TBone was about to do just that, when the front door blew open.
Chapter 9
Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every life is of inestimable value.
– Desmond Tutu
“He’s still breathing,” said Anand.
Cyan balled the bloody duvet between her knuckles. “His eyes …” she said.
Anand took a tentative step toward Gemini. The body coughed. A bright red mist hung in the air. Anand retracted the step.
“Kwan-yin!” Cyan yelped, and gripped the duvet to her chest. “Do something.”
Gemini’s eyes stared at the ceiling. He slurped at the air through quivering lips.
Anand sat beside Cyan. “What … what would you like me to do?” His voice smelt of almonds and cinnamon.
“I, I don’t know. But we have to do something.”
“Do you think he’ll wake up?”
“How should I know!” Cyan snapped. These men, she thought. They were full of ideas about how she should behave, but when it came down to it, they were helpless. Spineless. She threw the duvet aside, and moved to Gemini, the man she had loved. His hair was short now, caked with blood from a gash that soaked the concrete floor. A slowly growing pool of dark blood congealed on the ground around the soup pot. She remembered when his hair had been full and long. Long enough to tangle in his eyelashes. It was black then, but now, short and gray. Everything about Gemini was gray now. And dirty.
The body sucked in another bubbled breath. Held it. Blew it out. And then another. The gurgling, hissing inhalations crept under her cuticles.
She bent down. Her face was inches above his. Her knees shook from the effort of holding the weight of her belly. Gemini’s body was breathing still, but there was no Gemini in his milky eyes.
Anand was silent. She had to do it.
She placed one hand over his mouth, and squeezed his nostrils with the other. Nothing happened at first. He lay there, peacefully. And then it started. A heaving, a humping, as the reptilian brain took control. That part of him that was deeper than the laughter they had shared on the district heap the night Gemini proposed to her; deeper than the sex he thrust into her, and thrust and thrust these dry months. The reptile brain heaved and thrashed, but she clamped Gemini’s mouth and nostrils shut.
A moan rumbled in Gemini’s chest as his eyes flashed recognition, and then … and then even the reptile within him was gone.
There was nothing left.
Cyan removed her hands from Gemini’s face. Her fingers were wet with saliva and mucus. She stood, her hair lifting from the pool of blood around the body. She was wearing her new nightie, white and soft. The Embryology Bureau had given it to her, together with all her other clothes, when she’d won the lottery. When she and Gemini had won the lottery. She remembered the day they had stepped through the gates of the Wall. She’d paid careful attention to how it felt when she crossed that invisible boundary. That line that separated everyone she knew and loved, from the rest. Nothing had happened to her heart when she crossed that line.
But now things were different. Now, she had crossed a line.
Her blood-drenched hair fell across the shoulders of her cotton nightie, framing her in a vicious necklace. And when she turned to look at Anand, the boy-man said nothing.
The Tax Man climbed into his black Mercedes, and typed the last known coordinates of Gemini into his GPS. Lord Buddha, he thought, that damned Gemini Rustikov was causing him a world of grief. Right now, there were at least six repossessions waiting for him on the highway, and he was missing them because of that fucking Gemini Rustikov.
He slammed the door shut, and jabbed his finger in the ignition switch. The car leapt to life, and he was on his way. Strange, he wondered. All the way on the other side of town. What was Gemini doing there?
He passed the accident on the drive there. Bodies were strewn across the road like so much candy. His heart ached at the chance to repossess them all. So many memories. And now? They would be lost. He didn’t slow – no time – and drove over one as he passed. He thought he saw it move before his wheel crunched over the body’s leg, but he couldn’t be sure. With the Merc’s superb suspension, he hardly felt the bump. Yup, what a pleasure modern technology was. He sighed contentedly.
The apartment building grew in his windscreen. He pulled up to the lot, and took the stairs in threes with his vast strides. He drew his pistol, and kicked in the door.
“And now,” Cyan asked, balling and unballing her wet fists, “where will we go?”
Anand hesitated. Standing over Gemini’s corpse with her wild, bloody hair and her iron face, Cyan looked like the statue of Kali that Master Dzogo kept in the meditation room. “Look at her,” Master Dzogo would say. “She has ruined a thousand men. A million. And she will ruin you.” A hot wind passed through him. What had he done?
“Anand,” she said, her voice level. “Where can we go?”
He cleared his mind. He was in this now. There was a child. His child. And that child’s heart beat within Cyan.
“I know a place,” he said.
They left the body where it lay. They left everything. Anand knew as he closed the apartment door behind them that he would never see his kitchen again. Never use those pots, woks, pans and saucers again. The cold prawns on the stove would rot, and the chicken in the fridge would ferment. The garlic in the air would stale in the closed apartment, and blend with Gemini’s putrefying stench. The joy and love he’d created here were gone. The life he’d built so carefully was shattered, lying in as many pieces as the plates and glasses and blenders that Gemini had destroyed.
He hated her. That woman, Cyan. That Breeder. For entering his life and taking it away from him. He hated every chunk of her. Her perfect porcelain skin, and her perfect cunt. He hated all of her. But right now he had to get away from here, to a safe place. And he knew only one person who could help him find it.
“Come,” he said, seizing her hand as he led her down the stairs to his motorbike. She struggled to keep up, lumbering after him with the burden she carried. He tugged at her, half-hoping she would fall.
The Tax Man holstered his gun as he regarded the empty apartment. It was full, but not of life. He saw the legs and torso of a body behind the bed, with a mess of kitchen tools and utensils strewn through the apartment, many of them broken.
He took a step forward, and the stench of feces and garlic hit him between his eyes. He removed a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, and placed it over his nose.
It was Gemini. He recognised the body’s features. But the last week had not been kind to him. His cheeks were sunken, and he’d lost at least 10 pounds, maybe more. And he didn’t think that weight-loss could be blamed on the black, stodgy pool of blood on the floor around his head. He raised Gemini’s hand to examine the wrist, and sure enough, there was a stamp.
“THE CLUB,” it said, in blue lettering.
So, what was Gemini doing here? And who had killed him?
He inserted a thermometer spike in the body’s liver, and got the temperature. Put the time of death at about 10 hours ago. Late last night.
He took out his flashlight, and examined Gemini’s milky eyes. They stared back at him, silver and unmoving. Petechial hemorrhaging. He was asphyxiated. He rolled the body, and examined the hedometer. Too late. The brain had died long enough ago that the memories were irretrievable. But the hedometer stored its last reading.
Kwan-yin!
The Tax Man checked the reading to be sure. “18,398” hedons, the screen flashed. The altruism credits were close to zero. Poor bugger. He was a dead man anyway with that differential. The Tax Man would have put a bullet in him himself. He sighed. Someone had probably killed Gemini to steal his hedons. But then why hadn’t they removed the hedometer? Maybe they had been interrupted? He didn’t know, but he’d have to investigate, what with his supervisor breathing down his neck. It may have nothing to do with the wife, but THE CLUB wa
s the only lead he had on her.
THE CLUB appeared in memories he’d repossessed from a pedi he’d been called to with the paramedics. The cretin had been bedraggled, his clothes torn and soiled, likely from before the accident. “Experience Addict,” Donys had said immediately. “We see plenty,” Florence had explained to The Tax Man. “They don’t look where they’re going. Walk around in a daze. And boom!” She smashed her hands together.
The Tax Man had never repossessed an Experience Addict before, so he didn’t hesitate to euthanize the gaunt man as soon as Donys had placed him, stable, in the back of the ambulance. Donys had only sighed, while The Tax Man took in the memories. And what memories! This Addict had a yen for space walks and Martian colony-visitations. He understood now why they became Addicts. The ecstasy the man Experienced when he stood on the Martian sand was unadulterated. He felt every grain of rock under his boots, while he listened to the Martian wind pass across his visor.
The Experience Machine gave the Addicts everything they ever wanted. Or the Experience of everything they ever wanted. And he could see what it did to them. They wasted away. Their hedons shot up, and their altruism credits couldn’t keep track. They were fucked. But The Tax Man was not. As a tax man, his altruism credits weren’t measured. And he was able to get all the memories of the Addicts without plugging into the Machine.
Repossessions were marvelous.
The Addict had done his Experiencing at THE CLUB, so The Tax Man was well aware of the location. He didn’t need to type the address into the Merc’s GPS to find it.
“Mascara’s the name. Can I help you twinkles?” He stared up into The Tax Man’s reflective glasses.
“This woman,” The Tax Man said. He took out his cellphone, and showed Mascara the image of Cyan that the Embryology Bureau had stored in its database. She was smiling. A hint of excitement sat on her blushing cheeks. Hope glimmered in her eyes, even on the cellphone screen.
“Another one?” Mascara giggled. “What is it with all you boys running after this woman.”
The Tax Man tightened his fist around his knuckledusters, but said nothing.
Mascara tilted his head to one side, regarding The Tax Man. “There’s nothing to be ashamed about, twinkles. We all have our … proclivities. Nothing’s illegal in the Experience Machine. Sure,” he lowered his voice, “Breeding isn’t something you can just go around doing, but in the Machine, you can do whatever you like.”
Mascara walked over to The Tax Man from around the counter, and reached up to place a hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you have a look at our specials –” Mascara began.
The Tax Man grabbed Mascara’s wrist and twisted. Ligaments popped in a satisfactory compound-crunch.
“Woah!” Mascara screeched. “No need to play dirty, twinkles. Let go and we can talk.”
The Tax Man released his grip.
Mascara was rubbing his wrist. “Hey,” he said, “you didn’t need to do that. You could ‘a just said you wanted the … violent Experiences.” Mascara winked.
The Tax Man lifted his knuckledusters so they were level with Mascara’s powdered nose.
“Hey!” Mascara said, “Alright, alright. You can have the first Experience free.”
The Tax Man smashed Mascara across the bridge of his nose. The crack of bone was clear and distinct in the dark entrance-hall. Mascara collapsed in a puddle of blood and base. He was sobbing. “Why’d you have to do that, mister?”
The Tax Man bent down, and placed his cellphone in the broken man’s face. “Cyan is her name,” The Tax Man said. “Have you seen her?” He held Mascara’s head by his gelled hair, ensuring the broken queen got a good look at the photo.
Mascara shook his head.
This is irritating, thought The Tax Man. Right now, he could be doing multiple repossessions at the accident on the highway. And, instead, here he was getting nowhere with this … woman. But Mascara was worse than a woman.
“I don’t have time for this,” said The Tax Man, removing the gun from his holster.
The repossession of Mascara’s memories revealed nothing useful about Cyan, but they were interesting. Mascara, whose body now lay lifeless behind the counter, had seen plenty in his lifetime. Some Addicts had traipsed by during the repossession, but they didn’t look twice. They only had eyes for the Machines.
Frustrated by his lack of progress and the blood on his pants, but satisfied by the memory-hit, The Tax Man made his way back to the hospital. He phoned in an urgent request to track the hedometer of the owner of the apartment where he’d found Gemini’s body – Anand Nair.
He and Anand were going to have words. It was a long-shot, but the man may know where Cyan was. And then, he licked his lips, he would repossess Anand’s memories. Because none of the memories he’d repossessed so far included murder. What a memory that would be.
Cyan wrapped herself around Anand’s torso as they rode into the city. His chest felt tight, his body rigid. He wasn’t that way before. Before Gemini had arrived.
Gemini.
Cyan could still feel the fibrillation of his lips on her hand as he suffocated. And the enormity of what had happened hit her. Hit her harder than the nuclear blast that day at the swings when she was a little girl. She looked up at the dull midnight sky, and screamed something cold and lost and alone. Her voice caught the air, and soared into the night, hopped along the top of the Wall, and pierced the clouds.
Anand slowed, then stopped the bike, and turned to face her. He removed his helmet, and peered into her.
“I had to,” she said. “He was lying there. His eyes … I couldn’t stand his glassy eyes. He wasn’t blinking.”
Anand’s face shifted, and softened. “I know,” he said. A tear trailed down his cheek.
She kissed the tear, and withdrew to meet his gaze. “How did he find us?” she asked.
“Only the Devas know,” said Anand, his voice lighter.
“I had to,” she repeated after a moment.
“I know.”
They embraced. And after a minute, Anand said, “It’s time to go. We have to get you somewhere safe.”
“I love you,” said Cyan.
He hesitated.
“Yes,” he said. His face hardened for a moment, before he replaced his helmet and kick-started the bike.
Chapter 10
Train your mind to see the good in every situation.
– Unknown
When The Tax Man returned to the hospital, Donys still wasn’t at work.
“No idea,” said Florence before The Tax Man could ask. “Haven’t seen or heard from the prick.”
Normally, he would’ve left it. Would’ve waited for Donys to show up. But The Tax Man was having a bad day. Gemini had turned up dead, giving him a mountain of paperwork and investigation, and now Anand and Cyan were on the run. Donys hadn’t pitched to work, as if The Tax Man’s presence were irrelevant. As if the little shit had forgotten that The Tax Man could diminish his hedons whenever he liked.
Respect.
They weren’t respecting him. And he was going to change that, starting with that faggot paramedic.
“Give me a location on a Donys Gentry,” The Tax Man called in to the Bureau. “Does it look like I’m a notepad!” he yelled into the cellphone. The ER went silent around him. He felt their eyes on his knuckledusters. On his leather jacket. Florence turned away, pretending not to listen. “Text me the coordinates,” he said, and jabbed the end-call button.
What a dump, The Tax Man thought, as he rolled the Merc into the lot outside the decrepit building. He was hardly afraid of anything, but this part of town was a cesspool of Experience Addicts and Pleasure Monsters. These were desperate people, crammed into suburbs barely an improvement over the ghetto. Maybe worse. They were dangerous, even to The Tax Man.
Thinking that his pistol may not be sufficient, he removed a shotgun and a grenade from the boot of the Merc. He felt their glares on his back. He imagined a laser-sight tickling his shoulder-bl
ade, and let out a sigh once he was wearing his Mylar jacket.
The coordinates the tech had texted him described the building directly in-front of him. But he had no idea where in the building Donys would be. He called in to headquarters again. “Confirm location of a Donys Gentry. Any elevation data available?”
The tech went silent for a moment, then returned. “Satellite feed indicates third or fourth floor.” The Tax Man cut the call, and took a sharp breath. His heartbeat thudded in his ears, a steady anticipation of the violence to come.
He strode to the entrance of the building, and examined the intercom panel on the side of the door. Many of the buttons were missing. One of three buttons for the third floor was more worn than the others. Its brass luster had been scuffed to a dull silver. 306. That was it.
The Tax Man lifted his enormous boot; kicked in the rotten door. It took just three attempts. The wood buckled, and split. He was inside.
The staircase reeked of urine and fetor. It was a cat, he saw, when he reached the second floor. It lay dead on the banister, its head drooping over the side at an impossible angle, its fur buzzed into shocked silence. “Savages,” the Tax Man thought, as he climbed past it.
301, 302, 303 … There it was. 306. The door had been painted some ghastly combination of pink and purple. Something that only a junkie could appreciate. He unsheathed the shotgun from his back, loaded a cartridge, and unholstered his pistol with his other hand. Cocked it.
One round of shotgun pellets shredded the lock, and the pink-purple-door gave way. In a moment he adjusted to the absence of light. There was Donys, sitting in a broken antique chair with a cushion the color of phlegm. The look on his face was something out of a holo-vid. Raw shock. Made The Tax Man’s cock twitch. A monstrously large woman, wider even than Florence, was busy at his hedometer. A hacker, he realized. Donys was visiting a hacker.
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