Fiona wrapped herself around Gieo in an intimate way they hadn’t really ever gotten around to in the week they’d shared the bed upon Gieo’s arrival. The comforting position of breathing in the smell of Fiona’s skin with her face nestled under Fiona’s chin nearly put Gieo into a blissful sleep on contact. Fiona gently stroked the back of Gieo’s neck with the very tips of her fingers in idle passes.
“If you tell anyone I said cuddle,” Fiona whispered. “I’ll have to kill them.”
“So only people I don’t like?” Gieo whispered back.
“Exactly.”
Chapter 13: The history of Vegas chess.
By early afternoon, even the makeshift curtains constructed of blankets couldn’t hold out the heat of the day. Gieo awoke and reluctantly left Fiona’s embrace. Fiona stirred when she slipped away, but rolled back to sleep shortly after. Gieo checked Fiona’s forehead to make sure the fever hadn’t risen again. Thankfully, the gunfighter seemed to be thermal regulating on her own. Gieo pulled on her boots and slipped downstairs to seek out food for Fiona.
Bond-O and Mitch were trying to work the kitchen together through a lulled lunch crowd. With the hunters free to come and go as they pleased, the town had gone back to being nearly empty during the day. Sandwiches appeared to be on the menu, although with the whimsical approach Gieo had come to know as commonplace with Bond-O’s cooking. Anything he had two of could create the outsides while anything that couldn’t be counted on to hold together as an outside piece was relegated to filling. Some of the sandwiches seemed like reasonably creative attempts, while others were patently ridiculous. Gieo took two of the pancake sandwiches. The first had a filling of tomatoes and apples, while the second was stuffed with slow-cooked chicken pieces, chilies, and pickled okra. The other, less appealing options seemed to be two slabs of unidentifiable, undercooked meat surrounding cactus strips and ancient powdered donuts all held together with peanut butter.
As she was departing, she waved to the enthusiastically learning Bond-O and smiled; his food contained actual food now at least. The thought occurred to her that Bond-O was a little like Fiona in that both of them were far better off in the new world order. She wondered how many of the survivors of the invasion and the cataclysm perpetrated by man in retaliation were somehow better off than they’d been before civilization crumbled. She was happy that Bond-O would never again know the medicated stupor of a mental hospital and that Fiona could find a useful outlet for her chaos tics. Still, something about the thought nagged at her.
Until she’d seen the upside of the invasion and fall of man for so many, Gieo hadn’t ever really thought about exactly what she’d missed out on. The summer the Slark invaded, she was preparing for college at MIT. The world was opening up to her in beautiful ways that spoke of a life on the cusp of blossoming. Now, she was teaching a mental patient how to cook to avoid malnutrition, nursing a dangerously violent woman back to health in hopes of developing a relationship with her, and attaching electric toothbrushes to tea kettles as her primary means of support. The realization settled a sullen cloud over her. She’d had to be a survivor on her own for so long, seeing opportunity in catastrophe for lack of any other option, that she’d never really let herself wallow in what was actually stolen from her by the Slark. She’d grieved for her parents, for her favorite TV shows, for the pop singers she’d liked that were no doubt dead, but she’d never mourned for the loss of the person she was meant to be.
Back in the room, Gieo found Fiona already trying to get dressed. She set the plate of food on the nightstand again, and began undoing all the work Fiona had managed in clothing herself.
“I need to go hunting,” Fiona protested.
“The sack of coins at the end of the bed says you don’t need to do that again anytime soon,” Gieo said.
“Okay, fine,” Fiona grumbled, “I want to go hunting.”
“I wanted to go to MIT, marry a Wellesley girl, graduate with honors, and work for NASA, but that didn’t exactly happen either! So fuck what you want—my list is longer!”
Fiona took off her own shirt and slid back into bed, watching Gieo with wide eyes.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” Gieo murmured. “I’m going to go get cleaned up and see what Veronica wants.” She made it to the door before Fiona spoke.
“I know you’ve made sacrifices,” Fiona said. She didn’t say anything else before she started eating, but somehow just hearing Fiona admit as much made Gieo feel a little better.
Gieo took a quick sponge bath on the roof. She dressed in her black and purple saloon girl dress with the shiny, tight top and flowing, ruffled skirt. As with most of her clothes, she’d modified the dress with leather strips to hold widgets, hooks, and necessary gear-workings to have it interface with an airship. She’d actually worn the dress while piloting her second dirigible—it was something of a good luck charm, and it left her shoulders and chest bare in an appealing way. She added her leather top hat, and gave Ramen a pat on the head before heading out.
“Have you thought about a puppy?” Ramen asked in parting.
“It’s on my list.”
The streets were clear and eerily quiet. Dust eddies, kicked up by the swirling desert ground-breezes danced across Gieo’s path. Aside from her own, knee-high Victorian lace-up boots crunching across the remains of asphalt and creaky, metal signs shifting in the wind, there was nothing to differentiate Tombstone from a ghost town. She couldn’t put her finger on it, nothing more than a crawling feeling at the back of her neck, but something told her to look over her shoulder before turning the corner at the end of the street. Four cultist men, moving as quietly as the dust eddies themselves, were coming up on her quickly.
She turned the corner and ran.
In the dress, with the high-heel boots, she knew she wasn’t going to get away from the swift-moving scarecrows, but she could avoid their limited sight. She crossed the next street up, ran a few buildings down, and ducked into a narrow alleyway between two buildings. The dark, fetid air was several degrees cooler than the street. The smell of dried motor oil and mildew was suddenly overpowered by the stench of unwashed human flesh. Two of the milky-eyed cultists stepped across the shaded alleyway entrance, hearing, rather than seeing Gieo as she tried to slink back into the gap so narrow it could only be walked down single-file. She’d selected the alley poorly and her heart sank when she felt a chain-link fence press against her back. A quick glance over her shoulder told her the fence was not only un-climbable, but, even if she did manage to get over the barbwire-topped, ten foot tall fence, she would just be in a second enclosed two-foot wide gap between the fence and another building.
As little as she knew about fighting, she knew that was her last resort, and so tried to look as fearsome as possible by crouching and getting into something of a karate stance; she desperately hoped the cultists were foolish enough to believe all Asians were secretly ninjas, Shaolin monks, or karate masters. Before they could even decide who was to go down the alley first, both cultists dissolved into pulpy red slurry from hips to chest. Gunfire, more hollow and thunderous than the metallic shriek and explosion of Fiona’s gun, registered, but almost seemed unrelated to Gieo as she couldn’t see the shooter. The cultists looked as surprised as she did at the sudden transformation of their midsections into ground meat. Two more powerful gun shots and two more bodies falling let Gieo know whoever had come to her rescue had also finished off the other two cultists following her.
Her mouth was dry and her hands shaky. Slowly, she crept toward the front of the alley, hoping whoever took down the cultists didn’t do so with the intention of kidnapping her for themselves. She half-expected to see Fiona in the street; she’d gotten so used to the gunfighter’s timely interventions that another would have felt routine. Instead, strolling across the mouth of the gap, brazen as you please, removing two spent shells from the breach of a double barrel, ten-gauge shotgun, was Veronica, wearing a wedding dress modified into prostitution appropriat
e attire.
“If it isn’t Fiona’s lovely little pet,” Veronica said in her smooth, practiced southern Belle persona. She shouldered the smoking shotgun, cocked her hip to one side, and smiled like an armed and dangerous blushing bride. “I was just about to pay you a friendly visit. Come take a stroll with me.”
Gieo gingerly stepped over the felled cultists, shuddering when she felt her boots squish into…she had no idea what it was, but it was red, spongy, and smelled horrible. Veronica offered her free hand to help guide Gieo through the slippery mess, and Gieo gladly took it.
“I’m getting a little sick of being rescued,” Gieo muttered.
“If you’d like, I could teach you to fight,” Veronica said. When Gieo was clear of the mess, Veronica linked arms with her and guided her to walk down the middle of the street like two old friends on the way to afternoon tea. “I taught Fiona and she’s done mighty fine for herself.”
“I’m not all that comfortable with violence against people,” Gieo said.
Veronica giggled in a girlish titter, squeezing herself even closer to Gieo’s side. “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing!” she exclaimed. “Why would these blind gentleman want to do you harm?”
“They think I’m the devil and want to burn me at the stake.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to find out a precious little thing like yourself had the devil in you, but to be the devil incarnate, that seems like a mistake only blind men could make.” She winked as though it were reflex. The conspiratorial nature of the exchange sent a shiver through Gieo.
The affectation, which was ridiculously charming and only amplified by the virginally sexy wedding dress, lost a bit of its hypnotic power for Gieo after seeing Veronica obliterate four people with the limbered shotgun she had slung over her shoulder as though it were nothing more hazardous than a parasol. The strength and dangerous edge that Fiona wore like a shield, armor, and club to bludgeon with, was present in Veronica, Gieo could sense it just beneath the surface, but she wore it like a dirty secret, slutty lingerie concealed beneath pedestrian clothing, kept under wraps for special occasions. Gieo surprised herself a little in the realization that she found both very different types of dangerous women compelling and sexy.
The closer they got to the Raven Nest, the more of a shine the town began to boast. Cleanliness and a feminine touch radiated in ever-increasing waves off the brothel. The nearest few businesses and occupied buildings took to the Ravens’ influence readily; the positive nature of the influence was undeniable. Men, gentlemen really, were dressed cleanly, tipped their hats to the passing women, and spoke in cordial tones with one another. An infection of civility had found root in Tombstone, and the epicenter of the spread was the brothel.
“Fiona was always a knife looking from someone to hone the blade with an edge,” Veronica explained as they walked. “I supplied the edge and a purpose to the cutting, but her morality drove her to other, less ambiguous, endeavors and I’m sorry to say it created a divide between us that couldn’t be easily mended.”
“Tombstone seems like an odd haven for someone with morality,” Gieo said.
“Make no mistake, vice and turpitude exists in spades here, but there is no ambiguity to it. The four dead men divided into eight parts half a block behind us are a fine example—lousy morals, but their intention were clear.”
Finally reaching the Raven Nest, Gieo couldn’t have imagined something so opulent and feminine could even exist anywhere anymore, never mind that it had sprung up in the middle of Tombstone in a little over 24 hours. Women and services were advertised. More than just prostitution, simple pleasures like massages, burlesque shows, drinks, food, and a dance hall were all available for the right price; more decadent pleasures like spa treatments, medical services, and sexual favors were listed for astronomical prices that Gieo couldn’t imagine anyone in town could afford yet. The situation, combined with the needs of men, did nothing to dampen spirits as many sought out the simple comforts of female companionship even if it was little more than a dance or a shared drink. Men left happy with contented smiles on their cleanly shaven faces with printed photographs to remember their visit even if they were never touched in the process.
“This isn’t at all what I expected,” Gieo whispered.
Veronica tittered again and gave Gieo’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “The world was ruled by men because they were the first ones to climb to the top; knowing what we know about the world they created when given that chance, why on earth would we let them do it again?” Veronica handed off her shotgun to one of the girls on their way through the front door. The other women, charming song birds all, shot flirty glances, kind waves, and warm smiles in Gieo’s direction as they passed through the pleasant smelling halls of the Raven Nest. Gieo had to admit, if this was a picture of the world ruled by women, she couldn’t have agreed more.
Their final destination was a sitting room on the back half of the courthouse. It was likely at some point a cafeteria in its original incarnation, but had since undergone a transformation into a hookah lounge, entertainment hub, and tea parlor. Men sat in mixed company with women, joking laughing, sharing pots of tea and pulls from bubbling hookah pipes all while a string quartette of three beautiful women played soft strains of Vivaldi. Veronica ushered Gieo to a reserved table beneath a window, overlooking what had formerly been a parking lot, but which was quickly being turned into a garden of some kind. Something seemed off about the garden at first until she realized the nature of the plants being tended; she didn’t know a whole lot about drugs, but she’d gleaned from news programs what marijuana and poppy plants looked like. Superficially, the organization looked squeaky clean, but she imagined many of the hookahs were loaded with hashish or raw opium.
“I have questions for you, as I’m sure you have some for me,” Veronica said, folding her hands delicately in her lap. “Please, feel free to start with one of yours to get things rolling. I am nothing if not an open book.”
Gieo mirrored Veronica’s posture, pulling her knees together, tucking her feet beneath her chair, with her hands folded in her lap. “Why is Fiona called the Red Bishop or Red by some? I thought it was just a hair color thing, but it seems like there’s more to it than that.”
“It was a hair color thing, in a manner of speaking,” Veronica explained. “Our units in Las Vegas were designated by chess board pieces. We had many divisions that I won’t bore you with; suffice it to say, red was a division color, and Fiona was placed in it based, in part, on her hair color, but mostly due to her violent outbursts. She rose quickly from pawn to knight to rook and finally to bishop where she likely would have stayed had she not left our organization.”
“The parting due to the aforementioned moral ambiguity,” Gieo said. “Why would she have stayed a bishop though? Why not promote her to king or queen eventually?”
“There are no kings in the Lazy Ravens, and the positions of queens are difficult to come by. The Red Queen, who was the only one above Fiona, would have had to die, and Carolyn just isn’t the type.” A serving girl came around to their table, delivered a pot of tea, two tea cups of fine china, and a small tray of cut star fruit. Gieo almost didn’t recognize the exotic fruit it had been so long since she’d seen it.
“What position do you hold?”
“I am the White Queen.” Veronica poured a rose scented serving of tea into Gieo’s cup first, before filling her own. “White is the offensive side of the board in chess, thus, I am the colonizer while the Black Queen defends our holdings.”
“I was vice president of the chess club in high school,” Gieo said, immediately feeling silly for comparing an unimportant high school club to the ruling structure of a new world order.
“You’ll have to favor me with a game at some point,” Veronica said, seemingly unconcerned with any slight the comment might have carried. “I would like to get to know every little thing about you, my dear. The picture Fiona painted was most flattering, if not hastily sketched.
The broad brush strokes indicated you are a scientist.”
“Physics mostly,” Gieo said, “although I’m a quick study of most things mechanical and electrical.”
“You are also a pilot?” Veronica took a slow, lingering bite of a piece of star fruit, nibbling down one of the points in delicate bites that completely engrossed Gieo’s attention. “That sounds very exciting.”
The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head Page 15