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Desert.

Black Desert.

He remembered there used to be a band by that name not too long ago. Hard rock, it was. Not quite breaching the heavy metal scene, but certainly rough enough to make the room shake and leave you with a particularly catchy tune thrashing through your ears for a good few weeks or so. Their lyrics mostly consisted of such concepts as nuclear war, democracy, anarchy, pollution, natural disasters, and karmic retribution. They did pretty well for a few years, but then the lead singer died in a car accident. He wasn't drinking or anything, just decided that the next best course of action in his life was to turn the concrete wall in front of his brand new Ford into industrial soup (which doesn't quite work one hundred percent of the time). The remaining members decided to keep the band alive, which was very commendable, but when they chose a deacon as their next singer, fans of theirs noticed a definite change in their lyrics. After that, they played a few random gigs for a few years before finally floundering and disbanding.

Bluey Roo really liked their early years.

Bluey was thirty-three years old, not bad for a kangaroo. He grew up in the desert, and his love for it was as strong--or stronger as some would argue--than his love for pasta, rain, and large machinery. He loved the feel of the burning sun as it stretched out its love for wandering passerby and other nomadic life. The rush of the wind, the smell of the ocean as it wafted in from the coast, invading fiery beaches...

He remembered his youth with great lucidity, but little fondness. Sitting in the dust and sand in a plain cotton T-shirt, wiping away the jam from a stolen bit of toast from the corner of his mouth. He had no friends, no family, just a group of other young roos he traveled with who were very intellectual, but lacked the necessary social characteristics that could make them decent citizens in a rebirthed society.

People who talk about the 60's and 70's are often quoted in some fashion or another with the phrase "everyone was doing it." Bluey's memories had a similar incarnation: "everyone was pissed off." It didn't matter what it was about, be it war, discrimination, lack of food, or there being not any people to mug. Everybody was mad at something, and if you weren't mad, they were always ready with a long list of what you should be mad about.

Needless to say, the environment Bluey grew up in was not a flourishingly positive one. Eventually, the little tyke spent much of his time away from everyone else, tinkering with the little scraps and doodads he often picked up in the desert.

Now, full grown at six-foot-seven and garbed in a dark great coat and captain's cap--the cap was embroidered with a tribal kangaroo design--Bluey looked out over the wide expanse of sand. He sipped lovingly at a cup of tea (spiked with lemon and ginger, rare shit to get nowadays). It was morning, and the tower was heating quickly as the sun rose, highlighting his sapphire blue fur and the black stripes on his muzzle. He closed his eyes and thought of his dream, the dream that was nearing completion so quickly, when there came a knocking at his door.

Four knocks, very quick, like a dog scratching at the door. Bluey smiled as he shouted for the person to "Come." A small rat of a man dressed in a rockabilly getup slithered into the room. Bluey managed to keep himself from sneering in disgust; it was exactly how the man walked in, slithering in an awkwardly snake-like shuffle with a rodent-like face. Bluey would rather have liked to have the head of his secret police to be more of a tall, heavily armed, masked character, sort of like a living shadow.

Oh, well, Bluey thought. The progress outweighs the sacrifice.

"Hey, Patsy," Bluey said. "How's things?"

Patsy rubbed his nose and let his eyes slide from left to right. I was wrong, Bluey thought in a repulsed tone. He looks more like a fucking weasel.

"Well, boss, do you want the clean side of the coin first or the dirty side?"

The tall kangaroo smiled, making sure that the sun caught the gleam in his sharp, ivory teeth. "How about you give me the whole coin or I cut off your damn hands?"

"Alright, exercise of diplomacy, that's good, boss. Yeah, uh...the mine's are going strong, none of the workers are complaining (which is a first, you know), and nobody's died in two months. The reactor might be a bit longer coming 'round, but if you get a few more people working on it, there shouldn't be any real problem. The big problem is the weapons."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You can get by the funding you've got left, but you'll lose even more if they learn what you want their money for. And on that note, the arms shipments have dropped...by, like, ten percent."

Bluey raised his eyebrows, shocked and intrigued. "How's that possible?"

Patsy shrugged his shoulders. "All the arms & ammo makers don't have enough staff, and it takes a while to learn the stuff. Not a lot of staff means not a lot of stock. Also, I think some mercenary shits are learnin' our shipping routes."

"Then go to the dealers."

"Can't go to the dealers when they're getting killed by their own merchandise."

"Shit," Bluey muttered through clenched teeth. It wasn't so much that he was losing supplies, it was that they were being misplaced, and it would take a lot longer to find the guns that misplaced. He looked directly into Patsy's eyes, cocking his head at an imposing angle. "Is that all?"

"Actually no, boss. There's just one more little thing, and it's got to do with that Ethyl woman."

Oh, God DAMN it! Bluey thought, feeling his blood rush into his cheeks as he clenched his knuckles. Was that woman insane? Did she really think she owned this town?

_ No, she didn't think that at all. She just thought she owned the entire world of engineering and technology._

"I heard from a few workers that she's got a little something going on," Patsy went on. "Some kind of side-project or something. Did you want me to do some more snooping or..."

"No. I want you to send out the purging committee."

Bluey watched the color drain out of Patsy's face, and he enjoyed it, the comic look as the little rat-man's eyes bulged out of their eye sockets. A thought had struck him when the little snitch mentioned Ethyl's "side-project", a cold and deliciously nasty plan that made him want to laugh like all the villainous Hollywood types from the thirties. Vincent Price came to mind very quickly.

"Are you sure you want to do that, boss? I mean, we haven't really needed him and to be honest, he doesn't really have any experience in that line of work..."

Bluey grinned and sipped at his tea. He turned his back on the snitch and went to the window watching as the wind caught a handful of sand and toss it around inside a funnel.

"Tell me something, Patsy," Bluey said, his eyes never leaving the dust funnels as they swirled upward. "Did you know that during World War II, when a particularly inexperienced Nazi death squad was sentenced to execute civilians in a small town, their commanding officer sent for a few cases of cognac to calm their nerves?"

"Uh, no, I...never really knew that, sir."

"Yes, it truly is interesting what one will do to ensure the destruction of another."

"Yeah, well...It's good to know that we've gone past those dark days. Right, boss?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

Bluey heard the little man shuffle nervously behind him. That was good; he was waiting for permission to leave, just as he should. Bluey made a "throwaway" gesture with his hand, and he heard the clink-clink-clink of Patsy's damnably irritating spurs as he walked away. Then they stopped for one brief moment before the nervous little man said "So...send the guy a bottle of beer?"

"Oh, hell no! Send him a case."