Now they were buffing the rows of chromed nubs down the sides. Those had been meant to support electric crowd-control grids and were just chromed for looks. The riot-wagons in Knoxville had been electrified, but with this drip-system that kept them wet, which was a lot nastier.

“Sign here” said the crew boss, this quiet black kid named Anderson. He was a medical student, days, and he always looked like he was about two nights short of sleep.

Rydell took the pad and the light-pen and signed the signature-plate. Anderson handed Rydell the keys.

“You ought to get you some rest” Rydell said. Anderson grinned, wanly. Rydell walked over to Gunhead, deactivating the door alarm.

Somebody had written that inside, “GUNHEAD” in green marker on the panel above the windshield. The name stuck, but mostly because Sublett liked it. Sublett was Texan, a refugee from some weird trailer-camp video-sect. He said his mother had been getting ready to deed his ass to the church, whatever that meant.

Sublett wasn’t too anxious to talk about it, but Rydell had gotten the idea that these people figured video was the Lord’s preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. “He’s in the de-tails” Sublett had said once. “You gotta watch for Him close.” Whatever form this worship had taken, it was evident that Sublett had absorbed more television than anyone Rydell had ever met, mostly old movies on channels that never ran anything but. Sublett said Gunhead was the name of a robot tank in a Japanese monster movie. Hernandez thought Sublett had written the name on there himself. Sublett denied it. Hernandez said take it off. Sublett ignored him. It was still there, but Rydell knew Sublett was too law-abiding to commit any vandalism, and anyway the ink in the marker might’ve killed him.