He searched the announcer’s face until he found the shadowy outline of his eyes. “Von Haff. At the derby.”
Silence. The announcer shifted uneasily.
“Huh?” he said, which hardly seemed worth the wait.
“I was at the Death Derby. I stuck my arm through the spokes of von Haff’s front wheel, and pancaked his face on the ground.”
There was a wet clicking sound as the announcer swallowed. “That was you?”
“That was me,” Dan confirmed. “So, by my reckoning, you owe me… How much was the prize money?”
“Quarter of a million,” the announcer said, then he let out a little gasp and clamped his mouth shut as it occurred to him that he may have made a mistake.
“Holy shoite!” said a voice from Dan’s coat pocket.
Silence fell again, as all eyes went to the pocket. After a moment, a whispered, “Oh, bollocks,” drifted out.
“What is that? Who’s in there?” the announcer demanded. Beside him, the two Botanians bristled, thorns blooming along their forearms and fists.
“Seriously, why the fonk does no-one ever stay where I tell them?” Dan muttered. “Artur. Come out.”
There was a pause.
“How d’ye know it’s me?” Artur said.
“Just come out of my damn pocket,” Dan snapped. He looked up as Mindy’s barrel took aim between his eyes. The gun shook slightly in the announcer’s grip.
“What the fonk is going on?”
“I wouldn’t,” Dan warned. “The sensors in the grip are linked to my fingerprints. Pull that trigger and it’ll take your arm off.”
The announcer’s eyes darted to the gun. “What? That’s not a thing.” He looked past Dan to the other man lurking behind him. “Is it?”
“Never heard of it,” the unseen man replied.
Dan shrugged. “By all means, be my guest,” he said. “I mean, I’m already dead, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me.”
He leaned his top half forwards until his forehead was pressing against the gun’s muzzle. “Ladies, I’d step away. The backsplash can be pretty nasty.”
The announcer hesitated, then lowered the gun and tossed it onto the desk behind him. By the time he’d turned back, Artur had clambered out of Dan’s pocket and was standing on the detective’s knee, the heels of his plastic shoes digging into Dan’s rotting flesh.
“Who the fonk are you?” the guy asked, squinting down. Beside him, the two Botanian women also drew in for a closer look.
“I’m his financial advisor,” Artur said. “And you are?”
“I’m none of your fonking business, that’s who I am,” the announcer said.
Artur cricked his neck. “Is that a fact?” he asked, his voice losing its usual lilt. “Well, I reckon we’ll just see about that, won’t we?”
“Cut it out,” Dan told him. “Settle down. We’re not here to fight.”
“You took out half of my men!” the announcer yelped.
“In self-defence,” said Dan. “I came here to talk, that’s all.”
“And to get his money,” Artur added.
“And to get my money,” Dan agreed. He nodded down at the ropes holding him to the chair. “So, if you could untie me, we’ll arrange a transfer, and I won’t even say anything about the crack to the head. We’ll call it a misunderstanding, and that’ll be that.”
The announcer looked to the women beside him, then past Dan to the figure lurking there. Artur followed his gaze, then recoiled in surprise when he spotted the room’s other occupant for the first time. “Ooh, ye creepy big fecker!” he exclaimed. “Ye know there’s a great big potato-faced fella looming behind ye, Deadman?”
Dan nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“A right ugly bastard.”
“Got it,” said Dan.
“That’s fine, then. Just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page, or in the same boat, or whatever the feck the expression is.”
He turned back to the announcer, putting his hands on his hips. “Now, about that money…”
“You should have claimed it at the time,” the announcer blurted. “You should have claimed it on the night.”
“Bzzt! Wrong. That isn’t in the rules,” said Artur. “Trust me, I looked it up. There is feck all in the rule book that says prize money has to be claimed at the time.”
“Uh, yes. Yes there is,” the announcer insisted.
“Yer bollocks. Fetch me the rule book,” Artur said. “Let’s get this straightened out.”
The voice from behind Dan was low and gruff. “Or we could just kill you both right now.”
“Ye could certainly try, princess,” Artur replied, not giving the guy the courtesy of even turning around. “But I don’t fancy yer chances.”
Making a clicking noise with this tongue, Artur beckoned the announcer over. “Come on, sunshine, time is money, ye know what I’m sayin’? Get the feckin’ rule book and let’s be done with it. Some of us have got places to be.”
The announcer didn’t move at first. No more than his usual anxious weight-shifting, at least. The Botanians beside him kept their gazes fixed on Artur, Dan apparently forgotten.
“I don’t have one here,” he said, at last.
Artur puffed out his cheeks. “That’s how ye want to play it, is it? Not to worry.”
Reaching up under his bristly green beard, Artur plunged a hand down the front of his dress. When it emerged, it was clutching a small, neatly-folded piece of paper.
“I took the liberty of writing down the relevant sections.”
He cleared his throat as he unfolded the paper.
“Now then,” he began, then the echo of gunfire from one of the lower floors cut him off.
“Why the fonk are they still shooting? We’ve got him,” the announcer spat. He nudged one of the women and gestured to the door. “Go out there and shut them up.”
The Botanians both glowered at him with barely concealed contempt, then the one he had nudged made for the door, carried along on thousands of root-like feet that sprouted from the lower half of her legs.
“Well, that was unpleasant to watch,” Artur said, once she’d gone. He nodded at the other one. “No offence, darlin’. I’m sure yer own root-feet are a sight to behold.”
“You might want to hurry it up,” Dan said.
“And ye might want to shut yer hole,” Artur replied. “And let me handle this.”
Dan shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Artur cleared his throat again. “Right. Here we are. The rules. Make yerself comfortable, because – in my opinion – they’re unnecessarily wordy in parts. Not a criticism, just an observation. Some of them go on and on. Not criticising, like I say. Although reading through them, I did kind of want to kill myself once or twice. Again, just an observation.”
“Get on with it!” Dan warned.
“Let’s just kill these fonks,” the potato-faced guy behind Dan hissed.
“Shut up,” the announcer said. “This is a business. OK? We’re legit now. We trade on our reputation.” He held the other guy’s gaze for as long as he could bear it, then turned his attention back to Artur. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks very much,” Artur said, then he cleared his throat one more time and began to read.
Dan had to agree that the rules did seem unnecessarily wordy. Every sentence had been written using as much complex language as possible, with words placed in an order than Dan was confident didn’t actually make any sense.
After two or three minutes, Artur got to the part about claiming the prize money. It explained how a contestant would be eligible to claim the prize fund, along with what might exclude them from doing so. Just as Artur had said, there was nothing in there about a time limit on claiming.
When Artur had finished, he folded the paper again, and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, there ye have it,” he said. “From a legal standpoint, ye haven’t a leg to stand on. He survived against yer man i
n the arena, therefore he’s eligible to claim the prize money.”
The announcer slumped into a sitting position on his desk, and the light from the lamp revealed the expression of shock that had settled on his face. “Yeah, but… I mean…”
“But nothing, sunshine,” Artur said, sliding the rule sheet back into his non-existent cleavage. “My client, Mr Deadman, won fair and square. So give us our money, or – and I’m understating this here – I’ll kick up a bit of a stink.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in Dan’s direction. “More of a stink than this walking corpse is already kicking up. If ye can imagine such a thing.”
The announcer blinked. His head raised until he was looking first at Artur, then at Dan. “What? Walking corpse? Seriously?”
Dan shrugged and nodded. “Long story.”
“So… what?” said the announcer, standing. “You’re dead? Like… really dead?”
Artur stiffened. “Wait! Don’t answer that!” he yelped, but Dan already had.
“Technically, yes.”
A smile tugged at the corners of the announcer’s mouth. He hurried around to the other side of his desk, tore open a drawer, then deposited a hefty leather-bound book onto the desktop.
“There’s no need to go over it all again, I think we established I’m in the right,” Artur said, but the announcer flipped through the book’s thin pages, his eyes scanning left to right across the narrow lines of text.
“Aha!” he cried, then he jabbed a finger onto the page and moved it across the paper as he read. “Part sixty-seven, paragraph three, sub-paragraph four: In order to make a valid claim on any and all amounts of the aforementioned prize fund, contestants – whether conscripted or volunteer – must remain alive for any round time duration specified by the derby host, up to and including the point of prize fund transfer and acceptance.”
He slammed the book closed and straightened, grinning triumphantly.
Dan frowned. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning you weren’t alive for the duration of the round,” the announcer said. “Ergo, you can’t claim the prize money. You’re not entitled to it. The rules are very clear.”
He half-sat, half leaned on the desk, his grin widening. “We have a saying at the derby. If you get slayed, you don’t get paid.”
“But he didn’t get slayed,” Artur protested. “He was dead before it started.”
The announcer shrugged. “Same difference. He wasn’t alive at the end of the round, so we owe him nothing.”
Artur’s tiny hands clenched into fists. His beard bristled as if a jolt of static electricity had passed through him. “Oh, ye think so, do ye?”
“Leave it, Artur,” Dan said.
“What? They’re feckin’ robbing ye blind!” Artur protested.
“No. They’re just following the rules,” Dan said. He sighed. “We take that money, we’re robbing them, not the other way around.”
Artur considered this. “I fail to see the problem in that scenario.”
“If you could untie me, we’ll be on our way,” said Dan. “No harm, no foul.”
“You shot up my house,” the announcer said. “You put a hole in my floor.”
“Your potato-head back there cracked my skull. Let’s call it even.”
From outside the office there came a thump of something heavy hitting something solid. The announcer looked past Dan to the door, his smug expression turning puzzled. “What the fonk was that?”
“Uh, you might want to untie me,” Dan said, but the others ignored him.
The announcer had just given the second Botanian a nudge when there came a growl and a hiss from outside.
“Ah, fonk,” Dan grunted, then he leaned forwards, shielding Artur as the office door exploded inwards. The mangled remains of the first Botanian woman spun across the room, forcing the announcer to duck. The body thudded against the back wall, then fell heavily to the floor, sap seeping from a number of open slashes in the woman’s bark-like skin.
The announcer screamed. The guy behind Dan screamed, too, but while the announcer’s scream was one of fear, this one was one of pain. It had a frantic, shrieking quality that quickly took on a burbling, wet-sounding undertone, as if the screamer’s lungs were being filled with a viscous liquid of some description. Which, as it happens, was exactly the case.
He stumbled past Dan, blood oozing down his chin and sputtering from a hole in his chest. Dan kicked himself forwards, bringing the chair with him and forcing Artur to grab hold of his coat to avoid being left behind.
“A bit of feckin’ warning next time!” Artur complained.
“The ropes. Get me out of these damn ropes,” Dan barked.
“Alright, alright, hold yer horses.”
Dan hit the front of the desk and threw himself over it, knocking the announcer over. The other Botanian had recovered from the initial shock of seeing her colleague’s ruined corpse smash against the wall, and now hurled herself towards the monster in their midst. Dan didn’t have to look at it to know it was one of the Malwhere creatures. It must have been tracking him from the club, following his scent. Out for revenge, probably, although it was hard to tell with these fonks.
The woman’s hands squirmed and wriggled until they formed a pair of long thorny spikes. She stabbed at the oily black beast, vine-like tendrils snaking out from her back and hips, grabbing for its arms.
Dan heaved against his bonds. “Hurry up, Artur,” he spat.
“I’m trying. Some eejit put a double knot in it.”
Dan snapped his head towards the announcer. “You. Untie me. Hurry up.”
It was no good. The announcer had all but checked out of the here and now. His gaze was fixed on the Malwhere thing, his eyes so wide they threatened to fall out of his head. He was making a sound – a sort of, “Buh… buh…” that was going nowhere fast as the monster and the Botanian slashed and stabbed and hammered each other.
“Wait, is that making it less tight or more tight?” Artur asked.
Dan struggled. “Worse!”
“Feck. OK, give me a minute to think about this,” Artur said.
Dan began to reply, but a spray of warm sap slapped him across the face, sticking one of his eyes shut and filling his mouth with an unpleasant sickly-sweetness.
“No time,” Dan said. “Hold on.”
He rammed the chair backwards into the wall. Once. Twice. The wood splintered and fell away, giving Dan the slack he needed to pull himself free. He reached his gun just as the Malwhere thing dropped to its haunches, preparing to leap.
“Mindy. Slowdown. Five per cent.”
The cylinder spun and the gun kicked in Dan’s hand. The monster’s upwards pounce suddenly ground into slow motion, and Dan allowed himself a moment to savor this small victory.
“Buh… buh…”
Dan put a hand on the announcer’s shoulder and gave him a shake. “Hey. Hey. It’s OK. Relax. It can’t get you.”
The announcer blinked, as if waking from a dream. “Wh-what? What the fonk is that thing?”
Dan shrugged. “I’m sure it probably has a name. I could find out, but… do you really care?”
“What? I mean… what?”
Dan felt a tugging on his pants leg as Artur climbed up onto his coat. “Thanks for the warning there, Deadman. There’s nothing I enjoy more than being smashed between a wall and yer big arse. Can’t get enough of that, so I can’t.”
Dan gestured over to the Malwhere thing. It was halfway to straightening up now. The light from the lamp reflected off its oily skin and coal-black claws. Like some of the monsters back at the club, this one was mostly mouth. Dan couldn’t see the eyes on the side of its neck, but he guessed they were there somewhere.
“Does it really matter what it is?” Dan asked. “The problem, the way I see it, is that it’s in your office and has just killed… I don’t know. A number of your employees. That’s the real issue here, am I right?”
The announcer’s eyelids flickered as he proces
sed this, then he nodded.
“Thought so,” said Dan. He clapped the guy on the shoulder. “Well, best of luck,” he said, then he held up a pocket flap for Artur to climb inside, and headed for the door.
“Wait! Wait, where are you going?” the announcer yelped. “You can’t just leave me with this thing.”
Dan shrugged, but didn’t stop. “Nothing in the rules about it,” he said. “Just, you know, start running. The slowdown will wear off in a couple of minutes, so you’re going to want to get a head start.”
“But… but… Why is it after me?”
Dan paused at the door. “It isn’t. It’s after me. But it’ll kill you, anyway. Sorry.”
He continued into the corridor and whispered below his breath. “Three. Two. One.”
“Wait! I’ll pay you!” the announcer shrieked. “I mean… n-not the quarter of a million, but I’ll pay you to kill it. Five thousand credits. I can pay it right now.”
Dan kept walking.
“T-ten thousand.”
Dan stopped.
“Fifteen,” he countered.
“Fifteen?!”
Dan started walking again.
“OK, OK! Fifteen!”
Dan looked down at Artur, who was nestled back in his pocket again. “Ye can be a nasty auld shoitebag sometimes, Deadman,” Artur said. He grinned. “That’s why I love ye. Just, ye know, not in a sexy-times kind of a way.”
“I know.”
“Because of yer face. Ye know, with it being so hideous.”
“Gotcha.”
“And also, I’m not of that persuasion, although there’s nothing wrong with it or what have ye, it’s just not for me.”
“I get it,” said Dan.
“But mostly it’s just yer face.”
The announcer’s voice came shrilly from inside the office. “Are you going to kill this fonking thing or not?!”
“Mindy. Explosive rounds,” Dan said, then he leaned around the doorway, and fired. The slow-moving Malwhere thing became an equally slow-moving explosion of fire and guts. Great blobs of it drifted lazily off in all directions, like liquid in zero gravity.
Dan took a moment to admire the effect, before turning his attention to the announcer. “Now, was that a direct transfer?” he asked. “Or will you be paying in cash?”
Space Team: A Lot of Weird Space Shizz: Collected Short Stories Page 4