A demure female voice said, “No information released.”
Mikek turned around in his seat. “Anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Let me drop you off. I can get the other canisters by myself.”
“Thanks,” Champ said, “but I think I better keep busy. I don’t want to go home and just….” He exhaled heavily and shook his head. “I want to finish out the shift.”
“I understand.” Mikek turned around, primed the engine and thumbed the accelerator. The plump and hairy man drove the vehicle south, toward Asiatown.
* * *
At the next canister, while duck skeletons, firecrackers, bok choy, fried rice and Jesuit pamphlets were dissolving, Champ called Eagle. Again, the garbage man reached a message vault rather than his father.
The truck sucked soup until it gurgled, and Champ replaced the nozzle. Numb with preoccupation, he climbed into the vehicle.
Mikek drove south.
* * *
The garbage man shoved the dissolvent nozzle into a full canister, locked the valve and switched on the juice. Shoes, dolls, a leather jacket, three turkey pigeons and eighty-nine udon spools hissed as they were rendered into homogeneous soup. Again, Champ called his father.
Nobody answered.
* * *
The garbage truck sped past the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building and into the Wall Street area. Mikek pointed out two women who wore tight viridescent slips and high-heeled sneakers. Out of respect for Eagle, the driver did not speak of running them over, but said only, “The truck likes them.”
The vehicle slid into a parking niche alongside a full canister.
Champ looked at the wrinkled picscreen, which showed the charcoal edifice that had once been the Upper East Side high-rise. Black smoke billowed from hundreds of windows.
“Looks like they put it out,” said the man in the sucker’s seat.
“Good.”
Champ called his father for the fourth time that evening, his heart pounding as he waited. When the prerecorded message began, he cut the connection and said, “Connect to Firehouse Eighty-One, front desk.”
A man with a heavy New York accent said, “All personnel are currently unavailable. Leave a message after th—”
Champ cut the connection, climbed out of his seat, yanked the dissolvent nozzle from the truck and slammed it into the top of the canister. Frustrated and frightened, he kicked the steel barrel and yelled, “Goddammit!” His vision blurred as he assaulted the receptacle, repeatedly, with his right boot. “Godfuckingdammit!”
* * *
Twenty-five minutes later, Mikek drove Champ to Eagle’s Midtown firehouse. All of the lights in the building were off, and the parking garage was empty. The station was bereft.
* * *
The driver attempted to go to the Upper East Side, but upraised stopwalls and unhappy police officers barred the way. “Goddammit,” said Champ, from within the sucker’s seat.
* * *
Wearing jeans, flip-flops and a plaid t-shirt, Mikek walked from the bar to the table at which drooped the blonde man in orange.
“Get anything from those other guys?” the driver asked as he plopped himself upon a stool.
“No. None of them picked up.” Champ had called Potato O’Boyd, Bagel Butch, Pedro Cheung and Douglas.
“He’ll be okay.” Mikek put a thermomug of hops-heavy Belgian ale in front of Champ. “On me.”
“Thanks.” The garbage man raised the beer to his lips.
His lily beeped, startling him, and the demure female voice announced, “Incoming call: R.J. the Third.”
“Shit,” said Champ, disappointed. Double-tapping his lily, he answered, “Yeah?”
“You need to come home right now.” R.J. the Third’s voice was atypically subdued.
“I’m waiting to hear—”
“Silence! Come. Home. Right. Now! Do not accept any other calls on your lily until I have briefed you.”
“I have more pressing concerns than the building war right n—”
“This is another matter altogether!” yelled R.J. the Third. “Make haste and trust nobody. Goodbye!”
“Wait!”
The connection died.
“I’ve got to go,” Champ said to Mikek.
The driver looked up from his beer. “You hear something about your father?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Let me know what’s goin’ on whenever you find out, okay? I’m very—” A young black woman wearing a white silken camisole, frill shorts and padded slippers walked past Mikek. “—concerned.”
* * *
Clothed in odiferous orange, Champ fingered his identification into the Antique Conditions placard. He entered the building and climbed the stairs, his eyes vigilantly surveying the area for signs of fifth-floor hostiles. The building was eerily quiet, excepting some old steps with creaky dispositions. Behind an anonymous door, a dog growled an almost chromatic melody.
The garbage man reached the fifth-floor landing, stepped carefully over heaps of eggshells, surveyed the enemy’s hall and hastened up to safety.
Outside R.J. the Third’s apartment, Champ fingered the placard and dialed his code. The door slid into the ground, revealing the black-haired, bug-eyed man in silver who stood in the hallway, his mouth and pierced nose covered by an air filter and a migraine pen aimed at his tenant’s face.
“Put that thing d—”
“Enter slowly,” R.J. the Third directed, “and like a mongoose. Enter slowly and like a mongoose.”
The garbage man strode into the apartment, his gait unaltered. “Have you heard something about—”
“Acolyte!”
The herpetology student leapt from her closet and fingered the placard, sealing the apartment. Clutched in the woman’s right hand was a canister of hangover gas, and covering her mouth and nostrils was an air filter.
Champ said, “What the hell’s g—”
“Silence!” demanded R.J. the Third, his voice an uncommonly loud whisper.
“Tell me what’s g—”
“Follow me!”
The popinjay strode forward as if he were showing a military troop the proper way to march.
“¡Vas, rey de basura!” ordered the herpetology student. “¡Gringo estupido!”
“That didn’t sound complimentary.”
“¡Vas!”
The Spaniard stamped upon Champ’s shadow as if the act might somehow bruise his physical being. (A person on the fifth floor punched the ceiling in reply.)
Champ followed R.J. the Third past the animated posters, across the silver rug and toward the bathroom door. The toilet icon had its lid raised, and the fleximetal plank slid into the ground. One by one, the trio entered the rose enclosure, where Architect sat upon the throne like the top half of a globe.
R.J. the Third kicked the bathmat aside and pulled the rope handle, opening the trapdoor that led to the purloined fifth-floor kitchen.
Champ asked, “Is my f—”
“Go!” ordered R.J. the Third. “Time is not unlimited!”
“¡A bajo—tu vas!” the herpetology student advised from behind her air filter, pointing to the open trapdoor.
Champ applied himself to the rope ladder, and R.J. the Third slammed the hatch shut. Darkness blinded the garbage man like a black hood pulled over his head as he descended. The sole of his right boot pressed upon the wooden floor, followed by its sibling. For reasons unknown, the weight-activated amber lights did not illuminate.
The room was opaque.
“Hello?” Champ ventured into the darkness.
A tiny stitch of blue lightning flickered at head l
evel.
“Champ?” inquired a man whose voice was weirdly reverberant.
The garbage man smelled plastic, chrome and charcoal.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
Relief flooded Champ’s body like an intravenous salve.
Ponderous footfalls thudded within the purloined kitchen, and soon, gelware hands gripped the garbage man’s shoulders, slid across his back and pulled him to a plastic chest, embracing him.
Champ hugged Eagle. The odors of charcoal, molten metal and burnt rubber filled his nostrils, reminding him of how the city had smelled right after the Empire State Building had been destroyed. “I was scared,” he said to his father.
“I saw your calls. But I was worried it might be them, pirating your line or something.”
Champ withdrew from his father. “What’re you talking about? And why are you down here in the dark?”
Eagle did not respond to the question. Champ heard a buzz and a dim sine wave. Blue lightning flickered, larger than before, closer.
“Dad?”
“I fucked up.” The sine wave stopped.
“What happened?”
“You saw the fire, right? You know how it started?”
“I’m more interested in what’s going on with you right now. Why you’re sitting down here in the dark, smelling like a cookout.”
“I need to tell you about the fire—so you’ll understand,” stated Eagle.
“Okay. Tell me what happened.”
“That skyscraper…it had these three huge garbage chutes that ran all the way up and down it, into storage tanks where they dissolve the trash for—well, I guess I don’t need to tell you about garbage.”
“I’m an expert.”
“Right. Well, the tank where they keep frying oil in the restaurant had been leaking for weeks—maybe months—right into the chutes, and one of the chutes was clogged with trash from the twentieth floor on down. So all the garbage in there was soaked through with frying oil—it was like a two-hundred-foot wick, ready to go. When it caught—maybe a cigar or a candle started it, could’ve been anything—it went quick and was very, very hot. Melted the sprinkler nozzles before they could do anything, and those heads are made of tempered steel. Five floors were gone in a couple of minutes.”
The mannequin buzzed.
“Dad? Can we—”
“And the way they make buildings now,” Eagle resumed, “lighter, with all that ventilation, there’s so much oxygen, so many places for the fire to go. Fuck. It was crazy.”
“Are you okay?”
No response came from the re-bodied man.
Champ asked, “Can I turn on the—”
“I killed four people.”
Stunned by the admission, the garbage man waited in silence for more information.
Tiny blue lightning flickered.
“All of the wagons were scrambled to the fire,” Eagle continued, “every single wagon in Nexus Y. We didn’t have enough manpower at the stations to fully outfit them all, so lots of the wagons had skeleton crews, some just a couple of guys.
“The computer prioritized assignments for us. We were there to do rescues rather than fight the fire, ’cause a fucking hurricane couldn’t’ve put that thing out. I was in charge of six guys, including Douglas—he’s that black guy you knew from elementary school.”
“I know who he is.”
“We went to the fortieth floor to pick up a family. The Walters. The guys went in. I updated Central and fought the fire with long-distance hoses, like I’ve been doing since I’ve been back. I turned the air filters on—they suck the smoke out of the air and are really, really strong.” Something crackled within the mannequin.
“Dad, can I please turn on a—”
“There was this old guy,” interrupted Eagle. “On a balcony on the floor above me, and he shot a gun to get my attention. His apartment was goin’ up fast, and the one next to him was already gone. He wanted me to come and get him and his wife, and he threatened me with the gun, which was stupid since the windshield’s bulletproof, but probably he didn’t know.
“I knew if I waited for my guys to get back, those two old folks weren’t gonna make it.
“The fire was right behind them.
“I’ve only driven a fire wagon—the flying kind—twice, and it was just for joy-riding, but it didn’t seem real hard. So I thought I could pick up the old couple and get back before my crew got the Walters’ out.
“I tapped the thruster and flew at them, but something was wrong. I yelled for them to get out of the way as soon as I realized that I still had the air filters on, ’cause the suction on those things fucks up how it flies.
“The thing was totally out of control.
“I closed my irises and slammed into them. Killed them both. I heard the man scream and a dog bark.
“The wagon plowed into their apartment. I opened the door and was in some burning room with old guns and stuff. I tried to get to my guys up the hall, but just burnt the mannequin. The fire was everywhere.
“As I was stuck there, Douglas and one of the Walters’ kids—a boy of thirteen—got to the balcony where I was supposed to be. The balcony collapsed and they fell to their deaths.
“The other firemen at the Walters’s called for a pick-up and got out alive with the rest of the family.
“They picked me up after, but none of the guys seemed happy to see me. They were all thinking the same thing—I could see it on their faces. They were thinking, ‘This dumb robot killed four people.’”
“You didn’t kill anybody,” Champ argued, “you were just trying to save those—”
“It was against procedure to go after them. And I can barely drive that thing anyways. It was a stupid thing to do. I was stupid.”
“You were trying to save lives. It’s not your fault.”
“It sure as hell is. I didn’t follow procedure and four people died.” The mannequin buzzed, and a sine wave beeped intermittently like code.
“It was an accident and your intentions were good. People will understand.”
“They might or they might not,” replied Eagle. “But no matter what, this—what I did tonight—was a major violation of the contract I made with CCI. I disobeyed a top regulation, and four people are dead because of it.”
A new fear blossomed within Champ as he reached over, tapped the light switch and saw his father. The unclothed mannequin stood unevenly on warped legs, blackened and covered with soot, and the gelware mask that had been cast from his son’s face was covered with blisters. His scorched hands resembled fried chicken wings.
“Does it hurt?” asked Champ.
“They called me.”
“CCI?”
“Yeah.” A blue spark flickered within the mannequin’s mouth slit.
“What…what did they say?”
“I need to report to the main building. They gave me two hours.”
Champ’s throat dried up. “When was this?” he asked weakly.
“A while ago,” said Eagle. “More than two hours.”
“What’re they gonna do?” asked the garbage man, his heart hammering. “Did they say what they were gonna do?”
“Look at me…and think about what I did.” The re-bodied man turned his blistered face away from his son. “Do I really need to say it?”
In a quiet voice that might have issued from the mouth of a five-year-old boy, Champ asked, “They’re gonna take the mannequin back?”
Eagle did not respond. The sine wave stopped, and a spark crackled in his mouth slit.
“Dad?”
Champ put his hand on the mannequin’s shoulder.
“Dad? Can you—”
“I came to say good-bye,” said Eagle.
“No.”
With his buzzing voice, the re-bodied man said, “Son. Look at me.”
Champ appraised his damaged father.
“I don’t have a whole lot of choices,” remarked Eagle. “Any choice, really—this machine is completely fu—” He stopped in mid-sentence.
“Dad?”
The mannequin straightened like a soldier at attention.
“What’re you doing?” asked Champ.
Arms stiff at his sides, the mannequin dropped to his knees. A hissing noise sounded from within the sooty head.
“R.J.!” yelled Champ. “Get down here right now!”
The popinjay descended the rope ladder like a pale arachnid.
Exhaust vents opened in the back of the mannequin’s head, admitting bright white gouts of vapor. Frost covered the machine’s blistered face, burnt hair and singed cranium.
“No!” yelled Champ, horrified.
The icy skull retracted like a turtle’s head into the torso. Two bulbs rose from nascent openings in the mannequin’s shoulders, locked into place and illuminated, alternately flashing yellow and red. Suddenly, the skirls of disharmonic piccolo flutes filled the room.
Regressed to helpless infancy, Champ stared.
R.J. the Third put an arm on the garbage man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“They froze him. Those goddamn CCI assholes froze him. All he was trying to do was help some old people.”
Staring at the kneeling, headless mannequin, Champ was flooded by a deluge of unhappy memories: his father’s funeral, the weird men whom his mother had invited into his home when he was a boy, the negative opinions of comedy club managers about his stand-up routine, the empty people with whom he had worked in finance whose lives were decimal points, the caustic remarks that had tarnished the latter years of his marriage with Candace, her adultery, the derisive gazes that he regularly received because of his occupation, and the stolen kitchen under a toilet that was the only room that he could afford. These were defeats that he had accepted.
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