Ever Onward (49 page)

Sometimes he did and sometimes he
didn’t. It was whispered that Jocco

often took tribute from the thieves
themselves and that, for the right price, an enterprising
individual could buy a ‘Permit to Pillage’. None of this, however,
was whispered very loudly, for to speak out against the King Jocco
was to invite a rather long and lingering death.

With the sudden demise of the modern
world, the passing of such a flimsy thing as democracy quickly
followed. Jocco had revived a much older and simpler way of doing
things: the Feudal System. Fear of King Jocco and his army made the
scattered population offer him their crops, their animals and their
daughters. It had worked for thousands of years in the past, so why
not in the glorious future?

As Jocco’s power spread, however,
collecting all this tribute became a nightmare. Distances to be
covered, the transporting people, goods and animals, communities
reluctance to pay, poor communications, the need for punitive
reprisals against those tardy with their payment. The list of
problems went on and on --- until Walter Pinkton, ‘retired’
Lieutenant of the United States Army, found the solution. It was,
like the best of plans, very simple. His rather twisted brain came
up with what he called ‘the Temples’.

For a building to be considered for a
‘Temple’ something imposing was needed, something ‘regal’, for it
was not just size of the structure --- any run down warehouse or
aircraft hanger could provide ‘space’, but a Temple was a place
where ‘pomp and circumstance could hold sway’. A ‘majestic’ place,
with hand cut stone covered with centuries of ivy, with towering
trees and sunlit courtyards, yet big enough to hold the ‘tribute’
being brought in at the contributor’s own expense.

Though farmers, workers and craftsmen
up and down the coast and scattered throughout the San Joaquin
Valley might grumble at the amount they were forced to give or the
distance they had to travel with the tribute, few found the actual
‘giving’ totally unpleasant. In a life reduced to daily drudgery,
many even looked forward to it.

Pinkton’s genius was that he found a
way to turn the ‘giving’ into a pleasurable event. With ritual,
costume, food and music, and a whole lot of booze, drugs and sex,
‘Going to the Temple’ became an event, and adventure, a milestone
in their monotonous lives. While temple harlots spread themselves
to receive the eager ‘donations’, tax priests sorted and tallied
the goods already deposited at the door, sending the choicest
tribute on to The Fortress, the former site of U.C.L.A.

And little Walter Pinkton controlled
it all. High Priest in charge of Tribute. He had even gotten Jocco
permission to recruit and train a special unit of Tax Guards. Now,
dressed in a robe only slightly less regal than Jocco’s, the
ex-quartermaster stepped up to the dais and bowed.

“My Lord, the trial is ready to
proceed.”

Jocco’s wolf-gray eyes fixed on the
little man and held. How in hell has this little shit become so
important to me, he asked himself? The answer was quite simple;
‘Wicked Walter’ was a genius. His mind was a snake’s nest of
perverted ideas, each one more ruthless and depraved than the last.
Each one, however, made Jocco more powerful.

Not only had come up with
the idea the Temples, but with many more ingenious ways to help run
Jocco’s growing kingdom. It had been Walter’s idea to shun the
cities and concentrate on the farmland; to force the population
back into raising crops and animals and to subjugate rather than
eliminate all competition. To aid in this, Walter, again with
Jocco’s permission, had sent his tax priest and guards into every
hamlet and village, listing the age and skills of everyone left
alive after The Change. A Post-Change census. Anyone with skills or
knowledge needed was put to work immediately, rewarded with power,
privileges and personal slaves. Anyone lacking these various
abilities was placed in a farming unit.

Things had gone well for the first six
months, but lately things had began to change. Resistance to the
taxes had risen sharply. Tribute was late in coming. Sweep Teams
had been ambushed and the slaves set free. In the fertile San
Joaquin Valley, tax priests and guards had been attacked and
robbed. And now a temple had been raided in Bakersfield. Clearly,
King Jocco could not allow this treason to continue.

“My Lord? The trial?”

Jocco looked up. The officers before
him stiffened. “Bring the prisoners forward.”

Bobby-Joe Burlis, dressed in clean
fatigues and a black bulletproof Kelvar vest, nodded. Several
soldiers dragged a man and a woman up to the dais and forced them
to their knees. Both had been badly beaten. The man’s right eye was
swollen shut and two of his front teeth were missing. The woman
looked almost as bad. Both their heads had been shaved. In King
Jocco’s court, the accused were clearly guilty till proven
innocent.

Jocco leaned forward, his voice
deceptively soft. “You are rebels. You were caught robbing one of
my temples. Because of you, several of my soldiers have died. Have
you anything to say before I pass sentence?”

Both prisoners kept silent. The woman
glared back open hatred at the robed figure. Jocco motioned and
Bobby-Joe approached.

“Have they revealed anything about
their leaders?” he whispered.

Bobby-Joe shook his head. His arm
still hurt where the bitch had bitten him.

“About where their main camp
is?”

Again the shake of the
head.

Jocco’d voice hardened. “You mean
you’ve had them for three days and you didn’t get a fucking thing
out of either of them?!”

Bobby-Joe was sweating now. Jocco had
always been a mean bastard, but ever since this shit with the
rebels, he’d turned into one sadistic mother-fucker. “Er, no Jocco,
I mean, my lord.”

Jocco’s gaze narrowed. In private he
usually dropped all this ‘lord shit’, but only in private and only
with a chosen few. Bobby-Joe was one of them, along with George the
Man, Roy Heller, Tim Galt and a few others. After all, appearances
counted. How else could discipline be maintained? Pussbag, however,
continued to treat him like Satan’s chosen son. The little psycho
would have gladly licked Jocco’s boots if he’d let him.

“If my best officers fail me, maybe I
should turn them over to the priests? Wicked Walter has his
ways.”

Bobby-Joe winced. The creepy little
bastard made his skin crawl. Wisely Bobby-Joe said
nothing.

Jocco winked at him. “At ease,
soldier. I don’t like Walter the Wimp any more than you do, but he
does get results. I’ll give you one more try to do the same. With
the man only. Use Pussbag. He could get the Pope to scream he
wasn’t Catholic. The woman goes to the poles.”

Bobby-Joe nodded, glad that he himself
had escaped a similar fate. The ‘poles’ was another one of
Pinkton’s ideas. A form of crucifixion. The telephone poles outside
the Fortress were decorated with dozens of rotting
corpses.

Jocco raised his voice. The room once
again became deathly still. “I, Jocco the First, Supreme Ruler of
the Kingdom of California, pronounce you both guilty of high
treason. There can be but one sentence; death. Take them
away.”

After the hall was cleared, Jocco
hooked the silver circlet over the back of his throne, flung off
the silk robe and called for a cold beer. An orderly ran up with a
frosty Coors Light. His inner circle of officers crowded around
him; the ‘good ol’ boys from the bad ol’ days’. Jocco chugged the
brew and belched.

“Pomp and circumstance, gentlemen,
pomp and fucking circumstance. Loosely translated, ‘bullshit
baffles brains’. But it keeps the yokels on their toes and that is
what counts. Now, how about a little Poker?”

Walter Pinkton watched from the
sidelines as Jocco’s cronies crowded round him. Orderlies produced
a card table and chairs and before long the beer and booze was
flowing. Pam the Bitch, now Lt. Gliss, and a few other women
officers came in and the party really got underway.

“Anti up, assholes!”, Jocco cried out,
slamming down a bag of coins. Paper money was now only good for
wiping your ass, but Walter had soon realized that the barter
system could only go so far. Jocco had taken Walter’s advice and
declared coins to be accepted throughout the realm. Walter’s tax
priests were set another task. Every bank, store and any other
place where coins could be found was methodically searched, counted
and brought to the Fortress. Walter’s personal little army of tax
guards ensured that none was lost along the way, except of course
for what Lord Walter kept for himself.

Post-Change prices were cut to 1% of
their original value, and the cent, not the dollar, became the
official coin of the realm. For a few pennies a man could buy a
meal, a room or a whore for the night. When farmers were lucky to
see 500 cents a year, Jocco’s soldiers got that in a month, his
officers in a week.

And of course there were perks for the
privileged. Lavish estates, slaves and servants to work them, and
power --- but not too much power. That was one hand that Jocco
played very close to the vest.

“What’s the game, Jocco?”, Pam asked.
“Same as the last time?”

Jocco grinned slyly, deftly shuffling
the cards. “Too dull. You see one set of jugs, you’ve seen them
all.”

“Not like these,” Pam purred, ripping
open the Velcro on her flack-vest. Black lace barely concealed
swelling breasts.

“Lieutenant Gliss,” Jocco said dryly,
“you do indeed have a most excellent pair of tits, however, I have
something a little more less obvious in mind, though perhaps just
as uplifting.”

“Like what?”

“Like the looser takes a hundred men
north to Bakersfield. I plan to put an end to these rebels once and
for all.

“Than Georgie might as well start
packing right now,” Roy Heller chuckled.

George the Man shot Roy the finger.
George was now a colonel, while Roy was only a major. Rank hath its
privileges.

“High stakes indeed, My Lord,” Walter
said, gliding out of the shadows to a place behind Jocco’s chair.
“But think you it wise to leave such a decision of import to the
fickle whim of fate?”

Bobby-Joe banged down his beer can.
“For Christ’s sake, Pinky, can’t you ever talk normal?”

Wicked Walter ignored the big man,
though a part of his devious brain filed what Bobby-Joe had said
into an often used compartment --- the one titled
‘Revenge’.

“It pleases me to tempt fate, Walter,”
Jocco smiled. “I’ve been doing it all my life.”

Walter bowed. “As you wish, My Lord.
But, a small suggestion?”

Jocco nodded, his hands already busy
dealing out the cards. Walter continued. “Some of my people should
go along with your men. After all, the temples are
involved.”

Eva Madeau, already half in the bag,
barked out a laugh. “If I’m the one to go, I don’t want any of your
coin-counting faggots tagging after me. The rebels are said to be
tough bastards. Your limp dicks wouldn’t last a day.”

Lord Pinkton smiled, showing a brief
glimpse of why he was called ‘Wicked Walter’. “I think you’d find,
Lieutenant Madeau, that my tax guards are quite up to the task.
Also, their leader is anything but a ‘limp dick’.”

“Oh ya?”, Eva challenged. “What’s the
fucker’s name?”

“Captain Chillis.”

Eva’s eyes widened. “Scar? I thought
that cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch was killed in the Santa Barbara
riots?”

Walter’s beady eyes actually twinkled.
“He was wounded, yes. Fortunately he recovered.”

Jocco turned to Eva. “Who is this
‘Scar’ character?”

It was Bobby-Joe who answered. “Head
honcho of the Pinky’s tax guards and one mean mother-fucker. My
Sweep Team found him wandering around half dead about five months
ago. The dude was just about done in. With that scared face and
eyepatch he look like Death warmed up.”

Jocco slowly put his cards face down
on the table. “Why, prey tell, if he is such a legendary warrior,
is he working for Lord Walter instead of me?”

Bobby-Joe shrugged, willing himself to
remain calm. “Well, we tested him, but he didn’t exactly
pass.”

“You mean he refused to rape the
girl?”

“Not exactly,” Bobby-Joe
said.

“Well?” Everyone there knew that
tone.

“He didn’t rape her, he killed her.
Snapped her neck like a wishbone. He also took out both guards
supervising the test.”

Jocco looked up, his eyes narrowing.
“He killed two of my men and you let him live?”

“He didn’t kill them, Jocco, just
disarmed them. When I got there he handed me their weapons and
walked out. Later I heard that Pinky, I mean, Lord Walter, had
hired him as a drill instructor for his new guard unit.”

“He’s worked out extremely well,”
Walter put in, looking directly at Eva Madeau. “If you overlook the
fact that he hates women.”

“Like I said,” Eva muttered. “Another
faggot!”

Jocco picked up his cards. “Walter,
send this ‘Scar’ to me after dinner. I’ll let you know what I
decide in the morning.”