Bring Me the Head of the Buddha

by Bloom, A. D.

  The megastar Queen of PornoPop was doing a plus-size model doggie-style, directly above the target Z-class Lenz, and with every thrusting action there was jiggle, wiggle, and shaking Newtonian reaction. The model's face was directly in the foreground with bare-breasted Hi-5 over her, silently mouthing, “Baby, 'O...O, Baby.”

  Casper's neuro-transmitters were working overtime from the burst of sativa, and he was trying to use his Locko Loco decoder to get his pick on with the Lenz's locks, but the jiggly model's face was reflected, inverted, and crystal-clear in the surface of the sedan's racing-green painted roof. Every time he tried to work the cigarette-pack sized contact decoder on the sedan's lock, his eye caught some of the model's ridiculously mannered facial sexpressions.

  The way she was hamming it up was making it tough to concentrate, but with the added rear-drive thrust from HI-5, and the jiggle that traveled all the way up the model's body and through her cheeks with every flesh-on-flesh impact, Casper was giggling hard enough that he a tough time holding the Locko Loco decoder still. He couldn't keep all thirteen contact prongs in even roughly the same area of the door, let alone directly over the electronic locking mechanism.

  Casper nearly pissed himself when, in apparent response to Hi-5's undeclared hole-in-one, the model's sexpression became wide-eyed, and her lips rounded out so that Casper heard her voice, despite the silence of the AniLux billboard video, cry a synesthesic, “Woooooooooo!” It was all the worse, since Casper thought the plus-size model was pretty hot, and a stiffy was the last thing he needed to help him look inconspicuous while stealing a car.

  He gave up trying to hold the Locko Loco in place himself. After affixing it over the Z-class's driver's-side door lock with duct tape that he always carried just-in-case, he was able to slide, hunched forwards to hide his uncontrollable woodie, down against the door of the Z-class, to lie on the parking lot's warm asphalt surface. There, he held his aching belly and tried to forget the scene above him that repeated in an endless, paralyzing, two-minute loop.

  After twenty seconds on the asphalt, Casper heard a soft triple-beep from the decoder, and looking up, he saw all six of the LEDs on the Locko Loco blinking bright green. Three seconds later, the Lenz sedan's impenetrable door unlocked itself with a soft, “ph-thunkd” noise that he felt on his back.

  Casper rose. Making a point to ignore Hi-5 and her jiggly co-star model, he opened the driver's side door. There was no audible alarm and the word, 'Recognized' flashed across the dashboard along with the name, 'Shauna Aziz'. If the luxury car was calling on the Network for help, thanks to Carlos's network jammer, nobody would hear its cries. Casper slid into the real leather seats, and after reading his body shape and weight, the seat molded its shape to a perfect custom fit for Casper's form. Cool air caressed his body, blown through apertures too small for the naked eye to perceive. The car spoke to him in a soothing woman's voice with a British news agency accent, “Welcome back, Ms. Aziz. Did you enjoy your...appointment at the Cosmetic Medical Center on 325 Worthington Ave?” There was a barely perceptible break in the rhythm of the Lenz on-board computer's delivery as it failed to connect to the Network and was forced to rely on the memory of its last conversation with Ms. Aziz's MeePhone to know where it was.

  Casper was overjoyed that a tactical team had not descended from a silently hovering helicopter, apprehending the arrogant cur who dared to steal a flagship Z-class Lenz luxury sedan, and he exclaimed, “Fuck, yeah!”

  “Do you wish to visit a sex club, Ms. Aziz?” The car's onboard computer hadn't learned profanity yet, and being cut-off from the Network by the jammer left it a little confused.

  Casper wore his finest 'n widest shit-eating-grin and explained, “Uh, no... I'm just really happy, 'ya know?”

  “Fuck, yeah.” the car agreed, in its classy Englishwoman's voice, “I am really happy, too. Shall we go?”

  “Fuckin' A!”

  “Agreed, Ms. Aziz, Fucking A.” The engine roared to life, then immediately settled into a purring idle that gave Casper goosebumps. “I am experiencing a network interruption... Always Net Navigation systems are offline... Do you mind driving?”

  Casper sighed. He wouldn't have it any other way. “I would Love to drive,” he said. The steering wheel moved itself into a position more comfortable than the one Casper would have selected for himself. He was in love.

  “Music?” the car asked, as he backed the sedan out of its parking space.

  “Sure, whaddaya got?” Casper pulled out of the lot and turned right, entering the brisk flow of Worthington Avenue traffic.

  “Would you like to hear the audio soundtrack of the video chart-buster by Hi-5, Queen of PornoPop, that was playing above your vehicle?” Casper started laughing again, remembering the plus model's sexpressions. He knew hearing Hi-5 and the jiggly model goin' at it would not be a Good Idea while driving.

  Casper told the car's computer, “Sure, let's hear it!”

  -10-

  In a smoke-stained room on the top floor of the Winguard Hotel, overlooking the underground railroad's rendezvous location, an aging military contractor named Alpo adjusted the diopters of the scope integrated into the mottled gray, molded plastic shell of his weapon. He had to adjust it to its maximum allowance to compensate for his rapidly degrading vision.

  Alpo blamed chemicals that he'd been exposed to in the third Iraq War, the one without any government interference. That one was only corporate military contractors and he'd made a killing, only to blow it all in a Weisbadden casino and fly home to Baccha Bay City to kill more people for money.

  Now, he sat ten stories above Sherman Plaza, on the edge of the Free Economic Zone. A gym bag full of Amero was next to him along with a large caliber pistol and the base station of an alarm system, tied to tiny motion sensors he'd placed like stickers on the walls of the hallway outside. The client paid half up front, and there was so much money in the gym bag that he hadn't cared about the weird stuff. Weird stuff like the client communicating by hacking his TV. Weird stuff like getting only an hour's notice to get his kill on and being told where to go to take the shot.

  A hotel card-key had arrived at his front door, along with a photo of the target, delivered by a bicycle courier, not more than five minutes after he'd taken the job by simply saying, “Yes,” into the empty air like he was talking to god or the dead.

  From the window of his apartment, he'd watched the courier pedal away. Alpo saw him get spammed in the street by a stupid ice cream vending bot running a light. That was weird, too.

  The cash was in the hotel room when he arrived, and more of it, according to the client, was on the way. Yeah, it was weird, but Fuck It, man.

  Alpo's cheek touched the side of the Sagami gun, and the caress made him feel better. It always did. Time to kill some shit. He'd been told where to look, and what to shoot, and now it was time. Looking through the Sagami gun's high-powered scope, he saw his target right where the client said he would.

  A man in a Zippy Pac Delivery uniform, wearing rock star hair and a clubber's tribal tats, wheeled a fifty inch-long, black plastic golf club case in front of him. It was like a child-sized coffin with wheels, and he used it to part the crowd as he walked across the sidewalk to the street.

  Target acquired.

  The Zippy Pac deliveryman was walking almost directly towards him, and it would be a very easy shot. Fine by me, Alpo thought. There were three shots in the clip. Each massive, eighty-caliber projectile was really a cluster of six micro-explosive darts that would separate, and widen to an eighteen inch spread before impact and detonation.

  The Sagami was a great city gun. Though it had limited range, it could penetrate light body armor and it was quiet. It wouldn't trigger the gunshot triangulation systems that told law enforcement, down to the foot, from exactly what spot a shot had been fired.

  Alpo moved his index finger to the trigger. The target was almost at the edge of the sidewalk. Time to git sum, baby. Just before he squeezed, Alpo noticed a racing-
green, Z-class Lenz luxury sedan slowly approaching the target.

  -11-

  Casper drove the Z-class Lenz across the edge of Sherman Square slowly for two reasons. First, he didn't want attention from traffic drones or worse, to be pulled over by Baccha Bay City Enforcement on his way to deliver a stolen car. Second, because he was driving a Z-class luxury sedan, every sex worker in Baccha Bay City was stepping to the curb and flashing their tits at him. He felt like a hero in a parade.

  He had slowed down even more to better enjoy the free samples of the city's finest tits when the windshield was splashed with long globs of deep purple goo from the right. The prostitute he'd been watching was now screaming and covered in purple, too. Casper looked towards his two o'clock to see a surprised looking Zippy Pac delivery man pushing a child-sized, black plastic coffin and spurting blood from six little fountain holes across his torso. Then, just as soon as Casper had focused his eyes on the bleeder, the man was gone. There was a bursting noise, everything was purple-red, and then there were wet thuds on the side and the hood of the car where pieces of Penitent had been blown by the detonating darts of Alpo's Sagami gun.

  All Casper could see was purple, viscous slime covering the passenger side window and the windshield.

  When the little coffin that the Penitent had been pushing ahead of him rolled into the street, it caught under the front bumper of the Lenz and scraped against the asphalt. Casper couldn't see the case, but he heard it and felt it, and since he was driving blind with a blood-covered windshield, he was glad when the sedan's anti-collision system decided to override his panic-based reaction that involved slamming his foot down on the accelerator as hard as he could. Casper heard, “Attention. Caution. Attention. Caution. Collision detected,” and the auto-braking system brought the vehicle to a halt in less than ten feet.

  “There is an Object wedged under the vehicle,” the car's voice advised, “Please remove the Object.”

  When the luxury sedan's single, massive wiper blade failed to clean the windshield, the sedan decided to spray cleaning fluid over the entire car. Casper sat frozen in the driver's seat for a few seconds, unable to do anything but listen to the spray of the cleaning fluid jets and the muted mechanical sounds of the wiper's servos as the windshield changed from near-opaque purple, to translucent red, to a pink-tinted haze.

  Ten seconds later, the Z-class, satisfied that the driver could now see, ceased spraying and wiping, and through the perfectly clean arch shape carved by the powerful single squeegee wiper, Casper saw panicked, fleeing, blood-spattered pedestrians. The woman who had been displaying her breasts for Casper was frozen like a statue and dripping with the Penitent's blood. She was incapable of reaction or movement until, after she made eye-contact with Casper once more through the windshield, she ran into the street screaming and narrowly avoided being struck by a vehicle passing to the left of Casper's blood and cleaning fluid covered sedan.

  “There is an Object wedged under the vehicle. Please remove the Object,” the car's voice repeated.

  A woman walked in front of the bloody Lenz, and Casper stared at her for three reasons. First, Casper was still in shock, and prone to staring. Second, the woman wasn't covered in blood, wasn't panicking, and thus stood out from everything and everyone in the immediate vicinity. Third, Casper was wondering if she was a pirate because she wore an eye patch.

  -12-

  Bonnie had a hunch about the black plastic case. A part of her brain that she didn't always understand, but had learned to listen to, was screaming of the case's Significance. The fifty-inch-long case was wedged under the front end of a Very Nice Car, and she was surprised to see Casper exit the driver's side door. Casper's style didn't match the car's luxury, and she wondered if he'd stolen it.

  Bonnie crouched, not wanting to kneel in the globs of blood, gore, and wet purple chunks that glistened on the smooth tarmac. She examined the case. There was blood all over it, and it was already oxidizing to a brownish-red hue.

  A tall, thin redhead with posture like royalty appeared next to Bonnie and made eye-contact with more intensity and longer duration than strangers did without a reason. Bonnie glanced down at the black feather poking out of the unzipped left-breast pocket of her white leather jacket. As it fluttered in the breeze, Bonnie saw the redhead's eyes were on it, too. The perfect posture redhead didn't have a feather, but there were two adhesive bandages on the back of her left hand that overlapped, forming an plus sign, an X, or a cross, depending on interpretation.

  Bonnie realized she'd just made Contact.

  Catherine Whitman, former Old Money debutant turned White Sunday killer, decided that she'd just made Contact too.

  Catherine's Protestant, New England family had opposed the nascent Global Secular Alliance with all the Old Money and political power they had. The G.S.A. let Catherine Whitman out of prison after ten years. Now she killed for White Sunday.

  While Casper stood, content to let two strangers remove the Object from under the stolen Lenz sedan, Bonnie and Catherine reached for the twin side-handles of the fifty-inch-long, black, blood-spattered case. With alternating tugs to loosen it, followed by a unified pull, the case came free from where it had been wedged under the luxury sedan. A handful of holes had been drilled in the lid of the case, near the top. Breathing holes. Without any hesitation, Bonnie unhooked the two latches that held the hinged lid in place, and opened the case.

  “What the fuckity hell, man?” Casper exclaimed when he looked inside the open case and saw Alvin D. Ellis, a.k.a. the Buddha, unconscious and bleeding from a cut to his bulbous forehead. Bonnie checked Alvin for a pulse and found a strong one.

  “My goodness,” Catherine asked Casper, “Did you do this?”

  She works fast, Bonnie thought, now joining in the good citizen act. “He's still breathing... we've got to get him to a hospital right away,”

  Casper asked, “Is he dead?”

  Casper's question made Bonnie wonder if he was stoned. She hoped he was. Stoners usually liked to be helpful, and they'd have to con him for a ride, and very quickly, too. Some good citizen had almost certainly called local law enforcement with a description of the whole scene, and G.S.A. Security monitored those channels. The Blue Helmets would be here soon with APCs. Two minutes, maybe three. I've got the goddamn Buddha, she thought, if it wasn't for the change in my orders, I could just kill the redhead and complete my mission right now. Bonnie remembered all too well the conditions of 'RED BARON'. 'Friendly forces will engage as Hostile.'

  “He's not dead,” she said, “but he will be soon if we don't get him to a hospital.” Bonnie could see the Buddha had a cut and a bump on his big head. Maybe a concussion. The case was pretty damn tough, and the impact wasn't all that severe, so she thought it was even possible that the four-foot-tall insurgent recruiter was feigning unconsciousness for the sake of their con.

  Casper just stood there with his mouth open.

  Bonnie decided to take the initiative. She picked Alvin up, kicked the empty, black case aside, and carried him to the driver's side rear passenger door. Casper opened it for her without thinking, and she propped Alvin up in the back seat. While she drew a seatbelt across him, she noticed that Catherine had already seated herself in the back seat, next to the unconscious Buddha. She took the seat that Bonnie wanted – the seat where you could keep an eye on everyone.

  Bonnie ran around the car, and sat in the luxury leather of the passenger seat. The car began to spray itself with additional sanitizing cleaning fluid from hidden nozzles all over the body that extended outwards, rotating to spray everywhere. Most of the gore was running off into the street. She'd expected Casper to be behind the wheel by the time she got seated, but he was standing just outside the driver's door, looking left, looking right, and looking confused while getting spattered with cleaning fluid. Bonnie yelled, “What the hell are you waiting for?”

  Across Sherman Square, Alpo's room on the top floor of the Winguard Hotel exploded outwards with the dis
tinctive blue-green fireball of a chemical micro-explosive, first raining glass and building materials on the crowd below, then showering them with the dead contractor's fluttering cash.

  That got Casper moving. He slid into the seat, slammed the door, and depressed the accelerator as far down as it would go. This time the Z-class Lenz's auto-braking safety feature didn't move to oppose his very appropriate, panic-based reaction.

  -13-

  They were only two blocks away from a place where people and buildings had been recently exploding, and Casper didn't much care about the speed limit. “Ms. Aziz, you are currently thirty miles-per-hour over the legal speed limit for this road.” The Lenz's voice synthesis unit delivered the line with a calm Casper didn't share.

  “Ms. Aziz?” Bonnie asked, looking at Casper with raised eyebrows.

  “Please slow down,” the voice requested in its British accent. Casper ignored the sedan's plea. He was busy weaving in and out of cars driven by citizens that did not share his sense of urgency, and their slow-moving, unpredictable vehicles turned Yoshioka Avenue into a very dangerous slalom course. “Law enforcement detected,” the car advised, and that got Casper's attention.

  “Where. Where are they?”

  “Traffic enforcement kiosk – four hundred yards ahead – intersection of Yoshioka Avenue and Parville Street.”

  Casper asked, “Which way to the nearest Med Center?”

  “There is a cosmetic surgery center on the next block.”

  The sedan offered him a makeover, and Casper loudly restated the query with greater specificity. “Which way to the nearest emergency medical treatment?”