The Puppeteer King

by Chris Ward

  Before Jennie could stop him, Jorge had scampered down the steps between the remaining rows of seats towards the area in front of the old stage where everything was set up. She wanted to scream at him to come back, but he was already among the machines, ducking down as terrifying half-robot, half-human creatures walked back and forth. It was something out of a scientist’s wet dream … and a child’s nightmare.

  Keeping one eye on the creatures, she crept down the stairs towards where Jorge was hiding behind a bank of machines that hummed and beeped like something out of a cartoon. In front of him, something with a head like a metallic rat was winding cables and stacking them on to a motorized trolley. Beneath the metal face mask, pale human skin made a crescent moon above a brown cloth waistcoat. Electrodes poked out of the skin in places like zits that had exploded, little lights flashing red and green.

  It neither acknowledged them nor halted in its duty as Jorge stood up and walked around the bank of machinery, standing so close he could touch it.

  ‘Robots,’ he hissed at Jennie. ‘Don’t see us.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Jennie said, as Jorge skipped around in front of the rat-thing and waved a hand in front of its face. Jennie tried to reach him but he was already jogging in the direction the creatures were carrying the equipment. The rat-thing didn’t even register his presence.

  Up a ramp to the side of the old stage and through a set of double-doors, Jennie and Jorge followed the robot creatures as they moved back and forth. Some of them were humanoid, shiny and tall, others had parts missing as if they had been left unfinished, while some crawled along the ground, gamely tugging trolleys of equipment behind them like half-finished robot huskies missing the rest of their team. Occasionally one of the creatures would turn and look at them with a human eye peering out from a casing of metal, and Jennie would feel twin flutters of fear and pity. Then the creature would turn back to its work and she was able to let out a slow, nervous breath.

  Down a long, bland corridor they came to an outdoor loading and unloading bay, surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire. The wire was sharp and shiny, a new addition to a wall that was covered with years of graffiti.

  ‘Wow,’ Jorge said.

  ‘He moves in broad daylight.’ Jennie shook her head. Before his incarceration, Jun had told her about his years of hunting this man, of trying to track him from one continent to the next, following up every whisper of speculation, all of which had led to dead ends.

  Yet here in front of them was proof of how Crow got around, in broad daylight and with his name blazing for all to see.

  The articulated truck with its double trailer was bigger than a railway carriage, and there in garishly colourful writing:

  * * *

  DOCTOR CROW’S CIRCUS OF MACHINATIONS

  THE WONDERS OF THE MACHINE WORLD

  * * *

  ‘What mean?’ Jorge said.

  ‘That’s how he moves his stuff,’ Jennie said. ‘He pretends to be a travelling circus.’

  Jorge grinned. ‘Saw circus at beach. Very love. Good magic.’

  ‘I think we might have found our own magic trick,’ Jennie said. ‘I’m not sure I can drive it, though.’

  Jorge grabbed her good arm, his fingers tight on her skin. ‘Plan change,’ he said.

  Jennie glanced behind her, just as the rat-thing pushed through the doors behind them, dropped into a crouch and hissed in their direction. The vacancy in its eyes was gone, replaced by a sinister, murderous intelligence.

  37

  Enter stage left

  ‘The world balances and unbalances on the tenuous corners of love triangles,’ Crow said, poking a bony finger into Jun’s chest. ‘And yours, my dear Matsumoto, will be a triumvirate of tragedy played out on the grandest stage of all.’

  ‘Fuck yourself, you ugly piece of shit.’

  ‘Such eloquence, dear sir. Thankfully I will be responsible for all voices during the stage production. Your part will be silent, either by choice or with your tongue hanging by a thread at your waist.’ Jun glared into Crow’s beady little eyes but kept his silence. With his hands shackled to his sides, there was nothing he could do but wait and hope he got another chance. Beside him, Nozomi was similarly shackled. She sat with her head down, as if fearing her master’s eyes. Beyond her, the group of street performers sat in near silence. Some of them sported bruised eyes or bloody gashes on their skin, signs of resistance or submission. Few, even a milky skinned man as muscled as any Jun had ever seen, looked to have any fight left in them.

  ‘I think it’s time to meet our other leading lady,’ Crow said. ‘Just be a little kinder to her this time, please? I’m rather distraught by the damage caused to my little Nozomi.’

  ‘She’s not yours!’

  Crow backhanded Jun across the face. Jun gasped at the force of the blow, feeling a tooth come loose. He gathered it on his tongue and spat it on to the floor in a spray of blood.

  Crow’s bony hands reached out and twisted Jun’s face towards him. ‘Your understanding of possession is skewed, my dear Matsumoto. Nozomi has always been mine. Her own parents were mere caretakers for her destiny. She does not understand the extent to which she belongs to me, but should she try to escape she will gain a higher order of knowing, that I guarantee you.’

  Jun opened his mouth to speak, but Crow lifted a hand. ‘I will save your tongue until all your teeth are gone, Matsumoto, but rest assured, I will take it.’ He glared at Jun for a moment longer, then turned and gestured towards a dark alcove. ‘Akane, my dear, make yourself known, please.’

  Jun gasped as the spectre of his long lost love hobbled out of the shadows to stand before him, a part-mummified, semi-automated abomination of a creature with a stump where one arm had been, a twisted, knotted monster with a face that made him weep. She was in there as sure as she was anywhere, her eyes gazing into his own, crossing a divide between life and death.

  ‘Lovely to see you, my dear Matsumoto,’ came the voices of Crow and Akane simultaneously. Jun gasped, doubling over as far as his chains would allow to vomit at his feet.

  My Akane, my sweet Akane….

  His vision wavered and then refocused. Jun frowned, unsure what was happening. A hideously deformed man was cackling wildly, slapping at the air with his clawed hands, his beaklike nose rocking up and down. Who was this fool? Who was this jester standing in between Jun and his true love?

  ‘Jun, don’t give up,’ came a girl’s voice at his side. Who was she? Why was she here? All that mattered was the beauty that stood before him, his angelic Akane.

  ‘I love you,’ Jun said. ‘I’ve loved you since the day I met you and I’ll love you forever.’

  ‘Ahhahahahahaha!’ wailed the deformed man, then opened his crooked mouth and said, ‘I love you too, darling,’ at the exact moment that Akane muttered the same words. Such patronizing mimicry. How Jun would love to teach this idiot a lesson! But while his love was true, nothing else mattered….

  ‘I knew you’d come back to me,’ he said. ‘I knew it couldn’t be true that you were gone.’

  ‘Matsumoto, you fucking clown,’ the deformed man said, standing up straight, the smile vanishing from his grey lips. ‘You hapless loser. I could torment you forever, but it wouldn’t be as satisfying as your death. Enough of this tomfoolery. You may rest, Akane, my dear. I will have use of you later.’

  Akane fell to the ground like a collapsing doll, her remaining limbs folding over each other. Jun wanted to run to her, but the shackles were holding him back. For a few seconds he screamed her name … then clouds began to part, understanding began to slip in, and he recognised the face of the man he knew as Professor Crow.

  ‘What did you put in me?’

  Crow smiled. ‘An insurance policy.’ He glanced at Nozomi. ‘I see yours has expired, my dear, but no matter. Payment is due at sundown.’

  ‘Let us go! There’s a man still hunting you.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Crow said. ‘You did me a
great service there, Matsumoto.’ The professor pulled a computer tablet out of an inside pocket on his coat and tapped at the screen. ‘Whoever sent him, he’s off my trail now. Things can move ahead as planned—’ He frowned. ‘Well, I’ll say….’

  With a growl of anger his fingers began flying over the touch screen. He spat and scowled as he worked, muttering obscenities under his breath. ‘There, that’s put an end to that,’ he said, looking back up at Jun. ‘It seems your little friend Ms Nakamura and her street dog staged a bit of an uprising. They will be dead within minutes. I will ensure that you get to see their bodies while their blood is still fresh.’

  ‘Kill yourself before your own body turns against its ugliness,’ Jun said.

  Crow smashed him across the side of the head again. This time Jun’s teeth stayed put, but for several seconds he felt a ringing in the back of his skull.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ Nozomi shouted.

  ‘Quiet, my princess. We will have words about this later.’ He tapped on his screen, then stared at Nozomi as the girl’s eyes went wide. She looked down at her hands, then began to struggle in her bonds.

  ‘They’re burning! What did you do to me?’

  Crow held her gaze. ‘Do not force me to punish you.’

  ‘Please stop!’

  The professor punched another button on the screen and Nozomi began to calm down, her gasping breaths slowly lessening.

  ‘I’m your master until I say otherwise,’ he growled at her, then stalked away towards the assembled group of street performers. Some had been watching the exchange with interest. Others had not moved, their eyes on their feet.

  A thundering sound from above made them all look up. Jun frowned, wondering what the rapid pounding noise could be, then realised it was hundreds of running feet.

  Crow smiled. ‘Thy crowd cometh. It is time we selected the players in tonight’s performance.’

  He walked up to the nearest street performer, a man dressed as a wizard. ‘Yes, an oracle for the lovers to consult. Necessary.’ He moved to the next, the huge pale giant with muscles like cut glass. ‘A circus giant. Our hero must find work among the freaks after his exile from court. Necessary.’

  On he moved to the next, a woman made up like a mermaid. Crow looked her up and down, frowning, one hand rubbing at his chin. ‘Hmm, we may have use of you.’

  The next performer was an older man covered in green leaf tattoos.

  Crow stopped, cocking his head. ‘A forest god … well … I think not. One oracle is enough for this tale.’

  In one swift motion he had drawn a knife and pulled it across the man’s throat. He slumped forward as blood cascaded down his front, obscuring the ornate tattoos. The others gasped, some trying to break free, but they were stuck tight. A few screamed abuse at Crow, but the professor seemed oblivious as he moved on down the line.

  Four more street performers fell beneath his flashing knife. Robotic things came out of the darkness to hold the struggling ones still, but they all ended up the same way, slumped forward over a waterfall of their own lifeblood.

  Only twelve remained. They were all awake now, shifting and straining against their shackles, some crying, others unnervingly silent. Jun stared at them with a hopelessness he hadn’t known he could still feel. The blanket of euphoria that had enveloped him while Akane had been nearby was gone, replaced by a harsh reality that stank of split blood and vacated bowels.

  Yet Crow seemed agitated, as if waiting for something to go wrong. The rumbling through the walls still continued, and Jun knew the nave must be crammed full of refugees wanting to escape the riots.

  ‘It’s showtime,’ Crow said, pushing the knife back into his belt. Our audience awaits. Let us enter stage left, dazzle, astound, and amaze. Let us give these people a performance like no other.’

  Nozomi was crying, still staring at her hands. Jun stared at Crow, but no tears would come. He had gone to a place beyond even despair, where there was only an empty, white hopelessness with a single black bird dipping and wheeling through the skies.

  38

  The puppeteer king

  In the mayor’s suite on the sixth floor of Barcelona’s city government offices, researcher Leo Ramos spun around in his chair, a look of horror on his face.

  ‘Madam, we have a problem.’

  The city mayor, Lietta Garcia, turned away from the window and the plumes of smoke rising in the distance. She tapped her nails on the glass, the polish not touched up for several days being just one indication of her growing stress. The bags beneath her youthful eyes and the creases on a blouse a couple of days overdue for washing were others. She hadn’t cut and run from her post like many in the local government, seeking safety in Madrid or further south, but the temptation to abandon ship was growing larger as the hours passed.

  As a non-Catalan, she was at risk if the rioters stormed the city government offices. It was all very well Madrid throwing tanks and military personnel into the fray, but their presence endangered the lives of all non-Catalans.

  It was all cyclical, she thought wryly. Nearly eighty years since the last European war and people were dangerously close to forgetting. The European Confederation was breaking up like an unstable iceberg, and who knew what would emerge from the wreckage? It didn’t matter about all the nuclear treaties and negotiations. People would still die.

  Catalonia had been waiting for this, she couldn’t help thinking. The fuse had lain there for years, just waiting to be lit, and now some acerbic fool had come along and thrown a firework into the box. She could see several fires from here. The whole city could be burning by nightfall.

  ‘What have you found, Leo?’

  ‘Bad news.’

  She scoffed. ‘Is there any other kind?’

  ‘La Sagrada Familia has opened its doors. Thousands have gone inside. Websites are claiming it has opened as a refuge.’

  ‘Under whose goddamn authority?’

  ‘Yours.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘According to these web news reports, you have authorised the opening of La Sagrada Familia as a refuge for people of Spanish origin fearing persecution from Catalan insurgents.’

  ‘I’ve done no such thing!’

  Leo Ramos shrugged. ‘You’ve been hacked, Madam. News agencies have received the information direct from your personal email account. Would you like me to set up a press conference to deny this?’

  Lietta started to nod, then shook her head. ‘Why waste our time? The damage is already done.’

  ‘As you wish, Madam. I think in that case it might be a good idea for us to get out of here while we still can.’

  She sighed. Turning back to the window, she stared out at the distant glitter of the Mediterranean, at the setting sun and the flickering glow of the streets around the port, where the first fires were beginning.

  The Mayor of Barcelona, natively Spanish, had offered up Catalonia’s greatest symbol, built by its most famous son, as a safe haven for non-Catalans.

  ‘Fuck,’ she muttered under her breath, then punched the glass hard enough to make it vibrate. ‘I might just as well have declared outright war.’

  #

  Elenora Cuetta had held on to her mother’s hand for as long as she could, but in the crush of people they had become separated. Her mother was out there somewhere, calling for her, but her voice was lost beneath the din.

  She was tall for an eleven-year-old, but caught among a sea of rioters she was quickly disorientated. People around her were screaming hateful slogans and violent threats, and were waving their weapons in the air as fireworks exploded up into the sky and fires burned in buildings on either side of the street.

  Her parents were second generation Catalans, but her grandmother and grandfather were from Valencia and Córdoba in the south. Elenora was terrified someone would ask her heritage and see the lie in her eyes. They had been heading for the Metro, trying to get away, but the throng of people moving towards the port had swept them up. No one kne
w who was who, that was the irony. It wasn’t like you could pick a Spanish or a Catalan face out of a crowd, and people were beginning to turn on each other.

  Where was her mother?

  The towers of La Sagrada Familia were rising to her left. She gave up crying for her mother and let the crowd drag her in that direction, pulling her like an offshore riptide. People were shouting that it was open as a refuge, native Spanish only. A skirmish had broken out a little way to the east, gunshots being fired amid roars from parts of the crowd. Nearby, people began to push harder towards the huge doors.

  The church loomed over her, lights illuminating it like a giant Christmas tree against the darkening sky. The entranceway looked like the giant fanged mouth of some ancient fairground funhouse, and a tingle of trepidation rushed through her as the crowd dragged her beneath the towering arch. Was her mother inside? There was no way to know. She turned, thinking perhaps to try to stay outside, but the crowd was too thick. It was go forward or be crushed beneath the feet of thousands of desperate people.

  The nave ballooned around her, ninety metres long and nearly fifty high. Lights illuminated its ornate walls, but its ceiling was dark. There were already hundreds of people inside, pushing into every available space. Elenora wondered whether they would keep pushing until everyone was crushed like a concertina. She was already desperately hot, jostled among so many larger bodies, her skin bruised and sore from knocks and scrapes. She couldn’t see to either side, only above her, up into the gloom in the eaves far above.

  A wail rose from a section of the crowd back near the main doors. People were screaming for them to stay open, not to break up families, not to lock people outside, then there came a huge boom as the doors closed. People were still screaming, but there was a ripple of relief now passing through the crowd. Shoulder to shoulder, they could barely move already, but unless the doors were forced they were safe.