Atomic Underworld: Part One (2 page)

“Welcome
back to Muscud,” Frankie said.

Boats
were tied up at a pier on this side, and for a price the boatman took them
aboard one, started up the motor, which smoked and shuddered and sounded as if
it had seen better days, and made for the town on the lake.

Shapes
swept down from above, and Tavlin winced as a drop of mucus fell on him. He
shook it off. The shapes wheeled about the boat, then moved on, but not before
he caught a glimpse of winged slug-like creatures with tendril-fringed, sucking
mouths. Flails. They infested the sewers, stinking and dripping, living mostly
off the slime that coated the walls. There were predatory varieties, however,
and he kept an eye out.

The
city—so its residents called it, anyway—of Muscud drew nearer, and Tavlin
looked on its familiar outlines with apprehension. Infected people tottered
down the lanes of the makeshift community, slouched along the docks, called to
each other from the balconies of listing buildings. Everything was worn, paint
peeling (where there was paint), wood blistering, rat-things shimmying in the
gutters, some structures built of stone, others from stolen debris sagging and
about to collapse.

At
least it smelled better here. Alchemical lamps hung from the buildings, blazing
redly out over the canals, and they drove back the stink, making the air not
only breathable but actually pleasant, and slightly musky.

Jazzy
music from the bars and whorehouses rang out, blending with the cacophony of
thousands of mutants talking and laughing and fighting and crying and carrying
on their daily lives.

“Good
to be home, eh?” said Frankie.

“This
isn’t my home,” Tavlin said.

The
boatman tied them up to a dock, accepted Frankie’s tip, and waited for them to
clamber off. Tavlin was just glad to be away from the stench and out of easy
reach of the things in the water.

They
stepped into the streets and entered the town, passing the lashed-together
boats, piers and platforms that composed the city’s foundation, and the great
shabby buildings that rose from it. Canals ran all through the city, and boats
came and went. Tavlin saw one mutant emerge from the water, dripping and
holding a white fish in his mouth. Children ran down the streets, laughing or
fleeing, clutching stolen purses and burned rats. Whores leaned against cracked
pillars, and piano music drifted from between batwing doors. Tavlin saw shops
and businesses, just like a real city almost—well, a human one, he amended.
There were no autos or horse-drawn carriages down here, but there were bicycles
and motorcycles, and they careened around the corners, scattering pedestrians
before them like sodden leaves.

One
mutant with the chameleon-skin of an octopus stood on a podium before a small
crowd, shouting over the babble, “... and see the error of your ways. Convert
and accept the divinity of Magoth, and you will be saved when he descends from
the Holy House …”

Tavlin
chuckled. “Magoth has a promoter now?”

Frankie
didn’t give the expected answer. “That guy’s not just some madman. He’s a
preacher, one of several at the church.”

“A
church
... to Magoth? It’s just some
boogeyman of the sewers!”

“I
wouldn’t say that too loudly. I know when you lived here there was only a few
that worshipped it, it was just another cult, but it’s caught on lately. It’s a
regular religion now.”

Tavlin
nodded noncommittally, but he didn’t say what he was thinking. He didn’t know
what Frankie had bought into.

They
arrived at one of the largest and proudest of the buildings in Muscud, a large
stone structure held aloft by pillars anchored into the artificial lake bed.
Stone steps led up past decorative if chipped columns to an impressive doorway
spanned by colored beads. A man with a tongue like an anemone and striations
like a sea bass parted the beads when he saw Frankie, and held it open as
Tavlin and the goons filed past. They entered the Hall of the Wide-Mouth, most
notorious den in Muscud. Shady-looking mutants played pool, gambled at large
tables, drank at the bar under a cloud of smoke, engaged in private dealings in
the booths. Whores of all descriptions prowled among them, stroking arms,
whispering in ears, and occasionally leading a man or woman up to the second
floor where the real fun took place. It all stank of smoke, cigarette and
otherwise, seaweed and grease. The latter came from the kitchens, and fried
things that were likely caught down here and quite unprocessed were shoved
before hungry mouths.

The
smells relaxed Tavlin for some reason. This had been his home, or at least the
place where he had spent the most time, for nearly a decade, though that time
had long since passed.

“It
hasn’t changed much,” he said.

Frankie
raised a hairless eyebrow. “Oh, there’s change, all right. You’ll see. C'mon.
We have to meet the Boss.”

They
moved into the backrooms, and the sounds of revelry from the front diminished
into a vague roar. Here secretaries typed notes and hard-looking men cleaned
guns. Several looked up as Tavlin walked past, and he noted familiar faces.
“Hey, it’s Tavlin!” one said. “What gives?” “You back or what?”

“Or
what,” Tavlin replied, though he couldn’t resist a small smile. He was rarely
greeted with warmth in the world above.

They
moved toward a certain back room. Its stone walls were thicker than the others,
yet even so Tavlin heard grunts and smacking sounds when he drew close. Two
toughs stood beside the door. One was tall, slick and pale. He had no nose, at
least not a human one, but a rounded lump with holes in it like a fish might
have, and his eyes were solid black, shark-like. He was Galesh, the Boss’s
right-hand man. The other man, Edgar, was shorter and more human-looking,
though he possessed the gills of a fish, which pulsed weirdly on his thick
neck.

“Boss’s
busy,” Galesh said, when Tavlin and Frankie approached.

A
smacking sound came from the other side of the metal door, and a curse.

“He’ll
see us,” Frankie said.

Galesh
studied him a moment, then rapped on the door, and someone on the other side
slid away the small panel. A short exchange followed, locks popped and the door
banged open, revealing a small, dingy stone room lit by a hanging alchemical
lamp; its red fluid flowed slowly, making the light shift in languid motions. A
man strapped to a wooden chair hunched in the middle of the room. Bruises
covered his face and body, and blood soaked his hair and pretty much every
other part of him. One of his arms had the texture of a sea horse. He looked
even redder with the light on him, but Tavlin figured he was red enough.

Boss
Vassas stood over the man, shirtsleeves rolled up, blood dripping from his
fists, chest heaving. The Boss was of medium height, but his chest was deep and
his arms thick. His mutations were subtler than some; he bore a slightly
piscine cast, his mouth a little too wide, his lips thick, his skin grayish,
but nothing overt. He could almost pass for an uninfected. He had a rugged
face, with bushy black eyebrows and short wavy black hair, now with as much
salt in it as pepper, normally combed back from his broad forehead but at the
moment disheveled and sweat-soaked. An old scar curled up from his right eye,
disappearing into the hairline over his ear.

“Where
the hell is it?” he demanded of the man in the chair. “Why’d you take it—
why
? And why’d you
kill
her, you fuck!” He balled a fist and struck the man in the
face. The man listed backward and would have fallen but for the nails sticking
the chair to the floor. Even so, the wood creaked, and Tavlin supposed the Boss
would soon need a new chair. “Damn you!”

The
man spat blood. “I’m t-telling you, w-we didn’t take it. It wasn’t us. And I
d-didn’t kill anybody!”

Boss
Vassas started to punch him again, then sighed and lowered his fist. “You sure
can take a lot of punishment for a liar.”

Frankie
cleared his throat, and the Boss swung his gaze in the direction of the newcomers.
He took in Tavlin and nodded in acknowledgement. Tavlin nodded back, feeling
his throat constrict. There was a desperate, harried look about the Boss that
he had never seen before. Vassas’s eyes were bloodshot, his complexion even
more ashen than usual.

“You
made it,” Vassas said. “Good.”

Tavlin
indicated the man in the chair. “Mind if I ask what he did?”

“I-I
didn’t do nothing!”

Vassas
backhanded him across the face. “Let’s talk outside,” the Boss told Tavlin.

He
led the way out of the small room and Galesh closed the door behind them. When
they were out of earshot of the beaten man, Vassas said, “Truth is, I don’t
know who did it. I thought it must be that creep’s gang, they’re the only ones
stupid enough to come into my territory lately—but maybe not.”

“That
was one of Grund’s boys, wasn’t it?” said Frankie, then with an aside to
Tavlin: “Suvesh Grund runs his own crew outta the Blighted Quarter. He’s trying
to expand.”

“Idiot,”
Vassas said with sudden violence. “It can only lead to war, and that’s the last
thing any of us need.”

Tavlin
tried not to think of the ragged man in the chair. He had seen Boss Vassas beat
people before, but for some reason it shocked him all over again, and he
reminded himself why he had left this life.

“I
don’t get it,” he said. “What exactly did you think that man did?”

Boss
Vassas didn’t answer at once. He motioned to Edgar, who produced and lit a
cigar for him. Smoke wreathed Vassas’s head, and his bloodshot eyes peered
through the smoke at Tavlin. “That’s why I called you here. I hope you haven’t
eaten.”

*

Tavlin
hadn’t eaten, and he was glad of it. It was only after the implications sank
in, though, that he felt truly queasy.

Boss
Vassas ushered him up to his suite on the third and highest floor. Half the
floor was devoted to rooms for his boys, the other half was his private
penthouse. Few went into the penthouse save Vassas and his women. He had two
women that lived with him, though they weren’t permanent and frequently rotated
with the women on the second story—at least historically that had been the
case. Around the time Tavlin had left, a girl he knew named Nancy had taken up
residence with the Boss, and Vassas had fallen so hard for her he’d invited her
to stay for good, and so she had, demanding only that she be the only woman
there. He’d agreed, and from what Tavlin witnessed they’d been very happy
together. In the time since he’d left, rumor ran that little had changed save
that Nancy had only grown more lovely and strong-willed and had begun exercising
some authority with the crew, which Vassas actually encouraged.

Tavlin had rarely been to the penthouse
before, and he saw that, as he’d remembered, the suite was large and opulent.
Ancient tapestries hung on the walls beside priceless paintings, and thick
animal hide carpets draped the floors. Idols and statues of various empires
stood all about, surely stolen or looted. Many of the statues were nudes.
Vassas had fine taste in art and furniture, and though he acted rough in front
of his men Tavlin knew him to be a sensitive and intelligent man in private.

Bodies
lay all over—though at first Tavlin didn’t realize what they were. There were
five of them—one woman, Frankie said, and four of Vassas’s soldiers. “They
musta heard her scream and come runnin’ in, then they got what she got,”
Frankie said.

What
they got exactly was obviously the source of Vassas’s unease (or part of it),
and it was clear why it unnerved him. The bodies no longer looked human. The
flesh had been turned translucent, slightly whitish, and been made rubbery,
like the flesh of a jellyfish. Tavlin could see the internal organs through the
flesh, and they had been turned translucent as well. The bodies had been ripped
apart, as if by a blast or an animal attack, and pieces of them were strewn all
around the room. They stank somewhat of ammonia but did not emit the normal
odor of a human corpse, which Tavlin to his chagrin was all too familiar with.
One didn’t live amongst the mob for a decade and not see a few bodies. Whitish
flesh hung from the walls, the furniture, sagging and stinking. An overhead fan
spun, making the ribbons of flesh flap and stream.

Seeing
the corpses hit Tavlin hard, perhaps because he hadn’t seen dead people in a
while, but also, he was certain, because of what it meant.

Something
unnatural
had happened here.

“What
could have done this?” he said, hearing the numbness in his voice, one hand
over his mouth and nose to block out the stench of ammonia. He staggered
through the room, cataloguing what he saw, trying not to step in anything wet.

“If
I knew, my blood pressure would be a lot lower,” Vassas said. He stared about
the room and shook his head. His bloodshot gaze landed on the body of the
woman, and a long sigh escaped his lips.

“That
was Nancy?” Tavlin said, and Vassas nodded raggedly. Tavlin thought he might
have been crying earlier. His eyes were
very
red. “I’m sorry,” Tavlin said. “Nancy was a good woman.” She had been a friend
of Sophia’s, too, he remembered, but he didn’t say so. “When did this happen?”