[Fiction] The Reservation, part 3

Are you behind? Here's the previous episode of the Reservation, all warmed and ready for ya.

It only took John a few minutes to figure out that they weren't going to the Gutman farm at all. He didn't say anything. He was acutely aware of the white demi-leather seat under him and the stain he must be leaving with his overalls. The little hydrogen coupe shot by the turn-off and kept going, rolling at an even hum down the wide highway. Farms blurred by on either side, real ones growing corn and soy beans, not power plants.

Eventually Gutman said, "Sam still making his guns?"

John decided that he was trying to be friendly. Everyone knew that Sam still made and repaired bolt-action rifles and shotguns from before the war. "Yeah," he said with a noncommittal air, hoping that was the end of it.

"Don't know why people insist on 'em," Gutman replied. "Ever seen what a scramjet can do to a person?"

This was starting to get very uncomfortable. Did Mister Gutman have a way of checking his cameras remotely? If they were wired up to his phone, he'd probably already seen everything. John gave him a sidelong glance. "Scramjets?" he asked.

"You know, sabot rounds. Like the Manstopper Carson carries around," Gutman explained. He didn't seem agitated or even suspicious. Just curious.

"Oh, yeah," John muttered. "Only licensed City-folk have those, though, and they're few and far between."

Gutman made a sound that was neither here nor there and gave a little shrug indicating he didn't know how true that was. John risked a glance at him, but Gutman was looking straight out over the highway and didn't seem to have a care in the world. "You weren't going to go to Sheriff Carson about all this," Gutman mused. "Were you?"

"About... this...?" John said, doing his best to act ignorant of the whole situation. He knew the game was up though, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. What would Sam Stalton do? Probably pull out an old revolver and shoot Greg in his fat head.

"You know, all this..." Gutman made a vague gesture. "Livestock and what-not. I could tell it spooked you, that's all. I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to make it into... ya know, trouble."

John swallowed. "Mister Gutman," he confessed, gripping hard on his wireless wrench in his overall pocket. "Carson's up at the farm right now."

"He what?" Gutman gasped. "Oh HELL!" He slammed on the brake and the car squealed to a stop. With a frantic look at the road he spun the coupe around and started heading back. "Damn it, John, why'd ya have to go tell an outsider for?" Gutman's eyes were wild and frantic. John could see the future that Greg Gutman saw: his contacts in the City evaporating, his standing with the Syndic ruined, the farm transferred to someone more reliable, and Greg Gutman out on his ass. Thankfully, Mister Gutman didn't seem too keen on hurting John over it.

When they got to the farm, Sheriff Carson was out between the huge stalks of the windmills. He'd drawn his gun already and John gaped to see Mrs. Gutman all sprawled out on the dewy grass, arms cuffed in big exoplastic Syndic cuffs. The light on the black plastic blinked red.

Greg stomped on the brake again, bringing the coupe to a halt in the gravel driveway. Carson looked up and slowly began to walk towards the car, his M-31 gripped firmly in one hand. He kept the barrel pointed down and away, as though he was afraid of accidentally discharging it.

"Stay here, John," Gutman grumbled. "This'll all work out for the best."

The car door clacked open and Gutman rolled to his feet. He started walking towards Carson, hands in the air.

"Woah, now!" the sheriff called. "Just stop where you're standing, Mister Gutman, if you would."

Greg obliged and came to a halt. His shoes glimmered on the gravel and John leaned forward instinctually to see what was happening.

"Now, just put yer hands behind your back if you'd be so kind," Carson went on. "I've got to call the Adjutant. It's lucky he's already on his way, now, so you can be processed nice and quick and go see the Syndic."

Greg did as he was told, hands folding behind him. As he did, John noticed his lift up the tail of his waistcoat. There, tucked into the seat of his pants, was a big ugly black exoplastic handle coated in fine synthetic leather: a Falstaff M-40, the Justifier.

John made a side-to-side swiping motion in his pocket, the pad of his finger sliding across the wrenches' main screen. Please let it be on universal reception, he prayed. He was rewarded by the sound of the coupe's engine revving. Gutman had wrapped his meaty paw around the Justifier and was waiting as Carson drew ever closer. Clockwise full circle went John's finger and the car leapt forward.

Gutman spun around, the Justifier in his hands and raw naked fear in his eyes. The coupe sped forward and John made a quick up-and-down motion which caused the hood to pop up and block Gutman from his sight. He ducked behind the dashboard as the one and only sabot Greg Gutman had time to fire blew a dollar-sized hole in the chair where he had been sitting a moment before.

The car rocked when it hit the huge bulk of Greg Gutman and then crumpled as it struck the pylon of a wind turbine. John knocked his head on the glove compartment and then everything went black.

[Fiction] The Reservation, Part Two

If you're behind, the first part of The Reservation is here

Carson examined the sleek back barrel of his Falstaff Arms M-31 Manstopper. He peered through the rangefinder and flicked through its settings idly. It chirruped happily as the sabots cycled in the barrel. After a moment he sighed and slipped the weapon back into the holster beneath his shoulder. It nestled snugly under his arm and reminded him, more so even than the badge in his coat pocket, of the power given to him by the City.

Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and splattered against the replica oak desk. It was always hot outside the City – these yokels either didn't have proper air conditioning or didn't see the need for it. Even here, with a whole solar array on the roof and fans spinning overhead, they couldn't keep the damn thing in repair. Supposedly there were weather satellites up above controlling the whole affair. Why, then, couldn't they just make it temperate out all the time?

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of someone coming into the office. The door hissed open and the buzzer on his desk chuckled appreciatively, as though he couldn't see across the room. The sheriff's building was a simple prefab hut of exoplastic and chemsteel girders and little more than ten yards across so he didn't see the need for an alert system: there was no way he could miss a complainant.

Not that there were usually many of them. The locals really didn't like to be seen coming or going in the office, and that was fine by Carson. The less he saw of them the better, really. He hadn't yet been on the Syndic payroll back during the resistance, but he knew people who had.

Standing there in his doorway was the mechanic in the greasy overalls. John something-or-other. Carson stubbed out his cigar (those goddamn ecoleaves where disgusting anyway -- so much for the triumph of hydroponics) and leaned back in his chair. The damn thing groaned under him like it was ready to fall apart. "John," he said magnanimously. "What brings you in?" He feigned nonchalance, as though he had been in the middle of something important. The reality was he had little to do in the day-to-day and couldn't wait for the week-long leave he got once a month.

John shuffled uncomfortably in the center of the room. He was leaving grease stains on the floor. "It's about Mister Gutman," he said. "I need to lodge a complaint."

Carson rolled his eyes. These hicks all hated the Gutmans, probably because they were jealous of his connections. The Gutmans had some sense (though not much, since they lived here) and had started working with the Syndic. John must've noticed the expression on the sheriffs face because he held up his hands and said, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important, sheriff. Sam Stalton sent me."

He sat up at that. Sam Stalton might be one of these recidivists, but he had a head on his shoulders. A frown creased Carson's face. "Tell me," he said.

---

Sheriff Carson didn't have the kind of manpower for this. Once John had finished his story and the sheriff had grilled him six different ways he made an executive decision. "I'm going out there." John started to complain, but Carson cut him off. The sound of the Manstopper cycling its rounds was enough to enforce his point.

John made his way back to the diner, lingering along the roadside and watching as the sheriff's aircar grew smaller and smaller before it finally turned off towards the farm. Several trucks thundered by as he walked. He recognized each of the drivers: local folk. There was Sylvia in her giant red airtruck, which kicked up dust and grit as its compressors clinked and tinkled with sounds of heat. He could have a look at it, if she stopped in town any time soon. Next came Gus and Tom in rapid succession, both in their electric flatbeds. They were heading back to their farms.

Last of all was the white hydrogen coupe that John knew belonged to the Gutmans. It was coming in from the City so he went as fast as he could over to the diner after that. Sam was gone when he got inside and he called Edith for a cup of coffee and one of the soggy donuts that sat in vegetable oil for three days before they were served to anyone.

It didn't matter. Greg Gutman thrust himself into the diner moments later, his thick waist buckled with a wide belt displaying a prominent pressing of his own name. It had clearly been made for him in the City. Having worked with cars, tractors, engines, compressors, air filters, condensors, and cooling coils all his life he had a good eye for synthetic material. The snakeskin belt the buckle sat on was synthetic too, of course, but everyone knew that. It was good synth, but synth all the same.

It spoke to the place Greg Gutman had found himself in the world. He'd been a big-time cattle rancher, once upon a time when his hair was oily black instead of gray. He and Sam Stalton had seen some of the resistance together and it had been the Gutman money that had finally helped win the day. The people up in the bureaus and departments (John had a very hazy understanding of how things worked out towards the City) generally kow-towed to Greg Gutman. He had his share of toadies.

That was how he'd won the wind farm contract, though the Stalton place had more land and the wind was more regular and of greater strength out at Sylvia's. She didn't mind, though. She liked driving her route, though someday soon the trains would make it irrelevant. Cost a hell of a lot of electrodollars to power an air compressor engine and the Syndic had already built the tracks. Everything was always changing, even something so simple and basic as shipping.

Mister Gutman came right over to him. "John," he said. He spoke expansively, broadly, with his belly thrust out as though it were a third member of the conversation. His little goatee made his fat face seem even fatter, comically oversized chins a vast wasteland of unclothed flesh. "You didn't get around to fixing the GM yet, I hear from the Missus."

"Not yet, sir," John said, trying to maintain eye contact. Looking into Greg Gutman's eyes was like staring into a twin pair of watery quagmires. They were like quicksand. He looked away. "I haven't gotten a chance yet."

"That's alright, John my boy," said Gutman amicably. He clapped John on the back with a too-broad and too-firm palm. John aspirated some coffee but managed to reign in his coughing fit before it could put Mister Gutman off too much. "I was hoping to show it off to the Adjutant when he comes down this week. Shame to see Sheriff Carson go, but he needs his holidays I understand."

Oh no, thought John. Carson was going to be gone for a whole week come Wednesday. If the stories' out by then, what will I do? Mister Gutman was a powerful man. There's no telling what powerful men like him would do to hold on. The Adjutant wasn't a friend of John Harpers, either, no more than he was a friend of anyone in this town. He came around infrequently to cover Carson once every now and again and, though he was the official representative of the district to the Syndic, he seemed to care less for its people as Carson did and that was saying something.

Gutman held on tight to John's shoulder instead of lifting his hand. His grip was beginning to make John nervous. "Why don't I give you a lift up there?"

"Oh, no thanks," John stammered, dropping his doughnut. Crumbs of aspersucre fell from his fingers in a little shower.

"Now, now, it's self interest, really," Gutman charmed. "I just want you to have a look at the GM before you get too busy later in the day." Those big fat fingers massaged his shoulder, rolling across the muscle painfully.

There was no way John could say no without raising suspicion. Well, he figured, at least the sheriff would be there with him.

[Fiction] The Reservation

John watched the giant rotors twisting lazily in the breeze. There was something peaceful about being out on the wind farm, away from everyone else. There was work to be done, of course; there was always work to be done. Old Mister Gutman had called him out to have a look at his pickup again. Mister Gutman didn't treat his trucks kindly, taking them into all kinds of wilderness. He could afford to, and who would stop him, after all? John wondered if he hunted up there. He knew Mister Gutman owned a carbine because Sam Stalton had sold it to him. Sam was the last gunsmith this side of the city and the Stalton house was renowned for its handcrafted weapons. John liked to work at Stalton Farm. Sam was a kindly soul, and liberal with his wife's chilled iced tea.

Not Mister Gutman. If Misses Gutman had ever made a pitcher of iced tea, it was when she was still a child. Everyone in town said the Gutmans'd be better off moving back to the city but here they stayed, year after year. They'd won the contract to build up the wind farm way back in the hazy days of the town's first legal battles with city officials and they'd changed as the money rolled in from on high. "Yes," Mister Gutman liked to say, "We don't like those city folk, but we'll surely take their money!" Then he would laugh and clap you on the back and probably offer a cheroot or a stogie to take the edge off of his wealth.

Damn, that man was worth a lot of money. Most people in town couldn't afford real hydrogen engines. Electrics, electrics, everywhere you looked. Not Mister Gutman. Of course, he'd torn the fuel line or some such nonsense, probably driving it up a mountain side. When John peered into the darkened barn the Gutmans used as a garage he could see the dangerously explosive super-cooled hydrogen dripping from the undercarriage.