Badge

By Don Solosan

It's been years since the collapse of the federal government and the ensuing chaos, and the wealthy residents of New Angeles have become complacent in their walled city. When an unknown enemy begins systematically testing their defenses, their survival depends on Tom Shack, a lowly cadet from the wrong side of the tracks, who recognizes the danger and has the unique skills to combat it. But will his bold plan save the city--or destroy it.

This special volume combines the original novel with Chop Shop Girls, a short story set in the early years of New Angeles, plus The Plague Dogs and The Tombstone Headline--two brand new novellas that continue the story of Tom Shack, for more exciting action adventure!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Solosan
• Release date: Feb 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005759438

Don Solosan

Don Solosan's first professional publication was in L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future, volume 15. He is also an avid photographer, videographer, and sculptor. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The empty skyscraper stood like a monument to failure. The marble walls had pitted and yellowed, the windows were either cracked or shattered; those few still intact were opaque with grime. One hundred and twenty years earlier, money had changed hands allowing the contractor to dispose of some substandard concrete. Now the building’s very foundation had been warped by the shifting of the tectonic plates deep beneath it and as a result there was hardly a plum line left inside its long, vacant corridors. To the three men climbing its canted stairwells, there seemed to be nothing holding the building vertical except pure cussedness. It was a concept they could identify with. For years the only thing keeping them going was their stubborn determination to cheat the streets of their corpses.

When they reached the tenth floor, two men silently took their leave of the third who continued upward carrying a heavy coil of rope. The two entered a hallway, took their bearings and made their way toward a corner office with a southern view. The first man noted that all the office doors were closed. He jiggled a knob as he passed; yes, it was locked. In the midst of the chaos gripping the country all those years ago, some orderly soul had closed and locked these rooms that no one would ever need again. Details like these stirred a deep-seated anger that lingered in his belly. It was with a certain perverse pride that he watched his younger assistant kick the corner office’s door open, sending wood splinters flying over the decayed carpet.

The first man entered and swept a metal desk clean, reverently laid down the long parcel he was carrying and untied the oilskin wrapping. Inside was a sniper rifle worth more than his life. It was a Daisy 1500, and as far as he knew, its kind had not been manufactured in over forty years. As a child, he had used the earlier 1000 model to pick off prairie dogs around his parents’ South Dakota ranch, which was why he had been selected for this important assignment. He took it as another omen that his fortunes—and those of the three-dozen or so men he considered his clan—were about to change for the better. The first had been the calm determination of the stranger who had entered their midst only a week earlier, riding in a gasoline-powered Cadillac and spinning tales of conquest. The second was the stranger’s supply of weaponry and ammunition; a few of the men he knew had firearms hidden away and carefully preserved from demon rust, but actual ammunition and the smell of gunpowder were a distant memory.

The assistant twisted a piece of canvas tight around his fist and set about removing the remaining glass out of one of the large ceiling-to-floor windows, giving them an unobstructed view of the Frontier Skyway.

The Skyway was six lanes of limited access roadbed spiraling through the skies on Y-shaped buttresses of pale concrete. The leftmost lanes were marked with badge symbols in reflective white paint at mile intervals. A system of closed-circuit cameras monitored the heavy traffic, and electronic signboards on the shoulders updated drivers on traffic conditions.

A Skyway cruiser maneuvered among the civilian automobiles, beetle black and sporting the call sign 515 on hood and trunk. The Skyway Patrol’s cruisers had everything—muscle, armor and weaponry. Mounted on the roof were a belt-fed GAU-22 mini-gun and a four tube Hydra-90 rocket launcher, both laser and infrared targeted. The cruisers were fully bulletproof (even the tires were self-sealing). And despite their bulk, they were capable of speeds up to 185 m.p.h.

Seated in Cruiser 515’s systems officer seat, Major Lexi Carver watched traffic with a practiced eye. Her computer monitored and assigned speed values to the cars surging around them, but mostly she trusted her instincts, consulting the machine only on occasion. Her driver, First Lieutenant Dan Weeks, was also scanning traffic, and she knew it was not simply professional attention to duty; Weeks was anxious for advancement. After two years in the driver’s seat, he was ready for a lateral promotion, as they called it in the service, to her side of the action. She angled the computer screen a bit so he wouldn’t be able to cheat, then issued the challenge.

Well?

Okay. I’m ready, he said.

Weeks grew more attentive. As his immediate supervisor, Lexi did have a say in the promotion process. Rush hour was approaching and traffic was on the rise, which made the Who’s Breaking the Speed Limit game all the more fun. He began to study his options in earnest.

A black luxury car passed them, driven by an executive in a dark suit.

Nissan Cobra, Weeks said.

Not even close.

Give me time to warm up.

Spoken like a cadet, Danny boy. You said you were ready.

I am, he insisted.

You’re what? Ready ready or screwing around ready? she said.

Ready ready.

Good. Let’s see some results.

A green car passed on the left, driven by a balding man talking on a phone.

Mosaic, Weeks guessed. The BMW.

This one was close enough that Lexi had to check the readout. The Mosaic was doing 87 m.p.h.

Bruising, not breaking, she replied.

All right.

Weeks continued to watch the traffic. He knew that, as a Skyway Patrol driver, he had straight 4.0 fitness reports for the past two years. He also knew that just driving for Major Carver couldn’t hurt his career—Lexi was practically the Skyway recruiting poster child. She was a strong strategist, had a commanding presence, and was attractive even wearing a severe uniform and with her chestnut brown hair cropped short; besides, her father headed the patrol. Still, he wanted all the edge he could muster. There was no end of ambitious young men in the service and he had no intention of being found lacking in any way or left behind.

A red sports car drifting back in the middle lane caught Weeks’s attention. There was an attractive blonde woman driving and touching up her lipstick at the same time, unaware that she was obstructing the flow of traffic.

So, Danny Boy, have you asked what’s-her-name to the formal yet? Lexi asked casually.

Don’t try to distract me. Red Rocket, he said. On the right there.

The blonde was slowing: 80, 79...

Lexi grinned. You might upgrade to systems officer yet, Mr. Weeks.

Read ‘em and weep.

Weeks changed lanes, slowing to match speed with the red automobile. He glanced up thoughtfully.

You know, Lexi, why not just put radars and barcode readers overhead? Do it all automatically. It would save us a lot of time and trouble.

The cruiser flanked the Red Rocket. Lexi tweaked a control and a laser scanned a barcode on the car’s bumper.

What, and take the human touch out of Skyway safety?

The computer fed the Rocket’s information to the network, where it was quickly processed and sent back out. Weeks pulled alongside the Red Rocket as the woman’s computer registered the fine: SLOWING, $300. She glanced over at Weeks, blew him an exaggerated kiss, then angrily punched the accelerator and took off.

Hey, it’s your lucky day, Danny Boy... Lexi glanced at the people in the cars around them. You’d think these people would realize a fast target’s harder to hit.

Oh, please. We’re just glorified traffic cops now.

That’s what Chancellor DeWitt thinks anyway, the way he slashes Skyway’s budget. She motioned to the piles of trash littering the road’s shoulders. Look at this. They don’t even clean the road anymore.

You’re talking about infrastructure.

Damned right. She cocked an accusing eye in his direction.

Again.

Again! Shit is falling down around our ears out here and you don’t seem to care, she said and pointed out the window. One out of every fifteen of these cameras is on the fritz. There’s nobody to fix them.

Nobody wants my opinion on that stuff, so I don’t pay much attention.

You should, bright boy, Lexi said with a straight face. "Obviously there’s room for advancement—in maintenance."

Weeks listened attentively to her diatribe, even though he’d heard it all before. As far as he was concerned, it was all edge.

Cruiser 515 moved back over to the left lane, the badge lane, keeping pace with the slower traffic as a none-too-subtle warning. They were entering the canyon, a stretch of Skyway that threaded through a narrow corridor of vacant skyscrapers, where the northbound lanes were stacked on top of the southbound.

The sniper settled on his belly, rested the Daisy’s barrel on the windowsill and nestled the stock against his shoulder. He peered through the scope. The ranging system was adjustable for bullet drops in 100-meter increments from 300 to 1,500 meters, but he would be shooting well within that range. The optics were sharp. He worked the rifle’s bolt action. It was smooth and clean. Amazing. It was almost as if he had gone home to the Badlands. A contented look crossed his creased features.

Without looking up, he gestured. His assistant produced three .50 caliber cartridges and placed one in the chamber. The sniper locked the round. Then he turned the scope on the surging traffic.

They were positioned slightly above the roadbed that curved to his right, presenting him with the windshields of northbound drivers. The cars were moving very fast, but from this angle they would stay within range for seconds—an eternity for his needs.

The sniper began to study the faces passing by. Smug men in business suits. The men who stole the world. The old timers in his clan would sit around the campfire telling the young bucks about the wonders the world had once offered. That building over there, they’d remember, sold hot, fresh donuts—which led to a half an hour explanation of the wonders of donuts, and chocolate toppings and cream fillings, and piping hot coffee!—and the talk would last all night until the young bucks thought the old ones were mad.

Faces in the scope. Healthy, secure and happy faces. He suppressed a quick spike of anger; now he needed to remain calm and composed. He had a job to do. A tan, blonde woman with red lipstick, licking her lips, lingered in his sights. The sniper’s tongue touched his cracked, dry lips in response, the sensation triggering a distant memory and for a moment he tasted Peach Passion, the favored shade of a girl he once knew. He followed the blonde until she passed from sight, then sighed. All those faces. Men and women—all guilty, all oblivious. It was time to change that.

A man in a green BMW caught his attention. He was obese by the sniper’s standards, with brown hair fringing a bald spot; he was busy talking into a mobile telephone. Knobs stuck up in the back seat: golf clubs. The cross hairs lingered on the driver’s pink scalp.

The sniper exhaled. His finger squeezed the trigger.

Through the scope, he glimpsed the green car’s windshield shattering. Blood sprayed across the Mosaic’s upholstery as the driver jerked like a hammered steer. He was dead already, but his nervous system was still firing panicked messages to his limbs. None of these messages involved steering the car however, and the BMW drifted into the car beside it. It swerved from the impact, slid sideways and heeled over.

The big Beemer tumbled, shedding mirrors, glass, and bits of trim, the prime event in a chain reaction of collisions and impacts spreading across all three lanes of traffic. A truck spun sideways and stalled. A woman driving fast saw the obstruction and stood on her brakes too late.

The cars piled up. Metal and glass rending horribly, radiators bursting, batteries exploding and horns screaming a useless warning. By the time it was over, twenty cars were involved, and a hundred more were trapped behind the scene. Stunned and bloodied citizens began climbing out of their vehicles and stood listening to cries for help coming from the wreckage.

A raggedy man swung on a rope from one of the skyscrapers to the roadbed. As he tied the rope to the guardrail, three more men arrived from the western side. They instantly took to stripping valuables from the injured and attacking with vicious glee anyone offering resistance.

Lexi Carver spotted the plumes of steam in the distance and keyed her radio. Ops, Fiver One Five. Looks like we have a pile-up one klick north of Alameda. Responding now.

The electronic signboards on the shoulder flashed a green badge symbol and all the northbound traffic wedged between the cruiser and the scene of the accident dutifully tried to clear the badge lane. Weeks hurried ahead to an abandoned van blocking the view. He eased the cruiser’s bumper against it and nudged it out of the way, revealing the looting going on.

Shit, Weeks said.

Hang on, Danny-boy.

A warning from Ops was coming over the radio; apparently they were tracking the scene on the externals, but it was old news and Carver shunted it to the back of her mind. She quickly armed her weapons, dialing down the cyclic rate of the mini-gun. At its maximum of 5,000 rounds per minute, it would turn a human target into a bloody stain on the pavement. Her right hand closed on the weapons grip, her index finger lighted on the trigger. A laser reached out and she painted the human targets with a skilled touch and locked their positions into the computer. On top of the cruiser, the mini-gun turned smoothly to the first target.

Lexi keyed the cruiser’s bullhorn.

"THIS IS SKYWAY PATROL. YOU ARE TARGETED. MOVE AND YOU WILL BE... DESTROYED."

The Bandits froze, a red pinpoint of light sitting on one man’s chest.

Weeks looked to Lexi.

I’ve got them. Go.

Weeks stepped out of the cruiser, closed the door to protect Lexi and moved forward, sidearm drawn, round chambered and hammer cocked, careful to clear the cruiser’s line of fire. Textbook approach.

Down on the ground, gentlemen! Do it slow! he said. Weeks felt like he was looking at the Bandits from the end of a dark, silent tunnel. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and advanced, and all the details of the scene started to seep into his consciousness. The sound of his shoes on the pavement filtered in followed by the ticking of cooling engines, the hissing of shattered radiators, and finally, faint cries and whimpers. So far he hadn’t seen one person—one citizen, that is. He resisted the natural urge to look for them, to offer aid. He kept his eyes and aim locked on the immediate threat—the Bandits. Behind him was the cruiser engine’s reassuring rumble. It occurred to him that he was about to make Skyway’s first Bandit arrest in nearly a decade, and he smiled.

Edge. Big time edge.

That’s it, nice and slow. Keep those hands where I can see ‘em, he said, and they were complying nicely when he was suddenly spun around and back in the tunnel. He heard a distant crack! and all the details were gone again, except for the searing pain in his arm—and was that blood? He looked at Lexi sitting in the cruiser and registered the shock on her face.

Cackling, the sniper reloaded. From his vantage spot overlooking the stopped northbound traffic, he took a bead on the back of the patrol officer’s neck, two inches above his Kevlar vest and fired again.

Shit! Lexi yelled as Weeks collapsed, and squeezed the trigger. On top of the cruiser, the mini-gun howled, spitting discrete bursts of 7.62 mm rounds at the locations locked into the computer. The bad news was that the Bandits were already on the move, dodging behind wrecks, ducking away from the laser.

Shit! She couldn’t get the laser on the erratically moving men amid all the wreckage.

A reckless Bandit darted from behind the abandoned van to Weeks’s body and slapped his chest, ripping free his badge. He continued to the railing, where he grabbed a rope and swung across to the safety of a skyscraper’s window. In a flash, he was gone. Lexi spotted one of his raggedy friends going in the other direction and tracked him as he untied a rope, leaped onto the guardrail, and hurled himself off the Skyway toward another window. She locked the targeting laser within the window’s frame. To the left on the same floor, Lexi glimpsed a man clutching what appeared to be a rifle. She armed a rocket and launched.

Raggedy reached the window, dropped the rope and turned to give a cheer. He saw the rocket flying straight toward him and tried to run. He yanked the office’s door open as the rocket entered the room and exploded. The unstable structure shuddered in response.

The sniper rode out the rocking of the initial blast. He shook his fist at the cruiser. You can’t get us all! he screamed.

Fire roiled down the hall, heat expanding. It vented to the only path available to it, through the open door of the sniper’s room. The young assistant spun and screamed as its fury engulfed him. The fireball blew the sniper out the window and he fell to the cracked concrete far below.

Lexi released the weapons grip, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

Backup from the walled domain of the City Center arrived ten minutes later. They found Lexi Carver amid the smoke and debris, cradling her dead partner in her arms.

Cadet Brannon McCullough knew the Bandit muscle car was fast; he’d been following the Mustang at speeds of up to one hundred and fifty miles per hour. There was no chance they could get away from him. No, the muscle car was a hit and run weapon. You couldn’t stop them if they were long gone from the scene of the crime by the time you arrived. That was the idea anyway. The problem was to get them to stop.

There were two of them in the car, the female hostage wedged between them. That was what made the equation tricky: keeping the woman safe. Just backing off was not an option—that he understood. The passenger leaned out of the window and fired a load of buckshot toward the cruiser. The front windshield was bulletproof, McCullough knew, but he couldn’t help flinching when the pellets went skipping off the glass.

McCullough was still trying to think of a safe way to stop the Mustang when it slowed and came to a halt all on its own. He stepped on the brakes, nosing the car around to the left so a stray shot couldn’t enter the driver’s side door and injure his systems officer. He was closer to the Bandit than he would have liked, but there was nothing he could do about that now. McCullough was out of the door in a flash and crouching behind the cruiser’s front wheel well. He drew his .45 mm Glock and took aim on the Bandit driver who held the woman as a shield before him, a handgun pressed to her temple.

Put the gun down! McCullough said in a voice that was a bit too high-pitched for his liking. The hostage was a full head shorter than the Bandit, exposing a fair amount of his shoulder and head. It was a tempting target, but he didn’t want to be rash.

All right! Okay, man—just don’t shoot!

While the Bandit driver was pleading for his life distracting McCullough, the passenger had silently crept around the cruiser’s tail. Too late, McCullough saw the shotgun pointing at him, and over the twin barrels, the smiling Bandit.

Boom, the man said.

McCullough hit the deck. An air horn sounded. The scene—the Bandits, the hostage, McCullough and his systems officer—all froze. The horn blew again, and all the participants of this Skyway Academy live-fire training exercise acknowledged by raising a hand.

A man’s voice rung out over a loudspeaker: CLEAR.

Clear! Cadet McCullough sheepishly stood, his hand held high, and tried not to glance over at the smirking Bandit cop or at his fellow cadets seated on the bleachers nearby. Most of them, he knew, would be enjoying his misfortune. The ones who weren’t would be the luckless cadets who had gone before him and also tasted failure.

He glumly rejoined them.

Man, Bull’s enjoying putting our noses in the dirt, Cadet Evan Waldorf said.

They could see the imposing, silver-haired commander standing in the back of the smoked glass observation booth. They’d had little contact with the man in their schooling, but everyone knew the legend. Commander Simon Carver, Bull Carver to his friends and the Skyway grunts, the hero of The Battle of the Wall. He was observing this final exercise intently, almost seeming to make them fail through sheer force of will. McCullough was next to useless as far as class star Waldorf was concerned, so he wasn’t too surprised that he had screwed the pooch but good.

"CADET WALDORF," the loudspeaker commanded.

Evan Waldorf casually stood. Well, girls, time to turn it around, he said and swaggered down to the track.

Five minutes later Waldorf was chasing the Ford Mustang around the oval track and attempting to ignore the buckshot bouncing off the windshield. He had already tried getting alongside the muscle car to reduce the gunman’s angle of attack, but the smaller, lighter car was amazingly agile.

They’re not stopping, Waldorf, the instructor said, his meaning clear. The clock is ticking.

Waldorf had the luxury of having seen everything that his classmates had attempted in the exercise thus far: forcing the Bandit to stop, waiting them out; staying in the cruiser, getting out; trying to negotiate, and trying to force the situation to conclusion. They all had failed spectacularly, to his delight. But their failures would temper his response; he had learned from their mistakes. The one thing the others hadn’t tried, he realized while sitting in the bleachers, was to use the cruiser’s topside weaponry. As the only remaining solution to the problem, it had to be correct. There was a very good reason, he prided himself, that he was the top student in the class. Now to demonstrate that fact once again for the others...

Target the tires, he said.

Which weapon?

The mini-gun, of course.

You’ve got to be clear in your orders. We explained this: you can’t leave any room for interpretation, the instructor said, then obeyed the driver’s directive, trying to put the laser onto one of the tires. The computer couldn’t lock the mini-gun onto the wildly swerving target.

Can’t get a lock.

Go manual. Single shot.

Going to manual now.

Again, the instructor followed the cadet’s order, turning the targeting system to manual. On his computer screen, a red bull’s-eye floated over an image of the Mustang’s tail. He tweaked the weapons grip, bringing the reticle in line with one of the rear tires and after chasing it around on the screen for a minute, squeezed off a single round.

In the observation booth, a computer projected the scenario outcome and registered the Mustang’s gas tank as hit. It reported an explosion, fatalities: TOTAL.

Bull Carver shook his head.

The air horn sounded. Waldorf brought the cruiser to a halt in front of the bleachers, shifted into neutral, pulled the handbrake, and turned off the engine. As he opened the door, the instructor turned to him and said, "Cadet. Do the words incendiary rounds and gasoline mean anything to you?"

Waldorf winced and got out. None of the other seven cadets dared to look at him or comment as he rejoined them.

"CADET SHACK."

Moving with the cool economy of a gunfighter, lean, lanky Thomas Shack walked down the bleachers and approached the cruiser, a revolver on each hip in quick-draw holsters.

The instructor checked Shack’s weapons to make sure they were unloaded, then held the door open for him. Shack declined the honor and took a circuit around the cruiser. He knelt down and felt the tire tread on the four fat Goodyears. All were worn, but still had plenty of life to them. At the cruiser’s rear, he pushed on the tail and gauged the suspension. As he expected, it was as tight as a drum.

What’s he think this is, Cadet David Hook asked loudly, a used car lot?

The cadets chuckled.

Shack continued around to the driver’s side door and slipped on a cranial helmet.

We’re ready.

He slid in beside the instructor and snapped into the restraining harness. The instructor typed an activation code into the cruiser’s computer.

She’s hot.

Shack tweaked the key, lighting up the four-barrel carb. The engine rumbled. He released the brake, slipped the car into gear, and edged out the clutch. Rather than wait for the Bandit car, Shack drove off. Coming out of the first turn, he opened it up, working through the gears. The cruiser ripped around the oval track, all thunder and lightning.

Shack went high into the second turn, clinging to the nearly vertical wall at 160 m.p.h. The car was slingshot into the straightaway.

I want to measure the distance it takes us to stop. Can you do that?

Sure. The instructor punched a few keys on his panel.

After the turn.

Shack viciously threw the cruiser into the next turn, taking it higher up the wall. Glancing out his side window, the instructor saw blue sky beyond the blurred guardrail. But he wasn’t worried: there was nothing sloppy or haphazard about Shack’s driving. He obviously knew what the machine could do. They swooped down out of the turn into the straightaway.

Give me a mark, Shack said.

The instructor touched his screen. Mark!

Shack downshifted and braked, bringing the cruiser to a gut-wrenching, tire-shuddering controlled halt. He calmly glanced over.

Distance?

One thousand eight hundred and twenty-four feet.

Shack just nodded distractedly.

In the bleachers, the cadets watched.

Now he knows the brakes work! Waldorf said.

The Bandit car swept around the track, passed the cruiser and with a belch of black smoke accelerated. Shack wrapped his hand around the gearshift knob. The cruiser rolled forward and took off. Very quickly, Shack caught up with the Mustang. He drafted him, hanging inches off his tail and taking advantage of the front car’s slipstream.

The two cars tore around the track, seemingly connected at the bumper.

Light ‘em up, Shack said.

The instructor kicked on his flashers and siren.

The Bandit driver eyed the cruiser in the rear view and was struck at how calm this cadet seemed.

Rattle him!

The second cop leaned out the window with his shotgun, brazenly firing on the cruiser. Shack saw an opening. He power shifted; the cruiser leapt forward and punched the Mustang’s tail. The cop dropped his weapon and hung on as the lighter car fishtailed.

Shit!

This one’s loco! the driver said, getting the car under control again.

That leaves the driver’s handgun, Shack noted.

The Bandit car and cruiser roared into a turn. Taken as a whole, the Academy speedway looked like a normal oval racetrack with highly pitched turns, but it was more than that. One straightaway—the one fronting the bleachers—was made to resemble a stretch of Frontier Skyway for training purposes. Either end extended past the turns for an additional quarter of a mile.

Ford Shelby Mustang, nineteen sixty-seven or eight. Dearborn assembly. Asbestos shoes in back, discs up front. Twenty percent at least. Twenty percent.

The instructor heard Shack muttering to himself and studied him. In the past, cadets had cracked at this point. It was within the instructor’s power to stop the exercise at any time and instantly wash out the cadet in question. He glanced at the engine kill switch to the right of his console, hidden out of the driver’s sight.

Shack had the speed advantage, even if the little Mustang was more maneuverable. He cozied the cruiser up to the Bandit’s bumper and gave it a measured tap. The cop driving the Mustang accelerated, trying to stay out of his reach. They roared toward the stretch of bleachers at 130 m.p.h.

When we stop I want you to get out and flank them wide to the right. Don’t threaten them. Leave your door open, Shack said calmly.

He nudged the wheel to the left and sped up, getting on the Bandit’s side, preventing them from taking the turn.

What are you doing, Shack?

Let them take the cruiser.

The observers watched as the two cars flew by. The cops in the Mustang looked ahead with real fear—they were running out of flat track. The simulation ended with a barrier of water-filled barrels and a severe twelve-foot drop.

Oh, crap! the driver muttered and locked his brakes. The Mustang streaked the pavement, spewing burning rubber.

Shack downshifted and braked. He brought the cruiser to a smooth halt. The instructor piled out and ran to the right.

The Mustang’s tires shredded and popped, yet the car slid on. The Bandit car came to within a few inches of the barrier and finally stopped, its rims smoking. For a moment, they forgot the exercise.

Son of a bitch! the woman cried.

Dense, acrid smoke hung over the course.

The cops got out, the driver training his gun on the female hostage. They spotted the instructor.

Back off! Way off!

All right, the instructor yelled back. Don’t do anything crazy.

Through the smoke they spotted the cruiser. Doors open. Unguarded.

Thanks for the wheels, man!

Just leave the girl out of this!

Yeah, right.

Wheeling and dodging as they searched for any sign of Shack, they reached the driver’s side. The driver cautiously glanced inside. The cadet was not hiding in there as he had expected, and something else was missing too—

Where’s the keys?

There was the ching! of keys hitting pavement—behind them. The cops whirled around. With rattlesnake speed, Shack stepped out of the smoke, drew his twin Colt Peacemakers and took aim at their astonished faces.

Lights out, boys, he said.

Each year’s Academy training cycle ended with the Skyway Patrol’s formal ball. These events celebrated the graduation of the lucky few as well as allowing the newbies a chance to meet the people they would be working with in the coming days. But more importantly, they offered an opportunity for all to network. Skyway was the place where the city’s most prestigious sons could demonstrate their leadership abilities, and so had become a prime recruiting ground for government and business alike. The condition of employment in Skyway was a three-year hitch (three and free was the phrase used by patrollers with upward mobility on their minds) upon successful completion of training. Sixty-seven percent of Academy applicants never reached that point. Seventy-three percent of those who did would not sign for a second turn. Most would opt for positions in the civilian community more suitable—and at considerably higher pay—for persons of their breeding.

Newly commissioned driver Second Lieutenant Thomas Shack entered the hall, ill at ease in his stiff dress blues. He had earned three merit badges in the Academy, and these colorful bits of ribbon and brass were pinned over his left breast. It had taken him hours working with a rag, brush, polish and wax to achieve a high gloss on his leather shoes. He wore white cotton gloves buttoned at the wrist. He probably looked better than ever before in his life, and he felt like a clown.

Shack stopped and surveyed the hall.

At one end, a chamber orchestra performed. According to the program, it was something called Bach and to Shack’s ear it sounded as thin as the beer the city’s brewers produced. The room, however, was incredibly ornate, and Shack had never seen its like. The walls and ceiling seemed to be painted with bits of gold that reflected sparkling light from the three enormous chandeliers. At center was a sparsely used dance floor (he suspected that it was humanly impossible to dance to the orchestra’s squeaking). In the opposite end of the hall from the orchestra were dozens of round tables with place markers, but he knew he had some time before they would be called to dine.

Shack took a deep breath and joined the swirl of society matrons in gowns, big wigs in tuxedos, and officers in blue and gold. Eventually he made it to the bar where he received a fluted glass of champagne and hardy congratulations from a number of drunken strangers. He saw a woman eyeing him over a martini and it took him a moment to register her: the hostage from the exercise. She was wearing Skyway blue; he guessed that she worked in admin and wondered how she got talked into helping out on the track. He raised his champagne glass in toast. The woman looked frightened; she turned and disappeared in the crowd.

A flash of light drew Shack’s attention to a corner of the room behind the dining area. A photographer had corralled a group of veterans, chests bristling with decorations; they were just relaxing from their stiff pose, blinking away blue dots from their vision and chuckling self-consciously. These men were from the tiny fraction who stayed on turn after turn, devoting themselves to the continued defense of the realm. This wisdom may have been questioned in private by the civilians in the room, men who had committed themselves to nothing grander than the accumulation of wealth, but inside Skyway they were known as the true brethren, and were revered within the community for their guts and determination.

At their center was Commander Bull Carver. For a few moments, Shack watched him working the crowd like a politician. He had met the big man only once, and briefly. He had been called to his austere office on the gallery above the Ops floor. Carver had informed him in no uncertain terms that he was opposed to Shack’s admission to the Academy and that he wouldn’t hesitate to dismiss him if he wasn’t up to the curriculum. Shack had thanked him for the opportunity, turned around smartly, and marched out of the office.

Shack resumed wandering through the crowd. The other male cadets, it seemed, had gathered at a table of unrecognizable snacks where they were admiring their badges and flirting with some teenaged daughters nearby.

Waldorf passed Shack as he swaggered toward the girls. Nice stunt today, Shack.

Same to you, lady-killer.

Waldorf drunkenly stopped, vaguely registering the insult. But Shack had already moved on. When Waldorf turned back to the mission at hand, he discovered that a stern matriarch had outflanked him. He made a tactical retreat and ate an hors d’oeuvre.

Shack continued around some portable curtains behind the orchestra and found Major Lexi Carver, hidden away with a split of champagne. He approached her cautiously, and spoke only when she refused to acknowledge his presence.

Excuse me, Major Carver, he said. I’m Tom Shack.

Don’t tell me—I won the lottery?

Ma’am? Shack asked.

What do you want?

I’ve been assigned as your driver. I thought maybe we could—

You’re not supposed to think, Lexi interrupted, turning her fierce blue eyes on him. That’s the whole point of the hostage scenario. When drivers think, people get killed. She turned away, then thought of something else. You may have graduated the Academy, chauffeur, but school starts tomorrow at oh nine hundred. Until then, I’m off duty. She returned to the business of getting quietly drunk.

Shack lingered. Carver, about what happened to your partner—

Where were you in the pack?

Ma’am?

Stop calling me ma’am—I keep expecting my mother to appear.

Maybe you can introduce us later, Shack suggested. I think they’ve got us seated together for din—

She died years ago.

Oh. I’m sorry.

"So am I, but you’re drifting. We were discussing your standing. Your class rank."

Shack shifted his weight from foot to foot. Eighth, he said.

Excuse me?

Eighth.

"Out of eight?"

Right.

Zulu Five, she muttered, "this is my lucky day. She drained her glass and glared at Shack. Listen up, Number Eight—I damned well don’t want to hear how you would’ve handled it."

No, Shack replied softly, it’s just that I did a little research. No one’s ever ambushed a Skyway crew before.

Lexi paused, thinking through the alcohol. Bandit raids are not organized, she finally said. Not since the early days anyway; and not since we broke them at The Wall. They strictly go for targets of opportunity. Hit and run, smash and grab, low-tech kind of stuff. They’re driven by desperation more than anything. Besides, what did they gain?

A man’s filthy hand thrust into the night sky, holding Lieutenant Weeks’s brass badge. He passed it to another man, who passed it to the next, until each of the three-dozen men assembled at the Bandit campsite had handled it. Touching the badge of the dreaded Skyway made it real, and gave them a glimpse of hope. Touching it made them feel powerful. Then they passed the badge to the anemic-looking outsider the older men called the Lawyer. He hurried up a flight of stairs and turned.

Now do you believe His Honor? the Lawyer cried in his theatrical way of speaking, handing the prize to a man seated beside him who had a craggy face and fierce, intelligent eyes.

His Honor stood before the Bandits and held the badge high.

If we can take this from them, he promised, looking down on their dirty, sun-cracked, brutal faces lit by the camp’s bonfires, "we can take anything."

The men responded with a guttural roar.

Chapter 2

Skyway Operations was a broad, curved room with a slanted ceiling dominated by the board, a massive electronic situation map of the Los Angeles basin’s metropolitan sprawl, now brown and dead.

Ladies and gentlemen, the legacy of the twentieth century: chaos and crime, greed and decay...

Up on the gallery, overlooking Ops and the board, sat the freshly ordained drivers, giddily awaiting their audience with the legend. The deep, booming voice belonged to Commander Carver, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was so dramatic that they had to fight the nervous urge to laugh. For months now they had been operating under conditions of extreme tension, and sooner or later they were going to have to vent. But doing so here was probably the ultimate washout offense.

And the ultimate failure of the federal government. Make no mistake; they were dark times—dark and perilous. But amid the confusion, a plan. ‘Prosperity zones,’ walled off and defended against the agents of destruction. Bella Vista, the Arboretum, City Center, the Malibu Colony. As he spoke, yellow islands emerged from the sprawl, defining the zones. Red lines surrounded the islands, indicating the walls. Emerging from the wings, the commander walked out in front of the newly anointed as a network of green lines spread across the map to link the islands and was bathed by the colorful glow.

Man does like to make an entrance, Hook whispered in the back row, nearly sparking a meltdown in the ranks. Rafe Saville bit down hard on his tongue.

Now the lifeline: the Frontier Skyway, joining only the essential units needed to ensure that society survives. And out of the ruins of the old, a new world was created: New Angeles.

Carver moved aside as the situation map came alive with the data from ten thousand sensors reporting traffic density, the positions of cruisers, the status of checkpoints and video screens cycling views from strategically-placed cameras.

Carver looked down on the young faces of the new drivers. This, ladies and gentlemen, is your mission. Not simply to keep the lifeline safe, but to defend the faith, like those brave souls who came before you. Your brothers, your fathers, and grandfathers. To stand watch against the darkness and declare ‘You will not prevail!’

What about our moms? driver Christina Curtis said under her breath.

Mary Ann Morris, the other female in the group, responded, Or sisters?

On the floor below them, a dozen operators crewed consoles, monitoring the wealth of data coming into the building. Ops was a well-oiled machine and its hum filled the room.

Bull Carver keenly studied his new soldiers in the cause. Now, are you ready to go to work?

Sir, yes sir! they sounded off with a single, determined voice.

Dispatch was several floors below Ops and to the rear of the headquarters building housing the patrol. The new drivers took the service elevator down and filed into the garage where a dozen men wearing different colored jerseys were working on three cruisers in various states of repair. It took a moment for the young drivers’ eyes to adjust to the darkness. The work areas were lit with fluorescent lamps hanging from the vaulted ceiling, but their light did not reach into the far corners of the room. To most of the young men and women, the garage resembled nothing so much as a sewer. It was dark, greasy, noisy, and the air stank of chemicals. To Shack, it was familiar ground. He pushed past the others and walked through an arch to the parking area, where eight gleaming cruisers awaited with eight seasoned systems officers.

What took you girls? Captain Kennedy, an older cop with a bushy mustache, asked.

Did it take all eight of you to figure out the elevator? Major Ackerman said.

Happy to be alive, sir, new driver Joe Sumner said.

A-jay squared away.

The other officers chuckled sadly as they took in their charges. Each year it was the same. They were handed relatively untested cadets and were expected to season them into functional, if not exactly professional, Skyway officers. That the majority of them didn’t carry the veterans’ burning devotion was a key problem; most of these drivers would never rise to the level of true brethren, indeed, most of them would have been horrified at the idea. The majority would be long gone after their first turn, once they had earned a little seasoning, learned a few new swear words, and claimed that all-important Skyway merit badge for their résumés. No one here wanted to get his ass shot off by a momma’s boy playing cops and robbers. The newbies were derisively referred to as chauffeurs by the faithful, but were an unfortunate necessity of the system. The few wheat kernels among the chaff would quickly shake out. That, at least, they could count on. If ultimately these kids couldn’t hack it then they could go inside and crew a computer console or get the hell out.

While the new drivers began to sort themselves out and find their assignments, Shack grabbed a diagnostics cart and wheeled it over to cruiser 515. He plugged it into the car’s CPU port and looked to Lexi Carver.

Major Carver, if you please.

She reached in the systems officer’s window and typed in her activation code. Shack slid into the vehicle, checked the brake and gearshift, and gave the ignition key a quick twist. The engine started at once, a rich, throaty growl.

I didn’t see you at dinner last night, Number Eight, Lexi said through the window.

They had me seated in the corner.

Bad luck.

Yeah. Good grub, though. What was it? Shack asked.

"Coq au vin."

Whatever.

Chicken in a wine sauce, Lexi explained. Just one word of advice: don’t ever let a chef hear you use the word ‘grub’ to describe his food. They get a little touchy about things like that.

Whatever.

There are lots of sharp implements in kitchens, Number Eight. More homicides happen there than you might like to think.

Shack grinned. I’ll try to keep that in mind.

He climbed back out of the cruiser, switched on the diagnostic unit and examined the readouts. There were a number of status menus: the mini-gun had a full can of ammo (he gave it a shake to be sure), and the tiny brains in the Hydra rockets registered as nominal. All the links for the laser and infrared systems checked.

Can we expect to get underway anytime soon?

Shack glanced at his watch. It was eight forty-five. Plenty of time.

I was ordered to start my shift at oh nine hundred, major.

Shack worked his way through the menus down to the basic mechanical systems and found something not to his liking. He walked around to the front, opened the hood and removed the air filter.

Shack’s actions had drawn the attention of the officers in the room. Standard check-out consisted of making sure the gas tank had been topped off and listening to the motor for knocks before departing on patrol. The important stuff was entrusted to the mechanics; that was what they were there for. Most of Shack’s classmates thought he was trying to show off, but getting greasy was not something that really impressed them. It was further evidence of his disreputable roots—although at the other end of the room, McCullough was quietly kicking his car’s tires and pushing on the suspension, trying to glean some secrets from the machine’s responses. Most Skyway officers considered themselves the modern day equivalent of knights, and the hierarchy was the same: the noble-born knights slew the dragons and bedded the princesses; the lowly pages shoveled the shit.

Opening 515’s hood drew the immediate attention of the mechanics, and Vince Varley, a barrel-chested shift boss with a sandy beard, rushed over. They had little patience for amateur mechanics tinkering with the cruisers, even if they were hotshot officers.

Here! What do you think you’re—? He stopped when he rounded the car and saw Shack adjusting the carburetor. Tommy!

Hey, Vince. She’s burning a little lean.

Varley checked the readout and nodded. He moved back to the front of the car and leaned close as if to help. The boys and me were real proud when we heard. Good luck, Tommy.

Thanks. He finished the adjustment.

Varley slammed the hood and wheeled the cart away. Shack checked his watch again. Nine a.m. on the dot. He looked at Lexi over the trunk.

We’re ready.

Like angry hornets leaving the nest, the eight cruisers rumbled out of the garage doors in rank order, with Evan Waldorf in the lead and Shack pulling up the rear. The back of the headquarters building was perched high on the rocky edge of a hillside; by the time the cruisers reached the bottom of the steep connector ramp leading down to the Frontier Skyway, they were traveling at 100 m.p.h. and merged easily with the free flowing civilian traffic. As cadets, the drivers had made that dizzying drop dozens of times, but this time was for real. They had joined the patrol.

What was all that about? Lexi Carver asked.

Hmm?

She motioned toward the hood.

Being prepared, he said.

You don’t trust the mechanics? She pointed to a ramp. Take us to Bella Vista.

I don’t trust the machines, Shack replied as the flock of cruisers separated. He changed lanes and caught the exit. Everything has a failure point.

That’s interesting, coming from you.

Shack looked at her sideways. Years ago, a cruiser went out and the systems officer thought he had a full load in the can. The on-board computer said so—and that was all they ever checked for status, all they check now as a matter of fact. But its processor had gotten swamped and wasn’t handling updates from its sensors. Fact was, it had been a busy day shift and they had no ammo. They ended up getting into a scrape that night; the systems officer was killed.

That was a long time ago, Lexi noted.

And we’re still running the same series processor.

Lexi knew about the deadly incident, but she hadn’t heard about the continued use of the processor. He heard her take a deep, sad breath and he pointedly kept his eyes on the road.

So I have only your safety in mind, major.

Thanks. Lexi sighed. Danny Weeks would have gotten a kick out of this, she finally said. I was always going on about infrastructure.

Lexi Carver relaxed as Shack drove; it was obvious at once that the young man was not completely without skills. Especially at the high speeds they traveled, bad drivers tended to concern themselves only with what lay directly ahead. Good drivers demonstrated a keen kinesthetic sense of everything around them.

Did you get my father’s ‘defending the faith’ speech? she asked.

Yeah.

Lexi shifted in her seat to get a better look at Shack. So what do the cadets say about Bull these days?

Shack hesitated.

They must have some opinion of the man. Come on, you can tell me.

Well, they say that when Bull Carver finally crashes, they’ll find plenty of blood and guts in the wreckage, but no brains.

Lexi surprised him by laughing.

I just wanted to make sure no one’s taking his shit seriously, she said.

Cruiser 923 was crewed by new driver Brannon McCullough and systems officer Captain Sam Kennedy. As far as McCullough could tell, Kennedy spent as much time grooming his impressive mustache as handing out tickets. He had a tiny comb in his breast pocket that kept reappearing in his hand to take preemptory swipes through his whiskers, should they be so bold as to get ruffled.

So tell me, McCullough, he said, angling the rearview mirror for a better view of his upper lip, why’d you join this outfit?

McCullough hated people asking him why he did the things he did. He was a mystery even to himself. The easy answer was that he did what his parents wanted him to do; but he knew that answer would only get him crucified.

I thought, you know—for the good of the city. That I might be able to contribute... something.

For the good of the city.

It was my parents’ idea—but I wanted to, too, you know.

Kennedy was amazed. This McCullough kid seemed to trip over every other thought in his head. Know—? he asked.

It’s not like they forced me to or anything. We have a long history of public service in my family, you know, and it seemed like, that is, that I could contribute something.

For the good of the city.

Exactly.

Uh huh, uh huh. I know exactly what you mean, Kennedy said.

Yes, McCullough said determinedly.

And I’m sure you will. Kennedy produced his comb and flourished it vigorously to hide his grin. He reminded himself that he had to give the gangly young man points for getting this far.

Oh, he noticed something in the traffic ahead and pointed. Rolls.

McCullough got the cruiser behind the slowly moving car. Kennedy scanned the bumper’s barcode and had combed his mustache twice before the Rolls-Royce’s computer had had time to register the fine. He looked over at McCullough’s angular, perpetually worried face.

This is how it’s going to be, son, Kennedy explained. Most of what we do is make sure that traffic keeps moving. The tickets we issue are like a boot in the ass to people who don’t remember the old days. We keep an eye out for anyone with mechanical difficulties, and why is that?

It’s nearly impossible for Bandits to get a car onto Skyway’s closed system and disrupt traffic, McCullough answered. Kennedy noted that he had at least read the manual they gave recruits on their first day at the Academy. But it’s pretty easy for individuals to get on the road. And, in the past, they were often drawn by motorists in trouble.

That’s right. There’s not much a couple of Bandits can do with traffic flowing smoothly at a hundred m.p.h., not without getting themselves killed in the process, but they can cause bloody hell with a stopped car. Do you drink?

McCullough looked even more worried than usual.

Isn’t it a little early for that?

Coffee, my boy. Java. Cuppa joe. The super-caffeinated elixir of life. Kennedy grinned. There’s a great little place in Alameda Zone. Turn around.

Evan Waldorf had been assigned to cruiser 1212 and Major Troy Ackerman, a bald, granite block of a man who spent much of his free time obsessively lifting weights. To Waldorf, he had the appearance of having been inflated to fill his uniform.

On the other hand, Major Ackerman knew that Waldorf came from one of New Angeles’s finest families and had graduated tops in his class. That alone almost certainly made him chauffeur material. In twenty years’ time, he would be growing thick around the middle and bragging to his golf buddies about running gun battles that had never happened and damsels in distress he’d never rescued. He’d be filthy rich and emotionally bankrupt. Waldorf was handsome and charismatic and would go far in life, and equal parts of Ackerman resented and envied him.

So what brings you to Skyway Patrol, Waldorf? Ackerman asked without much hope. The systems officers would gather at beer call that night, and the one who brought in the most pathetic reason for joining the patrol would drink free for the rest of the evening.

Waldorf lifted a hand and ticked off his reasons. "Five of the last six chancellors were veterans. All the big movers and shakers served here. The opportunity to meet important people. Instant career