“I can’t really say if I can do this, not until I know what these animals are.”
“I’d love to tell you, but what the food source is can change on a whim with the Princess’s tastes.”
“The meat is only for her, eh?”
Tasha nodded solemnly.
The Sticker read the contract. It was the simplest, shortest legal document he’d ever seen. He had to read it three times to make sure he wasn’t missing something. Afterward, he signed on for the job.
“Did you need to return home? Or are you ready to start today? You won’t be taking anything with you. All your needs will be met there.”
“Where do my wages go?” the Sticker asked, eyes again on Annette in the honeymoon photo, frozen in laughter, lost in Las Vegas sepia tones.
“Special account,” she replied. “No taxes. The IRS is not an issue for us, if you’re wondering.”
“Sounds stupendous.”
“Great, I’ll show you to the membrane station then. You’ll like it. It’s not completely cutting edge travel—really more of a bastardized human version of Gultranz patch gating. It has improved quite a bit though and is probably more secure than the alien technology.”
“Alien… sounds weird to hear that word used seriously.”
“It won’t be weird for long.” Tasha sauntered around him and made for the hall.
“Wait.”
She turned. “Yes?”
“Will I able to check Facebook over there?”
*
The membrane station was a rectangular chamber with a smoked glass observation window from beginning to end. Those on the other side of the window looked out to a blue ramp hanging with long glassine flaps, which reminded the Sticker of some kind of science fiction car wash.
Tasha sat him down on a short stool, the only piece of furniture in the room. Just in his boxer shorts, it was weird enough being there with a kid, but he blushed a little when a young Japanese woman in medical scrubs entered to take his vitals.
Tasha stood behind the technician, hawking maternally over the process. “You’ll receive a one-time injection of DNRM-33,” she explained.
“And that does what?”
“It sounds scarier than it is, but it will modify your DNA and RNA to accept instructions from the membranes, so your reassembled structure doesn’t take on abnormalities.”
“That’s a mouthful. Does the drug work for everybody?”
“You have a seventy percent chance of success.”
“What?”
Tasha laughed. “I’m kidding. This is a reliable molecular alteration. I’ve never heard of a problem, ever.”
The technician held up the syringe. The fluid inside was clear, benign. “Ready?” she asked.
The Sticker nodded and received the injection. He wasn’t too fond of needles, but as long as he looked away and focused on his breathing, he could handle it.
“Will I feel anything… from this?”
He noticed her phone was at her ear now. “Yes, this is Willing,” she said. “He’s received DNRM-33 therapy. You can fire them up. What? Oh, are you kidding me? Why the hell is he doing that?”
The door opened and Trevor Milstead walked in.
The Sticker could not accept this. The man, his old boss, in that moment, had become the most unbelievable thing in the room. Trevor looked more tanned, just as Annette had. He wore a silk Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. Some expensive sunglasses nestled in his thick movie star hair.
“What are you doing here?”
“Me?” asked Trevor. “Shit man, you wouldn’t have this job without me. A good crowbar couldn’t have pried your ass out of that cow factory.”
“Mr. Milstead,” Tasha said. “Now isn’t the time, in my opinion.”
“Nobody’s asking your opinion, Willing.” Trevor hunkered down, coming eye level to the Sticker. “I thought Annette would stop talking about you… but even after visiting every damn island in Hawaii, she’s guilty over your ass drying up in some cut rate slaughter house, no offense to my good ole boy Gerald Bailey.”
The Sticker narrowed his eyes. “You got me fired.”
“You got yourself fired, from what Bailey tells me. And now you’ve got some regulators looking for you—something about toxic waste and torturing a cow with a stun gun. I don’t even care if all that stuff’s real. With that kind of heat, I can’t hire you back at the onion plant, not even to appease Annette. I have to get you out of the picture and hope she forgets your dumb ass.”
“Sir,” said Tasha diplomatically, “but is working the Princess’s ship really the answer to that?”
“It’s a slaughter ship, isn’t it? That’s what he does, isn’t it? You told the committee he wanted to go far away, didn’t you?”
Tasha looked down from his gaze and shook her head unhappily.
“Everybody on the committee signed off on it. Your father even endorsed the idea.”
“Father is only getting his information from you, and he won’t answer my calls.”
“A wise man.” Trevor stood and his knees crackled. The Sticker found comfort in that, made the asshole mortal, if only a little bit. They locked eyes for a moment. “I’d offer my hand,” said Trevor, “as your old boss, or as your new one, but I know that’s a waste.”
“You’re not as dopey as I thought.”
Trevor gave him a crooked smile. “Have a safe trip. Don’t get yourself killed out there too soon. That drug therapy is an expensive investment. Meanwhile, your wife will never go wanting.”
Trevor patted Tasha on the shoulder before leaving. The Sticker slid off the stool and nodded to the blue ramp. “Is that where I go? Can I just move on? Right now? Far away, please?”
Tasha regarded him stoically. “Milstead shouldn’t have come down here. I’m sorry for the harassment. I was hoping you’d never even know he was my supervisor.”
“It’s okay. That’s par for my life, and I have nowhere else to go now, do I?”
Tasha gestured to a pair of feet in a dashed outline on the ramp. “Stand there. That’s all you have to do. I will try to visit tomorrow. You’ll be greeted by some of our other employees once you settle.”
The Sticker pointed at the outline for further confirmation.
Tasha nodded.
He stepped into the dashed feet.
“I’m going to leave the room,” said Tasha. “You can go ahead and take off your underwear then.”
He cleared his throat. “’K.”
The transparent membrane flaps pulsed before him.
A moment later the door shut and she was gone.
The Sticker dropped his boxer shorts and kicked them to the wall. His face heated as he speculated on how many people were on the other side of the observation window. He’d never been a shy person, but the idea that Trevor might be looking on was more than unnerving.
The crystal kelp looking things waved faster before him.
Guess there’s more important things to worry about than nudity …
A cold, plastic kiss touched his neck. He turned.
Layers of those flaps stretched behind him. It went into infinity. But how—?
“Keep forward please,” said a voice piped into the room. Pieces of the command distorted and repeated in his brain and his ears. “Please forward keep.” “Keep keep keep forward forward forward please please please.” “Peep Korward Flease.” “Kuh-kuh-kuh, fuh-fuh-fuh, kee-kee-kee.” “Ease, Orward, Eep.”
He saw people before him, stretching forever. But it was him. Trillions, (zillions?) of the Stickers. He saw the back of his head, the long scar down his right flank, his bare ass, legs. He shifted and all the copies shifted. It wasn’t a reflection. They were there! They were all there, all alive. This wasn’t happening like this, right?
The membrane flaps smacked past his body, jarring him left and right. Just as he began to question whether more were coming, the process quickened tenfold. His body stung as the membranes continued their assault. It’d
become so fast, they didn’t seem physical now, like the flaps moved through him, a mist, a poison, an aggressive spirit that possessed him and exorcised itself at the speed of light.
When it all stopped, the Sticker heard himself screaming incoherent things that conflicted with the thousand ill thoughts in his mind.
Three men lingered before him in a freezing cold metal room. They were younger than the Sticker, probably early twenties. Two were African American and the other Caucasian. The lighter skinned African American grinned. He had a stack of clothing under his right arm. “Yup, that’s about how I remember my trip, too.”
The other two men evenly smiled and nodded.
“That’s Harper and Timothy,” he said.
“And who are you?” asked the Sticker.
“Razz,” he replied. “Welcome aboard.”
*
The Sticker changed into his new clothes, which appeared to be a thin cream colored bodysuit made of long-john material. It did the trick though. This place was freezing and the inner lining of the suit sent comforting, if foreign-feeling, waves of warmth into his skin. He guessed he was onboard a spaceship, but he couldn’t see any windows showing space outside. There was a strange back-and-forth feeling in the core of his stomach, as though an imaginary fish hook tugged at his intestines; he assumed this had to do with some kind of artificial gravity imposed by the ship. He could only guess. The Sticker was more of a western type of fellow and hadn’t even sat through Star Wars.
His shoes were closer to apparel to which he was accustomed: work boots with hard, difficult to tie shoelaces and reinforced steel in the toes. He got the first on and was busy tugging on the second when the manually operated cabin door slid open.
The man named Timothy entered the room, his skin as pale as a ghost. Sporting a bald head, he indeed could have passed for one of the Casper variety.
“Yeah?” asked the Sticker.
“You have to come right away. She’s hungry again.”
“Who?”
Timothy tossed him what looked like a small firearm. It didn’t resemble a ray gun, more like a starter pistol with a bronze comb on top of it.
The Sticker followed Timothy into the hall. “Is this about the Princess?”
The other man walked so fast, the Sticker had to jog alongside him. “Sorry, you usually get a few days to acclimatize to the environment, but we are shorthanded, and didn’t expect the Princess to acquire another Fanjlion ship today. She’s already had three hundred processed today. Her appetite is getting worse.”
“What’s this weapon you gave me?”
“It’s called a Fixer Gun. It will fire bursts of fifty staple-darts and that clip holds twenty-five hundred. Target only the head. The Princess will not eat brains.”
“I’m not used to this… kind of work. Guns. I don’t do guns.”
“We were all new to this once. Don’t worry, the Fanjlions are only a passing taste. The Princess will get bored of them eventually.”
Timothy took another corner and the two other men, Razz and Harper, waited in an area where the hall expanded into a docking chamber. “Come on,” they both said, waving frantically.
The Sticker and Timothy sidled up against the wall with the other men.
“Thought you weren’t going to make it,” Razz said critically.
“It’s a long hallway, man,” Timothy snapped.
“Shut up, guys.” Harper’s brown eyes narrowed as he focused. Sweat had formed up on the hotdog shaped rolls of ebony skin on his neck, making them glisten. “The inner chamber is unsealed. Should be coming in here any minute.”
“We’re doing this in the hall?” the Sticker asked.
Razz checked his gun. “What’d you expect?”
A hiss of air released and a single blast of a horn sounded.
“Ready,” breathed Razz.
Everybody put their guns up.
The bodies rushing into the hall could have been a rolling wave of tree branches and knives. The Sticker couldn’t get a bead on what was what at first, not until Harper and Timothy fired their Fixer guns. These alien creatures, the Fanjlion, were humanoid, around five feet tall, rods of muscle over a small bone structure, skin with a mottled tree bark texture, like twig-men from some haunted forest. Each wore a tight white membranous material over their small heads. In the center of the latex-like mask, a square had been cut so a singular eye could stare outward, a radioactive pineapple slice.
“Don’t gawk, shoot!” yelled Razz. He kicked one of the aliens as it leapt for him. Before it hit the ground he fired into its face, the Fixer gun letting out a metallic cough. Golden blood burst like a water balloon from the pineapple eye.
The Sticker raised his weapon as a threesome of the Fanjlions sped toward him. He didn’t want to kill these things. He hated guns. Hated their sole purpose. Hated seeing kids under bloody sheets on the news. Hated… how after his mother left, his father went on a week-long hunger strike that he finally broke by eating a bullet from his Beretta.
The tallest creature of the lot charged out in front. The shiny black webbed hands that extended from the bundle of sticks that was its arm suddenly became blobs that elongated into blades. It flung the lethal points forward—the Sticker jumped back and opened fire on the group. The gun’s coughing sound played hell with his eardrums and the hardware grew colder in his hands with every shot. Taking the lead creature down dead in the chest, the other two aliens ended in a series of misplaced shots in the arms, legs and torso.
But they’re dead, is the point.
“The hell you doing?” shouted Harper, close to his side. “You’re wasting food. The heads, the heads, dummy!”
Or not.
“Well sorry!” he said, just as another group fell upon them.
Harper finished them: one and two and three and four, and number five’s head buckled back and it fell sideways on the pile of his companions.
“Shit,” the Sticker whispered.
“That’s how it’s done, buddy.” Harper flashed a deviant smile. “Come on, let’s back up Tim and Razz.”
The Sticker kept behind the broad shouldered man and rounded the corner where the two other Limbus employees waged a two-man war against a seething mass of Fanjlions. Harper took aim and began squeezing off shots into the crowd. The Sticker lifted his gun, but only for show. Harper must have had hawk eyes to make headshots from this distance.
Unconsciously Harper moved forward and the Sticker followed his lead. Over the sight of the gun, he attempted to track those red glowing pineapples—perfect bulls eyes when you considered them—but the alien gathering coalesced like a confused forest growing into itself and it was a tableau of chaos. The Sticker stuck out his gun, as though getting it marginally closer would help as well.
Then something warm and wet struck his elbow and his gun jumped out of his hand. The Sticker stepped back and realized that the warm and wet was him: he was bleeding from a deep slash down his elbow to the base of his pinkie, the material of his jumpsuit torn clean in half.
Harper took a few more shots and looked satisfied by them. He spared a glance at the Sticker. “What the shit? Did you lose your gun?”
“I—”
The next moment Harper’s head broke apart, first in a clump that took his right eye, then another that destroyed his jaw, the rest of the meat cascading gruesomely to the side and falling off. A single, thin jet of scarlet erupted from the neck just before the man’s body fell to the floor.
“Fuck!” the Sticker shouted.
The alien who had taken the Sticker’s gun took two steps closer, dipping its head as it walked. Its gloved hand around the gun mimicked a human hand, just as surely as it had mimicked a blade earlier. The gun discharged and the Sticker ducked and ran. He had no clue where, but he was running. The creature bounded after him. He could hear Timothy and Razz yelling, but he knew it would be deadly to look back.
The paneling of the ship changed suddenly. It was darker, with glowing red circuit
ry underneath. The Sticker took a left, charged up into the shadows and wheeled right. He could hear the Fanjlion thankfully fall for the trick and scamper into the opposite side of the room. In the dim light of this new hall, he saw his pursuer gallop up to the threshold. It touched a wall panel, made a circular motion with its hand, and a thick door slid over and locked with a hiss. It turned around and made an aggravated clicking sound, the Fixer gun poised over its head. No wonder it didn’t shoot me. It’s not coordinated enough to hit a moving target. Had Harper only known a few moments earlier…
The faces of Razz and Timothy filled the port hole in the door. They were speaking to each other, hopefully planning how to get him out. The Sticker’s body trembled. He was on the Fanjlion ship.
A bass trilling filled his skull as Fixer darts released right over his head. The Sticker swept down and ran, his every step only inches ahead of ensuing shots. The attack trailed him all the way across the room, where he was able to drop behind a narrow support structure.
Twenty-five hundred darts. Fifty unloading every second, likely. How many were left in the Fixer? At least three hundred outside… but after that last spread?
There was only one way to find out.
The Sticker shook his head once, idiot, and then hauled ass across the hallway. This time he counted, and hoped, god did he hope, that it wouldn’t be the last thing he did. Shots coughed after him, again, again, again. He made it to the other side and shielded himself around another support. Seven seconds. Another couple times and that should do it.
He made another run for it and immediately a dart grazed his hip. The Sticker slammed to the floor on one hand and groaned. Blood poured from his leg and filled up his work boot. Made him woozy. The Fanjlion’s feet scratched against the floor, somewhere in the shadows. The Sticker looked up and saw Timothy and Razz, mouths moving in silent shouts. They pointed to the wall. To the panel.
“Oh,” said the Sticker. He tried to stand. Hobbling left and right, he heard more shots ring out and impact sparks flung off a nearby support. He reached the panel and swiped his hand in a circle as he’d seen the alien do. A droning sound emitted and a light glowed behind it. Then died.
Limbus, Inc. Page 4