Skies may be gray, skies may be sunny
But them pore little orphans need all your money…"
Her central screen lit up, and flashed at her. MINIMUM DONATION: $1,000. THE PREACHERMOBILE WILL ACCEPT CASH, CASHPLASTIC, NEGOTIABLE BONDS, GOLD, SILVER, RADIUM, PRECIOUS AND SEMIPRECIOUS STONES, VALID STAMPS, ELECTRICAL GOODS, MOTOR VEHICLES, STOCK TRANSFER CERTIFICATES, VALIDATED WORKS OF ART, SIDE-ARMS, MILITARY ORDNANCE, DRUGS, WATER AND REUSABLE HUMAN ORGANS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CHRISTIANITY.The singing stopped.
"PRAISE THE LOWWWUD! HALLELUJAH! CLEANSE THYSELF OF THY SINS BY DONATING THY WORLDLY GOODS TO THE CHOW-UCH! HELP THE CHOW-UCH HELP THE LITTLE BITTY ORPHANS IN AFRICA!"
Federico had taken stock, and gave her a read-out on the vehicle. It was built like a tank, with ten-inch armour plating and caterpillar tracks. There was a miniature power plant in there somewhere and, in all probability, a human brain.
That was good news. Whoever the machine had been, it was a cinch that he wouldn't be a match for Federico's cerebral capacity if it came to a shooting war. Even Israel had stopped putting Donovan brains in its military hardware five years ago. They might have the initiative a machine lacks, but their reflexes are slow. Plus, they tend—as was now obvious—to crack up and go crazy.
"I HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH A MISSION FROM GOD! I AM REQUIRED TO RAISE THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS TO EXPIATE MY MANY SINS! YOU WILL KINDLY MAKE A DONATION!"
"What if I don't?"
"YOU WILL BE SMOTE AS THE LOWWW-UD SMOTE AGAG! THY BODY WILL BE RENT INTO THREE PIECES, AND THY UNHOLY MACHINE WILL BE BROKEN DOWN FOR SPARE PARTS AND SCATTERED ACROSS THE FACE OF THE LAND!"
"I gave at the office."
"MAKE THY DONATION WITHIN TEN SECONDS, LEST THOU SUFFER THE WRATH OF THE LOWWW-UD!"
Federico was scrolling through the specs. It had located the three prototypes on which the Preachermobile was based. An Israeli tank, a GenTech Undersea Explorer and a Saisho Warrior Robot. The car suggested thirty-seven points of weakness.
"THY TIME IS UP, HEATHEN HARLOT! DOST THOU WISH TO REPENT, AND MAKE A CASH OR CREDIT DONATION?"
"I'm on urgent government business…"
"THE LIGHTNING OF THE LORD OF HOSTS WILL DESCEND FROM THE SKIES AND BLAST THEE WHERE THY FOUL AND PESTILENTIAL FOREIGN-MADE AUTOMOBILE DOST STAND ON GOD'S OWN AMERICAN HIGHWAY!"
An electro-cannon crackled. Chantal reversed Federico, and withdrew five hundred yards instantly. The Preachermobile's arcs fell on the road, cracking the hardtop. The electrical discharges left streaks on her retinas.
"HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE WELL REIGN DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS AND THOU SHALT BE CONSUMED BY THE FERES WHICH BURN NOT WITH THE CLEANSING HEAT OF THE LOWWW-UD BUT WITH THE ICY COLD OF THE DAY-UW-VELLE!"
Cannisters of napalm exploded in the air. Chantal took the chance and drove off the road. The surface of the desert was rocky enough to get a grip. Part of the hood was on fire, but the windshield squirt took care of that. The paintwork would heal overnight.
"THE UNRIGHTEOUS WILL BE SMOTE UNLESS SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE MADE TO THE WOWWW-UD OF THE LOWWW-UD MISSION FOR FAMINE! THANK YOU FOR BEENG A CHRISTIAN!"
"Federico," she said, "no more messing about, take him down."
"Molto bene."
The car took out the Preachermobile's treads first, exploding an armour-piercing shell in its side. Now, the thng could only go round in circles. Then, it located the weapons guidance computer, inadvisably placed at the rear under a flap for easy manual reprogramming. A surgical lase burn put it out of commission, and the cannonades stopped.
Chantal drove back to the crippled hulk.
"ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ARE ACCEPTED EN HEAVEN, SISTER! THY WORLDLY RICHES MUST BE PASSED INTO THE HANDS OF THE LOWWW-UD!
MAKE THY GENEROUS DONATIONS, LEST THE GODFEARING CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD VANISH UNDER A TIDE OF HEATHEN PAPISTS, RAGHEAD MUSSULMEN…GODLESS COMMONISTS, INSCRUTABLE ORIENTALS…GRASPING JEWS…MELON-EATING…NIGRAS…AND…"
The voicebox was running down.
"Intolerant bigots," she suggested.
"REPPPPPPPPR…ent…rep…"
She got out, and walked over to the Preachermobile. It was quiet. The lases had opened it up like a tin-can, and the jerrybuilt robo-innards were spilling out. It was constructed like a centaur, with a robotic torso and head protruding from a conning tower. Its arms were still waving. The head was a sculptured, stylised representation of a handsome Nazi, with blue eyes and a blonde helmet of hair. She didn't recognize it. The face was cracked, and biofluid was dribbling from one cheek.
"Are you in there?" she asked.
"Rep…ent?"
"So long, preacher."
"REPENT! THOU ART ACCURSED OF THE LOWWW-UD, JEZEBEL OF THE INTERSTATE! THOU SHALT BE BURNED ALIVE FOR A THOUWWW-SUND YEARS! THY CHILDREN AND THY CHILDREN'S CHILDREN SHALT BE AFFLICTED BY A PLAGUE OF MUTANT BOILS!”
She got back in Federico and drove round the thing in the road. It continued to shout. The voicebox would be the one thing unaffected by their showdown.
Within half an hour, the predators emerged from the desert with their spanners and minilases, and, while it raved against them, the Preachermobile was stripped for parts. Then, the coyotes, alerted by the whiff of biofluid, came for the brain.
VI
Tiger Behr's wasn't the worst place Stack had seen in his days on the road. The Roach Motel outside of Austin, where fee US Cav had busted The Cannibal Cookpots, was several degrees seedier, and he still sometimes had nightmares about the dead and dusty things they had found in the fruit cellar of the Bide-a-Wee Nook in Medicine Bend. Great. That made Tiger Behr's the third grungiest, most disgusting, least comfortable, most infested deathhole in the South-Western States.
The former gangcultist—did he think of himself as a fallen Angel?—gave Stack the pick of the chalets, and raised an eyebrow—his only remaining eyebrow—when he asked for a place with a shower. "You must be a wealthy dude, Trooper," he had said.
"The State pays," Stack had replied, pretending not to be uncertain about it.
"You understand," Behr had told him, "that the management is not responsible for any loss of personal property, life and limb or mental stability you might sustain while on the premises." That told Stack all he needed to know about Tiger Behr's.
There was piped-in Mexican porno on the teevee, but the central dish was skewed and the participants in the current orgy were stuttering visually. Pornovideo was the Gideon Bible of the '90s. No hotel or motel room came without one. He looked at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out the plot. From the clothes on the floor, he guessed it was a period piece, but they had modern leather underwear. A wrestler in a full-head mask and nothing else was trying out some interesting holds on a wild-haired vampire woman whose plastic teeth kept coming out of her mouth, while a creature with huge breasts and male genitalia sang of the Revolution. This must be an Art Movie, Stack figured. Occasionally, a pirate station would cut in with foggy black and white picture of an endless sermon from a man in combat fatigues and a dog collar who called himself a Survivalist Preacher, tapped his Bible with a Magnum .44 and called upon the Faithful to a) give all their money to him and b) skin a commie for Jesus. The Survivalist Preacher's backing group knew only two tunes, "Gimme Dat Ole Time Religion" and "The Horst Wessel Song," and sometimes got them confused. The offswitch was gone, and so Stack had to turn the set's sound down and picture to the wall before he could get any sleep.
He dreamed about Leona. How she had been when they had been Troopers together at Fort Valens, how they had been together on their trip to Nicaragua, how they had broken up, how he had watched her die…
Waking up, sweaty and disoriented, he found it was after nightfall. The ju-ju he had popped earlier had completely worn off. His chest ached where the cruiser had electroshocked him, and the crinkled, red patches on his legs and forearms from the explosion at Slim's were still raw. Someone had been in while he was crashed out, of course, and gone through his things. They hadn't gone for the gun, knife, cashplastic and medkit he had laid under his pillow, but they had taken the kish, the dead cykeman's stash and the walletful of assorted business cards and receipts he had left out on the bureau for the Tooth Fairies. If he hadn't made some kind of offering they would have tried to cut his throat and he'd have had to kill them. Right now, he didn't need the paperwork.