9:30 pm, October 25, 1953
Great View drive-in movie theater

Panicked people ran screaming for their lives as the city came crashing down around them. Smoke, sirens, monsters, screaming and fire—the recipe for pandemonium. Entire buildings were reduced to rubble, plucked from their foundations like flowers by enormous alien bugs. Giant ants, to be precise. They strode the streets of downtown New York—the epicenter for every apocalypse movie yet made—like they owned the place, and even the military's best machines couldn't stop them. It seemed nothing short of a nuclear weapon would.

But launching such a weapon over their own soil was almost unthinkable—a final, desperate, last-ditch effort to destroy an enemy that was far beyond the ability of the one under attack to defend against. Just one would vaporize Manhattan, the immediate surrounding area and everyone within the blast radius. In short, New York City would follow Nagasaki and Hiroshima into the realm of nuclear Armageddon. But this situation was desperate, as the military's inability to dispatch the giant insects clearly indicated.

In Washington, DC, a four-star general in full dress approached the President of the United States, followed by a scientist. "Mr. President," the general said, "this is Doctor Howard. He's our man."

The President reached out and shook hands with the man. "The fate of America is in your hands, Doc."

How predictable. The world is under siege from giant ants, and who do they find but an anteater to defeat them. So cliche. It seems the value of imagination has gone down. And as I sat watching this…film, I realized two things: That the atomic bomb and the drive-in theater were both heralds of the apocalypse.

But I wasn't here to enjoy B-movies—not that I enjoyed them to begin with. I was here on business. Specifically, the business that concerned Danah, the mother of the missing girl.

"What do you want?"

Blacksad jumped when the woman suddenly appeared in his window—or rather, when her torso appeared. Danah wore a yellow long-sleeve shirt with a red V lining the low neck and a red pleated skirt that fell halfway down her thighs. She sounded impartial, but the look on her face clearly stated that she was upset. "Just a meeting in a quiet place," he said simply. "I've talked to Mrs. Grey."

Danah harrumphed. "Fine. But I'll finish my shift first," she tersely agreed, then turned on her heel and walked away.

Blacksad adjusted his mirror and smiled dreamily as he watched her retreating form. A much more pleasant scene than the one on the screen in front of him.

I sat through the rest of that awful flick, up to my ears in boredom. These apocalypse films are the harbingers of mental meltdown and terminal imaginative sterility. The only thing that kept me from going banzai on the projector and rescuing everyone's sanity was the knowledge, if not the guarantee, that I'd finally get some information regarding Kylie's whereabouts.

Heartened by the knowledge that the world was secure against the threat of giant ants, I went to meet Danah.

Her home was much like mine: A cramped but cozy three-room apartment with a combined kitchen and dining/living room in the front and a bedroom and tiny bathroom in the back. For all that's denied us, we colored folks have learned to make do with what we get. One day, though, we'll get what's owed us as hard-working, law-abiding citizens of this country.

I crushed out my cigarette and placed it in the ash tray before walking into her apartment. She was in the act of donning her normal clothes and currently clipping on her bra, so my entrance might have been a bit premature, but she was distraught enough to not care. Also, she'd known I was coming and apparently decided I was safe enough to see her like that.

11:15 pm, Danah Smith's residence

"You must think me some kind of monster to not tell a soul that my own daughter's gone missing," Danah said. "But I've got my reasons for being wary of white justice."

Blacksad rubbed the back of his neck, trying to remain objective in the presence of a half-dressed woman. "Justice is blind," he said, almost missing the spot on her chest—a V-shaped mark that curved over her breasts to meet at a point between them. "It doesn't care about shades."

"Its eyes are sharper in this district—like a predator's." She began putting her hair in a bun. "You're from the big city, so you don't know anything. Here, there are only two kinds of people: The killers and the killed. We live in a constant state of war, one not fought by soldiers on front lines, but by common people on public transports. But you've got to be patient, calculating. Revenge is a dish best served cold." She yanked a red plaid flannel shirt over her back and tied it at the front as she went on, "The force is full of types like Karup. I was a maid at his place once, and he just kept staring at Kylie like she was fresh meat." She slipped the last button into place. "He's dangerous."

Blacksad wasn't understanding her reasoning. "That doesn't justify leaving Kylie for dead."

Danah whirled on him, her eyes leaking tears of angry desperation. "You don't think it's killing me!?" she shouted. "That I'm just sitting here happy, not knowing if my baby's hurt or dead or worse in the hands of those…those…pigs!" She leaned against him, emotionally exhausted.

Blacksad gently wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed bitterly into his chest, offering what comfort he could in a professional capacity. "Like Oldsmill's kid, you mean. They say you…knew him."

He never saw the blow coming. All he knew was that his face was suddenly sideways when Danah took a step back and let loose with a hard, open-handed slap that sent him stumbling backward. He placed a hand protectively over his stinging cheek. "What kind of sick bastard would spew that hind of crap!"

"Ma'am, please. I'm an investigator; it's my job. And right now, my job is finding your daughter and bringing whoever took her to justice."


10:05 am, October 26, 1953
Allen Gotram's Convenience Store

The next day, Blacksad and Weekly were in the local drug store discussing Blacksad's encounter with Danah the previous evening. "Bastard?" Weekly almost couldn't believe that the woman his new acquaintance was trying to help had actually called him that.

"Her exact words," Blacksad confirmed. He cruised the narrow aisles, browsing the shelves and placing what he intended to purchase in his basket. "Are you sure your sources are reliable?"

"You see what those Arctic butchers did last time?" Weekly, who'd picked up a paper from the stack on the end of the counter farthest from the door, apparently hadn't heard that last bit. "They took a black ram, shaved him naked and then burned him alive! Now that is some sick crap."

The small bell above the door jingled and three young black men—a bull, a stallion and a dog—walked inside. Their countenance would have told the casual observer they were simply there to shop, but the trained eye would have been able to discern that they weren't as harmless as they appeared. They all wore black leather jackets and big-buckled belts, the stallion and the dog had hats—the stallion a red beret and the dog an army cap—and the stallion had sunglasses over his eyes and a gold chain around his neck. Also, the fact that the bull had his left hand in a cupped position near the lower hem of his jacket would have indicated that he was concealing something.

"Hey!" said the white goat shopkeeper. "We don't serve punks in this estab—"

"Shove it!" Before he could react, the bull whipped a shotgun out from beneath his jacket and rammed the butt into the goat's mouth, snapping off teeth and likely breaking his nose. The shopkeeper fell backward, unconscious.

The Rottweiler then walked toward Weekly, who was too shocked by the sudden violence to make himself run away. Before he could so much as emit a protest, the big dog picked him up by his jacket's hem and collar and hurled him into a small shelf of canned olives. One of the cans was punctured and the juice inside leaked out with a quiet glup-glup-glup onto his head.

Then the stallion approached and crouched in front of him. "You," he said, poking a finger into Weekly's face, and the weasel stiffened as the natural urge to freeze and not provoke his antagonist took over. "Reporter?" Weekly nodded rapidly. "Good. You're gonna do us a favor." The stallion pulled a small piece of paper from one of his jacket's inner pockets and stuffed it into the weasel's mouth. "Print this: That we didn't kidnap no girl. If they want to know where she is, they should ask that piece of white trash, Karup." He stood and pulled off his shades. "Or maybe Oldsmill." He turned and looked at Blacksad, who was watching him with an angry expression. "What's the matter with your face, brother?"

"Nothing at all," Blacksad replied. This young punk had apparently noticed that the detective had Negro blood in his lineage, hence the familiar title. Blacksad also hadn't missed the Smith & Wesson .38 short-barrel revolver tucked into the stallion's belt. "And your brain?" The stallion turned to face him fully, staring at him with evil intensity, then raised his hand toward Blacksad's muzzle. "Don't. Touch. The beauty mark," Blacksad said slowly, and the stallion stopped cold just three inches from his nose. Blacksad had yanked the stallion's revolver from his belt and was holding it to his gut, finger on the trigger.

The stallion backed off. "Alright," he said, pointing a finger at Blacksad. "Just make sure your pal honors his promises. It would be best and safest for both of you that way. And you'd do well to remember that." He and his friends left the mini-mart, walking through several dozen wind-blown flyers proclaiming in big, bold letters, What Arctic Nation Believes.

These people obviously had something against my face. Too bad for them; I planned to keep it showing, at least until I found the kid. And anyone with half a brain knew what Arctic Nation believed without reading a piece of paper.