The Sacrifice Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cancel, my other side said. Think Pos.
    Okay. I passed the strip mall that had Reefer’s Madness in it. They looked closed too. In fact the whole complex looked closed. Geez, it’s like I’m already the Omega Man, even without doing anything. I kept repeating the happy end-of-everything thoughts, but still the boredom was so overpowering that at the four-lobe cloverleaf onto the turnpike I came within a few synapses of taking the crate up to 170 mph and ramming it into the uprights. Instead I just pulled up at the checkpoint. It could have been an ordinary toll plaza from “plaza” from thirty years ago, except for the brighter light, more cameras, and a trio of Rolly PoPos edging between the queues of cars. One of them waddled up to me.

( 3 )
     
    “H i there, welcome to Florida’s scenic Ronald Reagan Turnpike,” he or it said in the voice of, I think, Will Ferrell. Its wide black grin narrowed and widened roughly along with the consonants and the vertical black ovals that represented its eyes rotated thirty degrees in apical opposition, signifying childlike delight. “Could I jus’ get a peek at your handprint real quick please?” He held out his right “hand,” a thick four-fingered white glove with a round glass scanner in the center of the palm like a Jain dharmachakra.
    “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” I was about to say, but then I figured they must hear that a thousand times a day. Instead I just held out my hand, palm down. Green laser light flashed over it. Nanny Jackboots, I thought, except that I guess I should be glad now that I have stock in the company. Parts of the outfit he wore, and the whole Rolly Po-Po Program design, were Warren Group products. Marena’d shown me a brochure. It was from the Zerothruster division, which was all about mastering crowd psychology, and its current tagline was “The Fun, Fuzzy, and Family-Friendly Frontier of Nonconfrontational Law Enforcement.” Basically the outfits were the regular water-cooled Explosive Ordinance Disposal Advanced Bomb Suits made by the Westminster Group, but since 9/11, when they’d started supplying them as character suits for Disney and Six Flags and other parks, Zerothruster had been facelifting the Nomex/Kevlar with poodlefurry flocking in “varied and cheerful designer colors,” and adding big round outer heads that fit over the high collar and SCBA helmet and that featured “a wide array of designs customizable for cultural nonaggression and local correctness.” This one was a black-and-orange neotenized cat with a teal-blue T-shirt that meant, I guess, that it was the mascot of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and an oversized round badge that said F LORIDA H IGHWAY P ATROL .
    “Good-o, guy, well, jus’ gimmie a sec here,” the thing’s next prerecording said. The thing’s left “hand” held a long angled stick with a camera on the end, and he started sweeping it under the ’Cuda. Was he watching the video with one of his eyes, or was someone or something else watching it?
    “Hey, you’re good to go, have a good one,” the thing said. The words $14.50 RRT TOLL appeared on my bright new dashboard screen. Thanks, I thought. And enjoy being MicroHitler. For another fifty-two days. I merged law-abidingly onto the Turnpike. A blast of tianguiscore Dopplered by on the right at eight-five, coming from a Cutlass low-rider with curb sensors like catfish barbells and a young but obese Tejano hunched over the tiny steering wheel. Bet it could one-eighty on a peso at sixty-five. Well, I’m just an old square bourgie fart. Except why should I hurry? I least of all people ever to walk the earth. The Rapture’s coming and it’s
todo por mi culpa.
He zinged around an orange Yellow Van Lines truck and back into the right lane. Probably heading into the No-Go Zone, I thought. Some monster
delirio.
It’s not a party unless you burn the place down at the end. Well, I agree. Have fun, hermano. Maybe I’ll drop by on