Jack Yeovil - Route 666

When remodelling was complete, Andromeda would be a better machine than Olympia. There was static between the cyberwomen. Now, Olympia could best Andromeda at any contest of skill or strength; but Andromeda's mentality eventually would prevail. Her graymass was closer to the cybermind than Olympia's part-silicon brain. Trained from infancy to treat meat as if it were durium, she was programmed as a Gold Medal winner.

Andromeda looked up at Canyon de Chelly.

"It is very beautiful," she said. "In this light, almost magical."

"Tchah," Olympia spat. "You have too much meat in you, madame. Sentimental juices squirt from your heart, poisoning your mind …"

Olympia's heart had been her first replacement. A necessity; the meat organ was defective at birth. That had taught her not to trust nature, and put faith in the machine.

"Meat is weak," she told Andromeda. "That damfool pilgrim this afternoon. He was pure meat. Look how he burst when squashed. Like a bug."

Olympia was being unkind.

"I would wager your warranty does not cover the treatment you gave that Josephite," Franken told her. "If Pinocchiocchio drove the bus over your chest, your components would fail as surely as the meat of that poor, strange man."

Franken was perturbed by the way the Josephite had accepted his death. As if he were certain of a future.

"My cybermind is of a better quality, Franken. I would not find myself in such a situation. He died for no reason."

Olympia had not acted dispassionately. In killing the man, she had demonstrated something about herself.

"Your brain is still graymass, still mostly meatmind."

"An information storage unit," she said, tapping her skull. "And a reasoning function. Few human brains have reasoning functions. That is why they are obsolete."

"Why did that man defy us?" Andromeda asked. She disapproved of Olympia's treatment of the Josephites. Only interested in the road ahead, she saw no point in the cruelty. Meatfolks were left behind; to Andromeda, that was harsh enough.

Olympia shrugged.

"The rational thing was to pay the toll," Andromeda reasoned. "If they had paid, they would not have died. Why did they not follow that course?"

"Their experience was misleading," Franken explained. "They believed us a common gangcult. The Maniax would have taken tithe and still killed several or all of them."

"We were frustrated in our purpose," Andromeda said, trying to follow the reasoning. "We set out to achieve money by extortion, money we need to pursue our own aims, but gained nothing from the exchange. In a logical sense, we lost."

"We put meat in the ground," Olympia snapped. "Do not underestimate that."

"Frankly, I am still perplexed."

"Catch up, meatdoll."

Andromeda assumed a posture indicating emotional hurt.

Olympia did a triumphant pirouette. Kochineel might be sighing, Franken calculated.

"Metal must always master meat," Olympia said, quoting the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots' slogan.

Andromeda said nothing but her hand flexed. Metal might always master meat, Franken mused, but perhaps marble would outlast metal. Nothing was settled.

He had been at the wheel of the Edsel since midday services. Perhaps six hours, with the joyous voices of the Brethren coming over the CB joined in song. Like all Josephites, W. Bond Wiggs abjured godless radio stations. Those that pretended to be religious were worst of all, polluting airwaves with so-called Christian Heavy Metal, ceaselessly soliciting donations. The Elect had no need of Golden Oldies or Soviet Sounds when they had hymns and a limited band communion.

"Follow the fold, and stra-aaa-ay no more.. ."

Elder Seth sat beside him, mouth set in a straight line. Another man in mirrorshades might be thought asleep, lulled by the lilting chorus, but Brother Wiggs knew the elder was eternally vigilant. No sin escaped his eye.

After the drive, the flat plastic flask strapped to Wiggs's inner thigh was full and sloshing. Since his voluntary amendment, he ceased to notice the needs of his urino-genital arrangement. Many long-haul drivers without his special consideration adopted such contrivaptions to cut down on pit-stops.

When the Inner Council of the Brethren of Joseph gathered to plan the first convoy of resettlement, none had foreseen that the demands of nearly a hundred bladders would require more stoppages than equipment failure or skirmishes with

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The Brethren worked like a Marine platoon, fixing up lean-tos and shelters. Brother Bailie, who had seen combat in Mexico and the Central American Confederation, posted look-outs and inspected facilities. There was already a line by the rest rooms. Sisters held the hands of antsy children. More than a few youngers had had "accidents", a backsliding against Christian Continence sure to earn many a chastisement.

He walked away from the Edsel towards the skeleton screen. It had to be a 100 feet long and 50 high. Sinful harlots would have filled the view, vast close-up lips swallowing an entire audience at a gulp. Twenty yards from the scaffolding, asphalt gave out to dunes. A low wall was overwhelmed by the sand. Wiggs put his foot up on the wall, pleasurably popping his cramped thigh, and hitched his black pantsleg to the knee. The outflow tube was taped down his leg to his ankle, where a plastic spigot faucet tied off the system.

Wiggs turned the faucet and emptied a day's water into the sand. He felt not so much as a twinge from what wasn't there. Before the amendment, he had worried about stories he had heard of amputees with phantom pains in missing limbs. He had no such experiences. He hadn't put on weight, his voice hadn't climbed an octave and the fire hadn't gone out of his faith; he just didn't feel like being a sinner any more. He had found salvation in the Brethren of Joseph.

A nearby wall, covered in pasted-over and torn-away posters for long-gone coming attractions, was a collage of faces, breasts and legs. Wiggs recognised godless harlots of the silver screen and video machine.

Before his amendment, Wiggs had held a special place in his lustful, sinful heart for Traci Lords. There were disembodied segments of Traci on the wall. And Sharon Stone's libidinous eyes, Geena Davis's mile-long limbs, Meryl Streep's welcoming mouth, Voluptua Whoopee's pillow chest. They did not call to him now.

He turned his back on sin and walked back to the ve-hickles, righteous pride rising. Tonight, if called, he would testify. He must abjure his former ways in public.

Carnal excess had been his abiding drive. Through adulterous fornication, he had lost two wives and three children. Directed by the white throb of his urges, his body was consumed by lust. No woman was safe with him. He would lie, wheedle, cheat, cajole and coerce. Nothing was too low if it enticed some godless hagwitch into his bed or automobile and loosed her from her drawers.

He shook his head with sorrow. Sister Maureen smiled at him and, mercifully, he felt no desire to fall upon her.

As a young man, he had been promising. In Macon County, Georgia, where his Daddy was Sheriff, he had been a Deputy in the early '60s. Law enforcement offered opportunities for sin. Solitary female motorists were persuaded to give of their favours to avoid speeding tickets. The wives and daughters of men he locked in the hoosegow would often yield up virtue in the hope of expediting the release of loved ones. Best of all, many was the loose woman who found herself in an overnight cell when W. Bond Wiggs was sole turnkey and custodian. There was a separate section, round the back, for coloured prisoners. Many a night Deputy W. B. Wiggs would saunter there with a jug of cone liquor, and cut out some little ole gal for a taste of dark meat. He had cleaved to sinning as a fly to sticky paper and tasted the bitter gall of self-degradation.