Ballistic Kiss (Sandman Slim 11)

“What do your instincts tell you, Black Lane Walker?”

“That I’m being played and should figure out what kind of game it is before I get in too deep.”

“Then maybe you should.”

“Maybe I should.” I shake my head to clear it and say, “You ready to get out of here?”

Flicker gives me a look like she feels a little sorry for me.

“Come back to the Devil’s Door and relax for a while where there are people.”

“What are you playing?”

“Road Warrior and Zardoz.”

“Let’s go.”

I go over to Janet’s place early the next morning and they drag me straight into the bedroom, which isn’t a bad start to the day. The Zero Lodge picks us up in a blacked-out van around ten. Everyone else in the van is dressed in evening gowns and snappy suits. Janet looks great in a secondhand tux. I’m the only one in regular everyday clothes. Apparently, I’m expected to look like a headwaiter if I’m going to stick around with these people. This is getting better and better. But Janet holds my hand, chatting happily with the other Lodge members as they try to guess what today’s fun is going to be. Lava wrestling? Volleyball in a minefield? Maybe Manimal Mike taught them to play Billy Flinch but Dan and Juliette didn’t want brains splattered on the basement walls.

After a couple of hours of driving, the chitchat has worn down to an occasional grumble, and even the Lodge hard core are getting restless. We finally stop around noon and pile out of the cattle car, straight into the desert.

It has to be over a hundred degrees. We’re at the bottom of a dry canyon surrounded by dead and dying scrub and spindly trees that rise up from the dusty road where we’re parked and straight up the steep canyon walls. There doesn’t seem to be anything else in any direction.

Dan and Juliette come out of the front of the van back here with us cows. Trash wizard Kenny gets out of a second identical van.

Dan says, “I hope everyone had a good night’s sleep last night and a pleasant trip out from the city. Today’s excursion is going to be a real adventure. Juliette and I spent quite a lot of time setting it up.”

“We sure did,” says Juliette, doing her best Jayne Mansfield impression. “I almost broke a nail.”

The line gets some polite titters.

She goes on, “You all look lovely today, except for our newest member, but I’m sure he’ll get the hang of things.”

She smiles in my direction and I give her a nod because it would upset Janet if I gave her the finger.

While she was talking, Dan hauled a plastic storage box from the back of the van and set it on the ground in the middle of the group.

“Are you ready to see what’s inside?” he says. “It’s essential to today’s excursion.”

A few of the old-timers yell, “Open it!” and whoop.

Dan does it with a flourish like he’s going to reveal he stole the crown jewels. Instead, what’s inside the box is a lot of canteens, maps, and what look like oversized wristwatches.

Fuck. It’s a nature hike. Flicker should be here. This is her scene. Not mine.

Juliette tosses the first canteen and map to me and straps one of the watches on my wrist.

Dan says, “Today’s adventure, boys and girls, is a kind of race, but not against each other. It’s against the forces of nature itself.”

Juliette keeps handing out the gear, smooth as a Beverly Hills cobra.

“You’ll be working in teams of two. One will have the map and one will have the canteen. It doesn’t matter which of you wears the timer. But you don’t want to lose it because the timer is the most important piece of equipment you’ll have.”

When she’s done handing out gear, Juliette says, “The excursion is simple. There’s a route drawn on each of your maps. That’s how you’ll climb from where we are now to the top of the canyon. The canteen is, well, your canteen. Don’t use it up too quickly because it’s a long way to the top.”

“As for the timer,” Dan says, “a hike up a hill didn’t really seem like quite enough of a challenge—until we found this particular canyon. You see, there’s going to be a controlled burn here later today. You see all the brush and trees? By tonight they’ll all be ash. And that’s where your timer comes in.”

Juliette says, “It goes off when the burn starts. If you’re not at the top by then, you’re going to want to shake a leg or get cooked like a Christmas goose.”