Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End (10 page)

“
No need!” the bell hop said, backpedaling. He slammed the
door behind him. The four of them descended into hysterical
laughter.

Loki and Artemis stood in
the hallway like passengers on an elevator. There was a bang and
then some loud moaning. Loki tilted his head, listening. Amber,
from the sound of it.

She would probably have
another orgasm in 4, 3, 2, ...

“
This is just wrong,” Artemis said.

“
If you’d rather be inside...”

Artemis snorted. “Soldiers
never leave their post.” She paused. “Might as well call it in.
We’re getting bagged.”

“
Good luck with that. State and local cops are jammed,” Loki
said, grinning proudly.

“
How?”

“
Hired one of those Indian call centers. They’re hitting every
line every few seconds with a phony push-poll.”

“
That’s... gorgeous,” Artemis said. “How?”

“
Lilith likes to get things for free, but she seems to be good
at supplying resources when they’re needed. Frankly, the girl
scares me. O brave new war. You want in?”

“
I’m not already?” Artemis asked.

“
Babylon’s ops posture is a synthesis of Anonymous, MEND, Al
Queda, Hamas, and the Grateful Dead. You need a minute on
that?”

“
Yes.”

“
Good. If you said 'no', you were either a plant or an
idiot.”

“
Al Queda and the Grateful Dead... Identity. Purpose and
movement. Anyone's in who wants in, simply by aligning and
educating themselves...”

Loki cocked his head.
“Partly.”

“
No, wait. It's a movement with a thousand centers. They see
the broadcasts, they watch your little how-to's...” Artemis said,
trying to reason it out.

“
Stole the last bit from Hamas. Not so far as setting up an
alternate social infrastructure, more like...”

“
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she said. “The
illusion of a movement becomes a movement.”

“
Got it in one.”

“
And anyone can join, essentially build their own cell. They
become the center of their own local franchise.”

“
'Franchise'. I like that,” Loki said. “You really know how to
use that fancy crossbow you got there?”

“
Yeah. Always had a thing for bows. Thus the name. Been
training ops my whole life, really.”

“
Military?”

“
Fuck no. Dance. Archery. Martial arts. Survival.”

“
Can you get more of those toys?”

“
Yeah. But they’re not toys.”

He cleared his throat.
“This is the most I've talked in weeks.”

“
Yeah,” Artemis said, thinking. “D2 to d4.”

Loki grinned.

Dionysus and Ariadne
staggered into one of the bedrooms. They had torn window curtains
wrapped around their shoulders like capes. After running circles
around the room several times, they fell into the bed and each
others arms.

Ariadne stared up at the
ceiling. “This is weird.”

“
What is?”

“
Tonight. Life. Everything.” She nuzzled closer to
him.

“
Life can seem to have had a consistent order and plan, as
though composed by some novelist. Events seem accidental. Of little
meaning. But they turn out to have been indispensable factors in
the composition of a consistent plot. So, who composed that plot?”
Dionysus asked.

“
Quoting Joseph Campbell at me. Cute,” She paused. “You know
Lilith thinks that we're all...I don't know. Forgetful
demigods?”

“
What? No. They’re just nicknames. Call-signs. Pseudonyms.
Right? You don’t think that you’re actually...”

“
Forget it. I don’t know anything about you. Not really. But I
feel like I’ve known you forever. Fuck. That’s so cliche. Doesn’t
make it any less true. It isn’t just the drugs, is it?”

“
No. Feels like...This isn’t the only dream we’ve been in
together.” Dionysus seemed a bit surprised at what he’d said. “I
think that plot can be seen in dreams.”

“
Plot?” she asked.

“
I asked who composes the plot of our lives. You're right, I
was quoting. Let me finish while I still remember the damn thing.
Just as people we’ve met by mere chance become leading agents in
our lives, so, too, are we serving unknowingly as agents, giving
meaning to the lives of others. The whole thing gears together like
one big symphony, with everything unconsciously effecting
everything else.”

“
M'kay. That's what I meant when I said weird. I know exactly
what you mean, but no. Let’s just...Keep it simple. I like you a
lot. That’s weird enough.”

Dionysus gave the kind of
smile that only the mentally enfeebled are usually privy to. “Hey!
I'm pretty likable.”

She scowled playfully. “I'm
just saying. Philosophers are usually assholes. Or
autistic.”

“
We can be crazy, too,” Dionysus said.

“
Shush,” Ariadne said, kissing him.

“
This is definitely better than talking,” Dionysus
said.

She hit him over the head
with a pillow, and continued kissing him.

What seemed like – and very
may well have been – hours later, Mary kissed Jesus’ forehead
softly and slipped out of bed. Gazing around the room wide-eyed,
the intensity of the night finally caught up with her. A day
before, she’d been a college drop-out chained to a $7 an hour
corporate coffee shop job, living in her parent’s basement. Stuck
in neutral. Now...

She hugged herself again
and again. Everything felt renewed. She had always wanted to feel
like this. Like it was spring and she was eleven. Like there were
no rules and she could run and fall and roll in fields if she
wanted to, and it didn’t matter if she got her dress dirty or
scuffed her knee. Her parents would just have to fucking deal, she
wasn’t coming home. But she should at least call and let them know
she wasn’t in a ditch somewhere.

Opening the door a crack,
she glanced down the hallway to see Dionysus and Ariadne asleep,
curled around one another like two kittens. Her cell phone was in
her clothes, which were in... the bathroom. She started in that
direction, but a pleading sound stopped her in her tracks. They
were
still
at it?
Good God!

She tiptoed by the supine
couple on the bed and headed towards the hall. As she reached for
the door, it shot open, seemingly of its own accord. She nearly
screamed, clamping her hand over her mouth instead.

“
Well come on, then,” Loki said from behind the
door.

“
Hey, you’re still out here,” she observed as she slipped out
to stand beside him.

“
Where else would I be?” he continued checking both directions
of the hallway, not making eye contact with her as he spoke. “We
wouldn’t want to be caught by surprise, now would we?”

“
Um, no. I suppose not. Who are you looking f–”

“
You never know.” He finally turned towards her, though his
eyes were barely visible through his tinted aviator glasses. “You
never know.”

She giggled, though he
didn’t respond with any facial gesture whatsoever. “Where’s
Artemis?”

“
Sleeping. It's my shift.”

“
Do you sleep?”

He seemed to think about it
for quite some time. “Sure.”

“
When?”

“
Tuesdays, usually,” he said, gruffly. “You were, uhm.
With
. Jesus?”

“
Yeah.”

“
I just wanted to – does she... You know what? Never
mind.”

She smiled sweetly at him.
“Hm?”

“
No really, never mind. So, why are you out here?”

“
I have to make a phone call. Tell my parents I’m not coming
home. You know, probably for a couple years.”

“
You don’t have a cell? There’s a phone in the room, and
another in the bathroom, I would assume.”

“
Well, yeah. But I didn’t want to disturb Jesus, she kind of
slipped into a trance. And Lilith and Amber...God only knows, and I
don’t want to.”

He nodded his head. “Amen,
sister. Alright, you can use mine.”

“
We need to go.”

Dionysus opened an eye to
see Loki staring down at him through aviator shades. An unlit
cigarette dangled from his mouth.

“
We need to go,” he repeated, nudging him with his
boot.

“
Huh?” Dionysus managed to ask.

Ariadne flailed. “Tell them
to call back. I’m sleeping.”

“
This is really happening. Wake up,” Loki said.

Dionysus slowly got to his
feet with the torn curtain draped around him. He could still only
manage to get one eye open.

“
I don't know how it happened, but they found us,” Loki
said.

That got both of his eyes
open. “Who? The cops?! We need to–”

“
No, no,” Loki said. “The
fans
.”

“
What?” Dionysus said. “You woke me up for that?”

“
See for yourself,” Loki said.

Loki dragged Dionysus to
the window and threw open the blinds. The riot at the concert had
followed them through word-of-mouth, spawning an apocalyptic
after-party in the parking lot. There were mattresses strewn about
with half-dressed teens passed out on them. One had SLUT BOY
written on his face in lipstick. A furry orgy was in progress,
centered around a disreputable conversion van with a
clowns-and-balloons mural painted on the side. “Fuck me, Teddy
Ruxpin!” cried a voice from within the wildly bucking
van.

“
Oh. God! You’re right, this is bad,” Dionysus
said.

“
Yeah,” Loki said. “We need to disappear before they find
us.”

Chapter Five

Trevino stood, his hands in
his pockets, looking down at a muddy bed sheet sign tangled in what
may have been an herb garden. It read “GROUND ZERO’S JUST
GROUND.”

“
What the hell’s that even mean...” he grumbled. The previous
night’s concert had completely trampled the place. There was little
useful evidence, though there was plenty of footage to be had of
the orgiastic scene. Someone could probably run an amateur porn
business just off the footage. Scanning through footage, he saw
things he didn’t think there were names for. He flipped open his
cell to call it in.

“
Trevino.”

The voice on the other end
belonged to one of the suits. “Report, Deputy Marshall.”

“
Subjects are in the wind, sir. I tracked them as far as a
farmhouse on CR 41, but the mess they made of it... It's like the
morning after Woodstock. Nothing here of use.”

“
We expect more.”

“
With respect, sir.”

“
No one's putting this on you, Adam. We need more than felony
theft and rotten music.”

Trevino walked through the
barn doors and flicked a light switch. It did nothing. He pulled
out a flashlight and began a circuit of the interior: rumpled
sleeping bags and blankets, condom wrappers, cigarette
packs...

“
You are a tool. We can find another.”

His circle of light fell on
a stack of fertilizer bags and lingered. It jerked back to a
workbench near the door – a rusted car battery and miscellaneous
old tools. En route back to the bags, the beam of light lingered on
a discarded, pre-paid cell phone.

“
Bombs,” he said.

“
At least.”

Trevino swallowed. “No,
sir. Bomb-making materials. Two, three hundred pounds of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer and electrical components abandoned at their
last known location.”

“
You found fertilizer at a farm, Adam.”

Walking back to his car,
Trevino’s eyes fell on the bed sheet sign again. Ground Zero’s Just
Ground. “Explosive materials, sir. And... literature referencing
the 9/11 attacks.”