by Wol-vriey
An offer of one more pussy would make very little difference.
Posh planned to hire Malone. This was part of the reason she’d taken the money. Her story would be simple: She was being targeted by a serial killer called ‘The Bulldog’ and needed his protection.
(Simple lies were the most effective.)
Posh was conscious of the fact that she was vulnerable out here in the open. Joy Street was a mile west of The Grid. It wasn’t wise sitting in a car with hungry dinos on the prowl. And Herbie could never afford repulsors.
Damn, he hadn’t even bought the fucking car—he’d stolen the Lincoln out of a dealer’s display window. It had been the only vehicle in the showroom not burnt up.
True, it was pretty. Security, however, it wasn’t. A raptor would open this pimpmobile up like it was a sardine can.
She got out of the car.
“Well this is it,” she said, “I’m in, sink or swim.”
She was immensely angered when she rang the doorbell several times and got no answer.
He isn’t home? Okay, now this isn’t going according to plan.
She looked back to the street, at the car she’d assumed was Malone’s ride. She winced on realizing that its tires were all deflated.
Malone not being immediately available was the one thing Posh hadn’t calculated. Jade had said he should be back home now hadn’t she? Shee-it!
She considered her dilemma. I can still make it back to Herbie’s before he notices I’m gone. Fuck that! I’m not going back. She glanced again at the unwelcoming front door. I’ve come too far to turn back.
I’ve burnt my bridges.
She waited an hour, growing increasingly worried by the crystal rainbow flashes—like celestial chandeliers hung from the moon—that indicated dragons in the distant night sky.
Don’t you dare fly this way, she thought nervously, I’m not fucking Chinese.
Also, every moment she waited increased the danger of dinos discovering her.
In the end, Posh broke into the house. When Malone didn’t show by 2a.m., she forced the kitchen window open and humped her luggage in through it. She climbed in herself, put the lights on and dragged her stuff through the house to his bedroom.
He’ll meet me here when he gets home, she decided. If anything, it’ll strengthen my story.
She flopped down on his bed. Hey, Malone, say hi to your new permanent housemate. She sniffed the pillows, savoring their manly musk. Okay, and where the fuck are you anyway?
CHAPTER 15
Malone: Next Evening
“You know it can’t work, don’t you?”
“It will. Don’t you dare doubt it.”
Malone was talking to Rachel Fischer, who was holding a bedpan under his buttocks so he could shit.
Ordinarily, the situation would have caused him extreme embarrassment. Now, however, no. Combined with the drugs in his system, Rachel Fischer had so much of the antiseptic quality of the nurse about her that Malone felt he was in hospital.
Staring at her face, he wondered how it was possible for a pretty woman to be so sexless. I mean, even nuns look desirable.
But no, Rachel Fischer somehow negated sexuality.
Malone finished his poop. Rachel wiped his backside and pointed to his penis. Do you need to urinate?”
He nodded.
She took hold of his penis, directing it into the pan. Again with total disregard that she was holding his most prized possession.
He looked into the red crater of his belly, at his truncated liver. Yes, this antiseptic woman and her partner really were eating him. Their sectional microwave lay on the table beside him. Its transparent plates looked like huge housefly wings.
He’d now discovered that the procedure of cooking his liver was more complicated than simply just connecting the microwave oven to it. To ensure he didn’t bleed to death, Rachel had first painstakingly severed and clamped/stitched up the blood vessels supplying the lobes they’d eaten.
Malone winced. Yeah, they’re keeping me alive so they can kill me. And I’m tied down here and helpless.
And horribly, the idea struck him as hilarious. He’d however now begun fighting the dangerous impulse to laugh at the danger he was in. He had to find a way to escape these two sickos.
He finished peeing. Rachel put the bedpan on the floor
“This is Frank’s idea, isn’t it? He’s got you thinking—”
Rachel snorted. “Aha, male chauvinism strikes again! It’s my idea, you fool; I sold it to Frank as a way of ensuring our liver supply never runs out.”
“It’s an impossible dream.”
She stood back from him, hands defiantly on hips. “Not with enough robots, it isn’t. They’re not scared of tackling the dragons and dinos. Once the fear element is removed from the equation, the rest is easy. Everything’s already so messed up, any sort of authority will be welcomed.”
Malone realized she was right. With enough robots, she could take over the country. But her and Psycho Frank as US presidents? And both already with a liver-consumption agenda?
“I still say it won’t work,” he said.
She smirked. “You know you’re lying.”
She ran fingers through her cropped brown hair, her grey eyes losing focus with her reflection. “All that previously stood in our way was making the robots more intelligent than they leave the factory in New Korea. The machines we’re buying are household and medical models—the New Koreans won’t sell military robots to anyone except governments. So I’ve been reprogramming them, giving them battle incentive, weapons-handling skills, and knowledge of tactics.”
She smiled proudly. “The machines come with loads of fail safes built in to prevent them harming their owners. But I got rid of those. You wouldn’t believe how much re-coding that took.”
Seeing Rachel’s satisfied smile, Malone was convinced she and Frank would succeed in their plan of conquest.
“Where’s Frank?” he asked.
“Out looking for someone else to kidnap.”
Malone flinched.
Rachel shrugged. “Your fault.”
Malone nodded. “Actually it’s your loving mama’s fault.”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, just thinking aloud. Hold on a moment. You two have obviously been planning this for a while. How many robots you got?”
Rachel frowned. “Still thinking of escaping and warning everyone, are you?” She smiled. “No reason not to tell you—you aren’t leaving here alive.”
“Spare me the reminder. So, how many?”
She frowned again. “Not enough. I’ve three hundred robots programmed, and six hundred more in the warehouse. I need two thousand more.”
“So why this kidnapping spree? Why not just rob a bank? You’ve got the soldiers for it.”
She shook her head. “Uh uh, I see what you’re trying to make us . . . me . . . do. You’re smart, Malone, I’ll give you that, but I’m smarter, much smarter—”
“I wasn’t saying that you—”
“—You’re trying to make us show our hand, right? Get into a bank shootout between robots and guards? Sure, we’ll get away with the money, but the word will then be out about the robots. Our Korean shippers won’t supply us any more machines once they know we’re using them for criminal activities, and also human authorities will be alert to their existence.”
She smiled coldly at Malone. “Sorry, buddy, but I saw that one coming.”
Malone was stumped. He’d not considered those consequences. Rachel Fischer clearly thought like a chess player—several moves ahead of the opposition.
“It just seemed a more hassle-free way to make a dishonest dollar,” he said.
“Sure,” Rachel said. “Sure.”
Frank returned then.
“Hey,” he called from the lab doorway, “What’s for dinner, honey?”
“Male chauvinist pig,” Rachel mouthed at Malone. “Shithead believes a woman’s place is in the kitchen.”
She then turned and smiled sweetly at her partner. “Well I got some liver for you, Frankie, if you want it?”
She turned her face away from the kiss he tried planting on it. Frank’s face clouded over, then he smiled and peeked into Malone’s gaping belly. “But of course. Let’s have some liver.”
“Just a minute then, we don’t want to eat with Malone’s poop around, do we?”
Frank noted the bedpan for the first time. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Oh no, we don’t.”
When Rachel had left with the bedpan, Malone said conspiratorially to Frank: “You know, you’d get a lot further with Miss Frigid there if you just ignore her.”
Frank gaped at Malone. “Huh?”
Malone nodded. “True. Girls like Rachel, their biggest fear is being alone in the world. She’s been pampered and fawned on all her life, so now she feels she’s too good for anyone. Once you stop minding her, however, she’ll start inventing lots of little ways to make you notice her again.”
Frank sniffed. He made no reply, just pointedly stared at Malone’s liver. When, after a while he sniffed louder, Malone realized he was crying.
CHAPTER 16
Malone
The next morning, Rachel Fischer was visibly pissed off. Her normally strained expression was even more so. Her generous mouth was compressed like an oversized raisin. If Malone didn’t know her better, he’d have thought her sexually frustrated.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Something about last night’s dinner didn’t agree with you?”
Rachel glowered at him. She considered the scalpel in her hand for a long time before replying. Malone began worrying that she might stab him with it to let off tension.
“It’s that jerk Frankie,” she finally said. “He’s refusing to talk to me.”
Malone hid a smile. So Frank had taken his advice. “What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s just everything he’s been doing this morning. It’s like I’m not even there.”
“Guy’s having a bad day. Happens sometimes.”
“She looked at him curiously, like she’d not considered that possibility. “You think so?”
“Either that or he’s fallen in love and the lady isn’t requiting his romantic advances.”
Rachel spat. On Malone’s exposed guts. “It has to be that. Typical male behavior.”
“Don’t spit inside me please.” It hurt Malone to even look inside himself. His liver was three-quarters gone now. He had no idea if he was particularly delicious, or if they’d both just been extra-hungry last night, but they’d eaten twice as much of him as they’d set out to, while all the while Frank kept lamenting on the shortage of abductable heiresses.
Malone had heard that given enough time, a liver would regenerate itself. But not from scratch. And tonight was D-Day as far as his liver was concerned. He had to escape inside today or he was fucked up the ass with a baseball bat. That and dead.
Rachel spat inside Malone again.
“You’re acting like you’re knocked up,” Malone said spitefully. “What’s so odd about Frank getting a girl? Are you jealous?”
Rachel was pole axed by the suggestion. “Me? Why the hell would I be jealous?”
“Dunno, maybe you have feelings for him too?”
She laughed. “Feelings? I deal in the beauty of logic, Malone, mathematics is my . . . did you say ‘too’?”
Malone nodded.
Rachel was disgusted. Phlegm pooled in her mouth. She spat inside Malone again. “How dare you imply that Frank is in love with me?”
Malone said. “Because the psycho is in love with you.”
That pulled Rachel up cold. “Love? You’re serious?”
Malone nodded. “He worships the very liver you eat together.”
Rachel turned six shades of pale. Her breathing became irregular. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly.
She scowled at Malone. “Frankie doesn’t love me. He loves a concept, an idea called a ‘wife.’ Frankie just wants a piece of property to claim ownership to. He wants to marry me . . . keep me pregnant and barefoot. But I’m wise to him.”
But her words were unsure. Her protest wasn’t angry, it was confused and scared. Terrified. Like she’d just run into the lair of all the horrors she’d fled from all her life.
Rachel Fischer was facing a crisis of similar magnitude to that of the atheist who awoke one morning to the undeniable knowledge that he was God in the flesh.
Her tortured emotions swirled around her face, rippling her skin like worms writhing beneath it.
“No!” she moaned. “No!”
Malone pitied her.
“Rachel, it isn’t wrong to have sex and get married, you know. It didn’t hurt your parents none.”
She glared at him but didn’t reply.
Malone prayed she wouldn’t start crying like Frank had yesternight. Even doped, it was pathetic to be comforting people busy killing you.
He replaced this minor worry with a MAJOR one. Rachel had just picked up a circular saw. She switched it on.
“What do you plan on doing with that?” he asked.
She frowned. “It’s for removing your brain tomorrow during your autopsy.”
She spoke calmly now, coldly enunciating her words precisely and without emotion. There was no longer any sign of the flustered woman of mere seconds ago. She was now clearly in perfect control of herself again. A sexless machine.
Malone was scared by the suddenness of the change in her.
She’s as bad as Frank, he realized. As fucked in the head as he is, but in a different way. Nobody should be able to turn their feelings off like she’s just done. It’s a good thing she doesn’t like bedroom athletics—she and Frank must never soil the world with any offspring.
***
Rachel Fischer was still flustered by Malone’s comment.
She hid it well, however, exerting iron self-control born of years of practice at repressing her feelings.
Science was all important.
A momentary vision of herself in a lip-lock with Frank, then of the pair of them in bed, their bodies joined like dogs, sliding over each other . . . Fucking. And then that horrible messy disentanglement—semen like baby puke pouring from her ugly, disgusting, animal hole . . . the sloppy, grotesque, cunt . . .
Disgust flooded Rachel. The vomit rushed up her throat.
She controlled herself from puking into Malone. Frank would be incensed if she flavored their dinner.
“I’ll be back,” she spat at Malone. Then she ran off to the toilet to vomit.
In her physical distress, Rachel forgot a scalpel inside Malone’s belly.
***
The possibility of escape cut into Malone’s drug-addled mind.
By straining against the restraining cord till his wrist skin chafed off, he got fingertips to the scalpel.
The rest was easy. He reversed his grip on the surgical knife and cut the hand free. Working quickly, he freed his other wrist. Then, still viewing his current dire situation as the funniest practical joke ever played, he waited for Rachel’s return.
***
Rachel returned. She held a syringe over Malone.
“What’s that?” he asked. He’d re-draped the cord over his wrist so he appeared still bound. The scalpel was covered by his palm.
She frowned down at him. “More happy serum to shut you up. You talk too much—gives me a headache.”
She bent over to jab him with the hypo.
Malone grabbed her hair with his left hand and pulled her across his body. While Rachel floundered off balance in confusion, he pricked her in the throat with the scalpel.
“Don’t resist, or I’ll kill you.”
In response, Rachel stabbed him in the side with the hypo and depressed the plunger. She twisted her head in his grip to stare at him. Her eyes were cold and relentless, merciless as a car crash.
“You aren’t screwing up our plans, Malone.”
He winced as
he felt the drug force itself into him.
He realized he had to stop Rachel before she pumped him full of the happy serum, and danger once again seemed hilarious to him.
That meant killing her.
That decision taken, he acted fast. Yanking her head down into his open belly, Malone coldly slit Rachel’s throat, slicing it deep and across in a swift motion.
There was the momentary futile resistance of meat meeting surgical steel, then Rachel’s neck yawned open wide as a raptor’s jaws. The floodgates of her lifeblood broke and blood spurted everywhere.
She instantly let go the syringe. The ingress of liquid into Malone’s side stopped abruptly.
Malone quickly dropped the scalpel. He pulled the hypo of his chest, and flung it away.
Then with both hands, he held Rachel’s head down amidst his guts, both smothering her with his intestines and drowning her in her own blood.
She thrashed furiously, arms beating against him, fighting to break free. She glugged and spluttered. Blood and guts muffled her attempted screams. Malone imagined he felt her biting him in her desperate attempt to not die. His abdomen filled with blood that overflowed—Rachel’s crimson effluent spilling over onto table and floor.
She forced her head out of the blood once, to stare at him.
Her face was a liquid Venetian mask, her eyes crimson lakes, sightless red pools that somehow still reflected her stupefaction.
She stopped fighting. Malone let go of her body. It slumped.
Rachel’s head slurped out of his body, the sound like a dog lapping, like a penis ‘sucking’ out of a vagina.
She crumpled dead onto the slickly red floor.
Malone collapsed back, breathing heavily.
He now realized that Rachel had lied about the syringe’s contents—it wasn’t the happy serum. This—whatever it was—was designed to incapacitate him.
He felt strange—distant from himself. Weak in a way that transcended his flesh.