by Rick Wayne
Jack scowled. “Is that what that was all about?” He nodded back toward the service door.
“I thought . . . never mind.” She blinked hard.
Jack watched tiny children push and pull each other on the far side of the massive tank. Behind them were the spinning rides, the swirling banners, the freak show tent, and all the rest. And above it all, the rooftops of the city and the tall, black spire of City Hall rising like an ice pick to the throat of the sky. It was a moor for an airship, a constant reminder that an Imperial zeppelin could arrive at any time.
“I never said anything,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“We’re both still alive.” Jack stood straight to face her. “So let me get this straight. You thought he found out and called me back to kill you.”
Zeek shrugged. “I thought maybe it was his way of making you prove yourself, of buying your way back in.”
Jack shook his head. “If Erasmus knew what really happened that night, he’d kill me same as you.” If LaMana was right, Jack thought, then it would happen as soon as they came back with the books. He wondered what trick Erasmus would ask of the samurai.
“No, he wouldn’t,” Zeek snorted. “You’re the only one left from the old days. You’re his favorite. You’ve always been his favorite.”
“The only favorite Erasmus has is Erasmus.”
“You’re wrong, Jack. You’re just too much of a machine to see it.” Zeek noticed the mother from the hallway talking to someone and looking at the pair. “But we should get going.” She started walking toward the stairs at the front of the carnival.
Jack followed. “Not gonna shoot me in the car, are you Zeek?”
The woman with the peeking stubble smiled back at him. “Just keep your hands to yourself, mister.”
Zeek’s car was parked on the street across from a lunch counter. It was an old Deckard, solid and steel and burgundy red. She opened the door and Jack looked at the seat. He wasn’t only moving slow. He was getting weaker and didn’t have the strength to lower himself properly. As he plopped into the seat, the car dropped to the ground and showered the asphalt in sparks. People stopped and turned. A row of fairies snickered from a power line, then fluttered off to steal fries from children.
Jack waited for the car to stop shaking. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I didn’t realize you weighed that much. I mean,” Zeek corrected, “you don’t look it.”
The atmosphere in the car was stiff and nervous, so Jack turned and stared out the window as they pulled into light traffic. Shops lined the road. A wealthy woman walked a small green wyvern. Its tongue hung out of its mouth. Jack looked at the leash.
“Lot’s changed, Jack.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing’s the same since you left. Rabid, Togo, the others, they don’t have your style. Sciever’s insane. Ruud hardly even shows up anymore.”
“Where is everyone?”
“Out picking up the pieces. As soon as he heard LaMana died, Erasmus has had us all running around. He’s got some plan.”
Jack nodded. Erasmus always had a plan. “I’m sure your family misses you.”
Zeek turned and look at him. The car swerved a little. A car honked from the neighboring lane and Zeek turned back to watch the road. “What do you mean?”
“Woman puts on weight, lets her makeup go, means one of two things. She’s either dying, or settled down.”
“You’re a pig, Jack.”
Jack shrugged.
“And that hardly means I have a family.”
“Okay . . . then I’m wrong.” Jack sat up and the car shook as it shimmied down the road. “That gun,” Jack nodded at the purse at Zeek’s feet, “it’s overkill.”
“So?”
“You’re protecting something.”
“Myself.”
“You kept the kid, didn’t you? The boy. In the bandages.”
Zeek turned onto Lexington, a wide road that ran across town and served as the de facto border between gangs. She stared ahead.
“Or maybe I’m wrong,” Jack said. A trolley car dinged past.
“A lot has changed.”
Jack waited for the rest.
“We started dealing.”
“Neverod?”
Zeek nodded. “After you left, LaMana pushed in. We needed some leverage.”
Jack thought for a moment. “What did he say?”
“Who?”
“Pimpernel.”
“About you?” Zeek asked. “Nothing, really. No one talked about it. I mean, you were--” She stopped.
“I was what?” Jack insisted.
“A fucking god,” she breathed. “A real, genuine god of death.”
Jack looked down. “Ain’t no other kind. If there were, world wouldn’t be so fucked up.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what I read in the papers.” Jack watched the squat apartments of Adamour roll by. “I know a woman in Riddleville kept her old man drugged in bed for years. She tapped him like a keg and sold it to blood banks all over the Empire. Made a pretty good living apparently, until the guy got some kind of infection and passed it to a bunch of sick people. Killed ’em. I know a guy down in Old Amazonus killed his twin little girls. Then he up and disappears. I know they found a den of Jacka--”
“I get the point.”
Jack shrugged.
“That how you been spending your time, reading the papers?”
“Ain’t much else to do when you’re waiting to die.”
“You know, none of that proves the gods aren’t real.”
Jack looked at the serene statue of Xueyin on the dash. “You didn’t strike me as the religious type, Zee.”
“Yeah, well being a mom changes things.”
Jack nodded. “The kid’s all right?”
Zeek waited. “Yes. You think Pugs will fight?”
“Possible. If he ordered the hit on LaMana, then he’ll fight.”
“PUGS?” Zeek snorted. “He’s a lap dog. Always has been. He sits next to whoever’s in charge.”
Jack shrugged again. “Maybe.”
“If you thought this was a setup, why did you agree to come?”
“I don’t know why you keep thinking I have a choice.”
Zeek scowled.
“I already fucked up once. Should be dead. I say no to Erasmus, what happens?”
Zeek thought for a moment. “Zen-ji.”
Jack nodded.
“You don’t think you could take him?”
Jack shook his head. “Not without Rosa.”
“Did you really lose it?”
Jack didn’t answer.
“The ray gun, I mean.”
Jack looked at Zeek.
“That’s unfortunate,” she said.
“Yup.” Jack was stoic. “And it’s her. Not it.”
Zeek chuckled. “Her? It’s just a machi--Well, we could probably use her right now.”
With a squeak of the brakes, Zeek stopped the car outside the darkened front of The Colophon, the private club of Pugs Roth, Aminal, bookie, and former lap dog to Nero “The Butcher” LaMana.
Zeek grabbed her purse and walked around the car as Jack struggled to get out. The cab shook and creaked as he scooted to the edge of the seat and stood with a grunt. He didn’t make eye contact. It was too embarrassing.
Zeek waited until he was on two feet before walking to the door. It was unlocked. The lights were off, but then night clubs were generally closed in the afternoon.
Jack peered into the dark and shrugged. “Probably fine.”
Zeek motioned him in first. “Let’s just give him the message, get the books, and go.”
Jack walked through the small entryway, passed an unmanned coat check, and pulled open the drapes that kept the main hall invisible to casual passers-by.
Zeek clung to the door, one hand in her purse. “Is anyone there?”
Jack didn�
�t get a chance to answer before the sledgehammer hit his head and sprayed bits of pseudoflesh across the velvet drapes. He dropped like a bag of rocks and gripped the floor, panting on all fours.
“Shit . . .”
A splatter of visions, lost memories, hit his mind like buckshot: tentacle-faced children, a frontier town, blood on his hands, an army of mechanoids. And then they were gone.
“What’s that?” Pugs screamed from the dark. “What did he say?”
“I hate it when I’m right.” Jack didn’t have the strength to stand. As he waited for the finishing blow, he felt Zeek’s hand on his shoulder.
Her mouth went to his ear. “I asked Erasmus to send for you, Jack. You should have brought Rosa.”
The sledgehammer hit again and knocked him black.
(ELEVEN) A Dangerous Game
Gilbert’s face flushed as the mechanoid woman, Iku, pulled his pants off. “I’m sorry, I’m just very nervous.”
“Don’t be, sweetie. I’ll take care of you.”
“I’m sure you will. It’s not that.” Gilbert’s mind flashed back to an awkward encounter in a house of ill repute. He was sixteen, and it didn’t end well. Gilbert remembered sitting on the curb under the flashing lights of the police car, and the look on his Dad’s face. “I haven’t been with a woman, or”—Gilbert wasn’t sure what to call her—“whatever in a very long time.”
Iku smiled and stood up. She dropped her silk kimono and stretched all six of her arms. Her body was flawless. “Well, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you.” She had the soft, smoky voice of a woman who had been singing her whole life. “The best way to deal with a problem is to talk it through with someone.” She dropped to her knees between Gilbert’s legs and began rubbing his neck, chest, and thighs at the same time.
Gilbert watched her arms move in a florid dance. “I’m not sure I’m allowed to talk about it.”
“Don’t worry. We’re all part of the same family here.” Her top hands rubbed Gilbert’s face. “If I’d told anyone half the things I heard, I’d have been scrapped for parts years ago.”
Gilbert’s response was muffled by her hands as his head rolled around.
“What’s that, baby?”
“I said that feels really good.”
Iku smiled again. “Just wait.” She leaned close to his ear and whispered, “I have seven holes in my body. Would you like to try them all?”
Her voice box had a perfume module and her breath smelled of lilac and oranges. It tickled Gilbert’s ear and nose. He felt himself get hard. “Oh, wow.”
“Now,” she started kissing down his chest. “Tell me everything.”
Gilbert leaned his head against the plush-backed chair. He felt her hands moving up and down his body, caressing, massaging, each to its own rhythm. He took a deep breath. She was very good at her job. “I’m supposed to kill Pugs Roth.”
Iku stopped for only a moment. Her tongue circled his belly button. One of her hands worked its way up Gilbert’s neck to his scalp. She massaged it in rhythmic throbs. “That’s a tough assignment, baby.”
“Yeah . . .” He nodded. His neck relaxed. His butt relaxed. His feet relaxed.
She ran her tongue along his thigh. Gilbert closed his eyes as her mouth reached his balls.
“I have to get close to hi-Oh!” Gilbert curled his toes. “Wow . . .”
She wrapped her throat around him, wet and soft and tight. Her head started bobbing with mechanical speed and precision.
Gilbert swallowed hard. “You’re very good at this,” he panted.
She started moaning in piercing tones, like whale song. The deep vibrations traveled down her tongue and into his body.
“Oh wow . . .” Gilbert started to pant.
Iku lifted her lips with a smack. “He’s not an easy aminal to see. Or so I would think.”
“Yeah.” Gilbert was in ecstasy.
“What are you gonna do?” She was rubbing him.
“I have no idea,” he whispered to the air as he stared at the antique ceiling.
Iku kept pumping as her many hands danced over his body like an exotic goddess, then they ran over his manhood one after the other. “If I were you,” she whispered, “I would make him come to you.”
“How?”
“Get something he wants.” Her head went down again and her moaning increased, as did her pressure on his body.
Gilbert nodded. For the first time, he understood why the guys at the plant blew a week’s pay on an afternoon at places like this. It had seemed such a waste before. But versus what?
“Wow . . .” he breathed.
Iku’s arms had extended on pistons at her shoulders and elbows. Even as her head was bobbing up and down on him, lifting his butt from the seat with vacuum force, her fingers played piano on his face, his shoulders, his chest, even his feet. She was rubbing him everywhere while her breasts and her impossibly smooth skin—warm somehow, like a blanket in winter—slid back and forth across his own. Her long hair, soft and silky, draped like feathers across his inner thighs.
“Wow . . .” he repeated. There was nothing else to say.
Gilbert felt his forehead flush and his skin tingle. He felt himself go lightheaded. His mind twisted and turned inside out. His thumbs twitched. His toes curled. As he neared climax, he didn’t notice his core temperature rising. It wasn’t until he ejaculated that anything appeared out of place.
Iku screamed. “Oh gods, it burns. It burns.” She stood and retracted all her arms with a click as they clutched at her throat, her chest, her stomach. “Get it out! Get it out!” She shrieked at high pitch. The mirror cracked. “Get it out!”
Gilbert saw his skin, all of it, was bright red. He was too excited. His metabolism was racing. He couldn’t imagine how much radiation he was emitting. He was endangering everyone in the building.
As the woman ran screaming for the door, Gilbert stood and grabbed a towel from the warming rack nearby, but after mere seconds of contact with his skin, it burst into flame.
“Gah!” Gilbert dropped it and began to stomp with sock-covered feet. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Gilbert pulled his underwear over his dribbling penis and ran out into the hall after the screaming mechanoid. She was clutching at her throat and chest. His mind filled with images of tiny, radioactive sperm trying to burrow into anything they could find: pseudoflesh, circuits, wires, metal.
A fire alarm pierced the building as the smoke from the smoldering towel drifted into the long, opulent hallway, like a grand hotel. Women began to scream. Iku collapsed against the wall and ejected a tank full of semen through her panties, several nights’ worth. It ran down her legs and onto the thick carpet with a splatter.
Gilbert covered his mouth and turned away. He almost puked. He watched out of the corner of his eye as it oozed across the floor, burning the carpet like acid. It glowed a faint neon green. Then the carpet caught fire at the edge of the puddle. Flames started to lick the plaster. A crowd of people—including at least two municipal policemen and an Imperial official—emerged into the hallway, some half naked, some nude and clutching their clothes, as the fire alarm obliterated all other sound. Mechanoids with swollen breasts and elaborate headdresses full of mechanical-armed dildos and fur-covered paddles ran down the stairs, boobs bouncing, mouths agape with inaudible screams.
Gilbert winced at the sound of the siren as he scuffled around the puddle to help Iku to her feet. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have known better.” He doubted she could hear him over the blaring klaxon.
A hairy man in an eyeless leather mask and studded leash was being led by his mistress down the stairs as Iku mouthed angry words back. The pseudoflesh around her chin and tongue had been eaten away. Wisps of smoke emerged from her lips as she spoke. She pushed Gilbert to the floor, stumbled down the stairs, and followed the unicorn through the grand hall and out the front.
Gilbert watched her leave. He coughed on the smoke from the fire. He felt the wood struts
in the wall crack under the heat as the flames spread across the ceiling. He sat there, fire raging overhead, siren blaring, with tears on his face until the private extinguishers came. They dragged him outside as they barked orders to each other over the din. Gilbert walked in his underwear and socks through puddles of fire-retardant spray and into the alley on the side of the building. He collapsed against the cold brick and covered his eyes.
This was not how it was supposed to go. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, and there was no one he could ask.
Marcelline dropped his suit on the ground with a splash and stood back. “Put it on.”
Gilbert nodded.
“By Goyen, are you crying?”
Gilbert draped the heavy, lead-lined jacket over his chest. “Shut up.”
“You’ve made one helluva mess,” she yelled over the noise from the crowd gathering in the street. It looked like a circus parade. Gamblers and businessmen emerged from the nearby clubs and casinos to stare at the racket. Traffic was stopped.
“Is she okay?” Gilbert called.
“She’s with the tinker. She’ll be fine. Hopefully. After a lengthy decontamination.”
Gilbert pulled up his pants. “I’m going to be killed, aren’t I?” He sniffed.
“For this?” Marcelline turned to look at the smoking brothel. “It’s possible. He’s certainly killed people for less.”
“Not just this.” Gilbert lifted the hood over his head. It reeked of smoke.
Marcelline walked closer. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t kill Pugs.”
“Why not?”
“How the hell am I supposed to get close to him?” Gilbert threw his arms up.
“How did you kill the Futurian ambassador?”
“What do you mean?” Gilbert wasn’t sure how to answer that. He didn’t remember that file. “The same way as everyone else.”
“No, how did you get close to him?”
Gilbert hoped Marcelline didn’t remember the details either. But then, if she caught him in a lie, he could always claim he had simply been mixed up. “Not him. Her. She was speaking at a conference. Those things last awhile, and even ambassadors need to go to the bathroom.”
“You hid?”