The smell was the worst part.
It wasn't the smell of garbage or rot. It was the smell of a barbecue. Sweet, smoky, and rich.
But Jason knew what was burning in the fuel injectors.
"Bio-diesel," the crew called it. "Soul Power," O'Malley whispered when he thought Jason wasn't listening.
Rendered fat. From the Chicago stockyards. From the bodies of riot victims and soldiers that Hitler had processed into "efficiency."
Jason stood on the bridge of the Icarus, staring out at the endless horizon. He felt sick. Every thrum of the engine felt like a heartbeat.
"Reactor temp is holding," Oppenheimer's voice came over the intercom. The young physicist sounded manic, talking too fast. "The energy density is incredible, Jason. It burns 30% hotter than refined petroleum. It's... beautiful. Horrifying, but thermodynamically perfect."
"Just keep the gaskets from melting, Robert," Jason said, rubbing his eyes. "We don't need a meltdown over Missouri."
"We're crossing the Mississippi now," Hughes announced from the helm. " Entering the Great Plains."
Jason looked down.
He expected to see farmland. Wheat fields. The breadbasket of America.
He saw glass.
Miles and miles of it.
In this broken timeline, the ecological collapse hadn't waited for the 1930s. The chemical weapons used in the 1919 Civil War, combined with the desperate, unregulated strip-mining for uranium and oil, had stripped the topsoil.
Then the heat came.
Massive firestorms had swept through Kansas and Oklahoma. The heat had been so intense it fused the silica in the sand.
The ground glittered. A mirror desert reflecting the sun.
"The Glass Road," Sarah whispered, standing beside him. "Nothing grows down there. It's a dead zone."
"It's a mirror," Jason said. "Reflecting our mistakes."
WHAM.
The ship shuddered violently.
"Turbulence?" O'Malley asked, gripping the rail.
"No," Jason said, pointing. "Harpoon."
A thick steel cable had punched through the aluminum hull near the starboard bow. It was pulled taut, vibrating like a guitar string.
"We're anchored!" Hughes screamed. "Someone snagged us!"
Jason ran to the window.
Below them, on the glittering glass highway, a convoy of trucks was racing to match their speed.
They weren't the sleek Ford gunships. These were monsters.
rusted hulks of farm trucks, reinforced with scrap metal and spikes. The tires were wrapped in chains to grip the glass. Men hung off the sides, waving jagged weapons.
"Okies," Jason realized. "Displaced farmers. But they aren't refugees anymore. They're scavengers."
"They're reeling us in!" O'Malley yelled. "They want the metal!"
The cable tightened. The Icarus listed sharply. The nose dipped toward the ground.
"Cut it!" Jason ordered.
"I'm on it!" O'Malley grabbed a fire axe from the wall.
"Cover him!" Jason grabbed a rifle from the rack.
He kicked open the starboard hatch. The wind roared in, carrying the smell of ozone and burnt silica.
O'Malley leaned out, swinging the axe at the thick steel cable.
CLANG.
Sparks flew. The cable held.
Down below, a man on the roof of the lead truck was operating a massive winch. He saw O'Malley. He raised a flare gun.
WHOOSH.
A red flare streaked past O'Malley's head, sizzling into the hull fabric.
"They're trying to burn us down!" O'Malley yelled, swinging again.
Jason lined up his rifle sights. The truck was bouncing wildly on the glass.
BREATHE. SQUEEZE.
CRACK.
The bullet hit the winch operator in the shoulder. The man spun and fell off the truck, tumbling onto the unforgiving glass road at sixty miles per hour.
The winch spun freely.
SNAP.
O'Malley's third swing severed the cable. The steel wire whipped away, recoiling toward the ground.
The Icarus shot upward, free of the weight.
"Pull up!" Jason yelled into his headset. "Get us out of range!"
He leaned out the door, watching the convoy shrink below them.
"Wait," Jason muttered.
He lowered the rifle. He squinted.
The trucks weren't empty. The beds of the pickups were filled with crates.
And in the crates, something was glowing.
Blue. Electric blue.
"Flowers?" Jason asked himself. "They're hauling flowers?"
"Jason!" Hughes's voice cut through his confusion. "We have a problem. A big one."
Jason pulled O'Malley back inside and slammed the hatch.
"What is it?"
"The injectors," Hughes said. "The bio-diesel. It's too rich. The carbon buildup is clogging the nozzles. Engine One just stalled. Engine Two is coughing."
The deck vibrated—a sickening, sputtering rhythm. Thump-thump... thump... silence.
"We're losing power," Sarah said, watching the gauges. "Altitude dropping. 500 feet... 400..."
"Restart it!" Jason yelled.
"I can't!" Hughes panicked. "I need to strip the manifold and clean it manually! That takes an hour!"
"We don't have an hour," Jason said, looking out the window. "We have two minutes before we hit the glass."
He scanned the horizon.
Nothing but mirror desert.
Wait.
In the distance, near the ruins of what might have been Dodge City, there was a glow.
Not fire. Neon.
Pink and blue lights, hazy in the dust. A massive collection of tents. A carnival?
"Steer for the lights," Jason ordered. "If we're going to crash, let's crash near civilization."
"That doesn't look like civilization," O'Malley muttered. "That looks like a circus run by the devil."
The Icarus drifted lower. The shadow of the airship grew large on the glass ground.
They passed over a perimeter fence made of rusted cars.
The tents were patchwork—made of parachutes, old billboards, and tarps.
Music drifted up. Slow, distorted jazz. A saxophone that sounded like it was underwater.
"Brace for impact!" Jason yelled.
The gondola hit the sand at the edge of the camp.
CRUNCH.
The landing gear sheared off. The ship slid sideways, plowing a furrow in the dirt. Dust billowed up, choking the vents.
It stopped.
The silence was sudden and absolute.
"Everyone okay?" Jason asked, unbuckling his harness.
"Bruised," Sarah said. "But alive."
"Lock and load," O'Malley said, racking his tommy gun. "Here comes the welcoming committee."
Jason looked out the cracked window.
People were emerging from the tents.
They didn't look like the Okie raiders. They were thin, emaciated. They wore rags, but the rags were styled like evening wear—tuxedos made of burlap, flapper dresses made of safety pins.
They weren't attacking. They were dancing.
Swaying to the slow, distorted music.
"They're high," Sarah realized. "Look at their eyes."
A woman walked toward the ship. She was young, but her face was gaunt. Her eyes glowed with a faint blue luminescence.
She held a flower in her hand. A blue poppy.
Jason kicked the door open. He stepped out, rifle lowered but ready.
"Stay back," Jason warned.
The woman smiled. It was a beatific, terrifying smile.
"Welcome to the Lotus Hotel, travelers," she cooed. Her voice was dreamy, detached. "Don't mind the dust. It tastes like the future."
She blew a handful of blue pollen toward them.
Jason held his breath.
"Where are we?" Jason asked.
"You're in the pause," the woman said. "The place where the screaming stops."
She pointed to a large tent in the center of the camp. A neon sign buzzed above it, flickering erratically.
THE KING OF CLUBS.
"The Mayor is waiting for you," she said. "He loves guests. Especially ones who fall from the sky."
Jason looked at the sign. He looked at the blue-eyed zombies swaying in the dust.
"We need injector parts," Jason whispered to O'Malley. "And we need fuel that isn't made of people. Let's go meet the Mayor."
They stepped off the ramp onto the glass ground.
The reflection beneath their feet showed three distorted figures walking into a neon nightmare.