The chrome hull of a drone poked its head over the side just as a little bell rang. I blasted it away and a moment later, was hurled into the dusk sky. At the height of the arc, I spread my wings and ignited my thrusters, speeding towards the edge of the city.
Paradise City is beautiful from above, an iridescent scarab beetle made of flowing neon, amber, and silver lights. As I soared through the sky, I felt a wave of despair wash over me. My life was over. I knew it like I knew the desert was my destiny.
I passed over an area where the lights and terrain combined to form the face of a grumpy old man. Suddenly I was laughing, for no reason but that it reminded me of my old man, pulling faces to make us laugh, Mom and I, making fun of people who didn’t know how to have fun. Pops was dead but it was like his spirit was still with me, using the city itself to make me laugh.
My despair leaked away from me like gas till I was empty. I felt a strange calm wash through me as I aimed my mecha towards the desert and rode a gust of wind out of Paradise for the last time. I knew they’d come after me. I knew I’d die somewhere over the wasteland, shot down by missiles and drones.
And I knew what they’d say about me too. ‘What do you expect? He was half white. Can’t trust them vampires, man. Turn your back on one and they’ll bite you in the ass.’
4: Food-stamps, Loot, and Dr Guff
Legs
“You know the problem with you Bobby. You’re a big guy but you got no heart. Where’s my money?” Legs said, then bitch slapped the fat man in the face with the back of his right hand, his ring bruising Bobby’s cheek.
“I’m a get it for you Legs, I promise. I just need a little more time,” Bobby snivelled, sniffing back snot and blood. He was sitting down in a chair in Legs’ office, behind him stood Lil’T and JoJo two of Legs’ larger enforcers.
“I gave you more time already. How many times I give you an extension Bobby?”
“I know. I just had some bad luck, that’s all. Come on Legs, we all have bad luck sometimes. I mean, look at this fucking situation right here. But please, Legs, believe me. Just a little more time and...”
“Enough already. Listen Bobby. I’m a reasonable man. I don’t want to break your legs but you’re not leaving me a lot of choice here.”
“No please! Legs! Don’t do this!” Bobby cried out. He tried to stand but Lil’T’s heavy hand on his left shoulder planted him back in the chair.
“It’s your own fault Bobby. What I say when you come to me asking for thirty Gs to invest in...what the fuck was it...who gives a fuck? What I say to you Bobby?”
“You said you didn’t care I was married to your cousin, you’d still fuck me up if I didn’t pay but listen to me, Legs, just listen to me! Aight. I’ve got this guy. We met down at the Tropicana. He works in Death Star! So I’ve been hanging out with him, showing him a good time, you know, getting him girls and drugs and whatnot. He’s almost ready Legs. Just a little more time and I can flip him.”
“Flip him?”
“Yeah get him working with us. He’s got access to food stamps, man!”
“Food stamps? Do I look hungry to you, Bobby? What the fuck I want with food stamps?”
“We can sell ’em man. Make some money and I can pay you back.”
“Food stamps? Who the fuck gonna buy food stamps, Bobby? They’re free. Somebody get me a baseball bat.”
“NO! Listen Legs! Just listen, okay! A lot of folk are hungry out there. There’s a whole untapped market of working folk who make a little too much to qualify for food stamps but not enough so they don’t need ’em.”
“But the margins Bobby. They sound kind of small.”
“Small multiplied by the whole city Legs. I’m talking monopoly ’cause no one’s figured this angle man.”
“Hmm. What’s your guy’s name?”
“Miguel. Miguel Hermossa.”
“You better be right about this Bobby”
“Trust me, Legs. You won’t regret this.”
“Any regret will be shared by the both of us. Okay, bring him down to Dark Fantasy, Saturday night. I wanna meet him.”
“Saturday? Legs, listen, I’m going slow with this guy. Don’t wanna scare him off.”
“Scare him? Shheeit, I’m gonna seduce the motherfucker. Show you how it’s done. Alright, get the fuck outa here.” Lil’T hauled Bobby to his feet by his shirt then walked him out the door.
“Food stamps. Hmmm? What you think Armand?” Legs asked Armand, his right-hand man who’d been facing the arched window that overlooked Freaktown’s park. Armand swivelled round to face the boss.
“Food-stamps could work I suppose, if we deal in volume. Wouldn’t be bad for PR neither. I’ll check the numbers,” he replied. “The mayor recently cut welfare again. Anyways, we got bigger fish to fry. Those Jugglers motherfuckers hit us again. If we don’t do something soon, we’re gonna look weak. I know you said hold back but...”
“Let me worry about those clowns. Have you heard from Low?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“They got most of it. There’s a missing section somewhere out there in the city.”
“Call them.”
Armand nodded and dialled Low from the screen that floated above the table.
After a few rings, Low’s low voice said, “Pepe’s Pizza. Can I take your order?”
“Low,” Legs spoke, “talk to me. Where’s my machine.”
“We’re working on it. I lost one of my crew out there. By the time we got to him, he was dead and his section of the machine was gone. Someone must have looted it.”
“Just come in with what you got.”
“The money?”
“The money was for the whole machine. I’ll give you a quarter.”
“I can’t do that, Legs.”
“What you mean you can’t do that?”
“I mean I can’t do that. I’m sorry Legs. I got bills to pay. Look we’ll bring you the whole thing once we find the missing part.”
“Listen to me, Low. Some very important clients want that thing so don’t fuck with me or I will burn you to the ground like Christ on Judgment Night!”
“Don’t threaten me, Legs. I’m not in the fucking mood. We’ll get you your machine, we just need a little more time.”
“Yeah, you and the whole dammed world. How you gonna find the missing part anyway?”
“Let me worry about that. Just have our money ready.”
“Low! Just bring in what you got, okay. How about a third?”
“No, Legs. We need it all. I’ll be in touch,” Low said and hung up
“Motherfucker...” Legs said.
“Indeed,” Armand said.
“I want you to find that fucking thing wherever it is. Put the word out on the street. I want our guys checking out every pawn shop in the city, especially the ones that are connected. If we’re lucky whoever found that thing is gonna try and sell it.”
Legs walked over to the window and looked out across the free park, his gaze roaming over the neighbourhood. Several of the buildings on the high street were nothing but smouldering husks and cinders. Last night’s riots had spread from downtown to several barrios including Freaktown.
“Damn!” Legs said shaking his head. “Who the fuck burned down the barbershop? Like we livin’ in the last days or some shit.”
Ecila
I stood in front of the warehouse wondering if I had the right place. Word on the street was there was a hacker in here by the name of DevilDog. I’d seen the tag around FreakTown and a few other barrios but had never thought much about it.
Paradise is full of graffiti ’pon the walls and trains, esoteric hieroglyphs encoded and deciphered by street shamans engaged in neuro-linguistic hacks into the programming of the masses.
I pulled the little device out of my jacket pocket and stared. It was real. I wasn’t imagining it.
During the riots, I had heard Chi’s voice on a hooligan wind saying ‘go south,’ so I did. As I w
as walking down a temporarily deserted street filled with trash and a few burning fragments of the city, I saw this unobtrusive looking box the size of a large book, clutched in a dead man’s hands, and for some reason picked it up.
There was something strange about the machine. It seemed to have more corners and folds than an object ought to have. Was I seeing into the land of the blind, the one Harmony the shaman often spoke of? There were several buttons of unknown functions marked by strange symbols. Symbols I had not seen in seven years; not since the cracked dragon’s egg that somehow brought me here. I’d almost begun to believe I was crazy. But these symbols were proof. Of what, I wasn’t quite sure, but I was going to find out.
I stared at the strange swirls and sharp angles till my head began to spin because it was as if I knew what the symbols meant on some level that my conscious mind could not access. It was frustrating.
The machine looked like the control panel of a larger machine. It had moulded bits sticking out that looked like they connected to other sections. I’d pushed all the buttons but nothing happened, except for a strange moment I smelled something similar to fried plantain.
I needed to find someone who was good with gadgets and my friend Big Bola suggested I come here. I put the thing back in my jacket pocket and walked through the car park. The sun burned down with the heat of a thousand djinns, burning away all desire for anything but water.
The concrete was all cracked up, and there were shopping trolleys lined with cardboard and filled with brown caked dirt everywhere, as I walked up to a large industrial door that looked like it might be an entrance. It was made of a heavy metal and painted black. I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked louder and called out but still no answer.
I walked to the side of the warehouse and down a garbage strewn alley, looking for another way in. All I could find was a cast iron drainpipe that led to a toilet window several stories above. Fuck that! I walked back to the door and banged loudly, yelling out “Heeeelllloooooo!” Nobody answered so I sat down in the shade, figuring someone would show up eventually.
The asphalt of the lot looked like it was melting, heat waves warping the light passing through the air, the photons filled with information awaiting to be decoded, and in the distance, the high towers of the city shimmered against the pale blue sky. A giant mecha flew by overhead, casting a dragon’s shadow across my noon.
Half an hour later I returned to the drainpipe, bored of banging on the door and throwing stones into trolleys. What were they, some kind of art piece or something, or were these fuck-the-system types actually going to grow something useful?
I gripped the drainpipe and began to climb, keeping my limbs straight and my body relaxed. I climbed till my head almost touched the overhanging roof then reached out and grabbed the window ledge.
The toilet window was fairly large and I stepped through easily though there was a moment when I was almost entirely suspended in mid-air. There were a few toiletries, a dark towel of indeterminate colour hanging on the wall, and an incense stick burning beside the statue of a laughing fat negro with dreadlocks sitting cross legged on the back of a turtle. The inside door of the toilet had ‘Welcome’ stencilled on it. I opened the door and stepped out into a corridor.
“Hey dude,” someone said. I turned round to see a man with long hair and a joint in his mouth, a large hat flopped lazily on his head.
“Yeah?” I said
“Up the drainpipe huh?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s cool. I still come and go that way sometimes when I don’t have keys. I’m heading down to the basement. Want a hit?”
“Sure,” I said and he passed me the joint. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure, dear fellow,” he said and laughed. “Dear fellow, ha! You know like Old boy says on Gatman. Do you watch Gatman? Yo reckon anyone is actually that deadly with a gat? I mean, like in real life? I mean like Babylove Brown or Silly the Kid, Scorpionisis, Leftie Biggles, all them slingers...” He walked down the corridor towards the stairs and I followed past walls covered in graffiti, paintings, and posters.
“I don’t have a screen,” I said as we walked past a broken screen stuck on the mannequin of a child’s shoulders, “but yeah, I reckon there’s folk that fast.”
“Sleeping rough, huh? Well you’re probably welcome to crash here for a few nights as long as you’re not a psycho or a cop? You’re not are you?”
I shook my head.
“Good. Yo Navi, this is...”
“Ecila.”
“He came up the drainpipe. I’m Bone,” the long haired guy said and we bumped fists. I turned to do the same with Navi but he crossed his arms instead. He was about my age and height, maybe a little younger and taller, dressed in expensive clothes, a fur coat, and platinum chains around his neck.
“What the fuck you want?” Navi asked.
“I’m looking for Devildog. Big Bola told me she stay here sometimes,” I said.
“You friends with BB? How the lady doing?” Bone asked.
“What you want with the Devil? Free inet?” Navi asked simultaneously. We shared one of those silent moments of looking at each other knowing we were all thinking the same thing, but that the thing, whatever it was, couldn’t be expressed in words, we then all laughed a little at the same time.
“Yeah. BB and I go back. We both used to sleep under the Nawa overpass a few years back. She’s aight, her back don’t hurt so bad now that she eating healthy and doing yoga. And no, I don’t need free inet. I found something last night.”
“You mean looted,” Bone said then frowned. “I can’t believe I missed that shit man.”
“Ha Ha!” Navi laughed. “I got me some nice loot. One of them new floating screens and a whole new wardrobe. Check out the free shop.”
We reached the ground floor and walked through a set of swinging doors into a large space. It was filled with piles and stacks of... almost everything. Clothes, jewellery, tools, gadgets, screens...unopened boxes piled high next to racks and piles on tables and rugs.
“Help yourself to whatever you want. We gotta get rid of it all as soon as possible, man. And these damned communists are against selling it to make a buck. If the cops come calling we’ll just leg it underground, eh?” I snatched a funky looking black hat and placed it on my head at a rakish angle then kept walking.
“Nice,” Bone said, leading us through another set of doors and down a staircase into the basement, ducking a little to avoid hitting his head. Someone had scrawled ‘Ouch!’ in red crayon and a stick figure with a lump growing out its head. The stick figure had big ol’ titties, hairy balls, and a thick penis longer than its arms and legs.
The basement was filled with machinery, all sorts of mechanical devices and screens. They looked like they’d been cobbled together from a thousand different parts from as many different sources. There were about a dozen people down there, some working on the machines, others smoking out of a large and intricate bong.
“Yo Deedee, someone here to see you.”
A young woman on the far side of the room flipped up a visor and looked up. She was in her twenties, chubby and pretty, in good shape with a ring in her snub nose and another in her upper left eye-lid. Her hair was dreadlocked but shaved on the left side.
“I know you?” she asked pointing at me with the soldering iron in her hands.
“No,” I answered, “I’m a friend of Big Bola’s and she told me you might be able to help me out with this.” I pulled the machine from my jacket and held it out.
She put down the soldering iron, and took it in her rough hands. She caressed it and again that strange glitch, that twitch of the eye and I was seeing other angles of the machine, parallel to reality.
“Hmmm? Where’d you get this?” she said walking over to a workbench.
“Downtown,” I said. “You know what it is?”
“Not yet. I don’t recognise these symbols. Hold on.”
She pulled out some jump cables and clippe
d them to two of protruding knobs, one of which I’m not quite sure was there before.
She flipped a switch and a floating screen appeared above the workbench. She tapped on a symbol and lines appeared, mapping some sort of frequency.
“Hmmm...let’s see.” She played around some more then looked at me and said, “This might take a while.”
“That’s cool, I can wait. Does it look strange to you?” I asked her, wondering if she could see the shifting nature of the machine as I could.
“Yo, come say hi to the lady Jane,” Bone called out.
“Yeah, go on. I’ll let you know what I find,” DevilDog said.
I was reluctant but she was insistent. After a moment of silence, I nodded and walked over to the circle. I flopped down on an old car tire and looked around.
The guy sitting opposite me was talking. He was bare-chested and well built, covered in tattoos that danced like flames on the surface of his ebony skin. “I know we’re all committed to the cause but there’s never going to be a revolution.”
“What! The way the world is fucking up, a revolution is inevitable,” the girl to my left answered. She was petite with a big afro, dressed all in black, sitting cross-legged on a sheepskin rug.
“If it was inevitable, it would have happened by now,” Tattooguy replied.
“What about last night?” a male voice asked from behind me.
“The riot? Look, when Old Devil God said ‘We the people take back what’s ours,’ I think he was talking about the freedom to be our true selves, free from oppression...not a new gold watch,” Afrogirl said, flashing her brand new gold watch and a big gap-toothed smile that made her suddenly glow.
“We’re giving most of the loot away,” Tattooguy said, “what more do you want?”
“What more do I want? Let me break it down for you, Jack. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s great all that we do. Food not Bombs, the free shop, raising awareness about modern day slavery, the guerrilla gardening, the workshops, Copwatch, the boycotts, the protests, supporting the free clinic and the work-trade centre, all of it is good stuff. But I’m tired of being a band-aid soaked in blood. I’d rather be the flame that cauterises the wound,” said Afrogirl.
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