Roy, the tall, scarred Radlep commander, felt a little better about his mission now that he had had the chance to slice up some riders. The fact that they had captured one of the Mean Brothers was an excellent sign. It meant that Bonner was riding with the Lashmen, and if Roy the Radlep knew the Outrider, Bonner would be back.

Until his 'lep column had come upon the Devil's getting their asses kicked by Bonner and the midgets Roy had hated this duty. He didn't think that it was the place of Leather's elite Radleps to be plodding IMTOSS the country providing escort duty and picking 'up slaves. Leather had men to do that sort of thing, men that Roy plainly thought of as inferiors. There were Stormers and slavers and torturers in Leather's employment who could have done this job, freeing up the 'leps for the real business of the bomb-broken world: finding Leather's enemies and killing them.

But the sudden appearance of Bonner had changed all that. If the job had been left to the Stormers, they would be dead now—so would the Devils. The slaves would be free and Leatherman's wishes would not have been carried out.

Hidden in a large truck that followed the 'lep column was an important piece of cargo, a man. The man was named Jojo, they called him "fat Jojo" behind his back, but next to Leatherman he was the most important man in the Slavestates. He wasn't much of a fighter—in fact, he wasn't a fighter at all. He was Leatherman's chief counselor and the man who carried Leather's orders from the man himself to the subjects in his empire.

Jojo was on the road heading for Farkas' at Leather's command and it was up to Roy and his Radleps to see that he made it okay. Anyone that tried to stop him had to be killed. As soon as the 'lep column had sighted the battle at the drive-in, Jojo's luxuriously appointed truck had pulled over and the 'leps had been sent on ahead to clear the way. Jojo had lolled in the back of the truck with a slave woman or two and six 'leps standing guard while Roy had taken the column forward to help out the Silk Devils who had been sent out to "escort" the 'lep column into the Hotstates.

Up till then Roy's job had been wet nursing Jojo down the road. He hated that. Jojo never—or almost never—went out on the road and he was scared from the moment he left the Cap, Leatherman's headquarters. It was no use telling him that you couldn't get much safer than having a couple of dozen Radleps around to provide protection. As far as Jojo was concerned the road was a plain old dangerous place to be. He almost fainted when Roy told him that Bonner had been the enemy they had driven off.

"Didja kill him?" asked Jojo, his piggy little eyes full of hope and fear.

"Nope," rasped Roy.

"But you fucked up his riders right? I mean, he ain't coming back, right?"

Roy looked at the fat little man with contempt. "He's coming back," he said tersely and then tied the bandanna across his mouth again. His lips were sore and the wind made it seem like he had a little fire burning in the middle of his face.

"I'm warning you, Roy," screamed Jojo, "If Bonner gets within a mile and a half of me there's gonna be a shitstorm that you won't come out of alive."

Roy's ripped-up features tightened. No one threatened a Radlep, particularly a Radlep commander—and especially not a little fat man who didn't know one end of'a shooter from another.

The 'lep column moved on, eating up the miles that would bring them to Farkas' slave farm. They couldn't get there fast enough for Roy. The sooner they got there and Jojo and Farkas did their business, the sooner Roy and his men could be back on the road. As soon as they were on the road again, he expected Mr. Bonner to come calling. It never occurred to Roy that Bonner would try anything at the slave farm itself. It was too heavily defended.

Roy was not a man who could read. If he could have he probably would never have done it anyway. Bonner read and once he had come upon a quote: "Those who ignore the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them." Roy, and just about everybody else, was sure that Bonner would not attack the farm. But they had all too soon forgotten, that once, not long before, Bonner had lead a small force deep into the heart of the Slavestates and struck the Cap itself. No place was better defended than the Cap, yet the Outrider had hit them there and had triumphed.

One of Jojo's bodyguards came buzzing up the line of the column and pulled in next Roy on the lead bike. Jojo's man pushed back his goggles, tearing the disintegrating skin around his eyes.

"The fat fuck wants to know how long."

Roy never took his eyes off the road ahead of him. "Tell him soon."

The rider pulled out, circled the column and headed back to JOJO. 

It sure would be a shame, thought Roy, if in the fight on the way back, Jojo happened to take a stray slug someplace nice and painful and, maybe, fatal.

Just before dusk the 'lep column pulled over a rise and saw the slave farm laid out in front of them. Even Roy was impressed.

It seemed as if the whole valley beneath them was filled with neatly cultivated fields, stretching from one side of the valley to the other. They were green and lush, living things lined in neat rows, lovingly cared for. It was a strange sight in the eyes of men used to seeing a dead or dying world. The lead 'leps rubbed their eyes as if it was all a mirage.

A warm breeze blew and carried a sweet smell up from the fields. It was the smell of freshness and growth, of the natural renewal of the earth. It seemed as if one small part of the shattered continent had been spared the awful destruction that had rained down all over the land. But the impression was a false one. Every man in the column, every man who had ever heard of Farkas' place knew that it was not the paradise it looked to be. It was ruled, like the rest of the world, with the law of the whip and the bullet—life meant nothing.

That much was clear when you caught sight of the compound. Set in the middle of the neatly tended fields was an ugly bruise of gray land. The very center of the compound was dominated by the Old House, Farkas' personal palace. It was an ancient dwelling, built who knows when. The front was lined with a row of stately white pillars, fronting a wide verandah and supporting a high, elegant pediment. The house was cast in two wings on either side of the pillars, a hundred yards each of windows that looked out onto willow trees heavy with age and Spanish moss.

On all sides of the house, as if contrasting with the splendor of the master's house, were row upon row of mean, wooden huts, long, decrepit shacks. The slave quarters. The whole huge compound was surrounded by an eleven-foot barbed-wire fence, patrolled by Parkas' men and Farkas' dogs. At each comer stood a guard tower in which a marksman lolled, hoping that one of the slaves in the square below would crack and make a dash for freedom.

The guards played a little game with the dashers— those slaves who suddenly dashed for the wire. When they were good and tangled in the razor-sharp fence they would take turns shooting at the poor wretch. Any one of the men could have killed the creature with one shot, but it was more fun to knick and slash with the bullets—an ear, a kneecap—until the slave screamed for the killing bullet. Sometimes the force of a slug would dislodge the slave from the wire and he would slide down the wire, tearing himself to ribbons. The guards called them bouncers.

Needless to say, no one had escaped. An even if they had, there was no place to go. In front of the compound was the only road into the valley. Anyone traveling on foot along that road would be spotted and destroyed in a matter of hours. The parts of the valley beyond the "front door" and the cultivated fields were encircled by an inhospitable stew of swamps and tar pits each holding its own terrors. The swamps were trackless wastes of water and sand populated by an unpleasant and unforgiving collection of snakes and alligators. The tar pits were hot, slimy acres of bubbling blackness that would swallow a man up and bum his flesh from his bones as it consumed him.

There was no way out of Farkas' slave farm—at least there was no way out to freedom. Although, a lot of slaves considered death freedom and longed for it every day. It wasn't unheard of for a slave to dash for the wire in the faint hope that an "unlucky" shot would hit him clean in the brain and release him from the daily torment of a terrible enslavement.

All this is not to say that slaves didn't leave the farm, they did and in large numbers. The business of Farkas' slave farm was business: Farkas grew crops but he grew something more valuable than cotton, potatoes, and tobacco. He grew people.

There were the birthing sheds at the farm that looked like a battery house for hens. Only chickens weren't there; women, rather, were installed in the narrow beds, and relays of other slaves did their best to keep them pregnant all the time. But Farkas didn't see any point in keeping the women well fed or clothed or warm—it would cut into profits—so by their third pregnancy in three years they died, usually of exhaustion. But that ,was okay. A percentage of the babies born were female and so by the time they had reached their tenth year or so they were judged ready for the birthing sheds. Farkas liked to explain that the whole process had taken a lot of years to get working right, but he explained with pride that he had had the vision to plan ahead.

"Quick profits," he would say, "arc not the goal of the thinking man."

What he didn't know was that Bonner too was a thinking man and his profits were taken in revenge, not money. Vengeance couldn't buy you much in the bazaars in the Cap or Chi-town, but it helped you sleep better at night.

Farkas wasn't the great planner he thought he was.1 And his own mismanagement was the reason that Almost Normal had ceased to exist. Unexpectedly, Leatherman had put in an order for a large number of slaves, men and women, and they had to be in top condition. Farkas simply didn't have the stock on hand to accommodate the most powerful man on earth, so he sent his men out to find the mythical town where men and women grew strong and free. The order was simple: Find them and bring them back so Farkas could snatch away their freedom and sell them to to Leatherman. 

Jojo was there to negotiate the sale—a sale that Farkas was looking forward to.

The Radlep column had been spotted long before it was close to the slave farm so by the time they reached the compound the tall barbed-wire gates had been thrown open and Farkas himself was standing on the cool balcony of his palace awaiting Jojo.

The 'leps roared into the forecourt in front of the mansion in true Radlep style. The air throbbed with the powerful, gut-twirling sound of perfectly tuned machinery. The big bikes stopped short in front of Farkas and each rider sat astride his powerful steed waiting for the order to dismount. Jojo's truck lumbered in after them and following him were the tattered and battered bikers of the Devil column that had been sent out to destroy the town of'Almost Normal and to bring the Slavestate visitors to the slave farm. Farkas, standing on the balcony with his right-hand man, Paulie, at his side took one look at his men and knew they had been in trouble. He didn't like that. It made him look bad.

"Get those Devils out of here," he said to Paulie. "They look like shit. Kill a couple of them. But quiet."

Paulie nodded and stole away.

Farkas continued to look at the 'lep column. He had heard that Leather was in trouble, that he couldn't control his empire. Well, thought Farkas, if there 'were any more at home like these. Leather could slice up the Hots, the Snows and have enough left over to take on the riders in Chicago. Farkas was impressed.

One of Jojo's slaves placed a set of wooden steps at the rear of his truck and swept back the canvas curtain that sheltered the occupants of the payloads Jojo poked his head out into the early evening light and then waddled down the steps.

Farkas strolled down from his balcony to meet him.

"Farkas," said Farkas extending a hand. 

"Yeah, right," said Jojo. He looked around him.

"Nice joint."

Farkas, a tall man dressed head to toe in black looked down at the little man and thought: you little fuck, don't patronize me. "We call it home," he said smiling.

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