Put The Sepia On

by Feldman, Nick

  “Robert…” she says. He’s got nothing.

  “Now, in fairness to Robert the cowardly rabbit here, things might be better under the Dogs, maybe. The Corporation’s been rough on you folks, and the guy who’ll be waving the flag atop the pile of bodies at the end of the revolution, a fella called Lime, is about as nice and polite as Dogs come. Things might be better.”

  “Yeah!” Robert says. I give him a look, then explain what I mean by it.

  “Shut. Up.” He does. Guess he’s smarter than I gave him credit for. That puts him at about a fourth grade reading level, minimum. “On the other hand, they’re still Dogs. Big, angry, resentful Dogs who don’t mind the taste of human flesh, especially when it’s seasoned to taste with sweat, blood, and tears. Lime’s a cultured monster, but he’s still a monster, and even then he’s only the best of a very bad bunch.”

  “So… what do we do?” Coral asks, and the way her lip shivers when she asks it just about kills me. But, having burned my bridges now with both the Corporation and Lime, I’m already a dead man walking anyways, so I shrug it off. Then I shrug.

  “Tomorrow, you’re going to have to pick sides. We all are.”

  She swallows, bites her lip, and makes her call. “The Corporation.”

  Robert manages to squeak out his shitty, predictable opinion “Dogs.”

  They both look at me. “I’m leaving,” I say. They don’t understand.

  “Leaving?” she asks.

  “The Hell with the lot of ‘em. I’m gonna walk till I can’t see this damned city anymore.”

  “But… we don’t know what’s out there. You could die.” She isn’t wrong.

  “I could die here, too, but I’d prefer to do it in better company than Dogs and the Corporation.” They look at me like I’m crazy, and then they start to think about it, and they’re not so sure anymore. I shouldn’t care what they decide, but I guess I feel bad for all my internal accusations of Coral’s wolfhood… or maybe just disappointed that I was off the mark. I don’t mind if a woman’s evil, just so long as she’s worth it.

  “What… what about everyone else?” she asks, hijacking my train of thought.

  “What about them?”

  “We know! We could help them… get them out of the way of the Dogs!”

  “Then what?”

  She takes a deep breath before answering. “Then… then what you said. Into the unknown. You’ll have better luck with a few hundred friends.” She tacks a smile onto the end of that thought, but it’s counterfeit, and poorly done.

  “They’d have better luck with me. But I do ok by myself.”

  “They’ll probably all have money-”

  “Which won’t have any value out there.”

  “They need help! Most have never been off their meds, and they’ll die in the crossfire if we leave them!” She’s getting worked up now, and it’d be admirable if I was naïve and idealistic and seven or eight years old. Instead, I’m just starting to get annoyed.

  “Why me?”

  “You’re resourceful! And strong! You saved my brother, and you know how to live without the meds-“

  “Nobody saved your brother; there was nothing worth saving. The Dogs let me take him because he wasn’t worth keeping. I got lucky; that’s not the same as strong.”

  “So you’d leave us all to die, then?” she looks as me with those damn dear doe eyes, and I know I’m cooked. The things we do to impress dumb women.

  “Fine. Go home. Both of you. Tell your neighbors to tell their neighbors to pack it up. Have ‘em all head to your place in the morning. I’ll be there, once I shake off my hangover. With a little luck, we’ll be gone before the Dogs cross the tracks.” She leaps onto me and there’s lips on my face, but I’m too busy being pissed off at myself to appreciate them. I pry her loose.

  “Now get out of here. I need to drink. And sleep.” She’s still grinning. I’m spiteful, so I decide to try and fix that. Just as they’re about to close the door, I make a pretty good point; “Don’t tell your neighbors it’s your brother’s fault all this crap is happening. They’ll be harder on him than the Dogs were.” That did it. Her smile is dead and buried. Good. Serves her right for suckering me into suckering myself into this.

  They head out, and I settle down. Three drinks in, and I smell jasmine. Uh oh. She’s here.

  Chapter 5: Hate Is A Very Exciting Emotion. Haven’t you noticed?

  “Rita,” I manage. She walks through the door without knocking. She’s smiling, and my heart rate doubles. My pulse didn’t rise with Lime’s Dogs about to murder me, but she flashes those alabasters at me and I’m a hummingbird. I’m in trouble.

  She closes the door softly behind her, and looks me up and down, taking her time. I return the favor. Her feet start at the ground, and her legs end somewhere in the neighborhood of Heaven. But before they can get there, a slim green dress wraps them up tight, and I don’t think there’s anything in this world I hate more than that green dress. It climbs up the rest of her (with a little extra work to do it around the torso) before calling it quits just in time to let the world’s sexiest neck catch a breather before it has to prop up the world’s deadliest head.

  It’s not the eyes (green, and glistening, but not emeralds) or the lips (red, and rich, but not rubies) that do it. It’s not even the skin (to call it diamond would be overselling diamonds quite a bit). It’s not even the auburn locks that ski down it and hang out on her shoulders sipping cocoa. It’s not even the lashes (silk wishes it was that soft). It’s the way she moves it; it’s a head the coasts wherever it’s headed, and only then if it feels like that’s where it wants to be.

  “Well, not to judge, but your old office was certainly nicer,” she says, and sits in my chair. For her, it doesn’t creak. It’s too smart to risk it.

  “Yeah, but it had that stink.”

  “What stink?”

  “Jasmine.”

  She glides through the insult; doesn’t flinch with anything except one stray eyelash. Maybe I imagined it. “I heard, my dear, that you had a little tete-a-tete with our friend Lime today. Any truth to that?”

  I strike a match, light a fresh smoke, and give her something that’s shaped like an answer. “For a given definition of truth, sure.”

  “And what definition is that?” she asks, patient, leaning on my filthy table now. Resting her forearms on my crinkled up coat (and man, are all the other coats jealous).

  “A flexible one, if memory serves.”

  She glides through this one, too. “Well, I’ve always been flexible. But then I don’t have to tell you that, do I?” She’s sex and violence and everything wrong with the world, with most of what’s right with it thrown in for laughs.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” I glance at the papers on my desk, pretending they mean something. “I assume you want something?” I expect her to sit back in her chair. She doesn’t.

  “What, can’t an old colleague come by just to shoot the breeze?” she plays innocent better than a piano plays classical.

  “That all you came to shoot?” she doesn’t answer, but she winks and pulls her gun out of her purse. She tosses it in my tiny tin waste basket.

  “How many more you carrying?” I ask because I’m not quite as dumb as I look, although I get a lot closer when she’s in the room.

  She licks her lips, and pulls a little one from a strap on her left leg (hiking that dress a little closer to Heaven to do it), and one more, about the size of my little useful gun, from her bra. “Satisfied?” she asks me.

  “Never.”

  She leans a little further over the desk, and drops her voice, and her lower lip, about an octave. “Never?” The only reply that makes any sense is pouring myself another drink.

  She says my name, slowly, breathy. She says it as a recrimination. I pretend I don’t get it. She presses on. What a champion.

  “You know, the last fella I visited offered me a drink.”

  “The last fella you visited m
usta liked you better than I do.” She was still smiling, and my heart was still on the third lap of a million mile track.

  “Nobody likes me better than you do, sugar,” she coos without a drop of doubt in her voice. And why should there be? She’s not wrong. I find myself wishing I hadn’t left my big, obvious gun at Lime’s. Not because I need it to defend myself, but because I feel like it might compensate for something.

  “Well, there’s a whole lotta nobodies in this world.” That one finally stings her a little, and she sits up.

  “Ouch, baby,” she’s stung, but not wounded. Still the ghost of a smile on her.

  “Why are you here, Rita?” She doesn’t answer, so I ask her again. “Why are you here, Rita?”

  She cocks her head, feigning curiosity. “Rita? Rita… that name sounds so strange coming off your lips… that’s not what you used to call me. It’s a little rude, calling me a new name, you know.”

  I grit my teeth and play her game. “Why are you here, baby?” I try to say it without any affection in my voice. I’ve probably failed worse in my life, but not recently.

  “I’m here, baby,” she stresses the word, “to offer you a job. Your old job.”

  I don’t know what to say. I hate her. I hate her more than I hate the Dogs, the Corporation, and myself. And I hate all three of those things plenty. But the difference is that in her case, and only her case, hate finishes a distant second in the emotional marathon. I try to spit out something witty, or something cruel, but all I can think about is how nice it’d be to be back in that office, back in that bed. Sure, my morality would keep me up at night, but with her around I’d have better things to do at night than sleep anyhow.

  I remember why I left the first time. But I can’t remember why “why” was good enough. I smell jasmine and I see her and I realize I’m twice the deer Coral is, and Rita’s the headlights. And she’s coming fast. She’s over my desk and into my lap in a flash, and those lips touch me and I remember what LIFE feels like.

  “Darling,” she says, and means it, “I’ve missed you.” I kiss her, and I’m twenty-three again.

  “What about the war?” my inner detective miraculously convinces me to ask.

  “We know it’s coming,” she says between kisses, “and we’re not so worried; besides…” she pulls my shirt open between thoughts, “I’ve spoken with Lime and we’re on the winning side either way.” She tastes like Heaven would taste it had a better chef behind it.

  It’s a few hours and a whole lotta sweat later and I still haven’t given her an answer. She doesn’t look too worried about it. She pulls that dress back over her and all of a sudden the world’s a little bit worse place to live.

  “You can have tomorrow off, naturally. We’ll see you early, the day after?” she asks without looking at me.

  “I haven’t said yes yet.”

  She looks over her shoulder (her shoulder is prettier than most women’s faces) at me, and says without a shred of doubt: “You will. And I’ll be thrilled when you do.” She even rolled the r on “thrilled”. Just her voice could teach the Kama Sutra a thing or twelve.

  She walks out of my door, and maybe my life, without another word. Her armor still hasn’t cracked until she hits the threshold. She turns, slow, and if I had to bet I’d say without wanting to, and gives me a long, sad look that tells me everything I’d ever wanted to hear from her but never did. She loves me all right.

  When she leaves, her steps, even in heels, don’t make a sound. She’s the best detective in the city. I hate her almost as much as I love her.

  So she leaves me there, alone in an office. I light up the only Corporation-made cigar I have left from the good, bad old days and watch the moon set through what passes for a window in this part of town. Now I’m alone in an office that smells like smoke, sex, sin, love, and impossible decisions. And jasmine. Man, I need an air conditioner.

  Chapter 6: A Bright, Guilty World

  I spent the whole night thinking, and it still wasn’t enough. Lucky for me, I’ve always been a seat of my pants kinda guy, so I’ll just make it up as I go.

  Unluckily for me, Lime is smarter than I gave him credit for and he started the march before first light. That means the refugees (and there’ll be less of them than Coral counted on; people are dumb, and chicken) will be huddled up in a slum while the world burns around them, and it means I’m going to need to be creative on my way to that slum, because I don’t have a Corporation uniform or two-hundred pounds of muscle, halitosis, and hair on my tongue.

  I hear the bikes ripping across the ground, Dogs hooting and shooting and generally killing anybody who’s not also on a bike. Since the Corporation doesn’t make bikes, it’s a pretty short list.

  On the other side, there are Corporation mechs all over the sky, flying along with more grace than you’d figure, raining down governmental death on Dogs and unlucky refugees wherever applicable. Until one of those electrified spike-balls rips through them and fries their pilot, anyhow. Then their seven ton corpse just falls to the ground, usually doing some pretty major damage to a home or two in the over-crowded slums. I had a feeling more than a few children dumb enough to be born in this part of town were now rotting under their own ceilings. The sun is bright in the sky

  It’s a real party.

  I duck and dash on my way to Coral’s place. Nobody pays me much attention on account of I don’t have a weapon. I mean, I do, but it’s up my sleeve and in my arm and not half as big as the previously useless gun Lime took away from me.

  I get in the door, and there’s Coral… and her idiot brother. About fifteen refugees. Twice as many as I thought and maybe a tenth as many as Coral expected. She didn’t tell me so, but her face is a chatty Cathy.

  I look over the refugees. The good news is they look mostly sober. The bad news is they look mostly worthless. Way I figure it, we’ve got about three miles to cover before we’re out of the danger zone. I hear explosions in the background, and screams. And laughter, too, which is worse. A bad Dog loves a good fight.

  I lead Coral and her flock out, and things are bad. A Corporation mech had been doing some real damage, a silver giant death machine, gunning down dogs, but there’s just too many, with too many chains. A few get hooked or wrapped around him, and they start to climb. He’s overrun, like a rat being consumed by a tide of ants. At least we don’t hear any scream over the sounds they make eating the pilot.

  “Come on!” I scream and lead them down a back-alley that might lead somewhere. There’s a Dog missing a good chunk of his side propped up against one of the walls, and one of our refugees vomits. From the sight or the smell I couldn’t tell ya. We turn the corner, and there’s more violence. Twenty, maybe thirty Corporation soldiers with Corporation rifles trying to gun down about fifteen Dogs on bikes who’re closing fast. But it’s hard to hit something moving that fast and swerving that much, and there’s still plenty left to mow right through the footsmen, waving chains, crushing knees beneath wheels, and generally making a mess of things. The Dogs are laughing right up until a Corporation mech flies over head and drops a grenade right in the midst of them.

  The refugees who didn’t already know find out that the Dogs bleed the same color we do.

  It’s horrible, but we’re making progress. We’re making time. We’re getting out alive.

  And then we try to sneak past a skirmish, and a little beeping circle lands right in the midst of our flock. I dive to the floor, taking Coral with me. Some of the others are quick enough too. But the grinder grenade still goes off.

  I don’t see it, but I hear it. A thousand little spinning hunks of rusty metal ripping through a dozen fools who thought they could leave this city. It’s not a quick death; the actual explosive blast radius is only a few feet; grinders were designed to hurt. The drill-bits spin through flesh, chip away at bone, and the recipient lives through the whole thing. He only gets to die a few minutes later when he bleeds out.

  Coral wants us to stop. Wants us to tr
y to help them. I don’t have the energy to explain to her that even if we stop all the bleeding, they use rusty bits to make sure the gangrene will still kill any targets that get that kind of ministration. So I keep walking. She, Rob, and a few of the refugees follow me. A few more stay behind, with their dying, bleeding families.

  They’ve made their choice, and there’s nothing I can do for them.

  I do a quick head count after an hour or so of more of the same. Three refugees left, plus me, Coral, and her idiot brother. She’s been crying. So has he. We’re closer to the fringes of the battle, now, but we still have to be careful.

  “Detective!” I hear, and I turn to see a very large Dog (or was he a man?) in a bloodstained suit. Lime is limping towards me, using a cane for support. He’s been shot more than once. I jerk my head to tell Coral and the others to go on without me. They don’t.

  “Lime,” I say and nod.

  “I wondered if I might see you here, old boy,” he says, and he’s having some trouble breathing.

  “Let it go, Lime.” A brave Corporation soldier tries to sneak up on him. He thinks Lime doesn’t hear him. Lime winks at me, and presses a button on his cane. A short, sharp blade pops out of the tip, maybe four inches of steel. Lime whirls, faster than you’d think somebody as big and injured as he is could, and runs the man through.

  “Thank you for this,” Lime says, gesturing to the cane he’s pulling loose from a dead patriot, even though I’d never seen that cane before in my life, though a long time ago I might have seen the bullet that gave him the limp that begat the cane. I pop my shoulder, my gun slides down my sleeve, and I point it at him.

  “Thanks for this, too,” I say, and it’s a standoff. He’s maybe eight feet away. I could probably drop him before he could get to me. Probably.

  But he just laughs. “Come on, now, old friend. If I wanted you dead I’d have had you killed last night. I’m just saying hello.”