by B. V. Larson
“One more door,” Scarn said.
When Scarn came to it, he gently knocked four times.
“He won’t answer.”
“He’ll answer.” He knocked four times again and spoke just above a whisper. “Graff, here I am. Just like we arranged yesterday. As you can see, this is a bore riveter.” He held it up and turned it for Graff to see if he was watching his security screen. “You have ten seconds to open your door, or I’ll blow it open for you. I’ll take my money, and I’ll let the strags have you. Five… Four… Three…”
He never made it down to ‘two.’ Small noises came from the lock and the door opened a crack. An eye appeared and looked at Scarn. After putting the barrel of the riveter against the opening, the door swung wide and they entered
Turtle gently, quietly, locked it behind them.
“What—what—what’ do you people...?” Lance Graff put his hands to his throat and slumped back against his ebony credenza. “I can’t breathe—with all the stress and then you show up and put that thing in my face...” He gaped toward the ceiling, panting through his open mouth and looking mildly desperate.
Lance Graff, of an indefinable age, wore sandals, shorts, and a skimpy shirt. On first glance, he looked normal enough but wore too much make-up. On second glance, his skin looked loose and soft, like the skin of far-gone fruit. On an even closer look, one eye was hazed with a yellow film and the other had a spastic iris. His feet, inside his sandals, had multiple deformities and barely looked human... but it was the air...
Scarn saw Turtle sniffing in several directions.
“It’s worse than usual,” Scarn said. “It’s his breath.”
“It smells like something died in his lungs.”
“I can’t help it,” Graff said, coming to life. “I have terrible nerves. My eye was supposed to be replaced yesterday, and my stomach, I know it’s ulcerated. I know it.” He sighed heavily and pushed himself away from his credenza to his sofa, where he limply collapsed. “What’re those things on your backs?”
“Blood concentrates. We’re delivering them.”
“Those are worth a lot. Are you interested in, say, some barter?”
One look around his quarters, and it was obvious that he had more money to spend from running live-stream shows than he could ever spend aboard Tarassis. An entire wall was a ten-thousand-cred holo-window that looked out upon a perfect meadow. In the middle of it, a pond reflected the sky like a piece of glass. Four mallards floated and occasionally dipped to feed.
It was all fake, of course, but it looked more real than the real thing back on Earth. Turtle and Scarn, in their trashlife days, had once seen a real duck—but it had been dead at the time.
“Lance, there’s only one issue between us: I’ve come for my fourteen thousand creds, payable more or less instantaneously.”
“I don’t have that kind of money here,” he whispered, his voice squeaking with incredulity. “You came here to collect? You went through those things to try to collect money from me?”
“You said you’d have it today, and we happened to be passing by.”
“You’re amazing, Scarn. Just amazing.”
“Lot of amazement going around,” Turtle mused, running his finger along the invisible surface of the holo-window.
“Don’t touch that,” Graff said, then looked back to Scarn. “It’s this simple, trash-boy: I don’t have it here, so I can’t give it to you.”
“Sure, you can,” Scarn said. “Am I supposed to think you left it in a UT account? That’s funny. You don’t trust the new government any more than you did the old one.”
“Scarn,” Turtle said from over at the holo-window, “I say let’s go ahead and give him a couple of concussions, get the cash, and get out of here. But you should take a look at these ducks before we go.”
Something banged out in the main passage. It was a heavy impact, not an explosion.
Turtle and Scarn both knew the sound—but this time, instead of strags banging through Lance’s door, they were at someone else’s.
Another bang and then silence.
Scarn made a couple of gestures that told Turtle the plan: Sitting in a chair with a straight line of fire at the front door, Turtle aimed Scarn’s bore riveter and braced himself.
“Only if the door starts to fail,” Scarn whispered. “Don’t waste the shot otherwise.”
“Right.”
Scarn then turned and gave Graff’s visible rooms a slow scan.
“What’re you doing? What’re—”
“Calculating,” Scarn said. He leaned over his sitting host and whispered. “Lance, I’ve got choices. Here they are: We tear the place apart till I find your stash—but then we’d have to deal with the strags outside. They’d hear the noise and come to check it out. Second option: Hurt you till you talk to me. I’ll begin with your fingers.”
Graff’s eyes had grown larger.
“Third choice,” Scarn continued. “You hand over our cash right now. We’re in a hurry and I hate screaming and pleading, Lance. Make it easy for all of us. Think of that face you paid so much to fix up.”
“My face?” Lance asked shrilly.
“Scarn,” Turtle said, “I think I’m hearing things out there.”
Scarn stood up and already had a thin-bladed knife in his hand. “Decision made. We’re in a hurry.”
“No!” Graff said, fanning the air between them with his fingers. “No! Okay.” Without standing up, he began struggling to open up his shorts and pull them down. He had four thin packets of bills taped around his groin. When he pulled on the tape, his loose skin pulled up with it and seemed ready to tear off. He threw the money at Scarn’s feet.
“You’re disgusting, Graff. You at least could have put your crotch money in a plastic bag.”
“Crotch money?” Turtle said, not turning his eyes from sighting on the door.
“Ten thousand, five hundred… It’s all I’ve got on me.”
“Scarn—something out there’s getting closer.”
“Fucking breathers,” Graff muttered. “Once this rough patch in Tarassis history is over, you’ll envy me again.”
That earned him Turtle’s attention. The big man stomped to where Graff lay, picked him up with his rippling arms and shook him. “What do you mean was?” he shouted.
“Turtle! Holy shit—” Scarn said as the first strag hit the door like an explosion. The thermoplast cracked and the top of the door came out of its frame.
Graff began screaming, which only drove the strag into a greater frenzy.
Turtle dropped Graff and picked up his weapon again.
When the second strag hit the door, the panel blew open and the two insectile things leaped in as fast as sight, grasping arms already spread wide.
Turtle was a quarter of a second slow, but when he fired the riveter, it blew out both of their chests below the necks. One of their graspers made a dying whip across the room and caught Graff in the side of his neck, slicing through an artery and hooking into the bottom of his mouth.
Graff waved his hands in front of him like a window washer and seemed to be saying, “Maow, maow, maow!” He made a final bubbling noise and dropped to his knees. Turtle and Scarn watched him die, unable to help even if they wanted to.
In the sudden silence, Lance Graff exhaled red bubbles and was finished.
Across the room, a few of the larger strag body parts quivered and flipped before they went still.
Without warning, a third strag flew into the room at an angle, caromed off a wall, and spread its four arms for attack.
Turtle whipped the welder toward it and sliced through its chest, vaporizing a wide swath of its flesh. When he burned it second time, the thing staggered in place, did a half turn and a slow fall forward through the hazy steam of its boiling fluids. It landed belly-up with its stomach plates withdrawn and the shredding claws partially exposed—four short appendages with strange chitinous blades.
Scarn picked a piece of strag offal
from his shirt front and dropped it on the thing.
“Close up,” Turtle said, “they’re even scarier.”
“Then we should try to kill them at a distance. Ready?” Scarn was adjusting the hang of the riveter and peeking sideways out the door.
Chapter THIRTY-SIX
“Scarn? About our next stop?”
“Your mind is a billboard, Turtle. It says Iris Soquel in nova neon.”
“Yeah, yeah… The last four times I’ve almost died, she was the woman I was thinking about. If I could see her again, then I could get my mind right about her. I just don’t want to get killed without closure.”
Scarn stared at him. “Internally,” he said, “I’m rolling my eyes at you. But okay, Iris Soquel it is. I still say you like the idea of Iris better than the actual Iris, but if you still need to see her so you can compare her to your fantasy of her, so be it. At least her place is on the way.”
They had it worked out now and moved down the passages to the next storage area for external repair in that sector. This time they found three rivet loads and a half-charged power module for Turtle’s welder.
They stepped back into the passageways. With practice, they now moved together like two parts of the same thing, covered each other’s blind spots, crossed intersections, and Turtle got faster.
At the fluttery sound of one of the things coming at them from around a corner, Turtle already had it ranged. First he did a precision pop-shot, taking off the strag’s eyestalk, and on the next vertical pass, he sliced it down the middle.
“Nice,” Scarn said.
Scarn had no more than turned around when another one appeared thirty meters away, moving at them with alarming speed, spreading its grasping arms, two high, two low, and the shredders already moving in a blur.
The rivet blew through the shredders, out the back of the strag, and continued down the passage until it embedded itself in a wall with an ugly clank. The strag slowed and wavered but was still on its feet.
Turtle did a quick thigh-slice on it and returned to focus on monitoring their rear.
They were sweating through their clothes when they got to the next-level access in the janitor’s module and took a minute’s rest before shoving through the cheap plates to the next deck.
“What Jamison told us was he thought there were about a hundred strags left. So how many have we killed?”
“He might have been lying.”
“Agreed, but still?”
Turtle considered. “I’ve been too busy to count. Your point is that we’re getting more than our share.”
“And what would that tell you?”
“Maybe they can sense us in some way or communicate with each other?”
“Your Iris is on the next Deck up. You still need to see her?”
Turtle squirmed a little. “I’ve been thinking about that. You know, the two people we’ve met along the way, the guy with suspenders and Graff?”
“Forego rhetorical questions, Turtle. Life is short.”
“Knowing the percentage of the two people we’ve run into who got ripped in our presence, would you invite us in for a drink and a casual chat?”
“On the other hand,” Scarn said, “both Graff and suspender-man died satisfied with their lives.” He paused. “Can you imagine that?” He seemed genuinely puzzled and surprised.
“I don’t want to be responsible for her dying satisfied. So maybe we could just stop for a minute at her place. I could say hi, speed the evaluation, and we move on.”
“Sure,” Scarn said. Then, “The men she was involved with, they gave her a lot of gifts, right?”
Turtle looked sad but he said, “Yeah, I suppose they did.”
Scarn shrugged. “Just thinking… maybe she’d have something we could use. We could ask.”
“We’ll stay just long enough to ask and maybe that’ll be long enough for me to see if she really could have been the one.”
“Whatever. Ready?”
They tried to be quiet as they stomped their way down to the next deck, but they had limited success. Nonetheless, no strags appeared. Sneaking through passages, they soon crept up to her door.
Turtle led the way, and he was the first to realize her door was hanging open. He slowly peeked around the corner, expecting to see her sprayed all over the walls, but he didn’t. What he saw attached to the inside of the door frame was a steel mesh cargo curtain, in place of the door. Behind it was a perfectly neat living room.
“Iris?” Turtle whispered and then repeated her name slightly louder. He gently knocked on the door frame.
After ten long seconds of silence, out drifted Iris Soquel, tall, brunette and sleepy-eyed. She wore a thin white robe and walked like a person who never hurried or had to. She had a pair of goggles dangling from her fingertips. That detail made Turtle’s heart sink.
“Turtle!” she said. “What a surprise! You’re early for our dinner date.” She smoked some kind of intoxicant in a cigarette holder and waved it around in sweeping arcs. The goggles still hung from one hooked finger.
“Uh… can we come in?” Turtle whispered. “I’ve got Scarn with me.”
She languorously pulled the chain mesh aside and refastened it after they’d passed through.
“We were in the area,” Turtle said, “just passing through. We’re taking these blood packs up to Deck 5.”
“That’s very noble of you,” she said serenely.
With one hand on a hip and the other with the holder, she looked them over and took a deep drag. As she inhaled she vaguely gestured at the weapons they carried.
“Even I can see the Outside Only stickers on those things. You’re killing strags, I presume?” She turned and led them into her parlor. Her movements had no angles.
Behind her back, Turtle’s expression said to Scarn, See? See?
Scarn nodded. He could see. She moved and spoke like a person complete and unaffected by the toils of the world. It was the VR—the Singularity had affected her mind. It had to be that.
“We can’t stay,” Turtle said. “Wherever we go, strags come after us, so we need to—”
“—to see if you have might have anything that we could use to help us get up to Five,” Scarn interjected.
“Like what?”
“Like charge packs?” Turtle asked.
Iris delicately fell back onto her sofa. “Oh…” she said. “Sit down, guys.”
Turtle looked uneasy. “We’ve got strag pieces on us. We might not be clean.”
She flipped her hand at her furniture. “Sit.”
Turtle turned a chair so he could keep an eye on the door. He sat and then pointed at the cargo mesh. “Is that safe?”
“Safe?” She looked at him as though it was a silly question. “Of course not.” She paused for effect, lifted her chin a little and spoke softly. “I’ve given up. Even if I survive the strags, the crew is sure to come for revenge. They know the guests released these things. We’re in the middle of a new civil war aboard Tarassis. Don’t tell me you two hadn’t noticed.”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” Turtle said. “Maybe they won’t do it. The new captain is a guest, after all. If the crew can accept her….”
Iris looked at her lap.
“The guests aren’t satisfied. Not even with the captaincy. They’ll screw this up. Some of them have been plotting revenge since the last time. “Drink anyone?” She rose and drifted from her sofa to the alcove with the food and drink dispenser.
Her hair hypnotically flexed and recoiled with each step... but could this strangely elegant woman ever have been the sweaty gardener with dirt on her hands, the woman that Turtle suspected he might have loved?
While she mixed herself a drink, they both scanned the place. Scarn moved so he could see into an adjoining room and then motioned to Turtle.
“We could use any help you could give us,” Turtle said to her. “If you have anything like....”
“Like a line launcher?” Scarn suggested.
S
he tended her drink and spoke without turning around. “Yes, I think I have one of those. In a box somewhere. In the bedroom, I think.”
A line launcher was normally used for grappling errant cargo outside the ship. Turtle frowned, wondering why she’d have such a thing.
“What are you doing with that in your bedroom?” he asked.
“It’s just storage. A gallant young man in receiving was keeping it here. He rented it out to the crew. That was how he made our date money. I wouldn’t have put up with that for just anyone, but he was cute.” She smiled, sleepy-eyed. “I would have done it for you, Turtle.”
“Bore rivets?” Scarn asked abruptly.
“Oh no. I have my limits. I prefer gifts of beauty and pleasure.” She turned around. She held a frothy green drink in the same hand as the smoke holder, and with the other she gestured at the carton. “He won’t be needing the launcher anymore. Take it if you want.”
“Charge packs?”
She shrugged and sipped her drink. “Do the appliances have those? Take them if you want. I have no further use for anything here—except my goggles and few drinks to pass the time.”
Scarn was already on his knees and disconnecting power units. He kept one and tossed a second one to Turtle.
“We need to go,” Turtle said. “You have to come with us, Iris. The last two people we met....”
“They were stragged,” Scarn said. “Turtle’s right, we should go.”
“I’m staying,” Iris said firmly. “Unless you’ll try VR life with me, Turtle?”
She offered him the goggles, and he looked at them the way a man looked at sewer snake.
“Maybe we could go on a date,” she said. “A virtual date, right now. Who knows how that might turn out in the end.”
Scarn rolled his eyes and went into the back room to search for more power cells.
Iris moved closer to Turtle. She put the goggles in his hand, and closed his thick fingers over them.
“Come with me,” she said. “Just for a taste. I’ll come with you.”
Her touch made his hand tingle. He knew right then he was lost.
He pulled the goggles over his face. The soft-tipped ear buds stabbed gently into his ears, feeling their way into position like worming fingers. The sounds of the real world were shut out just as completely as was his vision.