Everybody Scream! (9 page)

Now Mitch began to feel offended, as much as his gratitude and loyalty allowed. “With all respects to you and your husband, Mr. Kahn hasn’t been too famous these past few years. I don’t think anybody around here sees you as being just Mrs. Del Kahn. If anything, I think sometimes he’s seen as being Mr. Sophi Kahn.”

“Whatever, Mitch. Just try to I.D. that girl, alright?”

“Right.” Mitch turned away, rather less buoyant than when he’d approached. The KeeZee lingered a moment, jagged jaws parted a few inches, gazing down at her; it hadn’t once moved.

“Dismissed, handsome,” Sophi told it, a little uneasy.

Mitch gave a whistle. The giant then pivoted to follow him.

Sophi walked in the opposite direction. She was fairly bristling now. Nerves, she told herself, flicking away her dwindled cigarette. Last night; an uncertain, long cold season ahead. Without a trip down south to look forward to, autumn and winter and much of spring united into one chill fog in her mind. There would always be work to tend to, but that was still a lot of time. Maybe she’d steal a week or two to catch up with that portion of the carnival which would split down south, just for a break from the staleness. No doubt Del would make the best of that situation, she joked to herself sarcastically.

Sophi lit a fresh cigarette.

Bonnie rode her sporty hovercar on autopilot, her parents, making good money, were able to afford such a high school graduation present. She had clothes on finally, but the convertible top was retracted and she and Noelle rode with the naked freedom of the open air flowing over them, laughing, blasting the hovercar’s chip player over the whoosh of the wind.

They hadn’t really planned to embark this early–they couldn’t even remember if the fair opened at ten or eleven, and it was only ten now–but Noelle had been restless about remaining at school, anxious to get away. Although Bonnie had asked if Kid were the cause for this and Noelle had moodily evaded the issue, Noelle was in good spirits now, freshly showered and dressed and in the rushing air. She barked laughter at Bonnie’s words.

“I can’t
believe
I’m up and out at ten on the
weekend!
” shouted Bonnie. “It must be because I didn’t blast anybody last night…and ask me to explain
that
on a weekend, girl!”

“Why, I can scarcely believe it myself, of you!” giggled Noelle. “Do you think the guys will show or get sidetracked?”

“I hope they don’t, really. We can see them anytime. We might meet some sweet meat. Have ourselves a treat to eat.”

“Neat.” They both laughed heartily. Noelle turned her head to watch a building go by, brushing her lashing hair back with her arm. Her mood visibly transmuted. “I hope Kid doesn’t try showing up.”

“He probably will, the little worm. Can’t you ever blow that moron off? He’s as persistent as an STD. Get somebody to beat him up or something. I can arrange it for ya.”

“It’ll take time. He’ll go away.”

“Stools, girl. Not so long as you’re still opening up your legs for him. You’ve gotta be cold.”

“I feel sorry for him.”

“I feel sorry for mutants but I’d blow their brains out if they put a hand on me.”

Noelle wondered how much more strongly her roommate would disapprove of her ex-boyfriend if she knew he was really a Choom who had undergone cosmetic surgery to appear human, and had successfully kept this secret from Noelle for a long time. She hadn’t dared to tell any of her new college friends for fear of looking duped, stupid, freakish. Everyone at school, particularly the worldly upperclassmen, seemed so chic, so sophisticated, so in control. It was an exciting, but intimidating, sea to swim out into gracefully.

“Oh, look at these winners, speaking of freaks,” sneered Bonnie. A long white battered hovercar with a scorch-edged ray hole blasted in the passenger door was nosing up alongside their car in the left lane. The windows were open and three young Hispanic men were crowding out their faces and a few arms. One face made puckered air kisses, the other two called out to Bonnie and Noelle. Bonnie had already hit the button to close the convertible top, causing the boys to shout more loudly, gesture more emphatically. “This car has everything but what I need most–a rocket launcher,” Bonnie observed. She might have sworn over at them except that only this summer a car of kids had pulled alongside her on the highway and sprayed her vehicle with bullets, laughing. Luckily she had had time to raise her windows (Noelle had said they probably allowed her this, meaning to frighten and tease rather than kill); fortunately the car was bulletproof.

“Ignore them, they’ll get tired of it,” Noelle said.

“Check this, you obnoxious fucks.” Bonnie dabbed more buttons, and every one of her windows tinted itself an impenetrable black…even the front, lest they pull ahead of them to leer out their rear window. Noelle laughed again. Bonnie turned up the volume on her chip player. There. Now even if the car was strafed with bullets they would barely know or care. “You can’t ignore losers like that when they harass you–you have to take decisive action,” said Bonnie. “Hint, hint, hint.”

“You’re so subtle, Bonnie.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“They can still follow us.”

“Then I’ll deal with it. I mean it–you have to shut the door all the way, block him right out of your sight and your life. Don’t chain yourself to a rotting corpse, girl. You have to have some pride and self-respect.”

“I have to have a heart, too.”

“God…I’d like to strangle whatever aborigine it was who decided that an organ in our chests pumps love instead of blood. Blood will keep you alive when love won’t.”

“You’re on a poetic roll, aren’t you?” said Noelle, subdued again.

“Yeah, you want some more? The organ you need isn’t a heart, and it pumps something other than blood. You’ve got to realize that there isn’t just one of these in the universe. He’s still got you pinned on his prick, honey. Get another one in you; it’s the best cure, I can’t say it enough.”

“What about Jackybuns?” Noelle replied, defensive.

“A good start, but not enough. It shows you have the spirit.
Free
it.”

Noelle wondered what Kid might have done had he known that at a party shortly before they split, during their rocky final days, she had gotten very drunk and fellated her friend Jackybuns, whom Kid hated and had always insisted had a more than platonic interest in her. They had begun by kissing and he had freed her small breasts to squeeze and suck them, but the knocking on the bathroom door had grown too insistent and they hadn’t gotten further than her briefly performing oral sex on him. Jackybuns had haunted her for a short while afterwards like Kid was doing now, but without the intense bitterness. Kid suspected that she’d had other lovers, accused her of it, but it

was good that he didn’t know about Jackybuns, because he had sworn to Noelle that if Jackybuns ever touched her he would shoot his eyes out.

With the windows blackened, Noelle and Bonnie didn’t see the honking, shouting white car accelerate and rocket away ahead, nor did they see the iridescent black, horny
Scarab
buzz past them. Too bad; it was Bonnie’s favorite car, the current fashionable vehicle for affluent young people. Inside, the young man driving it did so manually, scorning the autopilot the way a photographer-artist might scorn an automatic focus and light meter. A car like this was meant to be taken in one’s hands and
driven
. Autopilot was like letting someone else make love to your girlfriend for you.

The young man inside the
Scarab
, the outer shell of which was the actual exoskeleton of a giant insect designed and raised for the purpose, was Bern Glandston. He was a senior at a school other than the one Noelle attended. His parents had selected his body like they had selected his vehicle for him. He was muscular and tanned, thick-necked and square-jawed, with the same face as a sports star his father had idolized years ago, pale blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. Blonde hair, dirty or otherwise, was a rare find in other than genetically-tailored individuals. His hair flowed long in back, over his collar, while it was swept back and held in moussed grooves on the sides, and on top it was parted to one side with a few cascading moussed spines curving down over his forehead. He wore all black, a sure sign of artistic sophistication–a loose black V-necked peasant shirt, very loose black pants, and black lipstick on his thin lips; a popular new look, competing with the wine birthmarks, one of which he’d had dyed on his lower back. He didn’t have the cold white alabaster skin and pitch black hair favored by most of the black-garbed, black-lipped artistic types at school, but his blonde hair and tan had their healthy share of admirers. An even more distinctive, personal trademark were his shoes. His ex-girlfriend had bought them for him on a trip. They were laceless, almost like slippers, made from the skin of a Torgessi, the scales–which varied in size in odd natural patterns–being silvery white and metallic black. He got a lot of comments. They were his pride, and he wished he knew where to get a spare pair around here for when these finally wore out. Wherever he walked, his Torgessi shoes preceded him, carried him, gave him the bounce of the confident.

Bern was the top student dealer of gold-dust at the Paxton Institute of Technology, where he was majoring in biotech business management. It was a position he had worked at diligently from his freshperson year, and now he was one of the most popular students at school whether his tan conflicted with his black lipstick or not. Of course, there had been a few bumps in the road; his room had been broken into three times, though only once was any gold-dust found and taken, and once at gunpoint a cool and masked trio of men with older-sounding voices had intercepted him on the way to a big deal, robbing him of a considerable chunk of dust and his money but without harming him. Hey, these things happened–it was part of the job. He carried a pistol. If he kept at it, he could continue his side career on into whatever biotech corporation eventually took him in. Staircases could be built from gold-dust.

Bern had built a palace of dust at school. In some rooms of the palace–bedrooms–women had stayed a while, coming and going. Though he had no real army, his palace had its walls to protect him, propped up by the loyalty of those who depended on him. No other students dared really threaten or cheat or attack him in any way face to face, due to the strength in numbers of his supporters, just as angry consumer groups can not harm a product much as long as the consumers embrace it. Sure, after this year at school it was doubtful he would see all but a few of these many women and friends again, but he would advance and enter a new world and gather up new women and friends, build a new and better palace brick by brick. Bern didn’t have a fear of the future, there was no doubt about his destiny; his life road stretched out bright before his hurtling
Scarab
.

Which didn’t mean he had to be happy with everyone he dealt with, and it annoyed him that tonight he had to deal with Pox, one of his suppliers, and that Pox had been very noncommittal about what time he was to meet Bern at the fair. “I’ll be there tonight.”

“But
where?
”

“Be around, I’ll find you. It’s not that big a fair.”

“Why can’t you give me a time?”

“Hey look, kid, I got things to do. You don’t need to know my schedule. You want the gold, you be there tonight. That’s the best I can do.”

Arrogant bastard, but what could Bern do? He needed Pox, a dealer for the Tocci Brothers crime family. Nobody else at school had sources like that. His supply was depleted and he had already set up a half dozen big deals of his own for tomorrow. So he would go to the fair, what the hell, spend the day. Make the best of it. Ride rides, eat junk, play games, meet girls, buy a variety of other kinds of drugs. He had nothing better to do with his day and evening–it could be a lot of fun. But he didn’t like Pox’s arrogant, syndy-crude lack of professionalism.

Oh well, hardly a bump on the wide bright road. Bern Glandston inserted into his chip player the latest chip from the Tongue Tongs, and nodded his head and tom-tommed his control console to the music.