Little Worker curled unconcernedly at Mister Michael’s feet. She knew that Mister Michael was trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him.
“Who—who are you from?” at last demanded Mister Michael.
“Sons of Dixie, folks. We felt our point of view wasn’t reaching the proper ears. So we’re aimin’ to change things. Ain’t that right, boys?”
“You’re—you’re all wired on something.”
“Mebbe so, boss. But that don’t prevent us from shooting straight. ’Zact opposite, in fact. So let’s just follow orders, if you don’t want to get hurt.”
“What do you intend?” asked Mister Michael’s wife.
“We’re taking you ’n’ the Pee Em on a little vacation. You’ll go free when the gummint listens to us and does somethin’.”
A second terrorist spoke. “What about these friggin’ vars?”
“Slag those sex toys,” said the boss. “Make it quiet though. But save the one that helped us—it might come in handy again.”
One of the men unholstered a pistol. Before anyone could react, it spat twice.
Gelatin capsules hit the morphs and burst, releasing lysis catalysts. In under a minute, the two morphs were a single mingled puddle of thick slime, atop which for a minute floated the Moon Moth’s tougher gemmed wings.
“Okay, folks—” began the leader.
Unnoticed, Little Worker had slyly extended an arm toward the bare ankle of Mister Michael’s wife. Now, she pricked it deeply with a newly unsheathed razored claw.
Mister Michael’s wife screamed.
The terrorist with unsteady nerves shot her through the eye.
Before the man’s trigger-finger could relax, or any of the others could tighten theirs, Little Worker moved.
The part of her inheritance that was 30 percent wolverine took over.
The four intruders soon lay dead with their throats torn out, soaking the carpet with their blood where once the Bull and Lyrical had coupled.
Little Worker calmly licked the blood from her lips. She really preferred the taste of jelly. Wetting her palms repeatedly with her tongue, she meticulously cleaned the fur on her face. When she was done, she turned toward Mister Michael.
He had collapsed across the body of his wife and lay sobbing.
Little Worker gently approached. She touched him tenderly. He jumped.
“Mister Michael,” said Little Worker, “everything is all right now.
“You and I are alone.”
FRACTAL PAISLEYS
That night the Li’l bear Inn was as crowded as the last copter out of Saigon.
But the atmosphere was a little more frenzied.
All three pool tables were hidden by tight packs of players and spectators, protruding cues making the whole mass resemble a patchwork porcupine. The dartboards looked like Custer’s troops. Harley Fitts was rocking the pinball machine toward a high score: a sizable task, given that two sisters who called themselves Frick and Frack were perched on it. Rollo Dexadreen was monopolizing the single videogame as usual. Archie Opterix, on kazoo, was accompanying Gig von Beaver—who was making farting noises with a hand under his armpit—in a rendition of “Born To Run.” Kitty Koerner was dancing atop the jukebox, which was playing Hank Williams Junior, though Kitty was doing something that looked like the Watusi.
Above the sounds of clicking pool balls, thwocking darts, ringing bells, exploding aliens, kazoo, farts, Hank Junior, and the bug-zapper hung outside the screen-door that gave onto the gravel parking lot, the calls for drinks were continuous.
“Tracey, two shots!”
“Tracey, another pitcher!”
“Tracey, six rum ’n’ cokes!”
The woman behind the bar—Tracey Thorne-Smith—was on the tall side, and skinny as a book of poems by a sixteen-year-old virgin. She had long straight brown hair and a sociable smile, though her features were overlaid with signs of worry. She wore a white shirt knotted above her navel, and a pair of cheap jeans. Moving like an assembly-line worker with the belt cranked up, the piece-work rate cut in half and the next mortgage payment due, she paused only long enough to wipe the sweat from her forehead now and then.
A weary waitress appeared at one end of the crowded bar, where she set down her tray. She was short and round-faced, and her wavy hair—dyed a color not found in nature—was pinched in a banana-clip, one tendril escaping to hang damply against her cheek.
The bartender moved down to take her order.
“What’ll it be, Catalina?”
“It’s ‘lick it, slam it ’n’ suck it’ time again, Trace. Larry and his city-friends, in the corner there.”
“Four margaritas coming up.”
Catalina leaned gratefully on the bar. “Lord, it’s hot! You think that cheap bastard would get some air-con in here.”
Her back to Catalina, Tracey said, “You best not hold your breath waiting for the Westinghouse van to arrive, Cat. You know well as I do that Larry’s been pinching every penny, so’s he can buy into the syndicate those boys he’s with represent. And something tells me he’s pinched himself a considerable sum, what with the way those lizards are crawling all over him. No, I wouldn’t count on no air-conditioning anytime soon.” Tracey set the salt-rimmed glasses two at a time on Catalina’s tray. “How they tipping tonight?”
The waitress tucked the loose hair behind her ear. “Not bad. But I aim to get a little more out of Larry later, after closing.”
Tracey made a sour face. “I don’t see how you can bring yourself to be nice to him like that.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad. He’s been real lonely since Janice died. It’s downright pathetic sometimes. He keeps telling me, ‘She was my Honeypot, and I was her Li’l Bear.’”
“Eee-yew!”
Primping her hair, Catalina said, “That remark don’t show much sympathy, Tracey, nor much common sense. You should try being nice to Larry, like I do. Might get yourself a little bonus. You sure could use it, I bet, what with Jay Dee being outa work.”
“Forget it! Not only would I never let that man touch me in a million years, but if I did and Jay Dee found out, he’d kill him. Why, he can just about stand me working here as it is.”
Catalina shrugged. “Your call. It’s not like you’re married or nothing.”
After Catalina had sashayed away, Tracey went back to filling the non-stop orders.
She was bending over for a fresh bottle of Scotch when she felt a hand on her rear-end.
“You shore got a nice ass for such a skinny—gack!”
Tracey straightened up and turned around. “Jay Dee,” she said, “turn that poor sucker loose.”
Jay Dee McGhee removed his chokehold from beneath the impulsive patron’s jaw and released the burly man’s wrist, which he had been holding at about jaw-level, only behind the man’s back. Shoving the gagging man away from the bar, he dropped down onto the vacant stool.
“Draw me a Bud, Trace. I had a long hot walk.”
Jay Dee was shaggy and unshaven, with the looks of a mischievous five-year-old, perhaps one just caught affixing a string of firecrackers to a cat’s tail. He wore a green workshirt with the sleeves ripped off and the same K-Mart-brand jeans as his girlfriend. In fact, they were a pair of hers, since the two were much of a size. He had a tattoo on each wiry bicep: on the left was a dagger-pierced, blood-dripping heart with the admonition TAKE IT EASY; on the right was a grinning horned and tailed pitchfork-bearing devil above the legend CLEAN AND SERENE.
Tracey pulled the tap. “You walked all the way from the trailer park?”
After a deep sip, Jay Dee answered, “How else was I supposed to get here? You got the car—not that it’d do me much good anyway—and ain’t nobody we know gonna give me a ride.”
Slopping a dirty rag onto the bar in front of her lover of six months and scrubbing violently, Tracey said, “Only thing is, you weren’t supposed to come here at all.”
“Jesus, Trace, gimme a break! How long can a man sit and
watch television? Day and night, night and day! Zap, zap, zap with the damned remote! I’m going outa my head! I hadda get out.”
“But why here? I told you, I get nervous with you around when I’m trying to wait on people. I can’t do my job.”
“It’s a damn good thing I did come, or the next thing you know, that asshole would’ve had your pants off.”
“Don’t make me laugh. I can take care of jerks like that without your help. I got along just fine all those years before I met you.”
“Well, maybe. Though the two black eyes and the busted ribs I seen them tape up at the clinic don’t sound to me like you could take care of anything except getting knocked around.”
Tracey glared. “I told you, Gene was a little too much for me. But you don’t run into someone like him twice in your life. And what do you mean, you watched the doctor fix me up?”
“Well, it’s true.”
“The janitor at the Lakewood Walk-in Emergency Clinic was allowed to spy on patients?”
“It wasn’t a case of being allowed.”
“Oh, I get it. How many women did you size up, before you settled on me?”
“Well, lessee— Christ, Trace, we’re getting off the track! The plain fact is, I missed you tonight! This routine sucks. With you working till two and sleeping till noon, I hardly get to see you no more. And then I got to rattle around in that tin can like a lone pea.… I’m sick of it!”
Tracey stopped polishing the counter. “I know, I know, Jay Dee. We’re going through a rough time now. But it won’t last forever. I don’t like it anymore than you, but right now we need this job. And if Larry sees you here, after what happened the last time—”
“That fight wasn’t my fault.”
“It don’t matter. He’s still pissed at you. If I didn’t work so good and so cheap, I woulda been fired right then.”
“Well, there’s no law says a man can’t visit his girlfriend at work. Long as I don’t cause no trouble, there’s nothing he can do.”
“This is his joint, Jay Dee, he can do whatever he—look out!”
Holding onto the bar, Jay Dee shoved his stool backward into the crotch of the man he had choked, who grunted and dropped the beer bottle he had been aiming at Jay Dee’s head. While he was still recovering, Jay Dee laid him low with two succinct punches.
“It’s plumb foolish to hold a grudge—” Jay Dee began.
“What in the hell is going on here?”
Larry Livermore was shaped roughly like a traffic-cone, and only marginally taller. Balding, he wore enough cheap gold around his neck to outfit a pawn shop window. He was accoutred in a checked shirt and lime-green trousers. Spotting Jay Dee, he turned to Tracey.
“I warned you about letting this troublemaker in here again, Thorne-Smith. And now he’s made me look bad in front of some important friends, like I can’t even manage my own joint. I don’t need headaches like this.”
Tracey had stepped out from behind the bar. “It won’t happen again, Larry—I promise.”
“I’m sure of it, ’cause I’m canning you now.” Larry reached into his pocket, took out a roll of cash secured with a rubber band, and peeled off a hundred. “Here’s half a week’s pay. Take off.”
Jay Dee moved menacingly toward the squat man. Larry’s mouth opened in shock. “Hey, wait a minute—”
Tracey laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, Jay Dee, it’s not worth it. Let’s go.”
Out in the parking lot, gravel crunched beneath their shoes. They walked silently to their car, a 1972 Plymouth Valiant, more rust than steel, its flaking chrome bumper bearing a sticker that advised ONE DAY AT A TIME. Tracey opened the passenger-side door and slid across the seat to take the wheel. Jay Dee got in after her. When the engine finally caught, they drove off.
Halfway back to the trailer camp, one of them finally spoke.
“You shoulda let me hit him, Trace.”
Tracey swivelled her head angrily, taking her eyes off the dark road. “Hit him! Is that all you know how—”
There was a noise like a hundred-pound sack of flour being dropped on the hood of their car, and the sensation of an impact. Tracey slammed on the brakes.
“Could be a deer,” said Jay Dee without much hope or conviction. “Though life has shown me that bad luck usually comes like an elephant. Namely, in buckets.”
“I—I’ll turn the car around so we can see what we hit.…”
Moving forward slowly, cutting the wheel, Tracey made a three- point turn.
There was a man lying in the middle of the road.
“Oh my god—”
Jay Dee got out.
The victim was a white guy in a business suit that appeared to be made out of rubber, with all the tailoring, including the shirt-front, stamped on. The suit continued onto his feet, forming shoes. He did, however, wear a separate tie patterned with paisleys. Something about the tie drew Jay Dee’s fascinated gaze. Why, the borders of each paisley were formed of little paisleys. And the little paisleys were made of littler paisleys. And those were made up of even littler paisleys! And on, and on, and—
“What’s the matter, Jay Dee?”
Jay Dee shook his head. “Nothing, I guess.… I just felt dizzy, like I was hanging over the edge of a skyscraper.… Hey, look—He’s holding something—”
Prying open the dead man’s hand, Jay Dee removed the object.
The thing squirmed for a moment in Jay Dee’s grip, then settled down to solidity.
At that moment, a wave of shimmering disintegration passed down the man from head to toe. Then the corpse was gone.
“Mo-ther-fuck. …”
Tracey was squeezing his devil with both hands. “This is too spooky for me, Jay Dee. Let’s split.”
A minute later and a mile onward, Tracey asked, “What was in his hand, Jay Dee?”
“‘Pears to be nothing but a goddamn television remote.” Jay Dee made to throw out the window, then stopped. “It’s awfully big though.…”
Tracey made it back to the trailer camp in record time, without encountering any further obstacles. She pulled up alongside their home, an aqua-trimmed sag-roofed aluminum box with the former tenant’s flower garden run to weeds that half hid the two creaky wooden steps braced against the side of the structure.
From the weeds emerged Mister Boots, a large tomcat the color of whole-wheat bread, and with white stockings. He carried a dead mouse proudly in his mouth. Spotting the car, he leaped inside through the open window to devour his feast in the privacy he required.
“Got to learn that cat some manners one of these days.…”
Inside, Tracey went straight for the bottle of vodka above the tiny sink full of dirty dishes. “Lord, I need a drink! I never knew that killing someone would feel like this—even if it was an accident.”
Jay Dee flopped down into a beat-up chair. “Least when you kill someone you do a thorough job of it, Trace. No stiff left behind to clutter up things. Now look, calm down! Who knows what that was we hit? Chances are it wasn’t even human, the way it vanished.”
“I know, I know, that’s what I’ve been telling myself since it happened. But it still leaves a person kinda shaky, you know?”
“Just take a pull and sit down. You’ll feel better in a minute.”
Jay Dee fell to examining the remote control he had taken from the corpse.
The black plastic device was about twice as big as a standard control, with more than the usual number of buttons. It had the usual smoky translucent cap on one end, where the signal would emerge. It bore no brand-name, nor were the buttons labeled.
But as Jay Dee studied it, this changed.
Gold letters appeared on the face of the device, seeming to float up from deep inside the case.
MASTER DIGITAL REMOTE ran the wording across the top of the case. Beneath each button smaller letters spelled out various odd functions.
One button was designated DEMO.
Jay Dee pressed it.
The con
trol spoke.
“Please set me down on a convenient flat surface, pointed away from any objects of value, sentient or otherwise.”
Tracey had her head in the fridge. “You say something, Jay Dee?”
Jay Dee leaned forward and calmly set the unit down on a table, making sure it was pointed at an exterior wall. “No, no, it’s just this here box talking.”
“Ha, ha, that’s funny. Want a baloney sandwich?”
The control continued its speech. “I am a quasi-organic eleven-dimensional valve of Turing degree three. I am capable of modulating the Fredkinian digital substrate of the plenum.”
“Say what?”
The control paused. “Call me a magic lamp.”
Jay Dee got angry. “Hey, I’m not stupid.…”
Tracey approached with a plate of sandwiches. “I never said you were, hon.”
“No, it’s this smart-mouth box. Just ’cause I didn’t understand all the ten-dollar words it threw at me, it started treating me like a kid.”
“I am merely attempting to phrase my function in a manner most intelligible to the listener. There was no slur intended.”
Tracey slowly set the plate down on the corner of Jay Dee’s chair; it tipped, and the sandwiches slid into his lap. He jumped up and they fell to the floor, baloney draping his shoes.
“Perhaps an exhibition of my functions would clarify my nature.…”
“Sh-sure,” said Tracey.
“First, we have ‘smudge.’” A square foot of the wall in front of the talking remote lost all color, all features. It hurt to look at it. “‘Smudge’ simply strips all macroscopic features and quantum properties from an object, reducing it to bare digital substrate, the underlying basis of all creation.”
“Not much use to that,” said Jay Dee.
“You would be surprised. Once an object is smudged, we can use ‘peel’ to lift and superimpose a new set of spacetime characteristics on it. For example.”
Mister Boots, as usual, had gotten in through a broken screen, and was now atop the table with the control. The box suddenly swivelled autonomously and aimed itself at the cat. A small square of fur was somehow peeled off Mister Boots—yet his hide was left intact. The square grew in size, then was lofted through the air like a two-dimensional piece of cloth to be superimposed over the smudge spot, becoming an integral fur patch on the trailer wall.
The Paul Di Filippo Megapack Page 9