Eye Candy (49 page)

A voice echoed through the room, “Rukara! Get your ass over here or we’re putting your head back into that box of spiders.”

“I’m on my way and that’s not funny,” Rukara called.

Danny followed Rukara through a suite that was a palace unto itself. Rukara’s coat emitted a subtle illumination, giving it the appearance of giving off black light. Rukara caught Danny studying it. “It’s woven with MLEDs, micro light-emitting diodes. One of my inventions. It actually bends light. Works great for camouflage.”

They entered a great room decorated with lavish tapestries and gold-framed mirrors. Candles burned everywhere, and a warm glow filled the room.

“Well, look what the pussycat dragged in,” said a man lounging on an enormous sofa. He wore a tee shirt with BUSTED printed on it, and his red eyes glowed in the candlelight. The lower half of his face boasted a long beard.

“Good evening, sir,” Bernard replied. “How was Borneo?”

The man rose and hugged Bernard.

Before the man could answer, a woman in a silver-sequined evening gown stepped forward and said, “Hot.” She held a sleek black cigarette holder in one hand. It gave her the air of a silver screen starlet straight out of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Her hair was orange like fire, its brightness surpassed only by her eyes, which glowed a brilliant red.

“Didn’t I see you downstairs, playing piano?” Danny asked.

“Didn’t I see you downstairs, staring at my ass?”

Danny felt his face flush.

“It’s okay,” said the woman, “it is a sweet ass.” She turned in place and gyrated her hips.

Danny tried not to stare at the low sweep of her gown, the way it revealed the small of her back and the top of her–

Another voice rang out. “Rony! Stop torturing the man.”

Zammy Spry emerged from the large kitchen carrying a green beer bottle. Zammy shook Danny’s hand. “It’s great to meet you, Mr. Olivaw. Really great. I mean, really really great. Really. Your work on the subatomic distillation of positrons absolutely blew my mind. If I had positrons, I’d want them subatomically distilled by no one but you.”

“Yeah, well, it was all common sense.”

“Pioneering a paradigm shift in robotics is hardly common sense, Mister Olivaw.” Zammy somehow managed to simultaneously squint in concentration and open his eyes wide in disbelief. “If it were, somebody would have thought of it. Probably a whole bunch of people. But they didn’t, Mister Olivaw. You were the one.”

“Please, call me Danny.”

Zammy threw his head back and laughed. “And humble, too. Such a rare thing these days. Listen, Danny. We’re delighted to have you here at the Palace. I’ve already instructed Delilah to void all the charges on your credit card. You are our distinguished guest so everything is on the house.” Zammy reached inside his black leather jacket and withdrew Danny’s credit card.

Danny took it. “You don’t have to do that–”

Zammy held up one hand. “I insist. Case closed. Now, lest you think my manners have escaped me, let me introduce everyone.

“You’ve already met my expert robot builder, Rukara.”

Rukara nodded. He put an enormous joint to his lips. It bobbed up and down when he spoke. “You don’t mind if we party a little, do you? It’s the only way we can cope with all the death around here.”

“I don’t mind,” said Danny.

“Sometimes I wish I were a robot,” said Rukara, “then I wouldn’t have to feel anything.” He fired the massive joint and inhaled. “Right, Bernard?”

“I feel your question deserves a lengthy response best suited to another time, sir.”

Rukara exhaled. “That’s why I love you, Bernie, you don’t mince words.” He passed the joint to Zammy.

Zammy took a long drag and held it. “The lovely lady in the evening gown is Rony. She loves fire and explosions and guns. And champagne.”

Rony raised her champagne flute.

“She also plays piano,” said Danny.

“Indeed I do,” said Rony.

“Indeed she does,” said Zammy. He enjoyed a long, slow exhale. “The gentleman reclining on the sofa is Bella. He’s an expert in all things mechanical. He also surfs.”

“Indeed I do.” Bella winked a glowing red eye at Rony, then stood, shook Danny’s hand, grabbed the joint from Zammy, and returned to the sofa.

“And one of these days he’s going to shave that goddamn beard,” said Zammy.

Bella stroked his beard. “Chicks love it.”

“What chicks?” Rony asked.

Zammy led Danny to the kitchen. Two men with glowing red eyes wore black latex gloves, carefully placing colossal nuggets of cannabis one at a time on a digital scale.

Zammy sipped from his beer. “Over here we have Blendo and Atom. Blendo is the one with the walrus mustache and wearing the beret. Atom is the other one.” Atom had blond hair and wore black horn-rimmed eyeglasses and a black tee shirt that said
Am I missing an eyebrow?

Atom placed a nugget the size of a grapefruit on the scale and read aloud the weight. “Point nine-nine-seven.”

Blendo entered this number in his electronic tablet. “Got it.”

Atom weighed another nugget of similar size. “We’d shake your hand but we don’t want to get sebum on the merchandise. Point nine-nine-eight.”

Blendo entered this number as well. “Got it.”

“Okay, that was the last one.” He stripped off his latex gloves and shook Danny’s hand. “Hi, I’m Atom, your friendly neighborhood Automated Technically Obsolete Man. At least that’s what they tell me. But I reject that reality and substitute my own. Are you really Daniel Olivaw?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Smart and clever,” said Blendo. “I’m gonna go crunch these numbers and take a bubble bath.” He departed with his tablet.

Atom withdrew three silver balls from his pocket and proceeded to juggle them. “I didn’t think subatomic positronic distillation was even plausible. I thought it was a myth. But when I heard someone had actually achieved it, I just about peed my pants. Do you mind if I juggle? It’s how I cope with the stress around here. Don’t get high on your own supply, right?”

“Wrong,” Rony called from the sofa. She took a long hit from Rukara’s monster joint. She leaned her head back and blew several perfect smoke rings into the air.

Atom continued to juggle. “Everyone needs to blow off a little steam, right? Or, in their case, C-21-H-30-O-2. Also known as tetrahydrocannabinol. What with the bomb threats, the arsonists, the stalkers, and those damn protesters, Zammy’s security costs have gone up six hundred and forty-seven percent.
Six hundred and forty-seven percent.
That is significant. When we’re not in the arena executing the court-ordered sentences decreed by the State of California, which in all actuality means executing convicted felons, we try to relax. Blendo takes bubble baths. I juggle. They party. What’s your drug of choice, Mister Olivaw?”

Danny’s face formed a rueful smile. “Candy.”

“A man with a sweet tooth,” said Atom.

Bella entered the kitchen and opened the massive stainless steel refrigerator. “Rukara! Brewskie?”

Rukara lay sprawled in a big leather recliner, with his feet up. He was attempting to blow smoke rings. “Hit me.”

Bella tossed him a beer. Rukara caught it in one hand. Bella refilled Rony’s champagne flute from a bottle in the fridge. He turned to Danny. “You workin’ on your R-N, Mister Olivaw? Because you are nursing that pint of warm beer.”

He handed a fresh beer to Danny.

“Z?”

Zammy shook his head.

Bella twisted the cap from Danny’s beer, followed by his own. “Cheers.”

“Bottoms up.” Danny tapped the bottom of his beer bottle hard one time atop the neck of Bella’s. The vibration caused an instant effervescence, and foamy beer erupted from Bella’s bottle. He hurried the geyser of beer to his mouth and attempted to drink, but beer ran down his chin onto his beard and shirt.

Everyone laughed.

Everyone but Bella. “Very funny, doctor. You should be a comedian.”

A man with white hair and red eyes entered. Danny recognized him at once. It was Poodle Raw.

“Somebody call for a comedian?” He surveyed Bella wiping beer from his shirt. “It works better if you drink it, Buttbeard.”

“I know that,
Poo
. And stop making fun of my beard.”

“Or what, assface?”

“I’ll have eminent roboticist and master of party tricks Mister Daniel Olivaw here subatomically distill your positrons. It won’t feel good.”

“I’m a human being. I don’t have any positrons.”

“Besides,” said Bella, “chicks love the beard.”

“What chicks?” Rony called.

“You want a beer, Poo?” Bella asked.

“Desperately.”

Bella handed a cold beer to Poo. Poo bit off the cap, spit it into the trash, and chugged the entire beer.

Zammy clapped Poo on the shoulder. “About time you got here. How was your show?”

“Terrible. Only four people. And three of them got up and left right in the middle of my bit about the compulsive sperm donor.”

“What about the fourth guy?”

“He was passed-out drunk. I put him in a cab. What a shitty show.”

“When I stroll in the imaginary rain, I carry my imaginary umbrella,” said Zammy.

“What the bloody fuck does that mean?” asked Poo.

“It means,” said Zammy, “that life is one percent what happens to you and ninety-nine percent how you react to it.”

“Oh, really?” said Poo. “Wait, it gets worse. After I locked up for the night, I discovered that somebody threw poo all over the marquee. Again!”

“I saw that,” said Danny. “I was at the Seventy-six station. Two kids ran up and tossed a brown sack at the marquee.”

“Who were they? What did they look like?” Poo asked.

“A couple of white kids with nice shoes.”

“I knew it.” Poo clenched his fists. “It’s always the rich, spoiled kids who do shit like that.”

“So what did you do?” Zammy asked.

“I had to clean it off. I got poo all over me, same as last time. It was on my clothes and in my hair and under my fingernails. I had to pay the guys at the carwash five hundred bucks to let me walk through the machine again. Then I took a cab home and bathed in hydrogen peroxide. I then took a cab back to my car. I came straight here, but you know what happened? Those goddamn protestors threw shit on my car. Right on the windshield. It’s stuck to the wiper blades and I think it got down into the vents because the whole car smells like crap. I think it was human feces, too. It smells like beef and onions and pickles. The cops arrested the guy who threw it and charged him with assault with a biological weapon. If you get the docket, let me know. I want to meet that fucker in the arena and beat the fuck out of him. Then, when he’s flat on his back, lying in the dirt, breathing his last breath and begging for mercy, I’m gonna shit in his open mouth. And in his eyes. And then I wanna lean over him and say, ‘How ya doin? Havin’ a shitty day? Maybe you’ll think about that the next time you decide to attack an unsuspecting motorist with a paper bag filled with your own feces. Oh, no you won’t, because you’re dead!’ And then I’ll cut his fuckin’ head off and FedEx it to the offices of those STERN fuckers.

“What happened to the good old days when people threw eggs? Or, better yet, when they didn’t throw anything at all? They just let you go about your business the same way you let them go about their business. And everyone minded their own business. My business was my business and your business was your business and we all agreed to just stay the fuck out of each other’s business. It was a simpler time.

“Now everything’s all fucked up and just because I finally decided to have my eyes fixed, the anti-robot establishment has to boycott me. Can’t a guy make an honest living anymore?”

“Welcome to the club,” said Atom. “The anti-robot establishment ruined our careers, too.”

“What do you guys do for work?” Danny asked.

“I’ve amassed a global bubble wrap empire,” said Rukara.

“I have a big tee shirt design and fabrication company,” said Bella.

“I’ve licensed my likeness to be used by snuffbots in black market overseas robo-snuff films,” said Rony. “And every day somebody emails me a video of a robotic me getting deactivated in ever more disturbing ways.”

“What was it today?” Bella asked.

“Let’s just say I no longer have to imagine what it would be like to drown in a giant vat of saliva.”

“Which is why we spend so much time in Borneo,” said Rukara. “Not so much anti-robot sentiment down there.”

“Yeah,” said Poo, “but you guys don’t have people hurling excrement at you every other day. I’m gonna have to get a new car now. My brand new Aston smells like pickled shit.”

“I heard about this guy,” said Danny, “a friend of a friend, named Larry, who ate some bad Teriyaki cat and shit his pants and had to buy a new driver’s seat for his car, a brand new Jag, I think. Oh, and he got a ticket for jaywalking because he couldn’t wait for the crosswalk. But then there was a line for the bathroom and he couldn’t hold it anymore.”