Jack Yeovil - Route 666

Tyree nodded. After the pilgrim-flattening session, the killers' tires would be bloody enough to paint a trail for three counties The white strip down the middle of the road was a solid red.

"Thought so. Anyway, we see who's at the end of the trail. If we're lucky, we get to kick badguy ass before suppertime. If not, we ride through the night and head 'em off at sunup."

The Quince saluted. Tyree and Burnside returned the salutes, and pulled neckerchiefs up over their mouths and noses. They'd had all the infection lectures about handling suspect deadfolks. At an adjustment, the bandanas shrivelled onto their faces, functioning as filters.

"Remember, disease is your worst enemy," Quincannon said, "so check the seals on your gauntlets before you interfere with these former citizens Snap to it, men."

The girls were loitering around the Virtual Death Unlimited Arcade, a roof on stilts raised over a platoon of credit-machines. The games centre was attached to Arizona-Wonderworld, a failing mall out in the Painted Desert. In the stores, all goods were on massive discount. Jazzbeaux had glommed a pair of snazz boots on American Excess, a card she intended to pay off when Dracula got a suntan. She even found a stall specialising in ornamental prostheses and tried on a selection of eyepatches, none of which took her fancy.

Jazzbeaux, not Jessamyn Amanda Bonney. was Acting War Chief of the Psychopomps. Mostly girls, the Pomps favoured spike heels, fishnets; glam make-up, stormclood hairdos, Sove sounds, painted nail-implants, Kray-Zee pills and Kar-Tel Kustom Kars. Their turn-offs included lawnorder. school, soce workers, white picket fences. Ken Freakin Dodd. Mom's apple pie, Maniax and anyone over twenty.

She popped a cold can of Pivo, the new Czech beer currently benefiting from major marketing muscle. A mouthful was antidote to the subliminal brainwashing in the jingle. She squirted the vile stuff onto the ground and tossed the can in the air, drawing a killing bead on it with her finger as it arced towards asphalt.

There weren't many other customers kicking around. Solids stayed away from the sand. The mall was covered in dog-piss spray tags that marked the place as Maniak Territory. Since T-H-R took down the Western Maniax in a joint action with the United States Cavalry, the backbone of Ariz-Wonder's custom was kicking around the Reformation-Confinement Environments the newsies elaborately didn't call concentration camps. Without its status as a major Maniak drop, this place was headed for ghostville. Unless some new, hungry faction stepped in and took over the patronage.

Let's face it, girlie-girl, a power vacuum invites initiative. As Acting WC, it was her place to think ahead a month or two. Without the Grand Exalted Bullmoose and his Merry Marching Morons, Utah and Arizona – at least – were up for grabs. A nice piece of territory, and a chunk of change. She'd seen stats; it was a profitable patch, and someone had to provide the services the Maniax had been delivering. Some things might not exactly be legal, which meant corps had to filter products through street execs.

Andrew Jean, her trusted lieutenant, had opened talks with the Winter Corp and even the Mighty GenTech. If the corps had things (like drugs and guns and virtual porno) that solids wanted, why should feebs in government stand in the way? Wasn't the Prezz supposed to support Free Enterprise? The Psychopomps were notionally communist, if only because the reds had better uniforms and songs. It was better for all conce if alternative enterprise was handled by a gangcult with broadly commie principles rather than a rabidly capitalist krewe like the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Sweetcheeks, plump and adorable in leopard-print leggings and a monumental fakefur jacket, wiggled her butt as she zapped into a wraparound screen, her head insectile under the VR helm. She was playing Mambo Massacre, a game program combining dancersize and combat; kidstuff until Level Nineteen, when the player faced Fred and Ginger with chainsaws. Some of the others fooled with games but most just sat on out-of-order consoles and looked out at the sand. Varoomschka was triple-coating her nails with a hammer-and-sickle motif, working as meticulously as if she were putting the final touches to a Fabergé Easter egg.

So Long Suin's shower radio hung from the frame of one of the cars, tuned to Radio Moscow. Petya Tcherkassoff put his tormented soul into "The Girl in Gorki Park". Jazzbeaux was over her queensize crush on the Soviet musickie but still found it hard not to sway when she heard this song. It was about the singer's beautifully pale ex-lover; in the last verse, it turned out she was pale because she was dead. When Petya threw her over, she lay herself naked in the snow and willingly hypothermed. According to Moscow Beat magazine, the girl was based on a real person, Natalia Ludmila Someonova, but Jazzbeaux felt the song was just for her. She resented sharing it with the rest of creation.

Her life had not presented unlimited opportunities. She'd bought the gangcult package early and worked her way up from Shrimp to Acting WC. In her early teens, when Papa Bruno was alive and kicking, she did time as warehouse gladiatrix, racking enough brownie points to make her a chapter leaderine. She lost her left eye in a rumble with the Gaschuggers, and Ms Dazzle, her sponsor, personally paid Doc Threadneedle for the augmentation surgery. The Psycho-pomps were more a family to her than her late, lamented daddy and long-gone mama ever were. No 'Pomp had ever tried to sell her; well, not lately…

Jazzbeaux knew the ganggirl scene was stupo, but – hey? – what else did she have to do? She could read and type, so her basic education was taken care of. No way was she going out for indenture to a Japcorp; she didn't want to turn tricks for scuzz like her Daddy, thank you very much; and there weren't many other career opportunities for a fillette from the Denver NoGo in These Here United States, so she'd taken a vacation and was opting to hang out for the rest of her life.

She'd be seventeen in November. If she made it, maybe she'd take a look at her life-pattern and change it. Or not. Nichevo, as they said. It didn't matter, much. Everything was going to end one day. Probably soon. Five years from now, when the odometer ticked over all those zeroes, there'd be a big bang. Everybody said so.

She didn't pay tax but according to Andrew Jean her cut of last anno's yield put her on a salary par with a mid-level exec with an American multinat. If today's negotiations settled favourably, she'd be up there with a fast-track Japcorp software samurai. She wondered if any of the shoulderpad dolls who strode through offices on business soaps started out in gangcults. That wouldn't be for her; she'd never wear a suit.

Sometimes, they'd burn money. Literally. It became a drag to haul it around in paper or negotiable gems. When they couldn't jam the trunk shut, they'd scatter stuff for the sand-rats. The 'Pomps were wild like that.

Andrew Jean hunched over a Virtualsex Machine, cockatoo beehive dipping, pretending to interface. The game was hooked to other locations on the VDU chain; you could virtually rut with anonymes. This model was sneakily altered to function as a terminal for a one-time message. It was part of the II service. Word had been sent to the DAR that the 'Pomps could be reached in the Painted Desert and word had come back that the Daughters were agreeable to one-on-one negotiation.

Jazzbeaux was bored. Until the Daughters approved a site, she was hung up on this spot. The others kept their distance, as always when a negotiation was in the immediate offing. She understood. No one liked to be too close to someone who might shuffle. After, they'd cluster around like amorous octopi and throw her a party.