Blue War: A Punktown Novel

by Jeffrey Thomas

  The new commander of Ha Jiin border security, as of this very afternoon, nodded in return. Stake watched the man pivot on his heel like a soldier on parade, and march away.

  Inside the hoverbus, waiting for Stake, were Persia Barbour and the crew from ECNN. The latter had been forbidden from filming the proceedings inside the palace, but had shot Stake entering and leaving the building from inside the vehicle. He showed them all his sword, and the cameraman took footage of it while Persia noted, “The more you’re in the public eye, like Brian, the less likely anyone in the government or CF will dare put a finger on you.”

  “No longer an advocate of hiding, Mrs. Barbour?”

  “I just hope that seeing the Ha Jiin make so much of you doesn’t cause the Jin Haa and our own people to lose sight of all you’ve done for them.”

  “Let them hate me. With David Bright dead, someone has to be the pariah.”

  Persia’s former in-laws had come along, as well, as had Brian and Bernard, who was sharing with Lewton Barbour’s parents his knowledge of the boy’s needs and behaviors.

  “Our miracle boy’s come amazingly far in just a matter of weeks,” Bernard noted. “I’ve taught him something new today, detective. Want to hear it?”

  “Sure.”

  Bernard bent low and interrupted the boy from scribbling with crayons to whisper in his ear. Brian promptly beamed up at Stake and said, “Jer-a-MEE!”

  ***

  A number of gorgeous Jin Haa women with killer cheekbones and inky hair, spaced along the bar of the Cobalt Temple lounge, smiled at Stake as he made his way past them, and he wondered if one of them were the “clean, classy” lady David Bright had favored and fatally sent his KeeZee to retrieve. At the end of the bar was a person with a rather less welcoming expression, however: Dominic Gale, with two soldiers on the stools flanking him. Though Stake could now see Richard Argos sitting alone across the room, and beckoning to him, Stake went to Gale first. The colonel had summoned him with a jerk of his goateed chin.

  “Going home tomorrow, Stake?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.” The private investigator started away, but looked back to say, “How’s it feel to be Argos’s new bodyguard, colonel? Or should I say, his new robot? I’m sure Ami Pattaya would be proud.”

  “Listen, Stake. Come here,” Gale snapped. When the detective had returned a few steps, Gale said in a lower, more subdued voice, “I just want you to know that no matter what gets investigated now, no matter what might come out in the media about Wonky Science and all...well, you know the rumors about the plague. The rumor that it’s been spread intentionally. I just want you to know that no matter what, I wouldn’t have anything to do with something like that. I wouldn’t.”

  Stake stared at the man for a long moment, and nodded. He believed him about that much. “I’ve got a date with your buddy now, if you’ll excuse me.” He then turned away to go join Richard Argos at his table in the murkiest corner of the room. It wasn’t until he seated himself opposite Argos that he saw a cable was plugged into one of the jacks in the businessman’s skull, the other end attached to a small device tucked into a breast pocket of his jacket. His expensive business suit was a brilliant white.

  Stake waved a hand in front of the man’s face as if he might be in a trance. “Are you here with me, Mr. Argos, or in the ultranet at the moment?”

  “I’m in the shallow end of the pool,” Argos said amicably, lounging back in his seat. “Doing a little business. It’s what you call multi-tasking, consolidating my time. What’s the matter, detective – you can’t pat your head and rub your belly at the same time? Don’t worry, you have my undivided attention despite appearances.”

  A waitress brought them drinks; an exotic green concoction in a martini glass for Argos and a Zub beer for Stake. As if his own bright green drink reminded him of his dead twin robots, Argos said, “I’m terribly sorry to hear my two robots attacked you and your friends, Mr. Stake. It’s very unfortunate that their brains were destroyed; now we won’t know what terrorist might have reprogrammed them to do such a thing.”

  “Mm.”

  “It could be someone trying to frame me.”

  “A lot of heinous plots like that going around – yeah.”

  Stake repositioned himself anxiously in his seat, and glanced over his shoulder toward the entrance to the lounge as if he might spot a Ha Jiin monk lingering in the threshold. He had looked up and down the street before entering the Cobalt Temple, but had seen not a single cleric. No flock of metallic blue birds perched on the ledge of a roof, awaiting their commands. No snipe crouching with glowing eyes under a parked vehicle. As terrifying as any one of these things would have been, he was nevertheless disappointed by their absence.

  “How’s my dear Persia looking these days? A lovely, lovely lady. Have you thought of asking her out for a drink? She’s a bit of a cold fish, I’m afraid, though I intend to look her up when I’ve ventured back to Oasis myself.”

  “You can stop trying to give me the creeps; it’s not something you have to force.”

  “Oh boy, Mr. Stake – please remind me why I even agreed to meet with you tonight at all?”

  “It’s our Building the Better Booby-trap competition. No fun unless you can look your competitor in the eye.”

  “Sounds more like chess.”

  “Whatever your analogy of choice is.”

  “The fact of the matter is that the business I’m conducting,” Argos tapped the ultranet pod in his pocket, “is a meeting with my lawyer, and I’m a bit stressed this evening with all the commotion going on, so I’d hoped we might be civil and relax a little together. Call a temporary truce, you know, like what happened at Christmas during World War One? The two enemy forces coming out of their trenches to exchange gifts before they went back to shooting each other’s heads off the next day? I love that story.” Argos dabbed a mock tear from his eye. Stake despised him. The man steeped in his own loathsomeness with something like glee. Stake supposed that was all a part of being so successful: celebrating your flaws until they became something exalted. “You know, just a couple of regular guys out for a few drinks?”

  “You and I will never be regular guys.”

  “I’ll drink to that!” Argos raised his glass. “And who would ever want to be?”

  Argos’s glass remained poised in midair, and his face took on a quizzical expression, as if a thought had occurred to him and stayed his hand halfway to his mouth. After several beats, watching the man’s fixed but unseeing eyes, Stake leaned forward and said, “Mr. Argos?” He wanted to wave his hand in front of the businessman’s eyes again.

  The glass dropped from Argos’s hand, striking the glass tabletop and shattering. Argos fell back on his cushioned seat, and through the clear table Stake saw his legs beginning to spasm and jerk. His arms were flopping, spread out to his sides, as well. A weird sound rose and fell from the man’s gaping mouth, and still his eyes didn’t blink.

  “What is it?” Stake heard Colonel Gale call behind him, and as the detective got to his feet the officer and two soldiers came to his side. The four of them looked on as Argos’s seizure rapidly intensified, and he flung his head from side to side. His arms batted at the air as if to drive off a swarm of stinging wasps.

  One of Gale’s men said, “Sir, I think it’s his ultranet connection – we should disconnect him!”

  The other soldier started forward, but Gale thrust out an arm to block his chest. In an uncommonly cool tone, the colonel said, “Don’t touch him. Just call Dr. Laloo down here.”

  “Sir,” the first soldier said, “he might not survive until Dr. Laloo gets here!”

  “We don’t want to make his condition any worse by acting rashly. Unless you forgot to tell me you’re a field surgeon, private, you’ll just do as I say.”

  The soldier complied, stepping aside to activate his comp. Stake glanced over at Gale, but the officer continued to watch Argos as h
e thrashed and wouldn’t acknowledge him.

  Finally, wailing uncannily as he whipped his head, Argos managed perhaps by accident to catch hold of the cable jacked into his skull, and tear it lose. It was as though his power source had been severed. The seizure immediately ceased, and as Argos’s arched, rigid back settled, a wisp of bluish smoke uncoiled from the port in his shaven head.

  Argos’s eyes rolled like those of a man lost in the thrall of drugs, but when they found Stake the man reached a hand out to him. Stake moved in close. Argos grasped the front of his shirt, drew him lower to whisper in his ear.

  “Snipes,” he said. “Snipes.”

  Stake felt the hand clutching his shirt relax, and then it slipped away, Argos’s arm falling limply across his chest. Stake straightened up, saw that the man’s eyes were still open but seeing into a realm as devoid of anything as the ultranet was full.

  Stake looked around at Gale, but the man continued to ignore his gaze, despite their complicity in what had just taken place. Instead, the Colonial Forces commander gave new orders to his underling.

  “Call Dr. Laloo again, and tell him that Richard Argos is dead.”

  EPILOGUE: WAR HEROES

  Yelling children preceded the rumbling vehicle into Vein Rhi like a scruffy vanguard, looking over their shoulders as they ran to get a sense of where exactly in town the machine was headed. With its windows tinted an opaque black on the outside, it was impossible for them to know who was inside, but it was obviously a military conveyance. It eventually ground to a halt in front of the house of Thi Gonh’s cousin, Nhot, whose father and mother were also on the scene, lending a hand as Thi and her husband Hin made preparations to leave their temporary home. With the machine’s arrival, they had all stopped in the middle of loading boxes into the back of a wagon harnessed to a snorting, restless yubo and another pulled by a three-wheeled motorbike. Commander Hin Yengun and six of his patrolmen emerged from the muscular vehicle and jumped to the ground. The new border security commander was in his dress uniform, and holstered at his side was a huge Decimator .340 revolver that had once belonged to a mercenary named Johnny Esperanto.

  “Sir,” Yengun said to Thi’s uncle, greeting him as the patriarch of the extended family, as was customary. The uncle, a former captain in the Blue War, gave a crisp but wary nod in return. Yengun then focused his attention on Thi herself. Her hair was tied back in a jaggy ponytail and her thin, yellow top and pants were smudged with the dirt of her labors. “I have come on behalf of our leader, Director Zee,” Yengun announced in the Ha Jiin language, “to recognize a former war hero for their contribution to the good of the Ha Jiin people.”

  The uncle straightened his posture a little, but it was to Thi that the commander walked, extending to her a parcel wrapped in a velvet cloth. She wiped her hands on her legs before accepting it. A corner of the cloth was folded back to reveal the handle and part of the blade of a century-old short sword.

  “Accept this token of Director Zee’s appreciation for aiding in the efforts to halt the Blue City and thwart our latest enemies, but also in belated recognition of your courageous service during our civil war.”

  Thi nodded. She was too humble to smile in pride.

  Yengun’s smile signified that he was now relating his own sentiments, and not representing the chief of his nation. “We have much work ahead of us, regarding the Blue City. With the help of the Earth Colonies, some areas will be razed but most of them will have to remain, and we will make of them what we can. It is my understanding that you have decided to claim the portion of the city that once was your farm?”

  “Yes, sir. We are heading there now. There are several buildings we are converting to our uses.” The windows of one building had been extensive energy barriers separated by thin frames. Only the frames had been reproduced, allowing much sun and rain to enter into the various floors of this structure. Thi hoped that they could spread soil deeply enough on the floors of these rooms to build a multi-leveled greenhouse of sorts to grow crops in. On the ground floor of another, smaller building in which they intended to live, they planned to open a small store out of which to sell these crops – and other items trucked in from Coo Lon – to their neighbors. They were auctioning off their yubos in exchange for a small breed of comestible bird and to help fund the customization of their transformed property.

  “Many families will be doing the same,” Yengun said. “More and more of them will be returning to the Blue City. They will find themselves at risk from the benders and packs of snipes that have become rampant there and taken to hunting refugees. Our security forces will be taxed, and we will need to either recruit more soldiers or deputize citizens to give us assistance. I would like to reinstate your military status, Thi Gonh, and ask you to lend me your support. Your skills as a sniper would be of much use to us in ridding the city of these dangerous creatures, and in keeping the peace by discouraging two-legged predators and troublemakers.”

  This time Thi allowed herself a smile. “I am honored by your offer, sir, but I will be so busy working on my property...”

  “Of course, but will you consider it, at least? Our crews work on a rotating basis. If you could only give me a day or two in that schedule, even that will help.”

  Thi looked over at her husband. He had always known of her skills as a combat sniper, but except for the killing of animals had never seen this for himself until the two robots had attacked. From his hiding place that day, he’d witnessed her dispatching the second automaton. Thi then glanced at her uncle. He was looking on with hurt pride rather than pride for his niece, since his hands held no velvet-wrapped sword of his own, but he still stood erect in an obligatory attitude of respect. Yengun followed the woman’s line of sight and saw the cowed look in the two men. He next took in Nhot, with her scabrous bald head. Jeremy Stake had told him about her. Nhot met Yengun’s gaze. Yengun stared at her until she was forced to avert her eyes lest they catch flame in their skull sockets.

  “I will consider your offer,” Thi told the commander.

  “Fair enough.” He backed away a step. “Fair enough. Regardless of your decision, I will be around your property from time to time, to see how you are progressing, and if there is anything I can do for you.” Yengun turned to face Thi’s husband and moved close to him. He leaned his head in closer, and in an intimate low tone said, “You are married to a very special woman, sir. You would be wise to count your blessings. Should you forget how fortunate you are, and so much as pluck one hair from her head, my men and I will nail you to a tree in the jungle, and every day we will visit you and take off another inch of your worthless hide.” Then, grinning as if at an old friend, Yengun patted Hin’s shoulder. Before he walked away Yengun heard the man’s throat click as he swallowed.

  Yengun returned to Thi’s side, and this time leaned in close to her, too. He murmured, “There is someone in my vehicle who is waiting to see you, if you would please let yourself inside a moment.”

  Without explaining herself to her husband or any of the others, Thi Gonh moved toward the dusty vehicle resting there on its big wheels, stepped up onto its running board and opened one of its hatch-like doors. There was a lone Earth man sitting far back inside. He was in his neutral, “factory settings” mode, as anonymous as a crash test dummy that awaited some planned cataclysm, and yet even without his little porkpie hat Thi would have recognized him. She shut the door heavily behind her so she could go sit close to Jeremy Stake. As soon as she had done so, their arms went tightly around each other and she laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

  Stroking her small, sleek head, Stake whispered to her, “I’m going home now.” She nodded against him. “If you ever need me, you call me. I’m only a dimension away.” She nodded again.

  After a few hushed moments, during which he continued to stroke her hair, she began speaking to him. What she said was entirely in her own language, but he knew she was articulating to him what she needed to hear herself say. And while he only
comprehended a few of the words himself, such as the last term she used, Jeremy Stake understood his former enemy perfectly well.

  She said to him, “I understand now why I love you. I have many faces, too. A face for my husband, a face for my lover. Face of a patriot, face of a traitor. We have both been seen as traitors by our people, but we have always been true to ourselves, haven’t we? I have heard they are proposing a name we can call this city by. They want to name it Paxton – the ‘town of peace.’ Some people don’t like that idea and want to call it something new, but I hope that is what they call it. I want to know I am living in the same city you are living in. Walking the same streets you are walking. I will be under these twin stars, but I will also be beside you, in Punktown, my Ga Noh.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jeffrey Thomas is an American author of fantastical fiction, the creator of the acclaimed milieu Punktown. Books in the Punktown universe include the short story collections Punktown, Voices From Punktown, Punktown: Shades of Grey (with his brother, Scott Thomas), and Ghosts of Punktown. Novels in that setting include Deadstock, Blue War, Monstrocity, Health Agent, Everybody Scream!, and Red Cells. His stories have been selected for inclusion in The Year’s Best Horror Stories (Editor, Karl Edward Wagner), The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (Editors, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling), and Year’s Best Weird Fiction (Editor, Laird Barron). Thomas lives in Massachusetts.

  Novels in the Punktown series:

  MONSTROCITY

  There are haunted places. Haunted houses. The metropolis of Punktown, on the planet Oasis, is a haunted city. An unassuming and aimless young man has begun to perceive the city’s dark tentacles in the lay of the streets. Its roots in the labyrinth of the subways. Its polluted taint in the eyes of the people he knows, and even loves. And this evil is stirring, building toward an apocalyptic culmination. The city is not only haunted – it’s perhaps a living thing.