The Liedeck Revolution Book #2: Endgame

by Jim Stark

  "Just pick a spot and it's yours,” she said, no double meaning intended, or taken. “So, like, my bedroom's in here, if you want to sleep with me."

  Victor could see a bedroom through the open door. Unlike the kitchen-dining area, it was clean and richly appointed, but the bed and the floor had big four-inch nails sticking up. Spot was standing barefoot on nails, in fact. She could apparently walk and sleep on them without injury, but Victor didn't think he could manage that—indeed, he was quite sure he could not. He pushed some of the junk aside for a place to sleep on the floor, and he mentioned to the girl that he needed to pee real bad.

  "It's behind you, outside the apartment, at the end of the hall,” she said, pointing.

  He looked back. The door was open, and there was a girl in there, facing out, wearing Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas, brushing her teeth vigorously. She was staring at him as she brushed—staring past him, he realized, at the tattooed naked bald lady.

  "She's been there for more than a week,” Spot said. “It's very annoying. She won't share. Her teeth are real clean now, and her gums are all bloody, but she just won't stop."

  Victor didn't ask for an explanation—he had other pressing priorities. “Then I guess I'll have to—uh—go in your sink,” he said.

  "I d-d-d-don't think so!” sputtered Spot. “N-n-n-not on my dirty dishes you don't!"

  "Then ... in a jar?” he suggested.

  "Ewwww, gross,” she said.

  "Do you have like a pee can?"

  "Pie?” she queried, puzzled.

  Victor had had enough of this. He went outside, where he saw his old 2002 Buick! It was sitting right where he couldn't remember having parked it. That's weird, he thought. He distinctly remembered leaving it at the golf course, but there it was, sitting there, sort of waiting for him. My memory's not what it used to be. He urinated on the left back tire, glancing this way and that so as not to be seen. Does that work? he wondered.

  As he did up his seatbelt, he became quite irritated with himself, mostly because he couldn't seem to get his thoughts or actions organized, or even figured out. He was also ticked off that he couldn't seem to get done what he was supposed to be getting done, whatever that was. He peeled out from the curb and drove much too fast, looking down into the bib pocket of his green overalls to make sure he had his checkbook. At least I remembered that.

  He finally got to where he was pretty sure he was supposed to go, but it wasn't Elm Street—it wasn't even Thunder Bay! (Don't I live in Thun-der Bay?) It was a farm, half way in between the one-horse town of Bristol and old Highway 148, ten or seven miles south-west of the Whiteside estate. He parked on the side of the narrow laneway, running two wheels up into the long shoulder grass, on the right. When he got out, it still seemed to him that it might be difficult for other cars to get by. But I don't care, he realized with pleasure. I really and truly don't give a shit!

  He walked up to the farmhouse and entered the basement—it was only a crawl space, really—by a storm door, one of those near-horizontal entrances that people built more than a century ago. He wanted to go in by the front, but he felt ashamed, because he was wearing a pair of overalls. A pair? he said to himself, not understanding why they were referred to in the plural. He stooped over and wiggled through the low space, ducking his head to avoid rafters and old wires, to where he found a butter-box to stand on. Strange, that I'd need a box in this cramped space.

  He stood on it anyway, accepting this latest contradiction as he did so many others, and looked out the elevated window. It was a small window, made to let light in, not to look out of. He saw a verdant, twenty-acre field, with one hundred cows in it, standing in ten rows of ten, like pews in church, with an aisle smack down the middle. And they're all munching in unison, he thought pensively. Cows never do that! Not even businessmen do that!

  The hay was growing so fast you could practically see it fill in immediately behind the disappearing mouthfuls. This was his kind of land, and he was determined to buy the place. The cows suddenly looked up, almost as one, saw him, and lo, they began to stir. Then they broke rank completely and started wandering aimlessly, bumping into each other, as if they were blind. Victor couldn't help feeling that this was somehow his fault, but he didn't remember doing anything bad. Then they started kicking and biting, and a bunch of little stampedes broke out, with collisions galore. “Stop,” he whispered ... and everything froze, just as if he'd said “pause” to an MIU. Such powers I have, he thought.

  He ran upstairs, and looked out a big front window in the dining room, where, as he gradually realized, a tea party was in progress—well, they were using teacups, but who could really say what the amber liquid was. The cows were now tranquil, but several had badly fractured legs, which flopped around uselessly as they hobbled along on the other three. The disabled cows seemed unaware of the awful sight they made. The farmer stood among them, shooting the wounded, who didn't seem to mind at all. And the other cows take no notice, Victor noted. “It could have been worse,” he said to those gathered inside. “Of course I'll pay for the damage,” he added, pointing to his checkbook, but no one was listening. They had tea to drink and things to say to each other ... things of importance, no doubt.

  The farmer came in from the cull, put away his .303 rifle, and ordered the meeting convened. Victor sat on a padded bench as they discussed the selling price for the farm—apparently it was a collective concern. The two women flanking him on the bench were extremely big, and they seemed to be growing as fast as the grass outside. Their bodies pressed against him tighter and tighter, until he had to lean back. All the owner could see of him now were his legs. Then there was a sound, like the popping of a huge cork, and he found his torso flung backwards, like he was a bar of wet soap that got squeezed, and launched. His head smacked against a window ledge, and that hurt his neck. He tried to talk from that position, but it was difficult. All he could see were the backs of those two bulbous women—that and a bit of the ceiling.

  The owner's wife suggested that there was a place seventy miles to the east where a much nicer type of house was prevalent. “Why don't you go buy a place over there?” she asked, craning her neck in a vain attempt to see her guest. “The people over there are a lot nicer than we are too,” she added.

  Victor twisted, pulled his legs from between the two ever-expanding book-end ladies, and snuck out of the room, crawling on his hands and knees out the front door and around to the side of the house, where he stood up and ran to his car ... only to find that someone had punctured the left back tire. Or maybe it rotted off, he considered as he took a closer look at the disintegrating rubber. Some damned dog did that, he figured. Toxic stuff, dog pee!

  "I have to get that tire fixed,” he said aloud. He didn't know how to change a tire, so he drove one mile south to Charmichael's Garage with the left back wheel clattering on its rim, and with strips of rubber flapping madly. He walked up the stairs to the door of the rural store-slash-service-station. Christ, I'm barefoot, he realized. I forgot my socks and shoes at that rooming house. Funny I didn't notice until now. Isn't that illegal ... to drive without proper footwear?

  The maître d’ met him at the entrance, and he was adamant that there were no tables available, even though there were clearly more empty tables than there were occupied ones. It's probably because I'm barefoot, thought Victor. He was told he had to sit in the back, on a bench beside the washrooms, until a table came free. Other customers, dressed in Sunday-go-to-meeting finery, came through the door and were assigned tables. That's just not fair. He went over to the men's loo, but it had a minuscule “out of order” sticker slapped right over the keyhole in the doorknob. He wanted to duck into the women's, but after the elevator incident at the Royal Oaks, he didn't dare. He went back to the bench, and sat silently, trying to think of something to think about—anything but his bladder. He had forgotten about the flat tire. When he remembered, he quickly put it out of his mind. The current situation was that vexing.

 
He decided to complain, and demanded to see the manager over the table problem. The maître d’ finally said he'd found a chair. “But I'm afraid you'll have to share a table with six other people,” he said. “There's nothing more I can do—sorry."

  Victor reluctantly accepted the offer, and once seated, asked for a menu.

  "The only thing left is a pineapple upside-down cake,” said the waitress stiffly as she chewed gum open-mouthed and looked off in the direction of Uranus, her yellow order pad and orange pencil poised for action. Victor saw that others had roast beef, fried eggs, corn on the cob, even pickled beets, but the waitress was getting increasingly agitated. She shoved the pencil into her hair, above her right ear. “That's all we got, but the boss says ‘cause you made such a freakin’ fuss before, he'll make it à la mode for youse.” She speeded up her chew-rate, blew a small pink bubble, and cut it with her teeth—"pop."

  With considerable doubt, Victor nodded. When the cake came, almost immediately, it was cut into seven uneven slices and served all around the table. A woman on the other side of the table wolfed her helping down in three poorly minced bites, and then stared, longingly, at Victor's smaller portion. “Oh ... take it,” he said, handing it across the table, shocking the other diners with his bad manners. “I can't see anyway,” he explained.

  The left lens of his glasses was gone. Victor couldn't recall losing it, but then again he wasn't even sure if he wore glasses. Last he remembered, his eyesight was fine. He took off his glasses and dropped them into a sweating pitcher of ice water, hoping they would disappear, like diamonds. No one noticed. Whew!

  The conversation among the other diners continued as if he wasn't even there. Then a man on his right started rubbing his bare foot up and down Victor's leg. “You smell real funny,” the man said.

  "Pardon?” yelled Victor. “I can't hear without my glasses."

  The gay man turned away, insulted.

  Victor got up to leave, wanting nothing more than the safety of his old Buick, flat tire or no. He took a candy mint from a bowl beside the till, and reached for the door handle ... only to run into a burly man, blocking his escape. “Not ... so fast, Mr. Helliwell,” said the big fellow, with a meaningful pause after the word “not."

  "What's your problem?” asked Victor.

  "I think maybe you'd like to pay your ... bill,” the muscle-bound doorman said with dripping sarcasm. He handed Victor an itemized bill for $1,798,467.93! It was the bill for the farm he'd recently escaped from, the asking price—plus the costs of the stampedes and the lost head of cattle, plus one serving of pineapple upside-down cake. At least they didn't charge me for the ice cream, he thought. Everyone in the restaurant was peeking at him slyly, with mocking, held-back smiles. Then came a few yellow snickers, and finally they laughed right out loud, in all colors, with no regard whatsoever for his feelings.

  The doorman is the farmer! Victor realized.

  The farmer turned Victor around forcibly and lifted his wispy crop of white hair with a spatula. Underneath, a carrot-shaped ganglionic mass protruded, sort of a soft, upside-down Hippo horn, with black blood and pus oozing out of the end. The farmer wiggled the spatula and toyed with it—it was wobbly, like a baby tooth just before it falls out. The laughter in the restaurant soared. “Get my three-o-three, Martha,” he said, matter-of-fact. “We can't send this mess to market."

  "Noooooo!” Victor screamed, snapping up in bed. “Noooooo!"

  "It's okay,” said Julia. “I'm here. I'll get your pill."

  "What!?"

  "You lie back down; I'll get your pill and some water."

  "I'll ... get it myself,” said Victor. “I have to pee anyway.” The new painkillers gave him bad dreams, but what could he do? “Sorry to wake you up."

  Chapter 70

  ARRANGEMENTS

  Friday, May 6, 2033—10:00 a.m.

  Julia watched as Victor slipped painfully into his paisley silk caftan—she really liked it when he wore that thing—and watched some more as he walked unsteadily towards the can. He can't sleep any good any more, she thought sadly. He'll be all dead pretty soon, I think. I'm so glad we got to be friends first. Or again, she tacked on to her thought when she remembered calling a much younger Victor “Rip van Winkle” at the manor when she was only ... ten, I think ... or maybe nine. He was nice to me, and I was such a talk-talk-talker back then.

  There was a soft knocking at the outer door of Victor's suite, and Julia reprimanded her wayward brain for not setting the alarm. She knew Mr. Wu was due here at 10:00 a.m., and since he was always exactly on time, that meant it was 10:00 a.m. right now. She jumped out of bed and yelled “I'll get it” through the bathroom door. She arrived at the door to the outside hall just as the caller knocked again—harder this time.

  Julia flung the door open. “Mr. Wu!” she sang as she gave the man a full-bodied hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I'm so glad you came to see me! Come on in and sit down. You could call Noel on the MIU. He'll bring us some nice coffee and juice and donuts. I'll be right back after I brush my hair and put some clothes on, okay?"

  "Boy, you're—uh—tummy's starting to get big, eh?” Mr. Wu said as he admired her receding backside.

  "Yeah,” said Julia, pleased that he'd noticed—she was very proud of that bulge. She turned around and poked her taut belly. “I used to be able to pull my boobs sideways and see my toes if I just looked down,” she said, demonstrating how it used to be, “but now I have to bend over too to see them,” she explained, laughing at her beautiful dilemma and demonstrating again. She danced out of the living room and into the bedroom, leaving the door open.

  She did that just for me, I'm sure, thought Mr. Wu. “I'm ... here to see Victor too,” he said towards the bedroom doorway. Julia didn't respond. Not even to mention whether Victor is here or not, he realized. But with her it's never rudeness. She's ... incapable of malice. He paused. No, he reworked the thought, we're all capable of malice; she's just ... unwilling, I suppose. Hell, she was a Human Three child before Victor ever coined the term.

  He called the cook on the MIU, and minutes later, Noel brought drinks and treats up to the second-floor suite, placing everything on the low coffee table. The two men had met each other on a number of occasions, but had never actually spoken, other than to say “hello.” Mr. Wu was a wealthy, prominent accountant and lawyer; Noel was a cook. That wouldn't matter to Human Threes, thought Mr. Wu as he thanked Noel, but for us it's a mediaeval moat.

  "You ... still play chess every day?” Mr. Wu asked as he helped himself to a black coffee. “With Victor?"

  "I am stopping dat chess las’ week,” said Noel in his never-to-improve franglais. “He is all dat time losing, an’ I feeling sorry for ‘im. Dey trying to give ‘im dat morphine, but he saying ‘not yet’ to all dem doctors dat's all da time come in here."

  He wasn't leaving, and Mr. Wu didn't know what to say for an encore. As far as he knew, Noel had no family, no friends ... just Victor. He'd be all alone when Victor died, and Mr. Wu was not surprised when he looked up into the eyes of the fat Frenchman and saw tears streaming down his face. His arms just hung at his sides, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his red and white checkerboard apron. Mr. Wu wanted to get up and hold this lonely creature, to console him, and he had almost decided to actually do that when Victor came out of the bedroom, looking frail and blotto, and leaning heavily on Julia's arm. Saved, thought Mr. Wu.

  "I gots ta go,” blurted Noel as he bolted the room, slamming the door.

  "He's taking this worse than me,” said Victor in a weak, tremulous voice. He shook hands lightly with his guest, and allowed Julia to steer him to a chair and ease him into it. With a few head-clearing breaths, Victor watched as Julia sat on the floor in front of him and start dealing with business on the low table. She put exactly the right amount of milk and sugar in his coffee mug, then added the coffee. She handed it up to him with a smile, and Victor did his best to smile back.

  Mr. Wu loved Julia's blond hair, and
just about everything else about her. Ever since she had become a woman, he'd wished he could share Netsex with her. He even figured she'd be delighted if he asked, but he'd never had the nerve. He'd imagined her naked a thousand times over the last fifteen or so years, especially when he made love to his wife. Now, he'd actually seen her body, and it was almost as beautiful as her mind ... well, let's say her “consciousness,” he decided. She was now wrapped in jeans and an oversized green sweater ... which used to be Randall's, Mr. Wu knew from his long friendship and collaboration with “the man."

  "So ... what's up?” Victor asked as soon as he felt up to dealing with an answer.

  "Well,” began Mr. Wu, “I have to speak with Julia about her estate—the shares we sold that were hers, and the money, and the little problem we've got with the C.S.E., the Central Stock Exchange—but ... that can wait until later. I've been—"

  "Till never!” said Julia, not entirely aware that he wasn't actually speaking to her. “You know I don't understand that stuff, Mr. Wu. You're doing all you can what's best for me, eh?"

  "Well ... yes, but—"

  "Daddy said you would, and he was exactly right!” tittered Randall Whiteside's only surviving daughter. “I always trusted you, Mr. Wu, and I still do, so we don't have to talk about my boring stuff.” She almost spilled her orange juice when those words popped out of her mouth. “Oops!” she said, putting her glass up on the coffee table. “Well, boring to me, I mean. If I could understand that money stuff, maybe I'd—"

  "I—uh—have to talk to Victor too,” interrupted Mr. Wu.

  "Sure,” said Julia, still smiling, as almost always. “What about?"

  She was sitting on the carpet beside Victor's feet, her left arm draped over his knees as he stroked her hair. “You're the nicest girl I ever knew,” Victor said.