“Ah, now who is this?” said the Governor. His voice was strong, but a little high-pitched and femmy for her tastes. Kind of like how Justin sounded, all fancy and proper and all, only somehow sneaky and nasty. “Another of your little… gang?” the man asked, although who he was asking wasn’t clear. “And such a pretty gang member. What’s your name, my dear?”
Teresa walked slowly up to the desk and stopped, her shotgun leveled at the man’s shiny pink face, and looked him in the eyes.
“Teresa,” she said. “An’ you about this close to dead.”
The little guy, Shipman, said nothing, but a kind of growling noise came out of Lumler, like a big dog that’s looking at some raw meat. The Governor just smiled again, although it seemed sort of like his face didn’t want to, and nodded.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he said, sad-like, and shook his head. Up close, she saw that his hair was perfect, brushed and combed and shiny, with sharp lines where it had been recently cut, and that his skin was flawless, like the stuff they made toilets out of. But it was pale like that stuff, too, and there was an ugly greasiness to it that made her stomach twist. Nodding again, he waved an arm.
“These men,” he said, “will undoubtedly see to that. Or is that why you’re here?”
“Not me,” said Teresa. “But, like you say, one o’ these two.”
For a long moment they all just kind of waited, the three of them with their guns pointed at the man’s face and him just sitting there like he’d just sat down to dinner. It was weird, and she was about to say something when suddenly a strange ding! noise broke the tension-laden silence and then a metal grating noise. Looking over, she saw that a wall had opened up, slid to one side (the elevator, she decided), and now two forms, one bent and slow, the other tall and lanky and confident, walked into the room. Case, and the Old Man.
Case had a strange, pained expression on his face and looked around at all of the bodies and wreckage. He started to go over to the two covered bodies—CJ and Santiago—but then, obviously seeing the way they were covered, just boots, he stopped and just stood there looking angry and sad.
The Old Man, though, after a look around, walked right over and stood next to Teresa. He smelled nice, she thought in passing, a familiar smell of soap and cigarette smoke and old man that made her feel good somehow.
“So this is the guy?” said Lampert. “This is the almighty Governor of New America? Some dork in a suit behind a big fancy desk? Shit, shoulda figured.”
“And you are?” asked the Governor smoothly.
“Heh!” snorted the Old Man. “You wanna know who I am, asshole? You wanna know? Well, I’ll tell ya. I am the goddamn last hope of humanity, that’s all. The last one with the antibodies to stop the Plague. Get it?”
“Ah, Mr. Lampert!” said the Governor. “That’s right, isn’t it? Of course, I should have known. You are the, shall we say, cause of all this trouble, yes? The Old Man we’ve all been so interested in.”
“That’s me, pal,” said Lampert. “One hundred and two years old and too damn mean to die. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meetcha, but really, it ain’t that much of a pleasure at all.”
“Mr. Lampert,” interrupted Case, coming over to the desk. “I think we should just get what we came for and go. This man is no longer a threat.”
“And you,” said the Governor, looking up at Justin, “must be the eminent Doctor Kaes. I’ve heard all about you, as well.”
Justin, his face going red, turned on the Governor. “Then you also know,” he said, angry, “what we are trying to do. The gravity of our mission. Its importance, for the very survival of the human race!”
The Governor just nodded. “Of course,” he said, all silky. “That’s what made you and Mr. Lampert here so very valuable. You have to understand, it was nothing of a personal nature. I know nothing at all about you or your associates or Mr. Lampert. To me, you were a valuable commodity, to be taken and sold like any other. And the proceeds of the sale, the ransom, if we must be crude, would have benefited thousands. The citizens of New America would have reaped the benefit, and then you would have been able to go on to California and proceed with your plans. Gentlemen, this is no longer the United States that we once knew, where constraints of law and etiquette are still observed. We must do what we must to survive, here in New America.”
Lampert laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. The big greep, Lumler, now spoke, and it was still like an angry pit dog, only a little more pissed-off, like a pit dog who’s just had his nose laid open in a fight.
“New America,” he growled. “You talk about it like you give a shit about these people, the ones you call citizens, but you don’t. I been from one end of New America to the other. I seen old ladies sittin’ in the dark, eatin’ fried rat, after a twelve-hour day in your goddamn algae plants. I seen good people arrested and tortured by that psycho you put in charge of the police. I seen little kids who never been in a school but know how to wire a Claymore mine. And you call ‘em citizens.”
“Ah, Sergeant Lumler,” said the Governor, looking over at the big man. “The obvious man inside, shall we say? After all, turncoat is a rather harsh term.”
“Fuck you,” said Lumler. “You ain’t in charge of shit no more. Some good men died here, and one of ‘em was my friend. Now, that makes me mad, Governor. Like, real mad, you know? Don’t know what I might do.”
Teresa’s eyes widened as she stared at the thick finger on the trigger of the man’s assault rifle. Ever so slightly, it squeezed.
“Mr. Lumler, stop,” said Justin, intervening. “That won’t solve anything. And besides, we don’t yet have what we need.”
“Yeah, Lumler,” said the Old Man, nodding his chicken neck. “Ya can’t just blow the guy away! I mean, that ain’t cool! And besides, there’s a few things I wanna say to this stuffed shirt bastard, anyhow.”
“Mr. Lampert…” Justin began, but the Old Man waved him away.
“This won’t take long,” said Lampert, eyeballing the Governor. “No, I just wanna ask this dude, just ask him one simple thing: Where the fuck do you get off? Huh? Who made you king hell shit of this junkyard? And who sold you the franchise rights to America? Huh? New America. Ha! From what I heard, this wasn’t nothin’ but a two-bit Nazi con game! Prey on people’s fears, get ‘em to give up their lives for the measly little bit of safety you’d give ‘em. Naw, this ain’t New America, Mister Governor. This is just another gang.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” said the Governor, still cool but sweating pretty good. Teresa felt Justin fidgeting at her side, anxious to go, but he let the Governor keep talking.
“You see,” the man was saying, “I brought these people things that no one else could, that no one else had the strength to bring them. I gave them electricity and running water. Safety, yes, but also amusements and entertainment. I gave them purpose and direction in a world where, you must admit, these things are sorely lacking. In short, I gave them order. Society.”
“A fucked-up society,” snarled Lumler. “Juice and water, sure, an’ food at the outlets, but they had to work their asses off for it, too, and sometimes they got sick or didn’t make it to the food lines on time. And entertainment? All there ever was to do around here was to get drunk, gamble, or pay a visit to one o’ the whorehouses. No movies or music or art or anything like that, just sleazy shit like booze and hookers and dope. And order? You wanna talk about order? To me? The guy that had to work with that fucking psycho Hanson? Don’t think so.”