The Armageddon Blues | Page 5

incline that
Jalian was able to scramble up and make her way onto the concrete of
the Big Road itself. She paused at the edge of the Big Road, her feet
still on dirt but only a step away from the concrete.
This would only be the second time that Jalian had set foot on the Big
Road.
The first time, one of the Hunters--Jalian could not remember who it
had been, except that it was not an Elder Hunter because she did not
wear the white tunic of an Elder Hunter--had taken a group from the
Girls' House with her on routine patrol of Silver-Eyes borders. The
patrol had made camp at the edge of the hills, while the four- and five-
and six-year olds scrambled over the Big Road. Later, one of the
younger women in the patrol told the children about the land of gods
and demons at its end.
Then she had tried to run away, and been caught by Ralesh.
This time, Jalian had a third-day start. They would not catch her.
They would not.
The twentieth century, as viewed by Jalian d'Arsennette, consists of
freeways.

(The twentieth century saw the birth of the thermonuclear explosive
and the freeway. Jalian could almost forgive one for the other.
(Almost.)
Dateline 712 A.T.F.
One step, and then two, and Jalian stood for a frozen timeless moment
on the concrete of the Big Road itself.
Then the paralysis broke, and, shivering slightly, Jalian walked to the
center of the road, where the melted ruin of a lane divider stood a
lonely vigil.
The freeway ran away from her, straight and true and clean, protected
as though by the gods. (The winds, here, were too sporadic to erode
much. Plants, which in other places grew up through the asphalt and
crumbled the man-made structures, here stood no chance against the
radioactive Burn. The freeway itself, cambered from the center, was
regularly cleaned of the dirt that built up on its surface by the summer
rains.)
At the age of six, to Jalian d'Arsennette, it made more sense that the
Big Road was protected by the gods. (Or the demons, perhaps, although
Jalian did not like to think about that.)
For how long Jalian simply stood on the Big Road, the sun burning
down on her, her eyes seeking into the distance for the end of the Big
Road, she never knew. She came back from infinity, slowly, with the
thoughts in her mind:
Mountains beside me, desert behind me. Forest and hills and sun, and
the Big Road far ahead ...
That moment, her thin body touched with the ecstasy of a dimly
perceived greater reality, Jalian remembered for the rest of her life.
The moment ended and she ran.

Jalian had not made it to the end of the Big Road when she was five
because she had squandered her lead time. This time she would not
make that mistake.
Run and run and run....
The freeway stretched before her; a road of possibilities.
Georges Mordreaux is an interesting man. Aside from the fact that
entropy tends to decrease in his vicinity, there are eight of him.
Yes, eight. Not all on the same timeline, of course.
(It is a shame, but Georges will not admit to any of the eight having
been present during the explosion of a thermonuclear weapon. He may
be lying, of course; humans are notorious liars. Evidence suggests that
he may be engaging in this common human pastime. For reasons too
lengthy to go into here, asking any of his other seven directly would
be…difficult.)
(Georges Mordreaux, of the base timeline that led to divergence 1962,
did once meet Einstein. This is not the same as being present when a
thermonuclear weapon is exploded, but it is the closest that Georges is
willing to admit to. The author, commenting in a negative fashion on
this subject, has been blessed with the response, "Ah, well." There are
times when the author agrees with Georges that he is in some ways a
very shallow fellow.
(All eight of him.)
Dateline 712 A.T.F.
Jalian ran automatically. Her body pushed itself without conscious
attention. She was thinking about the end of the Big Road, and what
she would find there. It would, she thought, be a strange place indeed ...
something with bright, bright colors, and loud noises. Very loud.
Jalian liked loud noises.

With a shock more immense than anything she had every felt before in
her young life, Jalian focused on an object some ways ahead of her.
There was something on the Big Road. Her legs stumbled, then stopped.
She stood there in the middle of the old freeway, her chest heaving, her
short brown tunic splotchy with sweat, looking at the building that had
grown up