Cyber Circus

by Kim Lakin-Smith

The wolf girl crawled up to the bars. She cocked her head, spider eyes dancing over Hellequin – and for an instant, he understood what drove Pig Heart to take his pleasure from the filth-encrusted creature. He saw intelligence, and sexuality stripped back to its glistening, blooded nub.

  “He helps the pig. Nothing more. Else I break every bone the bare man got.”

  Hellequin dipped his head. “I hear you.”

  Two minutes later, he squatted alongside Pig Heart in the cage, his amber lens magnifying the flesh at the pitchman’s bare shoulder. Using swift, light motions, he tweezed out the metal slivers with his fingernails.

  “There, at least, will heal now.” He went to stand but Pig Heart’s bristled hand gripped his arm.

  “I’ve been slugged, crucified, and keelhauled for my crime. Every time you step in. I ain’t a flavour you’re looking to sample, so what’s gives?”

  Hellequin shook off the hand and unfolded to his full height.

  “I’ve seen enough suffering.”

  Pig Heart snorted. He shuffled to gingerly rest his spine against the closed side of the wagon. “Haven’t we all, pal?”

  Hellequin squatted down, long limbs folding like a hopper’s back limbs. His intensity had Rust shift forward on splayed claws, heckles raised. A hiss escaped her lips.

  The soldier spoke in a harsh whisper. “Travelling in my lung basket, I’ve seen flies feast at a dead man’s lips, bruises bloom under a child’s flesh. I’ve seen suffering from a distance and at magnification, and it never. shuts. off.”

  Rust crept back onto her haunches. She twitched her head at him.

  “Know your problem?” Pig Heart winced at some internal agony. He took a rattling breath. “You signed up to the sight of the Saints themselves. The eye of the holy. Always on watch. Never to rest again.” He showed his tusks. It was a sympathetic grimace. “Now, what the hell did you do that for?”

  NINE

  The parade trawls through Zan City. Salt workers line the streets. Lured from their dry ghetto, the citizens welcome their queer visitors with quiet gusto. Happiness is this, they whisper to babes in arms and children at their feet. Here is the circus. Here are the travellers who carry pocketfuls of scandal and political gossip for sale, and who live such lives! Oh, the people are happy to see the circus, even if they blink their eyes against such vivid colours.

  But it does not last, this well-received stroll through the old town. Soon the cacti tail off and the squeeze of salt block dwellings is replaced with an even starker utilitarianism. The cold heart of Zan City – the mausoleum of a clock tower with its moon face and jagged metal hands slicing off time, the grey slab of City Hall, and the prison’s high outer walls. At the entrance to the prison, the parade falls silent. It takes a number of the Sirenese guards to drag the huge iron gates open. A tremendous roar goes up. The prisoners are pleased to see them.

  Herb conducts his hands and struts through. In his wake come the pipers. They pump leather airskins under an arm and manipulate brass valves to produce their tinny folk music. The road underfoot is a slurry of salt edged with cobblestones. Prisoners crowd the sidewalk; wardens shocking them back with electro-batons.

  The first wagon rolls in. It is pulled by clothhods, their splayed hooves beating up the salt path. The wagon is decorated with silver knot-work and mirrors, reflecting in, reflecting out. Up top ride the Scuttlers. They clatter about the rooftop, performing head stands and singing rhymes as children are prone. Most of the prisoners applaud. One or two throw stones.

  The tall HawkEye comes next, and the prisoners like that. A warrior in their midst! One who sacrificed the freedom of his flesh – and one day soon no doubt, his mind – to fight. They knock elbows in common sentiment. Their crimes might keep them locked up beneath a harrowing sun, but that poor son of a gun would never rest easy again. Look at those tattoos, brand of the HawkEye, and the well-worn boots, and the uniform – that musta been smart once, they tell a neighbour. And what about the steel eye itself – the diametric revolutions of the metal ring stack around the amber lens – and above, the twin bone ridges that protect the inner wiring? The prisoners bow their heads as the HawkEye passes – instinctually respectful of he who fought to preserve society in spite of their enforced removal from it.

  Their misplaced pride is replaced with intrigue as Wolf Girl’s wagon rumbles by. Those on one side of the sidewalk are left to guess at the wagon’s contents; they are presented with the closed-in decorative panel and it unnerves them. Why do those prisoners opposite jeer and whistle, yet fall back a little?

  Inside the cage, Rust peers out at the savages enclosed in their own white walls. She stretches her underarm to her mouth, flicks out her tongue and wets the fur there. Coating the back of a hand with spit, she drags on an ear while Pig Heart snores under a mound of sage, Hellequin having been unable to persuade the wolf to part with her prize. She guards the pitchman now, squatting on her heels, spider eyes burning out from behind her raggedy mane.

  The catcalls get louder as Rust’s wagon gives way to Lulu. In high-waisted shorts and a tasselled bra, the ladyboy presses a palm to his lips and tosses out kisses. For an instant, the crowd are in love. Then Lulu’s coquettishness bubbles over and there is a flash of realisation. Knuckles flex at the trickery.

  But it is a rare day in Zan Prison that music fills the air. Let freaks be freaks, the men decide, their spirits bouncing.

  And this next one is the real deal, they know that instinctually. Womanness pours off her like molasses. Seated in an extravagant carriage, Nim is a picture of allure. Her hair is scarlet, her eyes glassy red. The jacket of her riding suit is unbuttoned, providing a glimpse of décolletage. Her riding skirt is knee-length and teasingly modest. She rests a black parasol over one shoulder.

  Only a keen observer – or a HawkEye – would notice the accelerated rise and fall of her chest. She breathes through the panic that threatens to break her ribs. Too many bad souls crammed into that baking space, with its salt walls rising on all sides. Nim fights to shut her demons out while the wardens electrocute the over-amorous. Grown men yelp like pups. The stench of hot meat rises.

  But Nim needn’t worry. Tantalising as she is, Herb saves the queerest for last. The largest wagon passes through the gate, a tremendous steel cage divided in two. The framework is adorned with grotesque figures boasting mirrored eyes, antennae, garish stripes and spines. And inside the cage? The men gasp, beat on a neighbour’s shoulder, pat their breasts and shake their head. Hoppers! Two of them. Giant scraping creatures that twist awkwardly around inside the cramped quarters. Calcium deposits litter the floor like anthills.

  “Get the buggers back!” The handler calls to the prison wardens. His whip cracks overhead as the wardens plunge their batons into soft sides and bellies. “Easy, gents,” they coo, as if the words are a salve to counteract the wounds.

  But it is too much for some prisoners. After the relentless white of their cells, they find it hard to process the strange sight. And it’s worth the sting of the baton to nose closer to the beasts. Hoppers, they whisper, hands reaching for the bars.

  “I’ll cut you with my whip, gents!” The handler’s voice is laden with alarm. He runs alongside the cage, yanks on a handle and tries to unfold a screen across the bars. “No more for you, gents. No more for you!” he hollers.

  But the prisoners are having none of it. They want to peel off one of the hoppers’ hoary scales, or secure themselves a tuft of the head filaments. Souvenirs like that’d be worth a dime on the prison’s black market. Enough to buy a good few packs of smoke sticks, maybe even a poke with one of the street whores who trades their flesh for cash with the wardens.

  “Just a glimpse, Jo,” they say in sing-songy voices, appealing to the charitable nature of the warden nearest, every one of whom bears the nickname of ‘Jo’ on the inside. “I ain’t had a turn to see,” they argue, and “Just a gander. Just a stroke of it.”

  Electro-batons bite at the men. But there are more prisone
rs to replace those who fall. As the handler succeeds in dragging the screen halfway across the bars, the prisoners became a determined swarm.

  “You gotta back up!” The handler flails his arms. “This is precious cargo.”

  He pushes to the front and steps up by the driver. “Herb!” he calls, and cracking his whip, catches prisoner and warden alike. “Herb, we gotta get these fellas off. The hoppers are getting choppy with each other!”

  The wagon sways. The hoppers squeeze off loud chirrups. Their wing cases and hoary limbs clatter against the bars.

  Climbing onto the roof of the wagon, the handler kneels, stretches a hand down and tries to shift the screen the rest of the way across. A shadow falls over him and he squints back over a shoulder.

  A tall figure in silhouette blocks out the sun.

  * * *

  “What’s the priority?”

  The handler shielded his eyes with the flat of a hand.

  “Blackout screen. It’s jammed.”

  Hellequin indicated the man aside. He lay down in the handler’s place, stretched a long arm over the edge and tried to grab the handle of the screen. It was impossible to get a good grip with the prisoners crowding close and rocking the wagon. Gaze whirring, he took in the action. Hands clustered at the bars of the cage. Flesh bruised like Black Fruit. Several wrists had gang tattoos, similar to the dark blue sickle blade he’d spied at Asenath’s earlobe a day earlier. His amber lens revolved a few degrees in its socket and he stared into the cage. One of the hoppers was hurt; a front limb leaked a thin green gore where thieves had torn off fistfuls of the hessian-textured exoskeleton. The creature rubbed against the divider between the two pens and its neighbour responded in kind. Their chitinous bodies rasped off one another, like blunt saws juddering through petrified wood.

  Hellequin noticed a hunk of calcified spit caught in the runner; a prisoner stretched eager fingers towards it, hopper chalk being quite the prize. Hellequin gripped the gilt piping that edged the roof with one hand. Retrieving his bowie knife from its sheath, he swung down, his legs dangling loosely just above the prisoners’ heads. He drove the knife down into the runner, flicked out the calcium lump into the grateful hands and swung back up onto the roof – just as the screen shot across the cage on spring release, skinning any fingers in its path.

  There was a roar of pain and disappointment. But with the freak show closed, the mob finally backed off. Wardens buzzed the prisoners nearest for good measure, but most inmates stood and stared up in awe. The HawkEye unfolded on top of the hoppers’ wagon, bowie knife in hand, steel eye flashing under the fierce white sun.

  TEN

  The moon rose high and fat over the salt plains. At the edge of the desert, a cluster of yurts had been erected from poles of dark twisting petrified wood and draped in white canvas. Inside was carpeted in wool from the caravan’s small herd of humpbacks. Incense smouldered in metal bowls. Pierced metal lanterns were strung up in the eaves and gave off a muted glow.

  The chieftain nestled in oversized robes, peering out from his headscarf with a toothless grin and glistening eyes. Another elder piped a snaking melody from a cane flute while the women danced, laughed and flirted, grateful for the company of men who still had fat across their bones. Handsome women, they wore black robes cinched at the waist with braided gold, and more gold thread stitched into their hair. Charm bracelets chinked at their wrists. Bells jangled at their ankles. They wove in and out the men, offering up the stem of a hookah pipe or entwining themselves in a lap. A fistful of dollars had secured D’Angelus food and shelter for his men for the night, with the chieftain throwing these, his youngest wives, into the bargain.

  Smoke off the hookah pipe fogged the air. The atmosphere inside the tent wavered. Jaxx felt hazy, a sensation which reminded him of the sweat huts favoured by Sirinese mystics. Around him, bodies coiled, mouths pressed. The ecstasy of it all filled his belly like rotten meat. He found his way to the doorway and stepped out into the night.

  Leaving behind the pool of light off two large tar torches and the slumbering humpbacks, he entered the twilit plains. Under the huge moon, the salt flats stretched to the horizon. Stars blazed; Jaxx navigated his way north by them. The further he got from camp, the quieter the desert became, until he grew aware of his own footsteps. Shapes ran across his path, roo rats scurrying back to their burrows. Otherwise, his only companion was the vast noiselessness.

  The position of the heavens told him that it was the hour of Last Prayer and he stopped walking. Taking four small engraved brass discs from a purse at his waist, he laid them out to form a square on the ground. He knelt inside the square, raised his hands in invocation and began to chant. In his mind’s eye, he thanked the spirits for the joy and bitterness of his day – in the case of the latter, recanting of the blood he had spilt and the pain he had caused. His voice flooded out into the illimitable dark. The prayer circled. His sins turned to dust, and blew away.

  The footfall was whisper-soft.

  “Enšā Dianāh.” The conclusion of his prayer.

  He was on his feet in seconds, fists tensed by his hips, the reflection of the moon captured across his brow bolt plate.

  * * *

  “Need company?” The boy cocked out a hip. One smooth brown leg protruded from the slit sarong. It hinted at the just hidden sex above.

  “No,” Hellequin snapped. “No, thank you,” he appended in a softer tone, nose to his Jackogin glass.

  “Sure, sah? I can nibble your pinto. Like a little mouse.” The boy brought his hands to his mouth and gnawed some imaginary morsel. He went too far when his scrawny fingers reached for Hellequin’s groin. The soldier gripped the boy’s wrist.

  “You’re not my flavour, runt!”

  “Oh, tish tish. No need to manhandle the locals, Hellequin.” Lulu arrived alongside them at the bar, kohl-eyed and dripping sequins. He laid a delicate hand over Hellequin’s. “The boy is a baby, not used to violence. Unless you pay extra.”

  Hellequin let go of the kid’s wrist. His amber lens retracted inside the steel eye socket.

  “How old are you, boy?”

  The kid attempted to fondle Hellequin’s ear. This time, Lulu chastised him with a slap to the jaw.

  “I’m guessing not twelve years old yet and already acting like a jaded hag. Is it the salt in the air which sees you past your prime so soon in this neighbourhood?”

  “Is the sad old queen jealous? Johns prefer to stick it to a dung brick than your wrinkled ass?”

  While the frown was still forming at Lulu’s brow, Hellequin had already drawn his bowie knife and pressed it up under the boy’s chin. The blue blade reflected oilily in the gaslight.

  It was warning enough. The kid melted back into the crowd.

  Hellequin produced a rag from his waistcoat pocket and ran it smoothly along the blade.

  “Gutter bug!” Lulu bit his thumb at the boy’s disappearing back. Sidling onto a corroded steel stool, he raised a finger to the bartender, a Jeridian with red skin, oval eyes and a ladder of piercings down his throat. The man poured a measure of Jackogin into a metal beaker. Lulu slid coins across the bar.

  Crossing his legs neatly, the ladyboy took a swig from the beaker, his Adam’s Apple bobbing. He cradled his drink between painted fingers. “Good thing you addressed that situation in the prison this afternoon. Herb might like to crown himself king pin, but outside the walls of Cyber Circus, he’s just a fat old man in an ugly hat.”

  Hellequin stared into his beaker of liquor; the glossy surface showed the opposing rotations of the twin rings as his steel eye focused in. The lens dulled to an ember glow. “It’s what I was trained to do,” he said.

  “That’s hardly accurate, is it?” Lulu waved a hand in front of his mouse eyes. “HawkEyes were created as look outs, time travellers whose job it was to glimpse the future and act on it before the enemy. This need of yours to protect the circus and all who sail in her, it’s touching, my darling, but it’s got nothing to do with
your time as a soldier.” The ladyboy bit his bottom lip. “Is it that we’re all the family you got?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Really?” Lulu stared intently at Hellequin and his pious expression broke into a frown. “You’re teasing me.” His hurt was quickly replaced with resignation. “Keep your reasons stitched up inside then. I’ve no use for them. All I know is I feel a whole lot safer with a HawkEye to watch over us.”

  “Nice to know someone does.” Hellequin sipped from his beaker.

  “Oh, if you’re talking about Nim, she’s been sliced, diced and prettied up with wires, and still there’s not a soul in Humock can tame her.” Lulu got a far away stare. “In some ways, she’s even wilder than Rust.”

  “Shame she hasn’t got Rust’s claws.”

  “Yet despite your perceiving her as a creation of blown glass, she endures. And happily.” Lulu gestured past the soldier’s shoulder. Hellequin twisted around in his seat. The drinkers had parted to reveal Nim, perched on one of the large salt rocks that served as tables. She was talking with the Jeridian, Asenath. The women appeared to share a joke. Asenath laughed and Nim’s eyes filled with warmth.

  Jealousy curled like a snake inside Hellequin’s gut. He chastised himself. Lulu was right. Nim had been sliced and diced and screwed with. Last thing she needed was another man making demands on her.

  Lulu leant in. “Those two girls are having a good time. I bet that just eats you up inside, hmmm?” He gestured to Nim with his lace handkerchief. “Apart from the obvious, what is it that gets you so fired up about Miss Nim there?”

  “They re-stitched her too.” The statement was unexpectedly honest.

  Lulu’s tremulous eyes grew wide. “You’re drawn to her out of kinship? Oh my darling, Nim is never going to thank you for it. See, her...alterations.” Lulu chose the word with care. “...were none consensual. And what do you know about Nim, Hellequin, aside from her public face or the shrew who shoos you from her dressing room? Do you know she was nine when she got sold into D’Angelus’s whorehouse, or that it was a soldier who had snatched her from her parents’ farm and tired of her days later, or that the reason she was chosen for the surgery was because she’s part Jeridian? They heal better,” Lulu supplied in answer to Hellequin’s silent enquiry. He smiled sympathetically. “She’s unusual. Most times Jeridian genes don’t mix outside their own, but now and then, a Pinkie is made. That soft pink sparkle skin of hers, it’s not down to synthetic light fibres alone. And the eyes, Hellequin. Those beautiful red teardrops? Jeridian-made.”