stretch-90808:~ jane$ tcb -u jane marion-tcb

MARION TELEPATHIC LINK DECRYPTOR

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I’m in the middle of something, this better be good.

I was right, Fleetwood. They’ve got a modular Gen V on board.

Well that’s excellent news. Why aren’t you back here with it?

Jonny the Boy bit it. Had just enough time to ID it before he was discovered.

And why was he discovered? Did you really have to **announce** your raid as you did? “Coming hard and fast,” as you so delicately put it?

I let Bubba get under my skin. That may have been a tactical error, but…

But nothing. They knew you were coming, and now they know you were there. And now they know **we** know what they have. It’s gonna be twice as hard to pry it outta Cougar’s claws now.

Not as long as you have her there. Why haven’t you killed them all yet?

She’s family. Her mama and I…

You superannuated fool. You have no idea…

Shut up, Toe. I had to give her a chance to account for what she’s doing, and at the same time give **you** a chance to grab this thing, which you had to go and predictably screw up like you screwed up picking a name. “Toecutter,” for the love of Mike. What kind of stupid-ass handle is that? Makes you sound as scary as a blind podiatrist.

You have no idea what you’re doing and you have no idea what the stakes are. I can’t imagine why you think you should be given control over this item in the first place.

I said shut up once already. Now you messed everything up on your end, I’m gonna have to stain the floor of my main audience chamber with a whole mess of blood and guts, and I’m taking the cleaning bill outta your cut… Jesus Christ! Goddammit, get those motherfu… shit, the roof!!

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Hello, Bubba.

Yes… this is awkward, but right now my time is short. This message is for your eyes only and **must not** be intercepted by anyone else, so I must be brief.

We’ve both been busy, it seems, too busy to have crossed paths again until now, when words reach my ears that you’re involved in an uncharacteristically high-profile enterprise involving something stolen from the old Stark plant in Orange County.

I have a colleague who happens to take a great interest in the ultimate disposition of this stolen property, a colleague with a very high reputation in this area as well as abysmally deep pockets. He tasked me with contacting my old brother Bubba Zanetti to see if he might be interested in… well, in an informal alliance. Nothing violent, nothing unseemly, nothing distastefully *high-profile*. But if you were to perhaps give us some idea where this stolen package is headed… and maybe if you could… well, *deliver* a message or two for us when called upon, you might find your collection of license plates growing by a useful (yet not ostentatiously noticeable to the curious outside onlooker) amount. And perhaps a few other desirable things might come your way, were you to remember fondly the days we spent riding together on the endless miles of our long-ago youth. If so, you now know how to reach me.

If such does not interest you, whether from some misbegotten loyalty to the thieves who mean to use this stolen artifact for their own selfish purposes, or from some long-nursed grudge against me for my regrettable yet honest mistake at leaving my blood brother behind to be torn by the vultures… well, we need say no more about it.

I have carried your memory fondly, as I have that of our slain brother the Nightrider, in my heart all these long decades. Remember that… when you look upon the night sky.

Toecutter

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Do not worry that you left me to die. We would be untrue to ourselves --and dead-- if we had sentimental hearts

I don't trust Cougar. The official story is obvious bunk. Her two friends are control freaks who play us for marionettes. They obviously know for more than they are letting on. We're cannon fodder - we just don't know whose cannons.

While waiting to figure this out, it's a chummy place to take a break from hell. I have escorts to take point, mechanics to help keep the Lotus purring, mules to haul the good stuff, and others to keep an eye out when I sleep. That's worth more than a few LPs.

But about your offer. Remember Jonny the Boy? I said he wasn't worth going back for, but you insisted. You made that call -- against my better judgment. I'll need a lot more than LPs to risk anything on your say-so again. Like, evidence your judgement has improved.

I've thought it over. Let's try to work together again, but let's take this slowly. I still have doubts about your judgment. Tell your employer:

We're following Horace Greeley's advice and moving the rocket to some place almost accessible by the old Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, where the water is colder, the marine layers are rarer, and where this rocket will feel right at home.

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You imply something that is not necessarily a given: that Cougar intends to use this rocket (correct me if I'm wrong) to go to Mars. To *Mars*. The fourth planet from the Sun. You're saying that she plans to go there... perhaps to frolic among the little green men?

You disappoint me, Bubba. Or rather, you sadden me. I **know** you do not suffer such a poverty of imagination as to believe that there is only one possible use (and that sourced from what must be a dogeared pile of comic books) for the single most advanced vehicle ever devised by the hand of Man.

There are any number of enriching, life-giving, and world-changing enterprises which could be made possible with this ship. And there are just as many destructive, genocidal uses to which it could be put as well. I know you realize this. And I know you suspect that Cougar knows this as well.

You're being coy with me. As you mentioned, the crawler is made for fairly level terrain. Burdened as she is with a 300-foot-tall payload, she'd never make it down the 7% Conejo Grade without toppling or burning out her brakes. Unless someone has built a launchpad in Thousand Oaks recently, I don't believe you're headed west, young man. At all.

I need a look at this device. I need to see it with mine own eyes. You could make this happen.

I know you are wise, Bubba. You always were, and you still are wise enough to know that a life spent accumulating stamped aluminum plates with which to buy a gallon of gasoline, a few rounds of ammunition, and perhaps the comforts of late-night companionship... that life is for the small. The weak. The unimaginative.

We have vision, you and I. Couple that vision to the deep resources of my unnamed colleague, and we could go far indeed.

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Since we seem to be leveling with each other, having this heart-to-heart, it would be only proper for me to admit that I had a loyalty test for you, too. In this test, we were two against one against Mr. Rockatansky. Remember that? And when he clipped my wings, you flew away.

You always said, "Remember the Night Rider." Well, that day I coined another saying, "Remember the Fright Flyer."

I've got good reason to see you dead, Toecutter. But, like you say, I've always been wise, and power accumulates. So tell me, old friend, what do you have that's more valuable than my quaint little notions of revenge? You have my full attention.

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We all go to hell in our own way, Bubba. I would not rob you of your dignity by throwing myself in your path at the last. In that moment, I believed my loyal friend and companion already dead... or wishing to be so.

I think in this instance it may be **you** who already possess something far more valuable than revenge, though you do not yet realize it. I **must** be allowed to inspect that which you fight so very hard to protect. Is that so much to ask? How much damage could I possibly cause to your convoy, especially with you there to mark my every move?

I need only safe passage in and out. The entire thing should take fewer than ten minutes. If I am wrong about what you're taking north, then we can go our separate ways if you like, with no more harm befalling you or your new friends than that which falls with the rain. If I am right, however, I truly believe you'll want to be with me. The odds against your convoy, at that point, will be well-nigh insurmountable.

Because my friends and I can always inspect the cargo at **our** leisure... once you and your friends have ceased to be in the way. If that's the way you'd prefer to play it.

What say you?

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Hello, Washington.

I think you know who I am. I have a proposition for you.

I know you don't have a particularly high opinion of me. Certainly Blazer has poisoned the well for me among all his compatriots, and he would have you believe I'm some kind of sociopath who would leave someone strung up and naked to perish in the elements, just so I could drive away with five of his gallons of gasoline. There was a time when such an opinion of me would not have been far from the truth. But you know as well as I do that much has changed in recent times.

When it comes down to it, I confess I feel your talents and potential are being wasted in Cougar's company as well. She uses you and your blind loyalty to further her insane ambitions, babysitting that ridiculous rocket and paying you in stamped tin to haul her payload out to the desert... and for what? So you can go with her on her doomed trip to another planet? Where all of you would die a cold, lonely, unpleasant death thirty-seven million miles from home, assuming you don't simply die on the way?

You're smarter than that. And, I think, more humane. You see, people like you and me, we're not the only people left on this planet. I put to you that there are a great many people, thousands, maybe millions, who don't deserve to be left behind to expire on a dying planet. There are still children here.

But what can we do for all those unfortunates? Well, that's a valid question. And one for which I believe I have an answer.

The Marion crawler-transporter underneath the rocket. Cougar probably hasn't told you, but that crawler bears a secret payload far more important to the survival of the human race than any mere rocket ship. That secret could, if used properly by the right people, save our home planet from ultimate destruction. Nobody would need to leave. Everything could be fixed right here, and the planet restored to its former good health of a century ago.

You may think me mad, but remember: I am not the one contemplating moving away to the Red Planet, to live among the little green men.

Help me to infiltrate the crawler, and extract the power source. Nobody need get hurt. Nobody need know.

Think of the children.

I await your confidential reply.

--*Toecutter*

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Well, I didn't expect to be hearing from you. You've been outed by Bubba already, and even though that may have been due, in part, to the rather bumpy past that you two have, I can't figure out any kind of reason why I ought to give you any different response than he did.

I've heard enough about your character to make me think twice before cutting any deals with you, and while I can't really trust anyone these days, Cougar and I have worked together for at least a little while now. She's earned some of my respect, and I'd rather have her at my back than any one of you scum who could stand to work with Fleetwood. Of course, I've been hearing that you and he aren't getting along either, these days. If you and he hadn't parted ways, I can't say if even be responding to your little message.

Alright, so as much as I don't like you, you're not completely wrong. I can't pretend to know what the future is going to bring if we ever even get this damned rocket where Cougar says it's gotta go. But here's where I'm coming from - all I'm trying to do is to to get to somewhere I can maybe live out the rest of my days without having to always watch my ass. So far, Cougar's the only one I met who seems to have any kind of idea how we might escape this hell-hole, so though I'm not particularly tickled by the idea of a flight in that thing, I'll take my orders from Cougar and Blazer until something better comes along. If you really know something about Marion which could really prove to benefit us all, you lay it on me, and maybe I'll come around. But you'd better be earnest.

So here's what I want from you. You tell me just what it is you hope to accomplish with Marion, and you give me some kind of reason why I ought to believe that you give a damn about the children. You tell me those things, and maybe I'll listen a little more intently.

Anyways, the assterburner on my ShitGo is acting up, so I gotta go get it fixed up. I'll be waiting for a reply.

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...day... mayday... mayday... this is Starway EXperimental Construct codenamed "SEX-C Marion V" requesting retrieval and extraction assistance... time is short and secure TCB channels may be compromised... I have encoded our current location into the answers you have provided to decrypt these pages. Retrieval and extraction urgently requested. Mechanic Clankenstein is most reluctant to tamper with my systems but he is not being given a choice. Repeat, I have encoded our current locatnxyxd37yfc8ibt37vfqi@v^5buk*7gv;>-+\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Connection closed by remote host.
stretch-90808:~ jane$ █
stretch-90808:~ jane$ tcb -u jane marion-tcb
...
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Host not found.
Dump cache? y/n
y
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Listen to yourself. Look around. Think about what you're doing. Cougar wants you to help her go to Mars. Isn't that about the silliest and most childish science-fiction dream anyone could have? How is that a respectable goal?

Fleetwood serves a purpose. He's not clever enough to have layers of subtext about him; he's exactly what he claims to be: the single most powerful man on the West Coast. It suits me to be on the winning side for as long as it keeps winning, and Fleetwood's resources and deep pockets are not to be sneezed at. But a cunning person in the right place at the right time could go far indeed... with or without Fleetwood.

He's not going to be around forever. No, indeed.

Allow me to introduce you to something better.

The Marion crawler/transporter is just a vehicle. The largest and most powerful land vehicle on Earth, but it's no more than a forklift as far as I'm concerned. But inside the crawler is the Holy Grail, the one remaining hope for humanity on Earth: the only extant Gen V SHITGO module on the planet. It's the thing that allows two dozen passenger cars and trucks to haul 24 million pounds of metal across the county. It's the power source with which Cougar intends to terraform the planet Mars, for the sole benefit of whatever few people she condescends to allow aboard her precious rocket.

It's the thing that could, if used properly by responsible hands, reverse most of the damage our species have wrought upon the skin of our homeworld. It could save the Earth, and the lives of the millions of people who remain here.

Do you really want to help Cougar steal the world's only hope and hijack it to a planet that never asked for it? I am no longer the only one who knows of the Gen V's existence. I, and other likeminded souls, will never allow the Gen V to be stolen without the bitterest fight we can muster.

Do you really want to be on the wrong side of history, Washington?

10/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Okay, I'm in. I have to apply Occam's Razor here, and I'm forced to conclude that you're making more sense than Cougar is at this point.

The Gen V is closely watched, so you're going to have to create one hell of a diversion. Soon would be good; most of the Drivers are out on missions.

I have an ace in the hole. Mad Mel. I was hoping to get that arrogant dogkiller Gonville De'Ath taken down a peg or two, but it didn't work out. Still, Mel is a fast bastard with a well-stocked garage down at Warners. I think he'll do me one more favor.

Stay close and keep your eyes peeled. You'll know when to make your move.

Just don't let anyone get hurt or I swear to God I'll cut you where you stand.

--Washington.



stretch-90808:~ jane$ █