Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "What happened to the car?" Errol asked tentatively.

  "Transmission failed Thursday," Hephaestus said. "I haven't had the time to rebuild it yet." He turned the behemoth of a pickup as casually as if it were the tiny car he normally used for city travel, unperturbed by the difference in size and handling.

  "Um," Errol started. At Hephaestus' sidelong glance, Errol lost his voice.

  "Was there something you wanted to bring up?"

  "Um, yes."

  "Start talking," Hephaestus said.

  "Razordemon said they found integrated weapons in my armor."

  "And?"

  "I was wondering what they were."

  "There's a retractable blade in the left bracer, and a sonic lance in the right. I put them in as a short-range backup for your bow a few years ago."

  "What's a sonic lance?"

  "It's all in the name. It's a sound-based weapon, directional and narrow-beam. Hymnomancer developed it decades ago."

  "I see."

  "I'll bet he said they disabled them. It shouldn't be that hard to fix, or even replace."

  "I don't want to get in more trouble," Errol said.

  "Of course," Hephaestus nodded to himself.

  "You thought I was someone else for a moment."

  "I don't make mistakes like that," Hephaestus said. "Besides, your armor's not powered."

  "You're planning something," Errol said.

  "Nothing you need to be concerned about."

  "I'm sorry sir, but I have to disagree. I don't want to end up on opposite sides from you."

  "I'm not so stupid as to put you into that position," Hephaestus said. "If I were, I'd have been caught years ago."

  "But I remind you of one of your co-conspirators?"

  "It's the other way around."

  Errol cast his eyes down towards his feet. "I thought you'd retired."

  "So did I."

  They continued in silence until Hephaestus pulled into one of the drives.

  "The main house?" Errol asked.

  "I have to pick up the check from the Foxes and see how the sod is doing. I'm worried we put it in too soon and this cold will kill it." Hephaestus entered a keycode, and the gate rolled open. Pulling up a long brick drive, he stopped by the front stair of a broad, stately house. He shut off the engine and climbed out. Out of habit, Errol followed. "Aren't you supposed to stay away from the Fox girl?" Hephaestus asked.

  "Sorry, sir." Errol turned around and returned to the truck. The bent old man approached the front door and rang the bell.

  "What do you want?" Sarah asked, "Are you here to tender your resignation?"

  Hephaestus chuckled. It was a dry, humorless laugh that sent a chill up Sarah's spine. "That would be quite a feat," he said. "Unless you have my check, go and fetch your father." He stepped inside uninvited, his eye surveying the marble and hardwood interior. Sarah glowered at the old man until his gaze hardened. "Now," he said, his tone slicing through her like a knife. Sarah shivered and scurried off. Hephaestus stood in silence until she returned, trailing a middle-aged man in khakis and a polo shirt. "No more excuses Virgil," Hephaestus said.

  "Of course," the older Fox said. "I have your check right here." He drew a folded slip of paper from his pocket.

  "This isn't going to bounce, is it?" Hephaestus asked.

  "No, no, this is a certified check." He held it up for inspection. Hephaestus took it.

  "Why do you put up with this creepy guy?" Sarah asked. "Just fire him already." A sheepish look crossed Virgil's face.

  "Do you want to explain our relationship to her, or shall I?" Hephaestus asked.

  "Sarah, sweetie, I can't fire Mister Rickard, because he doesn't work for me."

  "Then what do you keep paying him for?" Sarah asked. "And why does he tend the gardens? For the fun of it?"

  "In a manner of speaking," Virgil said. "You see, Hephaestus isn't our gardener, he's our landlord. The check I just gave him is our rent. He tends the gardens because he likes doing so."

  "What?"

  "This house is his property. He just lives on the back corner."

  "No," Sarah said. "That can't be right." She shook her head. "Look at him." She gestured at the flannel- and denim-clad old man.

  "Yes, look at me, walking out of my front door and down my porch steps." Hephaestus turned and left.

  "Sweetie, if you antagonize Mister Rickard, we're going to have to downsize our home. He's not charging us nearly what this place can command because we've been here so long. Anywhere else we can get at that rate is going to be a lot smaller."

  "But... he dresses like a bum and drives a rust bucket."

  "When I asked about his... modest lifestyle, he quoted scripture at me," Virgil said. "But believe me, the Rickard family trust owns Hephaestus Mineral and Oil, along with a few other companies."

  "What does he do with it all?"

  "I have no idea."

  Sammy let out the breath he'd been holding since the first of his duplicates popped. It sounded to Gallows like a sigh of relief. They'd ripped out the carpet from the converted apartment. Or rather, he had. The bare concrete still had whorls of glue, but smelled significantly less like cat urine. Any drywall-based interior separators had been ripped out to improve ventilation. A few wooden frames had been left up to hold plumbing fixtures, but the apartment had otherwise been reduced to a single room. Sammy was mentally and physically exhausted.

  "I don't quite get the tension that comes over you whenever there are multiples running around," Gallows said, his tone detached. His eyes were on the apparatus he was assembling on the now freestanding kitchen counter.

  "They all pop in as exact copies, right down to my memories. The thing is, after they're here, I have no control. The only way they do what I want them to is if every one believes they might be the real me. There's always that uncertainty, meaning I might be the one left standing when it's all over, or one of the many that's going to go pop. It's like playing Russian roulette with only one empty chamber. Not exactly a chill time."

  "So when they hold a Kalashnikov to your head..."

  "I make light work. But that don't mean I feel any better about it."

  "I see."

  "I was wondering something," Sammy said.

  "What?"

  "How did you come up with Lucid Blue?"

  "I didn't."

  "I didn't mean the name-"

  "Neither did I," Gallows said. "Iteration Zero was developed a long time ago."

  "By who?"

  "A couple of scientists working on the Soldat Dreizehn project."

  "That sounds German."

  "Well, they were Nazis," Gallows said, "So they would work in German."

  "Nazis?"

  "Long dead," Gallows said.

  "So how did you get it?"

  "I have a couple of friends in the Morlock Society. Their associates lifted the Soldat Dreizehn documentation from a police evidence locker and passed it along."

  "You're a Morlock?"

  "That is not what I said, Sammy. I said I have friends in the Morlocks. They share a common interest in equalizing outcomes. They just take a more economic view of things than I do."

  "Oh."

  "Is 'Full-Clip' really as hard to kill as he claims?"

  "Huh? Yeah, I guess," Sammy said. "Rumor is he's been shot so many times he has more lead in him than a pencil."

  "Since pencils contain graphite, anyone who ate paint chips qualifies for that descriptor." Something within the apparatus sparked and began spitting fumes. Gallows coughed as he hurried over to the windows and started up one of the fans. He moved to one of the windows without fans and stuck his head out. With sulfurous smoke tickling his thr
oat, Sammy moved over to the same window as Gallows.

  "What was that?" Sammy choked.

  "A stink bomb."

  "What?"

  "I didn't want to poison myself, but I was looking for a reliable way to get Freddy by the window."

  "I don't think this is something I want to hear," Sammy said.

  "I'm just testing a procedure." Grabbing Sammy by the scruff of the neck, Gallows pitched him out the window. He screamed as he tumbled through the air. Gallows watched dispassionately as Sammy bounced off a window air conditioner before crashing to the pavement. A crowd gathered around the site where he landed. With a gasp, Sammy lifted up his head and began pulling himself across the pavement. His broken legs left bloody streaks on the asphalt behind him.

  "Defenestration is out, it didn't even manage to kill Sammy," Gallows said. He returned to the kitchen and doused the odoriferous apparatus he'd set up. "I need a different procedure."

  The door to the hall burst open and two solidly-built men in blue and white colors rushed in. They waved aside the choking fumes and looked at Gallows very calmly extracting a collection flask and a small syringe.

  "What was that scream?" one of them asked.

  "That would have been Sammy," Gallows said, drawing a metered dose of translucent blue fluid into the syringe.

  "Where is he?"

  "I threw him out."

  The gang member's narrowed gaze turned towards the open window. "Cover the Hangman," he told the other, approaching the window. Gallows set down the syringe and donned a pair of rubber gloves. He pushed aside a blue tarp over a series of cages.

  "You threw Sammy out the window!"

  "Indeed, I was not being figurative," Gallows said, extracting an albino mouse from one of the cages. He held it with his left thumb and forefinger just behind the head, firmly enough that it couldn't squirm free, but not so tightly as to injure it.

  "That's sixteen floors straight down."

  "Yes, I'm amazed the obnoxious little man didn't die on impact," Gallows said, picking up the syringe and finding a safe spot to inject it into the mouse. Once the dose was applied, he slipped the mouse into an empty cage and watched intently.

  "Why did you try to kill Sammy Sham?"

  "Why does anyone try to kill Sammy Sham? He annoyed the shit out of me."

  The two gang members shared a nervous glance. By unspoken agreement, they backed out of the room and left Gallows to his work.

  The smell of engine grease and motor oil were soothing to TJ. He was never more relaxed than when he was up to his elbows in the guts of a machine. Even a junker like the bucket of bolts he was coaxing back to life was soothing to his nerves. Even so, he had to bite his lip to avoid swearing when he heard a slippery voice behind him say, "Tee Jaay."

  "Freddy," TJ acknowledged as he extracted his arms from the engine compartment. He turned to face the trilby-wearing, blue-suited boss. TJ picked up a rag and began wiping the grease from his fingers.

  "I gots an idea."

  Casting his eyes over Freddy's picked posse, TJ suppressed his grumble. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

  "Sammy Sham's been selling to the wrong clientele."

  "He's been selling to us."

  "Yes, but what good is that?" Freddy asked. "We got ourselves a unique experience, a monopoly if you will. And I'd bet there's a whole bunch of jaded motherfuckers up in the Heights who'd pay top dollar for a hit of Blue."

  "We ain't got the contacts in the Heights to sell, and Grenfield would start puttin' boys in boxes if we moved in on his turf."

  "That's why it's time to deal with Grenfield and make his boys our boys."

  "I take it you don't mean 'negotiate'," TJ said.

  "We got guns, guts, and a lock on the supply of Blue," Freddy said.

  "You forget how many of our boys Blue has killed?"

  "You forget how many used without dyin?"

  "You askin' me or tellin' me? 'Cause this doesn't sound like a smart move, Freddy."

  "This is why you ain't more than a mechanic," Freddy said, "No ambition. No risk, no reward. We got the perfect opportunity to knock Grenfield off before he knows what hit him."

  "And we can't wait till Hangman gets it right because?"

  "Because Ma Blood says now's the time."

  "You believe her?"

  "Ma Blood ain't never been wrong."

  "You ever think she wants you knocked off so she can take over?"

  "Puh-leeze, you can't kill me."

  "Again, you asking me or tellin' me? Cause I've got work to do."

  "I'm tellin' ya, TJ," Freddy said.

  TJ nodded grimly. "Fine, what do you need me to do?"

  "Make Skullsplitter live up to its name. Open up Grenfield's head for me."

  "You know this will take most of the crew, Blue or not."

  "Course, but when it's over, we've got everything along the river."

  "Bricks ain't gonna fall in line just cause Grenfield's gone," TJ said.

  "They'd be stupid not to."

  "They wouldn't be livin' in the Bricks if they weren't stupid." TJ grabbed a massive wrench from the wall and slug it against his shoulder. "Skullsplitter's ready. Guess I am too."

  "Got any guns?"

  TJ flexed his muscles. "Don't need 'em, I hit harder anyway."

  A smarmy grin crossed Freddy's features.

  Part 13

  The room was lit exclusively by the glow from the holograph table. The Regional Coordinator's office was buried in the subbasement of Sterling Towers, and completely lacking in windows. Aside from the holograph table, it had bare concrete walls and a metal desk. Razordemon had dragged his chair from behind the desk to stare at the information hovering in the air.

  "All right, Shiva let's go over this again."

  "If you insist," the computer said. "User requests do tend to be lower on weekends."

  "Is that your way of saying you don't have anything better to do?"

  "Alternately, it is a way of asking why you don't."

  "Look," Razordemon said, dragging up a photograph. "We have Sam Beddle hospitalized after being severely pulverized in Riverside. The doctors put him in a chemically induced coma, so we can't exactly ask him how it happened."

  "Prior to that, he wasn't that coherent either," Shiva said. "Report was he merely repeated the word 'Hangman'."

  "We have Terence Morison in police custody waiting arraignment and refusing to talk. His phone is in evidence, waiting for a warrant to pull the contents. We do know he sent a video to one 'Full-Clip Freddy'."

  "Known alias of Frederico Carlson," Shiva said. "Purported to be a gang boss."

  "Of course, the MPD gang unit isn't talking to me, and Esposito is on administrative leave until a ruling is reached regarding the shooting at First and J."

  "I estimate a high probability that he will be cleared of wrongdoing," Shiva said.

  "But he's unavailable today."

  "It's unlikely he'd be available today even if there hadn't been a shooting yesterday."

  "Everything points back to Riverside."

  "That is a twenty-eight square block area with a population that ranges from indifferent to hostile," Shiva said. "You will have to narrow it down to have any possibility of success."

  "That's what we're trying to do right now," Razordemon said. "What's the significance of the word 'Hangman'?"

  "Unknown."

  "You don't just repeat a random word when you're in that kind of state. It had to have some relevance."