Moon City

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  She went on with a knowing onyx twist to her full lips. “I read all about your tenure at Limpdicks, Incorporated. Saying you’re a fish out of water is an insult to the fish’s ability to flop around. You are miserably lost. You have no delegation skills, you let subordinates and superiors equally walk all over you, and if something strikes your sense of duty, you foolishly obligate yourself to it as though there were such a thing as real friends in this life. Yes, I have a tendency to over-research my audience.”

  Dean opened his mouth and she silenced him by raising a manicured fingernail.

  “Face it, Slaughter Man. You want something simpler for your life. You don’t want interstellar travel and galactic politics and hunting down surveillance footage from a wild redhead on some distant moon—you want peace, and maybe you want a woman back on your planet or some other. Whatever it is, you don’t want this. You’re a decent, hardworking, loyal man who doesn’t needs frills. You need a warm home, you need love, and you need to protect it. That simplicity, for many people, is wondrous, even beautiful.”

  Dean smirked. “But not for you, I wager.”

  “You wager right.” She came around and faced him. She folded her arms under her breasts and stared at him a few moments before going on. “No, nothing about you is appealing to me. Powerful, ambitious men with money and staggering intelligence are the type who soak my drawers. You? You aren't even fun to look at.”

  “I didn’t come to ask you out.”

  “That’s where you messed up,” she observed. “With me, a little more charm would have gone a long way.”

  “Well,” he said with a long sigh. “Then I’m totally screwed, because I’m about as charming as a tongueless dog drinking out of a mud puddle.”

  She tittered and brought a hand to her mouth. Then she erupted robustly in laughter.

  “With a face that could stop a clock,” Dean added.

  The Firecracker Lady had a laughing fit for a couple of minutes. Dean and Donaldo nervously joined along. As her chuckles tapered off, she wiped some tears from her eyes. “Okay, Fulsome, okay. You're not half bad. Guess I judged you too quick.”

  “I’m used to it.”

  She sniffed and her eyes went dead. “Still, my boys are going to need to carpet the floor with your blood and bones. Kill him!” She snapped her fingers rhythmically three times.

  Burning, gray jack-o’-lantern eyes cut through the dark recesses of the surrounding walls as the large forms emerged, their burnt trench coats sweeping across the tile floor like roaming soot, their fedoras just concealing their gruesome faces with enough shadow to make their flesh indistinguishable. There were ten Friars on each side, and all of them hefted a large scimitar that raced with micro-cosmoses and swirling stars. The torches fed off the surfaces of the galaxy glass and blotted out the dark wielders. It all looked like pieces of a fantastic stained glass window converging to the center of the room.

  Donaldo cursed under his breath and began fighting with the door again.

  “Sorry, guys,” said the Firecracker Lady, heading back up the stairs to her desk. “This was good times.”

  “How much is she paying you?” Donaldo yelled at the Friars. “I have bots and androids that are one of a kind. Priceless. Give me a pass and I’ll bring them.”

  The Friars moved forward, undeterred.

  Dean thought for a moment. Bribing them wasn’t a bad idea. The Grettish were a selfish species. There was even a saying, “Don’t Grettish the baby,” which essentially warned against being extremely selfish as it related to the Grettish practice of selling their children as food to withhold invasion for the Princess of Ganymede.

  It was likely these Friars were being paid far better by the Firecracker Lady than they ever could by Donaldo, expensive robots included. There was something that moved selfish beings even more than money, though.

  Their lives.

  The Friars lifted their weapons high, a bunch of ridiculously oversized demonic baseball players stepping up to the plate. Donaldo plastered himself against a wall, a form of defense that would not go the distance. The Friars smelled like rust and burnt leaves and roasting flowers. Dean stood up straight and cleared his voice.

  “I wouldn’t strike me with one of those,” he warned.

  They didn’t lose a step and continued toward him.

  “That’s galaxy glass and I’ve only yesterday come through a membrane transport.”

  A snap of the Firecracker Lady’s fingers halted the Friars. She regarded Dean through thin eyes. “So what?”

  Dean cleared his throat and said an inward prayer to any deity that would listen. “There have been many recorded instances, a high percentage from what I hear, where someone using one of those swords ends up erasing themselves from all universes, rather than the other way around.”

  She licked her blackened lips with delicate amusement. “Because you’ve come through a membrane transport recently?”

  “Correct.”

  “And why is that?” The Firecracker Lady looked impatient and annoyed. Her hand lifted again to snap.

  “It takes a few Earth weeks for a body to regain all its original structure. Some of my molecules are still catching up to me as we speak. If you split me down the center with one of those things, it will cause a rift, and one of you”—he looked to the Friars—“will likely be pulled through it and wiped off all panes of time.”

  All the Grettish Friars turned to look at the Firecracker Lady. Some of them lowered their scimitars. She snorted. “Where did you learn this?”

  Dean shrugged. “In a galaxy glass seminar for poor, dumb, ugly, blue collar assholes.”

  She once again exploded with laughter and nodded. “Very good, yes. Okay. You have my ear for a little longer.”

  The Friars had already begun to retreat to their positions at the wall, not needing any commands to get them moving.

  Donaldo started giggling too. The Firecracker Lady stopped abruptly. “You haven’t been through a transport lately though.” Her eyes moved from the Friars to Donaldo. The Grettish warriors turned their boiling gray gazes on him.

  Donaldo’s laughter trailed off and he bowed his head.

  The vibrant redhead returned to her desk. “Enough playtime. Tell me what it is you want with my video feeds, Slaughter Man.”

  Dean knew lying to her would bite him in the ass. Now or later. He had to be straight.

  “I’m investigating the Moon City Killer.”

  She plopped down behind her desk. “That so? Seems an odd mission for someone… with your attributes.”

  “I agree completely, but it all pays the same. Limbus can’t get another contract here right away and time is crucial for the Deitiis.”

  “Indeed. And you think you’ll find this killer by reviewing my surveillance?”

  “I do. For a fact.”

  “Well, my boyfriend is kinda content on having the Deitii population thinned. It’s not in my better interests to have that stop. It keeps him and his idiot association happy.” She folded her slender hands. “I like him happy. He’s better in bed when he’s happy.”

  “That seems to be reason enough to let the oldest species in the universe go extinct.”

  “Once again,” she said, shaking her head, “that sense of duty.”

  “It’s also what I’m being paid for.”

  “That’s a better point.” The Firecracker Lady picked up a mini muffin off a plate on her desk. She popped the whole thing into her mouth and chewed for a while. “Sorry,” she said through chews. “Hungry as hell today.”

  “No worries.”

  “So.” She dusted her hands off. “I’m a betting woman and I don’t think if I strike a deal with you it will end up mattering anyway. From the reports I’ve heard about the Killer, you will not be long for this world, Mr. Slaughter Man. That’s unfortunate because I could have grown to like you.”

  “Shucks.”

  “Bring me a mason jar of crocoshark venom and I’ll give you full ac
cess to all feeds for a full day’s review.”

  “Crocoshark?” asked Donaldo, throwing his arms up in disbelief. “You might as well just have those Friars chop us up right now.”

  “He’ll be fine.” She made a thin smile.

  “What’s the venom for?”

  “A new product. Turns brain diamonds into what they are calling brainrubies or brushfire. I like the second name.”

  “Sure you do. So I’m off to get you something to refine your drugs?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How good is this stuff?”

  “A drop on a teaspoon of sugar will keep someone high for two full weeks. Our weeks.”

  “Moon weeks?” Dean felt exhausted, aware once more of how much he’d dosed on Constalife.

  “Yes, Slaughter Man, so you Earthers would be sky-high for about fifty days. It’s a wonderful product, but I don’t have the time to dance around naked about it. Head on out. Your friend there can tell you the where and how to find the crocosharks, and how to go about draining their venom.”

  “I’m sure… See you soon,” said Dean.

  “I bet,” she answered and started to focus on some documents before her. She reached out and pushed a button. The door behind them unlocked.

  As they headed out, she called out, “And, Donaldo…”

  Warily he turned. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Get the vagina-bot, toy baby, and retardo-droid out of my building. If you bring any of your mechanicals back, it’ll be the last thing you do. Nobody sets a foot in here who doesn’t answer to me. Human, alien, or machine. You got that, shithead?”

  Donaldo nodded and hurried out. “Thank you.”

  Dean ran after him. “So about this venom—”

  “Outside,” he said through labored breaths. “I’m not spending another second in this place.”

  Bounding into the elevator after him, Dean was hardly in the mood to disagree.

  Chapter 14

  I watched Carl gaze over the bodies of the dead. He didn’t appear to be disturbed or even guilty that he’d essentially been the person who facilitated my killing and harvesting of the refugee Deitiis. No, the boy had a question in mind, and from what little I knew of him now, that question would be a practical one.

  “So ask,” I told him.

  Carl’s eyes flitted to me and he nodded. “This is going to take a long time to haul them all out to the trailer. Was there a time frame you were looking at? I’m just a kid and all.”

  “It takes however long it takes. Keep watch on the road. Factory is on mid-shift, so nobody should come down here. But we aren’t taking chances. You make certain you’re alone every time you make the trip from the front door to the trailer. You got that?”

  “Sure.”

  “I shouldn’t be long.”

  “I thought you hated your mother.”

  “That’s right,” I told him.

  “So why go to the diner? It can’t be about the pregnancy pictures, right?” He eyed me skeptically. “Those belly photos always just look like black and white smudges anyway.”

  “It’s not the photos themselves,” I explained, pulling on my coat.

  “You’re just in love with the subject matter?”

  I regarded the boy with a measure of admiration. “Yes, that was my son, and in all other realities, he and I are together. I’ve seen it at times. He loves me. I love him. We protect each other. But I will never know that love. These photos are all I will have of him in this life, in this reality.”

  “Even as God?”

  “Even so,” I concurred.

  “There’s more to this though, isn’t there?”

  “You’re too smart for your age,” I said to him, “and you’re right. The photos, while cherished, I could ultimately live without. It’s the fact my mother has ownership of them right now. That bothers me. After thinking about it for a while, the matter bothers me greatly.”

  “So this won’t be a long meeting with Mama?”

  I ignored his joke and shook my head. With a beleaguered sigh, I stepped over the pile of glass shards from the painting that had smashed on the ground.

  “You want me to clean that up for you?” Carl asked.

  I shrugged and took the knob for the front door.

  “Hey!” Carl hunkered down beside the glass remnants and pulled free the painting of the Midnight Sea. “This is great. How much did you pay for it?”

  I smiled. “Nothing. Drew it at school, long ago now.”

  “Oh you’re good.” Carl admired it.

  “I think you’re just in love with the subject matter.”

  “Touché. Joke if you like, but I’m going to live there someday, my friend, someday,” he told me, eyes not falling away from the drawing.

  “It’s yours,” I said.

  “I appreciate it.” Carl gave me a grin that suggested he’d known it would be his the second he laid eyes on it. “I’ll hang it across my bed.”

  We both looked at the drawing for a moment, then I patted his head and left. I headed for my visit with the walking, talking womb.

  * * *

  The Passing Sun Diner had to be one of the very few restaurants that would serve all three breakfast levels into the lunch hours. As I walked past the red-and-white leather booths, I spotted a variety of meals that would never appeal to me again. Breakfast staples were normally energy starters like blucoke wheat germ, ruffle grapes, moonflower seeds on lightly buttered hazel bread, or a steaming dollop of grits. Bi-breakfast usually included everybody’s first dose of Constalife, and most chose to get their daily dosage out of the way by eating aromatic foods that would drown out the medicinal flavor, like bat-wing soup or fire rice curry. Tri-breakfast was an indulgence meal of pancakes or waffles, fruits, and sugar cheeses since nobody’s appetite really kicked in until after forty-two p.m. and then the stomachs shifted to lunch-time items that included non-fatty meats and some dairy.

  I hated it all. After tasting the real source of food within a Deitii’s mind, I’d never be enticed again by these smells. Nobody would be. It was the difference between drinking mud and strawberry champagne. The ignorance was not endearing; it was downright revolting. I didn’t envy the old men merrily shoveling hazel bread past their greasy lips, or the prim and proper ladies daring to have their bat-wing soup so late in the day. They were sorry sacks of useless life. They all qualified for inclusion in the category of pestilence and vermin.

  And she who especially qualified was the sullen woman at the end of the rows of tables with her stack of half-eaten sugar cheeses and coconut waffles. That was the same thing she always ate for lunch. Nothing had changed at all. Looking at her made me ill, and I almost turned away. She hadn’t spotted me yet. She stared off toward the kitchen, dejection in her eyes. I had the opportunity to read her thoughts, but I kept this meeting…human… and kept moving steadily forward, that folder slipped under her waffle plate my only guiding force. My eyes moved through the plate and layers of folder and I saw the image. It was indeed a 3D sonogram. My unborn son. My boy. How could she have kept this from me so long?

  I tasted blood as I stood before the table. Gently, I pulled my teeth from my stinging lower lip, lest I bite straight through it.

  “You have something for me,” I told her.

  She jumped, startled by my silent approach. I could see the long Moon City years around her eyes, but she hadn’t aged poorly. I always assumed she would, with the brain diamonds and the Fanglion vodka cocktails, and all the countless trysts she got herself into with strange men, both human and alien. I thought she’d finish the job for me before too long, but she’d gone and cleaned herself up. That sort of pissed me off even more than her keeping the photos from me.

  Her pale lips hooked in a sad smile. “It is great to see you Dev--”

  “He doesn’t exist anymore.”

  She snorted in disbelief, and then straightened seriously, trying not to lose me. “That’s fine. What do you call yourself now?”
r />   “Busy,” I answered. “Hand over my property. I will leave. You can finish lunch.”

  “I thought we might talk for a bit.”

  “Well you’ve never been great at thinking. I’m not surprised.”

  “You look really good,” she said, sizing me up. “Vibrant. Your skin. Your body. You must be doing manual labor to be in such fine shape.”

  “Hand over the photos of my son. They don’t belong to you.”

  “I paid for them. He is my grandson.”

  “Was,” I corrected and felt a jab in my own heart that reflected in her green eyes.

  I took a coin from my front pocket and thumbed it onto the table. She watched it vibrate slowly to a stop to rest silently by her coffee mug. A waitress approached me from behind. I sensed her, and before she could open her mouth, I turned my gaze to her.

  “I’m not staying.” A little put-off by my abruptness, the waitress nodded and circled back to check on another table.

  “I don’t want your money,” my mother told me, “or need it.”

  “Yes, you’ve gotten on a better path. Good for you. So glad it happened after my childhood rather than during. Folder now, please.”

  “Are you going to hate me for your entire life?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Why won’t you give me another chance?” Tears lifted in her eyes. “I love you. You were my baby.”

  “We both deal with our loss every day. You had a son. I had a son. In all other possible realities, he and I are best friends. This is the only dimension where I mourn him, rather than cherish his friendship. In all other realities, you do the exact same repugnant things throughout my youth, but when I have my son, I learn to love. In this life, in this universe, I don’t get that. I have only my hate for you and the emptiness my boy left behind.”

  She cocked her head. “What are you going on about? Other realities. You sound like a Noggin.”

  I put a fist on the table and leaned closer to her so we were eye-to-eye. “I see all realities when I turn my eyes to them. I see the chances I could have had that I didn’t, and I see every variation and every constant in all my other lives. My hate for you is constant. My love for him is constant. The one thing I cannot have is also the one thing I want more than anything else. I want to be with him. I have the blessing and the curse to understand that through my new powers.”