Sky Joust- The Purple Onion vs The Pestilence

by Will Madden

  “We swear it shall be so!” pledged Bubo.

  Abhoc leaned over and punched the nearest person so hard, you could hear the sternum crack as the body fell limp into the arms of the crowd.

  “Oops,” he said. “Hand slipped.”

  “S’all right,” said Brum evenly. “None can promise more than can be done.”

  Sometimes when the cinder cone of Mt. Myrtle fulminated at dusk, the sky god’s thunder stirred the seething cauldron of earth till tendrils of smoke billowed up and stained the dome of heaven with a purplish tinge—magenta, as if sky’s azure had mixed with the deep red of the lava fissures.

  The Storm Fighter was a sleek aircraft lit nose-to-tail in the selfsame hue. Like a seed spit from the teeth of the volcano, it tore through the sky, the scream of its engines an echo of the dyspeptic earth, its contrails like the steam that rose from the craggy vents in the rock.

  Mori had constructed it out of salvage from MiGs and other heavy machinery the Soviets had left behind after the Zahzian War.

  Sitting the cockpit now, the flight helmet ill-fitting upon his bulbous head, he glanced down at the city. Undoubtedly, people who had heard the aircraft cutting the lower atmosphere were now pointing up at the plane’s gaudy lights.

  In Dodoville, they called it the Onion Wing.

  Towing clamps secured the Storm Cycle to the underside of the plane. In the bike’s saddle, Victor Cumin awaited deployment, to be flung into battle as his vigilante alter ego. Over the comm, Mori heard him humming to himself, which meant he was chomping at the bit to launch.

  A skiapod’s lifespan naturally outlasts countless generations of men. Across the centuries, Victor Cumin was hardly the first thrill-seeking lunatic Mori had been tasked with keeping alive. But he was certainly among the most challenging.

  Sitting in the Storm Fighter’s cockpit made Mori’s stomach flip. Heights didn’t bother him—once a month he’d climb out onto the roof of the solarium to wash the glass panels—but no matter how well he understood flight mechanics, the modern practice of taking to the sky still felt like sorcery.

  “Master Victor, couldn’t you find another way into Club Towers? I say this because trajectory mathematics is extremely difficult.”

  Mori glanced nervously at the handwritten equations scotch-taped to the instrument panel.

  “I don’t want to hear you don’t know how to do this, Mori.” The wind-battered voice from under the plane came in choppy over the comm.

  “Sir, I changed your diapers when you were a babe. I’ve long known it was only a matter of time before you asked me to toss you from an airplane on a motorcycle. I just assumed when that day came, I’d have more than half an hour to prepare the drop coordinates.”

  “The Pestilence is already inside. Who knows what damage they’ve done!”

  That wasn’t a flight of geese he heard on Victor’s comm. It couldn’t be. Certainly not.

  “Yes, but. I heard a fifteen-year-old girl once got in with a letter from her phys. ed. teacher.”

  “Listen, Mori. You’re not human, so this may not make sense to you: The Pestilence has laser shields, flamethrowers, turbo saddles, not to mention a totally bitchin’ onboard sound system. If I am going to show the people of Dodoville that the Violet Storm is on the side of right, I have to have waaaay more awesome gear. Do you understand?”

  “Let’s pretend I do.”

  “The way to do that is to make the better entrance. Fortunately, the Pestilence just used the front door, so I’m going to jump my custom-made chopper out of my custom-made jet, and it land it on the roof without a parachute.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I’m using the repulsion thrusters. It’s too dark to see a parachute, but the thruster glow is neon purple. That’s called branding.”

  “You . . . Master Victor, you’ll be killed for sure.”

  “You said with these thrusters I could drive this bike off any building in town.”

  “Yes, but.” Mori dipped the plane and got out a calculator. “The Spyhole Building is only eleven stories tall. To bring you in at a safe altitude, I’m really going to have to buzz these rooftops.”

  “The better to hear the engines by. I don’t want anyone to miss the show for lack of hoopla.”

  “Club Towers is in a canyon. I hope I’ll have time to pull out.”

  “I’ve done it a dozen times. Easy peasy.”

  “For you, Master Victor. I don’t have much flight experience. Remember, I belong to a species that chose extinction over action sequences.”

  “Just keep your head, Mori. You’ll be fine.”

  If fine meant shaking and nausea, then Mori was indeed fine.

  “Apropos of nothing, sir, may I remind you the only job I’m contracted to perform for you is washing the linen.”

  “You have a contract? I thought you just didn’t dare to leave, on account of being a freak and all. No offense.”

  “I signed with your father forty years ago, after he rescued me from that hunting party on the Savanna.”

  “I thought my father was the hunting party.”

  “I don’t recall, sir,” said Mori quietly.

  “How can you not recall? He chased you across three continents.”

  Mori sighed. “The safety clamps have disengaged. You will launch automatically when we reach the drop point. I hope my calculations are correct, I had to relearn the mathematics on the flight over.”

  “Say again?”

  “Godspeed, sir.”

  On the monitor, Mori watched the chopper detach from the jet’s underbelly. Victor’s backside immediately flew out of the seat. He hung on only by the handlebars as the bike dead dropped through the sky.

  “No time for tricks, sir! You need to activate that thruster!”

  “Help! The bike’s chassis is too aerodynamic, it’s slicing through the air like a hot knife. All I can manage is to hold on.”

  Muttering something in the extinct skiapod language, Mori rolled the plane and pushed the stick forward hard in a split S maneuver. As the inside loop crushed him against his seat, he closed his eyes and paid honor to every dead relative he could name going back four generations.

  The leveling plane flew so low, it sucked dish antennae off the taller buildings.

  “Weapons engaged,” said the computer. “Targeting systems online.”

  “Shut yourself off, targeting systems,” said Mori. “You’re not programmed for this kind of insanity.”

  Static on the comm.

  “Repeat that, Mori. I didn’t copy.”

  “I said you’re in good hands, sir. Everything under control.” He disengaged the launch safety and set aim for empty space. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered.

  A missile sizzled off the starboard wing.

  “Brace yourself, sir, this may sting a bit.”

  A scream stymied Victor’s response as the projectile exploded between the motorcycle and the ground, blasting the bike hard against his posterior.

  “That’s great, Mori, you just blew me off target.”

  “Hold tight, sir.”

  The Storm Cycle showed as little more than a shadow against the city lights below.

  “Two pi r raised to the angular dispensation ratio times the mass-to-energy coefficient . . .”

  “Mori, are you casting a spell?”

  “I hope so, sir.” He banked hard to the left. The airspeed gained from his previous maneuver created a huge vacuum, which as the Storm Fighter blasted by, pulled the chopper back into its wake.

  Enough. But maybe too much?

  The bike continued to free fall.

  “Thrusters!” Mori screamed. “Damn it, sir, what are you doing?”

  The Chopper came to life with a pair of vibrant neon purple glows. They were spinning one over the other. The flyby had sucked the bike into a lateral roll.

  “Stabilizers!” Mori cried.

  “I’m looking! Where the hell are they?”

  “Jesu
s, right next to the—”

  “Got it.”

  The spinning began to slow. The motorcycle came at the concrete tower at a sharp angle, and Victor’s head, inverse on the bike, barely cleared the retaining wall as he passed over. The Storm Cycle’s wheels hit the roof with a thump. The front tire stood pivot while the rear of the bike flared out behind him.

  Victor barely had a moment to orient himself when someone smacked him on the helmet, thrust a drink in his hand, and began flashing selfies in his face.

  “Whoooo! An Onion’s here to spice this party up!”

  Victor leaped from his bike and staggered to the edge of the roof. Pulling off both his bike helmet and the face mask beneath it, he vomited over the retaining wall.

  The crowd roared in approval. The rooftop DJ turned up the volume. Someone got Victor another drink.

  “Chopper to Storm Fighter,” he said, reapplying his mask. “Storm Fighter, this is Chopper. I am in the club. Repeat. I am in the club.”

  “Roger that, Chopper,” said Mori wearily.

  Time to head home and beat out the living room rugs.

  The Storm Fighter rose sharply out of the canyon, splitting the night with an aerial scream the citizens of Dodoville had not heard since the Zahzian air raids of the early 1980s. Everyone in town over forty beshit their pants with such violence, the mass-soiling would be discussed with nostalgia for weeks to come.

  Mandi worked her way through the crowd, meeting glances, dancing until the attention waned, then slipping away. Music thrummed in her body as she and a stranger performed sensual co-auditions with their hands and hips, a pantomime of what I need, what I offer, who I’m pretending to be. Couples pressed together around her, groups of three or five, bodies jerking to the rhythm, clothes exposing the flesh most vulnerable to animal predation, an almost sleepy look in their eye. Everything about them conveyed indifference to danger. Welcome to Night on Earth.

  What they’re really doing, she thought, is crying out for protection.

  In this place, the noise would swallow any cry of distress.

  She was not afraid to bare her vulnerability. In Dodoville we’ve all been damaged, she thought, we all have hurts that don’t heal. Sometimes they leave a scar others find alluring. Sometimes they stamp you for the discard pile. She worried the marks beneath her flesh had deformed her, making her untouchable, and anyone could see them. They were visible in how she dressed and the way she moved. Inscribed across her face.

  She’d never know why her best friend and lover had been killed. There was no one to ask, nowhere to investigate.

  The day after they took Sven, she’d had no choice but to go to work. At the florist shop, even the cactuses looked like a funeral bouquet. Sometimes she would ask a customer to excuse her, then retreat to the backroom to scream and sob. She emptied herself efficiently, loudly and with force, then returned to work with a brave face. Meaning, she arranged flowers while she wept in a way that defied anyone to ask. Sometimes as she trimmed a steam, she cried out as if cutting off a piece of herself. Any show of concern she answered with a reviling look.

  Mandi did this until close, then she went home.

  She came in the next morning and did it again. She did this every day until it became who she was, someone who screamed and wept without provocation but who never seemed to notice. Whose demeanor bullied you into not noticing either.

  In Club Towers, she realized she was screaming right now. Likely, she had been screaming all night. Anyone might think she was singing along. A little tone deaf, maybe.

  The Purple Onion could force you to cry in front of everybody. Some said by reciting an incantation, others by splashing your face with a magic potion. Anyways, there was nothing you could do about it.

  Last week, this guy had gotten caught stealing some valuable operation manuals for kitchen appliances, and the Onion made him tear his shirt and weep about boners or something. Everyone saw he had pretty much the weirdest body hair, like overused brush bristles. It was soooo gross, but she heard he was charging people to see it now.

  The point was, if the Onion got you, no one could accuse you of being selfish and making a spectacle of yourself, ‘cause you couldn’t help it. The Onion was the spectacle-maker. You were just in the wrong place. It could happen to anyone.

  “Hey, Sergeant Onion.”

  Victor turned. “Me?” He spoke the word into his noise-canceling face mask, whose software converted his speech into a soothing, untraceable computer-generated voice.

  “Sorry Sarge, I hate to . . . I heard you radioing back to base. We’re just tailgating the Club here. This is the parking garage across the street.”

  Now that the world was no longer spinning, Victor saw this was true. Kitty-corner across the intersection of Staple St. And Poptop Blvd., he made out the lights of the Pestilence’s turbo thrusters and the glinting tips of their lances flitting around the nightclub two floors below. The screams of party-goers rose up to his ears. At the rooftop bar, a few dozen people were shouting toward where they’d seen a bolt of purple lightning strike the garage tower. They threw cocktail glasses in his general direction.

  All in all, though, far less chaotic than you’d think a massacre would be.

  “My name is Storm,” said Victor, “and I’m not in the army, mister.”

  “Of course not, captain. I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

  “All right, private,” Victor said sharply. “Gather up the men. Tell the DJ over there to break down his equipment and await my instructions.”

  He unloaded the Chopper’s top box. As he assembled his electro-goad quarterstaff, he started making field modifications.

  Someone was standing behind him.

  Victor looked over his shoulder. The man wore a stovepipe hat encrusted with rhinestones, oversized sunglasses, skintight digicamo over his beefy chest, and a short pink scarf knotted like a tie around his neck.

  “You the DJ?” Victor asked.

  The man’s fingers, fit inside cut-off leather gloves, folded around his biceps. “What are we building?” He sounded irritated.

  “You’re building a ramp. I’m reinforcing this thing to unhorse a knight of the realm. The sirs from the Church of the Knight Errant don’t know yet but . . . they and I are having a tournament.”

  Victor attached a laser finial to the head of his staff and walked over to the edge of the roof. Brandishing its staticky light above his head, he signaled to the crowd atop the far tower to stay tuned.

  Across the way, the revelers cheered. Perhaps because he had a glowing stick.

  The DJ cleared his throat. “You want me to me arrange a mint’s worth of my own sensitive equipment—the stuff I use to make my living—into a ramp for you to drive your motorcycle over. Did I hear right?”

  “That is correct,” said Victor. “I’m going to need a smooth acceleration because it’s quite a gap. Can you do that?”

  The DJ wrinkled his nose as he glanced at the sprawling chasm between buildings.

  “It’s not a question of ‘can I,’” he said.

  Victor gripped the man’s shoulder. “Excellent,” he said.

  The Onion’s leather jacket crackled as he slid back into the seat of the chopper. “Excuse me while I go throw down the gauntlet. Tonight we sky joust.”

  Around and around the tower they climbed, like pilgrims spiraling the road to paradise. At the door of each club, a small crowd gathered, sleek blazers and tight-fitting dress shirts, booty shorts and mesh net cleavage, asking with silent eyes if this was the circle the riders had been assigned to inhabit. Six doors called out to the knights with throbbing music and bartenders dressed like slaves upon an imperial pleasure barge, six doors they passed without glance or comment. At the seventh door, they stopped. Beyond the corbel archway, shining with brightly-colored bricks from a 1980s arcade game, assembled the largest, most boisterous crowd so far. Here was the legendary Rock Lobster.

  The knights bowed their heads to pass under the lintel. Snor
ting wetly, the steeds picked their way through the crowd, peeling booty off crotch and crotch off booty.

  “Watch yourself, jackass!” cried one reveler, one sheet to the wind too many, not realizing what had shoved him aside.

  The man turned around to see his mistake. Brum lifted him off the ground by his limply-popped polo.

  “Jackass?” cried Brum. “Rosemarie traces her lineage to the court of Charlemagne!” He laid the man cold with the back of a fist.

  Like the teeth of a rake, the horsemen cut through the crowd to where the DJ stood at his station.

  “What up, sirs?” he said, twinkling bracelet charms braided into his hair.

  Heckley put a war hammer through one of his turntables.

  “Lords? I meant m’lords! Chill, all right?”

  “Scram. Or the next thing I smash is your skull.”

  “No problem. Only I can ask that you not touch the . . . Hey man, whatever you want. Mi casa es—”

  Abhoc grabbed the disc jockey with both hands and heaved him across the neck of his horse. The skinny body skipped like a stone twice across the top of the crowd before falling to the ground.

  “Are you ready, Sir Bubo?” asked Brum.

  “Straining at the bit all week, Knight Commander!” Bubo hopped down from his steed and started adjusting the equalizer and queuing tracks. The headphones fit snuggly over his Teutonic helm.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” called Heckley into the microphone. “Introducing . . . DJ Bubo Skyyyymole!”

  Water. What?

  Water. Where?

  At the bottom of the ocean!

  Water. What?

  Water. Where?

  At the bottom of the ocean!

  The crowd shrugged and resumed dancing.

  The remaining Pestilence ignited their laser bucklers and rode their steeds around the outside of the room. People hurled empty glasses, which shattered upon the barriers of light. As the fragments fell, the floor lights ignited them into shards of fire.

  A weird flirtation took place between the Pestilence and the crowd, each daring the other closer then driving them back.