The old man wrung his hands, looking Hawkins up and down. Hawkins scrolled through some text and found the name again: Stuckey. Another gee-whiz dimwit citizen, eager to please. Stuckey’s eyes went back up, from Hawkins’ acid-resistant all-traction black shoes, to his flexible, abrasion-proof gray uniform—cut in the old-fashioned suit style with lapels—to his perfectly Gold complexion and closely-trimmed brown hair.
“Never had a Federal Angel in my place before,” Stuckey said, though Hawkins barely heard him. The Agent was closely observing the movements of a young, redheaded waitress setting plates on a table. As she leaned over, the girl kept her knees pressed tightly together, as her panties were clearly exposed with every bend of her waist. “I wish I could help you more; dropped that danged computer in a pot of soup when it was all going on—corporate’ll be furious, of course, but you’ve gotta tell ’em so you can get the information you need. I hope my blunder doesn’t slow down your case, though. God’s will, right? God to the President to you, the Federal Angels. Geez. I never thought I’d actually meet one of you.”
Hawkins turned to face the man. “Your computer situation is inconvenient. But your corporate data banks will have everything I need.” He glanced toward the corner where a few McGuillian corporate security officers were huddled. “But you should have called me first; those corporate security clowns almost messed up the scene.”
The man nodded deeply. “Yes, sir, mister Angel. I know that now, sir, but at the time I called I didn’t know it was the Ricker boy. Thought corporate could handle it.”
Hawkins shook his head. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this girl, Eadie, or the bum witnesses described?”
“Nope. No, sir. I’ll call if I think of anything, though.”
“You do that. At least one of the citizens who helped the killer away from the scene of the crime will be easy to find.” His EI had Federal clearance. “Access records of Fisher University. Find home address: Lawrence Williams the Seventh.”
The squalid dwelling with the purple man
Sato glared at the filthy little man seated next to him on the floor, bristling as the beady little eyes studied him. The man gave a slight bow.
“Why do you stare at me, peasant?” Sato asked. The purple man he had seen earlier was saying something but Sato kept his eyes on the dirty one, who bowed again.
“I mean no offense, sir. I simply had not noticed you before. It seems you have just arrived.”
“I have. And one such as you should bow deeper. I am samurai.”
The man repeated his same nodding bow. Sato considered punching him in the throat. “Samurai, are you?” the peasant asked. “You are then quite different than you appear. But in this world things are not always as they appear. Samurai were warriors, yes? Served lords, had missions, dealt with matters of state. Whom do you serve now, samurai? What is your mission?”
Sato squinted at the man. “It is true I no longer look like I am from the samurai class. You imply that you also are not what you seem. And I will allow you to speak to me this way for now because it is clear that there is something different about you, an energy I have felt only in the presence of great Zen masters. And nobles would certainly have sliced you to strips by now for speaking this way if there were not more to you than is apparent.”
The man stared back. Sato raised his hands from his lap but suppressed the urge to grab the peasant’s head and slam it repeatedly into the floor. Focusing, he lowered his hands again.
Sato’s new body relaxed for no reason at all as his words spilled forth on their own in this vulgar, unfamiliar language. “I was rejected by the Life Force, the great collection of energy that binds all living things together. I must be here for a reason, a mission, but as yet I do not know what it will be.”
The man nodded, or bowed, again. “I am certain it will be a noble cause, samurai. And you the perfect warrior. Time is nature’s weapon, after all. Whom do you follow?”
“I serve no human master.”
“I am with the general, there,” the peasant said, nodding at the girl on the table. “Hers is the battle to overthrow the most oppressive regime in history. Her struggles will truly end war.”
Sato grimaced. “No legitimate soldier would ever endure the humiliation of serving under a woman.”
The man said nothing. Sato looked again at the general, with her yellow hair and the gash on her face. “Her eyes are different from most people I have seen here. They look partially Japanese, and I thought perhaps even our royal blood might flow within her …”
He focused his narrowed eyes at the dirty man again. “But now I see that is not what makes her different. The boy, there, has the same look, as do you. Blood is not what makes her different. It is something else. There seems to be … a purpose to her. Is this why you speak of her the way you do?”
The little man leaned closer, lowering his voice to something almost like a whisper. “Her purpose and your mission are the same, samurai,” he said.
A train platform in the Zone
Kel sat on the train platform steps, grinning up at the rainclouds through the security guard’s stolen sunglasses. Mr. Roan—newly rechristened Old Fart—wondered if perhaps these were the first pair he’d ever worn. Kel slid his stolen keys onto a ring with a few others, attached to a wire as long as his arm. The other end was a handle; together the keys and wire formed some sort of weapon. It disappeared into one of Kel’s pockets.
“Can we get away from here now?” Old Fart asked. He looked over one shoulder and then the other, then all around, then back over the first shoulder again. “I feel like we’re waiting to be attacked.”
Old Fart had decided to shut down his EI. If anyone back at work noticed his absence, it could be used to track his whereabouts. Considering where he was and with whom, it was probably better if nobody knew. But the EI was his constant source of information, his connection with every aspect of his world, and knowing he must carry on without it made him terribly anxious. He was feeling more isolated and exposed than he had ever felt before.
Kel ripped a long strip from a page of the notebook he had stolen and rolled the strip into a ball. Next to Kel on the bench were his green plastic box, a small vial of liquid, and an old metal bottle cap with a thin copper tube driven into one side. The notebook disappeared into one of the pockets he had sewn on his pants.
Old Fart opened his umbrella, guarding against the few droplets of rain.
“Kel, what are you doing?” he asked. “I don’t think this is a good place to sit. I’m pretty sure I saw Chinatown near here from the train.” He gestured. “Right over there. Chinatown, with the most dangerous gangs of all.”
Kel straightened out the ball of paper, smoothed it out against his thigh, and then crumpled it into a ball again. “Chinatown hoods don’t come here, Old Fart. An’ even if we was to go there, you’d be welcome. Golds can spend money anywhere they want. Probably kill me, though.” He shrugged, flattening out the paper and rolling it back up again. “But don’ worry. We got a deal. I’ll look out for you.”
“And the Horde of the Departed are supposed to be around here, too, Kel,” Old Fart said. He stood up on his toes to peer over the railing some distance away.
Kel nodded. “We’re gonna pass kinda near ’em, but not too close. I don’t wanna get any closer to them than we have to. Smells like puke, over there.” His metallic tattoos seemed to glow in the rain-filtered light as he smoothed the paper and then rolled it up again, tighter this time. Old Fart noticed Kel had another tattoo rising up the right side of his neck from a starting point below his shirt: a jagged pattern that looked like an old-fashioned saw blade, mostly bronze, with silver along the teeth. Tattooed blood droplets accented some of the teeth where they appeared to be cutting into Kel’s flesh. The ink glistened as if it really was fresh blood.
Old Fart exhaled shakily. “What is all that stuff, anyway? The drizzle coming down is starting to freeze. Why are we just sitting here?”
<
br /> “It’s teen-HC, man. Homemade nicotine an’ pot. Jus’ like the real stuff, but cheaper.”
“Why would you do something like that? Don’t you know how dangerous nicotine is?”
“Fuck you, man.” Kel examined the ball he had made, then smoothed it against is thigh yet again. “What else I got to do?” He dropped the ball into the bottle cap, carefully meted a few drops of the liquid onto it, and picked up the green plastic box, flicking a lever as he held the tube to his lips. A small flame appeared and Kel puffed on the pipe, igniting the paper. “Why you care so much, anyways?” he asked, exhaling a noxious cloud. “Lookit you, Old Fart. Gotta job, but you wanna stand here in the Zone, watchin’ me smoke. I worked all day for this shit, man. All day. Don’t fuck it up.” He lit the paper again, taking a deep drag.
“‘Sides, you think I’m gonna be like you if I live longer? What kinda shape I’m gonna be in after movin’ concrete an’ digging holes an’ livin’ in shit alla’ time? Sometimes I see these guys in the neighborhood, old as shit, fifty or whatever, like you. Been workin’ all their lives. An’ some worked real hard, got places with glass windows an’ maybe a heater for a while. Now they can’t do shit. Now they beg for money, an’ they live here—” He gestured around them, at the decaying buildings, the dirt, the gaping windows. “What you see here is me tryin’ to not be fifty, okay?” He flicked his lighter again and took a long, defiant drag.
Amelix Integrations
Corporate Regulations Division
G.W. Kessler, DCR, Director
Internal Memo Re: Eric Basali
Attached is the document found next to Eric Basali when he was discovered unconscious and slumped over his desk. The document is undated, written in pencil on the back of last year’s Amelix Integrations gift wrap. Employee is being transferred to Amelix Retreat pursuant to contract.
G.W. Kessler, DCR
Gone.
I ran all over outside but it’s nowhere. I looked under my desk, in the stairwell, in the bathroom. The notebook is just gone. Sucked into a vacuum.
We define a vacuum by what it is not. “It is empty,” we say. “There is nothing inside.”
At the subatomic level we’re all mostly empty space, anyway. Just vacuum … empty space.
Perhaps we can define life as we define vacuum: by what it is not. An animal that can’t make its own choices does not experience life. It is just a piece of meat. To be truly alive, every creature has to define its own destiny. I am not here to have my spirit crushed back into the void from which it sprang. I do not exist to contribute to the endless spiral of abuse and humiliation in this artificial system that replaces meaningful life in our modern society.
I had imagined that maybe my foolish little notebook was what I was here for. I pretended that my purpose was to write, to chronicle how the system truly functions, and to what end. Now even that distraction is gone, and the only tangible product of all my miserable years here has disappeared forever.
So when you find this note, you will also find me dead.
Federal truck en route to Williams household, traveling along General Electric Highway
The EI signaled a call. Federal Agent Hawkins pulled the truck over to the side of the crumbling asphalt road. “Proceed.” An image appeared, imprinted over the truck’s interior and all other parts of the tangible world. It was a Statused man with a wide, unrelenting smile that showed his upper and lower teeth, like every other Accepted, though he wasn’t like any other at all. This was Clayton Ricker, CEO of the world’s most profitable private corporation, staring silently at Hawkins.
“Hello, sir,” Hawkins said. “May I offer my sympathy for your loss, sir? It is most regrettable.”
The eyes glared but the rest of the face remained frozen in its smile as the voice trickled into Hawkins’ skull like rivulets of ice water. “Yes. That’s what your captain said to me when he informed me that my son had been killed. Yet he chooses to insult me by assigning some low-rank lackey to be my point of contact on the case. Surely someone of my status is entitled to greater consideration.”
“Well, sir, I apologize on behalf of my superiors—”
“Why would I value an apology from you? You’re an inconsequential peon, even lower than your sorry captain. Now, I’m sure you are aware that I have many friends in your organization. Not down at the shit-shoveling level where you work, of course, but people who actually make a difference. You know that I will get whatever information I want. The only question is whether you make it relatively easy, or relatively difficult, for me to get it.”
“I understand, sir. And I have already been instructed to provide you with whatever you might need, sir.”
“Of course you have. But you will not do it through pre-scripted messages. I want you personally accountable and available to answer questions. You will be giving me reports in person, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. Would you like to schedule our first meeting now, sir, or—”
The image shook its bald head. “I’ll have you summoned when I want you. Keep good records and be prepared to report at any time. Call me immediately when you find her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are driving, I see. Where are you going?”
“To the home of a student who was at the scene. Lawrence Williams the Seventh, sir.”
“Yes. I saw him on the video—the one who attacked my son and then threatened my son’s friends with a knife. It’s the same with him, of course. Find him, call me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Somewhere in the Zone
“Wow,” Old Fart said. He blinked at the sky, which caused him to stumble and belch a little. Being drunk had never been so exhilarating. “It’s really dark here. I haven’t ever been behind the lighted entertainment areas in the Zone before.” He belched again but it came out as a laugh.
Kel’s elbow jabbed into Old Fart’s ribs. “Shut up,” Kel whispered.
Old Fart shuffled along next to his new friend. He had to be quiet. That was funny. He had to be quiet because he was in the Zone and tough guys would come and kill them if they found them. He giggled.
A hand slapped him. Kel’s hand. “Whew,” Old Fart said, relieved. “I thought you were a bad guy.” He giggled again.
Kel slapped him three more times. “I am a bad guy, motherfucker! Shut the fuck up now!”
Those slaps really stung. It was funny. But not funny enough to make him laugh again.
Kel’s shoes crunched through the gravel beside Old Fart, finally stopping in front of a dilapidated building. “This is it, man,” Kel whispered. “Home. My neighbor Brian an’ me, we call this place ‘Shitbox Manor.’” The silhouette of a sloping roofline against the Zone sky’s electric glow showed that one part of the place had already collapsed. “But you gotta be quiet here. Like serious, okay?”
Kel pushed open the creaking door, flicking his lighter to reveal an entryway with a sagging ceiling, a partially-collapsed floor, and the remnants of what could no longer be called a staircase. Happy to see Kel’s face again in the light, Old Fart smiled. Kel nodded and started climbing.
Old Fart could not see where Kel had put his hands and feet. He felt for steps and handholds but it was a slow process. Kel turned back, shining the light on the area.
Old Fart gaped upward. Behind Kel’s head, three shapes appeared: men whose dark clothing made their white faces and hands seem ghostly.
Kel read Old Fart’s shocked expression, but before he could react a thick wooden club smashed down on him. Kel fell hard to the floorboards and the light went out.
5
Shitbox Manor
Old Fart scrambled back down the staircase, half falling, feeling for handholds. He pushed his feet backward, expecting part of a step, but there was only empty space. He faltered and fell.
Hands crawled over him like hungry roaches, grabbing for his chips, tugging at his shoes. He thrashed wildly, his forearm hitting a neck, his knee brushing a torso. A palm sw
atted at his face. Someone snatched a handful of his shirt and yanked him forward, then a fist crashed into his jaw, leaving him momentarily stunned. There was little he could do in his drunken state to fight off three unseen assailants. The hand held him down until all his belongings had been taken. Then it was gone.
“Kel!” he yelled. He stood and charged clumsily toward the sounds of shuffling feet and bodies slamming into walls. His fingers touched fabric, a shirt or jacket. He tightened his grip on the material and pulled the man toward him, tackling him to the ground. Another one grabbed for him, trying for a handful of hair at the back of his head. Old Fart hunched his shoulders, anticipating the blow.
The fingers went slack. Maybe Kel had hit that one. The man beneath him punched up, catching Old Fart’s chin. He rolled off, falling onto some debris from the wrecked stairs … and something else.
Something too smooth for debris. Something the size and shape of Kel’s green box. He fumbled with its buttons and dials and slid a long lever forward. A pillar of orange flame leaped from the box, as long as his forearm, singeing his hair and eyebrows and lighting up the room. Now Old Fart could see Kel choking one of the attackers from behind. The man was on his knees with Kel’s key wire across his throat. Another assailant lunged toward Kel and got kicked in the teeth, the broken-glass shoe soles leaving deep gashes across his cheeks and eyes. The third intruder attacked with the club. Kel released the kneeling man, who collapsed forward onto the floor. The end of the wire jingled as it zipped through the air, whipping across the charging man’s face. He screamed and dropped the club, running from the room with his hands over his eyes. The one Kel had kicked followed him out.
Kel spun, windmill-kicking the building’s front door shut, breathing hard. He ripped the shirt off of the collapsed attacker and wrapped it around the cudgel, lighting it with the huge flame coming from the box. “Nice job, Old Fart. Now shut it off before you burn up all my damned gas.”
The Book of Eadie, Volume One of the Seventeen Trilogy Page 8