Cyber Circus

by Kim Lakin-Smith

  A hand slipped behind Nim’s neck, prompting her cheeks to glow faintly. Threads of neon lit up either side of her throat. Asenath moved in, her hard lips, hips and ribs moulded to Nim’s softness. The Jeridian’s mouth was a spiced taste against Nim’s lips. Asenath’s tongue whipped up behind Nim’s teeth, a long muscle that fed on her... Images penetrated Nim’s mind. Hands that massaged her windpipe as she bucked. The digging into her by countless fingers, cocks and every other instrument they found to probe her with. The savagest of rapes in their turning out her natural light when implanting their own beneath her virginal skin.

  She pulled away.

  “I am no one’s,” she said firmly. The beaded light across her bare shoulders went out. “I’m broken,” she added more softly.

  “Think about what I’ve said.” Asenath retrieved her sack and swung it back up onto her shoulder. She fixed Nim with glassy black eyes. “Think about me.”

  Nim bit her lower lip. There was a residual trace of Asenath’s taste there. Spice of a red-skinned Jeridian. Smokiness of a woman.

  She stared back down the alley. “We should look for Lulu.”

  The Jeridian nodded sharply. She strode off back the way they had come, the gore-soaked sack knocking against her lower back.

  Nim raised her eyes to the heavens. She felt the sting of tears at her eyes. So much damage was ravelled up inside her. But she wanted to exist beyond her failing circuits sometime. Not now though, she thought, overwhelmed by tiredness suddenly. She let her eyes drop and prepared to follow in Asenath’s footsteps.

  Large masculine hands grasped her from behind. Her gasp was smothered by a stinking, soaked rag applied to her mouth and nose. The world kaleidoscoped.

  * * *

  Asenath dropped her sack and raced back towards Nim, swift footed over the jagged salt bricks.

  “Krvi črvi!” Blood worms.

  Her cry woke the jackals from their slumber near the fire pits. As the dogs lifted their snouts and howled, Asenath leapt into the air and drove both heels into one man’s back. The blood worm matched the dogs with his own howling.

  Nim was hiked up over one man’s shoulder. Her neon network faintly illuminated her assaulters. Showmaniese, junked up on Dazzle Dust by the look of their wide, bloodshot eyes and jerking movements. The man carrying Nim wore an old duster coat – military in origin, Asenath surmised. The emblem had been torn off one sleeve. Misjudging his step, the man tripped and fell forward onto his knees, cursing as the jolt re-sparkled Nim’s circuitry. Her body blazed into life even as she lay across the man’s shoulders like a bag of bones. Asenath blinked against the light, and made out the shape of the HawkEye, arms draped over the shoulders of two Showmaniese, head lolling, heels dragging. She went to pull her scimitar from the sheath at her back when a blunt block swung in and connected with her temple.

  Consciousness returned in a prickling of awareness accompanied by searing pain. Asenath blinked several times. She became aware of the rough texture of bricks against one cheek and pushed herself up. She sat a moment, temple pulsing, rubbing the dirt and salt from her palms.

  A voice came to her, small and uncertain. She rose shakily to her feet.

  “Asenath? Is that you?” Lulu staggered up. He collapsed onto the sand brick path, curled into himself and let out a sob. “Those blood worms took Hellequin.” The ladyboy tried to dab his nose and eyes but seemed unable to keep his hand steady at his face.

  “You’re high on Dazzle Dust, ya?” Asenath didn’t need a reply. Even as the ladyboy cringed into a ball of self-loathing then burst out laughing in a pitch to match the jackal dogs, she’d already guessed it.

  “You’d better sober up, boy, and get yourself back to Cyber Circus with me,” she said sharply.

  “Aye. Time to go night night.” Lulu giggled but clawed his way to stand. As Asenath took up the burden of her bloody sack, Lulu glanced around blearily.

  “Where’s Nim?” he asked.

  THIRTEEN

  “Tali! Tali! We did it, gal. We got the deal done. Look here.”

  Jackerie Rongun waved the document up under his wife’s nose. She took it for herself, held it off a little and focused in.

  “Jackerie Rongun... provision of Soul Food Plant Food to the Humock National Farmers Guild... under statute 69 of Humock’s Biogrowth Law... ninety dollars a quart.” Tali Rongun glanced up. Her eyes shone in part-disbelief, part-wonderment.

  “You hear that, Hellequin? Deal’s done and dusted. Bet you’re not so eager to sign up with the military now, son.” Jackerie’s face had the same snub-nosed look it always did when referring to his eldest son’s rogue ambitions. “Makes you think, huh? A bit of knowhow mixed in with a whole lot of effort can bring home one helluva prize.”

  Hellequin watched his father crow, heard his mother praise the Saints and start planning her spending – new apron material, beading for his youngest sister Lily-Anne’s Sunday Best dress, a flock of peckers to lay enough those delicious lemony eggs of theirs, plus a book of Southern Plain Ornithology for her bedridden momma in the room next door. All the while, Hellequin’s siblings had joined in with the mood of triumph. Twin boys clambered out their boots and bounced on the low divan. Second eldest, Hellequin’s sister, Lu-Georgia, held onto her curls and sucked her fingers, wild-eyed at the family’s nonsense, but lit up on the inside no doubt by the thought of ninety dollars a quart. Hellequin was sure she joined their mother in thoughts of all they could buy – the dresses, the scents, the smart jackets, the jacquard curtains, not to mention a Sirinese man servant to shine the silver and wind the clocks.

  “What about the crops that died out at the west hill?” Hellequin asked softly. His statement swept the room silent.

  “Faulty batch. Test crop from early on in the season.” Jackerie got narrow-eyed. “You want to brawl with me again over that? Today, boy?” He snatched the document back from his wife and shook it close to Hellequin’s face, forcing his son to blink. “This piece of paper makes a world of difference to your mother and I, to this family and to this homestead.”

  “I’m just asking you to analyse the soil up on the west field. It’s dry and grey, more dust that dirt. And the greenbacks? Yesterday I saw one grown as big as a man’s fist. Creature like that could feed on a hundred times the quantity of crops as its ancestors.” Hellequin felt his own voice scattering like dust in the wind. None of his family wanted his sourness to ruin their good fortune. Every one of them stared at him with distaste and one wish. Just go away.

  Only Jackerie voiced the sentiment. “I think that’s the barracks I hear calling your name, son. Time to suit up and boot up. And let me tell you, once you step outside this house, you’d best keep on walking. ‘Cause in our memories you’ll be no more alive anymore than the sloughed skin of a rattler.”

  Half an hour later, Hellequin had arrived downstairs with his pack and best boots on. His mother and sisters cried and moaned at his departure. His twin brothers lay asleep on the divan, sucking thumbs like liquorice sticks. His father rocked backwards and forwards on his heels as if to use up the minutes remaining.

  “On your way, son.” Jackerie opened the door. Beyond the world was on fire beneath a sunset.

  Hellequin stepped out onto the porch. The wind whipped up, driving dust into his eyes. He heard the beat of hoppers’ wings, Nim’s cry of suffering, the sorrowful pipe of the calliope, and Herb’s cry of “Come one, come all!”

  The dream fractured. He swam back to the surface.

  Slowly he focused in on a gas lamp swinging overhead.

  “Hello Lieutenant Rongun. Pleasant dreams?”

  A face interrupted the blaze of light. The pale green eyes were familiar, as was the scar at one eyebrow where a skirmish early on in the civil war had seen the man take a slice of flint courtesy of a well-aimed rock rifle.

  “Corporeal Lars.” Hellequin didn’t need to test the restraints which bound him to the table; an ex soldier like Lars was capable of securing an unconscious man. He
also understood how he had been brought down. It was only when attacked from multiple vantage points that his Daxware had lost perspective, and, with it, the advantage of advanced defence systems. It would take a soldier in the know to hijack a HawkEye.

  “How you been, Lieutenant? Good? Yeah, I can see that. You’ve got a sweet deal with the carnie crew. Stand up and tell a tale or two? Bet they got you shooting holes in bits of paper they shower down too, hey? Yeah, I heard about your gig on the grapevine, but I never thought you’d hawk it here in Zan City. My lucky day, huh?”

  Hellequin swallowed. His throat was dry as baked clay. That face! It had haunted him over the years, belonging to Corporal Jay Lars – the soldier he had left behind in Zan City all those years before.

  “I see you carved yourself a new life in Zan City, Corporal.”

  “Carved is the right word.” The man sneered, showing two great holes in his cheeks. He poked his tongue through one, wiggled it and sneered again. “Took a bullet clean through my face that first night. Whaddya make to that, Lieutenant?”

  “There was protocol to follow,” Hellequin embarked but Lars interrupted, keen to tell his tale.

  “I was left for dead in a ditch for three nights. Swept out the very bar I saw you in this evening. No more significant that a pan full of dust.”

  Hellequin remembered the figure who had occupied the shadows at Solomon’s bar that evening. Now he understood why the silhouette of the man had seemed so familiar. The distinctive angles of the Humock Guard duster coat had struck a chord, once worn by the hundreds of foot soldiers who’d fought tooth and nail on the government’s behalf. His own faded blue frockcoat had been part of a uniform peculiar to the HawkEye – as if the aim had been to despatch his kind to the heavens in their lung baskets and have them blend with the blue skies. Sometimes it made the HawkEye too clear a target. Just like that evening.

  “Ah, the dreams I had in that ditch,” continued the Corporal. He braced his hands either side of the table and leant over Hellequin, his pale green eyes hard with the lust for vengeance. “I dreamt about my wife believing I was dead and shacking up with another man. I dreamt about my young son being raised by my replacement – a red-skinned Jeridian bastard with his hands on everything I owned.”

  Lars grimaced. He appeared to ride a wave of untenable grief. “When I woke, I was left to the squalor of Zan City’s residential district. The coat, see.” Lars pinched the lapel of his duster coat and gave it a disgruntled tug. “There’s folk here who still respect the guard for winning the war. There’s folk who’ll still pick a soldier up out of the gutter, pack his shot-out cheeks with herb-mix and minister to him ‘til the flesh heals. And there’s others who’ll leave a man to die when he gets jumped and can’t get back to his platoon on time.”

  “Protocol,” Hellequin repeated. He was still soggy with the fumes off the rag that had been applied to his mouth and nose earlier.

  “Protocol? Bloody mindedness more like.” The ex-soldier’s hand loomed large over Hellequin’s face. It poked at the HawkEye implant; the lens telescoped out to focus on the whorled fingertip then retracted. “All this vision and you still couldn’t see your way to rescuing me.”

  The hand disappeared. Lar brought his face back close to Hellequin’s. “Fortunately for me, I’m the resourceful type. The old maid who fixed me up had these tales of how she’d rescued me from blood worms who traded in living flesh. Demand was high thanks to the biomorph specialist in residence just a few short streets away. Didn’t take me long to realise there’s only one way to protect yourself against blood worms in this city. Become one.”

  The ex-soldier smiled, showing off the great lacerations in his cheeks. “Let me introduce my boss, Miss Yalda Danan.”

  He stepped out of Hellequin’s sightline, allowing a new figure to move into view. The woman was Sirinese, her hair tucked up under a blood-stained bandana. Wisps of it escaped to frame her face, like shreds of clothhod fleece caught on barbed wire. Her nose was hooked, the nostrils large and flared – holes into her soul. She was crumpled with age, the necklace of small, bird-like bones around her neck betraying witch doctor inclinations. Smiling, she showed off the dull black stubs of her teeth.

  “Good morning, Sir. Yes, it is indeed morning, although an hour or so short of sunrise. Never mind though, you and I, we have our work to do, wouldn’t you say?” She tried for familiarity and kindness; the range of surgical instruments she examined under the weak gaslight as she spoke suggested she was anything but.

  Hellequin bucked against his restraints. His heart pulsed behind his ribs. “I’ve been rearranged enough for one lifetime,” he muttered and thrashed his head side to side... Only to be terrified anew when he saw another figure stretchered on a second table. Nim’s luxuriant red hair flowed around a steaming gas mask. Her entire face was covered by the mask, a black rubber and glass arrangement with a protruding snout and a great many mechanical buckles fastening it in place. Hellequin could hear the bubble of steam, alongside the draw and ebb of gas fed into the mask. Nim was anaesthetised – at least he prayed she was with every last trace of religious principle he possessed. She had been disrobed and cut open, a mess of bloody wires protruding from one arm.

  “I will tear out your throat, bitch,” he told the surgeon through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, there now. No need to be unpleasant. We each have our jobs to do and, well, since your Daxware requires you to protect those you serve with, it seems you didn’t do your job very well when it comes to the little lady. Then again, as Lars tells it, you never were quite wired right in that regard.” The wizen witch shook her head as she held up the long needle of a surgical suture. “Leaving a soldier behind? It’s a sin the Saints themselves could not forgive. And all that talk of protocol? Just a glitch in your Daxware. I’d stake my professional reputation on it.”

  “What are you hurting Nim for?” Hellequin fought against the leather straps securing him, his knuckles going white.

  “I’m not hurting her. I’m fixing her. After all, I was the one responsible for installing her wiring in the first place. Mister D’Angelus thought it would make her a unique proposition for his clientėle. As it turned out, that same difference made her such an unusual act with the circus. But any fool can see her wiring needs a little attention. Added to which, the dust handlers who pass through here have suggested D’Angelus wants his main attraction back.” The surgeon squinted at the needle. “Quite the generous financial settlement for whoever returns her in one fully-functioning piece. And I’m not just going to repair her. I’m going to improve her.”

  “Without her permission!” Hellequin lifted his head as much as he was able. His vision swam until he focused on the restraints holding him down. The belted straps restrained him at the wrist, upper arms, hips and ankles. His head dropped back again.

  “Well, I’m inclined to think the least of my worries is whether the whore gives permission. No, I am concerned purely with restoring her biomorph functions and pleasing Mister D’Angelus, who is one of my very best customers.” The surgeon knocked against her black front teeth with the tip of a scalpel. “A sweet tooth for sugar root ensured Mister D’Angelus had a mouthful of rotters. Luckily we encountered one another and I was able to form him a new set.” Miss Yalda Danan looked pleased with herself, adding, “The teeth are bolted into the jaw, you know.”

  “And pulled from the mouths of dead men as the dust handlers tell it.”

  The woman shrugged. “Most of them were dead when I embarked on the extractions.” Her eyes grew wide like a child’s in wonderment. “And now I have my own HawkEye to study into the bargain. A live one this time.” Over a shoulder, she said, “Well done, Lars. Very well done indeed.”

  “My pleasure,” Hellequin heard his ex-comrade mutter from the far side of the room.

  “Two hundred dollars I believe we agreed,” murmured the surgeon, bringing the scalpel to bear on the amber lens of Hellequin’s eyepiece. She placed the tip onto the uppermo
st ring; the eye tried to retract in on itself, whirring like an angry fly as it was prevented from doing so. “You’ll find the money roll on the table. Under the spare parts cabinet.”

  She left his eyepiece alone and gave her attention to the tray of surgical instruments. Hellequin twisted his head to one side and stared over at the cabinet. His HawkEye focused in on jars of organs pickled in formaldehyde – a pair of pink lungs gilled like an unusual fungus, a heart pinned in place to form a fleshy pincushion, myriad eyes crammed into one large bottle, and numerous other horrors. Boxes were stacked on top of one another and labelled with such macabre titles as ‘fingers’, ‘tongues’, ‘horns’, ‘marsupial tails’, ‘assorted scales’ and ‘wings.’

  Hellequin shifted his head to stare the other way. The opposite side of the room resembled a tinker’s workshop. Spools of wiring nestled between circuit boards, transformers, brackets and a great many stainless steel mechanisms.

  Bile washed up into Hellequin’s mouth. The decision to leave Lars behind all those years before had been a dark one, even with his emotions stilted by his implant. But now it struck him as an even greater imposition on the world since he had abandoned a soldier and, in so doing, unleashed a monster. How many men, women and children had Lars lured to that sterile torture chamber? And while he had to admit Nim was all the more exquisite for her light system, how many abominations had the surgeon created alongside?

  “Aren’t you going to stitch her up?” he shot sideways at the surgeon.

  “Dust. It gets everywhere,” murmured the woman distractedly. She breathed on the blade of a small hacksaw and rubbed it carefully against the sleeve of her dark grey pinafore. She laid it down again, and, seeming to remember Lar’s presence, twisted around on what Hellequin took to be the stool she perched on. “You can leave us now, Lars, if you like. I’m just going to have a poke around the thing.” She used a fine metal skewer to gesture loosely towards Hellequin’s eyepiece.