The Book of Eadie, Volume One of the Seventeen Trilogy

by Mark D. Diehl

  The Zone

  The mist was clearing. Brian found himself standing in the street outside the bar he had entered earlier. Half a dozen battered and bleeding men stood surrounding him, and at least as many more lay on the gravel, seriously wounded or out cold.

  The attack had come from somewhere in the mist, from all directions at once. His head and torso ached and throbbed. He locked his shaking knees to keep them from buckling. Every muscle in his body seemed to be lengthening, pouring downward like water. His eyelids drooped.

  One of the standing men took a step toward him, fists raised. Brian tried to turn away from him, his arm flopping behind his back like a fish.

  Behind his back! His eyes opened a little wider. He straightened and forced his arm to function, whipping out his revolver and aiming it around at the circle of attackers.

  He tried to pull back the hammer but too many of his knuckles were broken. He ended up simply pointing it at the closest one, who backed away cautiously. Once past him, Brian walked backwards, still aiming the gun as long as he could see them. Then he turned, moving as fast as he could manage, back toward Dok’s place.

  McGuillian Diner

  Eadie hunched over a table, struggling for breath, dripping blood onto the back of her hand as she held herself steady.

  One of Blondie’s rich-boy friends handed him a knife: a long, polished thing with a double-edged blade, gleaming in front of his blue uniform. Carrying a weapon like that was highly illegal, but boys from the most powerful families could always count on the Feds looking the other way. He glided toward her, smiling eerily.

  “I thought about letting you live,” he hissed. “I really did. But it wouldn’t be fair to all the other peasants if I let them think there was no punishment for acting up, now would it?” He lunged with the knife.

  She ducked but the blade swung upward. It cut through the bruise under her left eye, the edge sticking in her cheekbone before he ripped it back again. She stumbled, falling against the table. Dishes crashed to the floor. Her foot slipped and her knee came down, crunching in the debris, her skin splitting. She snatched a broken glass, spun, and slammed it into her attacker’s neck. It shattered, each jagged shard leaving its own gash. He tried to smile and say something. Blood pulsed from the wounds on his throat, soaking the front of his uniform. His neck’s Golden flesh pulsated from purple to black and back again. He collapsed.

  Eadie reached for the table again but her knees failed and her hand slipped off the edge. A hand appeared on her shoulder, sticking out from a blue college uniform sleeve.

  She tried to spin around but lost control of her legs, sagging toward the floor. The hand on her shoulder tightened.

  4

  McGuillian Diner

  Lawrence bent down, awkwardly grasping the young waitress around the waist and placing her arm around his neck. With his free arm, he reached for the knife Ricker had dropped, pulling it toward him with his fingertips until he could get a good grip. His shoes slipped in the bloody mess as he struggled to stand, his eyes meeting those of the two remaining Upperclassmen. He was resolutely determined, his mind intently focused on a single objective, with no thought beyond it: He would keep this girl alive. He dragged her limp body toward the door.

  “Will someone please help?” he said, desperately scanning the crowd. Jack and Li’l Ed looked away. The other workers in the diner busied themselves fetching mops and picking up scattered silverware. “Look, nobody’s going to take her in an ambulance. But the Zone’s close to here. Maybe we can find one of those witch doctors these people use.” He dragged her another few steps.

  The strange, dirty drunk the bullies had harassed came up, wrapping the girl’s other arm around his shoulder. Together they made it to the door. The two Upperclassmen blocked it.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Firstyear?” the one from Cyprus Garden said. Both Upperclassmen leaned toward him.

  Lawrence raised the knife, looking at it. It was heavy but balanced, its silvery blade smeared with the girl’s blood. “There are two of you,” he said. “You could beat me up, maybe even kill me. But I’m gonna cut the first one who tries.”

  Nobody said anything as Lawrence and the strange man helped her out the door.

  Celarwil-Dain central corporate offices, Central Business District

  “Yeah, this is niiiice,” the young hoodlum said, looking around him as Mr. Roan escorted him through the hallway. “Carpet. It’s all quiet an’ shit, an’ it feels springy when I walk on it. Smells clean in here, too, like chemicals an’ shit.” He pointed at the green floor and the matching walls. “An’ it’s all green. I heard everything inside these bug buildings was green.”

  “Corporate Green,” Mr. Roan said. “Decades ago a paint company proved scientifically that this shade improved productivity by half a percent. They patented it and have profited from its ubiquitous use in corporate life ever since. In fact—”

  “No stains or writin’ or nothin.’” Kel interrupted, running his fingers along a wall. “I always wondered what it would be like, bein’ some old fart in one a these bug buildings.”

  A woman passed them in the hallway, clearing a wide space for Mr. Roan and his guest as her EI notified her that he was of superior rank.

  “Well, this is my building,” Mr. Roan said, glancing nervously after her. “But not my floor.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t want anyone to see me since I haven’t reported to work yet. I’m sure we can find you a bathroom, though. Ah! Right there.”

  “Perfect.” His dirty hands pressed on the door but it was locked.

  Mr. Roan mentally reached out and entered his code through the EI, and the door unbolted. “It should be open, now,” he said. “By the way, I don’t believe I know your name.”

  “Kel.”

  Kel pushed open the door, heading straight for a urinal. Despite the disdain for EIs he had shown earlier, he seemed completely unfazed by the door having been unlocked without a key or PINpad. Mr. Roan stepped up to another urinal, unzipping. “Well, Kel, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Nathaniel W. Roan, Manager of Office Furnishings for Celarwil-Dain, Inc.”

  “Mmm,” Kel said, removing a small transparent green plastic box from one of his pockets. Grasping a small protrusion from one corner, he pulled, producing a whip-like flexible tube. This he plunged into the drain of the urinal and pushed a button. A small metal handle popped out of the box and he cranked it in a circle, watching something inside the plastic.

  Mr. Roan flushed and zipped, then washed his hands. Kel moved from one urinal to another and then to the toilets, repeating the procedure each time. He came last to the urinal Mr. Roan had used.

  The door opened. A security guard entered, his eyes widening.

  “Hey, you! Kid! Stop that right now.”

  Kel ignored him, cranking the handle on the box.

  “I said stop it. That sewer gas is the property of the building management.” He grabbed Kel’s shoulder roughly. “I’m confiscating the lighter, and—”

  Kel grabbed and twisted the guard’s hand as he turned around, sweeping the man’s feet out from under him. The green box dangled from its flexible tube. Now behind the guard, Kel shoved a palm into the back of his head and lowered him, unconscious, to the floor. “Ain’t confiscatin’ shit.”

  Kel bent over the man, searching pockets, removing a pair of sunglasses and trying them on.

  Mr. Roan stared.

  Kel pocketed some metal keys that had fallen on the floor.

  “Gotta love ol’ fashioned metal keys,” he said. “Them punch pads’re too easy to fool anymore, with computers so smart. Metal keys are comin’ back, an’ the metal’s worth a lot.” He pushed the guard’s limp body into a stall, hoisted him onto the toilet and closed the door. Surveying the stall from the outside, he nodded to himself, satisfied, and then nodded at Mr. Roan.

  “Thanks a lot, man. Yer all right,” he said, snatching the green box and winding the tube back inside it. He crossed th
e room and grabbed for the door handle. “Gotta go. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “Wait!” Mr. Roan’s voice strained as he looked from Kel to the closed stall door. “You can’t just leave me here like this!”

  Kel was already moving down the hall. “Said I gotta go, man!”

  Mr. Roan took several quick steps, trying to catch up, but Kel walked faster. “Kel, what am I supposed to do? I let you into the building, and you knocked out a security guard!”

  “Look, man. Sorry ’bout any problem I caused you, all right? But you can say I kidnapped you or some shit. I got to get out of the CBD before the other security pigs come find me, see? An’ if I’m lucky, there’ll be another big wave of people leavin’ now, so I can slip through the gate with ’em.” He hopped into an elevator. Mr. Roan slipped in as the doors started to close.

  “I’ve never been in trouble before, Kel. I don’t know what to tell them … I might say the wrong thing. Please stop a minute and help me figure out what to do.” He cleared his throat. “You’re young and strong. You could always climb the fence if they come for you, couldn’t you?”

  “Fence is ’lectric, asshole. Like, kill you kinda ’lectric. So’s to keep out young, strong thugs like me. Shit.”

  “Then I’ll come with you. I’ll call in sick.”

  “What? Fuck off.” The elevator opened in the main entry area, with its escalators stretching down to the ground. “You got no problems, man. Jus’ tell ’em yer my victim, like. But if they get me on theft in the Central Business District, I get five months! That’s five months on a slab, with my brain storing government stats an’ shit, goin’ fuckin’ nuts. Then I get out, all weak, an’ back home I’m fuckin’ dead.”

  “I’ve got money. Or, that is, I can get money for us to spend. Please, Kel.” His face flushed hot. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Kel stopped. He faced Mr. Roan, tilting his tall column of hair to one side. “How much money?”

  Mr. Roan shrugged. “I don’t know. Enough for a few drinks—real drinks in a bar, not just sodje.”

  Kel shook his head. “So you wanna come with me to the Zone, and I’m gonna be, like, your tour guide or some shit?”

  Mr. Roan shrugged sheepishly. “Yes. I guess it’s something like that.” A few businesspeople passed by, raising eyebrows at the sight of the mid-aged man pleading with the young thug. Mr. Roan lowered his voice, but his words came out faster than ever. “Look, Kel, my wife is divorcing me and marrying a guy who runs a whole division in my company.” He shut his eyes tightly, rubbing them with his fingertips. “I’m … I’m really under a lot of stress, and I can’t—” Tension was building up from his midsection, tightening his muscles, corseting his lungs and turning his guts to mud. “Auggh!” Mr. Roan’s whole body shook. He looked around. “I can’t take it! I want to break something, smash something to bits! But there’s nothing around here.”

  He took a deep breath. “I can’t go back to work now, Kel. I just can’t. I helped you get into the building like you asked. Now I’m in trouble—they’ll see from the video that I let you in. So will you please, please let me come with you? For a little while? I’ll pay for everything.”

  Kel started walking again, heading for the trains. Mr. Roan followed. Kel pointed an accusing thumb at him, sideways. “Gotta be more than drinks. Everything, right? First class, an’ I pick the place. An’ some cash, too—casino chips to spend.”

  Mr. Roan nodded several times.

  Kel laughed to himself. “So maybe I’ll write that on the back of my jacket: ‘Tour Guide for Old Farts from the CBD.’ Ha.”

  “So I can come?”

  Kel shrugged but his feet kept moving. “Sure. But get the money first.” Kel’s shoulder slammed into a skinny man in an ill-fitting corporate uniform. “Sorry there, fella,” Kel said. “Didn’ see you.”

  The man scurried away like an insect. Kel walked faster. Mr. Roan jogged to keep up.

  “You almost knocked that guy down, Kel,” Mr. Roan said. “You could’ve hurt him.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Kel said. “‘Cept he’s gonna be missin’ this!” He turned his palm over, revealing a small, old-fashioned spiral notebook. It was palm-sized but thick, with maybe a hundred and fifty pages in it, and a small, old-fashioned ballpoint pen clipped into the wire spiral.

  “This is turnin’ out to be one fuckin’ awesome day,” Kel said. “Now you get some money: Casino chips, understand? None of that traceable shit. Then I’ll show you what’s up in the Zone. What was your long-assed name again?”

  Mr. Roan laughed. “It doesn’t matter. ‘Old Fart’ will do.”

  Dok’s place

  “You’ve got broken knuckles on both hands, Brian,” Dok said, gingerly lowering the hand he had splinted. Dok started manipulating the fingers of Brian’s other hand. Brian clenched his teeth. There were three other patients in the crowded little room; one moaned, rolling over, and the one in the corner coughed every few minutes behind the mask Dok had tied on him. “I’ll get this other hand taken care of, but you can’t go off by yourself again.”

  “I’ll take the stuff you gave me,” Brian said. “Regularly. Right now, if that’s what you want. Let’s just fix the hands, give me some stuff to straighten me out, and I’ll be on my way. I’ll be asleep for about two weeks, anyway—can’t get into any trouble like that.” He glanced around the dingy room, sizing up its other current occupants. Usually there were many more than this in Dok’s place. “Besides, you know me. I’m not much for crowds.”

  Someone pounded frantically on the door. “It’s open!” Dok yelled.

  A college student and a bum dragged in a bleeding young girl in a waitress uniform. Brian looked intently at the girl, sensing something unusual about her. Something that made it difficult for him to avert his gaze. Some cheap pink-gold makeup was still visible around the edges of her face, but around the cut her flesh was pulsing purple and black. The girl wore that cheap makeup not to pretend she was Golden, but to hide the fact that she truly was Golden.

  “Up here,” Dok said, gesturing at the table where Brian was sitting. Brian hopped down from the table, keeping his broken hands up to avoid banging them on its edge. The college student froze, staring at Dok with a stunned and fearful expression. People who had never seen a black man always reacted the same way. Dok was used to it.

  The student came to his senses, working with the other man to hoist the bloody girl and ease her gently onto the table. Dok gingerly took her chin, turning her face to see the gash under her eye. “Oh, I know you,” Dok said. “It’s Eadie, right?”

  Eadie muttered something. Her bottom lip quivered.

  Did Brian know her, too? Impossible. He rarely met anyone outside of the drug world. But she seemed so familiar … and somehow magnetic, like she was pulling everyone closer to her.

  Is she the waitress from the diner the other night?

  “Shhh,” Dok said. “It’s going to be all right.” He reached above him to the lamp that hung from a chain there, adjusting the wick to give as much light as possible. “Maybe one of your friends here can tell me what happened to you.”

  “She was in a fight with these Upperclassmen from my school.” The student’s voice trembled as he spoke. “She got hit in the face a lot, and then he cut her, he just cut her, right there, just zip and he cut her face, like that. And then we took her out, and this guy,” he indicated the strange, weather-beaten man with him—“led the way here.”

  Dok took another look at the skinny man and his tattered clothes.

  He now sat in the corner of the room, eerily still and silent, his attention fixed entirely on Eadie.

  “She’s really hurt,” The student said. “He beat her up badly before he cut her. She’s been bleeding a lot.”

  “Yes, I see that.” Dok exhaled through his nose. “And what about the guy from your school that she fought with? I’ll bet he wound up with barely a scratch and still went to a hospital in an ambulance. Am I right?�
��

  “Uh, no. He’s dead.”

  Dok turned, facing the student. “She killed him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Dok shook his head. “Eadie? I’m going to spray something on the wound to keep it from hurting, okay?” He took an old plastic spray bottle from the countertop behind him, pumping the trigger that sent a fine mist over her face. “Medical nicotine to address the pain, and it kills germs, too. It’s not toxic like regular nicotine—a few gene splices in the bacteria producing it took care of that, I’d guess. Are you feeling it now?”

  She made some sort of sound which to Brian sounded like an affirmative reply. From a shelf behind him, Dok took down a small packet of worn-out aluminum foil, bringing it back over to the work table where Eadie lay. Opening the packet as carefully as if it had been alive, he took out some gauze, a thin, curved needle, and thread.

  Except for the masked patient coughing in the corner, everyone stayed silent as he sewed. “I sterilized this packet in the pressure cooker, okay? No germs. We’ll get you fixed up, Eadie,” Dok murmured. He lowered his voice to a whisper but the room was small and Brian was used to listening for whispers. “It really is a good thing you’re Golden. You’ll heal much faster.” He blotted the cut. The needle was already threaded.

  Brian watched the needle go into and out of the girl’s flesh, now a blend of dark colors. Dok tied a knot and stabbed it through again, pulling the wound closed a little more.

  Dok turned his head toward Brian. There was a haze between them now.

  “Brian? Are you all right?” Dok asked. “I think you’d better …”

  The haze deepened and thickened, blocking Brian’s sight. Dok’s voice sounded farther and farther away as he spoke, eventually going silent.

  McGuillian Diner

  Federal Agent Hawkins turned in a circle to capture the entire diner in the file he was creating through his EI. “Map this area,” he told it. “Letters vertical, numbers horizontal. Store, label as ‘Ricker homicide, McGuillian diner, Fisher campus, map.’”