Marlowe and the Spacewoman (5 page)

Marlowe reached Main Street.  Twelve lanes across, but that was just northbound.  There were only eight lanes southbound, primarily because many were summoned to City Hall, but few left.  Gold and silver veined marble blocks, delicately and intricately carved and etched, made up the facade of the Great Hall of the City, as City Hall was officially known.  The pillar and wall sculptures depicted marvelous acts of human bravery and ingenuity.  The only failing, in Marlowe’s mind, was that the human performing these acts bore an uncanny resemblance to his brother.  The sculptures had once borne an uncanny resemblance to their father, but after his coup attempt had succeeded and Father had disappeared, the Governor had hired the original artisans to touch up the faces and replace the father’s visage with the son’s.

Marlowe had to grudgingly admit that the marble reliefs were stunningly good; his brother had spared no taxpayer expense.  The only thing marring the artistry of that facade was the line of stark, oversized black and white wanted posters, printed on NevaFade SynthaVellum and affixed with archival grade glue that would adhere to any surface for at least forty years.  The Governor was a law and order politician, with an emphasis on order, but he had no soft spot for criminals, especially his most hated nemesis, the dreaded Lafayette, fabled leader of the Avian mob, whose gray visage adorned most of the posters.

The wall of the facade was only thirty centimeters thick (and that only in the thickest portions).  Hiding behind this grandly ornate front was a heavily fortified two story bunker, made of the drabbest but most resilient stone and rock that their father had been able to salvage from the old Big Fed military installation to the north.  It was common knowledge the structure could withstand a nuclear attack.  It was also common knowledge that common knowledge had little reflection in reality.  But the Governor certainly felt safe.

The inside was pretty much what you’d expect to see in a salvaged bunker.  Thick walls, rough concrete, a gravel-and-lead mixture sandwiched between the outside ring of walls.  And elevators.  Elevators that ran down deep into the Earth, into situation rooms, illicit rendezvous chambers, even a home theater system with a sub-woofer so powerful that certain movies registered as earthquakes on the surface.  And tunnels.  Myriad tunnels, twisting and turning everywhere, some leading to secret exits, some leading to certain death, some leading to nowhere in particular.  Marlowe had dim childhood memories of running down those tunnels, usually pursued by his brother and his mastiffs.  Of course, when father found out about those pursuits, and he almost always did, he got terribly upset.  Marlowe had been cloned as a set of spare parts for his older brother, the first born.  The thought that any of those spares might be damaged by the dogs tormented dear old father, and soon his brother was only allowed to keep goldfish as pets.  Goldfish and the occasional hermit crab.

But once medical technology (regen gel, synthetic blood, artificial organs, tissue cloning and regrowth, and, of course, nano probes) had minimized the need for a working set of spares, Marlowe had been allowed to wander in larger and larger circles away from the concrete nest of City Hall.  As his jabbed veins healed and the blood “donations” ended, he felt a strength and clearheadedness he hadn’t known for the first fifteen years of his life.  He found an old library in one of the underground rooms, filled with all manner of mystery novels and short story collections.  He inhaled them, discovering new worlds inside the books just as he began to explore the new world outside the bunker.  That was the seed that had taken root, nearly twenty years ago, and had grown and blossomed into the man he was today.  Marlowe.

The Studebaker beeped its horn gently twice, and Marlowe’s reverie ended.  The car was circling the Great Hall of the City, trying to find a place to park.

Oh sure, there was the large James K. Polk Memorial Parking Structure right next to the main entrance.  Very large, and with a sign that said, “Plenty of parking. Come on in!”  And it looked like such a fun parking structure.  Painted in bright orange and yellow tones, with pictures of smiling suns and happy children stenciled across every square meter.  Only a fool would enter.  A fool who had been summoned to City Hall and wasn’t destined to leave.  It was, in actuality, camouflage for a large impound yard.  They had to put the leftover cars somewhere, as having derelicts dotted around the perimeter of City Hall was deemed unsightly and a dead giveaway as to who was responsible for the disappearances.  An underground highway ran from the impound yard to a recycling facility that melted down the vehicles and sent the extracted raw materials to an automobile factory.  A few cars managed to escape though.  As teenagers, Marlowe remembered following his brother on his birthday as he walked up and down the rows of nicer cars, deciding which two he would get for that year.

Marlowe looked in the rear view mirror.  Gwen and Artie had de-opaqued the mirrored windshield and were glaring at him.  Gwen was foaming at the mouth, fists shaking with apoplectic rage, while Artie’s mono brow had furled into a thick angry slash across his forehead, his hand pounding on the light switch.

“Car, how many times have we driven around the block?”

The Studebaker gave three quick honks.  The car couldn’t talk; Marlowe had ripped out the audio system as soon as he’d made the last payment.  The car was very whiny and prone to verbalizing its views on Communists and the latest fashion trends, which drove Marlowe nuts.

“Three times?  No wonder they’re angry back there.  Just drop me off out front, and keep circling until you find a spot or I call you.”

The Studebaker finished its circuit and paused just long enough in front of the entrance to City Hall for Marlowe to get out.  The stretch tank with Gwen and Artie plowed up onto the sidewalk and stopped just short of the marble steps, sending pedestrians scattering.  The hatch popped open and the Governor’s two enforcers climbed out.

Gwen was tall, broad-shouldered, and layered with muscles.  She had black stubble for hair, was missing her left eye, and this morning had a drooling problem.  Artie was short, swarthy, and extremely irritable when he wasn’t beating someone up.  Marlowe knew this from experience.  Artie also had large flapping ears, suffered from male pattern baldness, and was sensitive about his mono brow.  

“Gwen, Artemis, how are you?”

Gwen stepped to his left, Artie to his right, each talking hold of one arm.  They lifted him and started up the marble steps.  Because of their height difference, though, Marlowe saw the world through a new, tilted perspective.

“Oh, nothing but these dreadful errands,” replied Artie.  “The Governor needs a certain individual, and who does he send out to collect him?  Us.  I tell you, our talents are wasted.”

Gwen grunted.  “I uz at the denis.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“She was at the dentist’s office, getting a new implant.  She hates going to the dentist, and just wanted to get it over with.  But the dentist had no sooner jabbed her with the NoMoPain, when the Governor called.  ’Go and collect Marlowe, right now!’  So she’s gonna have to go back and get another injection.”

Gwen’s grip, already uncomfortably tight around Marlowe’s arm, increased in strength.

“Well, that explains the drooling, eh, Gwen?”

She squeezed even tighter, and Marlowe’s left hand began to tingle.

“Well, Artemis,” continued Marlowe, who had learned never to call him Artie to his face, “now we know the answer to the age old question.”

Artie was starting to huff and puff, a sheen of sweat forming just above his mono brow.  “What age old question?”

“Where does a four hundred kilo gorilla park his stretch tank?  In front of City Hall.”

Gwen and Artie, without slowing down, looked at each other and nodded.  Suddenly Marlowe found himself upside down, his head not so gently bobbing against the marble steps.

“What was that, Marlowe?  Did you say something you thought was funny?”

“Ew know, a ‘uvernor dinnit say anyhing about Marwo being conchus.”

“I’m sorry, Gwen, I couldn’t quite make that out from this angle.”

“She said,” Artie interjected, dropping Marlowe on his head with each syllable for emphasis, “that the Governor didn’t say anything about you being conscious when we brought you in.”

“But he did.  To me.  Didn’t he tell you why I’m here?  Doesn’t he trust you enough to keep you in the loop?”

And suddenly Marlowe was upright again.  They had cleared the steps and now had him pressed up against the marble facade, where a stone facsimile of his brother’s nose dug into his right shoulder blade.  Gwen held him down as Artie pounded him in the gut a couple of times, and then they traded places and Gwen took a turn pounding him.  Marlowe had gauged correctly – they were in a good mood and receptive to the playful banter.  Had he misread them, he’d be getting new teeth while in the Governor’s waiting room.  They had a dentist on hand at City Hall for just such occasions.  A session with her invariably meant a trip to a private dentist afterwards to undo the damage.  But Artie and Gwen, despite her aborted dental visit, were feeling OK today and just roughed him up moderately.  His plasma-resistant armor absorbed most of the impact anyway.

The rest of the journey through City Hall to the Governor’s office was a blur.  Maybe because Gwen had socked Marlowe once in each eye before they resumed their trip.  But as the eyes watered and the nano probes restored them to their spherical shape, Marlowe was alarmed to discover that he hadn’t been dumped in the Governor’s waiting room to cool his heels for a couple of hours, but had been deposited directly into the Governor’s office.  And not the official one, with all the hidden cameras and microphones.  This was the private office, the office he’d been called to as a kid when father was angry.

As offices went, it was actually pretty tasteful.  Modestly sized, with a brushed aluminum desk, dark wood paneling, and a shimmering purple heather rug that rippled in the simulated breeze.  Some tasteful watercolors adorned the walls, and a large bay Virtu-window opened out onto a green pasture where a herd of cows quietly nibbled on grass and chewed their cuds.  Marlowe recognized the view – channel eighty six on satellite.  A very expensive channel; Marlowe couldn’t afford it at home and had to pirate it.

Gwen and Artie dumped Marlowe into a pastel yellow leather sofa resting against the wall across from the desk.  Marlowe sank into its depths, literally hugged by the cushions.  The embrace had the disconcerting effect of preventing him from standing.

“You know, a word from me and that sofa will crush you like a cockroach.”

Behind the brushed aluminum desk, in a matching pastel yellow leather-upholstered throne, sat Marlowe’s brother, His Most Honorable Governor of the City.  Marlowe could hear the hum of the magic massage fingers emanating from the plush, majestic chair.  The Governor was a tall man, a regal man, a man who couldn’t grow a beard to save his life.  Not that this fact stopped him from trying.  He had a splotchy, threadbare-in-places rug of a beard that made Marlowe cringe just to look at it.  Or maybe that was a residual effect of the beating from Gwen and Artie.     

His brother had tried implants to fill out the beard, but his immune system had rejected them.  The nano probes could counter this rejection, but they had to work so hard at it he needed to completely replace the probes every two weeks.  That was too costly and invasive.  He tried synthetics, but hadn’t been pleased with the results – despite years and years of research, no one had been able to get synthetic hair that looked real.  Spray-on hair looked better, but still not that great, and was just too much effort and led to embarrassing stains on his hands if he stroked it too much.  Finally, his brother gave up, and took to imprisoning anyone who commented on his facial hair.

Despite a colony of Botox that had been genetically engineered to survive indefinitely under the surface of his skin, the heavy burden of the Office of Governor had ravaged his face with deep gouges and lines.  The skin was pasty, the eyebrows sagged, and the only thing soothing about his visage were the placid gray eyes.  They shimmered, in a soothing way, the result of iris implants.

“You’re not going to kill me.  You’ve gone to too much trouble bringing me here just to kill your only brother.”

The Governor laughed, though the heartiness seemed forced.  “How ya doing, Spares?”

The sofa squeezed a little in response to Marlowe’s involuntary stiffening.  “Please don’t call me that.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said his brother, the gray eyes flashing sympathetically.  “Terribly insensitive of me.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” piped up House’s voice in Marlowe’s ear, “but he’s most likely attempting to evoke a nostalgic response with the nickname, to soften you up.  And his eyes are flashing a subliminal message to trust him.  I have taken the liberty of employing countermeasures.  Also, I have some wonderful news to share.  But I’ll wait until you get home.  You’ll be thrilled.”

Marlowe cleared his throat.  He couldn’t respond to House without his brother hearing, or he would have launched into a tirade about surprises and keeping things from him.  It would have to wait.

“Marlowe, I find myself in a delicate situation, and I need your expertise to extract myself from it.”

“One hundred Cituros a day, plus expenses.”

“Dearest brother, I’m family!”

“Oh, that’s right.  I forgot.  Two hundred a day.”

“Really, dear brother, you forget yourself.  Where do you think you’d be without me  watching over you?  I think you’d find life a lot more difficult without my, shall we say, patronage.  Don’t you agree?”