Afterlife Crisis
Page 33
I ought not to have been so dashed surprised to see him, I suppose. I mean to say, he was previously known to hobnob in the company of Norm Stradamus, seeming to do the latter’s bidding in some mercenary capacity, and his employer had hitched up here at the Regent’s abode. Zeus, of course, had forgotten all of this information re: our prior encounters with Llewellyn Llewellyn, Zeus’s memory having gone phut through the judicious use of the Socratic Method.
I set about the task of refreshing his memory.
“Llewellyn Llewellyn was the chap who first directed us toward Vera’s appliance repair shop. I then met up with him in the grotto where—”
“Shut it!” shouted one of Llewellyn’s surly companions, and his manner offended me. Indeed, I rather think I was curling my lip at him and registering no small measure of scorn when I suddenly recalled where I had seen this chap before. This one was the taller and thicker of the two thuggish policemen who’d appeared on the Detroit University bus, seeking Napoleons, somewhere around twenty chapters ago when I was en route for a tête-à-tête with Isaac Newton. He and his colleague, a shorter thug with a head like a pumpkin, who I now perceived was also in the gang outside my cell, had shrunk — or do I mean shrank? — from actually absconding with the Napoleons once confronted with the spectre of public scrutiny. These two thugs were now out of police uniforms and dressed as the Regent’s guards, accompanying Llewellyn Llewellyn alongside a fourth guardsperson who was unknown to me: a heavily tattooed guard of feminine aspect who glowered at me as though I were an eel in her commode.
“Shut it” is one of those phrases that doesn’t really recommend a specific response. It differs in this respect from “how do you do?” or “good morning” or “lovely weather today, isn’t it?” When confronted with anything along the lines of “shut it,” some people choose to acquiesce and maintain a dignified silence, others pout and sulk, and still others bristle with defiance, refusing to shut anything and instead mounting a form of verbal protest. In this particular instance, I decided in favour of speech, as the specific dreg of humanity who’d ordered me to “shut it” seemed to have failed to spot the significance of what I was trying to say, viz, that I was not some stranger to be mistreated by surly guards, but a known acquaintance of Llewellyn Llewellyn. So my response was to give tongue in the form of a ready explanation. It started as follows:
“I was merely trying to explain—”
“Well don’t!” said Llewellyn Llewellyn.
“Yeah, don’t!” said the shorter, male guard, who seemed to expectorate his words, rather than uttering them.
“How did he know your name, Llew?” said the female member of the sketch, arching a shrewd and thinly pencilled eyebrow in my direction.
“We’ve met,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn. “I was working for Norm Stradamus when Brown came to the grotto. This guy was with him. His name’s Feynman. Norm calls him the Hand of the Intercessor.”
I winced.
“But what’s he doin’ in a cell with Terrence, then?” said the thickish, tall guardsman, who was built along the same gorilla-like lines as Zeus, but on a somewhat smaller scale and leaning more toward the fleshy end of the spectrum rather than the finely chiselled.
“We’ll know soon enough,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn. “Let ’em sweat a bit for now. We’ve got to take care of this, first,” he added, patting the cart bearing the medical-looking doodads.
I, for one, didn’t like what he was driving at, for it seemed to me that nothing good could come from the application of unrequested medical doodads in my current situation. I won’t say I was in especially fine fettle at the moment, what with my recent tumble down the shaft, but I certainly didn’t require hooking up to any medical devices, and the idea that I might be hooked up to some against my will, for purposes unknown and quite probably nefarious, led to another bit of wincing. I also won’t say that I had a great deal of experience with these mercenaries or guards or whatever they were, but by the look of them, I wouldn’t have put it past them, armed with these medical doodads, to inflect their unsuspecting prisoners with the measles or rubella or even that bird flu disease Ian had mentioned when we first met.
It was at this point that Vera decided to make her presence known. Until now she’d just been staring into space in that vacant way of hers, a sure sign that she was on the receiving end of a sudden television broadcast, one apparently sparked by the advent of these guards.
“I’ve seen all of you!” she said, speaking to the guards, not me, who of course she’d seen frequently. “You’re members of the Eighth Street Chapter!” she continued. “You were—”
“SHUT UP!” shouted Llewellyn Llewellyn, in a full-throated and cranky sort of manner. He seemed perturbed, and not keen on merry reunions. Despite the urgency in its tone and the volume with which his words had been unleashed, his shout failed altogether to deter Vera.
“You were hired by Norm Stradamus to get Ian to the grotto. You’re Llewellyn Llewellyn,” she continued, “and Philly the Rook,” she said, addressing the short male guard, “and Kari Slice, and Big Hurt!” she added, completing her little roll call. “I saw your minds being wiped by Socrates. Well, not Llewellyn Llewellyn, but the rest of you were attacked and then—”
“I told you to Shut. Up,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn through gritted teeth, and also through a coherent energy matrix something or other that separated him from us and prevented him, it seemed, from making any real progress in the direction of preventing Vera’s speech.
“What’s she talking about, Llew?” said the woman identified as Kari Slice.
“And how’d she know you call me Big Hurt?”
“Ignore her,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn.
“But Llew—”
“Look,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn, “she doesn’t know anything. It’s just . . . I dunno . . . some kind of a trick. I’ve already told you, you all manifested a few months ago in the Styx, along with Thirsty Vern, Alphonse, and the rest of the crew, and I was there to collect you as your guide. Your memories have gotten fuzzy. It happens all the time. But once you were all sorted out I asked you join up with me and Norm Stradamus, and you said yes. And now we’re all here at the Regent’s place. There’s nothing more to it than that. And I don’t appreciate,” he added, glowering through the energy thingummy at Vera, “anyone stirrin’ up trouble or confusing you. It’s been hard enough for all of you since the . . . difficulties you had at your manifestations.”
I arched an eyebrow or two, seeing there was almost certainly more here than met the eye.
“But I’ve seen it!” said Vera. “They tried to kidnap Ian and were wiped by Soc—”
“ENOUGH!” screeched Llewellyn Llewellyn, this time banging a fist on the energy barrier and following his screech with a series of strange oaths and curses which needn’t sully the Author’s work. After a moment or two he simmered down.
“Look, lady,” he said, his palm resting on the transparent energy thingummy, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but stop trying to put ideas into my friends’ heads. They’re my friends,” he repeated, putting a significant amount of topspin on the phrase. “They’ve been through a lot. They’re newly manifested and easily confused. They’re good people.”
“Good people don’t lock other people up for no reason,” protested Vera.
“Or accuse other people of being traitors!” said Zeus.
“Or torture Napoleons just because of who they are!” I added.
“That’s out of our hands,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn. “We’re just working with the Regent’s guards while Norm is here. I’m not saying I agree with what’s going on with the Napoleons. And we’re not involved in whatever’s going on with you.”
“That ain’t exactly true, Llew,” said Philly the Rook.
“Naw,” said Big Hurt. “We’re supposed to question Terrence later, like you said.”
The spiders that seemed to be crawling up and down my spine when I’d first noticed the medical thingummies now redoubled their efforts.
“N-n-no need,” I stammered, doing my best to appear calm but not coming within several miles of it. “We’re all fine in here. No call for medical attention or whathaveyou.”
“This ain’t for you,” said Philly the Rook. “Not exactly,” he added, and for some reason his pumpkin-shaped head split into a horrible grin.
“This stuff ain’t for yous,” said Big Hurt. “It’s for the cell across the way. Boss says we’ve got to set up an ivy drip—”
“Not an ivy drip, Hurt. It’s an IV,” said Kari Slice.
“A four?” said Big Hurt, corrugating the brow.
“No, no—”
“But Llew said I-V means four!”
“It means four sometimes,” said Philly the Rook. “Other times it means ‘in the veins.’”
“That’d be I . . . T . . . V,” said Big Hurt, in a halting voice that suggested that this took some concentration.
“Guys,” said Kari Slice, “Let’s get on with it. It’s not as though we’re being paid by the hour.”
And as interested as I otherwise might have been in the pay structure for the Regent’s mercenaries and guards, I was more intrigued by the notion that the cell across the hall was in need of an IV drip. And since there was nothing for me to do but stand and watch as this odd quartet of guardspersons set about their duties, that’s exactly what I did. They busied themselves for the better part of ten minutes, doing a fairish job of setting up stands and drips and things within the cell, until I perceived that the door from whence they’d come went through another round of unlocking, slamming open, and slamming shut again, this time without an interlude of screaming, suggesting that the torturers had called it a day, or possibly taken a coffee break.
A further round of clumping footsteps, accompanied by the sound of something being pushed or dragged along the floor, heralded the coming of an addition to our party.
“Bring her in here,” called Llewellyn Llewellyn, poking his head out into the hall.
A moment later I caught sight of his audience. It was another pair of guardsmen, these ones dragging along the trussed-up form of another person of my acquaintance.
“They’ve got Nappy!” Vera cried.
I confirmed the diagnosis. The trussed-up person of my acquaintance was, indeed, the pipsqueak Nappy, now bound, blindfolded, gagged, and zealously wriggling against the restraints.
“What are you doing with her?” Zeus shouted, and one detected the note of disapproval.
“None of your business,” said Philly the Rook.
“It’s kinda their business,” said Big Hurt. “We’re putting her here on account o’ the fact that she’s their friend and says she knows Zeus, and Boss said they’ll be more likely to answer our questions and sort things out if—”
Kari shushed him with an elbow, indicating in no uncertain terms that guards were not supposed to enumerate their motivations and schemes when standing within earshot of prisoners.
“Just get her strapped in,” said Llewellyn Llewellyn.
On the cue “get her strapped in,” Big Hurt hoisted the wriggling Nappy over his shoulder, stepped into the cell, and flung her unceremoniously onto the metal bed. Through her gag, Nappy let out an audible “oof” that made it plain to those assembled that her landing hadn’t been cozy.
Zeus didn’t take this well. He started hammering on our cell’s energy barrier with a hubcap-sized palm, shouting things along the lines of “stop that” and “you be careful with her.” These coherent energy barriers seemed to be made of sturdy stuff, for the thing stayed coherent under the onslaught of Zeus’s vehement hammering. Nor did his hammering have any apparent impact on the gaggle of guards, for they kept their heads down and turned their attention to the task of strapping Nappy to the bed within the cell, tightening her gag, and securing her to various cords and cables issuing from the trolley.
Zeus’s vehemence did have an impact on yours truly, for it gave me pause for thought. This was not, it seemed to me, the reaction of a guardsman merely expressing a regular dose of professional concern for the well-being of prisoners. This was Zeus’s watchdog spirit once again making its presence known, rising in defence of one who — though not perhaps remembered on any conscious level — had been one of Zeus’s nearest and d. Indeed, unless I’d misread the situation, Nappy and Zeus had been mutually struck by Cupid’s arrows, as the expression is, in the time before Zeus’s current bout of amnesia. “Young love,” about sums it up; a larger-than-average dose of what is called the divine pash.
Observing the big lug now, hammering freely on the energy barrier and shouting exhortations at a gang of persons whom he must have recently counted as colleagues, it occurred to me this was indicative of love swelling in Zeus’s bosom as he watched the object of his affections at the mercy of these dark forces.
“Zeus!” I said, placing a placating hand on the chap’s enormous shoulder. “Have you remembered? Has Nappy’s peril stirred your memory?”
“Terrence,” he said, whereupon he cheesed the hammering routine and left his palm merely resting on the barrier. “I already told you. I don’t remember anything before the Regent. But you can’t do that to prisoners. It isn’t right. She’s helpless. And she’s so small. And there’s six of them, and they’ve got her tied up and are—”
“It’s okay, Zeus,” said Vera, taking a station at Zeus’s other shoulder and mirroring my patting efforts. “She’ll be all right. Has Norm told you what I can do?”
“See the future, you mean?” said Zeus.
“That’s right,” said Vera. “And I know Nappy is going to be all right.”
An urgent beeping from the vicinity of the hallway now interrupted the proceedings and caused the action in Nappy’s cell to take something of a pause. Nappy was lying on the slab looking peaceful, while Llewellyn et al., now huddled around a beeping datapad or similar high-tech thingummy, possibly I-Ware, looking all of a doodah. And whatever information the thing displayed caused five of their number — Llewellyn Llewellyn, Kari Slice, Big Hurt, and the two anonymous guards who’d brought Nappy to the cell — to buzz off down the hall to greener pastures, shouting back to Philly the Rook that he was in sole charge of the cells and suggesting that he finish hooking Nappy up to the doodads and then see what he might do by way of making Terrence talk.
For the moment, Philly the Rook simply stood there at a loss.
“Where’d they go?” asked Vera.
“None o’ yer business,” said Philly the Rook, whom I may start calling Phil to lower the word count.
“Why’d they leave you alone?” asked Zeus. “Standard procedure calls for two guards to attend to any prisoner who—”
“Shut yer trap,” said Phil, who mustn’t have heard the instruction about making Terrence talk. I mean to say, you can’t make someone talk by telling them, in any form of vernacular, to be quiet.
“How’s the prisoner?” asked Zeus, up-nodding in Nappy’s direction.
“That’s none o’ your business, neither,” said Phil, who, now seemingly reminded of Nappy’s presence, turned back to the job of hooking up the equipment.
He plugged a couple of plugs into the wall, flipped a brace of switches on the console of a monitoring device, hoisted a bag full of some species of liquid onto a tallish stand, and attached a length of clear tubing between this bag and what seemed to me to be a rather angry-looking economy-sized needle.
“What’s in the IV?” asked Vera.
“Just mind your own business!” said Phil,
clenching his jaw muscles and grinding a tooth or two in Vera’s direction. “Just wait your turn. I’ve got to finish with the girl.”
“Wait our turn for what?” asked Vera, who seemed intent on keeping hold of Phil’s attention.
“For questioning,” spat Phil.
I’m pretty astute, and clued into Vera’s plan. She was, I perceived, attempting to do whatever she could to delay whatever procedure the goon Phil had in mind for our friend Nappy. Eager to help, I shoved my own oar in.
“Questioning,” I said, brightly, “why, there’s no time like the present. Question away. The Feynman life is an open b. I’ll do my best to be thorough.”
“Not you,” said Phil. “I’m supposed to ask Terrence why he’s helpin’ you, why this girl keeps callin’ him Zeus, and figure out if he’s some kinda plant.”
“Some kind of plant?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah,” said Phil.
“You mean a dog.”
“I don’t mean a dog. I mean a plant.”
“You think Zeus is a plant?”
“My name is Terrence.”