Cyberpunk

the loosely pegged floorboards. From their constant references to Salzburg he gathered that some kind of siege was in progress.
    Nobody had shown up to negotiate Rice’s release, and the Masonistas were getting nervous. If he could just gnaw through his gag, Rice was sure he’d be able to talk some sense into them.
    He heard a distant drone, building slowly to a roar. Four of the men ran outside, leaving a single guard at the open door. Rice squirmed in his bonds and tried to sit up.
    Suddenly the clapboards above his head were blasted to splinters by heavy machine-gun fire. Grenades whumped in front of the house, and the windows exploded in a gush of black smoke. A choking Masonista lifted his flintlock at Rice. Before he could pull the trigger a burst of gunfire threw the terrorist against the wall.
    A short, heavyset man in flak jacket and leather pants stalked into the room. He stripped goggles from his smoke-blackened face, revealing Oriental eyes. A pair of greased braids hung down his back. He cradled an assault rifle in the crook of one arm and wore two bandoliers of grenades. “Good,” he grunted. “The last of them.” He tore the gag from Rice’s mouth. He smelled of sweat and smoke and badly cured leather. “You are Rice?”
    Rice could only nod and gasp for breath.
    His rescuer hauled him to his feet and cut his ropes with a bayonet. “I am Jebe Noyon. Trans-Temporal Army.” He forced a leather flask of rancid mare’s milk into Rice’s hands. The smell made Rice want to vomit. “Drink!” Jebe insisted. “Is koumiss , is good for you! Drink, Jebe Noyon tells you!”
    Rice took a sip, which curdled his tongue and brought bile to his throat. “You’re the Gray Cards, right?” he said weakly.
    “Gray Card Army, yes,” Jebe said. “Baddest-ass warriors of all times and places! Only five guards here, I kill them all! I, Jebe Noyon, was chief general to Genghis Khan, terror of the earth, okay, man?” He stared at Rice with great, sad eyes. “You have not heard of me. “
    “Sorry, Jebe, no.”
    “The earth turned black in the footprints of my horse.”
    “I’m sure it did, man.”
    “You will mount up behind me,” he said, dragging Rice toward the door. “You will watch the earth turn black in the tire prints of my Harley, man, okay?”
    From the hills above Salzburg they looked down on anachronism gone wild.
    Local soldiers in waistcoats and gaiters lay in bloody heaps by the gates of the refinery. Another battalion marched forward in formation, muskets at the ready. A handful of Huns and Mongols, deployed at the gates, cut them up with orange tracer fire and watched the survivors scatter.
    Jebe Noyon laughed hugely. “Is like siege of Cambaluc! Only no stacking up heads or even taking ears any more, man, now we are civilized, okay? Later maybe we call in, like, grunts, choppers from ’Nam, napalm the son-of-a-bitches, far out, man.”
    “You can’t do that, Jebe,” Rice said sternly. “The poor bastards don’t have a chance. No point in exterminating them.”
    Jebe shrugged. “I forget sometimes, okay? Always thinking to conquer the world.” He revved the cycle and scowled. Rice grabbed the Mongol’s stinking flak jacket as they roared downhill. Jebe took his disappointment out on the enemy, tearing through the streets in high gear, deliberately running down a group of Brunswick grenadiers. Only panic strength saved Rice from falling off as legs and torsos thumped and crunched beneath their tires.
    Jebe skidded to a stop inside the gates of the complex. A jabbering horde of Mongols in ammo belts and combat fatigues surrounded them at once. Rice pushed through them, his kidneys aching.
    Ionizing radiation smeared the evening sky around the Hohensalzburg Castle. They were kicking the portal up to the high-energy maximum, running cars full of Gray Cards in and sending the same cars back loaded to the ceiling with art and jewelry.
    Over the rattling of gunfire Rice could hear the whine of VTOL jets bringing in the evacuees from the US and Africa. Roman centurions, wrapped in mesh body armor and carrying shoulder-launched rockets, herded Realtime personnel into the tunnels that led to the portal.
    Mozart was in the crowd, waving enthusiastically to Rice. “We’re pulling out, man! Fantastic, huh? Back to Realtime!”
    Rice looked at the clustered towers of pumps, coolers, and catalytic cracking units. “It’s a goddamned shame,” he said. “All that work, shot to