Finding Darjeeling

Agent Linda Marble set off no less than six security alarms as she made her way to the helipad to meet Agent Limpio. Each time though, her K-Tag flashed and radioed her identity through the system and she passed by the security officers without so much as slowing down. She took her status at the agency seriously and relied on her Kansa background to get her anywhere she wanted to go. As she walked briskly on the moving sidewalk she scanned for Bernardo Limpio and saw him at the final security checkpoint. She felt the return RV probe and blocked him from her reception. It was a trick she had learned and was surprised that he wasn’t able to counteract. He was, after all, the best remote viewer in the agency. She turned the corner and saw him standing there, arms akimbo, pulling back the jacket of his grey suit and revealing not only his athletic physique, but also the Stun that he carried under his left armpit. Linda was not impressed. She couldn’t understand why he still relied on such an outmoded way of dealing with violent situations. Her advanced remote viewing techniques allowed her to avoid all contact with violence and violent persons. The Kansa were the only people left in the United States who were still allowed to carry firearms of any type, all other states had outlawed them. But since Kansas was no longer a state and the Kansa were no longer law abiding citizens, these laws, or any law for that matter, simply did not apply to Limpio or any other Kansa, good or bad. In fact, the Republique of Kansas, as it was now known, had become a storehouse for all of the firearms that were left and a haven for all of the vigilantes, desperadoes, and leftover lawmen that still believed in using them.
“Bernie,” (she knew he hated the name) “you are so deck.” She meant it as a complement, but she knew that decadent was not how Agent Limpio viewed himself. “You look like you just stepped out of a ‘90’s cop show on ‘vision.” She walked right past him but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back in front of him.
“Not so fast, Agent Marble, you’ve got to go through the security scrutinizer before we board the heli’.” Limpio looked her in the eyes sternly but still smiling and began his RV probe. She fought back and her strength nearly overwhelmed him. He spoke out loud. “If you persist with this little game you’re playing, I will be forced to use extreme remote viewing measures for security purposes. Yes, we are Kansa, but there are areas where we must police each other. You’d do it for me, I’m sure. This will allow us to roam freely without interruption to where Darjeeling is.” He completed the scan and found no Risk of Discovery violations that would jeopardize their trip. “OK, Linda, we can board now, do you want to pilot or shall I?”
“Screw the scrutiny, and yes, I will pilot. I only trust myself in those dad-blamed helicars.”
“Dad-blamed? Wow, I haven’t heard that since Gunsmoke! You’re so antebellum these days.” Limpio repaid her comment about him in kind. At least he was happy that she didn’t curse. They headed for the heliopad and boarded, Linda taking the helm of the magnetic gyro powered vehicle and Bernardo strapping himself in for what he knew would be a bumpy ride. Not because she was a woman, but because she was Kansa and would throw out the flight plan rule book as soon as they cleared airspace. He remembered the last time he flew with her in control and how she had managed to fly their entire route backwards.
Agent Marble slipped the mem-chip into the flight panel, logging their destination. The digital screen flipped up and gave her the flight path to clear airspace: “Flight Hilo-1369 you are cleared for flight to the Western Border of the Republique of Kansas. Once you clear that border there are no flight patterns required. You must, however exit at the same coordinates you entered in order to file a return flight plan.” Linda Marble hit the forward thrust and they left Denver airspace on a direct line to Kansas. She hadn’t been back to Kansas for some time and was actually looking forward to seeing some of the “relief” of the Kansas countryside where she was born. “ I can’t believe we have to file any flight plan,” she said to Bernardo.
“Yes it is hard to live in both worlds,” he replied indicating his disdain for laws and regulation, “but we made the choice to be agents and we have to abide by some form of governance.” He grabbed the strap as the helicar made an abrupt ninety degree turn followed by two more which put them back on the same bearing.
“Gotta keep them air control boys on their toes,” Linda laughed. She actually felt pretty good up in the sky. Bernardo laughed, too and settled down a bit as she smoothed out the flight. Soon they were at the border and Bernardo mentally gave Linda the coordinates of their destination. “It was called Louisburg before the KIDA and was in Miami County,” he told her after she input the coordinates into the heli. She could have flown there without coordinates. She zig-zagged through the western portion of the state that was now devoid of the once prevalent wheat fields. It made her sad. Some of her relatives had been wheat farmers. As she approached her own home town of Lawrence she was shocked to see the drained area where Clinton Lake used to be. With no laws to protect it, it had become someone’s drainage fantasy to see all of the water behind the dam go crashing out leaving the lakebed dry. She took the heli in low, low enough to read a sign on the breached dam: “This is the price of our iniquity.” She took the heli back up, not wanting to see any of the devastation of Lawrence that had made Quantrill’s raid in the 1800’s look like a cake walk. She veered Southeast and locked the heli on the coordinates, disabling the radio beam that tracked them from Denver. Bernardo looked at her and laughed out loud, wondering how she had managed to pull that off. But he, too, did not want Darjeeling’s whereabouts to be found out. There were still those in Kansas who would really like to have that information.
The gravel road was overgrown with no vestige visible from the land or the sky. The native Osage Orange, or Bois d’Arc trees had completely taken over roads, fences, old farmhouses and barns to the point that the land itself was indistinguishable from what it once was. Here and there was an outpost or settlement with small huts made from scavenged wood. This was the legacy of the KIDA legislation for those who had chosen to stay in Kansas. No roads, no bridges, no waterlines or any type of service. It reminded many people of the Navajo settlements in Arizona where a one-car track led to a remote house or two. Most of the towns had been abandoned. Some had been burned to the ground after they were ransacked. Only a few survived: Fort Scott, Pittsburg and Garnett were still intact, watched over by vigilantes who scrutinized anyone violating their personal and precious Kansas space. The entire area of Johnson County was the first to be completely devastated; destroyed by pick-up hordes from Western Kansas, the stronghold of the Conservative Right. But that was the past and this was now.
Agent Marble held the heli in place above the coordinates. “There’s nothing here,” she beamed to Bernardo.
“Oh, yes there is, you just can’t see it yet.” Agent Limpio handed her a pair of sunglasses. “Here, put these on and look to the south.”
Linda Marble sucked in her breath as she gazed toward what looked to be more of the same hedge overgrowth. At first she noticed an outline of sorts that rose up out of the treeline and up into the space above for some fifty feet or so. Then she noticed the green spike-like luminosity near the middle of the property and the minaret towers that demarcated right angle corners around a space about a quarter mile square. The minarets looked like they were made of crystal and she noticed a connecting net that covered the entire tract. The net, too, looked crystalline.
“Welcome to Stephen Darjeeling’s place,” Bernardo beamed to her and looked for her reaction. He nearly fell out of the heli as she began the ascent directly over the green spire. “Linda, you will not be able to approach closer than about a hundred feet from the spire, so don’t even try it.” The words fell on deaf ears and the heli bounced back to the hover position it had occupied. Linda looked perplexed. “You can’t penetrate the field, you can only enter in one location so set us down over by that old grapevine in that clearing over there.” Linda obeyed this time and set the heli down.