"I remember it well. Bronson Manolo was a personal friend of mine. We were co-worshippers at the Surfside Pyramid."
"Tough break, Lynne. It is believed that Jessamyn underwent extensive bio-engineering under the scalpel of Dr Simon Threadneedle, the disgraced GenTech surgeon who was also among the dead in the Dead Rat Incident. Details are not yet available, but it is possible that Dr Threadneedle turned her into some sort of cyborg death machine."
"That's not good news for law-abiding citizens, is it?"
"Certainly not, Lynne."
"So, is Jessamyn Bonney in fact the Most Dangerous Woman in the World?"
"Well, we asked that question to Redd Harvest of the T-H-R agency as the Op was on her way to face a cadre of the Trap Door Spiders."
"And what did Ms Harvest say?"
"I can give you the exact quote. Her reply was 'not while I'm alive, she isn't.'"
"So, what's Jessamyn up to these days?"
"Little has been heard of her since Dead Rat, but she is believed to be in the South-Western United States. Her known associates are all deceased, although a sighting which has not been discounted would put her in the company earlier this year of Hawk-That-Settles, a Navaho, medicine man and dealer in controlled substances. Hawk-That-Settles left the Navaho Reservation last year and is classed by the US Cavalry as a 'renegade,' having been associated in the '80s with the militant Native American terrorist organization, The Sons of Geronimo."
"Scary people. Brunt. What does Jessamyn look like? Is she pretty?"
"You don't have anything to worry about, sweetheart."
"Flatterer."
"Well, Jessamyn's appearance has changed over the years, from her first arrests as a pre-teenager to this last photograph—please excuse the quality, it's a blow-up from a spysat picture taken from an orbital pass over Arizona last December—which shows her as we must assume she is now. She is identifiable by her missing left eye, and her green right eye. Her hair has usually been black, and worn long. She is, of course, dangerous, and should not be approached."
"And what's the damage, Brunt?"
"Rewards on her total over one million dollars, for offences that range from felony bank robbery to first degree murder. Bounties on her head have been filed by the United States Government, the Holderness-Manolo Agency, Turner-Harvest-Ramirez, GenTech, G-Mek, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hammond Maninski, the Winter Corporation, Westinghouse, Co-Cola, the Tabernacle of Joseph, the National Enquirer, Interpol, the Government of the Republic of Mexico, Walt Disney Enterprises, the Denver Civic Improvements Committee, the Colorado Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, and this station, ZeeBeeCee."
"And in addition to those rewards, Brunt, we know that anyone coming forward with information leading to the apprehension or termination of Jessamyn Bonney will be entitled to one hundred thousand dollars' worth of bio-improvements supervised by Dr Zarathustra himself, a duplex apartment in the PZ of your choice, a fully-guaranteed and pirate-protected Caribbean cruise, this complete household computer hook-up and two thousand hours net-time on the interface of your choice, one of our new range of Venus-Adonis model companions, and a further one hundred thousand dollars in the currency or negotiable bond of your choice. So, viewers at home, do not hesitate, if you have even the slightest piece of useful data, hook up that modem and call, in complete confidence, our unmonitored SnitchLine on the number that is flashing at the bottom of your screen…
"The lines will remain open for three days, until the next edition of SnitchWatch USA. Until we next meet over the airwaves, this has been Lynne Cramer…"
"…and Brunt Hardacre…"
"…saying Keep America Safe for Americans, and have a snazz day…"
III
This was where the moon had brought her. The moon, and Hawk-That-Settles. He had explained it to her, explained that there were great forces in the universe and that she was destined to serve them. She didn't yet know how she felt about that. Serving great forces was not what she had signed up for this trip, but somehow it felt right. The gang-girl she had been seemed as remote from her as the child she had been before that. Doc Threadneedle had warned her that the alterations he had made would affect her mind, so she could be confused without realizing it. But actually, she felt her thinking was clearer now. She had been at her worst between Spanish Fork and Dead Rat, when Elder Seth and the voices of the dead were arguing inside her head. Now, she had that under control. The monastery of. Santa de Nogueira was a peaceful place, and she was working through her life, straightening out the kinks in her psyche. Hawk did not look like a soce worker or a shrink, but he was getting to her in a way the juvie officials never used to.
They sat at the great wooden table, drinking a little water out of earthenware bowls, chewing cactus. She had given up meat. The taste was too strong, and brought the memories of martyred animals into her mind. She could live on water, and a little cactusflesh. She felt all the better for it. Doc Threadneedle had turned her into a human perpetual motion machine, like one of those dipping birds her father had bought her as a child. If she kept her beak wet, she could go on forever.
There were seven levels of spirituality, Hawk had told her, and she must ascend through them all before she was readied for her appointed task.
It was all new to her, but the Indian seemed to know what he was talking about, and so she had gone along with him.
The Navaho knew what the moon wanted of her. On their first night in the monastery, with a silver crescent faint in the sky, Hawk gave her a gnarled root, and told her to smear a little of the juice of it onto her tongue before sleep.
Frankenstein's Daughter though she was, she still dreamed. That night, she dreamed of the Great Crocodile in the Moon. Then, she dreamed she was the Great Crocodile in the Moon. Finally, she was herself and the crocodile at the same time. When she told Hawk of her dream, he told her she had reached the First Level.
She didn't feel any different.
By day, she exercised her body as Doc Threadneedle had advised. Hawk joined her, and, clad only in breechclouts, they ran through the sands, wrestled to a standstill—Hawk was wiry, but strong, and agile enough to compensate for her bio-improvements—and climbed the outer walls of Santa de Nogueira. She continued to surprise herself with the capabilities of her augmented flesh.
By night, they made love and shared their dreams. Doc Threadneedle had been right about the sex. At last, she realized what all the fuss was about. She could experience the pleasure of lovemaking with every nerve-ending in her body. Sometimes, she thought she disconcerted Hawk with her love, but he kept apace with her. She told him about the Elder, and of the eternity of memories he had poured unasked into her head. He taught her a position for sleeping that placed the forepart of her brain at the apex of a pyramid. Nguyen Seth's past faded, and became the memory of a memory. Without realizing it, she had reached the Second Level.
"Your body has advanced beyond the human, Jesse. Your spirit must catch up with it, or you will fail the moon."
Hawk was a Dreamwalker. That meant he could project his spirit as he slept, and wander the material world and even the spirit lands. She asked him to teach her the trick, but he said that she was not ready yet. She must keep spirit and flesh wedded. She was to be a Spirit Warrior. He showed her old pictures, drawn with pigments on hide, and she recognized scenes from her life. There she was, being battered into the roadway by Nguyen Seth, struggling with the reanimated corpse of Herman Katz's mother, wandering the desert on all fours, tossing Holm Rodriguez's severed hand into Manolo's DeLorean. All these had been drawn before she was born, and yet they were exact prophecies. The pictures of her life yet to come were as vivid, and yet she could see no meaning in them. The background of one was recognizably Santa de Nogueira, and she was locked in struggle with an ordinary-looking man about whom a dark cloud was gathering. Others were disturbingly abstract, and Hawk could give her no clue as to their exact meaning.