by Alex Nast
Felix plunges the knife straight in to Victor's throat without ceremony, and the blood goes spraying up for a quick second, coating everything, including Felix. I could have told him that was going to happen. It hardly matters though, Felix is already covered in his own blood. Victor's blood is only a fresh coat.
Felix pulls the knife out and gets to his feet.
He turns and walks calmly over to the wife.
"Please, no," she says, trying to push her back right through the concrete wall to get away from Felix. He looks horrible, a specter of death. Whatever innocent boy was there before is gone now. He lost his wife and his daughter. Became a killer. I'm the worst thing that ever happened to him.
Oliver looks to me, wondering if he should put a stop to whatever is about to happen. Part of me wants to say the words. Felix will regret it later. The blood lust doesn't last. The guilt comes flooding in to replace it. Her pleas will keep him up at night, make him hate himself.
But I was there when he found his wife. And the note.
I shake my head at Oliver.
She fights him, briefly, whispering placating pleas for her life, crying, both her hands on the wrist of his knife hand, trying to fend him off.
Finally Felix shoves the knife home, in to her throat. He doesn't pull it out, just leaves it there and she dies quietly, mouth overflowing with rich red blood, her fingers gingerly touching the hilt of the knife, not quite believing that any of it's real.
So different from her husband.
We all sit there in silence for a long moment, watching her die. So much blood. The whole room smells coppery, and suddenly I don't want any of it to touch me. I don't want any of it. I want to be anywhere but there.
And then a voice from the laptop sitting innocuously in the corner, grainy and broken, "Could I speak to Juno please?"
13
I heave myself up off the ground and slowly approach the laptop. Everyone else in the room if frozen, staring at me. I've never actually used one of these things. I've seen them of course, and the smaller phones that some people use too, but I've never been able to afford one. And people guard them too closely for me to ever have a good chance at stealing one.
This one, though, is far more impressive than any I've seen in shops in the outer city. It's shiny and clean and thin, no dust or stains. Something from the inner city. Something to allow Victor to communicate with his buyers I suppose.
And there on the screen is a truly beautiful man. Oliver is beautiful in a dangerous, smiling sort of way, but this man is beautiful in a delicate, almost feminine way. The thought springs in to my head that he doesn't look like he's ever killed anyone, and I almost laugh.
In a little box in the bottom of the screen I can see myself, on video. I wave my hand over the top of the screen. There's a tiny camera there. Shit, he's seen everything then, whoever he is. I think about putting my scarf back on but it's too late. He's seen my face.
"Hello there," he says, smiling. "Juno I'm assuming?" Despite the static in the audio his voice is musical.
"Who are you?"
"The highest bidder." He grins a little, playfully.
It takes me half a second to understand what he's saying, and I almost close the laptop right then. Asshole.
"Sorry to disappoint you then," I say instead. I take a second, harder look at him. It's like looking at an alien that has invaded some other person's body. He talks and moves like a human being but what is he really underneath that skin? Something different than me. How many centuries has he been alive? How many bodies of the dead has he slithered in to? A lot, if he's the high bidder.
"It's perfectly okay. Not getting what we want is often so much better than getting it, don't you think?" He leans forward, closer to the camera. "You are very beautiful. Even covered in blood as you are, with your hair in disarray, I can see what all the fuss is about, certainly. Perhaps the blood even adds something, a certain... wildness. I trust Victor didn't hurt you? I wouldn't want you damaged."
Victor is lying there dead and all this guy cares about is my well-being. "No," I say in a mocking voice, "a cut would be awful."
He smiles pleasantly at my sarcasm. "You know, you could make this all very simple. If you turn yourself over to the nearest checkpoint, I can assure you that you will be transferred in to an excellent body in perfect health and given a very large sum of money for your trouble."
I'm already laughing before he finishes talking. "Do I look that dumb to you?"
"Yes well I admit, you hardly have any reason to trust me. But I assure you my word is worth more than even the price on your head, and you have my word that my offer will be honored in full. Your sudden appearance in our midst has... shaken things up. Quite a few of my peers are looking at themselves very hard in the mirror right now, suddenly seeing all the flaws of their paltry 9.7 faces."
"And you want to be the one to wear my face, is that it?" It makes me want to take a knife to my face like Oliver must have done to his own face, just to shock this bastard.
"No," he smiles demurely, "I tried a female body once but it was not to my liking. No, I see acquiring your body as more of an... investment, shall we say. I am a great appreciator of beauty."
I keep expecting him to be embarrassed or ashamed of the way he talks about me to my face, like I am a thing, but there is nothing like that from the face on the laptop. He has evolved in to something incapable of shame.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Dorian."
The statue. Shit, could it really be him? That Dorian? The great and noble founder of our city wants my body? Of course though, who else could outbid everyone else but him.
"You've heard of me, I see."
Something on my face must have betrayed me. "Everyone's heard of you."
"Yes I suppose that's true. And soon enough everyone will have heard of you Juno. What do you think about that?"
I look around the room. Maz is recovering in the corner. Felix is quietly weeping, his back to the dead wife, ignoring the rest of the room. I wonder if he's already regretting it. Only Oliver is paying attention to what's going on with me. He's sitting against the edge of the desk, out of view of the camera, watching me closely.
I look back at the camera. "I'm going to kill you one day."
Dorian laughs, "well you're certainly not the first person to make that threat."
"And you're not the first person to laugh when I told them I was going to kill them."
Dorian rolls his eyes just a little, smiling, "And I suppose this is where you tell me that they're all dead now. Really, such dramatics should be beneath you Juno."
"I'm going to enjoy killing you."
"My dear," Dorian leans forward again, "I am the closest thing to God that you will ever lay eyes upon. And a mere mortal like you can't kill God."
"I'm going to stick my knife in-"
Oliver slams the lid of the laptop down.
I glare at him.
"What if he can track us with that thing?" Oliver glares right back. "What if they already know where this place is?"
I look back at the laptop, doubtful. "Victor would make sure to keep this place secret. He wasn't stupid."
"No, he wasn't, but your new friend there," he points at the closed laptop, "isn't stupid either."
"Check it out, he has an SBS camera" Maz says from her side of the room. She's recovered enough to croak out a few words apparently, and found the camera that Victor used on me to measure my Beauty Score. She holds it out at arm's length, pointed towards herself, and clicks the button.
Oliver sighs, "what the hell are you doing?"
She shrugs, not looking at him, "I'm curious." She looks at the readout on the camera. I watch her face. I realize this is the first time I've seen her without her scarf. She has dark hair and round, sad eyes. Soft features. She's beautiful in a tragic looking sort of way. She considers the readout of the camera for a second, then tosses it on the ground. "Not freakishly high," she says, looking point
edly at me. "I guess that's a relief."
Despite what she says I can hear the disappointment in her voice. She wanted to be a 9.96 too. Wanted to rub it in my face. But she isn't. I feel a little perverse sense of pleasure, that she isn't as good as me, and that I'm still special. And then instantly I feel ashamed. Whatever this unease is between Maz and I we should be on the same side.
"We should go," I say. Oliver looks like he can keep both of his feet underneath him. Felix looks like the worst of all of us. Hopefully he'll live. Long enough to get us out of the city, at least. If he wants to die after that I won't try and stop him.
Oliver isn't moving though. "Are you even going to consider the offer he made you?"
"What offer? To turn myself in?" I scoff. "Are you serious?"
"He's going to hunt you for the rest of your life. You know that right? And if we're going to be anywhere near you..."
He doesn't need to say the rest. I'm a danger to all of them. I'm instantly on guard again. Maybe they'll try and take me prisoner, turn me in themselves. Now that they have Felix they don't really need me. It's not like Felix is going to take a stand on my behalf and refuse to help them.
I sneer at him, "I don't need you. Go, find your own way out of the city then if that's how you feel, because that stun gun must have rewired your brain if you think I'm turning myself in."
"He's right," Maz says from her place against the wall. Her voice is raw and quiet. "That story they tell about a new body if you turn yourself in is bullshit, but I would put good money on Dorian's offer being legit."
I know she doesn't like me though. Probably just wants me to do something stupid. Maybe she's even jealous that Oliver seems to actually want me around. Maybe that's what her problem is.
"This body is mine," I say with more fury than I'd intended. "I'm not going to just give it to him. I wouldn't turn myself over to him for every dollar he has. Fuck him."
Oliver shakes his head.
"I meant it, I don't need you." I look from Oliver to Maz, "either of you." Needing them is weakness. I'm strong enough to stand on my own. I have to be, if I'm going to survive outside the city. "Leave if you want. I'm better by myself anyway."
Oliver throws up his hands, "Shit Juno it was just a suggestion. How about we get out of the city and then we won't have to worry about any of this. They'll crawl over this place for months looking for us. And as long as we're not in this city we'll be golden. The Free City, right? Are you with us or not?"
I don't answer him though. I'm with them, I suppose, but I can't believe he would suggest giving up my body. Would he ever give up his body like that? I doubt it. "Felix," I say. He doesn't respond.
I walk over to his broken, crying body and lay a hand on his shoulder. "Felix. We need to get out of the city. You included. You know you're just as much of a target as us now."
He shoves my hand away. "I don't care, let them come and find me. They're all dead, and it's your fault." He glares up at me, "I never should have helped you escape. You got them all killed."
I kneel down in front of Felix and lay both my hands on his shoulders, "I didn't get them killed Felix, you did."
He cries in anguish and tries to claw at me but he's so weak from being tortured he can't hurt me.
"You know it's true. The minute you talked to Victor you killed them. You should have been dead too, but I saved you. I came back for you Felix. I'm the only one who cares." The first time I lied to someone, to get a little scrap of food, I felt terrible. Now I don't even flinch. "You killed Victor, you killed his wife, but they were only the hands of the system, reaching out to touch you and those you love. We need to kill the body Felix. We're going to do it together. We're going to kill Dorian together. Killing Dorian will make it all better, I promise. For your wife and your daughter. For my mother. Revenge will heal our hearts Felix."
"Do you think so?"
He sounds so weak and lost, but I don't hesitate. "It's the only thing I'm sure of."
"Okay," he says.
I can feel the strength slowly seeping back in to his tired body. Revenge is a bottle of fuel with no bottom.
"Good." I help him up and direct him towards the door. "Let's get the hell out of here, before the Tower security people figure out where we are."
I glance over at Oliver and Maz and see the repulsion on their faces at what they just witnessed. The easy way that I used Felix's broken heart to get what I need from him. What we all need.
I don't look away from their eyes. I meet their judgment with perfect serenity. They have their ways of surviving and so do I. All the good, decent people die quickly. We're what's left.
14
Somewhere along the way day becomes night, and we manage to mostly stick to the shadows on our way back to Felix's apartment, getting only a few strange looks along the way. All four of us masked and covered in blood that looks even more red and garish in the red tinted light of a full moon.
We must look like death lurking in the shadows, ready to swallow up a new victim. The silver lining is that no one dares approach us to intimidate us in to pulling our scarves. The city is buzzing, we can all feel it. The word is out. A 9.96 is out there somewhere. Rumors of prices in the tens of millions, enough to make a king out of a beggar. But no one messes with a group of four covered in blood. Too much blood to just be ours. It's a free pass.
Back at the apartment, Felix's wife is still dead. There is the beginning of an odor, and what seemed like a tragedy before is now something uglier. Just flesh decaying. Not so different from the animals strung up in the markets, rotting past their prime, their price falling relative to how bad they smell.
We all take turns showering and stay far away from the living room, and the body.
Felix starts to say something about keeping the showers short, to keep the water bill low, but doesn't bother finishing the thought. None of us are ever coming back here.
When we're all as clean as we're going to get we gather in the kitchen, silent and anxious. All of us except Felix. I can see the outline of his darker shadow, hunched over his wife. We left the lights off, fearing that someone might already be watching the apartment for signs of life.
Oliver and Maz are both looking at me. They judged me before, but now they need me to get him moving.
Silently, I walk in to the somber room. "Felix, I'm sorry but we need to go."
He nods. "We're taking her with us. I'm going to give her a proper burial."
I'm about to protest, but stop myself. It's his job after all, to bury dead bodies, and one actual fresh corpse might help us get past a nosy checkpoint. The smell will certainly help.
"That sounds like a good idea. What about... your daughter?"
"He didn't tell me how he did it or where... I don't know where her body is." A single sob wracks his body, "I don't know what happened to her. She's just gone."
I give his shoulder a squeeze, and wait a long moment while he cries fresh tears silently. "We should go now."
"I don't think I can do it," he says.
It takes me a moment, but then I understand. "Go get the truck," I say, "we'll meet you in the back alley."
"Thanks," he mumbles, then slowly pushes himself up to his feet and walks past Oliver and Maz without a word. He looks destroyed physically and mentally, but he's still moving forward.
"What was that?" Maz asks.
"We're taking her with us."
"Why?"
"Because Felix wants to bury his wife," I say. "And because she actually smells like a dead body. Unlike us."
"Fuck sakes," Maz says, half under her breath.
"Oliver," I say. I look at him, then at the body.
Hell no. You want to do this you carry her down."
I smile, "big bad killer Oliver, can't handle a dead body?"
"He has a thing," Maz says, a smile creeping on to her face.
"Ya well get over it," I say. "You're the only one strong enough here to do it, and Felix is expecting us in the alley. Wi
th the body. So..." I wave my hand towards the living room.
Oliver looks like he's going to be sick, and he's not moving.
"Grow a pair!" I say.
"Fuck both of you," he says. He walks past the body and grabs a blanket hanging over the back of the couch. He drapes it over the body, then gingerly picks the corpse up off the floor and throws it over his shoulder with a grunt. The body is stiff and awkward, and Oliver is barely holding it together.
"Let's go," he says.
I can hear the edge of panic in his voice and something about it is so comical. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. The death. I don't know, but I can't help laughing at him and his silly panic. How many dead bodies has he created? How many between the three of us? And this is what makes him squirm.
Maz and I race ahead, opening doors for him, as he walks quickly down the stairs of Felix's apartment building, looking like he's going to lose it at any second.
"Oliver I think she's moving," Maz says.
"I'm going to kill you," he says, moving faster, feet flying on the concrete stairs.
"Just don't think about how you're never going to get the smell out of your clothes," I say.
"Shut up!" He almost trips, skips a step and barely holds it together.
We're both laughing at him by the time we reach the bottom, but quickly stifle the laughter when we see Felix. I want to blame it on the day, the blood and death, the lack of sleep, but I know myself better than that. Death is so common for us. It's just another dead body. But not for Felix.
Oliver heaves the body in to the back of the truck without any ceremony, and it lands on the metal truck bed with a hollow thud. I look to Felix, waiting for a bitter look, an eruption, but he seems more sad than angry. I guess he's heard that thud a thousand times.
He looks at the rest of us.
Our turn. Slowly we all crawl in to the back of the truck with the dead wife. I realize then that we shouldn't have showered. The blood and the smell, we should have left it all on ourselves. We're far too clean to be young corpses. Only the old die bloodlessly.