Chapter Nineteen

In which our heroine learns that she’s got a long way to go.

There were no other cars in the vicinity, so it wasn’t hard to find the brown Zhiguli. Stimpy unlocked the driver’s door, then went around to the trunk, opened it, and took out an automatic weapon similar to the one they’d left on the truck. He opened the driver’s-side back door, carefully placed the gun on the floor, closed the door, and took his place behind the steering wheel. Walking around to the other side of the car, Lorinda said, “I’m staying in the front with you guys. You’re going to tell me your real names.” Ren slid in next to her.

They drove in silence, on back streets, for a few minutes before Stimpy piloted the car onto a westbound highway. 

“West,” said Lorinda.

“You can read,” said Stimpy. 

Ignoring him, Lorinda said, “If you’re going west we can stop off at my house in Perfecton and pick up some clothes. And leave a note for my parents.”

“Your house is probably surrounded by Domestic Security by now,” Stimpy said. 

“So where are we going?”

“Seven hours west,” Stimpy said. “And then you’ll keep going.”

“Without you?”

“We’re not the ones who need a reset,” Stimpy said. 

“Where am I going?”

“Land of the free, home of the —” Ren said. 

“Abortion,” said Stimpy. 

Lorinda’s head was spinning. Yesterday everything was sort of normal. Today ... “Seven hours!” she said. “Texas is big.”

“The biggest,” said Ren. “That’s why the USA didn’t want to lose it to the CCSA.” 

“Texas in the USA? That would be so weird,” said Lorinda.

“They didn’t teach you about that in school?” Stimpy said. “The Great Texas Debate? The Windsor Conference?”

“What’s Windsor?”

“It’s a city in Canada, across from Detroit,” said Ren. “Neutral territory for a conference. It went on for three months. Almost started a shooting war.”

“They taught us The Split was completely peaceful,” said Lorinda. “The USA was afraid to fight us.”

Stimpy laughed.  

“They teach a lot of things that just ain’t true,” said Ren. “But, yeah, no shots were fired. I mean, people were firing guns all over the place of course. As usual. But nothing official. Nothing military. Just heavy negotiations. Other countries got involved, especially Germany and Japan. You really never heard this?”

“Never,” Lorinda said. “I’m feeling a little stupid.”

“Not stupid,” said Ren, “Just ignorant. Every kid in the CCSA gets taught a lot of horseshit. It’s the way countries like this work.”

“Countries like this?”

“Totalitarian-moron states,” Stimpy uttered under his breath.

“So,” said Ren, “the deal was, the CCSA kept Texas in exchange for the Free Trade Zones, which mainly meant that the big foreign factories in the US South, like BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes in Alabama and all the rest, got to export to the USA duty-free, just like before The Split.”

 “The geniuses behind CCSA,” Stimpy said, “they thought this would screw the USA, because all those factories were staying here. What they didn’t figure on was the exchange rate.”

“Because the US dollar is worth so much more than ours?” Lorinda asked.

“They were worth exactly the same in the beginning,” said Ren. “One US dollar equaled one CCSA dollar.”

“That’s crazy,” said Lorinda “I never heard that.”

“Yeah,” said Stimpy, “that’s another thing they don’t talk about in school. Or anyplace else.”

“So now,” Ren concluded, “the CCSA is a Third World country —”

“Oh come on!” Lorinda was surprised at her own indignation. “We are not a Third World country!”

“Oh yeah?” Stimpy said. “Look around. At our infrastructure. At our life expectancy.”

 Lorinda took a breath. Did she really want to start arguing with this intense guy about her country’s life expectancy? “Really?”

 "Are you kidding?" Stimpy laughed. "The life expectancy in the CCSA has been going down since the ink dried on The Split deal. It's gone down something like 2.3 years so far."

Lorinda frowned. "That's not what we learned in school."

"No shit. You probably also learned that two plus two is five."

"Not only that," Ren said. "But the life expectancy in the USA has gone up by a year and a half."

"How? Why?"

Ren shrugged. "They're not sure. Maybe less pollution. Gun regulations. Workplace-safety rules — "

"— and the fucking fact that the statistics in the red states — you know, which became the CCSA — were bringing the stats of the rest of the country down,” Stimpy said. “Subtract the red states from the old USA and the average life expectancy of the remaining states jumps up. Instantly.” He paused for a breath. “And on top of that, here’s my theory on why they’re living longer in the USA: less aggravation. Two hundred million people, or whatever, finally could stop dealing with all the ignorance and hypocrisy and reactionary bullshit stupidity —"

Lorinda held up two hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I get it."

“And so today,” Ren said, “What the CCSA is good for is making stuff — for foreign companies — that they sell to the USA. And the rest of the world. Really good stuff, like BMWs and Mercedeses.”

“And none of this Zhiguli crapola,” said Stimpy. “This garbage stays here.”

“They don’t sell Zhigulis in the US?” Lorinda was confused. “But it was such a big deal when the Russians opened a factory in Texas. We had a school holiday!” 

“They only sell them here in the CCSA. They’re too shitty for the rest of the world,” laughed Ren. “You can’t give them away in the US.”

“I can’t believe I’m going there,” said Lorinda, the reality of it suddenly hitting her in the gut. “I was born there, you know. In New York State. Upper State.” 

“Upstate,” said Stimpy.

“Upstate?”

“That’s how you say it. Upstate. Not Upper.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s where I’m from,” Stimpy said softly. “Rochester.”

“Wow,” said Lorinda, “something personal. I hope that doesn’t mean you have to kill me now with that big gun.” 

Stimpy didn’t smile, but at least he didn’t bark at her. Instead, he said, “You should study your nice new card in case we’re stopped by a cop.”

Ren pushed a button on the dashboard and opened the glove compartment door, which fell off in his hand. He tossed it casually into the back seat and removed a small tablet from the shallow cavity as Lorinda found her new fake Citizen Card in her bag and handed it to him.

“Thanks, Marge,” he said.

“Margaret to you,” said Lorinda. “Or maybe Peggy. Hey, what’s that?” She pointed to what appeared to be an enormous single-story factory sprawled in a clearing a few hundred yards back from the road. Heat waves emanated from acres of light-colored roofing.

“That,” said Stimpy, “is the biggest crypto-currency mining operation in the world, or so they claim. ConfediCoin. Owned by none other than Ezra Ferrell McWeeny.”

“CEO McWeeny?” Lorinda didn’t know why, but she was shocked. She’d heard the CEO talk about getting rid of regular money and turning the CCSA into a crypto-only nation, proving, he said, that the CCSA was the most advanced nation on the planet.

“None other,” said Stimpy. “It’s sort of a secret. Not that it matters. So he wants the government he runs to start doing business with the company he owns. It barely registers as corruption in this place.”

“I never understood how that crypto stuff is supposed to work.”

“No one does,” said Ren.

“It’s a cross between a Ponzi scheme and …” For once, Stimpy was at a loss for words.

“A lottery,” Ren said, finishing the sentence.

“We don’t even take it at PumpJack’s.”

“That’s because PumpJacks’s isn’t in the business of money laundering or drug dealing,” Stimpy said.

After a brief pause, Ren said, “All right, let’s do this.” He scanned the fake Citizen Card and held the scanner so Lorinda could read the screen. 

“Okay,” she said, “I’m from Perfecton — that’s good, cause if it said I’m from Austin or Dallas … I don’t know anything about those places.”

“You know a little about Austin,” Ren said.

“Yeah, right. And I’m a waitress at the General Lee. I know that restaurant. I went there with my parents once, so that’s good. I have to memorize her address.”

“Your address,” Stimpy said.

“My address. And her parents’ — my parents’ — names.” She read to the bottom of the screen, “Can you scroll down?” she asked Ren. He complied. There were only two more short lines of information, stating Margaret’s blood type and allergies, or lack of allergies since there were none listed. “Margaret’s a pretty boring person, isn’t she?”

“We like to keep these things simple,” said Stimpy. “The less info, the less you’re going to forget.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

Silence from the two men.

“So,” said Ren, handing back Lorinda’s card, putting the scanner back in the doorless glove box, and steering the conversation in another direction, “what does it mean to be — what’s the title? Queen of Bartending?”

“Head of Bartending Operations. It means …”

And for the next hour — until Lorinda fell asleep, her head on Ren’s shoulder — the conversation ranged from how to successfully run a bar to favorite drinks to obscure cocktail ingredients to hangover stories to hangover cures to “annoying people we have known.” Stimpy, frowning into his beard, kept his eyes on the road and brooded. The miles flew by, or as much as that was possible in a brown Zhiguli Buckshot.

Around 7:30 in the evening Lorinda was startled awake by the words: “Stimpy here.” It took her a moment to remember where she was and another to remember that Stimpy had an earpiece. “Right. Confirming three overnight. Definitely another car if you have one. All right, we’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Where are we going?” Lorinda asked.

“To a very special gas station,” said Ren.

NEXT: Chapter Twenty. In which our heroine spends a night in a gas station.

PREVIOUSLY in THE SPLIT!

Chapter One. In which we meet our heroine and her dainty little gun.

Chapter Two. In which Lorinda demonstrates her bartending virtuosity.

Chapter Three. In which our heroine receives a promotion and prepares to celebrate.

Chapter Four. In which our heroine proves herself an immoral citizen of the CCSA.

Chapter Five. In which our heroine goes to church.

Chapter Six. In which Lorinda contemplates her future, ignores Pastor Doug, and gets something unexpected from Emmie.

Chapter Seven. In which Lorinda learns something that threatens her big dream.

Chapter Eight. In which our heroine freaks out.

Chapter Nine. In which our heroine says the forbidden word as an unwelcome visitor arrives.

Chapter Ten. In which two unpleasant men perturb our heroine.

Chapter Eleven. In which our heroine seems to have found a solution to her problem.

Chapter Twelve. In which that black truck follows our heroine all the way to Austin.

Chapter Thirteen. In which Lorinda lashes out.

Chapter Fourteen. In which our heroine gets a taste of life in the big city.

Chapter Fifteen. In which our heroine meets a fellow bartender and has a drink.

Chapter Sixteen. In which Lorinda once again takes a swing with her little pink gun.

Chapter Seventeen. In which our heroine prepares to escape.

Chapter Eighteen. In which our heroine gets in a truck with a couple of slightly scary strangers.

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