Termination Shock

“I talked to him!” Piet shouted when he guessed he was in range.

“Big Fish?”

Piet nodded. He talked in bursts, hands on knees, breathing fast but controlled. “Unless there is more than one turban-wearing Hercules in these mountains.”

“Headed for . . . ?”

“The gun.”

“Sure.”

“Red. Listen.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Shoot.”

“He’s carrying something on his back. Strapped to a frame. Quite heavy.”

“How do you know?”

“The way it moved. When he swung it down off his back.”

“Okay. Any markings or . . .”

Piet shook his head. “Of course not. Red, I think it’s bad. Very bad.”

Rufus exhaled and gazed off into the distance. There were more questions he could have asked. But there was no need. He just knew without hesitation, without doubt, that Piet was right. Because that one detail made everything else about this make sense. How else were they expecting to put the gun out of commission? They couldn’t bomb it from the air. It was all underground. They had to physically insert some kind of team to get down to the bottom of the shaft and damage the fancy shit. But that would be open war. But if they could just send in one guy . . .

“Well then!” Rufus exclaimed. “I am gonna just ride down there and put a stop to this. I suggest you go up and find the others and tell them what you told me and get you gone. Get the mountains between you and Pina2bo, head upwind, keep moving. Upwind being the important part.”

Piet shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said. “Big Fish must be there already.”

Pegleg startled as a trickle of rocks and sand came down a nearby slope. It was a tiny avalanche touched off from somewhere above. Rufus looked up to see the rest of their party descending. Thordis, Carmelita, and Tsolmon were all dismounted, loosely holding the reins of Bildad, Trucker, and Patch, who were sure-footedly picking their way down through the stones and the cactus. They’d be here in a few minutes and then they’d be looking at a pretty direct gallop along the road in one direction or another. Into the fight, or away from it.

“I got no time to debate the matter,” Rufus said. “Y’all decide amongst yourselves which way y’all want to go. Pick you a direction. Ride fast, either way. I got no choice.”

The look on Piet’s face said that he had no idea what Rufus was talking about. Rufus had never sat down with him and explained matters. Never told the story about Snout and Adele. About how his big Ahab moment had been spoiled by Saskia’s airplane coming out of the sky and doing most of the job for him. And how that had somehow gotten him into this. He was feeling now like time had stopped when that jet airplane had hit Snout on the runway. Like hitting the pause button on a video. He’d enjoyed the night he’d spent with Saskia, the sojourn at the marble mine. But now the video was running full speed again. Rufus drew gently on the rein that aimed him toward the Biggest Gun in the World and got Pegleg moving down the road at a walk. But before he’d covered too much distance he turned around in the saddle and said, “I ain’t gonna lie. Thordis and Piet, I know you have a special relationship with Saskia.”

“Are you referring to Princess Frederika!? The former Queen of the Netherlands!?” Piet exclaimed. It was just like that guy to get hung up on the protocol.

“Yeah. She’s down there. Might need our help.”

Thordis and Piet turned their heads and stared at each other.

“Well, fuck!” Thordis said and mounted up on Bildad.

Rufus turned to face the enemy and let Pegleg know it was time to cut loose.

It seemed that she was waking up every five minutes, which gave Saskia the idea that very little time was passing. But when she came awake for good, and threw off the emergency blanket she’d been using to keep the light from her eyes, and gazed up through the multiple layers of gridded catwalks above her, she saw more light—a lot more—filtering down the mine shaft. So convinced was she that it was still the middle of the night that she imagined, at first, that they were being attacked or rescued. But when she ascended the ladder to Level Zero and looked at the wall clock, she saw that it was morning. The light coming down the shaft was that of the sun.