Appeals Court | Page 7

figures we oughta deliver you to the Baptist temple in Glory City -- that's Charleston as was -- in time for next Thursday's memorial service. It's the sixteenth anniversary of the Rapture, and they get kinda jumpy at this time of year." A meaty hand descends on Huw's shoulder and he looks round, then up, and up until his newly fixed neck aches at the sight of an enormous and completely hairless man with skin the colour of a dead fish and little piggy eyes. "Son, this is Sam. Say hello, Sam."
"Hello," rumbles the human mountain. Huw blinks.
"You're going to hand me over to the baptists?" he asks. "What happens then?"
"Well." Doc scratches his head. "That's up to you, isn't it?"
"But this anniversary. What do you mean, they get jumpy?"
"Oh, nothing much. Jes' sacrifice a bunch of heretics to make God notice they still b'lieve, that kinda thing. You got a problem with that?"
"Maybe." Huw licks his lips. "What if I don't want to go?"
"Well, then." Doc cocks his head to one side and squints at Huw's left ear. "Say, son, that's a mightly nice ear you've got there. Seeing as how you've not paid your medical bill, I figure we'd have to take it off you to cover the cost of your treatment. Plus maybe a leg, a kidney, and an eye or two. How about it?"
"No socialised medicine here!" rumbles Sam, as a second backhoe-sized hand closes around Huw's other shoulder.
"Okay! I'll do it! I'll do it!" Huw squeaks.
Doc beams amiably at him. "That calls for a shot of corn likker," says the medic. "I *knew* you'd see sense. Now, about the alien space bats. We've got this here telescope what Sam acquired, but we don't know how to work it proper. Have you ever used one? We're looking for the bat cave on the moon ..."
#
Welcome to the American future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.
The ant-colony has taken the entire Atlantic coast of the US, has marched on Georgia and west to the Mississippi. It is an anarchist colony, whose females lay eggs without regard for any notional Queen, and it has entered its eighth year of life, which is middle-aged for a normal colony, but may be just the beginning for the Hypercolony.
The God-botherers have no treaty with the ants, but have come to view them as another proof of the impending end of the world. Anything that is not contained in chink-free, seamless plastic and rock is riddled in ant-tunnels within hours. They've learned to establish airtight seals around their homes and workplaces, to subject themselves to stinging insecticide showers before clearing a vestibule, to listen for the tupperware burp whenever they seal their children in their space-suits and send them off to Bible classes.
The ants have eaten their way through most of the nematode species beneath the soil, compromised all but the most plasticized root-systems of the sickening flora (the gasoline refining forests are curiously symbiotic with the colony -- anarchist supercolonies like living cheek-by-mouth-part with a lot of hydocarbons). They've eaten the bee-hives and wasp-nests, and they've laid waste to any comestible not tinned and sealed, leaving the limping Americans with naught but a few billion tons of processed food to eat before their supply bottoms out.
The American continent is a fairy tale that the cloudmind tells itself whenever it doubts its collective decision to abandon humanity. The left-behinds there spent their lives waiting for an opportunity to pick up a megaphone and organize crews with long poles to go digging through the ruins of civilization for tinned goods. Presented with their opportunity in the aftermath of the Geek Rapture, they are happy as evangelical pigs in shit -- plenty to rail against, plenty of fossil fuel, plenty of firearms.
What more could they possibly need?
#
Once it becomes clear that Huw is prepared to go to Glory City, the Doc comes all-over country hospitality, seeing to it that Sam gets him properly lubricated. They watch the sunset through the tupperware walls of the Doc's homestead, watch the thick carpet of ants swarming over the outer walls as they chase the last of the sun across the surface. When the sun finally sets, the sound of a billion tromping feet keeps them company.
"Well," says Doc, nodding at Sam. "Looks like it's time to hit the road."
Huw sits up straight. Glory City is *not* on his agenda, but if he's going to make a break for it, he wants to do it somewhere a bit more crowded and anonymous than here, right in the middle of Doc's home turf. Plus, he's still weak as a kitten from gasoline-tainted corn mash and the nanos' knitting at his guts.
"We'll take the bikes," Doc announces with an affable nod. "Go get 'em, Sam."
Sam thuds off towards an