Going Shogun (6 page)

You can buy any drug imaginable in
Urine Town.  Any drug ever invented.  Some special order, some rare, but if you
want to snort a line of coke like the good ol’ days, it’ll be there.  They’ve
got marijuana rain forests with homemade meth labs tucked inside.  Whiz Sticks
and Pop Roxy are cheap because the supply far outweighs the demand.  Dealers
are constantly trying to coax people into crossing the DMZ so they can pick up
new customers and move their product, and it happens, but mostly they end up
selling to the same people over and over, the same flies already caught in that
spider web of addiction.

Murder, robberies, some brainfried
Roxyhead going shogun in a gas station, they’re all as reliable as 1+1=2.

Thirty years ago, Urine Town was
called Graystone Commons and it was the champagne and evening gown section of
the city.  All high-class clubs and restaurants.  Big income homes that only
R8s and up could afford.  Bingo’s parents even lived there for a time, while
mine have never seen its glory or its demise.

It’s easy to get how Graystone went
to the pisser in a few short years.  The sheiks and their queens were bringing
in highboys and nighthoneys to cater their “I’m too rich to go out and buy my
own drugs and sex” parties, and before long, those people started sticking
around.  Hanging out on street corners, making Mt. Everest piles of money, and
buying up the cheaper properties so they could set up an ops base closer to the
action. 

This was back before The Board put
chokehold regulations on inter-level meshing, and part of the reason why they
did it.  Once it got too crowded with lower levels invading their personal
space, the higher ups moved on, but kept their supplier connections.  I don’t
know why the pushers didn’t follow them like Indians following a buffalo herd. 
Maybe they were happy where they were.  Who knows?

If The Board wants to save Urine
Town, what they need to do is invade the area themselves, buy everything back
and raze it like a tank rolling through a village in West Carolina.  Turn it
into a glass parking lot with a mini-nuke.  But they won’t.  I guess they
figure as long as the flotsam and jetsam of dilapidation are keeping to their
territory, they’re better left alone. 

It’s not just here though.  The
highboy warlords and nighthoney pimps are now going commercial and spreading
out to places like LX’s neighborhood, wherever a housing section exists for
levels below R11-1.  I’ve even seen a few of them creeping into my area, and
before long, they’ll be sneaking backdoor into the rest of the city.

When Forklift reaches the outer
limits of Urine Town, Bingo leans over and flips the lock.  I don’t think it’ll
help much, but anything resembling security is a welcome comfort.  What little
conversation we had dimestops and we all slip into visual recon, watching out
for evil white cells that might notice an invading entity.

He speeds up a little, because any
slowdown is an invitation to party.  Picture one of those underdeveloped states
like North Georgia or Old Hampshire where hordes of children swarm and try to
sell tourists homemade knickknacks for a quarter, then translate that into
grown men and women offering their services for a slightly higher price, or
whatever you’re willing to spend.  Cyborg addicts programmed to corrupt the
unknowing.

Forklift crosses Blind Witch Avenue
and makes a right at the next street. 

Birdneck. 

The pus-filled pimple of Urine
Town.  I can’t imagine a lower circle of Hell.  I think Dante would’ve
surrendered if he’d walked through here.  I’ve never been during the daylight. 
My only trips were the result of stupid, teenage, I Dare You joyrides, or fear-rides,
whatever you want to call it. 

This place is stuck in permanent
midnight, and if the sun ever did shine on this dog’s ass, the residents would
burst into flames or evaporate into tendrils of infectious smoke.

The sidewalks are eerily empty, and
I can’t imagine why.  Could be the cold, or the hordes of derelicts could be
congregated somewhere for a Thursday night poker game.  Maybe a virgin
sacrifice down a side alley, or some kind of degradation stockholders meeting. 
Whatever it is, and wherever they are, I’m grateful for it.

Forklift must notice it too, because
he says, “Not much ugly flanking the wigwams, huh?”

“Thank God for that,” Bingo says. 
“I’m not sure rattling Dorna’s cage is worth a trip into Urine Town.”

“I know what you mean,” I say.  “Do
we really need to do this?  I mean, stealing the recipes, getting them on the
site.  Are we really that desperate to Ascend?”

Bingo says, “You know what I think.”

Forklift says, “Don’t go waffletime
on the specs, Brick.  The Minotaur will get us rockin’ with the proper
ordnance.  Hanging eleven my whole gambit ain’t my style.  Not anymore.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see
the sunny side of R8 at some point, but I’m wishing there was some other way to
do it.”

“Recheck my figures, but you’re the
one that’s always talking about Ascension, aren’t you?

“Yeah, but—”

“And then I fluffed the pillows.”

I really don’t want to be stuck in
my current situation forever, and without the possibilities of an alternative,
I don’t have much of a choice.  “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’m in.”

“That’s my Brick,” he says.

Bingo digs an elbow into my side
trying to readjust herself and I doubt it was accidental.

***

We drive until we hit Fourth Street,
where Forklift careens to a halt and we’re all pitched forward like crash test
dummies.  I wrap my arms around Bingo to keep her from hitting the windshield,
reeling her back into me.  She flicks a smile over her shoulder and I let the
embrace linger a little longer than I should.

“X marks it,” Forklift says.

I look out the window and see the
bottom level of a yellow building, decorated with an artistic hodgepodge of
graffiti, dark inside. 
Runaway
Convenience Store
in black
lettering over the doorway.  A suitable name.

The second level is unpainted,
revealing its brick dermis.  Brown on top, yellow on the bottom, like one of
Wishful Thinking’s Hamburger Sweetcake Stacks. 

We sit.  And we stare. 

And then Bingo says, “I’m thinking
ballpark here, but I’d guess this place is sub-11, wouldn’t you?”  She’s being
sarcastic, because she knows better.  We all do.

“Yup.”

“And how do you suppose we get in? 
Ring the doorbell?”

I knew as soon as Mr. Androgyny said
The Minotaur was in Urine Town, we’d have to figure this out.  If we had to
practice beings pigeons and clamber along LX’s ledge, we’d have to do something
similar here.  But as I look around, I see no fire escapes, nothing.  No useful
ladder up to a hallway window.  I don’t know anything about The Minotaur, but I
figure he’s the kind of guy that wouldn’t appreciate strangers crawling into
his apartment unannounced.  Especially if he’s an ex-Board Agent.  The idea of
a sharp knife violating primary organs isn’t a pleasing one.

I’m ready to suggest calling it a
night until we can formulate a better plan when Forklift says, “Shoebox.”

“What?” I ask.

He pulls an ID card from that secret
compartment inside his gi and I realize he means
Shoobocks
.  Darrell
Grub – R14.

“Holy shit,” I say.  “You kept it?”

“Anything to waltz the waltz,
hombre
.”

“Whose is that?” Bingo asks. 

“It belonged to the dead gonzo we
found inside LX’s place,” I answer.  To Forklift, I say, “What if it’s an R15
building?”

“Negatory, Brickness.  Birdneck
rolls east-west, true?”

“Yeah.”

“R14 northside, R15 southside.  That
building,” he says, pointing at The Minotaur’s place, “is where Santa Claus
slings toys for the boys.”

“Northside?”

“Straight up.”

 “There goes our good karma for the
night.  You realize if we use that, it’ll lead the Board Agents right here once
they find the body, don’t you?”

Forklift says, “To quote Stephen
Crane, ‘A man said to the universe: ‘
Sir, I exist!’
  To which the
universe replied, ‘
The fact does not create in me a sense of obligation
.’ 
Besides, nobody will even look inside LX’s place until it starts stinking so
bad they can’t stand it.  And if you remember, it didn’t smell that good to
begin with.”  At least he tones down the dialogue to get his point across.

“We can’t.  Suppose they find it
within a day or two, what if they snag The Minotaur before he’s had a chance to
get us access to RollerNinja?  And if he’s an ex-Board Agent, he’s probably got
connections that’ll have them on us in a heartbeat, regardless of whether it’s
one day or twelve.”

Bingo says, “Yeah, but if he’s an ex
BA, those same connections might leave him alone, if they’re old friends.”

Forklift says, “Checkmark,
Bingolicious.”  He’s out of the car and going for the upstairs entry door
before I can press my case.  Bingo says, “C’mon, let’s go,” as she squirms out
of
Machine
.  It dawns on me that she may be expecting to get caught,
hoping for a little cell time so she can get her level below 11-1.

Nah, if that was the reason, she’d
have held up a gas station or stuck a knife in some gonzo’s throat a long time
ago.

She must
really
want to get
back at Dorna.

I play catch-up and meet them at the
door.  Forklift slides the card, the light goes from red to green,
click
click
, and we’re in, just like that.

Inside the claustrophobic staircase,
it smells something like whiskey, vomit, and Wishful Thinking’s Rosemary
Tapioca Flan.  It’s absolutely disgusting.  Even breathing through my sleeve
doesn’t help.

We crest and see only one door, down
at the end of a hallway.  It’s bank-vault big and just as shiny, with a flat,
stainless steel surface like an industrial kitchen countertop.

Forklift takes two steps forward,
then a camera mounted on a rod drops from the ceiling.  We stop, stone
motionless like granite statues.  I can hear the camera motor
whirr
as
it focuses on us.

A voice, electronic and modified,
comes over a speaker somewhere, saying, “Who are you?”

“Forklift,” I whisper, “no
razzle-dazzle.”

Forklift says, “We’re friends of
LX.  Here on business.”

“How did you find this place?” the
voice asks.

“Networking.  We just wanna talk.”

The silence feels like it lasts
longer than it takes plastic to biodegrade, even with the chemical enhancement
techniques that were recently invented.  As I’m reaching for Forklift’s arm to
tell him to forget it, there’s a
clunk
, then the door squeaks open.

“Come in,” the voice says, and we
do.  Forklift first, me in the middle, with Bingo trailing, a finger hooked in
my belt loop.  I can feel her tugging like I’m towing her, a reluctant water
skier.  Now that we’re going in, I can sense she’s not as gung ho as she was.

We step into an empty, well-lit foyer,
and inside The Minotaur’s compound it’s even colder than it was outside.  It
sounds like an air conditioner is running somewhere.  Bingo steps up beside
me.  Her teeth are chattering.  I look down at her toes.  They’ve got a slight
blue tint, like a hypothermia watermark.

I don’t know what to do, but
Forklift, in his enduring, bubble bath relaxation state, agitates forward into
what appears to be the living room.  There’s a couch with a blanket wadded up
at the end, sitting in front of a TV.  Forklift plops down and reaches for the
remote.  He manipulates a couple buttons, the television powers up, and it’s
tuned to an illegal fishing show, probably a rogue broadcast from a European
station. 

The Board controls all cable
programming, and anything that doesn’t supposedly improve the general public’s
brain power is banned.  “To preserve intellect,” The Board says.  I blame it on
the reality TV years.  They’re the ones that dumbed down humanity, the ones
that killed creativity, the ones that drove a stake through the heart of well
written, fictional plotlines. 

The Minotaur steps into the room. 
He looks me over, and then squints at Forklift, possibly confused by his
outfit.  His gaze settles on Bingo for a little longer than normal, and I
assume he’s taking in her hotness.  Down here in Urine Town, the poor guy
probably hasn’t seen a highly attractive woman in a long, long time.

I don’t know what I was expecting,
but
his
looks surprise me.

He’s young, not much older than us. 
Whiz Stick thin.  Toucan beaked nose and a white-collared shirt that’s got his neck
in a headlock.  Fists at his hips, standing at attention.  Or maybe he’s just
timid.

Forklift says, “Ease up, Panic Attack,”
with a smile.

The Minotaur looks at the TV and
says, “Turn it off.”