“Officer, I don’t want any trouble!” said Korliss.
This is insane, thought Luumis.
Luumis watched his professor shrug off his robe. The Guardian woman eyed her prey up and down. She slowly unfastened buckles below her breast. Her breastplate came loose, front and back peeled away, clattered to the floor. She unloosed her hip guards, then her boots. Luumis wondered if she simply wanted to keep the blood off her armor, then she unfastened her cloth tunic and let it slip away. Luumis’s heart was racing so fast that he was sure they would hear it. He never would have found her attractive in her armor; her shoulders were just too wide. But her body was amazing, sculpted like some kind of statue. The line of her neck traced down to rising chest, small breasts with nipples hardened like black diamonds, smooth belly heaving with her breath, wide hips capable of crushing granite and turning it into superheated goo. He saw Korliss working at something near his waist – he was probably unsheathing a knife to defend himself. Luumis had no idea Guardians worked like this. He wondered if he would get to see someone die, and put a hand on his own crotch.
Suddenly the Guardian dove onto the couch. Korliss screamed, “Police brutality!” and they wrestled desperately. The assassin giggled, obviously enjoying her work. Eventually Korliss pushed her up, had his hands on each of her breasts, and she began wiggling her powerful hips from side to side, quickly, like a rabbit nibbling on a carrot. The Guardian woman gave a deep sigh, then began hopping on Korliss, driving the life from him bit by bit. Korliss ran his hands along her body, her legs, her heaving belly, back up to her breasts, desperate to find some weakness in the killer. Luumis put his hand in his pants, then pulled his hand away suddenly. He could not be a party to this. He had to do something! He stood up, limbs shaking. There was a light switch nearby. He gathered his resolve, then hit the switch.
The lights came on, harsh and glaring. Luumis saw the sweat on the woman’s body. She glowed. He saw her breasts bouncing. She immediately flicked a hand out, hit a switch on the wall beside her, killed the lights, and said, “I want ’em off!”
“Fine!” said Korliss. “Make up your damn mind, woman!”
The two continued their struggle and Luumis was powerless to stop it. He had been ignored. He was nothing, not even a person. He could do nothing to stop anything. Filled with anger and self-loathing, he reached into his pants and jerked bitterly. There was nothing he could do. He might as well enjoy it.
The Guardian bounced harder. Korliss slapped her ass, her legs, and made terrible groans. The Guardian woman gave vent to a series of high-pitched squeals, each successive squeal drawn out longer and deeper. Luumis couldn’t take it; he might be an insignificant gnat, but even he could now see that there was nothing more beautiful than murder; upon realizing this, he reached out for a piece of paper to spew into. The cries of the killer and victim ground into his ears as he felt the release take him. They would not shut up. He stumbled away from the desk. He turned a corner and walked out the door. Nobody made any moves to stop him. Nobody noticed him at all.
* * *
Made the mistake of telling Aegis about my diary. I just wanted to show him that I trust him, even after he’s been acting like a nutcase. He keeps giving me the cold shoulder, then begging me to forgive him. Anyway, he was not happy about the diary. He kept talking about people getting the wrong idea. I think he thinks I’m going to sell it to the news. Does he have any idea that some people like keeping private things private?
- from Rachek’s Red Diary
* * *
Wodan pushed through the snow in the Ministerial Sector. All was still and quiet. The sun was setting. The ground shifted into pink, then orange.
Wodan passed up the Memory House and went around to a side entrance. He entered and shook off his cloak. All was glaringly white in the administrative section. He glanced at a clock and winced - he would have to hurry. Rachek and the others would be waiting!
While fumbling with his cloak, a young man in a black suit approached him. His hair was blond and neatly combed, his features aquiline, his lips thin and long. His blue eyes slid about, then locked on, over and over, in a disconcerting manner. “May I help, sir?” he said politely.
Wodan nodded, said, “I’m Wodan Kyner. Where can I go to ask about an appointment?”
The young man nodded, then said, “I recognize you. I saw you at the dinner party held in your honor. To be honest, I was a little self-conscious about approaching you.” His voice was very smooth, but cold. He kept a slight smile on at all times. “My name is Seloid Cramer, personal secretary to the Prime Minister. I was just heading out for a while, but I’m glad you caught me before I left.”
“Oh-h-h,” said Wodan, unsure of himself. “Good to meet you.”
Cramer tilted his head to the side, turned, and Wodan followed. Cramer kept his hands locked behind himself. He took sure, measured steps. They walked past secretaries, cubicles, humming machines. They walked up a set of winding steps, carpeted red, then down a corridor of marble.
They entered a quiet office. There was a dark wooden desk, almost black, with a giant red rug laid on a patterned hardwood floor. The wall was undecorated except for the Seal of Office on the far door. They seated themselves on either side of the desk.
“Who can I get you an appointment with?” said Cramer.
“Well, I was hoping... sometime, if it’s alright, to see… the Prime Minister.”
“I’m sure Minister Vachs would love to have a talk with you, Mister Kyner.” Cramer pulled his lips apart, showing teeth. His lips were blood-red next to his perfectly white teeth. A tuft of soft hair fell over his brow. A hand darted up and moved the hair back before Wodan even noticed.
Cramer brought up a file on his computer and studied something. Wodan glanced at the desk. He saw doodles on several pieces of paper.
“I can get you something a week from today,” said Cramer. “How does that sound to you?”
“That’s great!” said Wodan. “Any time is fine.”
“Noon, then?”
Wodan nodded.
“High noon it is,” said Cramer, chuckling.
Wodan craned his head, said, “Did you make these pictures?”
Cramer nodded absentmindedly while he typed in the appointment.
Wodan touched a page, then rotated it. Saw a winged monkey, some kind of knight. Stars. A plane crashing. He saw another picture peeking out from under the others.
“A nervous habit,” said Cramer, not looking at Wodan. “I used to go to an art school. I wanted to be an Entertainer.”
“Hmm,” said Wodan. He pulled out the larger picture.
A printer hummed and Cramer leaned back. He turned his eyes to Wodan.
The picture showed a tree and its roots, done with meticulous cross-hatch shading, all in pen. There were names of politicians on the branches, names of businesses on the roots. The name Aegis Vachs was placed on a fruit near the tree’s center. The picture had obviously taken hours to make, perhaps days.
“How long have you been a secretary, Mister Cramer? To Minister Vachs, I mean.”
“Mm. Five years now. Going on six.”
“Would you say that you two are very close by now?”
“Very.”
“You made this picture?”
“I did.”
“And do you like your job?”
“My job is my life,” said Cramer, smiling so wide that his cheeks lifted up, but somehow his eyes remained open.
“This is a very nice picture!” said Wodan, handing it back to him.
The realization slid into Wodan. There was no surprise, only certainty. Gentle. All-consuming.
“You know,” said Cramer, “technically, Minister Vachs is in-between appointments right now. If you really like, maybe I could get you a little face time with him right now?”
“Thanks,” said Wodan. “I think I’ve seen enough for today.”
The map left in the wasteland for the exiles to find. Each location l
abeled with a spidery, loopy script. Long lost, but never forgotten. The Kill List shown to him by Darel, the list Luumis had found. That spidery, loopy handwriting. This picture on the secretary’s desk, a tree that bore fruit, labeled with the names of the powerful. All of them were done by the same artist.
Seloid Cramer, Secretary to Prime Minister Aegis Vachs. That smile, blood-red, cold.
It was the smile of a killer.
* * *
Seven Months Ago
“Since a villain can wear the same trappings of greatness as a hero, all the little cogs in the machine can just as easily fall in line with him,” said Professor Korliss Matri. “In that case, when evil has all its paperwork in order and bears legal legitimacy, but in secret it subverts the law in order to fulfill its evil wishes, then the hero must take on the trappings of darkness. He must break the law to create justice. He must separate himself from the herd of men who, by their unwitting labor, support evil. The hero must go down, alone, and live solely by the power of his own virtue. He must risk becoming a devil to fight devils.”
The class grew deathly quiet.
“But let us not forget the little cogs,” said Professor Matri. “In our rush to give the hero our allegiance, after-the-fact, let us not forget the little cogs of the machine, who helped to feed the evil. It’s easy to point fingers. It’s so easy. But isn’t it really the fault of the villain if he fools those taught to follow? They are not at fault. They are not to blame.”
Professor Korliss stopped suddenly, then said, “Or are they? What do you think, Mister Lamsang?”
* * *
“... so what has before been called a timestream is in actuality a now-ness is-ness flux-ness, a morphological nexus of sameness, an agreed-upon madness labeled sanity as such, a slice of possible experiences far removed from bestial simplicity evidenced by the fact that the same science-thought which gives us the creation of the watch cannot in any satisfactory sense prove the existence of the thing it measures, yet perhaps not without,” Aegis Vachs snapped shut the book, then said, “The Theory of Tomorrow. Wonderful stuff, eh, old friend?”
Shem Udo sat with Vachs in his study, elbows on knees, running his hands through his hair, again and again.
“Yes?” said Vachs, annoyed, already preparing his counter-banter.
“Should’ve seen the way Sevrik treated me today,” said Udo. “Just intolerable. And that monster of his, shadowing him. A man can’t even think with that thing around.”
“Well let’s see if this philosopher has anything to say about your problem,” said Aegis. He opened the book and read, “... like an intangible promise-world, no different from quaint post-biological elysiums, so also is that potential non-nowness non-experience thought of, not the least insofar as much of its presence rests in our verbiage, on agreed-legitimate lexicons of shared blindness, from whence nothing can ever be drawn, but unto which all things go, another assumption of which is that this belief-entity is supposed to place one further up in the hierarchy of organisms, and yet, if not from utter belief in this particular non-experience, from whence can we draw the prime motivation for insanity, unhappiness, and the like, which besets our particular biological substratum,” and Vachs snapped the book shut again. “With a few words, friend, the man has erased our conception of the past, present - and best of all - the future. Now that’s the sort of man we should be working with, Shem old friend!”
Whether or not Vachs was actually trying to distract him from his problems, or was just lording over him the fact that he did not understand the book, mattered little to Udo. His thoughts were a jumbled mess of annoyances either way.
“Treats me as replaceable,” said Udo. “As if Haven would fall apart without him.”
“All parts are replaceable. Don’t forget, friend, we’re counting on that. Also…” Vachs glanced at his wristwatch dramatically. “Any minute now, many, many problems will be gift-wrapped and ready for delivery unto the void.”
“Hm.”
There was a sharp knock at the door. Aegis made a sound. The door opened and Seloid Cramer entered. Vachs had lived for years with the cravenness of everyone around him and had long accepted it as a fact of reality. Udo did not fear him, though, and this Vachs attributed to lack of intelligence. Cramer, also, kept a certain quiet poise when around the Minister. This Vachs attributed to pure, frigid emotional detachment. He made sure to keep them both very close to himself.
“What is it?” said Vachs.
“Someone to see you, sir,” said Cramer. “A dear friend.”
Vachs caught the code. He sat up and nodded. Udo caught that Vachs had caught some kind of code, so he sat up also and smoothed his uniform.
Darel entered. He wore a fine sweater, the existence of which he hid from his friends. His hair was slicked down, all control, hard like his clenched jaw. But the eyes blinked, often and rapid, and Vachs smelled the fear before the boy had even gotten through the door.
“Derek!”
“Darel.”
“Darel!” said Vachs. “Come and sit with us a minute, old friend.”
Darel sat across from the two. He felt like a meal laid out before starving kings. “Sirs, I’m going to make this brief, if that’s all the same to you.”
“Of course, lad. I’m sure we’re all busy men here. After a long day of listening to politicians blow smoke up each other, it will be a nice change of pace to deal with someone direct. Forthright, as it were. Don’t you agree, Secundus Udo?”
Udo’s eyes were locked onto the boy. His malevolence was evident, and Darel looked away immediately.
“Alright,” said Darel. “Listen, when the Guardians catch Luumis Lamsang, I want him to get set up in a nice psychiatric ward.”
“Of course!” said Vachs. “The boy is obviously troubled, and, by my word, will receive the best treatment that Haven can provide.”
“Sir, I’m not talking about lifelong isolation in some prison cell, or about getting drugged up in some padded room where he doesn’t even know what’s going on. I’m talking about... about the kind of place a wealthy person’s kid would go, if he were sick. Someplace where he can rest. Sirs, I’ve... I’ve already heard stuff in the news about the death penalty.”
“We haven’t exercised the death penalty in generations!” said Vachs. “And we wouldn’t. It’s barbaric.”
Darel shook his head, hard, said, “After this stuff with Didi, when people started talking about execution, it’s like the dam was broken. Sir, you must hear things, more things than I do. I know they’re talking about killing Luumis for what he did!”
“Don’t presume to understand anything that I hear,” said Vachs.
Vachs let a terrible silence fill the room. Darel shifted in his seat. He realized what he was doing, stopped, then began tapping his foot. Udo slowly leaned back and touched the fingers of both hands together and stared over the tops of his hands at the boy, a gesture he had seen a superior do and had copied for many years.
“So,” said Vachs. “There is the matter of give and take.”
Darel nodded slowly. “I was thinking... that since I was the one who found out about the Dove and told you, and that I’m pretty sure Luumis fell in with him and got the, uh, got the bomb from him most likely, which, well, I thought you all were going to do something about the Dove, but didn’t, then I was thinking that maybe to wash your own hands, since it was kind of on you all that Luumis was able to get stuff from the Dove when the Dove shouldn’t have even been operating any more, maybe that you could just clean up after Luumis as a way of making up for not taking out the Dove a lot sooner.” He leaned back and inhaled loudly.
“But the governing body of Haven is not connected to the Dove in any way.”
“I made all of our initial communications electronic,” said Darel. “And I made sure I got compensated through a real bank account, too. That leaves a trail, sir, and I can make that trail pretty obvious to a lot of people. I can do that very easily.”
“W
ell,” said Vachs.
“Not only that,” said Darel, “but there’s other things I’ve given you, too. Information that you did follow up on. Information that I didn’t realize was so important at the time... but I’ve known for a while now that it’s information damning enough to bring this whole administration down.”
Silence again. None moved until Vachs clapped his hands together, turned to Udo, and said, “Well, old friend, the boy has us in quite a difficult position!” Udo turned away and rested his chin in hand. “Darel, I must say, it took quite a lot of guts to do what you’ve done tonight. In a way, you remind me of myself!”
Darel smiled cynically.
“Would you mind if my associate and I were to have a moment to confer with one another?”
Taken aback, Darel nodded and stood awkwardly.
“If you like,” said Vachs, “you can rest a moment in the anteroom with my secretary.”
“Uh, do you have a restroom nearby?”
“The door opposite the one you entered, my boy.”
Darel lurched past the pair, fumbled the doorknob, then slammed the door behind him. They heard the lock click into place.
The two sat in silence for a moment. Aegis leaned over the arm of his chair and stared directly at Udo, a maniacally carefree grin contorting his entire head. His massive pupils were slitted in something like good humor.
“Obviously,” said Vachs, “we cannot negotiate with terrorists.”
“Ah.”
“And it is far above the nature of this administration to haggle with some little boy over the price of bread.”
“Mm.”
“You know what they say, Udo?”
There was a pause, then Udo realized that Vachs was actually asking him if he knew what they said.
“What.”
“They say that if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself!”
Demonworld Book 2: The Pig Devils Page 16