Moon City

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  The man’s body arched and he let out another scream. Dean looked around, but nobody else came out of the shacks.

  “Just you and me, pal.” Dean ripped off a sleeve from the man’s rotting clothes and wadded it up. “Put this in your mouth and bite down,” he ordered.

  The man squirmed and hummed a discordant melody. “Up… yours.”

  Dean forced his jaw open and stuffed the fabric inside. “Bite down, asshole.”

  The Noggin was through fighting and with blood-stained teeth, bit down. Dean turned his head sideways and pressed on the side of the man’s skull. He could see the purple discoloration in the neck where the huge clot had formed. Without meds, this was the only way, and still a piece of the clot could get loose and cause a mini-stroke.

  “Hold on,” he told the Noggin. Dean reared back and drove his fist into the bulging vein in the man’s neck. A muffled cry of pain escaped the Noggin’s mouth and the fabric fell out. Dean struck again. Harder each time. After five good ones, he felt the hardness in the neck. Still wasn’t quite there.

  “Hey, man, no—”

  Dean hit him so hard this time the Noggin pinwheeled sideways and the cat scrambled out of the way.

  “Enough, goddamn you!” the Noggin grumbled and grabbed his neck. He’d bitten his tongue and his mouth was cherry red.

  “Do you feel numbness?” Dean asked through labored breaths.

  The man stated at him with incredulous outrage. “No. I’m pretty much not feeling fucking numb!” He grimaced in pain and scooted back to the wall of his shack.

  Dean sat near him, getting his breath. “Play with fire…”

  “Don’t lecture me,” the man snapped. “I’ve had clots go away on their own before. You ain’t no hero.”

  “Fair enough.” Dean got to his feet, overcome by weariness.

  “Wait, man.”

  Dean turned. “Yeah?”

  “I do appreciate… the gesture.”

  Dean nodded. He was about to return to his shack, but stopped, feeling the conversation wasn’t really supposed to end here.

  “How’d you come to be here?”

  The Noggin rubbed his neck and glided his other hand over his cat’s back. “Some guy souped up on something. He attacked me. Tried to kill me. He moved crazy fast, and he was fierce. Strong as hell. I caught him sneaking out of some place near the lumber district. Luckily something—someone—spooked him. He knocked me out cold and I ended up here. Downstairs said I got a whole week paid, so I decided to hang out until the rent ran out. Not so much for the room, but I wanted to meet whoever saved me. Whoever he was, he probably wanted me to shut up more than thank him though. And as you can see, I shut up great.”

  Dean smirked. Ricky had saved this guy from the Moon City Killer, and stashed him here to protect him. I’ve really got to revisit his briefing more thoroughly.

  “Sorry I woke you up,” the Noggin added, noting Dean’s pensiveness.

  “No worries, pal. Look, I got a few business cards. You wanna clean-up, get a job, Limbus, Inc. hires.”

  A dark grin crossed the man’s face. “Limbus, yeah I’ve heard of your company. I might be better off OD-ing.”

  Dean laughed. “You could be right, but probably aren’t.”

  The Noggin bobbed his head. “Leave a card outside my room then.”

  “My pleasure. Tell the recruiter you met Dean Fulsome.”

  “Ah, the Slaughter Man, eh?”

  Dean swallowed dryly. “No, just, okay, I’ve got to go.”

  “Thanks again, Dean,” said the Noggin.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You and Butterdick have a good night.”

  “It’s Butterball!”

  “No it isn’t,” said Dean, shutting his door.

  Sandra was probably waiting for his call back, but he had to call Rick. It took six rings before he answered. They exchanged com-codes before talking. Ricky sounded tired and annoyed.

  “Already need me? You haven’t even settled in yet.”

  “What’s with the guy you put up here in this here fancy establishment?”

  “Oh, the Noggin,” said Rick. “You met Chipper Saude. Lovely fellow. Evidently, he can eat five pounds of brain hash a day and still sing the alphabet to his orange tabby.”

  “I don’t remember reading a statement about a witness to the Moon City Killer. The guy you saved him from… That’s him, right?”

  Rick paused and cleared his throat. “Yeah, that was the first night I got a bead on the Killer. Saude almost screwed it up.”

  “Why is there no witness file then?”

  “Because he didn’t see anything of value. Put the drug abuse aside, Saude didn’t get a chance to see anything but a very powerful man kicking his ass. I even posed as another Noggin to see what he knew and eek some other info from him, but it was a waste of time. Not to mention a waste of money on the room for a week. Anyway, I’m not writing anything up because there’s nothing to write up. I hate documenting bullshit.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Chipper Saude is one of the many dead-ends I faced for the last two weeks—many of which will not see the light of day on any Limbus-bound file.”

  “Because you’re embarrassed.”

  “Kiss my ass.”

  “Only if you shave it first.”

  “Gross.”

  “I agree,” said Dean. “Look, I’ll go ahead and note my discussion with this Chipper fellow and I’ll interview him one more time.”

  “Be my guest. You’re a far more patient man than I.”

  “Speaking of, I have to call my fiancée back.”

  “Of course you do—hey, in a couple of hours meet me for Last Dinner in the banking district, a place called Inner Cell. It’s not far from your hotel. I want you to try this burger there. Ask the bartenders downstairs.”

  “10-4.”

  “Later.”

  Dean ended the call and sat on his mattress for a few minutes. He wanted to talk to Sandra, but he didn’t have much to say after he made little of the event out in the hall—she’d pick up on that right away. He battled with how much he should tell her at once. Then he could hear his boss, little Tasha Willing, piping up from the recesses of his mind. “Why don’t you ask her about what’s going on in her life, dumbass!”

  Dean smiled. Yeah, thanks Tasha.

  He dialed Sandra.

  Chapter 8

  I returned to my room in the lumber district. It was miserable hot here. I hated this place. It reminded me how the Commerce Polity had screwed me just as it screwed my entire family. Sure I’d been given a job, junior woodworker, then journey man, then apprentice, craftsman I, II, III, IV, and then I’d been a foreman. Briefly.

  The day I held a Deitii’s head under a band saw just for the hell of it—that had been the day my destiny unraveled, just like so much coiling alien flesh—that rind peeled away to show the fruit that had always been the nourishment I’d never found. Sort of like that kid Carl and his fascination for the Midnight Sea. He needed it. And I needed this.

  I sat in my kitchen, hating myself for never throwing away my mother’s checkered tablecloth and using her mason jars to store my reserves of spinal fluid. None of it was as potent as drinking from a still-living Deitii, but it certainly kept a vigor for several weeks. I tried to drink from it sparingly—especially since if I overdid it, I’d lose track of my day and be in a haze—I’d know more about the universe than I did about my own life. I’d forget my name. I’d forget what I ate for meals. I’d forget every place my legs took me from the morning to the blackest night. Once, I forgot to take my Constalife, a routine that became innate, second-nature, for a lifelong Moon City citizen. But I didn’t need the drug when I had the power of God’s ancestors imbuing my every muscle fiber and blood cell.

  How long had it been since I’d drunk from my jars? I inspected each one. My lack of memory made me paranoid because this wasn’t the first time I’d questioned where my reserves had vanished to. The first
jar was almost entirely gone and I could have sworn it was full yesterday when I checked. But the lack of remembering how much I’d really drank went to show I had indeed indulged quite a bit. The more I drank, the less I recalled. When I came back to my reserves it never seemed like enough… always more. My feeding had been cut short today. I should have reached a higher level of awareness than I’d been permitted and that was also throwing me off balance. With Carl’s roster of potential feedings, I would be well on my way to solving that problem however. Well, that is, if the kid could be trusted.

  I realized I’d begun to grip my mother’s table cloth in my fists. On my third feeding, a Deitii youth out of the Bleeding Caves, I got the clarity that there would come a time where I would reach a supreme state and I would no longer need to feed. I would become everything. I would know everything. What would that do to a bitter, violent man like me? Would I become a loving, benevolent being? Or would I destroy everyone who didn’t serve my will?

  If they did not love me, if they did not believe in the existence of my power—that I was their master—would I conquer all the universes and lay them to waste? Or would I watch quietly from a distance and be amused for all eternity? The order. The chaos. The love. The indifference. The passion. The Hatred. The Wars. The Peace. The Fighting. The Fucking. The Dying. The Living. The Births. The Murders. The Building. The Creation. The Imagination. The Decimation. The Destruction. The Ignorance.

  The human race itself would be enough to watch for millennia, but then there were the trillions of other races out there in the cosmos. Some beings would need even closer watching, because of their proximity to my power and insight and how they heightened those toward my own. Nobody would be allowed to cross the threshold of power that would be mine. That would be the riskiness in watching all established creation, rather than killing everything and starting anew. I’d have to make that choice. Or watch for a time and learn.

  Then destroy.

  All of this excited me. I was tired of waiting. I needed to see more. I couldn’t stay a mortal much longer. I deserved much more. That mercenary out there was only a man. I should have been able to kill him. He should have died at my hand. He should have known my power.

  I spun off the top of the mason jar and put it to my lips. Drank. Drank my fill. Drank to feel the cold bite of the spinal fluid. Its silent fingers worked into the tissues of my throat and beneath, dropped into my bloodstream, awakened something magnificent in my heart, something I believed to be a ghost who pulled its eyes open just a crack more with every feeding, and my mind was that ghost’s home, and while I could not fully hear its voice yet, I could taste its dreams.

  I needed more than dreams.

  I needed the ghost to pull its eyes open.

  Forever.

  Then its eyes would be mine.

  Waiting for it to all wash over me, I regarded the three other jars before me. The fluid looked different when I was under the influence. Usually a pale fluid, it was now neon blue and rippling. Looking at it made me think of my mother, back when I’d liked her, maybe even when I’d actually needed her. I wanted to wrap my arms around that neon blue because it knew I was the one. It believed in me; it would cradle me and put all my fears aside because I was the most important person in the galaxies.

  I needed the ghost. I need my new mother.

  What in the hell had I been waiting for?

  I likely wouldn’t remember my next actions by tomorrow, but they were foremost in my mind at the moment. I reached forward and spun off the other three lids. Drank each down. Every drop. Only pausing after the second jar to take a few much needed breaths of conditioned Moon City oxygen.

  I finished the third jar.

  Before I could even wipe my lips, the ghost’s eye flung open.

  With the rest of me.

  And the city.

  I couldn’t read their thoughts, but I had a sense of the two million souls living on this rock. Humans and aliens alike, I knew the essence of them—the intent of their lives. I recognized people I’d worked with in the mill, like an old mole or scar you rediscover on your body after years of neglect, but I didn’t care for those people when I knew them and certainly didn’t care for them now. It was difficult to separate everybody, even though the individuals were represented—it was much like distinguishing millions of shades of blue, staring at one long enough you would begin to understand the uniqueness of the color, but it took some doing and I wasn’t attuned enough yet to do it instantly. They all glowed with similar fires, except for one. He was special. I knew his color well and could smell him. His odor was much like it had been this morning, yet I could smell the raw, charred smell of the undershirt he hadn’t changed since our encounter. He was a tough man. Most people would treat 2nd degree burns, but he hadn’t bothered. I smelled no ointment, or pain. That was the deepest smell of all… pain. And he must have had an amazing ability to just ignore it.

  I liked him.

  But had to kill him.

  It’s fine. I would make some other creature that had the same force of will. Killing him had to happen. Unfortunately, the mercenary had not returned to his apartment. I knew now I couldn’t count on him ever going back there and springing my well-laid trap left in the incinerator. The document remaining in his living room may not be worth returning to burn—he wasn’t stupid. He knew I’d probably tail him there somehow. I couldn’t wait to see if he went back. He needed to die. Especially now, with how I perceived him—this mercenary was special—he was related to Christopher Agate, who was a legendary killer, but not superhuman… so Rick was different. I couldn’t put my ever-growing mind around it yet, but I would. He was important, or connected to someone very important.

  Rick was near the banking district. My vision flickered, blurred, splintered, until it all came into focus. Someone in a suit was handing him a fine, translucent slip—my eyes narrowed—it was a trace deposit. Rick was being paid off for something.

  Probably something bloody.

  I licked my lips.

  They tasted of Deitii.

  I tried to concentrate on the man handing over the payment, but I didn’t want to lose focus on Rick, now that I’d found him. His clients weren’t a concern of mine anyhow.

  I took my knife off the table. I imagined cutting the mercenary’s throat from ear to ear. I stared at the blade, and to my absolute wonder, blood began perspiring from the steel. It dripped down the edge and forked off in vermillion pathways. I stared harder, willing it to come forth. Scarlet blood of my own creation spilled from the tip of the knife and rushed over my hand. It was warm. I stopped the flow and cleaned up the mess. This was no hallucination.

  I’d taken the next step of godhood.

  I could create.

  I stood at the table with a grin.

  Rick would have the pleasure of seeing what my next creations would be—and the power of the Deitii grew within my body each passing moment.

  As I locked the door of my apartment behind me, I imagined how much of a hold it would have on me by the time I reached the banking district.

  Chapter 9

  Without anything meaningful left to do, and Sandra sleeping soundly galaxies away, Dean dressed into his clothes Limbus had left him. It was their standard garb, a white button-up and black slacks and belt, with running loafers—a little dressier than Dean might have chosen on his own, but he’d grown used to the look and the role he served. To think, he’d almost lost his job after he slipped away on Grettish-5 and joined the Zetú refugees, after explicit order not to get involved, and that choice even followed him here. Limbus didn’t like their people going off the grid. Either they were let go, or, Dean had heard, it could be worse…

  But the Zetú were his friends. That was what had mattered.

  Tasha understood that and had gone to bat for him. So if Limbus, Inc. hadn’t made him disappear he’d be back working in slaughterhouses in Southern California, or maybe they’d have stashed him on some far-off planet, doing who kno
ws what.

  His phone rang.

  “Dean,” rasped Ricky.

  Dean sat up on his mattress. “Rick, what’s wrong?”

  “He’s here, Dean, brought a wall down, and I almost bought it. I’m still in the banking district. I’ll… handle this, but I need you to stay put. Don’t meet me as planned.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Dean, really, I knew you’d say that, but I’m serious. Please, stay put. I got this.”

  “I’ll be there soon.”

  “You stubborn—”

  Dean hung up and reached for his weapon. It slipped neatly into the deep right pocket of his slacks. It didn’t matter what this man was or had become, Dean would be damned if he was just going to hang out in this smelly shack while he could be helping Rick. What if he was able to help? He couldn’t live with another family of demons wrestling in his mind. And he couldn’t bear to retell that story to Sandra—the story of him coming all the way out here to be a coward slinking back into the shadows.

  There was a big problem though; he didn’t know where the hell to go. Dean rushed back downstairs to the tavern, taking less care to avoid the foul black moss in the stone stairway. Once he reached the ground floor, he dashed to the bar.

  The bartender was a thin, bald man with a faint mustache, dressed in black overalls that hung on his frame making him scarecrowesque. He took a step back as Dean nearly crashed into the wood framing around the bar.

  “I need to get to the banking district, quickly. How do I get there?”

  The man had a bottle of some blue booze in his left hand and his other was raised to his throat. “I—”

  “Come on, which way from here? Streets? Left, right, what?”

  “I—”

  “Spit it out for shit’s sake!”

  A regional police officer put his hand across Dean’s chest and pushed him away from the bar.