by Jeter, K W
“So how did you find me?” Limmit stared out the room’s grime-encrusted window, his back turned to Adder sitting on the edge of the bed.
“When I left the old woman’s,” said Adder, “the first person I ran into out on the street, the only one, was Droit. It was either just luck or he was telling me the truth when he said that a KCID broadcast had told him to wait for me there. He told me where you were traveling, and where you probably would come back to. I’ve been waiting here for you since over a day ago.”
“Why?” Limmit faced him. He looks harder, he thought again, more knife’s-edge sharp than back on the Interface— honed for some deadly purpose. The flashglove lay across his lap, purring muted electronic sounds. “What do you need me for?”
Adder’s gaze burned expressionless at him. “Because,” he said quietly, “I owe Mox a great deal. I want your help in paying it back.”
“Shit,” said Limmit disgustedly. Adder’s eyes widened slightly, sensing some unexpected phenomenon. “I suppose I’m to lead a suicide squad of the remaining amputee hookers armed with your old scalpels against Mox’s headquarters in Orange County. You’ll make me president of your fan club if I come back.”
The flashglove’s metal fingers curled slightly, Adder saying nothing.
“I don’t know,” said Limmit, kneading his forehead with one hand. “I’m tired, I guess. I wouldn’t be of much use to you, whatever your plan is. I left a lot behind, between the Visitor and here. Not much is left—it was a long trip.”
“So?” Adder shrugged. “I’m not interested in any of that. Everybody’s got a horror story to tell.”
“Then just fuck you, Adder.” Limmit felt his face burn with some emotion close to rage. “I was wrong—it was better with you dead.” It’s true, he thought, trembling as the sudden realization pierced him. “You’re better as a remembered fantasy than a live reality. Why should I let myself be sucked into your stupid vendetta? Why should anyone?”
“I would imagine,” said Adder, “that anyone who does get involved with me has his own reasons.”
Limmit looked straight into the narrow face for a long, silent time. Their eyes locked without moving away. Limmit nodded slowly, then broke away his gaze.
“All right,” he said, sinking onto the bed beside Adder. “I’ll help you.” He stared down at the section of floor framed by his own boots. “Did you ever read any old books, any science fiction?” He shook his head thoughtfully, feeling a determined calm slowly filling his interior. “No, don’t bother. Don’t answer.”
“We’d better get going. There’s not much time.”
“Wait,” said Limmit, looking up. “One condition. When it’s all over, then that’s it. Even if you get your whole little circus on the Interface back, I don’t want the job you offered me, no part of it. I don’t want anything from you—I’ll find my own way out of L.A.”
Adder nodded impatiently. “Fine. Whatever you want. Let’s go, then.”
“Just a minute,” said Limmit, rising and heading for the door opening onto the bathroom. “Funny—all that time in the sewers, and I could hardly take a crap to save my life the whole time.” He pushed the door open.
Great splotches of drying blood splashed in static patterns across the floor and walls; small spots like red stars spattered across the ceiling. A corpse, twisted and unrecognizable, stiffening in the contortions of violent death, lay half out of the bathtub and across the tiny room, one hand cradled in the curved trap of the sink’s drainpipe, his head, or what remained of it, partially submerged in the toilet bowl. The still water had turned into translucent rose.
“What the fuck’s this?” shouted Limmit, standing transfixed in the doorway.
“Beats me,” came Adder’s voice from behind him. “He was hiding here when I came to wait for you. Jumped me, so he got it.” He paused, then laughed, short and cold. “It was a sight— I must admit that this flashglove is everything I heard it was.” “My assassin,” said Limmit, staring at the fragmented body. “That’s who it is.”
“What? Oh, yeah, Droit told me about it. Well, if everything works out, there won’t be another one.”
Limmit reached in and pulled the shattered head out of the bowl, dripping. Little clumps of brain tissue, like soft pink cauliflower, and one perfect staring eye floated in the red water. Ah, fuck it, he thought, and squatted on the toilet seat after dropping his pants down to his knees. Living in L.A. sure makes you callous.
Feeling his colon functioning unabashed, Limmit called out to Adder in the other room, “So what’s first on the agenda? What’s this big revenge plan of yours consist of, anyway?” Adder appeared in the bathroom doorway. “You can’t say you don’t owe me something, eh,” he said, kicking one of the dead gunman’s outstretched legs. “The plan? All in good time. There’s some other business to take care of first.”
“Like what?”
“We’ve got to pay a little visit to the Adder Siege Front headquarters.”
Limmit felt his sphincter involuntarily narrow a fraction in diameter. Mary’11 be there, he thought. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to see her again. “What for?” he asked, standing up and flushing the toilet.
“Droit was a little short of cash when I talked to him. One of his sources of income in Orange County just dried up, he said. I didn’t have any money to give him, so I’m afraid the news of my being alive and walking again went for sale to other interested parties.”
“Why should that matter?”
The thin cut of Adder’s smile flickered into existence briefly. “The notion that I was preferable dead,” he said, “may be more popular than you think.”
She looks older, thought Limmit. More ... pared down, he realized, his viscera clenching. Time is stripping us, like Adder, to our essentials. No message passed from Mary’s brooding eyes to his, except a first spark of surprise and recognition.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Eddie Azusa, breaking the pall-like silence that had fallen when Adder and Limmit had entered the room. “But we didn’t really know whether to expect you here or not.”
Adder drew an empty chair away from the other side of the table and sat down facing the committee. “I thought,” he said calmly, “you might enjoy a surprise visit more than I would.” Azusa’s face trembled and broke into a nervous grin. “So? You expected us to have some special reaction to the news of your being ... back, so to speak?”
“Can the shit,” said Adder irritably, waving him off. “Save it for the Rattowners you’ve sucked into this phony siege of yours.”
Limmit pulled out the chair at Adder’s left and sat down opposite Mary. Her eyes did not meet his.
“Watch it, Adder,” said one of the other figures. “We’re in a tight situation here, and there’s no room for bad elements, if you get my meaning.”
“Tight situation, my ass,” said Adder. “You know this siege is a load of crap. There’s no threat from Mox, his MFers, or anyone else to this pile of shit. All that your spaced-out little troops sitting on the building tops have to shoot at is each other.”
“You must like to think,” said Azusa, not smiling, “that you’re pretty well informed.”
Adder grinned. “I get my info from the same place you do.” “But you’re missing the point,” said Mary fervently, leaning across the table. “Sure, so the siege is a shuck—so what? The thing is, we’ve extended something resembling revolutionary thought to hundreds of people who up to this point had nothing on their minds but kainine, fucking, and—you, Adder. It’s not so much in itself, but big enough when you consider how close we are to the single largest source of revolutionary potential left in America, Orange County.”
“Orange County?” snorted Limmit. Every face turned toward him in surprise—none had expected him to speak. “Jesus Christ, go raise your armies out of fuckin’ graveyards,” he continued. “You’ve a better chance, if you can tell the difference to begin with.”
“That’s not the point, either,�
� said Adder. “Look, I know more about what’s going on than you think. I know that you and your friends here are more interested in keeping this bullshit siege just the way it is, rather than getting to the improbable point where you’d actually have to shit or get off the pot. It’s a lot more fun just to play revolutionary generalissimo, and rake off a little on the side, too. And maybe you’ll be able to keep the Rattowners’ interest up for the rest of your life and more, given my attraction as your dead martyr. Oh yes, I know about that. No matter: it’s your problem, I’m not interested in it. You see, the point really is that I’ve got my own plans, and it’s your ass to ride out your personal shit-storms the best way you can.” “You came here to tell us that?” asked Azusa, his face grown rigid and mottled with sullen anger. “Kinda foolish of you to let us know.”
“Just a little affectation of mine.” Another menacing grin. “I’ve always liked telling people just what I was about to do. I don’t want you to even interfere for a second, trying to stop me.” He laid the flashglove on the table like an ominously humming torpedo clenched into a fist. “Believe me, nothing can. ” Before any of the committee members could speak, a woman’s voice came from the doorway behind Limmit and Adder. “Nothing?” the voice called softly. A black-robed figure entered the circle of light enclosing the table.
That must be her, thought Limmit, the one they call Mother Endure. What an effect with the robes, he attempted to think cynically. Dredged up from some abandoned costume shop, no doubt. So calculated, yet ... somehow, it’s for real. He saw Adder’s eyes flare wide at the sight of the cowled face, then tighten down into slits again.
The woman stood beside Adder and looked down into his face. “What about those in Rattown,” she said, almost serenely, “who aren’t in the siege? What about the less fortunate, the downers?”
“All right,” rasped Adder harshly. “What about them?” “They’re safe here. They will be—until your presence here is known to Mox. He crushed the Interface and everyone on it just to get you; we all know that. He’ll do the same to these slums, once he knows you’re here. A lot of innocent people, even more harmless than the others, will die merely because you wouldn’t abandon your lust for revenge against Mox.” The reedlike voice lapsed into composed silence.
“How do you know that’s what my plans are?”
Her placid manner faltered for a second. “What else would they be?”
“Hey,” broke in Azusa agitatedly. “That’s a whole different angle on this that we hadn’t thought of. We don’t want any shit like that coming down on us. Uh, that is, it would, I mean, wipe out the little progress we’ve made here in L.A. It’s premature —we’re not ready for it.” He glanced around nervously at the other members for confirmation.
Mother Endure ignored him. “Don’t you owe anything,” she said quietly to Adder, “to anyone else? Or even just to me?” Limmit watched as Adder’s face hardened into a rigid, cutting mask. “Yeah,” he said slowly, his voice dropping lower and more ominous than Limmit had ever heard it, frightening in its intensity. “I owe you a whole lot, too.”
“Aw, forget it, Mother,” said Azusa disgustedly. “I mean, in the revolutionary cadres we’ve always appreciated the way you take care of the community’s, uh, less capable members, but there’s nothing you can do with this schmuck. We’ll have to take care of him in our own way.”
“Just try it, motherfucker,” said Adder, whirling around in his chair to face the shorter man. The flashglove flexed and whined.
“You d-don’t dare kill me,” babbled Azusa near-hysterically. “I’ve got enough followers of my own now to shoot you from out of your reach.” He regained his composure to the point of a feeble sneer. “And even if you hide where a sniper can’t get to you, we’ve got sneak-killers, too. You’ve got to sleep sometime, even with that thing on your stump.”
“That’s all right,” said Adder. “I wasn’t planning on doing any sleeping for a while. I’ve had a long rest.”
“Let’s split,” said Azusa, pushing his chair away from the table. “We’ve got work to do. Have fun, Adder. While you can.” The committee’s four men and Mary rose and started for the door.
Adder grabbed hold of Mother Endure’s thin wrist as she turned away. “Wait outside,” he said briskly to Limmit without looking at him, staring up instead at the face half-hidden in the cowl of the black robes.
When the others had all left the room, Adder said quietly to the woman, “It’s been a long time, Jing.”
“A long time,” she agreed, sitting down in the chair beside him. “It’s no use calling me by that name—everything has changed.”
“Has it.”
She turned her face away. “Don’t. Don’t try to. Not after everything that’s happened. Everything ... I became. You don’t know who I am now.”
“I thought I knew once,” said Adder, bitterness tinging his voice. “But that was before Mox wheeled you into my office, doped out., and told me you were his wife.”
She said nothing, her cowled head inclining over the table. “Mox’s wife,” mused Adder. “Quite a surprise. I’ve never yet figured out—and I used to spend a lot of time thinking about it —why you loved both him and me, or why we both loved you.” “I know why,” her whisper quavered. “I knew from the beginning. Because I was the perfect receptacle for each of you to fill up with your own lives. So empty. For me it was simply because no one else could even start to fill the vacuum inside me.”
“I hope you didn’t wonder, then,” said Adder, “why I did it.”
“How could you have?” she cried, turning a tear-streaked face on him. “Can you imagine what it was like to come up out of that haze, Mox straddling, bending over me, and then that monster you turned my cunt into emerging like a shark from between my legs. Christ, I can still see the blood, those dead-white teeth. That was the first and last time I ever saw them emerging from their sheaths, but I still feel them there inside my groin.”
“I can change that now,” said Adder softly. “I didn’t do it to you—it was Mox I was after.”
“No,” she said, biting her lower lip and shaking her head. “Nothing, not you or your scalpel, is ever going to touch me there again.”
“You’ll just go on, I suppose, here in Rattown, playing the Madonna of the Cripples.”
Her eyes flashed sudden anger. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve been taking care of Mox’s and your victims for a long time now. Can’t you understand why I said what I did before? Can’t you accept any responsibility for anything that’s happened because of you? Mox told me himself that he slaughtered everyone on the Interface just to get you.”
“You’ve seen him?” Adder stiffened.
“No. I haven’t seen him for years. But we keep in touch. He still loves me, you know. Just as you do. He supplies me with food and medicine, and some clothing, for the ones I take care of. More than that: he’s wanted to wipe out Rattown for a long time now, just out of thoroughness. His mind works like that. But he hasn’t—I asked him not to, for love of me.”
“So that’s why you want me to give up my plans. You know that when I destroy him the handouts stop. How are you going to play the saintly benefactress then? They might, when they get hungry enough, even eat you. ”
“Oh, Ad, you stupid prick,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “Don’t you understand anything? You’re going to fail. Whatever the plan is, it’ll end in your death. I know both you and Mox. He’s already tricked you twice, beaten you. You won’t get him this time—you’ll die.”
“Twice? What do you mean?”
“He tricked you with the flashglove. His plan wasn’t to get you to commit a crime in buying it—he knew you could protect yourself against that easy enough. He’d been building up his MFers for years, waiting for the chance to go in and raid the Interface. But the others on the GPC exec board outvoted him, wouldn’t let him. After all, it was their playground, too, wasn’t it? And it was safe for them to let the Interface go on running; thei
r computer analyses showed that your image wasn’t powerful enough to present a serious threat to the psychic stability of Orange County, even though they’ve been on a teetering balance over there for decades now—why do you think we get so many mental refugees over here? But you were tolerable; in fact, a good safety valve. Until, that is, Mox tricked you into buying the flashglove. That one factor, added to your psychopublic image, was enough for the computers to reevaluate you as a terminal threat to them. And then Mox had the proof that you bought it; that’s what the bug was planted for. The other board members abandoned their warped libidos in favor of their wallets, and gave the okay for the raid. And that’s what brought the shit down on the Interface.”
Adder stared at his metal forearm, shining like an accusation. “What was the other time that he tricked me?”
She hesitated, then spoke, her voice trembling. “He tricked you ... about me. Tricked you into doing what you did to me. He was able to control what you saw when you had him under the ADR; he was familiar with the stuff, somehow. Maybe he learned from Gass himself. Who knows? But he was able to make you think that castration was what he feared most, castration by the fanged snatch of the one he loved. It wasn’t his nightmare—it was his dream. He’s insane, a fanatic; that’s where his power comes from. You released him, in a way that satisfied his madness for a while, from all the ties of flesh he despised. He knew all along what was between my legs that night. Why else did he have his right-hand man waiting outside the door, like he had never done before? His cock was the last thing blocking the reconciliation of his mind with his subconscious drives. Without it, he was whole. On the side of death. And he tricked you into doing it for him.”