They dropped me off at my apartment. I nodded thanks as Kaufman gave me back my plasma pistol. "Aren't you guys going to stun me or something?" I joked. "Well, we could tie you down and sodomize you," suggested Kraus. Nobody laughed. As their nondescript black groundcar pulled away, I saw Kaufman punch Kraus in the gut. "What the hell is your problem?" he asked. "Hap's dead." Nat puts down her shotglass of deionized water, changes the channel on the television set, and scratches her thigh. "Where's my car?" I think she's taking it well. "Your fucking driver, who is as of now occupying a filing cabinet in the city morgue, happened to get La Paloma shot up while trying to save Father Flannery's life." Nat finishes her water in good time, waits a few moments, and then turns to me. Her deep black eyes stare into mine. "Shit happens, Peace." I turn up my palms, shocked and disgusted. "What the-" "Now, where's my car?" I meet her gaze. "You don't feel emotions, do you?" She smirks at me and tosses the shotglass over to the amigo nearest the beverages. "Comes with the business, Peace." I shake my head and glimpse the television. Something about how vigilantes stormed and sacked a church. "Now I know why Wolf was so fucked up-" She raises an eyebrow and I go for the jugular. "-he had bad taste in women." Nat doesn't even twitch. "Tell it to Jasmine." "Who's that?" "Senator Ademino's wife." I am silent for a moment. "I," and she stresses the word, "chose Mike." I glance at the half-finished bottle of wine next to my chair. "Well, he may have had bad taste, but he loved them all." "What's that supposed to mean?" Ah, there we go. There we go. Found a nerve. "He loved the ones he chose." Stress on the second "he". I peek up at Nat. She is not at all amused. "I think I'll go to the bathroom." "Up the stairs and to the left," says Nat, her eyes slits. "Oh, and Peace," she continues, "don't fall in." I came here as soon as the blonde's gang dropped me off. Hitched a taxi and then a ride on the back of a turbobike. Only safe place I know of. Only place where the beret don't come. Damn, I hate the berets! The janitor--he thinks he's disturbed over our encounters? Hell, he's not the one getting roughed up and abused! Plus, every time I meet the bastards I seem to lose a friend in the process. "Come with us to never-never land!" they say, and bang-- there goes Andy, Casey, Flannery, Hap. I call her Casey now. Casey--such a beautiful name, not at all like the guttural "Grocke", a word that comes out sounding more like a frog's belch than anything I'd pin on a beautiful assassin. Assassin-- that I am certain of. Simon Bolivar was burned down by a laser held in her hands. So I showed up here, the Senate of the Free Territories, to trade secrets and fears with my last remaining acquaintance, the Miss Nat Hawthorne. She has a middle initial, too, but I forget it at the time. Little anime girl--one half the Dirty Pair. But were either of them blond? I don't think so. The bathroom is indeed to the left--about twenty meters down a hallway. The stencilled lettering on it reads "Unisex". I nod to the amigo who sits watch at a doorway several meters beyond. He grunts and lights a cigarette with the dying cherry of another. My plasma riding over my bladder; its fullness is accented. There is a leaky sink and two stalls in here. I wonder where I should put my plasma while I do my business; I pull it out and wrap my hand around it. I open the first stall. Peering with disgust at the massive load of fecal matter artfully displayed across its seat, I close its thin steel door and venture to the next. My left hand grips the cheap aluminum handle; it is stuck. I give it a good pull and it opens uneasily. Yellow--the color of overripe bananas. Mottled, rough skin, the size of a big ramen bowl. Red eyes--Andy's eyes--killer's eyes. My plasma goes down, safety off. THOOMTHOOM. Its corpse is already decomposing, whatever it was. Maybe a mutant insect? It looked vaguely crustacean-like while it was alive, perched there on the rim, waiting for me to open the door. A cockroach? Now it's just a boiling smear of acids and flash-fried muscle, lost among the shattered porcelain of the pot. What the hell? Somebody has laced my wine I decide in the first stall, gingerly standing on tiptoes to get maximum range. That poop really stinks; it's going to take a brave amigo with a plunger and a bottle full of hydrochloric acid to clean that mess up. I zip up my pants, recover my plasma from the sink, and wash my hands. Glancing back over my shoulder at slowly swinging door of the unfortunate second stall, I wonder how in hell I'm going to explain that. I open the door and just about exit before realizing that the guard outside surely must have heard something. Face already going red, I turn to face him. Shit. He's face down, his Popo Edgar flung out next to him. Cautiously glancing up and down the hall, I stride over to the guy and turn him over. Holy shit. That's no entry wound that I know of; not unless he got hit by a load of grapeshot at point blank range. The poor mother's whole chest has been artificially removed by some sort of--sniff, sniff-- noxious . . . acid. And by the silly-shit look on his face, the amigo here was probably caught off his guard. The door behind him is slightly ajar. Idiot I, I venture through. A small flight of carpeted steps leads to a heavy metal catwalk, the grating covered in places by sheets of rubber to better traction. A thin railing on each side prevents the balance-challenged from total foolishness. The bridge leads out across a cylindrical room, not ten meters in diameter. A door faces me from the other side. "I want to speak with Thorne and Fitzgerald. Send them up immediately." I look down. I am above Oscuro's office, his paper-littered desk directly beneath me. El Jefe Grande himself sets down a com unit, turning to face the door. Leaning up against the front of his desk, he is flanked. Blue--that is what first strikes me about them. A rough, shapeless blue, two figures both easily six feet tall, with blue arms, legs, torsos and heads. They are blue, but blues is not the hue of their clothing--no, blue is the color of their skin. Holy Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Shit! Do I shoot these fuckers? What the hell? Why the hell here? Are these guys aliens? Aliens! I unwittingly stagger back from the edge of the railing, shaking the entire catwalk. Oscuro and his monster pals all crane their heads toward me. The blue creatures have to shift their entire bodies, being as their heads are but lumps of blue flesh and eyes raised from their bodies. And teeth! Shit, they've got mouths full of shark's teeth, long rows of chisels. They smile at the sight of me. The double doors on the far end of the room swing open. Nat. She reads the situation instantly. As the three of them turn back towards the door, Nat leaps in the opposite direction--her left. Lawpistols pulled from her hakama, she's in the air when she begins firing. The blue to Oscuro's right twists around, struggling to bring a long, launcher-type weapon to bear on her. Bullets stitch button holes up his wide trunk, ripping into his face. The motherfucker goes down! Nat hits the floor, a shimmering purple beam ripping past her, into the swinging door. It puts a dinner-plate sized hole in the thick steel. Nat's twin pistols tear into the blue's face; teeth, flesh, an eye- -the spray of gore splatters Oscuro's desk. Two of the yellow crabs scramble from underneath the first dead blue. A single bullet into each . . . She breathes heavily for a moment, her eyes turning to Oscuro. I watch in horror as El Jefe Grande reaches for the back of his belt--a small plasma pistol rests against his spine . . . Her eyes large, Nat does not understand. I open my mouth, but not a sound comes out. The type two is identical to the one in my hands. Oscuro's broad palm wraps around its handle, a thick finger curving through the trigger guard. He eases it from his belt, pulls it around his side, and halts. The thunder of Nat's lawpistols rolls upward into the darkness. Gently, Oscuro's fingers release the weapon, its polished blackness clattering to the cement beneath his desk. Gently, the big man's body relaxes, his knees slow to buckle. Gently, Nat embraces him as he collapses. "Enrique," she moans, his dead eyes staring up at her. Nat rests his head in her lap, her pistols dropped from her hands, their touch hideous. She strokes Oscuro's black beard, red and green gore oozing from his shattered chest. It is he that is shot, but Nat might as well have taken her pistols to her own body. Shaking, she wraps her thin, anorexic body around the dead vitality of his. She begs him to twitch a finger, for his heart to beat once more, to give her a sign . . . "Enrique!" she cries, and he does not answer him. I back away from this Shakespearean scene, slinking away, hiding in the shadows. But my feet betray me, and Nat, not so utterly lost as she might seem, snaps her head back and catches my eyes. Her black eyes are whirlpools of bleakness, her stare not cutting through my shrouds of deception and cowardice but instead pulling her own down, revealing just what she is: a scared little girl. She mouthes my name. "Peace," that sad misnomer so wrongly assigned to me. Peace? Everywhere I travel, chaos billows up from my footsteps and chokes the lungs of my friends. Peace. Find what you couldn't in this life, Jefe Grande. Rest in peace, Enrique Oscuro. Bang. The double doors swing open again. It is Fitzgerald, lean second fiddle. His eyes quickly assesses the situation, pausing momentarily to take in the carnage of the dead aliens. But he just as quickly forgets them, his full attention focused on the bloody mess of Nat and Oscuro. "What is this?" Nat stammers, struggles to say something. Her beautifully dangerous wit cannot retort. A pair of amigos flanking Fitzgerald spread out from the door. They swear quietly but shut up as soon as they notice Fitz burning Nat into the floor, his eyes heat lamps. Nat finds her tongue. "When a soul no longer resides in its physical form . . ." she mumbles, her voice light and distant. Fitz, his body tensing up, his gun hand slowly ambling southward, squints. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What the fuck happened here?" One of the thugs steps over to Oscuro's corpse. Nat turns and glares at him, protecting the dead man with and arm. The amigo brushes her aside and touches Oscuro's neck. "He's dead," he reports. Fitz sucks in a breath and closes his eyes. "Dios," he murmurs. "What the fuck are those mothers?" asks an arriving amigo, pointing to the dead heap of one of the blues. There are more gang members packing in around the door. They swear and speak in hushed tones. "What the fuck?" yells one. "Bugs!" "Motherfuckers killed El Jefe!" "SHUT UP! FUCKING SHUT UP!" bellows Fitz, his tanned face clouding up with hysteria. His eyes open. "Those are lawpistol wounds." Nat shivers, almost trying to hide behind Oscuro's body, effectively pushing it forward to serve as grim testimony to her crime. "Girl," states Fitzgerald, not a gram of anger, sadness, or triumph or any emotion that he could--should--be feeling now in his voice . . . "-you've got blood on your hands." He pulls a nine-millimeter from his hip. Checking its magazine, he asks, "You want to explain yourself?" Something detonates nearby. "What the fuck was that?" Fitzgerald asks quietly. The catwalk shakes with the rumble of anti-grav engines. "Well, somebody fucking find out!" He turns back to Nat. "Are you going to talk sometime soon?" "It wasn't murder," she weakly replies. Fitzgerald snorts. "Then this won't be fucking vengeance," he snarls, working a round into the nine millimeter's chamber. He levels the weapon on Nat's chest. "MEGAPOL! MEGAPOL'S FUCKING RAIDING US!" screams an amigo. Fitzgerald glances back, frowning. He fires blind, a pair of slugs ripping through Oscuro's head, spraying a distinctly greenish slop across the front of his desk. But Nat is already gone, diving past Fitzgerald and into the crowd of amigos. The Diablo lieutenant spins and tries to shoot her again, but instead pegs one of his bodyguards. The unfortunate shit goes down like a sack of soy concentrate, splashing blood everywhere. Fitzgerald swears, and screams, "Hold her! Fucking hold the whore!" My pistol is flashes out, but I feel a strange rush of heated air behind my head. I duck and twist, searching for the target--a thin, pinkish man with a fleshy organic spout for a head standing in the doorway that I came from. The catwalk shakes as something strikes it. Elephant boy whips his head back and forwards again, vomiting a stream of what could only be nasty shit; he misses me again. I don't delay further; working my pistol's trigger, I promptly gut the bastard; his intestines flare clear juices and rubbery flesh as he goes down. The steel of the walkway groans; I turn and spot the hosebeast's spittle corroding the metal struts on the far wall. Fitz, wondering what the fuck is happening up on the catwalk, spots me. I smile back and grab a railing support. The whole bridge comes crashing down, and I lose my grip, tumbling end over end to the cement floor. The back of my skull hurts like a bitch, but I still have my pistol. The dead alien crashes over me, scalding my left arm with his body fluids. "Fuck!" I shout, amigos rushing from the room as more debris rains down. I glance up; the ceiling is collapsing. Fitzgerald holds his ground. I dive underneath Oscuro's desk. Concrete and steel rains down. A pair of armored feet land behind me. I look up. It's a Megapol stormtrooper bringing his M4000 to bear on my head. Die fucker. Eight plasma bolts rip open his heavy red-and-silver assault armor; he staggers backwards most unprofessionally. A double-tap through his ruined finery explodes his heart. I duck and twist around; Fitzgerald sprays another one of the raiders with his pistol to no effect. The amigo dives out of the room. I loose a burst into the second man's back, killing him instantly. Lead rains down around me. Rolling back underneath the desk, I spot a number of the bastards around the hole in the ceiling. A pair of monofilament cables mark where the first two descended. Something inside my mind makes the right calculations; reaching around the edge of the heavy desk, I snap off a number of shots into the heavy steel supports above . . . And I brace myself as the whole building comes down on top of me. At least it feels like that; Oscuro's desk is slammed hard; I crawl out from underneath it as a quarter-ton beam slowly snaps its legs. The raiders, necks broken and backs snapped, litter the debris around me. "Fuck," I stammer. One of the damn Popo rolls over, swings his damaged assault rifle over, and sprays the floor before me with lead. I wince in extreme pain as my left foot takes a ricochet. But, to my credit, I stand my ground, squeeze down hard on the trigger of my pistol- And swear profusely as nothing happens. I dive beneath the dying desk--preprogrammed hands fondle the weapon and determine that nothing is wrong; a glance at the display on the rear of the clip shows that I'm simply out of charge. "Fuck," I repeat, the agony in my foot growing. The Popo shuffles around, obviously coming for the kill. I am going to die. Then I remember Oscuro--that sorry son of a bitch--"An Internal Security Agent willed it to me." I tilt my head, staring into the wall of rubble on the other side of the desk. But goddamnit, I am lucky today; I reach over, snatch El Jefe's pistol, remove its clip, jam it into mine, plant it between the goggled eyes of the Megapol raider as he peers underneath the desk, and squeeze! Squeeze, bitch! I make a half-hearted effort at removing the pasty smear of brains and blood from my arms. I am getting sickeningly used to this killing shit. I examine the headless dead Popo, my first thoughts being how he's not Popo. Where's his hatestick? A Popo without a stun baton or two latched down to his right thigh is like a bird without wings, a fish without fins . . . unable to thrash about in its natural environment. Then there's the stenciled "MEGAPOL: SWAT" on his back. Considering that Megapol is the only paramilitary force granted the right to operate outside of its own properties, it doesn't need to label its equipment or people. Transponders can do that. This is not a Popo operation. The dead are everywhere. Hobbling along towards the parking garage, I don't pray that I can make it to the Clinic; I pray that around the next corner there isn't a squad of raiders waiting for my head. They have taken the garages and the roof; this I learn from frantic amigos. Fitzgerald orchestrates the defense of the Senate, but so many amigos are dead and this is not the only place under attack; Psyke has broken the truce with Diablo and they are almost to Presley Avenue. The Free Territories burn tonight. I spot Chuck and Trevor; they defend a stairwell. "This ain't good," Chuck bluntly states to me, seconds before a phosphor flare kills him. "There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the theif." God damn Senator Sakurai and his rascist minions! A thousand boulevards, avenues, streets, and alleys in this hateful city, and not one, not one damn sidewalk, is named after a Negro. A boulevard named for Brian Wilson, a piddling guitarist who made his fortune raping over Chuck Berry intros! A boulevard! Christ, by those standards, there should be a sixty-lane elevated highway devoted to Jimi Hendrix! But Hendrix is long dead, his music relegated to poetry classes at Lifetree. Hendrix is dead. And soon, so will I. The lower levels of this apartment tower are occupied, and the upper levels ablaze, a slow vice crushing the life out of whatever amigos are left within. I take up refuge with a troop of bikers, but they are slowly picked off as we retreat downstairs. Fitzgerald can't break the strangle-hold, Fitzgerald can't bust through and save Diablo. Oscuro could have done it. We are all going to die because Nat killed him. And then, staggering down a hallway, a turbobiker eating a burst of autocannon fire for me, I am saved. She came in through the bathroom window, her M4000 set on three round burst. Personally dispatching two raiders, she sets down and shields me with her armored body while three more like-armored soldiers enter. Sets down, because she was hovering a dozen centimeters off the floor. "Grab ahold of me, dear," she orders, laying down suppression fire. I holster my pistol and put my arms around her neck, hanging onto her front--a baby monkey--because of the bulky jumpjet backpack she wears. It's Marsec flight armor! The full import of that doesn't strike me until we leap through the gaping whole in the washroom wall, jumpjets straining to carry us across the twenty meter gap to a big red Valkyrie . . . a Valk which bears the sign of Mars. Marsec. Fifty meters down to the welted concrete, a roaring inferno tearing down the Senate above me, hundreds of raiders eviscerating this last refuge of mine everywhere I look . . . And yet I can't help shiver, suspecting that I have indeed fallen from that proverbial frying pan into the fire. A hatch flush with the armored skin of the bird opens. She carries me through the threshold like a sick twist on the old wedding tradition. I hop off of her onto the cydonium grating of the Valk's crew compartment. Then I read her stenciled name. J. Thorpe. I'm still puzzling over this revelation as the other three troopers return, machine guns crackling away. "Are we clear?" asks Thorpe. "One more," replies the intercom. The Valk drops five stories in half a second. I clutch a seat and strap myself in. "Target is on your HUD's," states the voice again. "Confirmed. Let's go." The hatch slides open again, and the four Marsec soldiers depart. It hisses shut. Thirty long seconds pass. I can feel concussions shaking the ship. The hatch opens, and the soldiers fling Nat in. She's been stunned, I can tell it by her ragdoll appearance. But she's faking part of it; as Thorpe enters the ship, Nat snaps up and deals the secretary a nasty roundhouse kick. Thorpe's stun grapple falls to the floor; she is tossed out the hatch. "Karl, secure the passenger," orders the intercom. Nat turns to me and frowns. I shrug and stand up. "Are you OK?" I ask. "Peace, they zapped me. I don't like being zapped." I pick up the stun grapple. It feels surprisingly familiar to my hands. Nat stares at me, backing up into a corner of the compartment. Her eyes are scared. "Peace, don't-" she says, her voice very small. Whimpering and weak--both of us. There is someone else here, with us, someone unseen, yet whose breath is hot and demanding inside my skull. I am pushed aside. "Why the fuck would I shoot you?" And then my arm goes up and the grapple fires. 5/25/98
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