by David Gullen
The car blew up and slammed sideways into Wilson. He tumbled across the car park like a broken doll.
Barely conscious, Wilson watched Gould and the woman haul Manalito towards their SUV.
Two security guards ran from the mall, weapons drawn. Gould fired Masters’ gun and destroyed the front of the mall. The guards retreated inside and began a slow and inaccurate fire. Gould covered the woman while she rescued Morgan and Black.
Incoming fire became more accurate, Gould fired another explosive shell into the mall and the foyer roof collapsed in an avalanche of sliding tiles. Quickly Gould searched Masters, took everything he found, then scrambled into the SUV. The vehicle made a fast, tight turn and sped away unchallenged.
Wilson lurched to his feet and looked across a scene of devastation. The mall entrance was a blazing wreck, their own car was destroyed. Masters lay untidily on the tarmac. Wilson clutched his ribs and hobbled towards her.
He thought Masters was dead. He knelt beside her and she opened her eyes.
‘I’m not going to make it,’ she whispered. ‘You have to get away from me.’
‘I’ll get help.’
There was blood in Masters’ mouth. Her lower back seemed disconnected from her torso. ‘Keep away,’ she told him. ‘I have a cardiac implant, Executive Room Service. I’m deniable.’ She worked her mouth and swallowed, ‘Knew the risks. It won’t hurt.’
Wilson took off his jacket, folded it into a pad and slipped it under her head.
‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘Really.’
She nearly broke then, a flicker of terror at what was to come, the end of her one and only precious life. Then she clenched her jaw, ‘Get away.’
Wilson stroked her brow. She looked very young. Once upon a time she had been somebody’s daughter. ‘I’m not going to leave you.’
‘I– I’m thirsty.’
He went to look for water and found some soda cans scattered round a broken machine. As he made his way back, Masters gave a high-pitched shriek and unfolded like a flower. Brilliant white flames spread from her torso, consuming clothing, flesh and bone.
Wilson watched her burn until there was nothing but a low spread of greasy ash. Heartsick, he returned to the wreck of her car. There, he retrieved his FaF gun, broke open the glove box and retrieved the smart-money tracker. The case was scratched and pitted but data still scrolled across the screen.
A handful of people had made their way out of the mall. They helped each other into their cars and drove away.
Sirens sounded in the distance. Wilson slipped the tracker into his pocket and stashed the gun in one of the cases. Then he broke into a serviceable looking pickup, jumped the engine, and set off along the road after Gould.
- 36 -
Bianca sat on the grass and watched frigate birds swoop among the trees and grey-backed terns skim the reef. The atoll graveyard was a bright, happy place, nothing like the sombre, totemic scene she had imagined.
She had walked along the Shadowed Path, unsettled by Palfinger’s call and reluctant to revisit feelings she had carefully and methodically packed away.
Not needed on Voyage.
Instead, she told herself she might find Tanoata and if she could only talk to that bright unhappy child they would become friends.
Two paths meandered around the atoll, one along the outer rim, one beside the inner lagoon. Bianca walked north on the outer path, past plantings of taro, sweet potato and yam, then through new groves of engineered salt-tolerant banana and citrus, cultivars developed with her own money. Overhead the sky was clear, the air hot and dense. Far out across the ocean dark squalls beat the sea with wind and rain.
The sandy track swung inland from the palm fringed beach, then out again as the atoll curved west. After an hour Bianca saw the outlying thrust of the graveyard promontory, a dense grove of palms swaying in the sea breeze at the far end.
An aeon past, the volcano upon which the atoll was formed spewed a long arm of lava down into the sea in a vast eruption. Eroded and sunken through the ages, it formed the base of the lonely promontory where generations of islanders now lay buried.
Another mile brought Bianca to the open strip of grassy ground. Simple graves, low mounds of friable pale earth, lay all around. As Bianca walked between the graves she wondered at their inhabitant’s lives and times. None of the graves were marked, it was impossible to tell which one was Nei-Teakea. Tekirei would know, Bianca thought, he and Tanoata.
In the palm grove at the far end of the promontory she found unexpected formality with the trees planted in evenly spaced rows. Some were old and lofty, a few recently planted, each a memorial to the departed. Beyond the grove the lagoon waters were shallow, the reef less than a hundred feet away. Swells of glassy green oceanic water surged across its surface.
The bright sun, colourful busy birds and shady palms created an atmosphere of pleasant solitude. Bianca decided this would be a good place to spend eternity. With the lagoon on three sides, and the open sky above there would always be something to see. She grew introspective, Nei-Teakea was a woman she could never know and had lived a life she would never share. The sounds of the ocean and birds faded and Bianca’s mind led her to a strange place:
Two years ago, a small flotilla of fishing canoes tossed in the water beyond the reef. A shoal of juvenile Bonito moved below, and the fishers cast lines into the water. Bait was taken, the lines became taut, five and six-pound fish were hauled from the ocean.
A pair of canoes floated side by side. Tekirei and Nei-Teakea fished from one, two brothers from another family in the other. The brothers hooked a large adult fish, one hauled it in while the other readied his club.
As they pulled in their catch a rokea took half the fish off the line, severing it with one bite. Tension fell away, the head of the Bonito flew into the air and landed in the canoe.
The brothers let out a fearful shout. Before they could throw back the fish the rokea, enraged at the theft of its prey, attacked the canoes.
There was a sudden jar, a disorienting whirl, the shock of sudden immersion. Bianca floated as Nei-Teakea, frightened and disoriented. Nearby, both brothers were also in the water. Tekirei lay stunned in the bottom of his half-swamped canoe.
The other canoeists dropped their lines and raced to the rescue. Beneath the surface the rokea flashed and turned.
One of the brothers flung up his arms and disappeared beneath the waves. A great wail of anguish came from the canoes.
Nei-Teakea swam towards her canoe with long, steady strokes. She felt a powerful blow on her thigh and could no longer swim easily. Reaching down, she found her leg was gone above the knee, taken too quickly for pain.
That is just a leg, she thought. I must not panic.
Around her the ocean bloomed darkly.
A canoe drew alongside, the hull wet and black. Nei-Teakea existed in a state of heightened senses, every detail of the wood grain on the hull was clear to her eye. Reflected sunlight danced along the waterline, bright water slapped and gurgled. A thousand plans burned in her mind. Life would drastically change from now on but she would still have her family, Tanoata. She knew she could cope, and decided she would do far more than that, she would thrive. One day she would look back and see this as a turning point, a redefinition of her life. It came to her then, she would have another child.
Strong hands seized her wrists. Among the people in the canoe she saw her father, his mouth open and eyes wide.
Before her rescuers could draw her up, the rokea struck again.
Nei-Teakea looked up into appalled faces and felt her belly unravel into the crimson ocean.
Bianca opened her eyes slowly. She rubbed her arms, chilled despite the sun. The birds had fallen silent, the shadows within the grove lay deep and still. She discovered she no longer wished to sit alone at the end of the promontory with the ocean at her back. The way through the open burial ground, with its rattling, yellow grasses, had acquired a watchful presence. Bianca hurried be
tween the grave mounds to the path. There, she faced the graves and spoke aloud.
‘Nei-Teakea, I know you were first, I know you still live in Tekirei’s heart. I have no desire that he forget you, I don’t wish to replace you.’
Further words failed her. Bianca looked out to sea. Only half of Nei-Tekea was buried here, the rest lived with the rokea.
Something clacked against a palm trunk – a heavy coral fragment. Seconds later another piece flew past her shoulder.
All around was silence. Even the wind had died.
‘Tanoata?’ Bianca called. ‘Is that you? Your father is worried. Please come back to the village.’
Undergrowth rustled, another rock flew from a new direction.
Bianca ducked and dodged the missiles. One struck her forearm, sharp and painful. She tried to retreat, Tanoata cut her off. More stones flew. Bianca grew angry, she strode towards the place the missiles came from. ‘Stop this, Tanoata. This all about your own feelings. It is nothing to do with me.’
Tanoata stepped from behind a tree. Her hair was a rat’s nest, her arms and stomach covered with inflamed scratches and cuts. In her hand she held a knife.
Bianca felt very afraid.
A sudden wind gusted up the path towards the graveyard. Overhead, the palm tops tossed wildly as the trunks groaned and creaked. The wind pushed against Bianca, half blinded her with grit, then died away.
Tanoata tipped back her head and bared her teeth. ‘Die,’ she snarled, then faded back into the vegetation.
Shaking with fear, Bianca hurried back to the village.
The village was deserted, Tekirei nowhere to be found. Exhausted by her experiences, Bianca sat outside Tekirei’s hut to wait for him. Despite herself, she fell asleep. When she awoke it was dark, the village still empty and silent. She went to her own hut, lowered the wall screens and washed. Then she lay down on her mat and was soon asleep.
All her dreams were nightmares.
- 37 -
Here’s a round-up of today’s headlines:
Wesley Strosner, of Venus Maxima magazine, is mounting a legal challenge to the current ban on whole-body polypropylene implants. Absorbing fluid at 0.01% volume every 24 hours, WBPP implants offer non-stop mass gain.
Scientists were right, global warming did bring fewer, bigger hurricanes. We have the same number of hurricanes in the Caribbean this year as we did the last – one. Hurricane ‘permanent’ Larry.
Recent advice by doctors to eschew car park travellators and walk to the mall is being ignored. A new survey finds shoppers don’t want to exercise. A majority of people felt they ‘look better sitting down’.
Stained glass – The Poor Man’s Bible. Did Christianity invent the Graphic Novel? Download Secular Bob’s latest show >>Here<<
Gunshots cracked in the night air as the speeding convertible fishtailed down the back alley between the trashcans and abandoned cars. Marytha was driving, Josie rode shotgun in the passenger seat, a semi-automatic recoilless shotgun in her hands.
Novik dragged Benny down into the rear seat. ‘Keep your damned head down!’
Benny wriggled free. ‘It’s okay, I’ve turned on my force-field.’
Bright flashes crackled in the darkness behind them. Bullets whizzed and zipped through the air.
A shot carried away a wing mirror. More slugs struck sparks from the rear fender, others punctured the trunk lid with hot, metallic plangs.
Josie emptied the shotgun and tossed it out of the car.
Marytha barrelled the car towards the end of the alley. She dropped the clutch, hauled on the handbrake, spun the wheel and flipped the car broadside into a gap in the traffic.
Tyres squealed, horns sounded, headlights flashed. They took a fast right, a slower left. Marytha cruised sedately in the night-time traffic.
Josie dropped back into her seat. ‘That could have been worse.’
Novik kissed Marytha on the head. ‘Outrageously good driving.’
Marytha grinned, ‘Two weeks on the cop skid-pan. Everyone okay?’
‘Sure,’ Novik said.
‘I’m fine,’ Josie said.
Benny slumped against the door, his fingers fluttered around a dark, spreading stain high on his chest. ‘I think I’ve been hit,’ he croaked. ‘It really hurts.’
Novik checked Benny over. It wasn’t easy to see in the poor light. ‘What do you expect? Getting shot is what happens when you think you’re bullet-proof. You idiot.’
It had gone wrong from the moment Marytha knocked on the stoner’s fourth-floor door.
‘Shit, it’s you,’ the skinny, shirtless, dude said. He slammed the door on the steel toe-cap of Marytha’s boot, said ‘Shit’ again and fled for the rear window fire escape. He clattered down two flights then stopped when he saw Novik and Benny at the bottom.
‘Shit,’ he whined again. Above him, Marytha was at the window. The dude danced a jig of frustration. ‘Shit, shit.’
The window beside the dude flew up. A powerful female voice rang out: ‘What’s up, dude? Why you swearing and profaning all through the motherfucking night?’
‘Stay out of this, Merlotta,’ the dude said. ‘I’m being busted.’
‘For real? I’m calling my man.’
‘Don’t get involved.’ The dude held up his hands, ‘I’m coming in.’
Novik and Benny followed him up. As they passed Merlotta’s window, they saw a well-proportioned Hispanic woman with braided hair and gold hoop earrings holding a phone.
‘Motherfuckers,’ she mouthed silently at them.
The dude slumped disconsolately on his untidy bed. ‘I went to court, I swear,’ he told Marytha. ‘I took your citation and I went, you have to believe me.’
‘Look on top of the wardrobe,’ Marytha told Josie.
Josie lifted down a nickel plated single-barrelled shotgun. She emptied the magazine, cleared the chamber and pocketed the cartridges.
‘Sports repeater shotgun,’ Benny said as he climbed in. ‘Three rounds a second and totally recoilless. You can fire it one handed. However you look at it, that’s not very sporting.’
‘It’s for the pigeons,’ the dude protested. ‘Officer Drummond, the court said they had no record of the arrest, nothing on file. They didn’t even know your name.’
‘Forget it,’ Marytha said. ‘That’s not why I’m here.’
‘You still a cop?’
‘What makes you think I ever was?’
The dude looked at Marytha with wounded eyes. ‘You were a fake cop?’
‘No harm done.’
‘No harm?’ The dude gave a shriek of existential fury. ‘The court cops arrested me, I was convicted on my own confession. Why did you do this to me? Why?’
‘I was exploring the interface between individual freedom and the will of the state by embodying the proto-myth of law, destiny, and feminine authority,’ Marytha said.
‘That’s crazy.’
‘It felt like a good idea at the time.’
‘Gah!’
Out in the night car tyres screeched as Merlotta’s shrill voice carried up from her window, ‘Stop torturing him, you motherfuckers.’
Novik tossed a bundle of cash onto the bed. ‘We just want to find someone you know.’
Unbidden, the dude’s hand crept towards the money. ‘Why?’
‘We’re looking for help.’
Down below, car doors slammed. The dude glared at Marytha. ‘No shit.’
‘Be careful with that cash, it’s contaminated with fluorinated LSD,’ Novik said.
The dude was impressed. ‘Man, you have to be careful with that stuff. It never gets metabolised, the only way it gets out your body is in your fingernails and hair.’
‘It’s fat-soluble,’ Benny told him. ‘You could eat a lot of burgers and get liposuction.’
‘You really are crazy,’ the dude said.
‘He thinks he’s an alien,’ Novik said.
Benny looked affronted. ‘I do not think–’
&nb
sp; ‘We’re looking for Bernard Halifax,’ Marytha said.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. The dude laughed so hard he fell off the bed. The apartment door banged open and three of the heaviest guys Novik had ever seen barged into the room.
Front and centre stood a huge and muscular black guy in a classic six-on-two double-breasted liquorice pinstripe. An unlit pipe was clamped in his teeth. His mouth was cruel, his nose was patrician, his nostrils flared with anger.
‘Dude, are you well?’ Halifax growled.
Cross-legged on the mattress, the dude carefully wiped each of Josie’s bills with a damp cloth. ‘I’m keeping it together, bro.’
Behind Halifax was an athletically slim white man with a flat-top crew cut. Broad shoulders tapered to a lean waist, he wore a tight-fitting Breton jumper, black cargoes and army boots. His pale blue eyes swept the room, paused at Josie, and carried on.
The third man was a lithe Asian with a wisp of beard and alert eyes. Dressed in black silk he balanced on the balls of his jika-tabi clad feet and idly twirled a nunchaku in his hand.
Halifax’s voice was low and menacing, ‘What have you arseholes done to the dude?’
Novik had met this type in prison and knew you had to match like for like as the only way to get respect. ‘We haven’t done anything, motherfucker.’
‘Motherfucker?’ Halifax said calmly. ‘Marcel, Xiong, did this young gentleman call me a motherfucker?’
Marcel’s blue eyes lingered on Josie. ‘I heard him.’
‘Collect,’ Xiong agreed.
Merlotta shrieked out her window again, ‘Hey dude, don’t be afraid, I called my man. He’s going to stomp those pig motherfuckers.’
Halifax winced at her outburst and called back. ‘I’m up here Merlotta. These arseholes aren’t going nowhere.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I do apologise, I meant to say “anywhere”. These arseholes will not be going anywhere.’