The gaunt widow in gray tasted ash, charcoal and tears.
Suddenly, Alicia Martinez no longer knew who she was.
A sooty man crawled across the pavement, moaning the name “Samantha” until he found a prostrated plump woman whose chest had been impaled by a girder. The crawler touched his dead wife’s face with a trembling index finger.
Alicia Martinez did not know who she was, but she knew what she could not be.
She double-tapped her lily and said, “Connect to a police reservoir.”
The gaunt widow recorded a message in which she detailed what she knew of the Brokers of Extralegal Acts. She was aware that all of the names that she had been given were false and that the compound was expendable, but she hoped that some of the information that she related would prove useful.
After she finished her account, Alicia wiped her eyes and walked over to the crawling man. To him, she said, “I used to have a daughter and a husband.”
The fellow looked up.
“I’m sorry,” said the gaunt widow, stupidly.
The crawler’s eyes were terrible.
Alicia Martinez turned away from the bereft man, strode into the lobby of the Corpus Chrome, Incorporated Building, sat behind an inverted-pyramid desk, looked up at the marble ceiling and waited for one hundred and fifty stories to crush her into something less reprehensible than what she currently was.
Angry thunder was the last sound that she ever heard.
Chapter XVIII
Cracked Heads
Alone in his padded sleeping quarters, Gregil looked across seven hundred empty kilometers at a small blue, green and brown planet. His exhalation fogged a portion of the window, covering a cataract of inclement weather, a continent and an ocean. He then clarified the blurry world by wiping the glass with his fist.
An alarm lanced his equipoise. Yellow and red emergency lights glared, stinging his dilated eyes.
The strong American Russian turned away from Earth, plugged an acorn into his ear, pulled on pants and—without a shirt or shoes—ran through the living wall of his chamber, down a foam-rubber ramp, through a second living wall and onto a corrugated plastic catwalk that threaded the circumference of the space station. Yellow and red lights flashed all around the rim.
Running in half-gravity, Gregil clicked the stem of his acorn and asked, “What’s the situation?”
“The CCI building is under attack,” replied Karie.
“Under attack?” Gregil was shocked by the information. The corrugated plastic bit into the soles of his feet, but he did not slacken the pace of his beeline.
“Yes. Under attack.”
“I’m almost there.”
The American Russian slipped on his own blood, caught the railing, righted himself and continued forward.
Six pounding heartbeats later, Gregil plunged through a living wall and entered the satellite’s hemi-cylindrical command room. There, he surveyed the manual control panels. All of the microphones and typing hemispheres had retracted inside the inverted-pyramid consoles (where they were inaccessible), and the word “OVERRIDE” sat upon twelve screens and floated upon ten stages.
“Oh, God,” said Karie, listening to her lily with tears in her eyes. “The building’s collapsing.”
The shirtless man surveyed the command room. Upon the stage of the Transmissions Monitor floated a list of recent activity.
Emergency Override in Progress…
Lunar Diamond Vault: Locked
Lunar Diamond Vault: Unlocked
8.31.58 Payments: Transferred
8.31.58 Payments: Withheld
Emergency Mannequin Shutdown: Enabled.
Emergency Mannequin Activation: Enabled.
Gregil was horrified.
“We’ve got to stop this from happening!” cried the American Russian. “Those signals can’t go out at the same time!”
Karie’s voice was almost inaudible. “They did.”
* * *
Sarah walked onto the rear deck of the northern California home that she shared with William, her resurrected mate. The silver-haired woman had divorced her second husband the moment that she found out her first spouse was going to be re-bodied, and she had not once doubted the wisdom of her decision. Fortunately for her, the discarded mate was a congenial guy who harbored no ill will towards her or the resurrected poet who was his predecessor and successor.
In his first life, William had longed for a view of the Pacific Ocean (because of his years in the Coast Guard and the month-long pleasure cruise during which he and Sarah had conceived their first child), and this isolated coastal dwelling—in another century, a place where the keepers of the nearby lighthouse had lived—had come on the market at exactly the right time.
The silver-haired woman set her coffee upon the table beside her rocking chair, adjusted her woolen robe and sat down. “The breeze is nice.”
William raised his gelware face to the wind, his gray hair blowing behind him, long and leonine. “I can feel it,” he said.
Looking at the coffee, the re-boded man screwed a dark red thimble onto the tip of his pinky and lowered the extrusion toward the steaming beverage.
“It’s still too hot,” Sarah informed her husband.
William put his thimble into the coffee and yanked it out. “Ouch. You’re right.” He shook his hand back and forth to cool the carmine attachment’s taste-, touch-, and smell-sensitive flesh.
Sarah blew upon the coffee for a few moments, took a sip and set it down. William dipped his thimble.
“I’d like to go to the lighthouse today,” said the re-bodied man. “Work on the poem.”
“That sounds like a wonderful plan.” The silver-haired woman liked how her husband always referred to his current work as “the poem” as if the hundreds of pieces that he had written were all part of one continuous tapestry. Sipping coffee, she looked at the sunlit waves beyond the balustrade.
William said, “The sound of the ocean helps me to—” and stopped abruptly.
Sarah set the coffee upon the table. “William?”
The re-bodied man stood up like a soldier at attention and then dropped to his knees; flashing lights burned through the shoulders of his white linen shirt.
Frightened and confused, Sarah rose from her seat.
The sound of three dissonant piccolo flutes emerged from the mannequin’s mouth slit.
“William,” inquired the silver-haired woman, anxiously. “Can you hear me in there?” She touched his right cheek.
The gelware felt like ice.
Sarah double-tapped her lily. “Connect to CCI! Emergency!”
Frost covered the right side of the mannequin’s face, and the other half blistered with heat.
Sarah’s vision began to narrow.
A vertical fissure cleft the mannequin’s face, and the top of its head cracked open. Green steam flung frozen shards and boiled clumps of brain matter into the air.
* * *
Po Li and his re-bodied brother walked out of Yeehaw!!! (a strip club that featured robust American women [many of whom had Australian accents, for some reason]) and onto the top level of Hong Kong’s nine-tiered sidewalk. The Chinese man was drunk, and therefore certain that the redheaded girl who had taken all of his money thought that he was better than all the other guys in the establishment. Jennifer Smith from Iowa Town, Oklahoma had said that she liked Po Li, and he fully believed her.
Outside, the glowing night was damp and warm.
The brothers walked forward, and people stared at the mannequin, which always attracted attention. If Po Li were honest with himself (which was rarely the case), he would admit that he preferred the high-profile companionship of his mechanical sibling to that of the origi
nal corporeal version (who was only a Nobel prize-winning scientist).
The resurrected man stopped.
“Mat ye?” asked Po Li.
Suddenly, the mannequin stood at attention and dropped to his knees.
“Mat ye?” repeated the drunk fellow, perturbed and swatting his brother’s left arm.
Flashing lights burned through the shoulders of the machine’s silk shirt.
“Nei bin baak ma?” inquired Po Li, perplexed by the anomalous occurrence.
The skirl of three dissonant piccolo flutes emerged from the re-bodied man’s mouth slit. His drunk brother looked around, embarrassed and confused.
People were watching.
Po Li tried to force the epaulette lights back into the machine, but the belligerent bulbs refused to be submerged. Spectators gathered around to observe the malfunctioning mannequin.
“Zi, ting, ting!” the drunk yelled at the embarrassing machine, which continually flashed and ululated.
A pretty Japanese girl with blonde hair giggled.
Po Li slapped the mannequin, and the palm of his right hand stuck to its cheek. The other side of the mannequin’s face soon blistered with heat.
People withdrew from the skirling cynosure until one onlooker suggested to the others that the machine might explode, at which point, everybody ran away.
Po Li’s right hand filled with ice.
The mannequin’s head cracked in half, and the drunk yelled. A geyser of green steam sprayed cooked and frozen brain matter into the air.
Po Li tore his hand loose and ran.
Upon the mannequin’s cleft face were three fingertips and a frozen palm.
* * *
The re-bodied rabbi in black hurried up a moonlit Baghdad street toward the synagogue that she had erected in her first life. An Arabic fabric merchant named Asri walked beside her, his palms pressed together and his head tilted forward respectfully. As he matched the woman’s long fast strides, he ruminated upon why Jews were always in such a hurry. Perhaps they were compelled to make up for the days that they squandered observing Shabbat (which had ended about two hours ago), or perhaps they feared that moving slowly would give their myriad enemies an easy shot. Or maybe, since Jews did not have a proper afterlife, they just wanted to do as much as they could before it all ended.
Asri did not voice his theories.
The re-bodied rabbi led the merchant inside the synagogue, through the atrium and up the central aisle. At the front pew, she stopped and pointed. Asri leaned down, inspected the torn cushion, pursed his lips, reviewed his mental catalogue and told the holy woman that he had the needed material and would presently return.
The merchant hastened from the synagogue, strode up the tiled street, entered his shop, climbed to the second floor, pulled two meters of cloth from a hanging spool, cut and bundled the fabric, grabbed his kit of assorted mini-stitch sewing machines and returned whence he came.
When he put his hand to the atrium door, he heard an unpleasant noise that sounded like three flutes having an argument.
Asri entered the building and looked up the aisle.
The mannequin was upon its knees before the lectern, skirling and flashing. Green steam rose from its cracked head and the brain-spattered parchment of an ancient Torah.
* * *
Three noteworthy Royal Air Force men sat in the cockpit of a decommissioned warplane that Air Chief Marshal Sir Gerald B. Thiggs guided toward the sunlit Andes Mountains.
“Let us have an up-close look at those peaks, shall we?” Captain Potsley suggested to the re-bodied pilot. “It is a wonderful thing, this old craft.”
“Fantastically wonderful,” confirmed Officer James.
“She can still carry us to the tops of the Lord’s grandest works,” Chaplain Smithson remarked, and affectionately hammered a fist against the steely wall of the cockpit.
A white mountain peak filled the windshield.
“Sir Thiggs?” inquired Captain Potsley, looking over at the pilot.
The re-bodied man dropped to his knees. Flashing lights superseded his golden epaulettes, and three discordant notes skirled as the plane raced toward the mountain.
The top of the mannequin’s head cracked open, admitting a geyser of green steam and clumps of brain matter, which were either cooked or frozen.
Englishmen hastened for the controls.
In a fraction of a second, the mountain turned the cockpit into a two-dimensional object.
* * *
Rita May heard an eerie skirl that was not the sound of wind blowing through cracks in the walls. Abandoning a swollen cow, she walked outside the barn and saw her re-bodied father fall off a horse for the first time in his entire life.
Chapter XIX
The Dotted Line (Connected)
Ellenancy played an ascending melody on her violin.
When the final pitch died, Lisanne struck a low note upon the lacquered grand piano at which she was seated. (The timbral shift reminded her of the first time she had visited America.)
The mannequin played a conjunct refrain on her violin.
When the final pitch died, the petite blonde struck a low note, played it again and sustained it for five seconds. (She remembered a dead deer that she had watched decay in her parents’ backyard throughout the summer of twenty-thirty-one.)
Ellenancy played a sad scale on her violin and then muted her instrument; Lisanne struck twice in response. The last piano note resounded portentously in the harp of the grand piano, traveled about the lavender and gold interior of the Perfect Pitch Auditorium and died. “The Dotted Line (Connected)” ended.
Eighteen hundred and forty people warmly applauded the women and the piece, which was the first one that the Sisters Breutschen had played in front of an audience in over four years. The word “Brava!” leapt from many mouths.
Wearing identical faces and emerald dresses, Lisanne and Ellenancy stood from their upholstered mahogany divans, walked in front of the twelve instruments that were positioned about the hemicircular stage and bowed.
Waves of appreciation rippled through the audience, and ebullient people rose to their feet.
The sisters stood upright.
Lisanne surveyed the crowd for one specific person, but instead saw friends, peers, critics and strangers who slapped their hands together and shouted accolades. Looking to the rear of the auditorium, she descried a tall raven-haired woman in the shadow of the mezzanine. Her heart leapt at the sight, and all around her, applause swelled. The auditorium lights then brightened, chasing the shadows from the huge room. Underneath the mezzanine stood a tall stranger who was not her former mate from Brooklyn City.
Tears sparkled in Lisanne’s eyes.
Ellenancy took her sister’s left hand, and the Sisters Breutschen bowed a second time. The word “Brava!” burst like popcorn throughout the appreciative crowd.
The siblings stood upright.
Ellenancy turned her gelware face to Lisanne and smiled. “Thank you for making me do this,” said the re-bodied woman. “Danke. Danke.”
Lisanne nodded and tried to reply, but instead began to sob, thinking of how much she wanted to share this moment with Osa.
The Sisters Breutschen hugged each other for a warm minute, parted and faced the audience. Dewy eyes sparkled throughout the auditorium like a sympathetic constellation.
Lisanne stepped over her sadness, wiped tears from her cheeks and raised the palms of her hands, asking the audience for silence.
The applause diminished. Soon, the crowd replaced their buttocks in the auditorium’s padded velvet seats and focused three thousand six hundred and eighty smiling eyes on the petite blonde.
“Danke, danke, danke,” Lisanne said to the r
apt assemblage as her sister enthusiastically squeezed her hand. “Ellenancy and I are very—”
Yellow and red lights flashed within the auditorium. Lisanne looked to the ceiling and the emergency exits, but descried nothing. Lowering her gaze, she saw that thousands of eyes had shifted from her to the person who stood directly beside her. People pointed fingers.
The discordant sound of three piccolo flutes startled Lisanne as she turned to Ellenancy, who was upon her knees, lights flashing red and yellow atop her shoulders.
Stunned, the petite blonde struggled to regain her voice. “What is happening? Can you hear me?”
The right side of the mannequin’s face was covered with frost, and the left side was blistered with heat.
“Ellenancy…?”
The discordant flutes screeched like a teakettle. A vertical line cracked the middle of the mannequin’s face in half.
“Nein, nein, nein!” shouted Lisanne.
The top of the mannequin’s head split open, and a geyser of green steam shot frozen and boiled gray matter into the air.
People shouted.
Lisanne was numb.
The machine toppled forward, yanking the petite blonde from the stage by the hand. People screamed.
The floor of the empty orchestra pit concussed the side of Lisanne’s skull, and the terrible world went dark.
Chapter XX
The Garbage Men
Corpus Chrome, Inc. Page 30