<b>Roo'd</b>

# Roo'd

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# Chapter #33

They crossed the border sometime in late evening, the dry air turning chilly as they went. Tonx had never been to Mexico, never had a reason to. But somehow the thrill of driving past the big wooden board declaring the country line was absent. Ever since the WTO agreements to sell the trade rights to the American Agricultural Association the border control had been dissolved. Without proper ID illegal immigrants were easy prey for company work camp “recruitment raids” that roamed the border towns. Those that could get immigrant labor cards usually bartered them off, their final holders collecting lots of them and shipping their own employees to picking sites via private bus. There wasn’t even a real drug trade anymore, not now that synthesizing common stuff was so easy.

So they just drove down the road, the stars bright overhead in the pitch-black sky. The streetlights were infrequent and the night was quiet.

About an hour after they’d crossed the border Baby roused himself and spoke.

“We’re being followed” he said.

Poulpe had been messing with the mix kit for the last several hours, the cheap LCD panel mounted on the inside of the plastic case illuminating his face in off-white grayscale.

“Who are they?” Tonx asked.

“No idea. Big white Cadillac. Looks old, maybe unconverted. Tinted windows, but they’d got a night HUD. They’re driving without lights.”

“How far off?” asked Tonx.

“About a mile behind us.”

Esco got the pistol out, started checking it.

“Wait” said Poulpe. “I know a better way.”

He began keying in a sequence on the bumpy plastic of the kit’s keyboard. A moment later the screen flashed and the kit began to hum.

Twenty minutes later they rolled past a spot in the road that looked good and Tonx slammed on the brakes. Poulpe opened the door and walked briskly back up the road the way they had come. When he had taken a dozen long steps he tore open a thin plastic package and began scattering it around the road. When he finished he dusted off his hands and looked at the street under his feet. He could see no evidence of his work. Poulpe’s lips gently pulled up in a grin. Carefully, he unwrapped another candy and put it in his mouth, savoring the cherry flavor. Then he folded his hands together and waited.

He didn’t wait long. A few minutes later the long white Cadillac appeared and slowed. Its ancient engine growled and sputtered, the harsh smell of burnt oil drifting out in front of it as it gently came to a stop a half a dozen feet in front of Poulpe. The warm glow of the moon made the brilliant expanse of its hood shine like the hull of a boat. Its engine stopped. In the desert beyond crickets began to chirp. Poulpe smiled.

“Are you alone?” came a voice, thick and crackling through a speaker mounted on the bottom of the car. Poulpe continued to smile. His face was frozen in a pleasant rictus, eyes twinkling merrily. He’d had years of practice at this, of not hearing his listeners, of not noticing those who watched him.

“Answer me or I’ll shoot” said the voice again. Poulpe did nothing. The crickets surged behind him, the warmth of the day fueling their search for mates.

Inside the car behind him Tonx swore softly, his head ducked down, eyeing the keys hanging in front of his face.

The universe was singing to him, thought Poulpe, admiring with fond pleasure the brightness of the stars. He waited.

A squeal twisted out from the underbelly of the car as the speaker shut off. Then the door behind the driver clicked, opened. An air-conditioned breeze twisted out and against the ground, the laws of causality replacing it with the warm fecund air above the tarmac.

One brown leather shoe set itself firmly on the dusty road, followed by another. Poulpe approved. This was as it should be. He nodded slightly at the dark-faced man who emerged, admired the rustic cut of his blue jeans and slightly worn cotton shirt. He liked the leather apron he wore under his bulletproof vest. He liked the man’s thick mustache. He liked his dark tinted glasses, surely designed for shooting.

The man swung the short thick stub of some sort of chromed automatic weapon from the behind the car door and trained it on Poulpe’s midsection. He walked around the door and swung it shut behind him. The man stood still. Poulpe smiled. The crickets sang.

Eventually Poulpe began to nod at the man. Gently, he nodded in time with his heartbeat, a steady pulse. The man nodded back, his face expressionless. Then his shoulders began to bob, gently, along.

Poulpe felt the heavens open to him and raised his hands up to the sky, nodding in time, the sweet smell of the night air rich in his lungs. He felt his blood sing, saw the man begin to cry. He cried black blood, the stain of his sins washing away. The angels sang above them. Then the man began to dance, to jerk, to flail a little. The gun fell from his hands, clattered to the ground, and his knees gave way beneath him. He slumped against the side of the car, one arm crooked over the mirror, black blood flowing from his eyes. Now it flowed from his ears, from his nose, and he opened his mouth to emit a thick black spurt. It stained his shirt and he fell, broken and soiled. Forgotten.

The universe buzzed around him, and Poulpe let his arms sink down. He walked slowly to the car and opened the driver’s side door. Another man, much like the first, rested peacefully, the holes where his eyes had been dark and empty. There was a steady drip-drip within the car, dark fluids gently streaming from the ceiling, from the walls. Poulpe reach in and collected the keys. He walked back and unlocked the trunk and was rewarded with a large blue gas container. He poured it over the car, sloshed it on the seats, sanctified the bodies with it. When he was done he undid his shirt and peeled it from his sweat-stained back. He tossed it onto the driver’s lap, bent and pulled off his coveralls. He held them up with one hand, reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter.

The whoomp shook the car, and Tonx sat up despite himself. Poulpe was walking towards them, naked, arms upraised, a smile wide as heaven across his face.

“We are saved” he said to Tonx’s car window, his voice muffled through the glass. Then he walked down the road ahead of them, a bright blue gas tank in his hands, slowly pouring it over his limbs, rubbing it into his hair.

They let him walk ahead of the car for an hour. Then they tossed him a rag to wipe off with, and let him settle down to sleep in the back of the car. Nobody spoke as they drove onwards into the night.

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