Clarrence Darrow eventually moves west to help the labor rebellion, stealing plans from his bosses at the railroad companies to help them out.

Clattering clockwork steampunk mechanical American West labor rebellion. Steam and clockwork technology is not in the hands of the everyday person. This is the equivalent to the stealth bomber. The industrial revolution has hit, but we haven’t yet entered into a world where there aren’t still yeoman farmers the farther west you go.

America in the late 19th century, regardless of what you’ve heard or seen in movies, was an absolute shithole. The cities were dirty, and the politics dirtier. Tammany Hall, the election of 1876, the Free Silver movement. William. Jennings. Bryan. I totally need to re-write the ‘Cross of Gold’ speech to reflect steam and clockwork…

Have you ever heard that shitty seventies song, ‘Black Betty’? It was by Ram Jam, and it goes something like ‘Whoa Black Betty, bam bam bam” over and over. I thought this song was about a woman when I first heard it. But it’s actually about the whip that they used in Texas prisons of the era, usually on African-American prisoners. One of the dirty secrets of the post-Reconstruction South is that black folk were rounded up on a regular basis for ‘crimes’ such as jaywalking. They were sent to prison work camps, and basically re-enslaved on this basis.

You here a lot of fringe left and right wing people (and not so fringe) talk about the Posse Commitatus Act, which prevents the government from using the military to act as a police force. But what people either don’t acknowledge or don’t know is that it was a response to having Federal troops in the South. The Federal troops that were protecting some of the early black schools from being destroyed by people like the Klu Klux Klan. The Posse Commitatus Act was a part of the informal deal worked out after the election of 1876 in which the Democratic candidate won, but a committee of thirteen Republicans and twelve Democrats ended up awarding the election to the Republican candidate (go figure). Rather than start up the Civil War again, the Republicans said, okay, let us have the Presidency, and we’ll pull the Federal troops out of the South. Southern Democrats, eager to begin beating down on black people, readily agreed.

As stupid as American politics is today, few people realize how utterly fucked people were in the late nineteenth century. I mean, the American census had specialized terms for people who were one-eighth African-American. (If you were, you were an octoroon.) On top of this, there was almost universal grinding poverty, and a spectacularly bloody labor struggle.

The people were already covered in muck. Lets just add a little more soot. A Steampunk America that uses so much coal that it has to start importing it from overseas…China, if I remember my Henry Adams, had a lot of coal. A world were China gets industrialized quicker… Or what would be the Chinese equivalent of an emirate? Dependant on foreign coal?

Hmmm…All just ideas right now. I’m going to have to go back to some good American labor history. And thank God I bought the Oxford Companion to American History, because I can’t remember all of this shit. At a certain point, even I want to just forget it.

He sat immobile, hidden in a crevice of the Lateran Palace. In the gathering twilight, he was absolutely invisible, but only as long as he didn’t move. He ignored cramping in his legs. In a few more hours, he would have to leap with these same legs. It would be grinding, painful… But the Angry Lefty knows no pain.

His black cape puled tight around him he ignores the growing cold. It is January, and even in Rome it can get cold.

It will be January for only a few more hours, but it will still be cold when it passes. But not as cold as his Angry Justice.

He sees his target. Just as his informant told him, he is staying the night while overseeing restoration work.

And his informant has also left the window open.

It is dark enough. Suddenly, the Angry Lefty explodes into action, leaping from the hiding spot, dropping from roof to Basilica, grabbing the super thin, almost invisible wire that he had put in place the night before. Grabbing a tool from his utility belt (the design of which Che Gueverra gave him in a dream…the same dream where he had known the incomparable pleasures of Emma Goldman) he rode the wire through the open window, landing on the bed where his target had just settled down for sleep. He slapped a hand over his target’s mouth before he could shout for help.

“Gutentag, Herr Papst.”

The Pope’s eyes widened as they recognized his assailant. He knew the game was up.

The Angry Lefty had spent a lifetime researching it. Why was it that every year, the people were forced to pay rents by the month, when the month of February had only 28 days. Every year, the people suffered.

After years of research in dusty libraries, including a break-in to the sub-sub-basement of the Vatican Library, where every book of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was kept, he finally discovered the truth: The Caesaro-Papist conspiracy. Julius Caesar had invented the modern calendar, using it to yearly cheat the plebeians he claimed to support. A thousand years later, Pope Gregory refined this tool of class oppression into it’s current form. This was how the Roman Empire, and later the Vatican, had built up their vast wealth. The Pope owned a lot of land.

When the Angry Lefty discovered the new Pope was planning a further reform of the calendar, he knew he could not let it past. The Benedictine Calendar could just very well cause the historical dialectic to grind to a halt.

“You will nicht hurt me, Herr Linke. Nein. You are no killer.”

“You’re right, you bastard. But I can’t let you carry through your plans. The proletariat couldn’t survive it. So I’ll leave you with my comrade here.”

In came a man dressed head to foot in crimson clothes, with a red cape about his shoulders, a blood splashed Zorro of the Douglas Fairbanks school, a great smile on his face.

“Ciao, Papa.”

“Nein…Nein!!!”

The Angry Lefty washed off his hands and walked toward the window where he would make his escape. “Yes, I believe you already know my friend, the Red Brigadier.”

This particular scientist is doing lab work on Resident W. Resident W was also a scientist, but decided that he’d figured out the real trick wasn’t to be bitten by a zombie and turn into a brainless automoton. Oh no, he was pro-active. He theorized that eating a zombie was as pro-active as you could get. And by theorize, I mean that his brain went bad through a combination of dealing with zombies all day and staring at desolate tundra on his days off.

Our scientist-our HERO scientist-is studying this madman, because he turns out to have been right. He’s mutated into a creature with skin like charred marshmellow, black with white pus oozing out of it. But he’s also super-strong, and not mindless. Just utterly mad. And out HERO scientist is engaged in a contest of wills, trying to figure out how to deal with this ugly bastard. His bosses want him to figure out what it is and bottle it, but oh, please, could you skip the madness bit?

The lady in charge of security at the facility is the daughter of some old friends of the HERO scientist. He meets with them, and though they don’t know exactly what the facility is up to, they do know that their daughter and their old friend work together, and that she doesn’t really like our HERO scientist, but they don’t know why. Talking with them, our HERO scientist also admits he doesn’t know either.

The security chief is at the cafeteria (even ultra-secret government research facilities that study zombies have cafeterias), and is discussing the difference between guilt-culture and shame-culture with a collegue. Shame culture is pre-Christian, and is best demonstrated by Oedipus. He was ‘innocent’ in the sense he couldn’t have known that he was killing his father (who was demonstrably a massive bastard) or marrying his mother, but he still commited those acts. The acts themselves were the important thing, not his state of relative innocence, or feelings of remorse. In post-Christian society, remorse and intent become important features of determining responsibility. The way in which the subject views his relation to the object acted upon becomes more important. Hence we se Oedipus as somewhat alien. He couldn’t have known, so it makes no sense to us as to why he felt he must be punished for commiting a crime he was incapable of realizing he was commiting.

Meanwhile Resident W is huddled in a corner of his cell, and realizing that he can make contact with the mindless zombies being studied in the lab. He can see through their eyes. He can hear what they hear. He doens’t know how it really works, so he’s just experimenting, and smiling. He is happy, oh yes, he is very happy. And waiting. When HERO scientist shows up, he asks Resident W what he’s smiling about. “I’m having such wonderful dreams.”

HERO scientist and security chief run into each other. He confronts her about her dislike of him. Points out he’s an old family friend, and that they’ve known each other since she was a little girl. She lets him know that as the security chief, she was given the background information on all of the people working on the base. He visibly reacts to this. “Yeah, I know all about you and little girls. I know they made sure that you didn’t have to face prosecution because they needed you for this project.”

“That was ten years ago. I went ot counseling for five years. You’re head of security. You’d know if I was looking for this stuff on the Internet, and it’s not like I take a vacation from this fucking place.”

“Yeah. HERO scientist. Overcomes his addictions and works really hard on research to make up for it. Except you don’t take vacations because you love doing this. More-how much I don’t know-than you like child pornography.”

“Jesus Christ. Look. What do you want me to do?”

“What is there you could do? I found out about this, it ruined a part of my fucking childhood. Every memory of my fun ‘Uncle’, every time my parents left me alone with you, it feels like a fucking violation.”

“It’s not like…I never…acted out..I know all this shit is…was wrong. I never. Not you, not anyone, I swear to God.”

“Lovely. You never actually raped children. You just masturbated to photographs of horribly abused children. You truly are a HERO scientist.”

She walks away, leaving him with this.

MEANWHILE…

Resident W manages to break out, co-ordinating the other zombies, controlling all of the ones that had been created by the one that he ate. The others are unaffected. There is a loss of power as the virus (or whatever, will add Science Words later) is diluted across generations. (Also, mindless zombies don’t eat each other. Why? I have no idea. But it seems Important.) So with a small brigade of minions, he breaks out and starts marching across the tundra toward the nearest city.

Security chief is scrambling to deal with all of this. She manages to get some sort of strike force together, but probably won’t be able to deal with small army of zombies and Resident W, who is of course super strong, impervious to damage, etc. blah blah.

(This is the weakest point, because we have to believe that the government can’t deal with a few dozen zombies and some sort of revenant. Then again, after Katrina and Iraq, maybe it is believable. Still, probably needs some fleshing out. Just like all the other gaping plot holes.)

They realize that he’s going to get to a city, and they won’t have time to stop them before they start infecting people, and so Plan B is readied: Just nuke the whole city. It’s pretty much their only option.

UNTIL…

They realize the HERO scientist is setting out overland to intercept Resident W. And he’s eaten the flesh of one of the late generation zombies. He’s not as powerful as Resident W, but he’s also hoping whatever it is working away at his body will give him a window of sanity to deal with the bastard long enough for the security strike team to deal with Resident W without nuking a city.

(Yes. GAPING PLOT HOLES AHEAD. Do not fall in.)

HERO scientist manages to defeat/delay, in a stunning and brilliantly laid out fight sequence (Bam! Pow! Whack!), and the security force gets to him. He tells the security chief that he realizes that she can’t get her childhood back, and that it is his fault. “I did this because I did that. This is my accepting responsibility for what I did.” He looks away from here. “Now get rid of me. I’m a monster, and we know what happens at the end of the movie.” She nods, and takes out a gun, and shoots him.

FIN

Alternative teaser ending: HERO scientist wakes up in a cell in a different lab. His skin has turned blackened charcoal, like Resident W. Turns out he’s retained his sanity, but otherwise completed the transformation. Which makes the government very happy, because they think, perfect, we found the right dose of zombie flesh to make super soldier zombies that still have brains, not just an appetite for braaaiinzzzz. He is HERO scientist no longer. He is now ZOMBIE SCIENTIST, at odds with the government he once worked for, which I think deserves an ongoing series. Or not.

Puglisi wasn’t a small man. He stood a good foot taller than Norm Green, Councilman of the city of St. Aquinas. He also had a good hundred pounds on him. He seemed even bigger at the moment, since Norm was sitting at his desk, apparently not having forgotten that he was a small man. He looked as though he was well aware of this fact, and also well aware of the fact that Puglisi was a very big man. But he did not look as though this fact impressed him.

“Lets start over here. What seems to be the problem?”

Puglisi glowered. “You’re supposed to be laundering our money through the public works projects, not skimming off the top for yourself. It’s unwanted attention that puts our investment in danger. We don’t like tricky investments. It gets tricky, we look for a different investment.”

“Look, I don’t know if you realize this, but I don’t really need your money to run a re-election campaign. I’m stepping down and taking over the Public Works. Just another bureaucrat, Puglisi. A poor public servant.” He grinned.”

“The Mayor can fire you…”

“The Mayor can’t shit without me telling him to.”

“So we find a different Mayor.”

Norm laughed, exceptionally hard. “No, I don’t think so. Because if you run someone against me, I’ll out him for being in your pocket. No one can trace anything to me. I laundered your money, and I made sure to launder the money that came to me. So…yeah. Good luck with that.”

Puglisi started to get red. “You’re turning into a big fish, huh? You’re a big fish in one of the smallest fucking ponds in the Midwest, Norm. And I think it’s time you remember that.” He started rolling up his sleeves.

“Oh, you’re going to steal my lunch money?”

Puglisi moved forward, leaning over the desk, forearms bulging. “Listen, cocksucker, you better call your spokesperson and tell them to let everyone know you were in a car wreck, because I’m going to…”

Puglisi vaguely registered the loud report of the pistol, then ceased all awareness. He fell to the ground, dead, bullet hole small in his forehead, yawning cavity out the back of his skull.

Norm, still sitting at his desk, calmly clutching the gun, looked at the two goons standing at the door who had come with Puglisi. They’d had no time to react, and now the man they were supposed to protect was dead.

“Anyone care to finish that little speech he was making?”

The two looked at each other, shrugged, and shook their heads.

“Good. I was hoping you’d be smart.” He leaned back, relaxing a bit, but still held the small pistol he’d pulled from his jacked. “I am a small man. And this is a small city. I have no illusions about being a big fish.” He looked out his window at the skyline of St. Aquinas.

“A man should be happy with things that suite his stature. And I’ll be happy having this city in my back pocket.”

“Yup. I decided that if I’m gonna get into historical re-creation as a hobby, I shouldn’t mess around. No expense spared. It was even kind of fun, since I had to forge a couple of things by hand. There just wasn’t any other way.”

“So it really runs on gasoline?”

“Yeah. I had to build my own mini-refinery. The permits were a pain in the ass, and I thought Cindy was going to divorce me, but…syntheline just isn’t period, you know?”

Krawk decided he was in a city. The large buildings would seem to indicate that, but mostly it was the clever idea. People in the cities were always clever, and always had solutions to every problem. Krawk remembered how he had always hated using his family’s outhouse in the winter. When he first came to the city, he was amazed at the simple, elegant solution the city people had come up with: Crap in a bucket in the comfort of your own bedroom, and then toss it out the window. The only time you were cold was when you opened the window. Brilliant!

Krawk then noticed that many people we’re waiting in the bazaar, milling about, buzzing, excited. Many were dressed in fine clothes, wondrous robes from far-off lands, bracelets, rings, necklaces. The ministers of office had great staffs of oak inlaid with ivory and silver; it was an impressive display.

“What is going on?” inquired Krawk, wondering what he had missed in the weeks he had been insensibly drunk.

“Oh, the barbarians are coming today!” said the young man he spoke to. “It’s quite exciting, you know! It’s been dreadful boring, and well, you know, no one can really come up with anything to entertain us. The playwrights, the poets, the singers, they can’t seem to come up with any satisfying songs or plays or what-not.”

Krawk grinned at the small city man, admiring his spirit. “Ah, so you look forward to battling your foes as a great entertainment! You city folk have greater bravery than I expected!”

The young man laughed gently and smiled. “Oh, there won’t be a battle. We’re quite terrible at it, really. We expect to be slaughtered. It will be terribly exciting!”

“Then why is your ruler, and folk of high office, why are they all here today? Those men are in armor, surely they intend to fight!”

“Oh no. Our only hope of surviving is to impress the barbarians with our great wealth and grandeur. It won’t work in the end, eventually they won’t be impressed, and they’ll just destroy us. But it will be oodles of fun the longer we can make it last, eh what?”

Krawk shook his head. “By Thok the Triple-Headed God of Thoraht, young boy! Have more spirit than that! Haven’t you any arenas?”

“Arena? No, what is that?”

“Take someplace where everyone has a good view, like your theater’s, but instead of a stage, dig a pit. Throw in a wild animal, and then some man, and watch them kill each other! Give prizes to the man if he wins, to give him incentive.”

“My god–that would be splendid! So many different animals, too–We’d keep ourselves entertained for years.”

Krawk smiled his wide, stupid grin. “See, little man! You do not have to fear boredom!”

“Yes, yes–but what of the barbarians? What will we do? We have something to live for now, something truly grand–but we cannot hope to fight them!”

By this time, many men were listening to Krawk, including the ruler of the city, an immense frog of a man who was resting on a great chair nearby. They all looked at him expectantly. Aha! thought Krawk. I will learn who is threatening the city, and if I think I can handle them, I will offer to lead them in battle! I will become a great general of the city, and earn much coin, wine, and slave women to pleasure me!

“Who is it that is attacking you,” inquired Krawk, “and what are their numbers.”

The ruler of the city spoke. “We are expecting a great barbarian horde. The Goblin King promised that he would send against us the foulest, most despicable folk against us, to smite us for–what is wrong with you, why have you gone so pale, my fellow?”

Images rushed back to Krawk. Words that he wished he didn’t remember came back as well.

“Ah, there will be no barbarians. They won’t be coming. No problems, you have your arenas, and I’ll just be going now–”

Many eyes narrowed. They were all looking at Krawk, and his furs, and his crude barbarian boots. And especially the ring he was wearing. The ring that had the seal of the Goblin King.

“Take him,” said the ruler, making a delicate gesture with his tiny hand. The guards rushed forward, grabbing Krawk.

“Take him to the theater-–Err, arena. Find a couple of lions. My people, a new day has dawned! We Shall Be Entertained!”

A great cheer went up.

The young man, happy for his people, for his city, smiled, and asked, as if to himself, “What would have become of us, I wonder, without the barbarian? That man provided such a nice resolution!”

He thought it might be the way that those among them that had pets felt, getting similar animals. Sometimes there were weird moments of familiarity and deja vu, but he realized that was probably just coincidence. Centuries of experience had taught him that coincidence came easier with age, simply as a matter of statistical probability. But he could see why some of them believed in reincarnation.

Jack had met her in the BookHaus. He’d been glancing through a dictionary of hypothetical Indo-European words and grammar. (It seemed mostly correct, thought some words were just wildly off. But not a bad effort, from what he could remember of those early days when the men in the wheeled carts had first swept into his people’s lands.) She was sorting throught the new arrivals, a book junkie for sure. She’d spotted what he was looking at, and he could she was tell she was waiting for him to put it down so she could get a look at it.

He smiled and handed it to her.

They’d started talking. She was on a buying spree, looking for new books that she didn’t have time to read but wanted to buy anyway. Onto her shelves they went, taking up room that might have gone for a stereo or TV in most people’s flats. It wasn’t a very big one, either, just a converted den in a big room, with a little bathroom in one corner, and a kitchenette in the other. But it had a huge fireplace, and the mantle was stacked with books, which was why she rented the place, paying maybe a little too much. It was a really great fire place.

They’d talked a long time about books. He’d read a lot of them over the years, and since he didn’t sleep, he had lots of time on his hands when he was around them as they hibernated every night to regenerate their bodies and spirits. It still creeped him out a little, and no matter how angry, confused, or dissapointed his lovers had been, he’d simply refused to lay in bed with them through the night. Some had thought he was a drug addict, and many had figured out he wasn’t human, though he denied it to all but a very small few.

He admitted it to her earlier than any of the rest. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d felt confident that she’d understand. She was the kind of girl that accepted things easily. Sure, my new boyfriend is from Faerieland. Why not? At first she probably thought it was some sort of idiosyncratic joke. But after he took her on a walk, out in the wooded park near Minnetonka, and took her part way into his homeland, he believed her.

She didn’t see anything. It was frowned upon to bring humans home. Some of the Elder ones thought it was rude, the way a human wouldn’t bring a monkey home to fling poo everywhere.

But it slipped her into the weird time slip that all of Faerie lived in, but nobody understood. Time passed so quickly, a half hour walk taking up a whole weekend camping trip, that she believed him for sure after that.

She handled it well, asking a couple of snarky questions about gnomes, hobbits, and dragons, which he’d answered to the best of his ability. (“Snotty little pricks who charge too much for their work”, “No, only that ultra-conservative freak could’ve imagined a race of tiny, idealized British peasantry”, and “Well, you have nuclear weapons. We had our own ugly little cold war.”)

Sara was the only one he left.

The others, he’d stayed with them for a long time. He’d pretended to age, altering the Glamour he wore among them to get wrinkles, gray about the temples, and generally look as if it was slowly shuttling off the mortal coil.

None of them had ever seen him. He didn’t feel bad about it (well, maybe a little), since he probably would’ve looked kind of repulsive to them. Maybe not; his kind looked *kind* of like humans, but there was just something subtly different. An ear a little too long, a finger that moved in a way a human joint just couldn’t quite have done.

When the ones in their wheeled carts came, they’d shown their true selves, and that hadn’t gone well. There’d been blood and magic. It was the first time the strange new creatures had asserted themselves. The rest had just run away. Since then, Jack kept the Glamour on when he went Out.

Jack had lived a lot of lives with humans. He’d been a warrior chief, a peasant (work was as easy as setting his Glamour on what he had recently come to think of as ‘Auto-Pilot’), a daring explorer (there were places in Out that were a mystery to both Faerie and human), and once even a king. And he was always the best at what he did, always excelling at the things the humans valued so much that his kind didn’t care that much about.

He’d been telling her about all the things he’d done in his past ‘lives’, things that usually impressed the women he was with. He’d already impressed her with the number of books he’d read; he got the impression that was the only thing she really envied him. Because all the other exploits didn’t seem to impress her.

In fact, as he spoke, her forehead got tighter and tighter, and she was frowning. Frowning! He told outrageous story after outrageous story, telling her about some of the famous humans he’d bounced around and goofed on. (He’d always thought that whispering questions while invisible to that mason was one of his best pranks.)

“How long have you been alive?” she asked. She was glaring at him.

“Umm…I don’t know. We don’t really deal with time very well. Bouncing back and forth, you know, between Faerie and Out. It’s not like we age, so it isn’t like we notice…well, we do age…I guess. I mean, there are the Elder ones. They’re *old*, so I guess that makes me, you know, young.”

“Okay, well, how about this? How long have you been around humans? As a fraction of your lifespan, so far as you can remember?”

“Not that long. I mean, that’s what I love about being Out. It’s still all so new, and changing all the time.”

They’d been together for a year or so. He’d been crashing at her place, but she knew he had his own place. His real Home. She was a nice person, and no matter how angry she was, she wouldn’t actually turn someone out onto the street. So she started gathering up his clothes and things and packing them into a bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I want you out. Out of my life. Out of my flat.” She looked at him, calm but angry. “Preferably, out of Out. Go back. Leave us alone.”

“But…Why? I don’t get it.”

“You’re a daytripper. You’re a tourist. You’re so used to being the exotic and different one, and everyone here loves you because you’re magical and foreign. I loved you because you’re you, though.”

“Look, I love you, too…”

“No.” A little angry tear formed in her right eye. “You love novelty. You love excitement. You make love to me, it’s just like a guy getting excited about new car smell. You didn’t realize it worked both ways. I’m exotic to you. You just like a woman who speaks a foreign language. A weird piece of ass. Well, I’m not a souveneir or Authentic Experience for you to have.”

She shoved the last of his things into the bag and shoved it into his hands. “I don’t even know what you look like. You probably think you’re making things easier for both of us. But you’re really just looking to enjoy the local flavor without getting charged the tourist price.”

He briefly thought about throwing the Glamour aside, showing himself, but thousands of years of habit stopped him.

She looked him in the eye. “Fuck you, Yankee. Go home.”

Jack left his things floating in the arms of his fading Glamour, until they fell to the ground when the magic no longer had enough power to keep them up. He had fled almost immediately.

Sara cried, then, for the love she’d gave.

Jack cried for the love he realized he’d never given.

He tried telling this to his friends when they’d played cowboys and indians. They’d ask, where’s Bombay? And he’d have to answer, well, actually it was called Mumbai now. And it was in India. They’d heard of India, so they’d ask why he wanted to be the Bombay Kid? Well, he said, that’s where I was born. So, you’re an indian. Yeah, sure. Well, you can’t be the Bombay Kid. That’s a cowboy name. You’re an indian.

He’d been very young, and never thought to question it. It wasn’t like he knew anything about India, anything that your typical American teen would know. Of course he knew about Bollywood, and listened to the Indian pop music–it was all over the radio, so it wasn’t like he could avoid it even if he’d tried. He preferred the Hong Kong film industry, though. Both were better than any American films out of Hollywood, which turned out craptastic films for brain-dead religous zealots who wouldn’t let their children watch anything other than good family-centric films that reinforced ‘American’ values. American in the old sense, not the modern understanding of the word. What everyone called ‘North American’, though the Canadians hated being caught up in the term.

So it wasn’t really any surprise that he’d ended up running a tourist trap cowboy town for Pacific Rim tourists, and also trying to catch some of the Canadian tourist trade. Sometimes he even got some Euro-zone folks, who’d decided to see the ‘unspoiled wilderness’ of the Pacific Northwest. The wilderness in Eastern Siberia was unspoiled, but the government wasn’t the most tourist friendly you could find. Americans had a reputation for being backward assholes, but as a rule they wouldn’t through you into recycled gulags if they thought they could squeeze you for a few extra Euros. Americans did it the honest, old-fashioned way. They pestered the shit out of you until you bought their stupid cheap crap. And besides, it usually was a bargain.

He’d figured out, eventually, that he was a different sort of Indian. His father had been a mid-level executive for Arcelor Mittal, and had left a nice trust-fund for his son. His son grew up in America, in the city of Seattle, because it was a place where the money could go a little farther, but wasn’t a total backwater like most smaller American cities. New York, of course, was an exception–it was almost like Europe, and it had a cost of living to match. It was practically independant these days, like a lot of the U.S. It still sent it’s representatives to Washington, but more and more it held sway over its little region.

Seattle was a little like that, but much smaller. The eastern have of the state tended to complain about the way the people who lived around the Sound controlled their lives, and every few years would make noises about creating their own state (as they had even before the general decline and falling apart of the U.S.), but whenever someone did the math, they realized that even though they did indeed supply a lot of food to the Sound, and a lot of the energy, through dams and wind stations, they realized that they got a lot more money from the state government than they paid it in taxes. And then they just went back to grumbling.

Krishna had got the idea of a Western town from two places. One was Leavenworth, a ‘Bavarian’ town in Washington. It had jumped on the tourist bandwagon years ago, back when it was still mostly American tourists powering the industry. The second source had been a Western City he saw when he was travelling in Europe the year after he graduated from the University of Washington. It had been smack in the middle of the Czech countryside, a whole little town. The man who’d started it had been not unlike Krishna. When he was young, he’d loved cowboys and indians, watching the adventures of Karl Mays’ Apache Knight, Vinnetou. And he’d decided that was how he wanted to live his life, like those movies.

The more Krishna thought about it, the more confident he felt. He could find a small town willing to cater to tourism, with no industry or source of income (easily, because after all that was almost every town in America, except for a lucky few). The Bombay Kid would finally get his chance to ride.

He started in a small town that already had its foot in the tourism door, catering to the wilderness seekers, with rafting guides, and nature walks. Lots of bed and breakfast places, little hostels and hotels, craft stores. He decided to get himself established in town with an internet cafe. They were far enough out in the middle of the Cascades that they were effectively cut off from the ubiquitous wireless signals you could find in Seattle. So he bought some old computers, figuring that he’d catch enough wilderness seekers who’d idealistically set off without their notebooks, but would be suffering from social networking withdrawal. With a little kitchen in back, a little bookstore, and a couple of baristas working part-time, he soon had a solid little business to get himself introduced to the locals, to show that he wasn’t some crazed nut come to steal their money. No, he was a businessman, and he had a vision. The Bombay Kid had come to town, and he was going to clean the place up.

The old man looked at him. They were sitting in a small wooden building in the Nevada Desert. “I’ll be frank, boy. Your writing is terrible. But your ideas, well…they’re first class. That’s what we’re looking for at this organization.”

Hand wasn’t happy to hear this. “Look, I don’t want to be an idea pimp, I want to write. I know I’m not the best writer, but it’s just sci-fi, we’re not talking literature here.”

“Oh, but we are talking literature, boy. Myth, in fact. And a very important myth. You know all about this business with us trying to keep ahead of the Ruskies, what with them having the bomb? Well, you’re about to help us with a much more vital part of the campaign.”

The old man stood up, and walked to a closet. Opening the door, Hand saw an elevator. “Come with me boy, and let me tell you about the Fiction War. About the UFO tech the Ruskies have. And the UFO tech we have to make them think we have.”

After going down the elevator, the old man (who told Hand to just call him ‘Chief’) opened the door, and they stepped out into a big cavern, which had a flying saucer in the middle, complete with aliens coming in and out.

“Sweet Lord! Are those…?”

The Chief chuckled. “No, no. This is just here for the Ruskies. Let em’ think this is what we’re working with. Let’s go to the real secret.”

As they were walking along, the went through a room that was obviously a break room. Only one man was there, with a brown uniform, a small mustache, and a bad haircut. Hand said, “Please tell me that Adolf Hitler is not making coffee.”

The Chief shook his head. “No, no. That’s Ernie. He’s here to make anyone who sees this seem crazy. He dresses like Hitler, and anyone who comes out telling the world that there’s a flying saucer and Hitler making coffee—well, who’s going to believe that?”

“But don’t you want the Russians to think we have..”

“Sure, the Russians. Our people, no. They’d freak. Bad for the economy, right?”

Adolf-No, Ernie, Hand reminded himself-handed a cup of coffee to the Chief, and said with an accent that was pure Nebraska, “Here you go, Chief—black, no sugar.”

“Thanks, Ernie. Get one for Hand here. Sugar and cream?”

“No, no thanks, I like it black, too.”

“Good, good. You’ll fit in well here, Hand.” He made himself comfortable on a sofa, while Hand sat on a chair while Ernie handed him a cup.

“Alright Hand. This is how it goes. We realized after the war that the Krauts had been feeding us bunk about ‘foo-fighters’ and the like to try to scare us. We thought it was a good idea, so we tried to scare the Ruskies into thinking that we got our hands on some foo-fighters, just like we did von Braun. Truth was, we did. Got us some good fiction-warriors from the Krauts. But of course nothing real. Jesus, the Krauts couldn’t barely get the V2 to hit London, and they were supposed to have advanced technology? Heh.”

The Chief took a sip. “Then we realized that a real flying saucer had crashed in Russia.”

“But many of us feel that the capitol should be in Virginia. It’s the center of our country, after all.”

“No. No, no, no. Not only does it make me sweat, that fucking bitch-monster wife of mine is down there at Mount Vernon. I want as far away as possible. I don’t want to hear her talking about how the money’s all hers. Of course it’s all hers, why else would I marry a woman who insists on owning her own sister? I’m staying in Philadelphia. Do what you want after that.”

“But we have the plans for this new city…we want to name it for you, sir.”

“Do you know what the Iroquois call me, you pathetic little bastard prick? ‘Town-Destroyer’. You build that city, I’ll call back up the army-they’ll come, too-and I’ll level it.”

Just then, the door flew open. A short, ugly old woman, carrying a whip in her muscular right arm walked in.

“Fuck,” said Washington. “My wife.”