WARNING: Long Entry
Nov. 13th, 2004 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
benchiladaYeah, just a NANOWRIMO update. I'll finish by December 31st, I'm hoping.
No way I'll be done by Nov. 30.
But, I’ve got the most recently-edited version of my novel, which a gave an ultra-cheesy working title to.
Sometimes it feels like cheating. Then I realize that it I didn’t cheat, there’s a chance I’d lose, and since losing means dying, they can fuck themselves. Well, they could if I weren’t fucking them first.
That’s me with the fancy gun and the fancy eye and the suit tailored for maximum killing efficiency and simultaneous impressive fashion statement. A bullet through your head while my coattails whip menacingly in the wind. Spike my hair and call me anime, young man!
And my gun, oh, my gun. The sub-government put the little machines in me, and the little machines rebuilt my eye. The sub-government built me a gun to go with it. Now wherever I point my gun I see a little red dot exactly where the bullet will hit. I can even use the thing with parabolic arcs. Running away? A quick second of adjustment and your spine will explode as a bullet with your name smashes into it. That’s the only hard part. Scratching “Your Name” on every bullet.
Security guards were waiting when my elevator’s doors opened. I was ready, splayed across the floor of it, their bullets whizzing well overhead. Less than two seconds of sing along with the bouncing red dot and I’d thinned out the ranks of former college football players by four. I took a few seconds and removed my shoes, leaving them in the path of the elevator door’s sensor.
I wasn’t worried about the security cameras. We’ve got tricks for them, too. By the time the “proper” authorities get here, all they’ll see is one of the Golden Girls doing rather nasty things to their property and their men.
Better life through geriatric comedies about sex and Alzheimer’s, that’s what I’m all about right now.
I was too busy laughing about a porn I saw the other day called The Real Golden Girls as the last two bastard-protectors nearly got a drop on me. My dramatically billowing coat makes me a bigger target than I really am, so when one squeezed off a shot it just tore through the fluttering cloth. I tried not to think about how fixing a hole in this jacket will cost about a hundred and thirty dollars as I squeezed the trigger six times. Two more Schlitz drinkers hit the ground hard as the doors closed behind them.
Hunh. Never really thought much about the concept of a trigger before. I wonder if The Odd Fellows could rig me one that goes off when I think about it. Nah, fuck, I’d accidentally kill a high school dropout every time Arby’s gave me the wrong topping on my baked potato.
I’ve never really understood why these rich motherfuckers need to have the private elevator to the top floor and the really long, doorless hallway to their office. Some sort of phallic thing, I imagine, forcing everybody down their shaft to ask permission to get into their head. Or maybe they see it the other way, their office is the sac, firing sperm of innovation and economy and thoughts of golf into the world. Either way, I’m getting some distressingly homoerotic feelings as I make my way to his filigreed oak doors.
I looked for a doorknob and couldn’t find one. No lock, no handles, no sort of mechanism at all. Fuck. I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to be stopped by a door that can’t be opened. Sounds like a half-baked Zen koan: “What man can enter the door with no handle?”
This looks like a job for Ganesh.
I took a leisurely stroll back down the rich man’s cock to the elevator doors. Twenty-five feet, give or take. This’ll be a treat, I thought. I stepped back into the elevator and grabbed my shoes. Squatting in the doorway, I made a quick prayer to my favorite elephant God.
Then I knuckleballed him down the hallway and let the door close in front of me. One muffled explosion later and I was ready to go. The elevator doors opened again and I saw a gaping hole at the end of the hallway, little bits of fire licking at the edges.
Did I mention Ganesh removes obstacles a lot better when he’s painted on your grenades? Govinda jaya jaya, Gopala jaya jaya.
Well, okay, maybe I’m not totally Hindu, but still, my man in pink came through, didn’t he?
The hole in the hallway was pretty quiet, all things considered. But he was in there, I could tell. I could smell his cologne and hear the whir of his computers’ cooling fans. My NewLungz filtered out all of the smoke and powder residue from the air, leaving the hallway smelling pine-fresh. When I finally got into his office, he was sitting there, smiling, and pointing a little metal bar at me.
The place was pretty Spartan, only a few pictures of early computers lining his walls. I recognized ILLIAC and the TRS-80. His desk was a fucking massive oak bastard. They must have put it in here before the room was finished, ‘cause there’s no way it would fit through the door. There was a Mac on one end of his desk, an IBM clone on the other, and in the middle was something that computers will look like in about five years’ time.
Well. Not if I can help it.
I’m admiring the Hopi rug under my bare feet when I realize he hasn’t moved or spoken since I came in. Hasn’t even told me to drop my gun or he’ll zap me with his laser stick or what have you.
“Hey,” I said, vaguely nodding my head at him.
Shit, I’m in front of the world’s smartest, richest man and that’s the best I have?
“Hey to you, too,” he answered, maintaining his lopsided grin.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I killed you here today,”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, young man. All you’ve done so far is ruin my doors and kill a dozen men who were just doing their jobs.”
“If they were doing their jobs right, they wouldn’t be working here, they’d be out making more stupid people.”
“So they were stupid?”
“Near as I can figure, sure. I mean, how dead does your instinct for self-preservation have to be to take a job where your job is to kill for the boss or die for the boss, all signs pointing to the latter?”
“Point taken. Still, they had families, just like you and me.”
“Don’t assume you know anything about my family, Sport. All you need to know is that bullets hurt.”
“Again, young man, you’re making assumptions.”
I saw one of his fingers tense at the base of the rod and I instinctively raised the gun, ready to fire when the red dot was on him. Instead the world exploded with what would normally be some rather fabulous colors, and my right eye went dead. As I sank to my knees, I pulled the trigger blindly, knowing he couldn’t possibly duck fast enough.
He was completely and utterly not hit by bullets at that time. In fact, my gun had gone all impotent on me. I felt my machismo start crying and hiding under bed. I looked up, with my good eye – if you call a squidgy thing filled with pus-like fluid and no nanomachinery “good” – and saw the same crooked smile.
“Do you like it?” he asked. “It’s the future of law enforcement and military operations. Anything in front of the rod, after I press this button at the base, is affected. Only has about a fifteen foot range at this point, but this is the hand-held model.”
“What exactly have you done to me?”
“Oh, nothing terribly awful and nothing that won’t be undone as soon as I lift my finger. You see, this little device uses nanotech to disable all electronic devices and select chemical reactions – like the ignition of the gunpowder in your bullets -- within its area of effect.”
“Area of effect? Why you Dungeons and Dragons geek, you.”
“I invent new technology and live in the future like you live in the now. Of course I started as a gaming geek.”
“So, my bullets don’t work, my Eye is shut down, what’s to prevent me from leaping across your desk and strangling you with my bare hands?”
He answered by lifting a snub-nose revolver from his lap.
“Hell,”
“Let’s cut to the chase, young man. Why did you come to kill me? And please tell me it’s not something so mundane as trade secrets or financial gain. Give me something to work with; you think I’m a reptoid, or I fund the New World Order. I’d even buy that my limousine ran over your dog and my chauffeur didn’t stop.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that, Sir. It’s just…well, to be honest, it’s people like you that are killing this planet and everything on it.”
His face dropped and the sparkle went out of his eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake, are you some sort of Greenpeace assassin? I would’ve preferred the David Icke solution.”
I laughed, and that seemed to catch his attention again.
“No, Sir, not Greenpeace. I represent the future of the human race. The dinosaurs were around for millions of years and they couldn’t even hit each other with rocks. Humans have only had a few hundred thousand and we’re already videoconferencing through our computers with people on the other side of the planet. I’m afraid we’ve been evolving far too quickly and it’s because of men like you. So I’ve come to kill you. You know, water down the whiskey a bit.”
“You’ve officially caught my attention. That only happens about once every six months, so make the most of it.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir.”
“You can put down the gun, you know. I’m not planning on taking my hand off this rod anytime soon.”
“How very suggestive of you, Champ.”
His smile didn’t waver at all. Getting through this was gonna be a trick.
“So, I’m gonna break the traditional spy versus villain moment, if that’s okay, and spill the beans about why I’m doing this. Sound good to you?”
“You’re making assumptions about who’s the villain in this room.”
“Hey, I only called myself a spy; I didn’t say villain wouldn’t fit, too.”
“That goes without saying after your entrance,”
“Well…here goes, and let it not be said that you didn’t ask,” I rolled my eyes as I start talking. “Okay, let’s start about twenty-eight hundred B.C., if you don’t mind. That’s when we first established a written language. The Sumerians did it, as I’m sure a smart man like you already knows.”
“Cuneiform. Looked like mutant Trivial Pursuit pieces.”
“You got it, Tiger. So, here we are, we’re Sumerians and we’ve just invented writing. It takes off, and pretty soon, it’s spreading everywhere.” I splayed my hands and gestured widely. Both of his hands tightened noticeably.
“Sorry, Buddy, I talk with my hands. Please, please, please don’t feel threatened by it. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m on my knees in front of you and you’re holding two dangerous phallic symbols in your hands. If anybody’s getting fucked here, it’s me and my big mouth.”
“And what a big mouth you have.”
“All the better to eat you with, Sport. Right,” I declared, pointing my fingers at him and tracing vague shapes in the air, “we’ve just gotten written language spread around the world. Before that, tens of thousands of years of oral communication. So how long until we actually automate the shit? Four and a half thousand years later,” I shouted, my hands flapping in the air like spastic pigeons.
“Round about the 1450’s, Johannes Gutenberg invents moveable type. Sounds good, yeah? More books for everybody. Well, for the rich only, at first, and mostly about how God is Great.”
“But,” I continued, “We’re not happy yet. No sirree. We need to be able to do this without stupid quills that we need to dip in inkwells over and over and over. Comes the typewriter. First one that actually sold for a damn was made in Denmark, 1870. Fourteen years later we get a similar innovation, when Mr. Waterman invents the fountain pen. Noticing a trend here?”
“Only that I feel like I should be taking notes,” he grinned, “and that there’ll be a quiz when you’ve finished.”
“Near enough, Guy. So where was I?”
“Waterman,”
“Right, the fountain pen! So we’ve got forty-five hundred years, then about four hundred or four-thirty until the next major steps, right? What’s next? Well, somewhere around the 1920’s somebody realizes we haven’t shot any electricity through the typewriter yet! Silly us! By the time the fifties arrive, we’ve got thousands of the loud, humming, vibrating machines in offices and homes around the world. That’s what, fifty years? And by 1978 two companies have simultaneously invented the ‘electronic’ typewriter, which can store words so you can correct your all-too-human mistakes before they get pounded out onto the paper. So, let’s call it twenty-eight years. Ooh, did I skip Michael Hart and e-books in 1971? I did!”
“Let me guess, next is the Lisa? Or maybe just DOS? You’re boring me. I liked you better when you were killing people.”
“I’ll speed this up. Let’s, for the sake of argument, call it 1987, right?” I asked, my fingers tracing the numbers in mid-air, “That’s when Aldus PageMaker came out, and later that year came Windows 2.0. Nine years, Tiger. And, for personal preference, I’ll call the following year…”
“Okay, seriously, shut up. I get the point. Our points of innovation are becoming exponentially shorter. Like Xeno’s paradox, where you can’t really touch anything, technically, because at some point your finger has passed the halfway point between the starting point and where you’re aiming for. And then at some point it hits the halfway point between the first halfway point and the finish. Repeat infinitely, unless…”
“Unless there’s such a thing as the smallest possible particle, which cannot be cut in half, so eventually the ones of your finger,” I accented by waving mine around, “reach the ones of what you’re touching. Like an oak desk,”
“Touch the desk and you’re a dead man.”
“We’re all dead men, Slugger. We all die with unresolved issues, the same problems we have when we’re alive. The only difference between alive and dead, the only thing that lets my finger touch the oak, the only reason that Xeno’s Paradox isn’t one at all, is because at some point air ends…” I paused and took a deep breath, “…and magic begins.”
Exhaling mightily, I emptied my lungs across the entire area where I’d been gesticulating like a madman. Golden trails burned in front of me, and as I blew, the cords and lines undulated and tightened until I’d gotten the image I wanted.
“Set your pistol down for a second, and see if this palm,” I pointed at the blazing image of a hand, lines and all, that hovered between the two of us, “doesn’t match yours exactly.”
He paused for a moment, clumsily passed his gun to the hand holding the metal rod and checked it against my diagram. For the first time since I walked through the new hole I call his doorway, his smile flickered for a moment before snapping back into shape.
“So,” I laughed, dramatically drawing my hands across the shining hand like Vanna White revealing a fresh new Famous Quote, “Do mind if I read your palm?”
His fingers tightened on the trigger yet again. Fuck. I may have blown this.
“Please, Sir, don’t be alarmed by the apparition before you. Think of this as a hologram, a simple graphical representation of your right palm. To be honest, this is primarily an indulgence on my part; I wouldn’t mind seeing the fates and fortunes of the man who has finally bested me.”
Open jar of flattery, apply liberally and thickly to ego. The faster and more ridiculously it is done, the more likely it is to succeed.
“Well, you’ve surprised my yet another time this night. I’m curious about how you’re doing this, but I’ll wait for the tutorial until after the show. I’d love to have my palm read by a man of your obvious skills.” He glanced down at his watch.
“Best to do it fast, though; the police should be here in about five minutes. In addition, I have enough surveillance cameras in this building that I could make a short film of your recent escapades, complete with DVD extras like alternate angles of the same scene.” He looked down at his gun and the rod with great confidence.
“And if all else fails, you’re half blind and I’m a damn fine shot.”
I bowed until my hands were flat on the floor and my forehead touched the ground between them.
“But of course, Sir.”
“You may begin.”
“Yes, Sir,” I smiled humbly as I raised my head. “I’ll make it fast.” I pointed at the golden hand, to a spot between the thumb and forefinger.
“This,” I began, “is the Line of Life. And I must say that you’re pretty well set here.” I slowly traced its arc down to the lower center of his heel and beyond.
“It’s long, it’s deep, there’s not a single stretch which is corded and there are no breaks on the thing. Suffice it to say that you’ve got a sweet and lengthy life ahead of you.”
“So I have always assumed,” he gloated, “Go on.”
“Okay, up here,” I continued, pointing between his first and second fingers, “is the Line of the Heart. See, when it starts here and slopes down and to the right – staying clear of any contact with the Line of the Head – you’ve got another auspicious characteristic. I’d say you have a ridiculously even disposition, neither amorous to an obscene degree, nor aloof and cold.”
“If I believed in the charlatan art of palm reading I’d be astonished at your accuracy right now.”
“Thanks, I think. Ooh, and this’ll be the last one, this one is your Line of the Head,” I said, and directed his attention to where his Line of Life had also started, equidistant from his thumb and index finger in the valley between them.
“Look at how it’s long and clearly cut, straight across your palm. That’s a sign of vast intellect, natural intuitiveness, and massive creativity.”
“Three for three. But for all I know, you’ve lied about every single line, just to butter me up.”
“No, Sir, I would never lie about something I take as seriously as I do Palmistry.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, Sir, it’s true. I mean, let me give you an example. If your Line of the Heart had started a bit to the left,” I tugged at the golden cord, repositioning its point of origin to the base of the index finger. “and if it had dipped low, very low, into the Line of the Head,” again I demonstrated on my floating chart, “then you’d be quick to love and even quicker to jealousy. You’d never find a love that you were satisfied with, even if you were to encounter a soulmate.”
He opened his mouth, but I kept speaking as though I hadn’t seen.
“And if your Line of the Head had been broken in two here,” I quickly wiped away every part of the line to the right of his middle finger, forking its new end with a quick flick of my hand, “and your life line stopped here,” I grimaced, erasing it from the center of the palm to the wrist, “and you hand one…two…three small parallel marks to the right of it, then all of these things would point to an unhappy life, ending abruptly at, say…” I did some quick calculating on my fingers.
“…probably about forty-six years old. Oh,” I finished, “that reminds me. Happy birthday, Mr. Harper.”
He shot me twice in the chest before dropping both rod and gun to begin furiously scratching the rapidly shifting skin on his right palm.
My eye was rebooting even as the force of the bullets kicked me onto my back. After a few seconds of lying there I was able to carefully stand back up. I could feel bruises spreading under my shirt as I made my way to my feet, muscles protesting every inch of the way. The flattened slugs slid off of me and onto his perfect mahogany parquet floor.
“If it’s any consolation, Sir, I’d intended to finish this the moment I walked through your…well, what used to be your door. I’m afraid that your tricks – and do please pardon the pun – forced my hand.”
“How,” he paused and spat as the blood streaming from his nostrils flowed across his lips, “did your shirt do that? You haven’t got a vest on…I can tell.”
“Oh, right, that. I’m sure you’ve heard of those crazy new spider goats, Sir? The ones that can produce silk fibers from their milk? You call it biosteel, we just call it goat silk, you know, like goat milk. In any event, my associates an I have had them for a very long time, more than long enough to perfect the weaving process,” I tugged at the cuffs of my smooth red shirt, “tough like steel, supple like Armani.”
He started coughing up bloody lung tissue onto his desk blotter, so I followed his earlier advice and sped things up.
“Mr. Gregory Harper, you have been tried, in absentia, and found guilty of the following crimes: contributing dangerously high amounts of electronic innovation per annum, allowing for an excessive simplification of the average person’s life, with the added side effect of stifling individual creativity through your own output.”
“This has resulted in an inappropriately high rate of mental and social evolution of the human race with little or no accompanying physical improvements. All the while, you have done nothing to reduce your own industrial waste, curb population growth, or inspire stellar exploration to alleviate the burdens on our own planet.”
I walked over to his desk and gently lifted his head by his chin. His bloodshot eyes rolled and twitched, desperately trying to focus on my face.
“Sir, it’s people like you that have us moving too fast. What good is a computer in my brain and a car that hovers above the street if the water is too sick to drink, the air is too polluted to breathe, and we spend our daily lives wading through mounds of our own refuse? Time to slow down, Sir. All of us.” His eyes rolled back under his eyelids and the whites glared accusingly at me.
“Gregory Harper, aged forty-six years,” I dictated, “Occupation: CEO and Head of Developmental Sciences for SmarTech Unlimited, the same founded by him twelve years ago. Time of death, 8:46p.m., August 12th, 20__. Cause of death: massive cerebral hemorrhaging,” I gently lowered his head back to his desk, “and flights of angels, et cetera, et cetera.”
Realizing that Mr. Harper’s five-minute warning was nearly up, I put my gun and recorder back in my pockets and grabbed his metal rod while I was at it. I pulled a small EMPulser from my hip pocket and placed it, one after another, on the three computers on his desk. I then pulled out a very small plastic bag from my jacket pocket and unfolded the instructions that had come with it.
“Please read carefully before using,” I recited aloud, “This Ring of Gyges is extremely delicate and…skipping ahead…avoid wearing the Ring in the rain for extended periods of time…umm…do not lick, place in mouth, or ingest the Ring…oh, honestly…do not eat fish while wearing? Okay, screw this,” I decided.
After breaking the red biohazard tape that had been sealing it shut, I tipped the bag and dropped the ring into my hand. The ring was heavier than it looked and seemed somehow unbalanced. The stone set into it was about as unremarkable as a driveway pebble.
“Jésus passant...par le milieu d’eux…s’en allait…” I read from an inscription that encircled the stone. I skimmed the rest of the instructions.
“To activate properties of ring, place ring on right ring finger with stone facing out. Should you wish to temporarily negate its effects, rotate the stone towards the palm of your hand. If, when looking in a mirror, the ring is not visible upon your finger, it is functioning properly.”
I slid the ring on and opened Mr. Harper’s curtains, holding my hand before me, palm open. In the dark reflection, the bright lights of the city’s skyline framing my face, my hand was completely unadorned.
“Well fuck me backwards,” I laughed, “I do reckon I’m invisible. Bless you, Plato, and all the magi you have thusly inspired.”
I tried my best, dodging policemen as I went, not to grin and skip merrily back down the hallway to the stairwell.
I failed miserably.
By the time I’d made it back to my trendy apartment it was deep into the night and I was afraid that I had too much blood in my alcohol. Thankfully, Jeri had sent by a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue with a note around the neck.
“If you’re reading this, you’ve made it back safely. Enjoy. If you’re not reading this, you’re probably dead and I’m taking your DVD collection. J”
“Love you too, boss,” I mumbled as I fumbled with my keys. I unlocked the door and then stood to the left of the doorway, back to the wall. I used my left hand to push the door open. Marco ran out into the hallway, meowing happily and rubbing up against my leg. I scruffed the back of his neck and then carried him back inside.
“Yet again I come to nobody waiting to kill me, Marco,” I said to him, and he purred in response. “What is this world coming to?” I set him on the kitchen counter and rubbed his back for a few seconds. Can he smell the blood on my hands, I wondered to myself. Does he know what I do, or that I’m doing it as much for him as for every asshole down at convenience store, deciding which kind of three-day old hot-dog they’re going to buy off the little sausage-roller: regular, cheese, or jalapeno ranch?
“Fuck ‘em,” I muttered and Marco meowed in agreement and hunger. Dry food only for him, no bladder and kidney-deteriorating wet food full of ash for my cat. Jesus, I mean, Big Macs are bad for us but we have the choice about whether we want to eat them or not. I filled up his bowl, checked his water, and went for the stereo. I put Peaches, Deep Forest, John Prine, Leon Lai, and a Cole Porter tribute disc in on random and decided to make a sandwich.
It was when I turned on the water to wash my hands that I noticed I was still wearing the ring, stone out. I should definitely take this off before running it and my hands under water. I slid it back into its plastic bag, re-sealed the tape, and dropped it into my junk drawer.
Wait a minute, I thought. If I was wearing the ring when I came in, how did Marco…I glanced over at him, happily munching away. I love cats. They freak the shit out of me. I figured I should stop at the shrine in the corner before eating; after all, somebody had been helping me on my way tonight.
Neon Buddha looked fat and content, his translucent head pulsating as the light-up brain inside brightened and dimmed in time with the music. Smurf-blue Krishna smiling like he knows something I don’t. Which I suppose is true. I patted Bast’s head and rubbed Shou’s giant forehead for luck as I knelt in front of them and everybody else in my private pantheon. Including the really post-war Japanese metal sparking-robot. You know, in case the Gods are actually giant robots. Which would be obscenely cool.
I lit three joss sticks, said a few prayers that I’d really rather keep to myself, and offered my pocket change to a Blessed Virgin Mary plastic piggy bank.
“Time for bed, you guys,” I whispered and headed upstairs, Marco racing me to the top.
---
I was grinding coffee when they kicked in my door. I like to think the noise was what made me not hear them and not that I was so bleary after staying up too late watching Ozu films in bed.
There were three of them, wearing neither masks nor gloves, so I assumed they weren’t worried about me identifying them. Rather a shame, since that meant I would probably be too dead to do so.
The middle one, bald and wild-eyed, ran in like he was in a bad cop show, holding his gun straight-armed in front of himself, his right hand grabbing his left wrist, presumably for support when he fired. He kept waving the thing back and forth like he expected somebody to leap out from behind the ottoman.
“You, in the kitchen, get out here! You’re a dead man! A dead man!” he screamed as the other two men walked in behind him. I swear to God they were twins. I was actually so interested in the concept of hired killers that were twins that I kinda spaced out on the bald guy.
He pointed his gun in my face and waved me around the kitchen island and into the living room. He was shouting something but I was intrigued by the twins. They were trying, very earnestly, to see if they could get the door to shut, in spite of its mangled state. One was pulling bits of broken wood off the frame, the other was trying to bend the doorknob back a little bit.
Baldy was unhappy with my inattention, so he actually pushed the muzzle of his semi-auto into my forehead. He went red in the face when he realized I was far more interested in the repairmen than what he had to say. He glanced back quickly and started screaming again.
“Goddamnit, you two, knock it off!”
“Well, we want the door to be able to shut,” they answered without looking up from their work.
“We’re just here to shoot this motherfucker and leave, who gives a fuck if the goddamn door works?” He was rapidly approaching a unique purple shade when I figured I should chime in.
“Actually, Sir, I give a fuck about whether or not my door works.”
“Fuck you, you’re not going to have time to care when you’re dead!”
Not really sure how the end of that sentence was supposed to make sense, I pressed on.
“I don’t think you just want to kill me, right?”
“What the fuck did you say?”
“I said, I don’t think you just want to kill me. I mean, if you had, you’d have done it as soon as that door broke. That really nice door, I might add,”
“He’s right, Marko, it was a really nice door,” answered the doorframe twin.
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Wait, your name is Marko? With a ‘c’ or a ‘k’?”
“With a ‘k.’ Why the fuck do you care?”
“My cat’s named Marco, with a ‘c,”
“Quit fucking with me!”
“I’m not fucking with you, and besides, you have some point to make before you kill me, so just watch,” I smiled, “MARCO!” I shouted, and he trotted down the stairs and went into the kitchen, expecting a treat.
“Huh,” Marko said with a touch of pride in his voice, “So, what you’re saying is that if I’d really wanted to kill you without making some kind of statement, I’d have plugged you as soon as the door busted open?”
“Exactly.”
“He’s right, you know,” added the doorknob twin.
“Hell, I would have shot me the moment I came in, and the fact that you didn’t implies that you still have something to say, or you want to do this in a memorable way, you know, start making a calling card so people can recognize your kills. Or maybe you just had something to tell me. But under the current conditions I’m going to have difficulty thinking. I have problems paying attention when I’m under duress.”
“You don’t seem to be under duress.”
“I’m under duress on the inside. Besides, I know you may not have noticed, but I’m completely stark naked, since I wasn’t expecting guests. Anyway, we’re getting off-topic, try and focus with me. You guys came in, you caught me off guard, you should be proud of yourselves, it doesn’t happen often. Okay, it happened last night, but that was kind of a fluke,”
“Shut up, man”
“Stay with me. Anyway, you had me dead to rights yet you didn’t pull the trigger. I think you have more to say. Let’s talk. Lower the gun a bit and we’ll talk.”
“Shut up, man”
“Okay, now you’re just repeating yourself. I mean, for God’s sake, unless you count the .38 I have jammed up my ass, I’m clearly unarmed. So I ask you again, please just lower your gun and we can talk. Look, there’s no risk in it for you. I promise I’m not going anywhere.” He seemed pleasantly confused, so I used my helpful professor face on him.
“Okay, fine, I’m gonna lower the gun, but I’m not putting it down anywhere. Try anything and you’re meat.”
“Yes, I’ve got it. Thank God for southpaws,” I smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing, just thinking out loud.”
Spike took his right hand off his left wrist and began to lower the gun straight down. Like a trained monkey, I thought as I lunged forward. He tried to raise the gun back but I got there too fast and caught his hand in my left armpit. The twins actually started to pay attention and Spike drew his fist back to punch me. Jesus, he was really telegraphing the blow. I quickly smashed the palm of my hand hard into his elbow, splintering it and bending his arm the way arms shouldn’t bend.
He screamed and dropped the gun. I squatted to pick it up, using his crumpling body as a guard against the twins. I fired off two shots, one ankle on each of them. As they fell to the ground I sprung back up, walked backwards six steps, and sat my ass in my favorite chair.
“Now that, my friends,” I grinned, crossing my legs, “that is a fucking message. Can anybody tell me what the message is?” I put my free hand behind my ear but they were too busy moaning and clutching their wounds.
“No, I’m afraid the correct answer is, ‘Yes, most merciful and loving Jack, the message is clearly that you are not to be fucked with.’ Good! Well done! Now let’s hear you say it!”
“Jack, ungh…” tried doorframe twin, “is not to be…shit…fucked with,” answered doorknob twin.
“Fuck you,” Marko spat, his face turning red again.
“No, fuck you Marko,” offered the doorframe twin, “I mean, shit, I’m a fucking cripple now, thanks to your shitty plan. Ow, FUCK! But you know…you know what makes that not so bad? That you’re a fucking cripple, too.”
“Yeah,” chimed doorknob twin, “We told you to cap him as soon as…God DAMN it…as soon as you saw him.”
“FUCK BOTH OF YOU!”
“Nah, shit, fuck YOU Marko,” they both answered in the eerie way twins
talk together sometimes. They both started crawling over to the front door, which they had thankfully not managed to close.
“I’ll call you a cab to get you to the hospital. Wait at the corner. Oh, leave your guns on the floor, and when you get outside, use your shirts to slow the bleeding. You should be fine. By which I mean, not dead.”
“Thanks, man,” they groaned as they kept crawling, leaving trails of blood behind them. I picked up the phone and dialed Yellow Checker.
“Yeah, there are some guys at Wright and Eisenhower who are kinda hurt and need to get to a hospital. Can you get somebody here fast? Well, cause you guys are always faster than the ambulances! How many? Hang on,” I cupped my hand over the receiver and looked at Marko imploringly.
“Fuck you, man,” he grunted, ever so defiantly.
“Well,” I said after uncapping the phone and pulling back the hammer on my gun, “It looks like just two.”
benjamin sTone
CURRENT MUSIC: “Godzilla Mix” – DJ Snowflake
LAST BOOK I READ A PAGE FROM: Who’s Laughing Now? Collected Stories and Strips from Dork Comics by Evan Dorkin
LAST MOVIE: Thirteen
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My hypershort fictions and non-fiction commentaries go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/compositemolecules
and http://benchilada.livejournal.com
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Flickr photostream of my bizarre photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/benchilada/
No way I'll be done by Nov. 30.
But, I’ve got the most recently-edited version of my novel, which a gave an ultra-cheesy working title to.
Sometimes it feels like cheating. Then I realize that it I didn’t cheat, there’s a chance I’d lose, and since losing means dying, they can fuck themselves. Well, they could if I weren’t fucking them first.
That’s me with the fancy gun and the fancy eye and the suit tailored for maximum killing efficiency and simultaneous impressive fashion statement. A bullet through your head while my coattails whip menacingly in the wind. Spike my hair and call me anime, young man!
And my gun, oh, my gun. The sub-government put the little machines in me, and the little machines rebuilt my eye. The sub-government built me a gun to go with it. Now wherever I point my gun I see a little red dot exactly where the bullet will hit. I can even use the thing with parabolic arcs. Running away? A quick second of adjustment and your spine will explode as a bullet with your name smashes into it. That’s the only hard part. Scratching “Your Name” on every bullet.
Security guards were waiting when my elevator’s doors opened. I was ready, splayed across the floor of it, their bullets whizzing well overhead. Less than two seconds of sing along with the bouncing red dot and I’d thinned out the ranks of former college football players by four. I took a few seconds and removed my shoes, leaving them in the path of the elevator door’s sensor.
I wasn’t worried about the security cameras. We’ve got tricks for them, too. By the time the “proper” authorities get here, all they’ll see is one of the Golden Girls doing rather nasty things to their property and their men.
Better life through geriatric comedies about sex and Alzheimer’s, that’s what I’m all about right now.
I was too busy laughing about a porn I saw the other day called The Real Golden Girls as the last two bastard-protectors nearly got a drop on me. My dramatically billowing coat makes me a bigger target than I really am, so when one squeezed off a shot it just tore through the fluttering cloth. I tried not to think about how fixing a hole in this jacket will cost about a hundred and thirty dollars as I squeezed the trigger six times. Two more Schlitz drinkers hit the ground hard as the doors closed behind them.
Hunh. Never really thought much about the concept of a trigger before. I wonder if The Odd Fellows could rig me one that goes off when I think about it. Nah, fuck, I’d accidentally kill a high school dropout every time Arby’s gave me the wrong topping on my baked potato.
I’ve never really understood why these rich motherfuckers need to have the private elevator to the top floor and the really long, doorless hallway to their office. Some sort of phallic thing, I imagine, forcing everybody down their shaft to ask permission to get into their head. Or maybe they see it the other way, their office is the sac, firing sperm of innovation and economy and thoughts of golf into the world. Either way, I’m getting some distressingly homoerotic feelings as I make my way to his filigreed oak doors.
I looked for a doorknob and couldn’t find one. No lock, no handles, no sort of mechanism at all. Fuck. I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to be stopped by a door that can’t be opened. Sounds like a half-baked Zen koan: “What man can enter the door with no handle?”
This looks like a job for Ganesh.
I took a leisurely stroll back down the rich man’s cock to the elevator doors. Twenty-five feet, give or take. This’ll be a treat, I thought. I stepped back into the elevator and grabbed my shoes. Squatting in the doorway, I made a quick prayer to my favorite elephant God.
Then I knuckleballed him down the hallway and let the door close in front of me. One muffled explosion later and I was ready to go. The elevator doors opened again and I saw a gaping hole at the end of the hallway, little bits of fire licking at the edges.
Did I mention Ganesh removes obstacles a lot better when he’s painted on your grenades? Govinda jaya jaya, Gopala jaya jaya.
Well, okay, maybe I’m not totally Hindu, but still, my man in pink came through, didn’t he?
The hole in the hallway was pretty quiet, all things considered. But he was in there, I could tell. I could smell his cologne and hear the whir of his computers’ cooling fans. My NewLungz filtered out all of the smoke and powder residue from the air, leaving the hallway smelling pine-fresh. When I finally got into his office, he was sitting there, smiling, and pointing a little metal bar at me.
The place was pretty Spartan, only a few pictures of early computers lining his walls. I recognized ILLIAC and the TRS-80. His desk was a fucking massive oak bastard. They must have put it in here before the room was finished, ‘cause there’s no way it would fit through the door. There was a Mac on one end of his desk, an IBM clone on the other, and in the middle was something that computers will look like in about five years’ time.
Well. Not if I can help it.
I’m admiring the Hopi rug under my bare feet when I realize he hasn’t moved or spoken since I came in. Hasn’t even told me to drop my gun or he’ll zap me with his laser stick or what have you.
“Hey,” I said, vaguely nodding my head at him.
Shit, I’m in front of the world’s smartest, richest man and that’s the best I have?
“Hey to you, too,” he answered, maintaining his lopsided grin.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I killed you here today,”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions, young man. All you’ve done so far is ruin my doors and kill a dozen men who were just doing their jobs.”
“If they were doing their jobs right, they wouldn’t be working here, they’d be out making more stupid people.”
“So they were stupid?”
“Near as I can figure, sure. I mean, how dead does your instinct for self-preservation have to be to take a job where your job is to kill for the boss or die for the boss, all signs pointing to the latter?”
“Point taken. Still, they had families, just like you and me.”
“Don’t assume you know anything about my family, Sport. All you need to know is that bullets hurt.”
“Again, young man, you’re making assumptions.”
I saw one of his fingers tense at the base of the rod and I instinctively raised the gun, ready to fire when the red dot was on him. Instead the world exploded with what would normally be some rather fabulous colors, and my right eye went dead. As I sank to my knees, I pulled the trigger blindly, knowing he couldn’t possibly duck fast enough.
He was completely and utterly not hit by bullets at that time. In fact, my gun had gone all impotent on me. I felt my machismo start crying and hiding under bed. I looked up, with my good eye – if you call a squidgy thing filled with pus-like fluid and no nanomachinery “good” – and saw the same crooked smile.
“Do you like it?” he asked. “It’s the future of law enforcement and military operations. Anything in front of the rod, after I press this button at the base, is affected. Only has about a fifteen foot range at this point, but this is the hand-held model.”
“What exactly have you done to me?”
“Oh, nothing terribly awful and nothing that won’t be undone as soon as I lift my finger. You see, this little device uses nanotech to disable all electronic devices and select chemical reactions – like the ignition of the gunpowder in your bullets -- within its area of effect.”
“Area of effect? Why you Dungeons and Dragons geek, you.”
“I invent new technology and live in the future like you live in the now. Of course I started as a gaming geek.”
“So, my bullets don’t work, my Eye is shut down, what’s to prevent me from leaping across your desk and strangling you with my bare hands?”
He answered by lifting a snub-nose revolver from his lap.
“Hell,”
“Let’s cut to the chase, young man. Why did you come to kill me? And please tell me it’s not something so mundane as trade secrets or financial gain. Give me something to work with; you think I’m a reptoid, or I fund the New World Order. I’d even buy that my limousine ran over your dog and my chauffeur didn’t stop.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that, Sir. It’s just…well, to be honest, it’s people like you that are killing this planet and everything on it.”
His face dropped and the sparkle went out of his eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake, are you some sort of Greenpeace assassin? I would’ve preferred the David Icke solution.”
I laughed, and that seemed to catch his attention again.
“No, Sir, not Greenpeace. I represent the future of the human race. The dinosaurs were around for millions of years and they couldn’t even hit each other with rocks. Humans have only had a few hundred thousand and we’re already videoconferencing through our computers with people on the other side of the planet. I’m afraid we’ve been evolving far too quickly and it’s because of men like you. So I’ve come to kill you. You know, water down the whiskey a bit.”
“You’ve officially caught my attention. That only happens about once every six months, so make the most of it.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir.”
“You can put down the gun, you know. I’m not planning on taking my hand off this rod anytime soon.”
“How very suggestive of you, Champ.”
His smile didn’t waver at all. Getting through this was gonna be a trick.
“So, I’m gonna break the traditional spy versus villain moment, if that’s okay, and spill the beans about why I’m doing this. Sound good to you?”
“You’re making assumptions about who’s the villain in this room.”
“Hey, I only called myself a spy; I didn’t say villain wouldn’t fit, too.”
“That goes without saying after your entrance,”
“Well…here goes, and let it not be said that you didn’t ask,” I rolled my eyes as I start talking. “Okay, let’s start about twenty-eight hundred B.C., if you don’t mind. That’s when we first established a written language. The Sumerians did it, as I’m sure a smart man like you already knows.”
“Cuneiform. Looked like mutant Trivial Pursuit pieces.”
“You got it, Tiger. So, here we are, we’re Sumerians and we’ve just invented writing. It takes off, and pretty soon, it’s spreading everywhere.” I splayed my hands and gestured widely. Both of his hands tightened noticeably.
“Sorry, Buddy, I talk with my hands. Please, please, please don’t feel threatened by it. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m on my knees in front of you and you’re holding two dangerous phallic symbols in your hands. If anybody’s getting fucked here, it’s me and my big mouth.”
“And what a big mouth you have.”
“All the better to eat you with, Sport. Right,” I declared, pointing my fingers at him and tracing vague shapes in the air, “we’ve just gotten written language spread around the world. Before that, tens of thousands of years of oral communication. So how long until we actually automate the shit? Four and a half thousand years later,” I shouted, my hands flapping in the air like spastic pigeons.
“Round about the 1450’s, Johannes Gutenberg invents moveable type. Sounds good, yeah? More books for everybody. Well, for the rich only, at first, and mostly about how God is Great.”
“But,” I continued, “We’re not happy yet. No sirree. We need to be able to do this without stupid quills that we need to dip in inkwells over and over and over. Comes the typewriter. First one that actually sold for a damn was made in Denmark, 1870. Fourteen years later we get a similar innovation, when Mr. Waterman invents the fountain pen. Noticing a trend here?”
“Only that I feel like I should be taking notes,” he grinned, “and that there’ll be a quiz when you’ve finished.”
“Near enough, Guy. So where was I?”
“Waterman,”
“Right, the fountain pen! So we’ve got forty-five hundred years, then about four hundred or four-thirty until the next major steps, right? What’s next? Well, somewhere around the 1920’s somebody realizes we haven’t shot any electricity through the typewriter yet! Silly us! By the time the fifties arrive, we’ve got thousands of the loud, humming, vibrating machines in offices and homes around the world. That’s what, fifty years? And by 1978 two companies have simultaneously invented the ‘electronic’ typewriter, which can store words so you can correct your all-too-human mistakes before they get pounded out onto the paper. So, let’s call it twenty-eight years. Ooh, did I skip Michael Hart and e-books in 1971? I did!”
“Let me guess, next is the Lisa? Or maybe just DOS? You’re boring me. I liked you better when you were killing people.”
“I’ll speed this up. Let’s, for the sake of argument, call it 1987, right?” I asked, my fingers tracing the numbers in mid-air, “That’s when Aldus PageMaker came out, and later that year came Windows 2.0. Nine years, Tiger. And, for personal preference, I’ll call the following year…”
“Okay, seriously, shut up. I get the point. Our points of innovation are becoming exponentially shorter. Like Xeno’s paradox, where you can’t really touch anything, technically, because at some point your finger has passed the halfway point between the starting point and where you’re aiming for. And then at some point it hits the halfway point between the first halfway point and the finish. Repeat infinitely, unless…”
“Unless there’s such a thing as the smallest possible particle, which cannot be cut in half, so eventually the ones of your finger,” I accented by waving mine around, “reach the ones of what you’re touching. Like an oak desk,”
“Touch the desk and you’re a dead man.”
“We’re all dead men, Slugger. We all die with unresolved issues, the same problems we have when we’re alive. The only difference between alive and dead, the only thing that lets my finger touch the oak, the only reason that Xeno’s Paradox isn’t one at all, is because at some point air ends…” I paused and took a deep breath, “…and magic begins.”
Exhaling mightily, I emptied my lungs across the entire area where I’d been gesticulating like a madman. Golden trails burned in front of me, and as I blew, the cords and lines undulated and tightened until I’d gotten the image I wanted.
“Set your pistol down for a second, and see if this palm,” I pointed at the blazing image of a hand, lines and all, that hovered between the two of us, “doesn’t match yours exactly.”
He paused for a moment, clumsily passed his gun to the hand holding the metal rod and checked it against my diagram. For the first time since I walked through the new hole I call his doorway, his smile flickered for a moment before snapping back into shape.
“So,” I laughed, dramatically drawing my hands across the shining hand like Vanna White revealing a fresh new Famous Quote, “Do mind if I read your palm?”
His fingers tightened on the trigger yet again. Fuck. I may have blown this.
“Please, Sir, don’t be alarmed by the apparition before you. Think of this as a hologram, a simple graphical representation of your right palm. To be honest, this is primarily an indulgence on my part; I wouldn’t mind seeing the fates and fortunes of the man who has finally bested me.”
Open jar of flattery, apply liberally and thickly to ego. The faster and more ridiculously it is done, the more likely it is to succeed.
“Well, you’ve surprised my yet another time this night. I’m curious about how you’re doing this, but I’ll wait for the tutorial until after the show. I’d love to have my palm read by a man of your obvious skills.” He glanced down at his watch.
“Best to do it fast, though; the police should be here in about five minutes. In addition, I have enough surveillance cameras in this building that I could make a short film of your recent escapades, complete with DVD extras like alternate angles of the same scene.” He looked down at his gun and the rod with great confidence.
“And if all else fails, you’re half blind and I’m a damn fine shot.”
I bowed until my hands were flat on the floor and my forehead touched the ground between them.
“But of course, Sir.”
“You may begin.”
“Yes, Sir,” I smiled humbly as I raised my head. “I’ll make it fast.” I pointed at the golden hand, to a spot between the thumb and forefinger.
“This,” I began, “is the Line of Life. And I must say that you’re pretty well set here.” I slowly traced its arc down to the lower center of his heel and beyond.
“It’s long, it’s deep, there’s not a single stretch which is corded and there are no breaks on the thing. Suffice it to say that you’ve got a sweet and lengthy life ahead of you.”
“So I have always assumed,” he gloated, “Go on.”
“Okay, up here,” I continued, pointing between his first and second fingers, “is the Line of the Heart. See, when it starts here and slopes down and to the right – staying clear of any contact with the Line of the Head – you’ve got another auspicious characteristic. I’d say you have a ridiculously even disposition, neither amorous to an obscene degree, nor aloof and cold.”
“If I believed in the charlatan art of palm reading I’d be astonished at your accuracy right now.”
“Thanks, I think. Ooh, and this’ll be the last one, this one is your Line of the Head,” I said, and directed his attention to where his Line of Life had also started, equidistant from his thumb and index finger in the valley between them.
“Look at how it’s long and clearly cut, straight across your palm. That’s a sign of vast intellect, natural intuitiveness, and massive creativity.”
“Three for three. But for all I know, you’ve lied about every single line, just to butter me up.”
“No, Sir, I would never lie about something I take as seriously as I do Palmistry.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, Sir, it’s true. I mean, let me give you an example. If your Line of the Heart had started a bit to the left,” I tugged at the golden cord, repositioning its point of origin to the base of the index finger. “and if it had dipped low, very low, into the Line of the Head,” again I demonstrated on my floating chart, “then you’d be quick to love and even quicker to jealousy. You’d never find a love that you were satisfied with, even if you were to encounter a soulmate.”
He opened his mouth, but I kept speaking as though I hadn’t seen.
“And if your Line of the Head had been broken in two here,” I quickly wiped away every part of the line to the right of his middle finger, forking its new end with a quick flick of my hand, “and your life line stopped here,” I grimaced, erasing it from the center of the palm to the wrist, “and you hand one…two…three small parallel marks to the right of it, then all of these things would point to an unhappy life, ending abruptly at, say…” I did some quick calculating on my fingers.
“…probably about forty-six years old. Oh,” I finished, “that reminds me. Happy birthday, Mr. Harper.”
He shot me twice in the chest before dropping both rod and gun to begin furiously scratching the rapidly shifting skin on his right palm.
My eye was rebooting even as the force of the bullets kicked me onto my back. After a few seconds of lying there I was able to carefully stand back up. I could feel bruises spreading under my shirt as I made my way to my feet, muscles protesting every inch of the way. The flattened slugs slid off of me and onto his perfect mahogany parquet floor.
“If it’s any consolation, Sir, I’d intended to finish this the moment I walked through your…well, what used to be your door. I’m afraid that your tricks – and do please pardon the pun – forced my hand.”
“How,” he paused and spat as the blood streaming from his nostrils flowed across his lips, “did your shirt do that? You haven’t got a vest on…I can tell.”
“Oh, right, that. I’m sure you’ve heard of those crazy new spider goats, Sir? The ones that can produce silk fibers from their milk? You call it biosteel, we just call it goat silk, you know, like goat milk. In any event, my associates an I have had them for a very long time, more than long enough to perfect the weaving process,” I tugged at the cuffs of my smooth red shirt, “tough like steel, supple like Armani.”
He started coughing up bloody lung tissue onto his desk blotter, so I followed his earlier advice and sped things up.
“Mr. Gregory Harper, you have been tried, in absentia, and found guilty of the following crimes: contributing dangerously high amounts of electronic innovation per annum, allowing for an excessive simplification of the average person’s life, with the added side effect of stifling individual creativity through your own output.”
“This has resulted in an inappropriately high rate of mental and social evolution of the human race with little or no accompanying physical improvements. All the while, you have done nothing to reduce your own industrial waste, curb population growth, or inspire stellar exploration to alleviate the burdens on our own planet.”
I walked over to his desk and gently lifted his head by his chin. His bloodshot eyes rolled and twitched, desperately trying to focus on my face.
“Sir, it’s people like you that have us moving too fast. What good is a computer in my brain and a car that hovers above the street if the water is too sick to drink, the air is too polluted to breathe, and we spend our daily lives wading through mounds of our own refuse? Time to slow down, Sir. All of us.” His eyes rolled back under his eyelids and the whites glared accusingly at me.
“Gregory Harper, aged forty-six years,” I dictated, “Occupation: CEO and Head of Developmental Sciences for SmarTech Unlimited, the same founded by him twelve years ago. Time of death, 8:46p.m., August 12th, 20__. Cause of death: massive cerebral hemorrhaging,” I gently lowered his head back to his desk, “and flights of angels, et cetera, et cetera.”
Realizing that Mr. Harper’s five-minute warning was nearly up, I put my gun and recorder back in my pockets and grabbed his metal rod while I was at it. I pulled a small EMPulser from my hip pocket and placed it, one after another, on the three computers on his desk. I then pulled out a very small plastic bag from my jacket pocket and unfolded the instructions that had come with it.
“Please read carefully before using,” I recited aloud, “This Ring of Gyges is extremely delicate and…skipping ahead…avoid wearing the Ring in the rain for extended periods of time…umm…do not lick, place in mouth, or ingest the Ring…oh, honestly…do not eat fish while wearing? Okay, screw this,” I decided.
After breaking the red biohazard tape that had been sealing it shut, I tipped the bag and dropped the ring into my hand. The ring was heavier than it looked and seemed somehow unbalanced. The stone set into it was about as unremarkable as a driveway pebble.
“Jésus passant...par le milieu d’eux…s’en allait…” I read from an inscription that encircled the stone. I skimmed the rest of the instructions.
“To activate properties of ring, place ring on right ring finger with stone facing out. Should you wish to temporarily negate its effects, rotate the stone towards the palm of your hand. If, when looking in a mirror, the ring is not visible upon your finger, it is functioning properly.”
I slid the ring on and opened Mr. Harper’s curtains, holding my hand before me, palm open. In the dark reflection, the bright lights of the city’s skyline framing my face, my hand was completely unadorned.
“Well fuck me backwards,” I laughed, “I do reckon I’m invisible. Bless you, Plato, and all the magi you have thusly inspired.”
I tried my best, dodging policemen as I went, not to grin and skip merrily back down the hallway to the stairwell.
I failed miserably.
By the time I’d made it back to my trendy apartment it was deep into the night and I was afraid that I had too much blood in my alcohol. Thankfully, Jeri had sent by a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue with a note around the neck.
“If you’re reading this, you’ve made it back safely. Enjoy. If you’re not reading this, you’re probably dead and I’m taking your DVD collection. J”
“Love you too, boss,” I mumbled as I fumbled with my keys. I unlocked the door and then stood to the left of the doorway, back to the wall. I used my left hand to push the door open. Marco ran out into the hallway, meowing happily and rubbing up against my leg. I scruffed the back of his neck and then carried him back inside.
“Yet again I come to nobody waiting to kill me, Marco,” I said to him, and he purred in response. “What is this world coming to?” I set him on the kitchen counter and rubbed his back for a few seconds. Can he smell the blood on my hands, I wondered to myself. Does he know what I do, or that I’m doing it as much for him as for every asshole down at convenience store, deciding which kind of three-day old hot-dog they’re going to buy off the little sausage-roller: regular, cheese, or jalapeno ranch?
“Fuck ‘em,” I muttered and Marco meowed in agreement and hunger. Dry food only for him, no bladder and kidney-deteriorating wet food full of ash for my cat. Jesus, I mean, Big Macs are bad for us but we have the choice about whether we want to eat them or not. I filled up his bowl, checked his water, and went for the stereo. I put Peaches, Deep Forest, John Prine, Leon Lai, and a Cole Porter tribute disc in on random and decided to make a sandwich.
It was when I turned on the water to wash my hands that I noticed I was still wearing the ring, stone out. I should definitely take this off before running it and my hands under water. I slid it back into its plastic bag, re-sealed the tape, and dropped it into my junk drawer.
Wait a minute, I thought. If I was wearing the ring when I came in, how did Marco…I glanced over at him, happily munching away. I love cats. They freak the shit out of me. I figured I should stop at the shrine in the corner before eating; after all, somebody had been helping me on my way tonight.
Neon Buddha looked fat and content, his translucent head pulsating as the light-up brain inside brightened and dimmed in time with the music. Smurf-blue Krishna smiling like he knows something I don’t. Which I suppose is true. I patted Bast’s head and rubbed Shou’s giant forehead for luck as I knelt in front of them and everybody else in my private pantheon. Including the really post-war Japanese metal sparking-robot. You know, in case the Gods are actually giant robots. Which would be obscenely cool.
I lit three joss sticks, said a few prayers that I’d really rather keep to myself, and offered my pocket change to a Blessed Virgin Mary plastic piggy bank.
“Time for bed, you guys,” I whispered and headed upstairs, Marco racing me to the top.
---
I was grinding coffee when they kicked in my door. I like to think the noise was what made me not hear them and not that I was so bleary after staying up too late watching Ozu films in bed.
There were three of them, wearing neither masks nor gloves, so I assumed they weren’t worried about me identifying them. Rather a shame, since that meant I would probably be too dead to do so.
The middle one, bald and wild-eyed, ran in like he was in a bad cop show, holding his gun straight-armed in front of himself, his right hand grabbing his left wrist, presumably for support when he fired. He kept waving the thing back and forth like he expected somebody to leap out from behind the ottoman.
“You, in the kitchen, get out here! You’re a dead man! A dead man!” he screamed as the other two men walked in behind him. I swear to God they were twins. I was actually so interested in the concept of hired killers that were twins that I kinda spaced out on the bald guy.
He pointed his gun in my face and waved me around the kitchen island and into the living room. He was shouting something but I was intrigued by the twins. They were trying, very earnestly, to see if they could get the door to shut, in spite of its mangled state. One was pulling bits of broken wood off the frame, the other was trying to bend the doorknob back a little bit.
Baldy was unhappy with my inattention, so he actually pushed the muzzle of his semi-auto into my forehead. He went red in the face when he realized I was far more interested in the repairmen than what he had to say. He glanced back quickly and started screaming again.
“Goddamnit, you two, knock it off!”
“Well, we want the door to be able to shut,” they answered without looking up from their work.
“We’re just here to shoot this motherfucker and leave, who gives a fuck if the goddamn door works?” He was rapidly approaching a unique purple shade when I figured I should chime in.
“Actually, Sir, I give a fuck about whether or not my door works.”
“Fuck you, you’re not going to have time to care when you’re dead!”
Not really sure how the end of that sentence was supposed to make sense, I pressed on.
“I don’t think you just want to kill me, right?”
“What the fuck did you say?”
“I said, I don’t think you just want to kill me. I mean, if you had, you’d have done it as soon as that door broke. That really nice door, I might add,”
“He’s right, Marko, it was a really nice door,” answered the doorframe twin.
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Wait, your name is Marko? With a ‘c’ or a ‘k’?”
“With a ‘k.’ Why the fuck do you care?”
“My cat’s named Marco, with a ‘c,”
“Quit fucking with me!”
“I’m not fucking with you, and besides, you have some point to make before you kill me, so just watch,” I smiled, “MARCO!” I shouted, and he trotted down the stairs and went into the kitchen, expecting a treat.
“Huh,” Marko said with a touch of pride in his voice, “So, what you’re saying is that if I’d really wanted to kill you without making some kind of statement, I’d have plugged you as soon as the door busted open?”
“Exactly.”
“He’s right, you know,” added the doorknob twin.
“Hell, I would have shot me the moment I came in, and the fact that you didn’t implies that you still have something to say, or you want to do this in a memorable way, you know, start making a calling card so people can recognize your kills. Or maybe you just had something to tell me. But under the current conditions I’m going to have difficulty thinking. I have problems paying attention when I’m under duress.”
“You don’t seem to be under duress.”
“I’m under duress on the inside. Besides, I know you may not have noticed, but I’m completely stark naked, since I wasn’t expecting guests. Anyway, we’re getting off-topic, try and focus with me. You guys came in, you caught me off guard, you should be proud of yourselves, it doesn’t happen often. Okay, it happened last night, but that was kind of a fluke,”
“Shut up, man”
“Stay with me. Anyway, you had me dead to rights yet you didn’t pull the trigger. I think you have more to say. Let’s talk. Lower the gun a bit and we’ll talk.”
“Shut up, man”
“Okay, now you’re just repeating yourself. I mean, for God’s sake, unless you count the .38 I have jammed up my ass, I’m clearly unarmed. So I ask you again, please just lower your gun and we can talk. Look, there’s no risk in it for you. I promise I’m not going anywhere.” He seemed pleasantly confused, so I used my helpful professor face on him.
“Okay, fine, I’m gonna lower the gun, but I’m not putting it down anywhere. Try anything and you’re meat.”
“Yes, I’ve got it. Thank God for southpaws,” I smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing, just thinking out loud.”
Spike took his right hand off his left wrist and began to lower the gun straight down. Like a trained monkey, I thought as I lunged forward. He tried to raise the gun back but I got there too fast and caught his hand in my left armpit. The twins actually started to pay attention and Spike drew his fist back to punch me. Jesus, he was really telegraphing the blow. I quickly smashed the palm of my hand hard into his elbow, splintering it and bending his arm the way arms shouldn’t bend.
He screamed and dropped the gun. I squatted to pick it up, using his crumpling body as a guard against the twins. I fired off two shots, one ankle on each of them. As they fell to the ground I sprung back up, walked backwards six steps, and sat my ass in my favorite chair.
“Now that, my friends,” I grinned, crossing my legs, “that is a fucking message. Can anybody tell me what the message is?” I put my free hand behind my ear but they were too busy moaning and clutching their wounds.
“No, I’m afraid the correct answer is, ‘Yes, most merciful and loving Jack, the message is clearly that you are not to be fucked with.’ Good! Well done! Now let’s hear you say it!”
“Jack, ungh…” tried doorframe twin, “is not to be…shit…fucked with,” answered doorknob twin.
“Fuck you,” Marko spat, his face turning red again.
“No, fuck you Marko,” offered the doorframe twin, “I mean, shit, I’m a fucking cripple now, thanks to your shitty plan. Ow, FUCK! But you know…you know what makes that not so bad? That you’re a fucking cripple, too.”
“Yeah,” chimed doorknob twin, “We told you to cap him as soon as…God DAMN it…as soon as you saw him.”
“FUCK BOTH OF YOU!”
“Nah, shit, fuck YOU Marko,” they both answered in the eerie way twins
talk together sometimes. They both started crawling over to the front door, which they had thankfully not managed to close.
“I’ll call you a cab to get you to the hospital. Wait at the corner. Oh, leave your guns on the floor, and when you get outside, use your shirts to slow the bleeding. You should be fine. By which I mean, not dead.”
“Thanks, man,” they groaned as they kept crawling, leaving trails of blood behind them. I picked up the phone and dialed Yellow Checker.
“Yeah, there are some guys at Wright and Eisenhower who are kinda hurt and need to get to a hospital. Can you get somebody here fast? Well, cause you guys are always faster than the ambulances! How many? Hang on,” I cupped my hand over the receiver and looked at Marko imploringly.
“Fuck you, man,” he grunted, ever so defiantly.
“Well,” I said after uncapping the phone and pulling back the hammer on my gun, “It looks like just two.”
benjamin sTone
CURRENT MUSIC: “Godzilla Mix” – DJ Snowflake
LAST BOOK I READ A PAGE FROM: Who’s Laughing Now? Collected Stories and Strips from Dork Comics by Evan Dorkin
LAST MOVIE: Thirteen
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My hypershort fictions and non-fiction commentaries go to http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/compositemolecules
and http://benchilada.livejournal.com
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Flickr photostream of my bizarre photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/benchilada/
