Lucky forgot that he was working for Leathennan. The job of making the three mammoth machines work and work well took him over body and soul. For a man in love with machines, the chance to work on those great beasts was a dream come true. He was used to working with what he had lying around:

engine parts he had scavenged from wrecks, pieces of metal he had twisted this way and that until it looked like it would do. To work with the entire resources of the Slavestates behind him was unsurpassed luxury.

Lucky's natural cantankerousness asserted itself. He ordered the slaves and Stormers that Leather sent to help him around as if he was Leatherman himself. They grunted and swore and got oil in their eyes from lying under the massive machines but they didn't mind that much. The slaves were used to hard work and they found Lucky a pretty easy guy to work for. He worked them hard but he never lost his rag and shot one. That kind of thing happened all the time elsewhere in the Slavestates.

The Stormers got to be a problem. They weren't used to working side by side with slaves and they hated being told what to do by Lucky. Finally the little mechanic got so pissed off with them that he threatened to send them to Leather claiming that he couldn't use them. It was widely known that Lucky's doings in Art's Gallery were of great interest to Leatherman. None of the Stormers wanted to go before the boss man and say they were fouling things up. They shaped up after that.

Lucky even got tough with Leatherman. When he complained that the whole project was taking too long and was costing too much, Lucky regarded him coolly with those pale eyes of his and said:

"Fine. You do it. I quit."

"Then you're dead," hissed Leatherman.

"Yeah? So what? It'll cost you a lot killing me, 'cause I'm the only one who knows how to put those big mothers together again."

Lucky lived, got a little more time, some more helpers, and a whole truckload of engine parts.

Leather came frequently to overwatch the work. He listened patiently while Lucky told him what he had done.

"It's simple, see. The engine they put in these things in the first place just wasn't strong enough. So this is what I done: 1 put two engines in each of the big fucks. The front engine drives the front axle. You got yourself front wheel drive now on all three. The rear engine drives the rear. One gearbox. You're gonna need two guys to work the damn things, though."

"Two guys?" said Leather. "What is this two shit."

"One. Two. One fucker to steer. One to work the clutch and change gears. The gearbox is a bitch. Someone'11 have to operate it standing up to get enough weight behind it. So, you see, there ain't enough room in the cab for the forward gunner. So I moved the gun. It's up on the roof, higher than the other two you got up there already. See?"

The roofs of the vehicles were terraced, like the guns on a battleship. Two below, one above it. "So," said Leatherman, "it'll all work?" "Who knows," said Lucky, shrugging. "We'll see."

"If it don't ..." began Leather.

"Yeah, 1 know, it's my ass," said Lucky wearily.

Leatherman gazed at the giant killing machines. "I'm telling you we are gonna really fuck up that town. We are gonna get rid of those scum for good. Man, people are gonna remember this for a long time."

"You bet. Leather," said Woolcott.

"I think it's the crowning achievement of my career."

"Damn yeah!" "First 1 built the Slavestates, then I took over the whole fuckin' continent." 

Leatherman had overlooked the fact that he still had to betray his allies but no one pointed it out. It was generally felt that the Snowmen and the Devils would be pretty battered by the storming of Chicago. It would be an easy matter to get rid of the remnants and their two leaders.

"It's gonna be great," said Leather, "great!"

"Fuck yeah!"

"And to think this little weirdo had a hand in it." Leatherman smiled at Lucky. "Lucky you made the destruction of Chicago possible. Who'd of thought it? A little shrimp like you."

Ain't happened yet, greaseball. Lucky wanted to say.

"Gotta get back to work," he mumbled.

"When we gonna see these things in action?"

"Who knows? Get off my back."

Leatherman chuckled indulgently. "Great little guy. Ain't he, Woolcott?"

"Damn yeah!"

Lucky only had a couple of days to train the Stormers who were delegated to operate the controls of the brutish death machines. They weren't the smartest guys in the world, but they seemed to get the hang of it. Lucky himself decided that he would ride in the Porky—it was the fastest—on the day of the trial. He hoped that Leatherman didn't have any bright ideas about having him be in one of the machines when they got sent into Chicago. Fighting was not in Lucky's line at all.

Detachments of Radleps were delegated to man the guns and flame throwers. Lucky didn't like this development at all. He looked over the 'leps that Leather sent him.

Boy, did they smell bad . . .

"Its gonna get a little . . . uh, close in there," he said. 

He decided he would keep to the cab during the trial. He hadn't come this far to get himself suffocated by a bunch of stinking Radleps.

Lucky was a little bit of a showman. He decided to have the vehicles—now known as Mac for the one with the truck engine. Brink's because it was written on the side of the armored car, and, of course, "little" Porky—towed to the large entrance hall just inside the door of Art's Gallery. From there they would make their grand entrance.

Leather and virtually everybody else in the Cap, including slaves—there was nobody around to keep them at their jobs—assembled on the grassy strip that ran from the bumed-out Capitol building to the bum-ing tower. Lucky had decided that this expanse of open space was the perfect place for him to show off his machines.

The crowd waited on the far side of the mall facing Art's place, waiting expectantly. They were all there:

Leather, of course, sitting in a chair brought out from the big house for the occasion, Woolcott at his side. All the Stormer Command, most of the Stormers—a few were left on guard duty—Snotty and the Radleps, the Tax Generals and their minions, the whores, the slaves and the slave women, the torturers and overseers, anybody who could crawl or hobble to the spot came that morning.

Lucky ran the crews through their maneuvers one last time and then ordered everyone to their places. Once they were all inside their various machines, Lucky strolled to the doors of the gallery and looked out at the assembled multitude.

"Fuck 'em," he said, "let 'em wait . . ."

And he let them wait until he heard a discontented murmuring drifting across the meadow.

"What's keeping him?" demanded Leatherman. He turned to Al, who had opened his mouth. "Don't tell me it's mechanical."

Al shut his mouth.

Finally Lucky, who had been enjoying the power of keeping the entire elite of the Slavestates waiting, decided that it was time to put on a show.

"Okay," he shouted, his thin voice echoing in the room, "it's time. Porky! Start up!"

Obediently the engines in Porky sparked into life. A sooty cloud of smoke belched from the six exhaust pipes that swept up Porky's armored sides.

At the first roar of an engine, the crowd on the far side of the mall fell quiet.

"Brink's! Hit it!"

The driver in Brink's pushed the starter and the two giant engines coughed and then, after an anxious second, exploded into life. Exhaust fumes were filling the huge chamber.

By now the bellowing engines made it impossible for the drivers to hear Lucky's orders. He signaled to the driver of Mac to start firing up the giant engine.

Lucky listened critically to the engines. The note from each was perfect. He felt a little shiver run down his spine. It was an internal combustion symphony. For the first time in a long time. Lucky smiled. He waved a fist in the smoky air. "Awwwwright!"

Nothing prepared the spectators for what they experienced next. First they heard the cacophonous engine noise from across the way rev higher and higher, until it sounded so loud and so powerful that it would, logically, end in an explosion. It did, sort of.

Suddenly, the big prow of Mac burst through the doors of the garage building. The machine was too big, of course, for the width of the entrance—no matter, it merely tore some huge pieces out of the building itself. It made its own path through the granite facade of Art's Gallery.

The giant machine bounded down the steps of the building, its sister machines close behind. On the street in front of their old home they spread out, three across, and without slowing down crashed through the trees that separated the street from the grassy meadow.

To the onlookers it looked like three vicious iron beasts had broken through the stone shell that had contained them. It was as if they were newborn creatures, born in fury, raised for one purpose: destruction.

The stately old trees that lined the road were left behind. Some had been uprooted, others simply torn to shreds like matchwood. Porky, Mac, and Brink's were now coursing across the mall, their guns pointed straight towards the sky. When they were halfway across, as if they were all controlled by a single hand, all of the machine guns and the flame thrower dropped down. They were facing straight ahead, seemingly drawing a bead on every member of the watching party.

A few of the onlookers reached for their guns, as if puny handguns or rifles could stop these roaring monsters. Everyone was tense, poised for flight. The three machines were headed directly for them, the big wheels churning up great gouts of the grassy earth. They showed no signs of stopping.

The battering ram of Brink's seemed to be pointed right at the middle of Leatherman's chest. In spite of himself, the President of the Slavestates jumped to his feet. He was sure that the lumbering steel monsters were going to run him down.

"There's been a revolt!" screamed someone. Suddenly it flashed through everyone's mind that if the men controlling the machines decided to break free, to take over the Slavestates, to kill every member of the hierarchy that held thousands of people in misery, they could do so. Being in command of those machines was to have power. It was like having one Bomb in the old world. For a few seconds. Lucky, not Leather-man, controlled the fate of the Slavestates, of nations.

But he didn't realize it. He was working the gears in the cramped cab of Porky. The noise inside was deafening. He was only dimly aware of the, effect that his display was having on the outside world. He was too busy sweating over the gears and listening to his engine. He was also directing the show.

"How close?" he screamed at the driver.

"Close," he yelled back. "Some of them are running away ..." The driver peered through his slit. "Leather has stood up. He looks . . ."

"Yeah? Yeah?"

"He looks worried."

Lucky shrieked with laughter. He let five seconds go by then screamed: "BRAKES!"

The driver stood on the heavy mechanical brakes of the monster. A sheet of turf like water in the wake of a ship was thrown up.

The drivers of the other two machines had been told to take their cues from Porky. They stood on their stiff brakes. The machines came to rest more or less in a line. They all stopped just yards from the cringing onlookers. Like ferocious beasts inspecting their prey just prior to killing it.

The behemoths had stopped, but the crowd was by no means convinced that they weren't still in some kind of danger. The machines stood there smoking and snorting for a minute or so—just long enough to thoroughly spook everybody. They couldn't quite believe that these were machines made by men and controlled by men. By the time Porky was slammed into reverse and went hurtling backwards across the mall, the onlookers were convinced that these machines weren't machines at all, but living creatures out of a nightmare: dragons, devils, horrible monsters now released on the earth.

The three machines backed onto the mall, fell into a straight line, and charged the bombed-out Capitol building. Then the big heavy-caliber machine guns opened up. Brink's spat fire. Bullets sizzled and splattered on the old, flame-stained masonry. It looked like the monsters had unleashed a hailstorm of lead and fire. What remained of the stately facade was carved and recarved as the bullets and the fire crossed and criss-crossed the stone.

Lucky was sweating, the driver was exhausted. Both of them were working incredibly hard to keep Porky, the smallest of the three steel sisters, under control. Lucky could imagine what the drivers of the other two vehicles were going through.

"I am pooped," screamed the little genius.

"Me too," yelled the driver.

Leather had settled back in his chair and was enjoying the show. Mac had singled out a couple of the stately columns in the Capitol and was engaged in ramming them. Two blows from the tons of motorized metal and they came crashing down. A few pieces remaining of the building, great hunks of stone, came crashing down on the steel plates that protected the thing, but they rolled off her.

The vehicles did a few more fancy maneuvers. They tore up more of the mall, uprooted some more of the trees that lined it, ripped up a few more buildings, spewed more bullets, fire, and flame.

Leather clapped his hands and stared hungrily at each destructive move the steel sisters made. They were all his, they belonged to him, they were the most magnificent killing machines the world had seen since the Bomb. And they were his. His toys. His to order, his to command. No enemy could defy him now. He had the supreme power that had been denied him so long.

All that was left to him now was to hit the road and begin the business of conquering. Suddenly, he imagined a vast fleet of these things, hundreds of them, all with this mobility, this destructive force. Bigger maybe, with bigger guns! A land navy of giant killing machines.

Woolcott shouted in his ear. "I feel sorry for Chicago and all them skaggy riders'."

Leather blinked and smiled like a man awoken from a pleasant dream.

"Hmmm?"

"I said, 'I feel sorry for Chicago.' "

"We can't lose," said Leathennan, "we can't lose."

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