Allen Steele - Jericho Iteration

The Stadium Club had always been a bit snobbish for my taste, but given a choice between a maître d’ refusing to seat me for wearing blue jeans and watching a bunch of ERA androids manning a communications center, I would have taken a pompous headwaiter anytime. Still, the real obscenity wasn’t here but beyond the windows, out on the playing field beyond the deserted seat rows.

The diamond was gone, its canvas bases long since removed, even the pitcher’s mound taken away to another place. Beneath the harsh glare of the stadium lights, a dozen or more helicopters were parked on the field, their rotors and fuselages held down by guy lines while ground crews tinkered beneath their engine cowlings or dragged fat cables to their fuel ports. The giant electronic screens above the center field bleachers, which had once displayed the game score, player stats, and instant replays, were now showing cryptic alphanumeric codes designating flight assignments and mission departure times.

An Apache was lifting off from the first-base zone, rising straight up until it cleared the high walls of the stadium. A couple of jumpsuited pilots were emerging from the home-team dugout behind home plate. Several ground crewmen were sitting on top of the dugout, swilling soft drinks as they rested their butts on the red-painted pennants from World Series games. In the days before ERA had taken over the city, it was unspoken heresy even to step on top of any of those emblems, and only the gods themselves were permitted in the Cardinals’ locker room.

Now anyone could get an invitation to the dugouts. Closer to the Stadium Club windows, an Osprey’s twin rotors were still in motion as a small group of handcuffed civilian prisoners were led down its ramp by gun-toting guards and marched single file toward the visiting team dugout and whatever brand of hell awaited them in the holding pens beneath the stadium.

Blasphemy.

Busch Stadium had always been the pride of St. Louis, one of the city’s sacred places. Generations of baseball fans had watched the Cards win and lose in this ballpark, and even when the team had disastrous seasons, there had always been a certain sense of camaraderie. Now the stadium had been desecrated; even if ERA vacated the place tomorrow, its innocence would be forever lost.

The look on my face must have been obvious. Mullens, the funnyman of the Bob and Bob team, began to sing just above his breath as he stood behind me: “Let’s go out to the ball game … buy me hot dogs and beer … we’ll go up to the bleachers … get drunk as shit and beat up some queers …”

“Wrong town, jerkwad,” I murmured. “You must be thinking about New York.”

He grabbed my handcuffs and yanked them upward, threatening to dislocate my shoulders. My luck he would happen to be a Mets fan. I yelped in pain and pitched forward, nearly falling against the flight controller seated in front of me.

“Keep it up, pogey bait,” Mullens growled in my ear, “and we’ll be taking that ride sooner than you-”

“Corporal, is this the man we want to see?”

The new voice was calm and authoritative, its tone as casual as if the speaker had been asking about the time of day. Mullens suddenly relaxed his grip on the cuffs.

“That’s him, Colonel,” I heard a high-pitched voice say as I straightened up. “How’ya doing, Gerry?”

I looked around to see Paul Huygens standing beside me.

Great. Like I didn’t have enough problems already.

“Not too bad, Paul,” I replied. “Funny though … seems like every time I turn around, you’re here.”

Huygens’s grin became a thin smile. “I’ve been thinking much the same thing myself.”

I was about to ask exactly what he was doing in the Stadium Club in the middle of the night when Colonel George Barris stepped forward.

I had no trouble recognizing Barris. Everyone in the city had become acquainted with the commander of ERA forces in St. Louis, through newspaper photos and TV interviews: a middle-aged gentleman with thin gray hair and a mustache, so average looking that it was easier to imagine him pushing a lawnmower around a suburban backyard than wearing a khaki uniform with gold stars pinned to the epaulets.

John had met Barris once, a few months ago when he had written a critical piece about ERA misconduct in the city. “This guy may look like a bank clerk,” he had told me later, “but after a while you get the feeling that he’s seen Patton a few too many times. He’s a hard case, man …”

I would have to remember that.

“Mr. Rosen, I’m glad to meet you finally,” he said formally. “I’ve enjoyed reading your columns in the Inquirer, although I don’t necessarily agree with your opinions.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” I said. “I’d shake hands, but I seem to be having a little trouble using my arms lately.”

He nodded his head ever so slightly. “Corporal, please release Mr. Rosen,” he said, his eyes still fixed on me. “Then you and your partner may return to duty.”

I felt Mullens move behind me, and a moment later the cuffs were severed by a jackknife. I flexed my arms and scratched an itch on my nose that had been bothering me for the last fifteen minutes. “Muchas gracias, Corporal,” I said. “Thanks for offering me a lift home, but I think I’ll find my own way, okay?”

Bob and Bob glowered at me, then they saluted the colonel and sulked their way out of the operations center. I made a mental note to send them a nice fruit basket.

“Well, Colonel,” I said as I turned toward him, “I appreciate being shown around and all, but I think I’ll be going now, if you don’t mind.”

Barris crossed his arms, still watching me carefully. “No, no, I’m afraid I do mind, Mr. Rosen.” His voice was pleasant, but there was an edge beneath his erudite politeness. “My men have gone to considerable trouble to bring you here. I apologize for any rough treatment you may have experienced, but we still have a number of things to discuss before we let you go.”

“No one charged me with anything-” I began.

“No sir,” he went on, “but we certainly could if we wish. Theft of police evidence, for starters.” Barris looked over his shoulder at the balcony just above us. “Lieutenant Farrentino, if you’ll join us …?”

Surprise, surprise. All my friends had come down to the club to see me tonight.

I looked up as Mike Farrentino stepped out of the shadows. He leaned over the railing, a sullen smile spread across his lean face. “Hello, Gerry,” he said quietly. “I see you didn’t get a chance to change your pants after all.”

“Things got in the way, Mike,” I said. “Sorry about the bag, but y’know how things are.”

I assayed a sheepish shrug and a dopey grin as the three men stared at me. I wondered if it wasn’t too late to catch up with Bob and Bob and see if that offer of a ride home was still valid.

“You’re not being charged with anything,” Barris said, “so long as you’re willing to cooperate with us. We have a small crisis here, and we need your cooperation. Is that clear?”

“Like mud.” I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on around here-”

“You’re full of it,” Huygens muttered.

“Back off, Huygens,” I said. “I’m not taking any shit from you right now.”

Controllers cast brief glances over their shoulders at me; out of the corner of my eye, I could see another ERA trooper starting toward us, his right hand on the holstered butt of his shockrod.

I could have cared less. “Look, guys,” I went on, trying to keep my temper and not doing a good job of it, “I’ve had a long day. My best friend has just been killed, my place was trashed, I was dragged down here by a couple of morons, and Prince Anal here”-I jabbed a finger at Huygens-“decided to throw me out of his party for no reason at all. So unless you’ve got something to say to me-”