“You!” I shouted. He looked up at me and the gun I was pointing at his head. “Get in the van!”
He looked in my eyes for a few moments then stood up and walked over. As soon as he stepped inside, Tealson took off, reversing then spinning round and flying back out the hole he’d blasted in the side of the auditorium.
I threw the boy out of the van and closed the side-door as we crossed the threshold out into the night air. He landed badly and I saw his neck snap like a twig just before the van door slammed shut. I was silent for a few seconds. Damn! That wasn’t supposed to happen...sorry kid...I’ve killed a lot of people in my life but you’re the first child I’ve ever taken out, that I know of... Low, we fell real low didn’t we? Maybe we didn’t deserve to be happy ever after...but then, does anyone?
We bounced and jangled around, thanks to Tealson’s shortcut, down a hill, my gun still trained on the blue skinned man as my thoughts moved on to Low and Casey. My friends, my partners, my brothers, now deader than the desert, deader than a gunslinger’s heart.
We’d been so close to getting out. The mutationist who was going to alter our features was waiting and our passports to Lagoon were already prepared. All we had to do was show up with the money.
Fuck! I know what Low would say, ‘Live by the gun, die by the gun. Drink a toast to me and move on. Just another day in Paradise.’ At least they went out blazing. We could still make it, Tealson and I. We just had to stay alive for a little while longer. Our new hostage was looking back and forth between the machine, the section in his hands and me.
“You’ve been shot,” he said. I looked down at myself and saw blood soaking through my left side. It looked bad. I pulled out a monocle from a jacket flap and affixed it to my left eye then scanned the wound. I was bleeding internally and my guts were all torn up. I could see blinking red lights highlighting the numerous micro-surgeries I needed to undergo within the next half hour if I was to have any hope of making it. Shit!
The cold hard decision no gunslinger ever wants to face: jail for the rest of my natural life or death. There were too many of them out there.
Low was dead and with him any chance that he and I would one day live like the celebrity couples on screen. Beautiful Low who could slit a man’s throat without moment’s hesitation but was too shy to ask me out on a date. He was waiting for us to get out the gutter first. Or maybe that was just another of the little lies I told myself to keep going.
And Casey, my oldest friend in the world, who showed me how to have a little fun after taking the money and running. My boys were dead. All but one.
I watched the back of Tealson’s big head and wide neck as he made our getaway and a tear bubbled close to the duct before dissipating back in a mist of emotion, spined with nano-steel. A moment later, I smiled grimly.
The ballad of Babylove Brown was coming to an end and I was not sad. Not really. No sadder than a broken heart. No sadder than a cum stain on a grown man’s pants in public. No sadder than you were, the last time you cried over some big deal you can’t remember anymore.
I popped open another flap on my jacket and pulled out an emergency shot. It was a cocktail of antibiotics, pain meds, stimulants and sundry exotics that would keep me going for a while. I plunged the mini hypodermic needles into my side and tossed the empty casing aside.
“Put it together,” I said to the blue man. He just kept staring at me with a funny look in his eyes like he was a fan or something. I pointed my gun at him.
“Put the machine together or I’ll give you a reason to feel blue,” I said.
“I must be crazy but is that you, Chi?” he asked.
DevilDog
It all happened so fast. One moment I was in a group talking to Deph, the kid who’d invented the wings, and the next moment people were shooting guns at each other. I dropped down behind Deph’s display then pulled him down out of harm’s way.
“Easy cowboy, you’re not bullet proof,” I said then peered round to see if I could find Ecila. He was being chased by a real big guy. The man tackled Ecila to the ground and then they were struggling. Ecila got to his feet first but the other man quickly followed. The big guy was moving in that exaggerated manner people in exoskeletons have. He was clearly a trained fighter. I saw him slash at Ecila, the flash of a blade in his hands and I gasped involuntarily. He was trying to kill Ecila!
Luckily he missed. I had to do something, but what? I looked around frantically for anything that might be of use. My eyes jumped to the flying devices in the air and then down to Deph’s wings. They looked like an origami dragonfly, folded glass encrusted with a filigree of intricate metalwork. I grabbed them, slung the hoops over my shoulders and began to attach the harness to my rib cage. They fit like armour.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Deph asked
“I have to save my friend,” I said, adjusting the wings to settle comfortably on my back.
“You don’t know how to fly,” he said. I grabbed the tuning fork and stood up. It was made of a humanium, a rare metal that constantly vibrates on audible frequencies. I could hear it singing softly as it moved through the air.
“How hard can it be?” I asked, being far more flippant than I felt, then struck the tuning fork with my finger. The wings leapt alive in a wonderful chorus of ethereal song and I began to float upwards.
“Imagine you’re a fish swimming with a great current,” Deph called out. “And don’t let the wings face downwards too long!” I nodded and ascended quickly into the air.
Below me to the left were three shooters fighting against a dozen security guards and police. To my right, Ecila was dodging and evading the big man with the knife. Ecila was fast but it looked like only a matter of time before the knife took his life. I could see blood on his cheek from a cut he’d been too slow to dodge. I spun out of the way of a dirigible and swooped to grab a flying machine. It was shaped like a very long and sharp needle.
My fingernails were painted with nanocircutry which I proceeded to activate. A screen appeared floating above the toy aeroplane. I hacked into the crafts mainframe within moments and reprogrammed it into a missile targeted at the big man’s back. Ecila was still dodging the knife attacks, using the small machine in his hand as a shield.
As all this was happening, a part of my mind took the time to question if I was truly ready to kill another hueman being. It was like a voice was silently whispering direct to my third ear as I hit the final sequence and my improvised missile flew down at close to bullet speed, aimed to pierce the man’s back. He didn’t die however. His exoskeleton must have been real good quality from the way he stumbled and fell.
The knife was suddenly in Ecila’s hands and then in the man’s throat. The big man spun around with a choked cry and crashed onto his back. In that moment I felt no guilt, no elation, but in my breast there was an ice-cold sliding sensation that burned like lava.
Ecila kneeled over the dying man, placed his hands on either side of his head, and broke his neck with a viscous twist. Then he proceeded to place his left ear onto the other man’s right ear. It was one of the oddest things I have ever seen but in that moment it felt right, like some form of esoteric ritual, an acknowledgement of life and death, as if to say ‘I hear you, I understand, you are not alone. Now walk towards the light.’
A van exploded out of one of the walls and skidded to a stop not far from Ecila. One of the shooters dove in and a few seconds later she threw out a little girl bound by her wrists and ankles. People started shouting “Ceasefire!” and the guns briefly shut up.
A woman hopped out of the van and across the floor towards the little girl, also bound hand and foot. She looked kind of funny, like a worm trying to walk like a man and then Ecila was kidnapped at gunpoint.
The van’s tires squealed and it sped off, flying out of the auditorium and off into the night, spitting out a little boy before it vanished. The guns started firing after them. I dropped low and flew out of the doors, into the reception area th
en out through the main doors.
For some reason, I was clumsier closer to the ground and it took me a while to navigate. I was losing precious time but eventually I was out and up in the night sky. There was no moon and there were no stars. Just a heavy blackness illuminated by the bright lights of Paradise City. I rode the winds up and spotted the van cutting diagonally across a two lane road and then down the side of a hill.
I flew over the city, watching the van fishtail and almost roll over then skid to barrel up an exit to the freeway, vehicles crashing violently as they got out of the way.
Synchronised with the wind, I drifted closer, watching the play of lights, each one illuminating the world of man whilst blocking out the natural light of the night sky.
It suddenly struck me that the city was hell on Earth. Literally. A vast prison where we souls of the dammed were being punished for our one true sin, only we were too feeble minded to see the truth of it and too weak hearted to change the situation.
The van with Ecila in it was tearing down a highway, weaving in and out of the other vehicles. Police in mechas, assault vehicles, and helicopters, backed up by drones were swarming in from all directions converging on the van. I saw a news helicopter fly past with the words 104.9 painted on the side so I tuned in with my earstud.
“We now bring you live to the freeway where a high speed chase is underway. Babylove Brown and her crew are being hunted down by the police and oh my god, that was incredible! Did you see that?”
It was incredible. Like something out of a movie. Babylove Brown leapt out of the back of the van and onto the front carapace of a mecha. She emptied a full clip of the machine gun into a single weak spot and the mecha crumpled to the ground, the rider dying as her bullets pierced through. She clearly had experience in killing machines.
As the mecha was going down she was going up, using her momentum to bounce onto another mecha then onto the roof of a cop car. The second mecha fell dead from an explosion in its chest and the cop car flipped over as she pumped several bullets into the tires. It looked like she was using fractal bullets.
Fractal bullets are very illegal, each designed in such a way that they fragment into deadly patterns that infiltrate structures on a fundamental level, causing cascades of massive damage. Anything hit with fractal bullets is blasted apart from within.
I watched Babylove Brown surf aboard the upended and skidding cop car as she fired at other vehicles and mechas. She leapt clear as it crashed into the side of the freeway causing a huge traffic accident of vehicles, both cop and civilian.
Vehicles exploded and I rose a little higher as the heat struck me in a wave. I spiralled out of control and fell like a stone, my wings facing down but I managed to right myself moments before I landed on the roof of Ecila’s van which was still being chased by cops. I crouched low as bullets whizzed past me, some striking the van inches away from me.
We were speeding down the freeway curving east even as Babylove Brown was running on the rooftops of the buildings that bordered the road, heading south west. I was pulling the tuning fork out of my jacket when a couple of bullets hit my wings. They made a terrible crackling and crunching sound, sparks flew into the air and I felt the weight shift.
I lost my grip on the roof of the van and almost fell off but was able to grab on again, my fingers gripping the raised edges on the sides of the van’s roof.
At the same time, a light began to emanate from inside the van, some kind of fierce illumination that peeled back the colours of the world turning everything translucent. I could see the man driving and Ecila huddled over the machine, the source of the light.
All three of us were glowing with refracted light, our skins semi-translucent. I could see my heart popping in and out of vision in time to the beat. The arteries and veins, the nerves and bones that made up my flesh, all pulsating together as one with the whole world, overlaid with strange patterns and veves.
The road suddenly vanished and deep beneath us I could see some vast crystal also pulsating to the same beat and far above us, beyond the skies, some sort of structure many times the size of our sun, like a brilliant glowing egg with uncountable strings reaching out in all directions, also pulsating.
Then in a sudden flash of darkness, all the colours were gone and for a moment there was nothing at all, not even me. I opened my eyes and we were somewhere else entirely.
Here... Wow! Is that a motherloving dragon!?
7: Curtains
The Xombie formerly known as Obram
He died somewhere over the desert, his mecha shot to burning pieces, his body crashing to the earth like a meteor penetrating the ionosphere. It lay in the wreckage for four freezing cold nights and three blazing hot days, a burned and blasted carcass slowly submerging itself beneath the surface of the desert by the simple act of being there.
On the fourth day he rose again, crawling from his shallow grave to stand in the sun. He was newly born, no longer a man but a xombie. The exotic and strange radiations in the wasteland had burned through his flesh, excavating all traces of the city from his system.
His body had reacted by producing large quantities of metaronin turning his skin into a deep fluctuating greyness that danced with layers upon layers of fractals. He held up his hands and saw infinity and eternity in the fractals that played through his skin, like music composed by a great unseen conductor, or instructions being downloaded via the sunlight.
He looked up and stared into the sun; his mind empty, his blank eyes watching solar flares explode towards the Earth, tracking photons and dancing particles, watching the colours his mind had never dreamed of make music with cosmic rays.
The internal dialogue which had been his constant companion most of his life—as it is the constant companion of most huemen—was now silent. The sands of the wasteland had scoured his internal landscape, scrubbed him clean of all traces of Obram. He was now something other, both less and more than a man.
He took a deep breath, turned away from the sun and began to walk with neither a destination in mind nor a doubt as to where he was going. He simply walked. He could feel the energy of the sun soaking deep into his skin and the soles of his feet as they left footprints in the sand.
He walked for days, taking long full strides, not once tiring, until finally the city rose from beyond the curvature of the Earth like a mirage, like something dreamed up by the desert to while away its long journey through the cosmos.
Sofia
It was Bad Money’s birthday party and he had a surprise for us all.
“From now on, I shall no longer be known as Bad Money aka Mad Monkey for I renounce the wicked ways of my youth. I know many of my fans will be disappointed with my new material for I no longer glorify in the sins of Babylon. All I can say to these shallow individuals is they can go fuck themselves. Furthermore, kiss my black ass.
“From this day forth, I shall be known as Welfire! Yo DJ McGuffin, drop that beat, time to show these fools what time it is:
Your whole life’s passing you by
like a pretty girl on the stairs
but you too scared to say hi;
instead you waste your time battling day-mares
lost in illusions like your mind was not worth the care
so beware before you lose your soul in some evil dare
no fear, that’s just the devil in your ear
no fear, that’s just the devil in your ear...
Trying to come on with that same old shine on
Talking about “can’t we all just get along?”
While plotting to backstab you – you know he wrong
Warring with the enemy till I am forever one!
Your choice son [singing]
(Chorus) Babylon or true Corazon
Eternal life or annihilation
Listen to your soul’s song
free your mind before kingdom come
Aaauuummm
Yo check it check it, it’s time we blessed it
Spe
aking truth straight from the heart now test it
You guessed it: don’t test me or vex me I’m a nutter
Put a hex on you like Harry Potter,
Shazaam, yes, I am a bad man
Snake up your spine making you divine;
Cause a glitch in the matrix
destroying all fakeness
my mental is contagious
enlightenment spontaneous
Dreading the dreaded? We blameless -
Deading the dead at heart? We infamous
They fear us coz we dangerous,
punk ass hos be acting shameless.
(Chorus) Babylon or true Corazon
Eternal life or annihilation
Listen to your soul's song
free your mind before kingdom come
Aaauuummm
Several folk joined in the chorus and Welfire sang it thrice with his backup singers till the whole room was in on the act before ending on a long sustained AAAUUUMMM.
There was a moment of silence followed by a round of applause, then Welfire continued speaking. “I will be performing more of my new material later on tonight but for now let me just say, welcome brothers and sisters to my humble home; may this night be a celebration of our communal huemanity and one motherloving party none of y’all will forget in a hurry! Oh yeah, it’s on!”
Bad Money, I mean Welfire’s pad was in the old heart of Freaktown. A brownstone round the corner from Ol’ Patch theatre, the stage that had nurtured so many great musical talents over the years. I remember the first time I performed there, the magic of the space was pure electricity, like the gods were watching the stage too, and maybe jamming along once in a while.
“Give it up for Welfire.” There was another round of applause as MC Ng took the mic on the stage and Welfire returned to his table. “And now, the lovely but twisted sister K’rude...”
I’m coming for you baby, gonna be real nice,
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