Dealer's Choice w-11

by George R. R. Martin

  She smiled vaguely. “Some things I’m loyal to, some things I’m not.” She gave her head a toss. “1-800-I-GIVE-UP. Was that serious? Can we really surrender?”

  “So far as I understand.”

  “Because I’ve never done anything criminal other than be here, y’know? But if I give up” She gestured toward the band across her face. “How do I get my eyes and ear back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She drew up her legs. “I’m not normally blind and I have a hard time tracking people. Would you mind sitting down? That way I’d know where you were.”

  He settled onto a cushion. “As I understand it,” Patchwork said. “you’re not here voluntarily.”

  “No.”

  “But you just can’t fly away.”

  Modular Man hesitated — a human mannerism he’d picked up. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t explained this before. “I can’t even think about flying away. I have to obey my creator.”

  “Funny about not thinking. Because that’s what people here have to do, so the governor can’t pick up our thoughts. We have to sort of keep our minds far off, way in the atmosphere like. Scramble up our thoughts. And even then we can’t know for sure if he can hear us.”

  “Can Governor Bloat hear all of you all the time?”

  “I think he can hear anything he really wants to. But it’s work for him, and usually he doesn’t want to bother. And when he sleeps — well, he sleeps a lot. But I don’t really know how it is with him. Or anybody.” She grinned faintly. “I got a better line to Zappa than to anybody here.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “What’s gonna happen?” She shrugged. “I don’t know, man. But I’ve been reeling off these statistics for the last few hours. Tanks and helicopters and fighter-attack squadrons and Hellfires and LAWs and 155s and 105s and 120s — all those numbers. And LCACs and AAVs and MLRs and ATACMS — initials, okay? Just like the numbers, only letters, and lots of them. A whole fuck of a lot of them. And the New Jersey, which I know is a battleship. A carrier task group built around the John F. Kennedy. And a Los Angeles submarine with cruise missiles. So —” She took a breath. “I have no idea what a 155 is, and I wouldn’t know an MLR if it bit me, but I have a feeling I’m gonna get bit pretty soon. We’re all gonna get bit. So all I can do is hope that the governor can do something brilliant, or that the phone lines stay open so that I can call that 800 number once things get serious.”

  From having worked with the military in the past Modular Man knew what a lot of those numbers and letters meant, and he hadn’t seen anything here that could stop them from doing their work.

  “I hope the lines stay open too,” he said.

  Patchwork frowned a bit, as if concentrating. “I’m thinking dirty thoughts,” she said. “Real porn. It embarrasses the governor, you know — he’s just a kid.”

  “You’re not so old yourself.”

  Her concentrated look deepened. “I’m thinking about something really disgusting. I don’t want the governor listening in.”

  “He’s probably more interested in Kafka talking about MLRs and 155s.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” She relaxed against the swan couch and put a hand over where her eyes had been. “No fucking eyes,” she said, “one ear. I can’t go to the toilet without someone leading me, and plumbing wasn’t one of the governor’s major concerns when he built this place so it’s a long goddamn walk from here, and when I get there there isn’t going to be any toilet paper.” She laughed again, cynically this time. “That’ll teach me to fall in love.”

  “Are you in love?”

  “I was. He’s dead.” She said it lightly, as if it didn’t matter. "I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” Defiantly. “The bastard was stepping out on me when he got killed. Neck snapped and the body turned to a block of ice — him and the bitch both. They said Black Shadow did it. That cold bastard.”

  “Ah.” Not certain what else to say.

  “I met Black Shadow myself just a few weeks ago. Here on the Rox.” She shuddered. “He knocked my block off. And all because I fell in love.” She waved her hands. “I thought about it, you know. I mean, sometimes you fall in love with the person, and sometimes it’s just with the person’s style. And it was his style that I fell for.”

  “Ah.”

  “Diego was a jumper, right? And we were both gonna be jumpers together, and rich, and he’d have a black Ferrari and I’d have a red one, and we’d both have great clothes and drugs and parties, and we’d have adventures. But Diego got killed, and so did the Prime, so I never got made into a jumper. And now I’m sitting here in this tower and I haven’t got any eyes.” She reached up into her bandage and made swabbing motions with her fingers. “Still got tear ducts, though. Yep. Still do.” She shook her head, then looked up blindly. “How come I’m doing all the talking here?”

  “Probably because I haven’t got a whole lot of news you haven’t already heard.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She laughed again. “Just wanted to find out.” She paused, licked her lips. “Would you mind taking me to the toilet?”

  “I’ll take you, I don’t know where it is.”

  “I’ll give directions, you do the steering.” She put her feet on the floor and rose hesitantly. Modular Man stood and offered her an arm.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Anything here we can use for toilet paper?”

  “A spare roll of paper for the stenograph machine.”

  “Great. That’ll do.”

  Modular Man reached for the roll and handed it to her. “I’m glad the toilet paper shortage is one problem I’m not going to have to face,” he said. Patchwork laughed. He escorted her out the misshapen door and then down the black-and-white-tiled corridor. At the top of the stairs they turned onto a long balcony that overlooked the stairwell, then turned off onto the battlements.

  The toilet was a little shed built onto the massive wall of the inner bailey, a two-holer that simply dropped waste out into the mile-wide moat. Patchwork said thank you, patted his arm, and disappeared inside, pulling the door shut after her.

  Modular Man waited. Both his radar and his optics reported a lot of air traffic overhead.

  The door opened and Patchwork reemerged. She stuffed the roll of paper into a pocket and held out her arm. Modular Man took it and led her carefully back inside.

  “The governor can make all sorts of things appear,” she said, “but there are some necessities he can’t be bothered with. I’ve got a couple unused tampons I’m guarding with my life.”

  A pair of young men dressed in a mix of military gear and black leather with zips were waiting just inside the keep. One had a buzz-cut and one didn’t. Both carried guns. One had a roll of computer printout under an arm. Apparently they were heading for the toilets.

  “Yo, Pat,” buzz-cut said as he passed — he stuck out an arm and clothes-lined Patchwork with his forearm.

  Electronic hash sizzled through the android’s macro-atomic circuits as Patchwork’s head came off and bounced. Her jaw came loose and skittered over the hard surface.

  Patchwork’s body staggered, then recovered. Headless, it bent down carefully and began to search for its head with its hands.

  Knocked my block off. Now Modular Man knew what she’d meant.

  “I love it when that happens,” buzz-cut said.

  “Don’t do it again,” said Modular Man. He picked up Patchwork’s head and handed it to her. With a practiced gesture she reattached it. Eye sockets gazed blankly from under the disarrayed bandage. The android retrieved the jaw — the tongue was still attached and flapped frantically — and gave it to Pat.

  “Don’t do it again?” buzz-cut smirked. “What happens if I do?”

  Modular Man grabbed him by the throat and hung him out over the balcony.

  “We find out if you can fly,” he said.

  The boy’s arms and legs flopped wildly. His friend made a move, but Modular Man saw it on radar and the servom
otors on his right shoulder swung his microwave laser up and pointed it straight between non-buzz-cut’s eyes.

  Non-buzz-cut decided not to continue moving.

  Buzz-cut was turning purple. Evidence of a savage effort showed in his face. He stared at Modular Man and narrowed his eyes menacingly.

  “By the way.” the android said, “I can’t be jumped.”

  Buzz-cut passed out.

  The android hauled the boy in and lowered him to the floor. All through his movements, Modular Man’s laser remained focused on non-buzz-cut. Then he straightened and took Patchwork’s arm.

  “As you were,” he said. “The toilet’s free.”

  Though, judging from the smell, it was a little late for the toilet in buzz-cut’s case.

  Modular Man led Patchwork back along the walk overlooking the main stairs. He glanced down and saw someone climbing it.

  Astonishment didn’t come easily to him. He was a machine and for the most part he accepted the readings he got on reality. He’d seen some pretty strange things and accepted what he’d had to.

  Still, seeing Pulse climbing the stairs was the cause of the first double take in his life.

  Bodysnatcher was performing a relentless series of pushups. The Outcast could hear the steady counting inside his head: … seventy-six … seventy-seven … He could also tell that bodysnatcher was as disappointed in this body as with any other, finding it soft and flabby in comparison with his old body, the one the aces had destroyed …. Seventy-eight.. … seventy-nine.. … eighty…

  The right arm spasmed and went out from under him. He slammed hard onto the wooden floor. “You’d never have made a hundred anyway,” the Outcast said. The penguin appeared alongside him. It was doing curls with a set of tiny barbells as it skated around the Outcast’s feet.

  “Jesus” The rage inside bodysnatcher’s head went to sudden fright and then cold. He rolled to a fighting crouch, sweat raining on the floor. His eyes narrowed but hands relaxed. “You’re the one Juggler was talking about. The Outcast. You really the governor?”

  “You really Zelda?”

  “Zelda died, motherfucker.”

  The Outcast ignored that. “Oh, he’s the gov, all right,” the penguin told her. “Same old weenie, different package. Like YOU.”

  “Shut up,” they both told the penguin at the same time. It shrugged, doffed its funnel hat, and skated out the door, still doing reps. “Juggler’s going to surrender,” the Outcast said to bodysnatcher.

  “Thought you had talked him out of it with those fancy pyrotechnics, Governor.” Bodysnatcher managed to put an edge on the word as he went over to a bench press, grabbed a towel, and started to dry off.

  “I did, for a while. I didn’t think it’d last and it hasn’t. Juggler’s talked several of them into it: Creamcheese, Porker, Rain Man, the twins, some others. I can’t really say I blame them.”

  “Yeah? So what do you want me to do? Go give them another goddamn pep talk? Let the little fucks surrender. We don’t need ’em.”

  The Outcast smiled. “No,” he said. “I’ve said that I’d never hold anyone here who didn’t want to be here, and I meant that. I don’t keep slaves. If they want to go, I’m not going to let anyone stop them. But… I’ve been thinking about it. What do you think the Combine’s going to do with the jumpers when they give themselves up?”

  Bodysnatcher shrugged, but the Outcast heard the sudden curiosity the question aroused. “I don’t know,” he started to say, then he — almost — grinned. “You’re thinking that maybe we should find out.”

  The Outcast allowed himself another smile. “Exactly.”

  “Then send Needles up here,” Bodysnatcher said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to look nice for the man when I surrender,” he said.

  “So,” Battle said after Ray summarized his meetings with Ackroyd and Vivian Choy, “I think we can count on Ackroyd. You did a good job there.” He hmmmed for a moment. “I guess we can forget about Lazy Dragon. I don’t think he’ll call. That’s all right. We should have enough muscle for anything that freak Bloat might throw at us.”

  “That’s it then?” Ray asked.

  “Not quite,” Battle said. “We still have one more visit tonight. To Our Lady of Perpetual Misery.”

  “The Church of Jesus Christ, Joker?” Ray asked.

  “Not the church. The graveyard.”

  Ray looked at him. “Christ. Not another deader.”

  “How’s that?” Battle asked.

  Ray was being as subtle as he could. “Well, Puckett’s dead, isn’t he? And he’s on the roster.”

  Puckett was waiting outside Ray’s office, ostensibly because Ray said there wasn’t room for the three of them inside, but really because Ray couldn’t stand the sight or smell of him. The government ace acquiesced easily enough and Battle didn’t seem to be missing his company either.

  “Puckett is a special case,” Battle said slowly. “And I see you’ve been checking on us.”

  “Not really,” Ray lied. “I just recognized the name. It took me a little while to remember where I’d heard it. The Texas sniping incident.”

  Battle nodded. “We should really use Puckett’s code name, Crypt Kicker. And you’re quite right. He’s dead.”

  Somehow hearing Battle say that in such calm, reasoned tones made it seem even worse. “I didn’t know tower snipers were usually recruited into government service,” Ray said with distaste.

  “They’re not,” Battle explained, “but Puckett, as I’ve said, is a special case. Oh, he’s had his problems with the law in the past. Haven’t we all?” Battle asked. “But Bobby Joe has seriously repented for his wrongdoings. When he — well — woke up, he knew that the Lord had given him a second chance to do right with his life. He accepted Jesus as his personal savior and decided to devote the rest of his life — or whatever — to upholding the law.”

  “Christ!” Ray said.

  “Exactly.”

  This was getting too weird. “Just where did he ’wake up’?”

  “In the potters field where he’d been buried by the state. It seems the grounds had also been used as a toxic waste dump. PCBs, insecticides, industrial acids, light radioactives. That sort of thing,” Battle said, leaning forward with a tight little smile. “And Puckett — that is, Crypt Kicker — found that he’d absorbed the toxic wastes into his body and that he can now secrete them. Couple this with the fact that he’s also extremely strong and extremely hard to hurt — he is dead, after all — and extremely, extremely loyal to the government and its properly appointed representatives, and you can see that he makes the perfect soldier.”

  “Too bad he smells so damn bad.”

  “Well, almost perfect.”

  Ray nodded. This was all as crazy as he had feared. Worse even. “What about this graveyard stuff? Are we counting on another convenient resurrection?”

  “Oh,” Battle said, a twinkle in his eye, “in a way.” He stood and checked his watch. “I’ve got to be going, but I’ll meet you at the graveyard in six hours. And bring a shovel, will you?”

  The military was deploying again, and Patchwork was busy reeling off their movements to the crew of the Joker Situation Room. The Rox, however, was making its own preparations.

  Cruise missiles, for example, were supposed to be incredibly accurate, but they guided themselves to the target through a radar image of the target locked into their guidance systems.

  So, with Modular Man’s help, the Rox was changing its radar profile.

  Bloat was creating rafts with radar reflectors. Building them out of thin air so that jokers in rubber boats could tow them out into the bay and anchor them there. Some of the reflectors were hollow masts filled with lead foil, some were odd structures that looked like step pyramids covered with aluminum.

  “Right angles,” Kafka kept saying. “We want lots of right angles.”

  Modular Man’s radar had several times picked up the New Jersey offshore. The funny
step pyramids and hollow masts gave off radar profiles almost as large as the battleship.

  High above the Rox, looking at its reflection in his radar image, he was certainly confused.

  He could only hope it would confuse the cruise missiles.

  As the skies had darkened in the west above New Jersey, the pair with the black cat and alligator in tow felt more confident about crossing the financial district and the southern tip of Manhattan to Battery Park.

  The small groups of humans and beasts continued to attract little attention. The onset of night helped. The major exception was an elderly lady walking her two poodles. As Wyungare and the others crossed Chambers, the old woman, apparently noticing them from a block away, pointedly crossed to the other side of Park Row. Once there, she ignored them as she tottered abreast of the fugitives. Both dogs, attired in matching red sweaters, yapped as they pulled at their leashes. The old woman jerked them back into line, eyes still fixed straight ahead. Jack started to veer into the street. Wyungare set his hand on the gator’s snout and the reptile returned to his original course.

  “I think he’s hungry,” said Cordelia.

  “We’ll be at the water soon.”

  “I’d never eat anything from that cesspool.”

  “You’re not an alligator with a four-meter metabolism.” Wyungare paused thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, I could do with a snack myself.”

  “I thought you people could trek for weeks without eating,” said Cordelia.

  “’You people’?” said Wyungare. He reached and lightly touched her hip with his index finger. “Perhaps you might try that regimen yourself, Euro-girl.”

  Cordelia slapped the finger away. “You weren’t complaining earlier.”

  White teeth, major grin. “I must admit I enjoy some meat on a woman.”

  Cordelia matched his smile tooth for tooth. “Me too, love, depending on whose meat it is.”

  Wyungare, a bit embarrassed, let his hands swing at his sides. “Ah, look, our destination.” They could see the elms of Battery Park.

  “Listen, mon cherie,” said Cordelia, “I have a question.”

  Wyungare looked at her quizzically. Beside them, the paws of the black cat padded steadily; the alligator grunted in hoarse accompaniment.