, waving his hands dismissively, leading me and Augora down the hall and out of the building. "You know, the usual Rapture nonsense."

"Yes, and the usual Bush family trouble," I said. "AT&T is not in the torture business, and yet you've been trying very hard to find something out. What is it?"

"That would be confidential."

"I work for you," I said. "I can only guess that you're after the gold or the ships, but not why. As someone who's done you a tremendous service today, I'm asking."

He sighed heavily. "We need that gold."

I didn't believe in Hitler's gold, but I still wanted to know... "Why? For what?"

"We need it to support the new currency we introduced."

"That scrip on the street?"

"Yes."

"Why the hell-?"

"We're not going back to the U.S. Southern California is too dynamic and has too many forward thinking ideas to shackle itself to that decay."

"Like reintroducing an exploitive black economy with scrip when the paperless exploitive white economy was working just fine? They had a saying in the old U.S.: if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

He laughed politely and excused himself due to press of work.

I looked at Augora to see how he was taking all this; his face was completely neutral and then he snapped out of it a little.

"I'll get you transport-"

"No, thanks, I'll take the bus." I snapped a speed-loader into my Colt and fired it twice in the air to get the MTA driver's attention. Recognizing me, by sight or reputation, he tossed everyone else off the bus and drove me home. Later that day, I got a nasty email from MTA management about misusing my authority and disrupting the bus service. They docked the fare and two hours of the driver's and gunners' time out of my account, the bastards.

I got home to a frantic Wilshirado, many shouts of "luchune," which sounded like scolding. "If you girls are going to tell me off, you better get some more words," I growled.

"Donde the fuck have you been?" Wilshire snarled; it had to be her, Alvarado doesn't snarl so well.

We stared at each other for a while. "That's not as interesting as where I'm going," I said coldly.

"Donde?" she asked coldly.

"To get your writing books. Querro come with me?"

Wilshire said yes, but Alvarado said she'd stay to start dinner. Alvarado often let Wilshire have the spotlight, such as it was. I guess that made her a good sister. I wouldn't know, I only have an elder brother, and he's a big spotlight hog if there ever was one.

After phoning Madeline to let her know we were coming, I handed Wilshire an empty backpack and we rode off down Sunset on the Electrocatti.

Only a small part of Mad's library was above ground. We were expected, so one of her heavily-armed Chinese History and Culture students was watching for us. He directed me to park the cycle in a secure parking spot and even plugged it into a wall recharger. That Mad; the soul of hospitality.

We passed through several steel doors, and down the same amount of stair wells. I think. I lost track, I'm always a little disoriented in Mad's library, so I didn't know if we were under Hollywood Boulevard or Orange or some other side street or even close to Highland. We traversed a small portion of what seemed like miles of overflowing bookcases. I once asked Mad where she got her books. She said they came to her to die, which is why she had so many. We finally ended up in her cluttered but comfy office.

"Ah, there you are." She rose to shake hands with me and be introduced to Wilshire, who was sullen with nervousness. She got that way in unfamiliar situations.

"If you'd like to look around, Mongo can show you the library," Mad offered. "What would you like to look at?"

Wilshire looked at me. I looked at Mad. "Do you have something with drawings or photos of LA before the Bush Urban Pacification plan? Say, the area around Macarthur Park?"

Mad smiled and told Mongo to take her to section 71B.

We settled down over a pair of te verde's. I asked her where she got such luxuries.

"Trade with China is up," she said. "But it's who you know and how well you can haggle in how many dialects that determines who gets this stuff."

"Not just to the highest bidder?"

"Oh someday it will be that normal again," she said, shoving a few books aside. "But for now, there are some things money can't buy." She ripped a page of the LA Times in half and wrapped a small mound of tea in it.

I'm more of a carrot juice person, but I accepted it with thanks. I do like green tea now and then, and I could always barter it to Julia for something.

"You've read Jared Diamond, I suppose?" Mad asked, swerving at a topic in her usual fashion.

"Of course," I said. "I only went to a state university, but we did wear shoes, use electricity, and read one of the most important historians of our era."

"Oh hush, Nellie, I'm not insulting you," she said. "That might be fatal." She paused to let me laugh. "I just meant to limn his idea that without dissent there is no progress. He cites China as stagnating in that way."

"I don't disagree," I said. "It's what the U.S. did to itself on and after September 12, 2001 when the Patriot Act passed, and passing the same kind of insane legislation again and again with our so-called Lawmakers' majority consent. They paved the road for this dictatorship to roll on."

"Some even yelled "Let's roll!" didn't they?" she asked. "I miss my country, too, Nellie. It's good to talk to someone who remembers what it was and what it might have been."

"Yeah, well." I figured I'd better lighten up or we'd be sniveling in our te verde's. "But China survived, such as it is."

"Yes, they had a bad hundred and fifty years but now they're back!" She laughed. "The deal is, though, China has enough people to loses tens of millions and survive. Our country didn't and doesn't, and, as we know from Jesusland, most of our country would rather break than bend to the wind of progress, science, art, and all that yummy kind of stuff."

"Bend to the wind of progress," I said. "Very poetic of you, Mad, but I'd say it would depend on the wind for me to decide to bend."

"You sound unlike you, Nell."

I considered confiding in her, but decided against it. She might be after Hitler's non-existent gold too, once she knew about it. "I think I have a new kind of flu."

"What flu?"

"Maybe hope," I said vaguely, "that there might be a future to hope for."

"A dangerous, often fatal condition."

"Yeah, and I've no idea where I picked it up."

"You have built something here," Mad said thoughtfully. "Or, at least, made it safe enough for others to build, Madame Warlord."

"I just exist, Mad, whatever connotations people attach to that fact are their business."

Mad shrugged and moved a stack of floppy books in front of me. "Who are you teaching to write? That girl, ah, what's her name? Olympic?"

"Wilshire," I said. "And her sister Alvarado."

"Why?"

"They were born th-"

"No, why are you teaching them to write," Mad said between chuckles.

"They asked me," I said. "Why do you still teach Chinese to those student thugs you've collected?"

"So it won't be lost. So I won't forget myself," she said softly. "And it binds us together."

"Yeah, it's strange, I just wanted to be a scholar, but when I have taught, I really loved it," I said, a little too candidly, but Mad just nodded, and didn't look shocked. "I'll take these," I said, gathering up the writing primers. One of them was Mr. Wood's Lotta Letters, from which I'd learned how to make my letters. "What do I owe you?"

She named a ridiculous sum, I haggled her down thirty percent, and I punched my debit card into the banking terminal on her desktop. She tossed in a few pads of Canadian recycled paper; she must have gone nuts or gotten hope or something terrible like that.

We collected Wilshire, who was staring at a picture book with a very relaxed-looking Mongo. Well, nothing wrong with getting a little commerce where you can.

She held up the book to show me a picture of pre-Rebellion and Occupation Sunset and Vine. "Looks different," she said.

Mongo cleared his throat and said something in Chinese to Mad. Mad held out her hand for the book Wilshire was holding, examined it and gave it back, with an urbane little bow.

"We have another copy of that," she said. "Mongo would like to give it to you, as a present. He says you'd like to show it to your sister. I hope you and she will enjoy it."

Wilshire clutched the book to her chest and whispered, "luchune, luchune." Mad looked a question at me.

"Street slang for thank you," I said. "But she really means it." We exchanged rather world-weary smiles and I said good evening. Mad had Mongo show us out. She very rarely left her labyrinth; her pallor told me she hadn't seen the sun in months. Well, it was safer where she was; or at least seemed that way.

After dinner, after the plates were cleared, I sat between Wilshirado and we worked on the letters "A," "B," and "C," and the syllables "BA," and "CA." And then they went into the night to do whatever they did there. I was already settled into bed reading "Gunfighter Nation" when I realized I hadn't killed anyone that day or the one before. The strange part was that I hadn't missed it.

I got a good night of sleep, but other than that my serenity didn't last very long.

Twelve hours later, I was enjoying a peaceful, under-occupied morning, watching the well-dressed tall handsome Asian man on my front door monitor ring the bell and wait. And wait, until he checked a PDA, and he rang again.

Wilshire stomped into my office. I knew it was Wilshire because Alvarado doesn't stomp around. "Luchune! Someone's at the door." She pointed at the very monitor I, myself, was looking at.

"I see him," I said, and did nothing to let him in or communicate with him. I have nothing against Asians; I was just feeling spooky after my encounter with AT&T yesterday. In the clear morning light, it occurred to me that AT&T might not believe I didn't believe in the Hitler-Bush family gold and they might try to do something about it. This guy didn't look like an AT&T killer, but, then again, I'm not sure what an AT&T hit man looks like.

"You gonna let him in!?" Wilshire can be a pest sometimes.

"Maybe. Where's your sister?"

"Shopping."

"Guys like that make me nervous," I said, watching the monitor. "I only have guns, they have five thousand years of continuous civilization behind them. My guns are no match for that."

Wilshire gave a low growl of frustration because I was being cryptic, but otherwise stayed still. By now she knew better than to make any vigorous moves when I'm distracted. A few days ago, after one of her violent shrugs in my peripheral vision, I'd pulled my gun and nearly shot her. It was reflex, but in my business death is only a reflex away.

The Asian guy rang again, looked left and right, and then reached for the lock.

I hit the intercom. "I wouldn't."

He stepped back. I heard, "Miss Gail-" before I snapped off the intercom.

"Why not?" Wilshire asked.

"Because I can run current through the door."

"Like a shocky?"

I nodded. We both leaned forward when Alvarado walked up to the Asian guy. They spoke briefly, and Alvarado rang the bell.

"Donde button for current?" Wilshire asked, encroaching on my personal space. I shoved her back and gave her a dirty look. She laughed; I didn't. I was watching Alvarado bang on the door.

"Fuck," I said, snapping the intercom on. "Alvarado, stop banging on the door." She did. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Chung Wah, I'd-"

"You know the corner of Hollywood and Orange?" I cut him off. Chinese: ha! I knew an expert who could handle this guy. She also had more muscle around her than I did at that particular moment.

"Yes, I-"

"Go there and tell the lady there what you want and she'll tell me," I said.

"What the-?"

"Not kidding, do it or forget it." I was rapidly losing interest.

"How will I know her?"

"She speaks Chinese," I said, rapidly losing interest in the conversation.

"What kind? Mandarin? Cantonese? Chinglish?"

"You look smart, work it out."

"Why?" he asked.

"You want me to get a message, work it out."

"No, I meant why must I do this?"

"Because..." I had to think fast. "Because when asked what he thought the effects of the French Revolution were, Zhou Enlai said it's too soon to tell. Therefore, my area of history is too small for me to speak directly to you. Good-bye."

After he left, I buzzed Alvarado in. She looked scared, but calmed down when I asked what was for lunch. Croquettes of something, and they were good, too.

Mad called an hour later. "A very elegant Chinese gentleman thinks you're nuts, but the message is that Gloria Molina wants to see you."

"Santa Molina? She's dead, died in the siege of Plaza de la Raza. Where's the séance?"

"He didn't say, but he did leave a card and invite you to dine in Chinatown. I'll send it up with a runner," she said pleasantly.

"Much obliged, Mad, much obliged."

"I've heard the food is excellent at his restaurant," she added.

"Oh, yeah?"

"It's called the 'Meng-Po-Niang,'" she said, chuckling. "It's named after Chinese goddess who stands just within the gates of hell and gives each soul a magic potion, so that they would forget their past lives." And then she hung up.

Yes, she hung up before I could ask her who the fuck would name a restaurant that? And when her runner arrived, "Meng-Po-Niang" was indeed embossed on the mylar card. This annoyed me very much because I don't like to associate eating out with hell. I want those two concepts to stay far apart.

And he certainly didn't give up either. Every day one of Mad's runners delivered another calligraphically and grammatically perfect note from Mr. Chung Wah asking me for an interview at my office or to dine at the Meng-Po-Niang at my convenience. When hell froze over would be my convenience. It's not that I don't like Chinese food, but I don't have an army to take with me to Chinatown. Chinatown is a better part of town than what's left of Pico Union and certainly better than its neighbor, Lincoln Heights, but it was still far too dangerous for me to go there on my own. But the larger reason was that I didn't want anything to do with anything that had Santa Molina involved with it. I was not a believer in her miracles or her resurrection; to me she was just as dead as anyone else who died in the bombings. However, the cult that grew around her memory made me nervous. Centered in the ruins of Lincoln Heights, it seemed to comprise the remains of the Hollenbeck Police department, who'd fought with the people and ensured their own doom, the survivors of the Lincoln Heights uprising, and some strange cults that came into town from the desert. No one was really sure who or what was going on in Lincoln Heights anymore. The last time I was there, I was nearly killed, but it was just a very short visit to successfully get Fydor Chandler to go to Mexico with Dr. Max. Lincoln Heights had seemed as dead as ever on the surface, with the scavengers seething below it.

Lately I'd been hearing rumors of the desert people being there more often and Hollenbeck police officers were moving supplies around. The DWP had been sniffing around their old power plants down there, but decided to leave them alone. My opinion was they might be okay during the daytime, but they'd need an army to defend them at night. I suggested they wait a few more years as the scavenger population was dying of starvation and disease and, lately, something else. I was hearing rumors that they were being poisoned and shot, as if there was an extermination program going on.

Not that killing scavengers bothered me, I hunted them myself, but there was some kind of organized scavenger eradication effort in progress, which means there was someone organizing it. But why and who I could not possibly imagine.

In the meantime, AT&T had put a truly incredible amount of money into my account for services rendered. I assumed this meant that Prisoner 365's kid had led them to the mother lode of crazy people invading California. To celebrate, I went on a minor spending spree at the Limos, even forced some new clothes, coats, and shoes on Wilshirado as well as decking myself out in new boots and a new jacket. And guns and books, of course, I can never have too many of those.

However, in the course of ordering my books over IM, Mad made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Mr. Chung had invited her to dinner, if she could get me there with her.

NG: No way.

MAD: He's letting me bring three of my men and armed.

NG: I can bring my guns?

MAD: And your bravos.

NG: My what?

MAD: Your muscle, your bodyguards, your gunslingers.

NG: Oh yeah. When?

MAD: Tonight.

NG: I'll think about it.

I don't have any bravos. I suppose I should. I do have the Limos. Julia is always my first choice because she shoots straight and fast. She was busy, so I got her brother Jim, who is almost as good. I decided to take Wilshirado with me, so we'd be a party of four. Four is an unlucky number, but I felt safer that way.

Jim and I were heavily armed when the heavily armed escort came for us. Mad rolled down her bulletproof window. "Well?"

"We're on our own rides, Mad," I said, idling on the BMW motorcycle I'd inherited from a previous job. Jim was next to me on a hybrid Harley. "But you can take Wilshire and Alvarado with you."

Wilshire, sitting behind Jim, growled something I didn't catch, but got off the bike and followed Alvarado into the armored mini-van. The sun was down and we were all on night-vision to make us a more difficult target. Our engines were quiet; Jim and I stayed close to the mini-van and the outriders took care of anything or anyone on the periphery of our procession.

There was some shooting along the way, not by me unfortunately, and when a couple of outriders took off after something, I was hard pressed to stay with the mini-van. It was too early in the evening to get mussed hunting. Annoyed that I had to do this dinner when I'd rather be out killing things, I promised myself a good shooting party after dinner. Aside from my frustrated, but suppressed, homicidal longing, we got to the restaurant without incident. Except for a couple of dusty plastic lobsters in a dimly lit, but certainly bulletproof and probably electrified display case, the place looked more like a fortress than a Chinese restaurant. Until we got inside.

I really like Chinese food, but sometimes I find the décor a little off-putting. The Meng-Po-Niang was the most nauseating swirl of pinks, ruby reds and dull golds I could ever remember experiencing. And sure enough, right inside the entrance, there was a ten-foot statue of an impossibly proportioned Chinese woman with huge blue eyes holding a goblet to all who enter this interior design hell.

Mad was utterly enchanted, Wilshirado gave it several appreciative "Luchunes," and Jim seemed hypnotized, but it might have been the delicious food smells that I couldn't really enjoy at that moment. I was wishing Julia was here; she would have understood my repulsion, if not shared it.

The very handsome-in-person Mr. Chung Wah was immaculately dressed in the most elegant dinner suit I'd seen in a long time. His hair was smooth as a bird's breast and shone like onyx in the moonlight. He was warmly welcoming and completely gracious. Even Wilshirado relaxed a little in all this hospitality. I was feeling somewhat mellow due to the number of guns around me, and then the number of guns in and around the restaurant. As long as Mr. Chung's guns didn't turn on me and my little band, I thought I could have a happy evening. I sipped the carrot juice so thoughtfully prepared for me. If it was drugged, I would have felt something by now. But, no, we sat over our drinks, Mad and Chung chatting about Meng-Po-Niang, the goddess, not the restaurant.

"I believe I'd rather go to a Chinese hell," Mad said over her umbrella drink

"At least you'd speak the language," I slipped in.

"Dr. Ferule's Mandarin is impeccable," Chung said suavely.

I tried not to jump at hearing Mad's last name; in all the time I'd known her, it had never occurred to me that she had one. "So, other than speaking Mandarin for all eternity, what attracts you to this particular hell?"

"The forgetting part," she said. "I think our western idea of hell is that we remember, regret, pine for, mourn our previous lives, and this is the most painful part."

"Yes," I said, thinking I knew something about that kind of hell on earth. "I never understood all those pictures of devils with pitchforks and whips. No one takes a body that can feel pain to hell with them. It's all... some other kind of pain."

"Our hell is a little different from yours, Miss Gail," Chung Wah said in a voice I might, once upon a time, have been able to listen to all night long. "In our hell, it is possible for a soul to atone for its sins and win rebirth. The goddess Meng-Po-Niang only gives the forgetful potion to souls on their way back to an earthly incarnation."

"I think I'd want to remember, so I wouldn't make the same mistake again," I said.

"One must live in the present as well as the past, Miss Gail," he said blandly, if not inscrutably. "The past must not overwhelm the present or the future, nor the dead overwhelm the living." A waiter materialized in the doorway and Mr. Chung nodded graciously at his bow. "Our dinner is ready."

We followed him into the hellish dining salon, where I picked carefully at each dish in front of me. It wasn't so much I was worried about being poisoned, I was too keyed up to really enjoy eating. Chung Wah had not gotten to the point of the visit and the suspense was killing me.

"Are you not enjoying your dinner, Miss Gail?" Mr. Chung asked with real concern.

"I would enjoy it more if we could get to the business part of the evening," I said, ignoring Mad's frown. "I don't mean to be very rude, but is what you want to talk to me about confidential, or can we discuss it here?"

"Yes, we may," he said. "My part of this is just to deliver the message that Gloria Molina in Lincoln Heights wants to see you very much."

"She's dead, Mr. Chung. Have you ever seen her?"

"No, but many reliable people believe in her, I-"

"Who believes in her?" I asked.

"Hollenbeck," he said. "And all those who most need something to believe in."

"Do you believe in her, Mr. Chung?" I asked.

"I believe in the idea of her," he said. "With respect, Miss Gail, in this part of LA, we need something more than commerce and force to believe in."

Touché, but it made me laugh a little. "All right, let's pretend for a moment she exists. What does she want from me?"

"I've no idea, I've merely been asked to ask you to meet with her. Please," he added. "Ordinarily I would have refused this request, but it came from a Hollenbeck officer that I have great respect for. That and all the strange rumors of ships arriving for mysterious purposes from the east to pick up ghosts and gold, and all the strange things happening in Lincoln Heights... I don't know what Santa Molina wants from you, Miss Gail, but if it calms this part of the city, it can only be good."

"What's going on in Lincoln Heights?" I asked, hoping to confirm a few rumors.

"My friend in Hollenbeck tells me the scavengers are being killed in droves," he said. "Their bodies are stacked in the riverbed and burned. I don't know by whom because I've only seen the aftermath in the morning."

"In the riverbed?" I asked. No one but a suicidal mad man goes near that riverbed, even in daylight. "And not be killed by the crazy hordes that live in the riverbed?"

"Those were killed first," Chung said. "Whoever is behind this has tremendous resources, ruthlessness and organizational skills. And an army."

"An army," I mused. "An army massing in Lincoln Heights would not, could not tolerate scavenger attacks. Yes, Mr. Chung, I see what you worried ab-"

There was suddenly a lot of yelling in Chinese. Mr. Chung stood up. "This way, quickly please, the building is under attack."

"Does this happen often?" Mad asked, grabbing a bottle of plum wine on her way.

"Not quite on this scale," Chung said, leading us through the huge dinning room toward the kitchen. "This is a very organized att-"

Chung's heavily armed waiters exploded from the kitchen ahead of us and the bar behind us simultaneously. We dove for cover and I wished Wilshirado knew how to shoot because the rest of us had our weapons out. We were pinned down in one corner, but Chung's wait staff were holding them up. All we had to do was wait for them to make a hole we could get through.

It hadn't occurred to me there might be a way in, or out, behind us until Wilshirado screamed and started sailing dinner plates over my shoulder. "Fuck!" They had good aim and bought me and Jim the few seconds we needed to open fire at the masked men and women pouring in behind us. Some of Chung's forces turned to lay down covering fire so we could plaster ourselves against the wall and shoot whoever tried to come through. This would work until Chung's men, outnumbered and outgunned, were forced back to where we were. They were even fighting hand to hand not far from us. Of course, the grenade was just overkill, but Chung has incredible staff; and one of the Kung Fu waitresses threw her opponent onto the grenade, and her body on top of him, and saved us. She and the people around her absorbed the rest of the blast and shrapnel.

"Okay, this is fucked!" I yelled, grabbing a sub-machine gun from a corpse. I whipped on my InfraRayBan and shot out the lights around us, dove into the hole and shot everything that moved in front of me. I glanced at Jim, also in infrared glasses, firing next to me. Love those Limos! We were soon joined by Mr. Chung, Mad and her heavily armed Chinese students. I knew Wilshirado were nearby, throwing chairs and crockery and whatever else they could get their hands on, but I was too busy to noticed exactly where.

Clearing a path, we got our little group out of the worst of the fighting. Chung led us out of the building where we could use the armored mini-van as cover, if it was in the clear. It wasn't, but our side was winning that battle and we tipped the balance. Hard to know what was going on behind us, so I stayed focused on what was in front of us. We chased the killers down the alley and onto Broadway, across Broadway and into a ruined shopping area. I had a guy in my sights and ran him down between two buildings and into another alley. I lunged for cover from a poorly aimed shot, and ran after the squealing tires at the end of the alley. I caught a glimpse of a black sedan or coupe with monster tires roaring away down College Street. It was followed by a handful of unmarked trucks and vans.

It was very quiet as I made my way back to what was left of the Meng-Po-Niang. Mr. Chung was organizing his people; directing them to collect what they could carry, and arranging transport. He turned and locked eyes with me.

"I don't know, I really don't." I shrugged and dug out my motorcycle keys. "What now?"

"My people and the Chinatown Defense League will guard the building until morning," he said wearily, picking up a plastic lobster and cradling it. "We'll start repairs at dawn."

"Never say die, huh?"

"Once you establish a business location, it's difficult to move." He looked hard at me. "We didn't have enough firepower to fight them off, whoever they were. Someone or something helped us, and then vanished."

"Santa Molina?" I asked innocently, and jingled my keys at him.

He looked like he wanted to hit me, but bowed instead and went off to arrange transport back to Hollywood for Wilshirado, Mad and her gang.

Jim and I went ahead and got to Julia's without incident. I needed to drink a carrot juice in peace and try to figure out what happened in Chinatown. Somebody with muscle had attacked the Meng-Po-Niang and someone with muscle had rescued us and I didn't have a clue who either were. I did have a strong suspicion that whoever it was, was after me, and I had a bad feeling it was about the Hitler/Bush gold. So I had much on my mind when I stepped into Julia's, but then it all went out the window.

"Evenin', Miss Gail."

"Abilene," I said slowly. "I can't remember if I'm supposed to kill you or not."

"How about not?" He drawled. "I'm a new man, Nellie, and I've come to lay it all at your feet."

He was as scruffy, dusty, sexy, lazy-voiced and cool as the last time I'd seen him; I was uncertain I wanted all this laid at my feet. I might want it laid a little higher up. Julia brought me a carrot juice and rolled her eyes. I sat down anyway as I was curious to know where Abilene had gone after the thwarted invasion of Los Angeles by Militias of Christ. I was very interested to know what became of Kevin after the shoot-out in the Klan of the Koffee Kats. I was hoping he was dead, but I had hoped that before. "Where's Kevin?"

"No idea, ma'am. I never saw or heard of him again after that night." Abilene took a pull on his orange juice. "Is he more attractive than me?"

"No, but I want to kill him more than you." I sipped my juice. "Where'd you land after the night?"

"Well, I barely made it out of California," he said grimly. "Y'all got wall to wall crazy people here, but I finally hooked up with some of the Militias for Christ and swung down to Texas with them. They had the food and connections to survive what the hell was going on out there. Southeast of Texas your friends from Mexico were kicking ass all over Jesusland. I would have changed sides if I could've. I'm sure you've heard about the great battles down Memphis way."

"Nope, and don't care," I said. "As long as it stays out of LA county, I couldn't care less what happens to the rest of the country."

"You're wise, Nellie," he said. "It's ugly out there. And I was on the wrong side." He took a deep breath. "You know how stress wears a body down, well it wore more'n my body down. I started to believe all that crazy Rapture crap they go on and on about in Jesusland. Seems like there's nothing to life for those people but everyone else's death and they get to watch from some cloud next to Jesus Himself. In the meantime, they're gonna kill as many unbelievers as they can, as if that will impress whoever or whatever gets to decide how close they get to sit to Jesus."

He tilted his chair forward and put his elbows on the table. "I went to church when I was a little boy," he said quietly. "I never heard about Jesus killing anyone or wanting us to kill each other. Seems like I recall he wanted us to love one another." He sat up. "But maybe I misremembered it because, boy oh boy, did those Jesusopaths have me going. Sometimes the thought of a little peace and quiet in the clouds really sounded damn fine to me. And one night, after a bad day of gettin' our asses shot off runnin' away from your Mexican pals, I looked around at the faces scrunched up in prayer, I really listened to those crazy words about how we were all gonna end up in heaven or somewhere's together for eternity with the Righteous, the Just, and the Christians and only these particular type of Christians. And I realized right then that I did not want to spend eternity with these crazy mutherfuckers, no way, no how. So, I dispatched them to their Lord and hit the road back to the one person who might make this life interesting enough to enjoy livin' for a while longer." He looked at me with a twinkle.

"Who?"

"You."

I stared at him. Then I glanced at the door when Wilshirado came in. They skirted our table and ordered hot coco from Julia. "Yeah, Abi, that's interesting," I said, rising and walking to the back of the café. "Can we go out the back, Julia?" I asked, herding Wilshirado in that direction. She nodded, and we did.

"Who was that?" Wilshire asked when we got upstairs.

"A bad man trying to convince me he's a good man."

She shrugged and sat down with her sister to practice their letters. They were up to "M," "N," and "O," and the words "can," "man," and "fell." I added "coco" because they were drinking it. They thought that was funny, but I had no idea why.

I left them to their studies and crawled into bed with Richard Slotkin. He was going on and on about the democratic ideals in the original "Stagecoach." Yeah, right. I was beginning to think the whole book was a waste of time because my chances of ever seeing either version of "Stagecoach" were nonexistent. This annoyed me. I like John Wayne movies because they usually lack moral ambiguity, but shelved my disappointment and went to sleep.

I was very busy the next few days, ambushing MTA buses and besieging DWP installations, so I managed to avoid Abilene. I saw him at Julia's and meandering a little too casually around Sunset, but pretty much ignored him. I did make time to take Wilshirado into the Hollywood Hills and teach them to shoot. Since it looked like they were going to be around for the long haul, two more gun-hands would be useful in the next shoot-out. They were okay with the guns, Wilshire maybe a little better than Alvarado, but they were diligent students and fair shots by the end of the afternoon.

On the way home from a DWP job I stopped by Julia's for a carrot juice. I found Fydor Chandler, Dr. Max, Dr. Jane Caterham-7, and her bodyguard, Brother AK47 in his immaculate saffron robes and AK47, waiting for me over juice there. I threw myself into Fydor's arms; I was truly glad to see him. "Fydor! You live!"

"Absolutely!" He hugged me back. "Hey, who are those ferocious girls in your place? I was taunted to within an inch of my life by them. It was kind of exciting."

"Oh, they're, um... ah, just, some girls," I said stupidly.

"Have you switched teams, Nell?" Max asked me with his trademark leer.

"No, Max, I still like guys," I said. "Although I don't like you very much."

"And what's this I hear about you being a Warlord?" He asked. "Shouldn't that be Warlady?"

"Wouldn't that be completely silly?" I asked back.

"And a whore Madame, I understand," he added, leering again.

"Hardly, Max, the rumors aren't true, and if they were, I'd be a pimp, since I don't have the whores working in a house," I said tartly. I looked up a Fydor, who was following the exchange with too much casual disinterest. "Fydor, some whores in town tell their tricks they work for me. They don't work for me, they just say that to scare money out of recalcitrant johns."

Fydor gave me a reassuring one-armed squeeze. "See, Max? What did I tell you?"

"Which whores?" Max asked.

"The ones that wouldn't let you in my place," I said, and quickly said hello to Dr. Caterham-7, whom I liked least of all. "What brings you all here?" I asked the old tax mystic sour-puss.

"You are the end of the line, Miss Gail, as usual," she said, mysteriously. "But God is on our side."

"I'm sure you've let God know in triplicate already. Wouldn't it be better if we were on God's side?"

"It is the same thing," she said wearily.

I might have taken umbrage at her tone if not her words, but Julia wanted the table for a large party, so we adjourned to my place. I got an assortment of sheepish and angry looks from Wilshirado as I introduced them to everyone, but they kept their mouths shut. Even when I said everyone was staying for dinner, they looked dubious, but were silent.

"Yahla, girls," I said, using their word for 'hurry up.'

Fydor took me aside and explained that I was, indeed, the end of the line. "The Combined Armies have got most of the country under control, at least all the parts we care or worry about," he said. "There's some final action here, we think, near LA on the coast."

"You mean the Bush Family is running for it," I said.

"Exactly," he said. "And we need to hole up here and see what shakes out."

I told him everything I knew. I knew he'd share it in ways that would get the most mileage out of it, so I didn't worry about holding anything back. I'd wanted to compare notes with my brother for a long time; he is, was and always will be the smartest guy I know. "But tell me one thing, Fyd; why this coast? Why not run from D.C. or their friends in Miami?"

"They couldn't get out that way because they'd run to Kansas, thinking they could regroup and take back the county from there," he said. "I don't think they realized how much they damaged the country. There were a few dedicated Bush worshippers out in the sticks, but far fewer than the Bush Family thought. Add to that that all the brains are on our side... They were stuck, they just barely got out ahead of our forces, and then we lost their trail. We know there are ships coming, we think they're coming either to what's left of Oxnard or what's left of La Jolla."

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," I said, and was interrupted by Wilshire snarling that dinner was on the table. I knew it was her by her snarl.

Over the course of dinner, Jane Caterham-7 veered dangerously close to her pet theory that there was a reasonable reason for the Holocaust. As a historian, this sacrifice theory makes me particularly sick.

"Yes, we have lost many in the struggle," she began. "But, as a historian, Miss Gail, you know that death-"

"Stop!"

"I assure you, the dead would approve of our actions and-"

"Shhhh!"

"Like the sacrifice of the Six Million, this carnage is not in vain, I-"

I was still wearing my shoulder holster so drew my Colt and pointed it at her. "If you say another word, I will blow your head all over that wall."

Caterham-7 froze and Brother AK47 seemed to stop breathing. Now that I think of it, I was the only one breathing normally at that moment.

Then Caterham-7 lowered her eyes, and said, "Of course, Miss Gail."

"Thanks." I said, staring Brother AK47 down. His gun was locked in my arsenal, but I was no good at hand-to-hand and he was a big guy.

Wilshire snarled, "Luchune!" and she and Alavarado cleared the table. I thought they were going to skip the writing lesson, but they brought their books, pens and writing tablets to the table and we got to work. I ignored my audience as they talked softly at the other end of the table, pretending to ignore us, but casting the occasional glace down the table at us making letters and monosyllable words. It was a work night for Wilshirado, so we only studied for an hour. They followed me into the kitchen to help me wash up.

"What was that viej-hag talking about at dinner?" Wilshire demanded.

"A government in Germany called the Nazis killed millions of people they didn't like," I said, not wanting to explain it because no one can really explain it.

"Why?" Alvarado asked.

"Because they could."

"No, why didn't they like them?" she asked.

"Oh. Because they were different or disagreed with them or both." This is one of the few questions I could sort of answer.

"So? That happens all the time, people killing each other. What's so special about this?" Wilshire asked, almost pleasantly. She could be nice when it was just the three of us, which made it harder for me to tell them apart.

"It shouldn't have happened," I said, handing her a dry dish to put away.

"Why not?" And waited for an answer.

"Because we're supposed to be better people than that," I finally said. "The Nazis destroyed a thousand years of progress in just nine or ten years of craziness."

Wilshire shrugged.

"You look sad, Miss Gail," Alvarado said.

I have a long memory and I read a lot about the past. I know what was, and what could have been, and when it doesn't make me angry, it makes me sad. But I wasn't going to try to explain that to kids who lived in 24 hour increments because they had to. So I just said I was tired and talking to our dinner guests wore me out.

"They're loco," Wilshire snapped.

I nodded.

"So, where are you girls going tonight?" Fydor asked cheerfully when they were ready to leave. "Can I tag along?"

Wilshirado gave me puzzled looks and shrugged.

"No, Fydor, you better stay in tonight," I said, ushering the girls out the back entrance and locking the steel door behind them.

"They're cute, Nell. Twins, huh? You sure you didn't change teams?" he teased.

"Positive."

"I couldn't understand much of what they said to you and each other," he said thoughtfully. "Is that a patois or something else?"

I led him into my office and dug out the list of words I'd noticed them saying. "They're grabbing words from all the languages I know about in Los Angeles, and a few I don't recognize," I said. "But the vocabulary seems very limited; they use the same words over and over, but the meaning is different depending on the inflection. I guess that makes it a patois or a creole."

"Well, well, no, noo," he said, staring at my list. "Based on what you're telling me and what I heard tonight, it's not either of those things..."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not complex enough," he said, in that slow, pedantic voice I found so annoying. "Your girls are just doing a good job corrupting English..."

"As if they knew pure English, Fydor," I said, defending Wilshirado against... something. "They've lived on the street most of their lives."

He ignored me. "A creole also wouldn't draw so much from Asian and Middle Eastern languages either. And I don't think it's slang, based on your notes, it's too organized. Is it consistent in other speakers?"

"I've no idea."

"Hm." He thought for a few moments. "Have you documented any other speakers?"

"No."

"Hm. Well, it will be interesting to see what other language mutations crop up when things stabilize," he said, briskly. He was summing up and moving on. "For now, for the sake of this discussion, let's call it a jargon, which was invented by pirates to communicate amongst themselves. Seems fitting somehow."

"Fine." I had no idea why, but I considered 'jargon' a come-down and an insult to Wilshirado, pirates notwithstanding.

"I ran into some odd slang in Jesusland, slang based on the most famous stories in the Bible," he said, ignoring my irritation. "Stories so famous, even I knew them."

"Oh, c'mon, Fydor, we went to Sunday school, long ago."

"Okay, who did Jacob ended up with after the first seven years labor, instead of Rachel, whom he wanted?"

"Leah," I said, surprised I could remember so easily.

"Right! And when you get a bad deal in Jesusland it's a Leah," he said.

I thought about this for a moment. "Oh. My. God."

"Exactly! But I did come across an interesting language in China..."

"Were you in China?" I asked, surprised he'd leave the war in progress.

"No, but I was in a nice big captured library for awhile and I did a little reading," he said. "It's called Nushu. It means "Women's Writing," because few Chinese women were formally taught to read or write, and they secretly developed it to communicate with each other. It's pretty much extinct because the Chinese educate their girls now. Here's a Nushu saying: 'Beside a well, one does not thirst. Beside a sister, one does not despair.'" He put his arm around me.

I put my arm around him. "Or beside a brother."

"I want you to start calling me Larry again," he said after a while. "I'm done with the past, or that part of it."

I nodded. "Okay, Larry."

"Okay. Why are you teaching them to write?"

"Because they don't know how." I laughed at his frown. "Okay, okay, they asked me to, so I got some books; writing is hard work."

"Why did they ask you?"

"I don't really know," I admitted. "I don't see what good it will do them... I think they're striving, not just for survival, but for something more, maybe more challenge, more brain stimulation. I don't know. I don't know why they glommed on to me, of all people."

"Because you liked teaching," he said. "People who want to learn must sense that in you, Alison."

"Maybe," I said, wincing at my old name. "Hey, keep calling me Nellie, I'm not ready to go back to... to that name."

"Okay, Nell, whenever you're ready," he said, giving me a squeeze. "We're winning, sis, we've won, in fact, and all that's left is to divide up the country into manageable parts, put good administrators in place and plan the elections. Canada and Mexico will take huge chunks, but they've certainly earned them. It won't be the same polarized U.S. we grew up in; we know that doesn't work, and so many have died-"

"For the greater good?" I asked sarcastically.

"No... for greed, stupidity, fear, and wickedness," he said with savage coldness. "And I want the Bush family and their mafias to pay for that."

So did I, and with all my heart. I also wanted to go hunting. Or drink juice at Julia's. Or go to bed and read. Anything but sit down with Max and the tax mystic for a chat. But there was no avoiding it, so I might as well get it over. Besides, Larry had steered me to the table.

"Okay, Max," I said grimly. "When you show up it's usually bad news and hard work. So, tell me what the deal is."

"Gold," he said in his most dramatic Internet Broadcast voice. It was the voice he used to introduce economic concepts on his old show. "Bush family gold. We need it to rebuild the United States."

"You're going to need more than-"

"It's a start," he cut me off. "We believe there are other resources involved, off-shore and Swiss accounts, data for blackmail, enough to get us off the ground."

"You can't borrow from, say, France?" I asked. "They like you, Max."

"We also need to destroy the Bush family and you know they're nothing without their money," he said. "Killing them isn't enough," he added to my unspoken question. "Their poverty will be an example to anyone who might try to emulate them again."

"And prosecuting them for crimes against humanity doesn't appeal to you either?" I asked.

"Without their money to hide with, it will be easier for The Hague to find and charge them," he said. "If The Hague is so inclined. It might be more trouble than it's worth, only to rule that GW Bush is mentally unfit to stand trial. They might convict Rove, as they finally did Zivota Panic, but that's a long shot. Frankly I just don't want them in the U.S. where the W cult could ever start again. Of all the countries in the world, you wouldn't think our down to earth, hard headed Southerners would build a religion out of the supposed divinity of one rich spoiled mentally challenged frat-boy, but there you have it." He sat back with a scowl.

"There's another reason we must have that gold."

I narrowed my eyes at Jane Caterham-7 but it didn't turn her into a pile of ashes.

"That gold was stolen from Hitler by Prescott Bush," she said, sounding sane if you didn't actually listen to the words. "It must be used to for good, or the sacrif-"

My gun was in her face. "Dr. Caterham-7," I said, sounding sane, too, when I want to. "As a historian, I want you to shut the fuck up about your insane theory of the Holocaust or I'll kill you."

She raised her eyebrows, but wisely kept her mouth shut until I put the gun away. "Really, Miss Gail," she said primly. "Your zeal for history is most impressive."

"Yeah, well," I said, looking around the table. "How do you all propose to steal this gold that might or might not exist?"

"With your help," Max said. "You're a Warlord, Nellie, you must have an army at your disposal."

"I have some guns and an attitude, Max," I said. "And that's all, pal. What about your contacts here, like the DWP?"

"The DWP has become uncharacteristically neutral in these final days, Nell," he said, kind of sadly. "I think they're playing both sides and will make a deal with whoever survives the next few weeks."

"What sides?" I asked. "They run things."

"Infrastructure, not funding," Larry chimed in. "AT&T has that in their online banking system and we're not sure who's side they're on. We've never been sure, but now that it's crunch time, I think they're going to try to keep LA county as their own fiefdom."

This made a lot of sense; it also made the situation a lot worse than I thought it was. "And I fit in where?"

"We think the MTA is in it with AT&T," he continued. "And if we have to fight them both, who knows better than you how to defeat an MTA fortress bus or besiege a fortified installation?"

"You're asking me to kick my most reliable meal tickets' asses," I said. "And then what?"

"We'll bring you back east," Max said cheerfully. "The new government will need a, um, historian. Or something."

"And leave all this?" I asked. It was a joke, but only Larry got it.

There seemed to be nothing more to say, so I decided to take a stroll before I went to bed.

I was too distracted to hunt and too restless to sit, so I strolled west on Sunset. At that hour everyone is barricaded in their places with no lights showing. The street was dark and silent, just the way I like it. I moved softly in the shadows, toward a large shadow leaning against a building ahead of me. A smaller shadow darted away farther up the block. I reached for my gun and kept my hand on it even after I'd seen it was Abilene. "Evenin'," I said softly.

"Nice night," he said, not moving.

"It's cold."

"I could put my arms around you," he offered.

I laughed. "Abilene, I don't trust you any farther than I could throw you." I turned up my ti-tandex jacket collar. "But thanks for the thought." I turned to go.

"You know the Bush family is making a run for it through LA to the coast, don't you, Nellie?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yes. We are unlucky."

"You could just let them go," he said.

I laughed again. "As if I could stop them, Abi, I'm only human."

"Your brother is here."

"Family visit," I said, my hand tensing on my gun. "He came to see me because he misses me. Like you did."

It was his turn to laugh. "Yes, ma'am, but I don't want to be your brother, if you know what I mean, and I think you do!" He strolled off, chuckling.

I stood in the sheltering shadow a little longer mulling over our exchange and could only come to one conclusion: Men. They're weird.

But my head was clearer and I felt