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They took him out for a celebratory meal. "Eat up. You won't see civilization again for years," Director Solon, Prince Green's chief of staff, predicted.
They plied him with good liquor and tantalizing promises, in that members-only restaurant that smelled like sizzling beef and cigars. When Kentucky was properly incorporated into the Control, there'd be plenty of new Director positions.
Which led him, after briefings and paperwork bookended by the usual indoctrination lectures from the churchmen about what tests he'd encounter in his new duties among the unincorporated, to Wayside Number Two. Prince Green's advance guard of Reapers needed feeding. The Reapers lived off the blood of its victim, while acting as a conduit for the vital auras all intelligent, emotionally resonant beings possessed.
They'd offered him a driver, but he turned them down. One of the things his father taught him was that you always needed at least one person near you at all times whose "pay chit only gets deposited if you're still breathing." He hired Casp from a reliable firm in Charleston. They bred driver/bodyguards there the way the old Roman Empire used to produce gladiators. He'd added a little extra insurance by careful selection. Casp was two meters of solid muscle and had three brothers who were also DBs. If one gave the company name a black eye, the others would suffer.
Macon judged the souls in the Wayside, and found all of them wanting in some manner or other.
Three. He'd have to take three.
Macon felt sorry for them, in a way. Or rather, he felt sorry for the person they might have been, had they not made a few bad decisions. Failure to join one of the youth movements, or to drop out of the organizations and the educational system took many down a dead end. Resentment over a relative caused a lot of bad blood. People put so much emotion into biological happenstance.
Like that heavy driver in the corner, with his patty melt. A vanabon-Macon could tell from patches all over his mesh vest. Each patch represented a key business he carried for. He probably wandered northern Tennessee, doing everything from bringing eggs to market, delivering letters and parcels and subscriptions, to making spare parts runs-probably sneaking a passenger or two discreetly among the boxes.
Macon wouldn't take him, even if the man was stuffing his food to make a hasty exit before Macon asked to look over the contents of his van. Fat men rarely were rebels.
The gal at the folding table was a possibility. He might have to talk to her to decide. Aging, weathered, still with beautiful long hair, she wore a dress of nice material in flowing patterns.
Taking his cup, he walked up to her table and she offered a welcoming smile. Her portable table was covered with spices, medicines, candles, cut-glass vials, even a couple of beautifully restored plastic dolls. She evidently made her living selling sundries to the road traffic, something nice to bring home as a surprise to the wife.
"Are the candles scented?" Macon asked.
"Scented and unscented. Cinnamon is my most popular. I have beeswax as well, you can melt the stumps down and mix in a little linseed oil and use it as furniture polish. Not cheap wicks, either, they're braided."
She was a little pushy. Macon warmed at the thought that he could snap his fingers and have her lifted out of existence. Just stick something under my nose, babe, and you'll never see another cinnamonscented moonrise.
The washroom door opened, and a youth with calf muscles like horse hooves exited. Still spotty, maybe seventeen or so. His distinctive black-and-white striped shirt had a name patch-Kurt, it read-and vertical lettering in one of the white stripes read ENCOMPASS in red letters.
Encompass was one of the New Universal Church's principal periodicals for the masses, a monthly with a beautiful glossy cover and smeared pages between. Families who wanted to stay in the good graces of their local clergy would be able to discuss the month's lead article and lead editorial. The rest of it, printed on thin, soft, not very absorbent paper that almost begged to be used for sanitary purposes, made a decent sedative. Sinecured editorialists droned on and on about obscure reclarifications of a previous perceived error in Church doctrine, which, if you thought about it correctly, wasn't really so much of a mistake as it was an example of poor word choice. At the back you usually had a useful how-to or two on how to get the most vitamin value out of sixteen hundred calories or the quickest method to check your kids for lice before and after school.
Volunteers like this kid, now turning bright red for some reason as he checked his fly, sold subscriptions and delivered it. Each issue also contained a bonus offer for some household item of dubious quality the kids had to attempt to upsell and then deliver, assuming the stock ever arrived.
Tough job. Lots of miles, no pay, and plenty of headaches thanks to the summer heat.
A woman exited the washroom after the kid, fixing the two remaining buttons on her blouse. She looked like a cowboy biker, all overcoat, chain belt, and tight jeans. Smeared lipstick and short red hair, possibly dyed. Haunted, hunted eyes. No wonder the kid turned red, she was so skinny he suspected she might be a tranny. Well, no Adam's apple. Whatever her gender, the whore looked like she'd been on short commons for a while. Probably gave the kid a five-buck handjob while he felt her tits.
She clutched a rolled up copy of Encompass in her strong-looking hands.
Good job, kid. Never miss a chance to sell a loose copy.
Well, this whore had turned her last trick. He was half tempted to add the counterman to the bag. What kind of establishment was he running? Macon wondered what his cut was.
"Don't leave just yet," Macon told the kid, hurrying for the door and his bike.
"Th-th-th-that's t-t-t-three for you t-t-t-today, Red," a greasy-haired Indian at the counter managed.
The scarred-up Indian smelled like woodsmoke and swamp water. All the weathering made his age hard to guess, but there were a few flecks of gray in the otherwise shiny black hair.
The stuttering Indian must have had it in for the whore. Maybe he couldn't scrape together even the chump change to afford a throw. He'd all but painted a sign reading SHE'S A WHORE! TAKE HER, NOT ME.
Not quite as lean as the whore, well-muscled about the shoulders, he wore a tattered mix of legworm leather-rare down in Georgia but more common up here-and polyester felt insulated vest. He'd picked up some utility worker's canvas trousers, probably at a resale store. One of those hammer picks hung from a short chain at his belt. The legworm riders used them to peg down their mounts for the night with the hammer end, and the spike end had a slight hook to it, like a mountaineer's climbing pick. They buried that end in the skin of their mounts to pull themselves up. Macon felt a momentary doubt-the stutterer might be a deserter from one of the armies lately rampaging across Kentucky. He put one of the scented candles under his nose, turned, and took a good look at the Indian's boots.
He wore moccasins. Sort of. They looked like they had soles made out of old truck tires, fixed with thick sandal straps.
No self-respecting army would let its soldiers wear boots like that. Even the guerillas had better footgear.
The Indian glanced at Macon with wary brown eyes. "M-maybe f-f-four."
