by Leon, Mike
“They’re not Murder Machetes!” Mary Sue squeals back at him as she vanishes through the doors, leaving Sid and Jamie alone in the warm cavern of blinking LEDs and boxes.
“This is a huge mistake,” Jamie says. “You can’t listen to them. You really think destroying this machine will keep whoever built it from just making another one? Or somebody else? As long as it’s possible somebody will eventually do it. What if it’s Nazis? Or just some corporation that wants to sell cola? We can’t have people like that controlling the narrative. We have to get ahead of them and we have that chance right now, maybe never again.”
“I don’t understand much of this,” Sid says. “But the people who grabbed you earlier, the New World Order, they seem to think this supercomputer you guys built is going to cause some kind of apocalypse.”
“So you just believe them?”
“No. They lie all the time. They’re a secret shadow government. That’s what they do best. I just figure I’m here; so is the postmodern doomsday computer. Might as well scrap it. What can it hurt?”
“Everything. You know there are some people who actually need change. We can’t keep living with the way things are. You know almost half of transgender people attempt suicide?”
“Pussies.”
“You don’t know how hard it is. When I was nine, the school made me use the nurse’s bathroom because the boys and the girls didn’t want me in theirs. They called me she-male.”
“When I was nine, I spent the winter in the woods fashioning stone daggers to kill deer for meat and pelts,” Sid says. “Sometimes I slept inside the warm carcasses.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s not really a fair comparison.” Jamie exhales aggravated air. “It doesn’t mean people like me don’t have a right to exist.”
“Nobody has rights to anything. All that matters is what you can kill and what you can’t.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“Why not?”
“That’s like pure nihilism! Nobody actually believes that. It flies in the face of social contract theory. Nobody lives that way.”
Sid shrugs. “I do.”
Mary Sue returns hauling a laptop case, along with the bag of stuff Sid picked up at the Home Depot and a nylon belt attached to two sheathed matte black KA-BAR machetes which she drops on the floor next to him.
“And when somebody just comes and takes whatever they want from you, you’ll be okay with that?” Jamie posits.
“I’ll kill them,” Sid says.
“What if they have guns?”
“I’ll kill them.”
“What if it’s the government?”
“I’ll kill them.”
“You know Sid is a genetically engineered super soldier, right?” Mary Sue says. Sid shifts his gaze her direction and observes her to be in an unintentionally suggestive position as she crawls on all fours under the desk where the computer terminal is situated. Her tiny denim shorts hardly contain the luscious booty pointed at him like a cannon. “He solves all of his problems by killing someone.”
“I’m not genetically engineered,” Sid says, briefly mesmerized by dat ass. He wrests his attention back to Jamie for some intimation that the journalist might also be ogling, but only finds Jamie glaring at him in quiet judgment. Noteworthy. Jamie isn’t interested in the booty.
“You’re quicker than any unaugmented human, and stronger than most professional bodybuilders. Your jaw was broken in three places just last month and you already show no sign of discomfort.” Mary Sue scoots backwards from under the desk, having connected whatever cables she needed. “Also, bullets never hit you.”
“That shit again? I told you, I’m just good at utilizing cover.”
“I don’t know, Sid. The data doesn’t support that. Who was your mother?”
“I have no idea.”
“Your father never talked about her?”
“No. It doesn’t mean they grew me in a tube. You have pink hair. Does that mean somebody grew you in a tube?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m part Fae.”
“Huh?” Jamie says, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, what?” Sid echoes.
“I’m part Fae on my mom’s side,” Mary Sue answers, as if that should clear everything up without further explanation. “I wish I wasn’t. I’m a stupid ugly freak.”
Jamie speaks up before Sid can say anything. “You look like a Michael Turner drawing brought to life with magic.”
“Thanks, Jamie,” Mary says. “But you don’t have to lie to make me feel better. I came to terms with the way I look.”
“It’s not a lie. You’re a major babe,” Sid says.
“That’s really cruel, Sid,” Mary pouts. “I don’t patronize you by saying your voice isn’t creepy.”
“Oh, I’m glad it’s not just me then,” Jamie breathes a sigh of relief. “He sounds like angry Jack Bauer all the time, doesn’t he?”
“I’m not patronizing you,” Sid sneers. “Every inch of you is weirdly perfect, except for that stupid little microscopic scar you always whine about. How did you get that thing anyway?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you get nicked by a monomolecular razor? What’s that small?”
Mary Sue purses her lips quietly, then abruptly changes the subject. “I’m going to save all the queries on my laptop in case we need them later.”
“Alright. I got shit to do too,” Sid says. “Jamie, you just sit here and try not to die.” Jamie compliantly sits down on the floor next to Mary Sue and her laptop as Sid hauls the shopping bags from Tiffany’s and Home Depot to the other side of the warehouse.
Sid spends the next twenty minutes turning the Murder Machetes into werewolf slaying swords of killy kill death. He couldn’t find a crucible at Home Depot. The store clerk didn’t even seem to know what that was, so he has to make due. Not a problem. Sid hangs one of the silver Tiffany’s bracelets around the blade of a machete and holds the 18-inch blade out in front of him as he heats the silver with the butane torch. The bracelet slowly gains an orange glow, then softens and begins to melt onto the KA-BAR. He turns the blade carefully, allowing the silver to spread against the flat of the blade on both sides near the razor pointed tip. This works because silver melts at a much lower temperature than the 1085 carbon steel KA-BAR uses to forge knives. The final product is an uneven coating of splotchy silver that coats only some of the blade in an uneven ring. It isn’t pretty, but Sid is confident it will put a permanent perforation in that werewolf. He grafts another bracelet to the other machete and then leaves both weapons to cool on the floor before he walks back across the warehouse to where Mary Sue is once again situated in a compromising position. Her face is buried in the laptop screen on the floor in front of her. The keyboard could just as easily be a viciously abused pillow in another setting.
Jamie is sitting on the floor behind her, and this time Jamie is most definitely ogling the booty.
Sid stands silently, also taking in the view for a moment before he says anything. “Take a picture,” he finally says, his sudden presence causing Jamie to flinch and whip around to expose reddening cheeks. “It’ll last longer.”
“A picture of what?” Mary Sue asks, looking back at them obliviously. She blinks several times, quietly waiting for an answer that never comes.
“Nothing.” Sid grins at Jamie derisively. “Anyone have a pen?”
Mary Sue nods and fishes a pen from her laptop case. Sid uses it to write a complex chemical formula on the back of a Home Depot receipt: C11H26NO2PS
“I need you to make this for me,” Sid says. He hands the slip of paper to Mary Sue and she reads the formula. Her nose crinkles with distress.
“Sid,” she squeaks. “This is the formula for VX nerve agent!”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t make this for you! I won’t!”
“Why not?”
“This is a chemical weapon of mass destruction! A soda can of it could kill everyone in C
hicago!”
“You want to make nerve gas?” Jamie joins in the argument. “That’s a violation of international conventions, and federal law, and human decency.”
“You guys are blowing this out of proportion.” Sid rolls his eyes. “I used to smear Revenant TXX on my knife and stab people with it.”
“What is that?” Jamie asks.
“It’s another nerve agent,” Mary Sue answers. “Highly classified. It’s considered deadlier than VX.”
“Yeah,” Sid says. “Messier too.”
“Well, I won’t make you VX. That’s out of the question.”
“What about Sarin? That’s like VX for kids.”
“It is not! Biowarfare agents are not for children! These things are extremely hazardous! You need a chemwar suit just to handle them.”
“Meh. You tape some trash bags together. It’s really not a big deal. I’ve done this before.”
“I’m not making you any nerve agents.”
“Okay. I guess Jamie can just die then.” Sid lifts his shoulders in a sarcastic dismissal of Jamie’s plight. “Sorry, Jamie. Mary Sue is too much of a goodie good to save your life.”
“Sid! That’s not fair!” Mary Sue cries out. “You don’t even know if VX will affect him.”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“Sonic weapons are a possibility. First we need to see how he reacts to loud noises.”
“You want to crank up Dethklok and see if that puts him down? Great plan.”
“It’s a working hypothesis. That flashbang grenade seemed to irritate him.”
“Where’s Bruce? Shouldn’t he be back by now?”
“Player called while you were smelting swords over there. Bruce is taking a longer route. Something about avoiding cameras.”
“If we’re gonna be here for a while, maybe we should order some pizzas or something.” Pizza delivery is a new fascination for the kill team. He has ordered a number of pizzas in the last few weeks, all from random landline phones near the firehouse, and directed to a variety of other addresses within several blocks. He wouldn’t want to establish a pattern for anyone watching and planning to poison him.
Jamie only glares bitterly at Sid.
“I like pizza,” Mary Sue says. “What kind of pizza?”
INT. UTILITY VAN - NIGHT
The quest for gasoline is not an easy one. In a city like Chicago, there are cameras everywhere. Most of the gas stations have them inside and outside, and many of the intersections have them mounted on utility poles. This means some record of Bruce purchasing gas will exist no matter what precautions he takes. He won’t be able to stay completely anonymous, but there are ways to mitigate his risks.
He starts by driving out into the suburbs. He wants to be pretty far from the scene of the crime. Local police and fire investigators will most easily obtain information from sources within their jurisdiction. Outside of that they have to take extra steps. Bruce wants to make sure extra steps turn into extra extra extra steps—more than most authorities will bother to take investigating a warehouse fire in which no one was hurt.
He puts on a doo rag, sunglasses, and fake lumberjack beard before stepping out of the van in front of the Walmart in Orland Park. He doesn’t want to leave any recognizable images of himself on the store security cams. He isn’t so worried about the van. It is registered to an outlaw biker he and Sid buried in West Texas not long ago. Maybe next week it will be registered to some other body.
Inside the supermarket, Bruce takes a quick jaunt back to the automotive department and loads a shopping cart with five-gallon gas canisters. He pays cash at the self-scan checkout. He is whistling Uptown Girl the whole time.
Next, he travels east to a Mobil station nearby. He doesn’t even get funny eyes from the clerk as he purchases a bottle of Mountain Dew Pitch Black, two Black & Mild filter tips, and forty dollars’ worth of prepay on pump number three. He fills three and a quarter cans on the forty bucks, then heads out looking for the next gas station. He wants to go to multiple stations to keep moving and avoid eyes. A guy with a fake beard spending an hour on one pump to fill up a dozen gas cans is suspicious. Somebody might notice that and ask questions.
In the rumbling van, the Player speaks from Bruce’s cell phone propped up in the console cup holder. “I only have a week’s worth of surveillance stored, but there’s no activity on the feed until you guys walked in there.”
“It was a long shot anyway,” Bruce says. “I doubt homeboy would be dumb enough to go near the hardware after he went through all the trouble to set up BuzzWorthy. Just keep your eyes peeled for lookie loos.”
“I’m all over it. Those Graveyard goons are on the other side of the city.”
“I’m not worried about Graveyard. The damn transient hopped right in the van to say hi.”
“He materialized next to you. I saw it on the feed.”
“Got any theories yet there?”
“None. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The sooner we toast this fucking computer and get out of town, the better.”
INT. UNKNOWN BUILDING - NIGHT
“So do I call you he or she?” Sid says. He bites the end from a rubbery pizza crust as he glares at Jamie over the open pizza box on the floor between them.
“Neither. You’re supposed to say they.”
“But you have to be one or the other.”
“You’re so hung up on this,” Jamie says. Mary Sue frowns uncomfortably.
“Because it’s really fucking weird. I can tell you’re faking whatever you are, but I can’t tell if you’re a man badly imitating a woman, or a woman badly imitating a man.”
“What hurts me most about it is that of all the freaky stuff that happened today, this is the thing that stuck out to you.”
“That makes me think you’re a chick, because only a chick would whine about some feelings bullshit like that, but maybe you know that and that’s part of the act.”
“It’s not an act. I’m non-binary. I’m neither male or female. You don’t have to be one or the other.”
“You have a penis and a vagina.”
“No.”
“Then there’s nothing down there? It’s just flat?”
“No. Sid, gender is more than just what body parts you have. There are lots of genders, and not everybody identifies with the gender that doctors assigned them at birth.”
“I don’t think doctors put penises and vaginas on babies.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then how does that last thing you said make sense?”
“Because sometimes, some people don’t feel like they’re the gender everyone else says they are. Most people are born and told that they’re a boy or a girl, and they’re fine with that. Those people are called cisgender.”
“I’m cisgender,” Mary Sue says.
“Yes you are,” Jamie says. “You really, really are. The thing is some people aren’t comfortable with being the gender they were told they are. They feel like they’re the opposite gender, or maybe something in between. Maybe someone who was thought to be a girl isn’t a girl at all. Maybe she’s still mostly a girl, but she likes big trucks and hates miniskirts and high-heels.”
“Lesbians.”
“No—well, yes. Sometimes they’re also lesbians. Lesbians are people who identify as female and are also attracted to people who identify as female. But a lesbian could have been assigned a male gender at birth.”
“So then they’re a man pretending to be a lesbian?”
“No, they’re transgendered.”
“So you have a dick, but you’re a lesbian.”
“No.”
“If I tell chicks I’m a lesbian will more of them want to fuck me?”
“No. That’s not how it works. You don’t just get to pick.”
“It sounds like you did.”
“No. I was always this way. Other people told me I was something else, but they were wrong.”
; “Seriously, though. How much box are you pulling with this scam?”
“I’m not. . .” Jamie makes an exaggerated face of disgust at Sid’s turn of phrase. “. . .pulling any box.”
“Really? You find guys that are into whatever you are?” Sid makes a rotten face as he involuntarily glances down Jamie’s form.
“No. And men can fuck right off.”
“Gay guys then? Cause you look like a man. That makes sense, right?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been with a number of trans women, and in college my partner was agender, although she’s not that anymore.”
“What did she turn into?”
“A Republican, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“But she’s a she?”
“Now, yes. Before that her pronoun was xie.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“Some people don’t want to be called he or she or they. They want to be called xie, hir or ne, or something else even.”
“No. This is fucked. This is worse than when I tried to learn the stock market.”
“Is it that hard to believe that there might be more than two genders?”
“Yes. I’ve seen a lot of people. I’ve killed a lot of people. All of them were one or the other.”
“That’s just because they were all socialized that way. Gender is a social construct. It’s a narrative like the Michael Brown story or the moon landing. It’s just a made up thing that everybody believes. It’s not real.”
“You said if everyone believes something that makes it true.”
“No I didn’t.”
“You said ‘We want to promote narratives that are friendly to progress’ and then Bruce said ‘But they’re not true’ and you said ‘If everyone believes it, it’s better than the truth.’”
“That’s not the point!”
“Then you said ‘That’s the whole point of what I’m saying here.’”
“What are you? A human tape recorder?”
“He remembers everything,” Mary Sue says. “I really think they grew him in a tube.”
“I’m confused now,” Sid says. “Is it not true if everybody believes it?”